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أكـاديـمـي ألـمـاسـي
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رد: Ready for the finals ? 3rd year students ONLY
third lecture
Elizabeth Barrett Browning The first stage of her life was gloomy. A quick and drastic change happened to her life that is falling in love with Robert Browning. It is being documented clearly in her first sonnet. She has referred to the idea of writing poetry indirectly in the first sonnet. She is writing to take us to her life. In this sonnet, she is thinking of poetry as part of her life. It is about writing sonnet. The sonnet is a genre is still living and working in the Victorian age.
The sonnet is a reference to the Italian poets. She talks about mortality praising sonnets. Sonnet gives life tom poetry. She expresses her own wish to write a sonnet is to achieve a kind of mortality. The reference to the pastoral Italian poet is also a reference to a wish, a dream of achieving mortality through her poetry.
She speaks of poetry as giving immortality. She herself is dreaming of achieving mortality through writing poetry and through writing this sonnet in particular.
The other side is of dealing with sonnet as a revelation of her feelings.
What is her approach in writing poetry in general and writing sonnet in particular?
First, she is thinking of poetry as being one means of eternity. Second, she thinks of sonnet writing as being a means of personal revelation. The whole Victorian age considered writing sonnet as being a means of personal revelation. We can find the personal life of the writer in his poetry.
The whole poems can be considered a semi biographical poem. The sonnet usually implies personal issues, but in spite of that, she always tries to hide her personal life.
She uses images, metaphorical language that helps her to get a good skip into the sonnet sequence in general.
A shape comes and be seen by her suddenly. She describes it as being mystic- mysterious, strange to her. It pulled her by her hair. It creates a kind of fear and anxiety in her life. There is a masteryأمر voice. She fears this shape. It takes her to a past stage in her life, to another sad and gloomy event in her life. She does not take this shape as something good. This mastery voice reminds her of her father, the authority of pulling her backwards to her past. She is suffering some physical pain. She is overwhelmed with the idea of being tortured, physically and emotionally. it takes her to thinking of her past. She was forced to change death for love. She has to dismiss death from her mind for a while and think of something else. This alternative is offered to her by this shape. It is emotional and physical alternative. She is worried. Thinking of her physical situation, she is not fit to this life. Physically speaking, she is not fit to have a marriage relationship with another male. Emotionally, she is completely broken. She thinks that she is not ready for such a relationship. She is controlled by her fear of facing another death. She is thinking of another death- the death of love- death of her emotions. She does not need more pain in her life. She feels that she can not go, develop this relation into a real one.
The mystic shape is a clear reference to the physical existence in her life- a new person appearing in her life. She can not miss it because she is describing it as being physical. Pulling her by her hair is a reference to the authority, to her being still desired as a woman by men. It is a kind of physical communication. Pulling her by her hair means touching her. This is a suggestion of her femininity as still being desired.
Here, the mastery voice is a reference to the authority of her father or the power of this mystic shape- that is love.
She is as if writing down her dairy about her relationship with this man.
She takes this shape as being death, not love. It practices authority over her.
This image comes out of this mystic shape, the new feeling that comes to her life. She is trying to resist. This is how she receives love. She is expressing her fears.
Sonnet 32
XXXII. "The first time that the sun rose on thine oath..."
The first time that the sun rose on thine oath
To love me, I looked forward to the moon
To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon
And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.
Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;
And, looking on myself, I seemed not one
For such man's love!---more like an out-of-tune
Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth
To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,
Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.
I did not wrong myself so, but I placed
A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float
'Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,---
And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.
The main theme of this sonnet is a kind of justifying her fears. There is negative self approach- estimation, looking down on herself. She thinks of herself as being inferior and to Robert Browning as being superior. The justification for the fear that has been given in Sonnet 1 is that she is trying to draw a comparison between herself and him- Browning.
How does she approach this difference? What is the main issue in this difference?
She thinks of her physical situation as a female. She is deteriorating to some extent. She is suffering back hurt, lung disease, she is living on pills. Her life is controlled for a long time with sadness. So, she is not the fit lady for this man. This is the general idea here.
What is attractive about the sonnet is the way she puts this comparison. She uses different images (sun- moon= feminine and masculine- day and night= brightness= clearness, happiness purity and darkness= sadness, mysterious- gloomy- full of secrets- suffering.
Both the sun and the moon are high up in the sky, but one is gloomy and sad and the other one is clear, fully recognized, fill the earth with warmth. The moon is a reference to the emotional side of man. The sun is a reference to activity. She thinks of him as being the sun. He was famous and well known.
She thinks of herself as not being fit to this man. She thinks that she does not deserve him. Physically she is not fit. She can not be a mother. She can not be a good wife. She can not support his house with female activity. Besides, she is emotionally broken because of her physical pain, the authority of her pain and the death of her brother.
She is successful in drawing another image. She draws an image of a musical instrument that is not fit for a singer. It creates an image of male-female relationship. The woman is the instrument. The singer is the man. There must be a kind of intimacy in the relation between the instrument and the singer. When the singer holds his instrument, he is sure that it will help him in giving a good song, in communicating him to the audience. She doubts that she can be the instrument that helps him in doing so. The strings of this instrument are broken, loose, and not strong enough to play on it.
Two images are controlling this sonnet. The idea behind these two images is that she is not fit for that relation. She has negative estimation of her self. She communicates this idea through the moon-sun comparison. The second one is the image of a broken instrument. Both two images convey the idea that she is not fit for this relationship with this man who is famous- well known. She is not taking his proposal seriously.
This sonnet was written as a reaction to his proposal.
She is suffering a gloomy life, darkness, sadness. This sudden light in her life- this mystic shape,
The sun is the light that she has been deprived from throughout her life. She feels that she may not be able to take this light. She was deprived from the intimate relation with her father, and losing her brother. The sun may be hope, light and warmth from which she has been deprived all her life.
