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VICTORIAN INTERROGATIONS:
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING'S
SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE
AND AURORA LEIGH
P AULINE MARGARET SIMONSEN
1993
•
ABSTRACT
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's two major works, Sonnets from the
Portuguese and Aurora Leigh, provide a commentary on the structure of
Victorian society, particularly in relation to gender roles. This thesis argues that
in both works there is a primary concern with the ways in which women are
placed within binary structures which are established by patriarchal discourses.
These two works examine different structures in androcentric culture:
heterosexual (courtly) love in the Sonnets, and patriarchy (the Law of the Father)
in Aurora Leiqh.
Part One focusses on Sonnets from the Portuguese, with the first chapter
describing the speaker's tension in responding to conventional love roles: will
she submit or rebel? The chapter also notes the speaker's appropriation of the
courtly love tradition as a metaphor for the marginalised position in Victorian
society of the woman poet. Chapter Two discusses particular rol�s assumed by
the players in this love relationship, particularly the male/ female roles of god
and sinner, and the final chapter makes apparent the speaker's growing concern
with metaphors as a means of re-presenting her experience.
Part Two moves from the personal context (of the Sonnets) to the social
with a focus on Aurora Leiqh and the laws of society as established by
patriarchal systems. Chapter Four considers how the Father's authority
dominates and orders female life and desire, and in Chapter Five the dualisms
undergirding patriarchy are exposed. Aurora uses her writing to deconstruct the
binarisms she is caught in: between woman and artist, personal and universal,
material and spiritual. The final chapter of this thesis develops the concern with
the Father's law further by offering a more psychoanalytical reading in terms of
post-Freudian criticism. This chapter examines Aurora's creation as a gendered
consciousness, particularly focussing on the woman as separated from female
desire by the early loss of her mother, her induction· into the realm of the Father,
and her definition as an 'other', a (self)-alienated woman. Aurora's path beyond
this ideological construction of her self involves the death of the Father and the
rediscovery of feminine love, leading to a linguistically-constructed, alternative
siting within her society that does not depend upon male definition.
Victorian Interrogations:
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's
Sonnets from the Portuguese and Aurora Leigh
A dissertation presented in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in English
at Massey University
Pauline Margaret Simonsen
1 9 93
To R oger
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgements
IV
Part One: Sonnets from the Portuguese
A Note on the Title
2
Chapter One: The Battle: Love or Selfhood?
5
Chapter Two: The Roles we Play: God and Sinner
49
Chapter Three: Love and Language
89
Part Two: Aurora Leigh
Chapter Four: Aurora in Patriarchy
1 34
Chapter Five: Rewriting Patriarchy's Dualisms
1 75
Chapter Six: Repositing the Female
225
Bibliography
273
IV
PREFACE A N D ACKN OWLE D G EMENTS
Eliza beth Barrett Browning is a poet a pparently ina ppropriate to the 20th
century. When
I
mention her name as a subject for research
I
encounter
reacti ons such as "That dreadful woman ! " , and " Don't you find her a bit
sentimental ? " . Many feminist theoreticians have already poi nted out at length
how female artists have been , and still are, excised from history - expunged
from "The Canon " or the " G reat Tradition " . Elaine Showalter focusses her great
book A Literature Of Their Own on precisely this theme, and Joanna Russ, i n a
feisty and humo: rous account entitled How To Suppress Women's Writing,
outli nes the many effective methods by which such excision is performed .
The process is clearly evident i n Elizabeth Ba rrett Brow ning's case . A
poet of intellectua l , emotional and poetic power has been reduced to the banal
stereotypes a p parent in my opening quotations. Her work has been redefined
from complex, deeply layered , political poetry to sentimental verse , and her best­
known poetry is usually Sonnets from the Portuguese - evidence of the
emotional woman in l ove . This redefi nition was a lready occurring in E liza beth
Barrett Browning's own lifetime, particularly as her lifestory becam e a
convenient g l oss on the poetry. But it m oved i nto full swing i n the early
twentieth century, and a one-dimensional reading of very three-di mensional
poetry becam e the standard way to read E lizabeth Ba rrett Browning .
An equivalent case perha ps makes this process clearer. Charles Dickens'
reputation a lso suffered i n the early twentieth century for his uneven writing
style and his sentimenta lity. (leavis had g reat trouble fitting him i nto the
Can on . ) But the last 40-50 years have seen massive i nterest in the rediscovery
of a talented and profoundly complex author, generating a Dickens industry that
fills many li brary shelves.
The same reviva l , however, is very slow i n coming for Elizabeth Barrett
Browning . While the circumsta nces and products of the two authors have
V
obvious differences, the similarities between the two a re stri king . Both were
very popular w i th the Victorian reading public. Both were overtly political and
emotional; both have been condemned at various times for those very qualities,
as well as for a perceived failure in form and technique , i n novelistic a nd poetic
convention. 1 Yet the s pectre of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's stereotype as
weak, sentimental lady poet is taking much longer to lay to rest than the s pectre
of Dickens' stereotype as flawed, uncontrolled genius. This is partly due to the
literary i ndustry's need to use her to rei nforce the related m yth of the R o bert
Browning - Elizabeth Barrett Browning Love Story, in which Eliza beth's role as
wea k, sentimental lady poet is crucia l .
