The topic of gender discrimination and the female experience is, relatively speaking, still a newer addition to the world of the arts than we might want to believe. Luckily, pioneering women in all artistic fields have been breaking down barriers and paving paths that will set the stage for a more inclusive sense of the human experience. In mainstream media, this growing tradition of inclusivity is perhaps most apparent in the singer-songwriter field. And, among the growing ranks of songs about female empowerment, Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” from the album Love Tracks, stands out as one of the most iconic. But, aside from being a fun, belt-it-out musical number, what does the song really mean?

Well, while “I Will Survive” was released in the 70s, what makes it so impactful and timeless is the poeticism of its lyrics; they are not too dissimilar to the artful, rich poems of yore. In fact, upon listening to Gaynor’s song, I found myself reminded of Emily Dickinson’s intellectual and imaginative poems from the mid-19th century. Dickinson’s poems frequently illustrate the female experience and the effect of gender discrimination on young women, her subject matter written amplified by the cultural and systemic oppression of women during the earlier parts of the 19th century. Specifically, her poem, “A solemn thing – it was – I said,” draws direct parallels to “I Will Survive.”

For instance, take the diction in the opening, or first stanza, of “I Will Survive,”

At first I was afraid, I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights
thinking how you did me wrong
And I grew strong
And I learned how to get along

The diction in these first few lines of Gaynor’s poem create a sense of emergence. The work begins with words like “afraid,” “petrified,” and, “wrong.”These words connote suffering and fear, and coupled with the word, “nights,” paints a convincing depiction of a childish fear of the dark– symbolic of her naivety in a romantic relationship. Many other songs might have continued with tales of “how you did me wrong,” exhibiting the powerful yet narratively limited emotions of sadness and anger, but “I Will Survive,” an anthem of female empowerment, demonstrates something different: informed personal development. The couplet at the end of the stanza is in stark contrast to both its preceding lines and the expectations of listeners. It uses words like, “grow,” and, “strong,” showing how the speaker “learned,” from the fear of her past relationship and turned it into a powerful sense of self-actualization. Listers get the sense that the speaker has taken her life into her own hands and plans to live on her own terms after putting her trust in the wrong person.

To further cement this concept, the powerful chorus of the piece arrived in all its dramatic glory:

I’ve got all my life to live
I’ve got all my love to give
And I’ll survive
I will survive

The poetic structure of this excerpt contributes to its enhancement of the thematic material of the song as a whole. Specifically, the repetitive structure of the first two lines (“I’ve got all my…”) paired with the extremely broad concepts of life and love create a sense of the hopefulness that can arise when one takes agency over their future. Upon reflection of her past, the speaker has decided that it is herself alone that can create a fulfilling life for herself. And, by coming to this conclusion, she has given herself the ability to choose for herself how to create that life– it is clear she feels powerful in this poetic moment. Of course, this becomes abundantly obvious in the repeated statement that she “will survive,” in the following two lines, a couplet that drips with powerful, demanding, and confident diction. It is in this chorus that the message of female empowerment is completely solidified, standing as a representation of how taking control over one’s own life by rejecting those forces that push a person down creates capability and potential for success.

I find this same sentiment echoed in Emily Dickinson’s, “A solemn thing,” most directly in the lines,

A hallowed thing – to drop a life
Into the purple well –
Too plummeted – that it return –
Eternity – until –
//
I pondered how the bliss would look –

To me, the beginning of this excerpt from Dickinson’s poem seems to be full of trepidation. She is pondering what it would be like to “drop a life” into a “well,” which may be a metaphoric representation of taking a jump into an unknown part of one’s life or career. Especially for a woman shouldering workplace sexism and the numerous obstacles– ones that probably seemed insurmountable in the 19th century when Dickinson lived– to having a career outside of “home-making,” making the decision to focus on one’s own success can be frightening. However, the monumental nature of this decision is what makes the jump into the unknown seem to be calling to the speaker as she “ponder[s] how the bliss would look.” The “bliss,” an ambiguous word choice that allows this poem to be more broadly applicable to risk-taking, seems to indicate that the speaker believes their happiness can only be found through independent self-discovery. It is this sentiment, one awfully reminiscent of romantic era literature and later examples of female empowerment in literature, that connected “A solemn thing–” to “I Will Survive.”

In both “poems,” the speaker considers power from a distinctly female perspective. They both seek to answer the question, “What does it mean to have agency as a woman?” And, both seem to some to the romantic concept of power coming from the individual is not only applicable to women, but an intrinsic part of femininity.