Sonnet 43
XLIII. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
This sonnet is before the last sonnet. The main theme is love. In the first sonnet, she expressed her wish, her dream of achieving mortality and eternity through her poetry. Coming to the last sonnet of the sequence, she achieves something like that. This sonnet is famous. It is easy to memorize. The subject matter of this sonnet is not new. It is the classical question asked by a lover to his beloved How do I love thee. It is a tried question always asked by lovers. But the real good thing in that is the way she takes this question. She takes this question, builds a whole sonnet on it. What is significance about this is that building this sonnet is neat and perfect form. She is repeating the question, giving justifications, reasons. She is using perfect and beautiful language. She is insisting and underlining her own feelings. This is the significance of this sonnet. It is the way it is written technically speaking. The use of this question which is an ordinary question asked by all lovers on which she builds a very good, perfect, tight sonnet. This gives her eternity. It is well known, sung, easily memorized, and admired by all.
Elizabeth Browning was rediscovered in the 20th century because of this sonnet. This is the significance of this sonnet.
In the first sonnet she tells about her wish for eternity by writing poetry, her reaction towards this sudden relationship with Robert Browning. In the second sonnet is an estimation of herself and her beloved. In the third sonnet, she is relaxed, enjoying her feelings. She can speak frankly and easily about the man she is in love with. She is telling him the reasons why she loves him.
In this sonnet, she is not suffering from any kind of torture.
in the first sonnet she thinks of this sudden relationship as being death. she thinks of the death of this relationship more than she thinks in the growing of this friendship.
In the second sonnet, she is torturing herself with this comparison.
In the third sonnet, there is no comparison, no torture. She is relaxed and she is enjoying.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
She tells him that she loves him to the depth, height and breadth= to the limits of her ability for love.
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
She no longer thinks of this love as being inferior. Though, she is still hiding this love, she is admitting it. I love thee to the level of everyday's
She can not dismiss her from her life. Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
He is the source of light in her life. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
She moves from daily need to high needs in life. She moves from the level of daily routine to something very complicated. She is trying to tell him that she loves him and needs him. She needs him in all the daily needs to the highly big issues in her life.
Here, we have the idea of freedom, of rights. She struggles for establishing her life that is her right. It is referring to the Italian issue of the struggle of the Italian people to gain freedom. She is struggling for a stable life.
They= refer to brave men who never wait for praise. They do brave deeds because they believe in it.
That is her case. She loves him behind any praise. She does not expect any reward, any feedback of any one. She loves him freely and honestly. She really believes in this love. It is like the freedom for which people are struggling. They fight for their freedom and do not expect any praise. This is another image. She is like brave man who is fighting for his freedom; a man who is 100% sure of his right, who is not waiting for praise or reward. She thinks of this love as being an issue to fight for. This is because she was absorbed of the idea of the national causes, so she uses the image of a fighter. She is free in her choice, in her decision and she will fight for this issue.
I love thee with a passion put to use
in my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
She loves him with all the passion she used to have to feel, to enjoy or to suffer. She loves him with the passions she used to have in her old grieves. This is a clear reference to the grieves she suffered and was overwhelming her life. This love is strong enough to control her life. It is private enough to be discussed. It is beyond question
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death. It is another note to the Victorian period. They lost faith. They had this problem. They suffered a kind of skepticism in their life. The same power that pushed her to lose faith is pushing her to love him. It is the same power, the same intensity but directed to the opposite direction. With all the power that used to push her to lose faith, now she loves him. She is moving from a woman loving man to a human being worshipping God. His love will go deeply to increase in her life even after death- as worshiping God.
The last two lines is a clear reference to moving from conversational opening and ends up with an action of worship. This is clear in referring to (faith- God- saints) she is now submitting herself to this love. She will continue loving him even after death.
This sonnet is suitable to be next to the last sonnet. We have clear reference to her past life, reference to question whether to go or not to go in her love. There is a clear reference to better estimation of herself. There is a conclusion to her submitting her life for him.
We can not speak about the Victorian Age without speaking about Tennyson. His most famous poem is " In Memoriam" . It tells his grief over the death of his friend. It shed some shadow over his life. It means that it is a semi-biographical poem. It is a very long poem. It is an issue of discussion till now. it deals with some issues of the Victorian= the relation between the artist and his art and the artist and his society. He was awarded the poet Laureate. It means that he is the outstanding poem of his age. He was chosen as the poet laureate by Queen Victoria herself. Tennyson is used for using so many classical themes and genres to write according to them. He takes stories from the classical literature to build on. One of these stories is used in The Lady of Shallot which has a very interesting story. It is the story of a lady on an isolated island. It is a poem that tells a story and throws light on issues of the Victorian life. It also has so many literary questions that are raised and answered concerning the Victorian Age. The story itself is interesting.
The poem is in four parts. The first part is an exposition telling us about the environment where the story takes place. The second and third part tells the story, describing the lady, her situation in the castle and her action. The last one is the conclusion- her end.
It is the story of a lady imprisoned in a castle. She is cursed to be imprisoned and not to be allowed to go out of the castle. She keeps herself busy by weaving. She is allowed to have a limited relation to the outside world rough the mirror in which she sees reflections. These reflections are of real life.
In her mirror, she sees the reflection of a man crossing the river. He was handsome, attractive to the extent that she can not help looking from the window, forgetting about the case. That time her mirror broke, her curse started to be fulfilled. She went out of the castle. She took a boat carrying a piece of paper on which she wrote she was about to die. She turned yellow and died .
There are references to classical issues that are discussed. There is reference to the issue of the artist. The lady is an artist who keeps herself busy doing her artistic work.
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