O bviously I find this reading o f Elizabeth Ba rrett Browning entirely
i nadequate. One purpose of this thesis is to correct the simpl istic stereotypes of
Eliza beth Barrett Browning that remain within literary circles. Rather, her work is
characterised by m ultiple levels: she hides coherent subtexts i n her narratives. In
doing this, she m a kes a challenging a nd subversive comment on her society which is perhaps why she has been "edited out" over time.
I have chosen Eliza beth Barrett Browning 's two major works i n which to
explore this commentary on Victorian society: Sonnets from the Portuguese and
Aurora Leigh . The studies that fol l ow pay particular attention to the ideological
themes generated by each w ork. In both works there is a primary concern with
the ways in which women are placed within binary structures which are
esta blished by patriarchal disc ourses. These two w or ks examine different
structures in patriarchy: in the Sonnets the context is heterosexual l ove , with its
strong c ourtly l ove overtones; in Aurora Leigh the structure critiqued is what
Lacan calls the Law of the Father - patriarchy.
While dealing with s imilar themes (women i n androcentric culture ) each
work presents a different l iterary form - the l yrical l ove sonnet and the narrative
epic. These forms largely correspond with the subject matter of the works. The
sonnet, focussing on an intimate m oment in time, is a ppropriate for the
d omestic, personal nature of the subject matter: the speaker's articulation of
l ove . The l onger narrative poem , with its pseudo-e pic and n ovelistic
VI
associations, lends itself to the social and interpersonal themes of women's
intersections with their culture . 2 I n recog nition of this change i n form , the
nature of my discussion will vary in relationship to each work. In the case of the
Sonnets, the m ore i ntensive and highly wrought re presentati on of lyrical feeling
requires a m ore detailed discussion of each sonnet, i n order to dem onstrate the
way each lyrical m oment contributes to a n overarching thematized dilemma. The
m ore expanded , discursive na rrative of Aurora Leigh lends itself m ore readily to
d i scussion based u pon defined thematic issues.
These two a pproaches are also i n accord with the present state of
criticism on Elizabeth Barrett Browni ng, i n that A urora Le igh has already received
considerable attention , whereas the Sonnets have not al ways been given the
c lose analysis they require . Trad itionally, Sonnets from the Portuguese have
been read i n purel y biogra phical terms, as the picture of E liza beth Barrett's
g rowing love for Robert Browning . The Sonnets were viewed as " the sincere
and spontaneous expression of Ba rrett Browning 's personal emotional
experience s " (Ste phenson, Poetry 6 9 ) . Elizabeth 's love , moreover, was genera l l y
perceived as roma ntically positive . Hence the Sonnets were remem bered and
praised for their lyrical expression and strong emotion, long after her other
poetry had fallen into disfavour. They have since become over-sentimentalised
to the point of ridicule , so that, in the recent rediscovery of Elizabeth Barrett
Browni n g , many feminists have found Sonnets from the Portuguese something
of a n e mbarrassment a mongst Eliza beth's other more ' politica l l y correct'
poetry. 3 This em barrassment is largely because of the excessive self­
de precation and male adulati on that occurs i n the Sonnets. Such 'errors of
judgement' are never made, for exa m pl e , i n Aurora Leigh. Angela Leighton's
account of the Sonnets, em phasising the spea ker's constant self-assertion, is
the first read i ng to uncover the strength and power of the speaker's voice . Her
reading is not without problems, but it provides a point of departure for m y own
a rg ument.
The Sonnets are vastly m ore complex and am bivalent than a biogra phica l ,
often naively positive reading allows. Firstly, t h e work transcends Elizabeth
Barrett Browning's specific life, which is used as a site from which to explore
VII
wider, m ore general issues. As Stephenson writes: "A knowledge of Ba rrett
Browning's l ife and letters may illuminate the work, but our a ppreciation and
understanding of Ba rrett Browning as a poet, rather than as a woman , will
continue to be restricted as long as there is an i nsistence on viewing the
Sonnets from the Portuguese as the documented story of an actual romance
instead of a series of finely crafted poems" ( Stephenson, Poetry 7 0 ) . Secondly,
while critics have been forced to note the constant background tone of sadness
a nd negativity in the poem - what they often dismiss merely as ' m orbidity' these negative feelings actua lly form a major contri bution to the poem . They
depict a wide and subtle scope of feeling, rang ing from sadness to de pressi on,
fear , anger, sarcasm and outright rebellion. Even a critic such as Marjory Bald ,
whose extraordinary account of Elizabeth Ba rrett Browning in Women Writers of
the N i neteenth Century is a typical exa m ple of the misreading of the poet, must
comment with surprise and regret:
Whatever may be the reason, the fact remains that The Sonnets
from the Portuguese do not g ive the i m pression of firm and
a biding joy. We hesitate to pass harsh judgements, but to the
m odern reader there is always the suggestion of hypochondria in
Mrs. Brownin g ' s outlook.- What after all, were her sorrows, if we
weigh them in comparison with those suffered by many other
women of her generatio n ? ( Bald 2 2 9 )
Bald clearly ta kes t h e speaker o f the S onnets t o b e Elizabeth Barrett Browning
herself, and she then finds the negativity of the poem i ncom patible with her
understanding of Elizabeth's 'ha ppy marriage ' : " I n the perfection of her married
life she had m ore ca use for happi ness than any of these wome n " - the latter
being the Brontes and C hristina Rossetti ( Bald 2 3 2 ) . The comparisons are
irrelevant if the spea ker of the Sonnets is read as a persona : the sentiments of
the Sonnets tra nscend s i m ple " ha ppiness" to examine the deeper, m ore complex
matters of gender relations. Astonishingly, Bald goes on to criticise Eliza beth
Barrett Browning for being too much the m odel of the subjected, docile , ' lacking '
Victorian woman. Quite apart from the i nconsistency here with her earlier
a ssertion that Eliza beth Barrett Browning isn't happy enough i n the S onnets, this
interpretation plainly disregards the re bellious a nxiety that is in the poe m .
