A Poetics of Reciprocity: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Ballads and Sonnets

<p>This thesis considers the way in which a selection of the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (henceforth to be referred to as EBB) exhibits what I will refer to as a poetics of reciprocity. My focus is on EBB’s ballads of the 1830s and 40s, her amatory sonnet sequence Sonnets from the Portuguese, and those ballads found in Last Poems. Lyric poetry is, traditionally, said to be defined by a monologic lyric speaker. Mikhail Bakhtin, for instance, pronounced that the mono-stylistic and cohesive nature of poetic language distinguished it from novelistic prose. However, it was, in part, Bakhtin’s insistence that poetry was by definition monologic that triggered my dialogic investigation of EBB’s poetry. Despite the range of work, both formal and temporal, that I consider in these three chapters, the discussion is nevertheless united by a consideration of EBB’s fascination with language, and her concomitant departure from the conventions of the monologic lyric speaker. In her early ballads, I explore EBB’s presentation of unreliable speakers and protagonists. These figures prove elusive to read because of their use of duplicitous or untrustworthy language, or they falter in the act of interpretation themselves. In EBB’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, I consider the way in which the poet opts for the language of conversation to evoke, in a fresh and powerful manner, the love between her speaker and her beloved. I suggest that this strategy, in part, compensated for the way in which clichéd literary language used to describe the experience of loving had been drained of vigour. Finally, in Last Poems I consider EBB’s presentation of speech as a social act that is influenced by the speaker’s status in society. In these late ballads, women’s attempts to wield language in an effective way are demonstrated to be dependent upon various conditions that reduce or enhance the potency of their speech acts. While Bakhtin’s essay “Discourse in the Novel,” in addition to the work of critics such as E. Warwick Slinn and Marjorie Stone, has been vital to the formulation of my thesis, I have, largely, relied upon a formalist approach to EBB’s poetry. In my close readings I examine EBB’s interrogation of language in her ballads and sonnets in light of her conscientious use, in particular, of metre and rhyme.</p>

A Poetics of Reciprocity: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Ballads and Sonnets

<p>This thesis considers the way in which a selection of the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (henceforth to be referred to as EBB) exhibits what I will refer to as a poetics of reciprocity. My focus is on EBB’s ballads of the 1830s and 40s, her amatory sonnet sequence Sonnets from the Portuguese, and those ballads found in Last Poems. Lyric poetry is, traditionally, said to be defined by a monologic lyric speaker. Mikhail Bakhtin, for instance, pronounced that the mono-stylistic and cohesive nature of poetic language distinguished it from novelistic prose. However, it was, in part, Bakhtin’s insistence that poetry was by definition monologic that triggered my dialogic investigation of EBB’s poetry. Despite the range of work, both formal and temporal, that I consider in these three chapters, the discussion is nevertheless united by a consideration of EBB’s fascination with language, and her concomitant departure from the conventions of the monologic lyric speaker. In her early ballads, I explore EBB’s presentation of unreliable speakers and protagonists. These figures prove elusive to read because of their use of duplicitous or untrustworthy language, or they falter in the act of interpretation themselves. In EBB’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, I consider the way in which the poet opts for the language of conversation to evoke, in a fresh and powerful manner, the love between her speaker and her beloved. I suggest that this strategy, in part, compensated for the way in which clichéd literary language used to describe the experience of loving had been drained of vigour. Finally, in Last Poems I consider EBB’s presentation of speech as a social act that is influenced by the speaker’s status in society. In these late ballads, women’s attempts to wield language in an effective way are demonstrated to be dependent upon various conditions that reduce or enhance the potency of their speech acts. While Bakhtin’s essay “Discourse in the Novel,” in addition to the work of critics such as E. Warwick Slinn and Marjorie Stone, has been vital to the formulation of my thesis, I have, largely, relied upon a formalist approach to EBB’s poetry. In my close readings I examine EBB’s interrogation of language in her ballads and sonnets in light of her conscientious use, in particular, of metre and rhyme.</p>

"An island of nymphs" : Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Victorian women's classical education

"Writing about a trip to the United States, the winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize for Peace, Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet d'Estournelles de Constant, wrote that he felt distanced from the present on a particular spot near the banks of the Hudson River, unsure whether he was even in America, let alone in the early twentieth century: "Was this America? Was this the year 1911 or 1912? No, it was a vision of Ancient Greece, an island of the Aegean Sea populated by nymphs, in the midst of whom I felt of another time, of another country, of another planet" (d'Estournelles de Constant 314). What was the cause of his temporal and terrestrial transportation; had he, like Socrates on the banks of the Illisos river, become nympholeptic? ... In this dissertation, I will argue that the poetry and activism of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as well as her deep engagement with the field of classical studies began to blaze a trail for women like Agnata Frances Ramsay to explore further. I begin by examining cartoons from the late nineteenth century which are pictorial culminations of attitudes held in the mid-nineteenth century so that the context of women's achievements in classical studies and the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning which I will closely examine in the second and third chapters of this study may be better understood by my readers. From the late nineteenth century environment of the introduction, we will travel, like Étournelles de Constant, to some islands in the Aegean for the first chapter, which considers nymphs in their Archaic and Classical Greek context, and then return, for the bulk of this study, to the mid-nineteenth century."--From Introduction.

Intertextual dialogue with Victorian literature in the novels by Sarah Ann Waters as a means of implementing feminist issues

The article presents an analysis of the implementation of the category of intertextuality in the novel «Affinity» (1999) by the British writer Sarah Ann Waters. The aim of the work was to trace how the intertextual dialogue with the Victorian literature contributes to the formation of the feminist issues of the work. It is revealed that the main pretexts when creating a novel for Waters were «Little Dorrit» by Charles John Huffam Dickens, «Aurora Leigh» by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, «The Turn of the Screw» by Henry James, and novels by William Wilkie Collins. «Affinity» has elements of Gothic narrative, a detective, a sensational novel, the Newgate novel, picaresque novel, contributing to the formation of women's issues. The dialogue with Victorianism allows Waters to raise issues of gender inequality in the past and present, the exploitation of women, and the rights of individuals to realise their sexual identity. For Waters, turning to Victorianism is a way to draw attention to issues that, according to the writer, are still topical in British culture, such as sexuality, class and gender.

GARY CARPENTER (b. 1951)Love’s Eternity: Five Songs of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (2006)

This chapter studies Gary Carpenter’s Love’s Eternity (2006). Carpenter admits that this work is quite different from anything else in his output. It was first conceived as part of a radio programme about Robert Browning’s final days, and the knowledge of Browning’s affection for Schumann’s music had a subliminal influence on the style. Carpenter’s sensitivity to sound quality is exceptional: timings and tessitura ensure the complete audibility of the texts. The singer stays comfortably on the stave for the bulk of the piece, and the voice is allowed to cruise evenly through limpid lines that feel entirely natural from the outset. The music rises and falls in logical patterns, often repeated, in an unaffected, tonal idiom. Deep feeling is conveyed simply and directly without bombast or over-dramatization. Moreover, piano parts throughout have a strong stylistic unity. Their rich textures, often covering a wide range, contribute strongly to the expressive impact, providing warm sonorities and added colour to the plainer vocal lines.