Chapter 7 Gender & Poetry Introduction: Gender and Education Paechter in Educating the other “There was a concern to protect adolescent girls from mental overstrain, and it was believed that ‘over educated’ women would be unable to breast-feed” Elaine Showalter in Sexual Anarchy and Gender at the fin de siecle “intellectual woman is so bedeviled that she had made barren the function of her uterus by the cultivation of her brain” Tennyson in The princess V “Man for the field, woman for the hearth/ Man with the sword, for the needle she/ Man with the head, woman with the heart/… All else confusion”

Gender and Poetry Richard Polwhele in The Unsexed Females ridicules women writers “Survey with me, what ne’er our fathers saw A female band despising NATURE’S law As ‘proud defiance’ flashes from their arms And vengeance smothers all their softer charms” The beginning of industrialization gave a new image to women By the beginning of 19 th C, women writers such as Mary Robinson, Charlotte Smith, Anna Steward and Anna Barbauld had entered the literary scene. They were influential poets. Multi edition of their works. The male-gendered literary history pushed their works to the margin or erased them.

Introduction RW Women writers were popular and women readers gained new economic visibility through the rise of fashionable magazines which content varied from literature to fashion, to embroidery (needlework) patterns and gossip columns. Shift from the system of aristocratic patronage to the modern system of writers, publishers and booksellers operating within a consumer market, encouraged women to publish their works, which centered around political pamphleteering, travel writing, novels and poetry. Male poets constructed an ideology of ‘self-possession’ They represented male figures as self-sufficient. Women started to compete with men in this literary genre Wordsworth’s famous dictum “ A poet is a man speaking to men”

Women poets used images of conquests, such as mountain climbing that put them as masters, not mastered by the domestic affections, a frequent topic in women’s poetry Romantic poetry depicted women as Muses, an inspiration and entity upon which men projected aspects of themselves. In the masculine tradition, women were located as passive, quasi-natural objects. They are passive objects while men are active speaking subjects. Though prose was more accessible to women than poetry, women increasingly wrote poetry

Sonnet and Sensibility Read Charlotte Smith’s sonnet xxxii, To Melancholy (RW P ) (Anthology I- P10) Smith had a troublesome life, which is reflected in her poem Her husband was in prison for debt and she was accused of fraud. She struggled to help bring up 9 kids, and hoped to make money from her writings which she published on her own account. The setting of the poem is important to the mood of the poem Gothic landscape of shadows and strange sounds. Dusk, mists and phantoms (absence of life) Adjectives: grey, pale, dim, shadowy, add to the effect. Sound effects: Hollow sighs (emptiness) Echo effect with alliteration “phantom seems to fleet” momentary vision. Aural haunting of alliteration Read p180 for an emulation of poem analysis (discussion)

Charlotte Smith’s sonnet xxxii, To Melancholy Smith uses the 18 th C diction that Wordsworth argued against. Her language is not plain. (leveled) Smith was a role model for women writers. Her Elegiac (sad) sonnets were reprinted quite a few times. Her poetic publications undermine Wordsworth’s claim that a poet was a man speaking to men.

Charlotte Smith’s sonnet xxxii, To Melancholy Her sonnet, To Melancholy, likens the idea of the melancholy to, “ Pity's own Otway.” This relationship makes the melancholy appear as drama, for Otway is a 17th century English dramatist famous for Venice Preserved. Through this connection to drama, Charlotte expresses how melancholy or sadness can have, “ such thy magic power.Pity's own OtwayOtway such thy magic power

Charlotte Smith’s sonnet xxxii, To Melancholy Charlotte is not exactly condoning melancholy as, the good, but later she expresses her belief that the melancholy can have an enlightening effect on our minds; “ That to the soul these dreams are often sweet, / And soothe the pensive visionary mind!” This is almost to say that the drama that encompasses the melancholy can make it a beautiful and magical thing.That to the soul

Charlotte Smith’s sonnet xxxii, To Melancholy Writing from the heart: 3 women poets had as their subject matter another woman poet. The focus will be upon the following three topics: 1-The growth of poems about domestic affection (warmth), poems designed to have a direct emotional effect on the reader. 2- The importance of virtue (good quality) for women writers and how life and text are related 3- the nature of the relation between women (sisterhood rather than rivalry (competition))