VIII
The i ntention of the first three chapters of this thesis is to propose a
reading that ta kes account of what is in the poem - the positive and negative . 4
These cha pters e xamine the assumptions behind the paradoxical situati on of a n
a p parently "feminine" form (the i ntimate, domestic love l yric) which has actua lly
a l ready been written and a ppropriated as a " m asculine " form . The massive
com plications behind such gendering - how a woman can be a (courtly) l ove
poet - e xpose the ideological assum ptions i nherent in the culture of the speaker.
The Sonnets, m oreover, do not frag ment into fourty-four isolated incidents, but
build a narrative a bout a condition of subjectivity: what it means to be a woman
and poet i n l ove.
Nevertheless, any discussion of the Son nets enc ounters a problem with
their form: how to d raw thematic threads from what are essentially discrete
(though not frag mented) units, each developing its own i ntricate arg ument. I
have chosen to draw three i nterrelated threads from the poem as foci for the
cha pters. Roughly the Sonnets are g rouped i n chronological order, with the first
third discussed in terms of a central tensi on between submission and rebellion.
The central sonnets are discussed with reg ard to particular roles assumed by the
players i n this love relationshi p, a nd the discussion of the final sonnets m a kes
a p parent the speaker's g rowing concern with tropes as a means of re-presenting
her experience . H owever, the m ovement i n the Sonnets themselves is never as
neat as this: there is constant fluidity in the processes I am proposing . My
cha pters reflect this fl uidity i n that they necessari l y overlap as each theme
m oves into the next, and some sonnets a re pulled out of their (already arbitrary)
chronolog ical order and placed i n a new order.
The last three cha pters of the thesis dem onstrate how Aurora Leigh
m oves on from the personal context to the socia l . This m ovement i nto the realm
of the social , dramatised by the narrative method and structure of Aurora Leigh ,
leads natura l l y i nto a considerati on of the laws of society as esta blished by
patriarchal systems. Chapter Four considers how the Father's authority
d ominates and orders female life and desire. Most Aurora Leigh commentators
have made brief reference to various aspects of this authority; this fourth
cha pter offers a m ore com prehensive approach. The roles or positions made
IX
available to the poem's women, and Aurora 's response to the m , become
a p pa rent i n this cha pter and lead, in Chapter Five , to a consideration of the
d ualisms central to patriarchy. Aurora uses her writing to deconstruct the
binarisms she is caught in: between woman and artist, personal and universa l ,
material and spiritual , and even fa i lure and success . While a pseudo-Platonic
Christian idealism a l wa ys remains in A urora 's reckoning , distinct oppositions
nevertheless are clearly breaking d own by the close of the poe m , as we see
Aurora a nd Romney building heaven on earth , the new J erusa lem, through the
m ode of Aurora ' s poetry.
The final cha pter of this thesis develops the concern with the Father's
law further by offering a more psychoana l ytical reading in terms of post-Freudian
criticism. 5 This cha pter examines Aurora 's creation as a gendered
consciousness, particularly focussing on the woman as separated from female
desire by the early loss of her m other, a loss required by Freud for a woman's
'norma l ' socia lisation. Aurora ' s life clearly plays out the l oss of the m other
(relived i n various forms throug hout Aurora 's life ) , her induction into the real m of
the Father, her associated distrust and rejection of females (Freud 's theory of
rejection of the m other) , and consequently Aurora 's definition as an ' other ' , a
(self)-alienated woman.
Aurora 's path beyond this social creation of her as a female object
involves the death of the Father and the rediscovery of feminine l ove , leading to
a n a lternative siting within her society that does n ot depend upon male
definition. The difference between the mercantile l ove of patriarchy a nd the
m utuality of feminine l ove is constantly figured in the poe m . Thus, through her
writing and relocating herself in female terms, A urora manages to dislocate the
patriarchal world w hich has hitherto entra pped her.
Every writer on Eliza beth Barrett Browning encounters the same probl e m :
how to refer to h e r ? Her name changes from E lizabeth Barrett Ba rrett to
Eliza beth Barrett Browning , but she publishes poetry both before and after
m arriag e . Both the works under consideration here were published under the
second nam e , a nd yet much of the Sonnets was written under the first. I have
X
chosen to foll ow Kathleen Blake's example and use E l izabeth 's own method of
signing correspondence, her initials " EB B " . This is " one a ppellation that marks a
symbolic continuity between the poet before and the poet after marriag e "
(Biake , Love 1 7 1 ) .
