A Study Guide for Margaret Atwood's "Mushrooms"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Margaret Atwood's "Mushrooms," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535828109

Book preview

11

Mushrooms

Margaret Atwood

1981

Introduction

Margaret Atwood's Mushrooms is a poem that subtly investigates both the power and limitations of poetry and language. It also demonstrates themes of life cycles and nature, reflecting Atwood's environmental interests. Atwood, a writer of worldwide acclaim known for her prose as well as her poetry, has been a prominent political activist, feminist, and representative for Canadian literature. All of these interests are visible in the poems that surround Mushrooms in Atwood's 1981 volume True Stories. Mushrooms has also been included in Atwood collections, including Selected Poems II: 1976–1986, published in 1987.

Author Biography

Atwood was born on November 18, 1939, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Because her father was a forest entomologist, she spent much of her childhood in the northern Ontario wilderness where he worked. She enjoyed writing from a young age and decided to pursue writing as a career when she was sixteen. She studied English at Victoria College, University of Toronto, and received her B.A. in 1961. Atwood received her A.M. in 1962 from Radcliffe College, and she studied at Harvard University from 1962 to 1963.

In addition to novels, Atwood has published volumes of poetry, collections of short stories, works of nonfiction, and several children's books, and she has also written scripts for three television series. Her writing often focuses on feminist concerns in the form of social satire. Her first book, a volume of poetry titled The Circle Game, was published in 1966. It received two Governor General's Awards that year. Despite producing over ten volumes of poetry, including True Stories, which was published in 1981