Felicia Hemans and Mary Tighe The Grave of a Poetess (Anthology 2 -p:132-3) (RW - p:187-9) : Hemans pities Tighe, she believes that her poetry is full of sorrow and her life of weeping. Her voice conforms (matches) to the demands of feminine discourse, a voice that is not loud, but is deep. The depth is not in matters of tone, but in matters of feelings. Parallel (similar) between the poet’s identity and the female heart: Hemans links gender and poetry. The organ that generates women’s poetry is the heart The poem shows a metric and formal regularity. She does not show the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, because according to Wordsworth, this power is masculine. Metric neatness (efficiency), regular rhyme scheme and polished language show female good manners…

L.E.L’s and Felicia Hemans (Anthology 156-9) (RW ) The poem is an emotional reaction of the poet to the death of Hemans. Theme: The nature and role of the poet. The poet’s identity to women writers is bound up with gender identity She refers to the dead poet as an angel, a domestic, not a celestial (space) one, whose poetry deals with every day cares. Both poets belonged to the second generation of women poets, they are a blend of Romantics and Victorians. Hemans’ moral life gave value to her poems. Her image is that of a domestic icon. She cultivated (cultured) this image & like Smith, she had to support a large family. The only supporter of 5 kids and a mother after she separated from her husband. She had to support them all with her writing.

L.E.L’s and Felicia Hemans (Anthology 156-9) (RW ) L.E.L’s use of initials encouraged speculation and generated interest in her work She supported herself as a writer and did not marry till late in her life. Her career was somehow marred (spoiled) by scandal (dishonor) related to a few relations with men She did not passively submit (offer) to contemporary (modern) gender ideologies She was a clever businesswoman who knew how to market her image.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning & L.E.L’s Last Question (Anthology 2- p:161-2) (RW ) Browning is considered as a Victorian rather than a Romantic poet She is pathetic (sad) towards L. E.L, but turns away from her. She believes her poetry is spontaneous and sensible and poured out (show) emotions from the heart. She had romantic visions of knightly guests and courtly shows, which engendered (caused) a separation from life. Browning criticizes the dead poet for falling in love with the subject of love. Her poetry does not echo contemporary realities, but just emulate other texts. Barrett Browning wants to break free from the constraints of female verse She is an early voice in a new trend.

Women and Nature (RW- p: 197-9) Dorothy Wordsworth The Floating Island (Anthology 1 p: 170-1) (RW- p: 197-9) All the poets mentioned so far discussed private experience. They wrote for publication. Dorothy Wordsworth conforms to the paradigm of a selfless angel in the house. She helps her brother William producing his poems and attends to his domestic needs. ‘Floating Island” was published during her lifetime, but it was anonymously inserted within her brother’s poems of Nature is represented harmoniously in her poems. Quasi-religious.

Women and Nature (RW- p: 197-9) Dorothy Wordsworth The Floating Island (Anthology 1 p: 170-1) (RW- p: 197-9) Nature is represented harmoniously in her poems. Quasi-religious A shift to emotions and the first person pronoun I appears for the first time in her poem (2 nd stanza) Subjection and marginalization of women in a patriarchal society External nature is represented as an interior domestic sphere. The world is a tiny room. The fragile place (island) is a metaphor to the speaker’s identity because an island is created out of displacement and the severing of part of the earth is ultimately dispersed. Subject to being inundated. The island may disappear. Change of pronouns as a response to this loss. The poet invites the reader to witness the absence of the island

Women and Nature (RW- p: 197-9) Dorothy Wordsworth The Floating Island (Anthology 1 p: 170-1) (RW- p: 197-9) Tentative tone: ‘may’ The readers give the island its place in the world again. Its loss was momentary and memorial to it. The monolithic transcendental self of male Romantic writers does not exist in ‘Floating Island’ The female self has no essence or core identity, but is subject to change. The self does not fit into notions of Romantic self-consciousness of male poets of the time. Dorothy Wordsworth felt overshadowed by her brother and did not claim the title of poet. She belittles her achievements and believes them inferior to male poets Her poems seem a record of self-effacement, the absence of I and at the end marks the loss of the self as the island’s through flow.