Finally,
I
would l i ke to acknowledge here m y thanks to Warwick S l i n n ,
m y d octoral supervisor a n d friend . He h a s al ways g iven generously of his t i m e t o
d i scuss t h i s thesis and wider issues relating t o it, a n d h i s subtle a n d incisive
readings of this w ork have challenged me to clarify, refine and develop m y
ideas.
This thesis is also a prod uct of a fascinating a nd deeply sti mulating year
d uring which
I
attended a g rad uate paper in feminist theory, run by Doreen
D 'Cruz. To Doree n and the mem bers of that class, who let me 'sit in' on their
seminars, and contri bute to their discussions, my thanks.
XI
NOTES
1 See the ed itors ' notes to the section on Eliza beth Ba rrett Browning in
Victorian Poetry: "(Her poetry] combines with intensity of emoti on, a constant
reflection of clearly Christian m oral ity and huma nitarian a nd l i beral sym pathies, and
a warm delight i n nature. Here and there she offended agai nst standards of
s u bject . . . Her carelessness of form found then, as it finds now, strong objectors . . .
The peculiarities of her style cannot be defended a s can the oddities of Robert
Browning ' s : her style, unlike his, is thin and monotonous" ( Brown and Bailey 3 5 2 ) .
2 " Reflecting this thematic expansion o f boundaries," Glennis Stephenson
writes concerning the shift from the Sonnets to Aurora Leigh , " Barrett Browning
m oves from the restricti ons of the sonnet . . . to the freedom offered by a novel in
verse which, tra nsgressing the li mits of genre, encom passes both the na rrative and
the lyrical " ( Poetry 9 1 ) .
3 Dorothy Mermin refers t o this response i n the title of her article, "The
Female Poet and the Emba rrassed Reader : Elizabeth Barrett Browning 's Sonnets
from the Portuguese " [ELH 48 ( 1 9 8 1 ): 3 5 1 - 6 7 ] .
4 S usan Zim merman uses these words i n the title o f her article , " S onnets
from the Portuguese: A Negative a nd a Positive Context " . This article alerted
readers to the "chaotic feelings" i n the Sonnets, and to the speaker's ( E B B i n
Zimmerman's article) struggle i n reaction t o love . Zim merman arg ues that the
sequence works towards a resolution of love as both a sacrifice and a gain.
5 Angela Leighton, i n a fine i ntrod uction to her ground-brea king book on EBB,
rejects the use of French ( psychoanal ytical) feminism on the basis that such
theories retai n woman in the site of the silent bel oved of courtl y l ove : i n both
structures woman remains an a bsence. Leighton i nterprets such theories as a
m ythical narrative i n which women are enclosed (Elizabeth 1 6- 1 7 ) . I support
aspects of her readi n g , but I find that Leighton fails to take the ful l conclusions of
such feminism into account. U nder post-structura list psychoanalysis, the rigid
narrative is broken down and fluidity i n subject positi ons enters . In other words,
Leighton stops halfway with the theory: i n doing so she preserves the dualisms,
a nd so any possible deconstruction of them - a nd of the 'mythical narrative ' under
which we still exist - is l ost.
1
PART O N E :
S O N N ETS FROM T H E PO RTU G U E S E
2
A
note on the title: Sonnets from the Portuguese
Margaret Forster w rites : " Sonnets from the Portuguese were so called in
an attem pt to make people believe they were translations : both Brownings
thoug ht these poems too personal to be published under the name of Elizabeth
Barrett Browning " . (Selected Poems xxi ) . According to the editors of Victorian
Poetry, the sonnets were fi rst titled " Sonnets Tra nslated from the Bosnian " , but
Robert suggested the final title, having admired an earlier poem of EBB's
" Catarina to Ca moens " . "Vas de Camoens ( 1 524- 1 580) was the g reatest epic
and lyric poet of Portugal " (Brown and Bailey 8 0 7 ) . Robert Browning i ntended
the title to link with Catari na , as he wrote to Julia Wedg �
- wood :
. . . the publishing them [the Sonnets] was through m e - i n the
interest of the poet. I chose that they should be added to the
other works, not minding the undue g lory to me, if the fact should
become transparent: there Was a trial at covering it a little by
leaving out one sonnet which had plainly a connexion with the
former works [Sonnet XLI I ] : but it was put in a fterwards when
people chose to pull down the mask which, in old d a ys, people
used to respect at a masquerade. But I never cared . "The
Portuguese " - purposel y an ambiguous title - was that Caterina
who left Camoens the riband from her hair. (Curie 1 00)
Thus the title appeared to shift authorization to the courtly beloved of a
long-dead Portug uese male writer, the woman w ho replies to the sonneteer's
love poetry with some of her own. 1 Robert thus shows his understanding of
EBB's project i n the Sonnets, to u pset the courtly love roles by g iving the silent
woman speech. H e pushes the publication of them in a collected edition of
EBB's previous works and new poetry, Poems ( 1 8 50 ) , em phasising that he did
not really m ind the failure of his and EBB's conceit of anonymity. N evertheless,
the Sonnets remained for him "a stra nge, heavy crown . . . put on m e one
morning unawares" (Curie 9 9 ) . This response suggests perha ps some discomfort
for Robert in his awareness of the tensions within the Sonnets . In d escri bing the
sonnet sequence as a wreath, he recognises that EBB has crowned h i m , both
with her love and with the title of official poet. Her q uestioning a nd challenging
3
of both those aspects (discussed i n the following chapters) m ust be therefore a
d isconcerting experience for him.
And what of EBB herself? Did she acquiesce to the title ruse because she
was nervous a bout publishing under her female name, due to the potentia lly
subversive nature of the love lyrics? She was a ppro priating a bastion of male
tradition , the love sonnet, i n order to expose its assumptions. Love from a
woman's perspective, articulated throug h her voice and selfhood , is a
revolutionary concept i n Victorian society. 2 I s she a s yet unable to m a ke female
desire overt, as she is later a ble to do i n Aurora Leigh ?
O r is the attem pt at disg uise an attem pt at general isation, at moving
i nterpretation of the Sonnets away from her biogra phical story to a g e neralised
account of the female in love ? She and Robert saw them as too personal, too
autobiog raphical . Dorothy Mermin notes this desire by EBB to " generalize and
distance the situation" . She writes: " Male poets . . . could present their
experiences (fictionalized or not) as exe m plifying those of modern man . . . . But
the modern woman's personal experience could not easi l y be made to carry so
heavy a contextual burden, and Elizabeth Barrett was not yet quite ready to
try . . . . Nor, as she knew . . . were readers disposed to see a woman as
representative of the human race , or a poet as a representative wom a n " ( Origins
1 43 ) . EBB knew her audience, knew the tactic of marginalisation a nd d ismissal
via the l a bel of a utobiography. 3 And indeed, her fears were realised in that this
i s how the Sonnets have primari l y been read: they are the romantic story of a
s pecific woman's love (often trivialised i n comparison with a man's love) . Any
political or philosophical concerns could therefore be i g nored .
4
NOTES
I n " Catarina to Camoe n s " , the dying woman w rites to the n ow-absent
male poet who once told her she had " the sweetest eyes ever seen " , i m pl oring him
to hear her and return to her side to return her l ove. H e does not come, a nd she
l eaves the riband from her hair for him. Angela Leighton also notes the w a y the
S onnets ' title links its speaker with the " generic . . . unknown lady of the courtly
traditi on " , the " woman who waited , to no avail " ( " Stirring " 20). Leighton sees the
link between such a figure and the Victorian gentlewom a n : " To be the m aiden in
the tower, the woman at the window , the dreamer in the prison , is to i nhabit a
l iterary tableau which is very close to the facts of life " ( " Stirring " 1 6) . However as
this thesis will demonstrate , EBB uses this position only as a starti ng point from
which to a ppropriate the other positi on - that of courtl y poet .
1
2 Glennis Stephenson notes this revol utionary aspect in
her d istinction
between writing a bout l ove , which was the d om inant m ode of early Victorian
female poets, and writing poetry of l ove, the " l yrical expression of the e m otion and
the type of verse which traditionally excluded women from the role of s pea king
subject " (Poetry 4 ) . Very few Victorian female poets attem pted this type of poetry.
3 Joanna Russ comments on the label often a pplied to women's literature ,
that a work is 'confessiona l ' . Russ notes the assum ptions behind the la bel , that the
writing is somehow "too persona l " , and concludes that " I n short, 'the la bel is
sim ply handy for dismissing art that the critic wishes to trivialize. "' Quoting Erica
J ong : " 'it's become a put-d own term for women , a sexist label for women's
poetry ' " ( R uss 2 9 ) .
5
CHAPTER O N E
T H E BATTLE: LOVE O R S ELFH O O D ?
The first word o f Sonnets from the Portuguese is " I " . From the very
beginning EBB announces her i ntention to place the woman spea ker at the
centre of this poetry: to be the su bject , not the object . M oreoever, she
consolidates that central position for this female voice by indirectly asserting her
"cultural credentials" with a ppropriate classical references ( Merm i n , Origins
1 38 ) . Poetry (particularly for Victorians) was primarily the sphere of Oxbridge­
educated men whose classical background thus pre pared them for their "high
cal l i n g " . 1 The knowledge displayed i n references to Theocritus and a " m ystic
Shape " in this first sonnet suggests EBB's legitimacy in a p propriating the
[trad itionally male] speaking voice of the poet. 2 Mermin identifies the wide­
ranging literary allusions i n the first half-dozen sonnets, showing how E B B
displays " casual confidence " whilst working i n these i m pressive " vast l iterary
spaces" ( Origins 1 38 - 1 3 9 ) .
I n this opening sonnet, the speaker summarises h e r l ife a n d so i ntroduces
the primary theme for this sonnet sequence, the recovery of her life through
l ove . She accordingly begi ns by playing the role of subm issive victim. The years
have n ot brought a gift " i n a gracious hand " for her, as the male poet Theocritus
sung , but rather have " flung/ A shadow " across her. She m ust passively receive
these " melancholy years " , only weeping in memory of the m . Then , when Love
finally discovers her, it arrests her:
a m ystic Shape did m ove
Behind m e , and drew me backward by the hair,
And a voice said i n mastery while I strove , . .
'Guess now who holds thee ? ' 3
Yet the victim , the object of these actions, is not passive : she " strove " . Thus, i n
this very first sonnet, a tension within t h e poet's s e l f is created between t h e role
6
of passive , female, l ove object, and the active , female, speaking subject who
asserts herself. "I thoug ht " , "I mused " , "I saw " , "I was 'ware " , "I strove " , " I
said " . This consecutive list o f " I " statements from the sonnet e nacts the
progression that is depicted, though m ore fluidly, i n the e n tire sonnet sequence.
We watch the female other - the c onventionally silent o bject - think, perceive ,
struggle and brea k out of silence into speech that a sserts her centrality.
The tone of the Sha pe's questi on to the female spea ker has a fli p pant,
almost a rrogant edge as it teases the struggling woman. '"G uess now who
holds thee ? "' it asks, and despite the "silver answer" it g i ves t o the spea ker's
reply, its mastery is nevertheless evident. Again, simultaneous with the hope
that this Love offers - an alternative to Death - is the sense of sacrifice i m plicit
in the Love: it requires submission to a stronger force , to a master. This tensi on,
l i ke that within the spea ker herself, suggests the central i ssues of the sonnet
sequence.
11
These issues of struggle, tension and sacrifice are clearly delineated i n
the second sonnet, which reveals t h e nature of the a uthorised l ove relationship
i n the world of the Sonnets, and also shows the consequences of that
relationship for the woman.
I n a conventional l ove conceit recal ling John Donne's " the w orld's
contracted thus" , the l overs' experience is located at the centre of the world , as
the second sonnet begins:
But only three in all G od 's universe
Have heard this w ord thou hast sai d , - H imself,
beside
Thee speaking , a nd me listening !
What i s the w ord that the l over has said ? Presumably a n avowal of l ove. "Thou"
i n this sonnet i m plies the male l over, a lthough the w ord " Love " has a lready bee n
spoke n - i n Sonnet I by t h e " mystic Shape " . Does t h i s m a ke t h e m a l e l over
consonant with the m ystic Shape? If so, then the tensions between m astery a nd
7
love are m oved from a llusive metaphors to their specific and personal
relationship.
The privacy of the excha nge in lines 1 -3 strikes the speake r - yet it is n ot
private enoug h , it a ppears, as G od's i nvolvement becomes i ntrusive: "and
replied/ One of us . . that was G od " . EBB graphically sums u p the power relations
of patriarchal discourse in her descri ption of the audience to this speech . G od
owns and controls; man speaks; woman l istens. This re presentation of
phal l og ocentric d iscourse reveals the frustration and fear of the silent woman,
who is answered for. 4 That a nswering 'kills' the woma n , as E BB's ensuing
i m agery clearly portrays . Furthermore , God answers that she must n ot l ove in
return. The "ethic of unw orthiness" that interplays between both EBB and
R obert Browning emerges here and becomes a major motif in the S onnets ,
reflecting the spea ker's interna lisation of the patria rchal code .
This prohi bition is a "curse" to blind her from seeing her lover. The use of
the a rchaic "amerce" in line 5 (which the O E D defines as "to fine a rbitrarily . . . to
punish " ) conveys the i njustice that the speaker's morality a nd G od inflict upon
her. This prohi bition to l ove i s m ore physica l l y heavy, isolating a n d final , tha n
the death-weights that keep a corpse's eyes close d . Beneath the surface
obedience, the woman's a nger and fear at this 'm urder' seethes.
I mages of seeing as power are a n i m portant m otif that runs through the
Sonnets. In feminist theory, the patriarchal gaze is a n act of a p propriation: the
(male) gazer sees and ca ptures the w oman as a n object that reflects himself. 5
Here the speaker's concern is that she is being denied vision. She is to be
punished for attem pting the power of sight: "as to a merce/ My sight from seeing
thee " . By placing "My sight" at the beginning of the line, the active , seeing
woman is e m phasise d . 6 Not only is the woman silenced; she is also blinded .
A negative from this God - not a loving New Testament G od - is
a p pa rently a bsolute and designed to exclude the woman. And yet, from this
frustrated position of defeat, the spea ker moves to a position of tentative
defiance. The final five l i nes of the sonnet employ the traditional rhetoric of l ove.
Neither humanity's spite, nor the vicissitudes of nature and existence, can part
8
the indomitable l overs, whose "hands would touch for a l l the m ountain-bars" . 7
N ot even heaven rolled between them "at the end " w ould bre a k their vows of
l ove; rather they would vow "the faster" . '"Nay' is w orse/ From G od " though,
and so this fina l , a l m ost reckless assertion of their earthl y l ove seems to
challenge G od himself - their defiant vow of l ove is g reater than His negative
Judgement .
The woman's rhetoric has created a (fictive) a lternative to the
suppression a nd silence she i nherits in the a uthorised relationship. This power of
words introduces the s pe a ker's identity or office as poet : S onnet I l l then
expl ores this identity a nd how it fits i n (or fails to fit in) to the a uthorised l ove
relationship.
Ill
Sonnet I l l declares the fundamental d ifference that the speaker perceives
between herself and her lover. As suc h , it is tem pting to read it as a paradigm of
the conce pt of sexua l d ifference, which is at the heart of feminist theories.
Woman is n ot a m irror for m a n , nor can she be 'read' in terms of m a l e
definitions: because s h e lacks the phallus, she i s a n a bsence, l rigara y's " nothing
to be seen" (Marks a nd d e Courtivron 1 0 1 ) . This sonnet ostensibly s pe a ks of the
social differences between the l overs, but the depth and e mphasis g i ven to the
argument suggests a m ore fundamental d ifference .
The tri ple repetition of "unlike " i n the o pening two l i nes h a m me rs home
the a ssertion of d issi m i l a rity. The image of the l overs' personal " m i nistering two
angels" bum ping into each other i n surprise l i ke strangers, e m phasises the
radical nature of their i nteraction, a nd conti nues the idea of supernatural
disa pprobation of such i nteraction that was suggested i n S onnet 11. Even in the
physical world of " socia l pageantries" the d ivergence in the l overs' " uses" and
" destinies" i s profound : one is "A g uest for queens " , within the l i g hted hall of
society, whilst the other (Other) is outside in the dark, under the cypress tree of
death, tired and a l one. The echoes from EBB's own sequestered life, a nd her
perception of Robe rt Browning 's life , are ob�i ous. 8
9
Less obvious, thoug h , is the strong undertone of integrity, as the spea ker
refuses to join with the " hund red brighter eyes/ Than tears even can m a ke
[hers) " . The shining m i rror-li ke eyes of these ardent women are committed
( " gages " ) to reflecting the centrality of the male l over's role of chief m usician.
The w omen thus willingly become passive i nstruments for his creative pleasure
and power. I n separating herself from such a role the spea ker asserts that she is
not defined by masculinity, but that she is different: a val i d , speaking
consciousness in her own right:
What hast thou to do
With l ooking from the lattice-lig hts at m e ,
A poor , tired , wandering singer, . . singing through
The dark, and leaning u p a cypress tree ?
This valid d ifferent consciousness, though excluded from society and with n o
h o m e o r su pport, is nevertheless, singing . S h e h a s h e r o w n voice; s h e is not a
silent, passive, disem bodied pair of m irror eyes . The m otif of seeing, raised in
Sonnet 11, recurs here . The d isem bodied eyes of the socially-l ocated w omen
pose n o threat, in contrast to the searching eyes of the male lover , l ooking out
the window into the dark to see his l ove. Certa inly the speaker feels that gaze:
"What hast thou to d o/ With looking [ . . ] at me[ ? ) " she asks . . The effrontery of
.
that g aze is a n incentive for the w oman to stay in the dark, unseen and
unappropriated into the world of socia l pageantries, where roles are clearly
a rbitrate d .
T h e f i n a l couplet recog nises t h e consequence of t h e d ifference between
the l overs. His role is ordained and a pproved by their culture; the " chrism " or
unguent that anoints him is divine a p probati on . O n her head fa lls the dew of
exclusion - she is outsid e , the other. 9 The only common denominator between
them is death. 10
Also central to this sonnet (and the whole sequence) is the evocation of
the courtly l over and poet. As m ost commentators have pointed out, E B B here
a p propriates the role tra diti ona lly played by the male in medieval courtly love . 1 1
I n this construct, the woman i s the distant, a loof, beautiful but unattai na ble i d o l ,
10
adored a nd revered from afar by the poor, strugg l i ng poet. This tradition ensures
that the woman neve r s pea ks; only the longing male's plaintive voice is heard .
Here i n the third sonnet the s peaker overtly manipulates the tradition: she
becomes the singer-poet and the male l over is the unattai nable belove d . The
woman's voice is thus made centra l , a nd her desire and consciousness are the
focus. She is the poet, speaker, l over , the subject; he is the muse , the l oved
one, the object of her discourse . 1 2
Some commentators see this i nversion of the conventional c ourtly roles
as a tension that never quite succeeds in being resolved . Dorothy Merm i n , one
of the first to elucidate the revoluti onary nature of the inversion, also bel ieves
that it exemplifies the fundamental problem that Victorian women poets had .
Because the Victorian l ove poet was traditiona lly male and his subject was
woman , the woman became the poem - leaving the Victorian female poet with
no place to site herself. The woman poet therefore had to attem pt to c onflate
both subject and object positions, to " play two o pposing roles at one tim e " .
Sonnets from the Portuguese clearly reveals this tension: "the woman spea ker
plays both roles . . . : the self-asserting speaker and the silent object of his desire "
- as d oes the male l over ( " Damse l " 6 5 ; 7 2 ) . Thus there "are two poets i n the
poem, a nd two poets' beloveds " (Origins 1 30 ) . Mermi n believes that this
attem pt at conflation "disturbs and embarrasses" the reader.
I prefer to read the c onflation as a positive exploration. EBB was aware of
the potential subversions available i n the courtly conventions - conventions she
had a l ready begun to play with in her earlier ballads, especially " Lady Geraldine's
Courtship " (where it i s unclear just who is doing the c ourting ) . She drew
comparisons between the excluded courtly sonneteer and the excluded woman
poet, thus i nverting the subject-object expectations of the reader, a nd so
enacting a dialectical exchange between spea king positions. 1 3 The m ode of this
exchange is the primary thesis of these chapters: the sonnet sequence follows a
route from a position of hierarchical dualistic roles (subject/object) to a
.
l i nguistically-induced i nterchange of roles.
The extended meta phor of this third sonnet works on two levels the n : the
s pe aker i s both forlorn courtly sonneteer and excluded w om a n poet. I n both she
11
is on the peri phery of her world. 1 4 As a woman she is expected to be the
passive silent object, yet this woman will not c onform - she uses the m eta phor
or convention of the sonneteer to give herself a place to speak from . I n doing so
she also reveals the double denial behind the conventions of her culture . Women
were excluded from 'real art ' , which was the province of males. I f she did i nsist
upon writin g , she was allowed the culturally trivial and marg i nal subjects of
(feminine) l ove and familial senti ments. And yet even these subjects came under
prohi bitions: e pic (masculine) l ove was the property of males, and was
supported by a daunting tradition of sonneteers writing in courtly l ove form , in
which women assumed the role of silent objects once again. Thus the
a pparently intimate, d omestic and therefore 'fem inine' genre of l ove sonnets
was in reality also denied the woman writer, who by virtue of her gender could
never belong to the tradition of male sonneteers .
This double denial - denied all topics except love , and then denied that
topic - is tackled by EBB in Sonnets from the Portuguese . By inverting the
conventional gender roles of courtly l ove , then by a ppropriating the sonneteer's
voice, she begins to u pset the assum ptions of her culture . I ndeed, she shows
how the courtly l ove poet is far m ore suggestive of the woman poet's position
in a patriarchy. Eventually, from this subversion, EBB is a ble to chal lenge the
initial prohi bition from poetry. In Aurora Leigh the woman protag onist i s a n e pi c
poet o f politics a n d social concerns as w e l l as l ove a n d things personal . B u t here
in the Sonnets, the tensi ons i n ma king the initial conflation of woman a nd poet
are evident in the entire sonnet sequence .
IV
Sonnet I V continues themes from the previous sonnet, as the male poet­
l over's greatness and fame are contrasted with the spea ker's position. Here ,
though, the tone is one of sadness rather than im plicit defianc e : the spea ker has
internalised definitions of wea kness a nd inabil ity. 1 5 Nevertheless, she retains
the identity of singer-poet that she g ave herself i n the previous sonnet, a nd the
trul y radical nature of that a p propriation is seen here when stie calls the male
poet-lover by the sam e label . His vocation is as a " Most gracious singer of h i g h
poe m s " ; c ontinuing t h e scenario o f S onnet I l l , he is called to "some palace-floor"
12
w here the dancers watch avid ly for the latest pearl t o drop from his " preg nant"
(creative) lips.
That a w oman m i g ht consider the same calling/vocation i s both d isruptive
and threatening . The power of words belongs to the male, a nd the female's role
is to reflect that power, through silence, bac k to the thereby a ffirmed male. To
suggest that a woman may also feel legitimately called to this male province
disrupts the n orm.
I n em ploying the extended meta phor of a dwelling-place for herself, the
woman spea ker conveys the clear message to her l over that she is
uninhabita ble : his desire to 'occupy' her is rejected. Thi s is conveyed i n self­
deprecating language - "this house 's latch [isl too poor/ For hand of thine " . H ow
can he " bear" to "drop" his music without a thought " I n folds of g olden fulness
at [her] door ? " . Beneath the humility of this line, however, a note of urgent self­
regard can be heard . His unthinking prodigality of riches, left accidenta l l y almost carelessly - before her, only serves to e m phasise her own poverty. " Look
up" , she must direct h i m , to see the dila pidation of her dwelling : wind ows
broken in, roof i nvaded by bats and owls. The external w orld has broken her
house d own, and his singer's riches ( "thy mandol i n " ) only e m phasises that
dilapidation, when compared to her smal l weak cricket's voice i n this ruin.
H ush, call n o echo u p in further proof
Of desolation ! there's a voice within
That weeps .. as thou m ust sing .. a l one , aloof .
The unthinking cruelty o f his action - the poet displaying both h i s talent a n d the
world 's recognition and adulation of it, to one whose talent is denied and who is
instead cast off for asserting it - is i ndicated clearly i n these final l ines. 1 6 But
also importa nt is the speaker's response , as she tells him t o be silent, t o cease
asserting his power of w ords. When he is quiet, and the echoes cease, a voice
can be heard in this hollow ruin : the voice that weeps a l one, a nother c ourtly
poet. Despite her song of isolation and enervation, the woman poet's voice
remains.
13
The speaker's sadness and a pparent acce pta nce of failure i n this sonnet
does n ot subvert the constant assertion of voice, n or the constant rejection of
a ppropriation. The spea ker will not be 'occupied ' , n or have her voice drowned
out. Though her voice weeps n ow i n loneliness a nd desolati on , w hilst his voice
sings, her autonomy remains - as d oes the potential for her to sing (see S onnet 11
- a "wandering singer" ) .
V
The tension between su bm ission and re bellion that emerges in the
opening sonnets is exe m pl ified in Sonnet V, which offers a m bivalent
simultaneous readings of submission to love, and rebel lion and challeng e . In a
rivetting opening image, the woman solemnly presents her heart full of ashes,
like Electra and her urn , ostensibly acknowledging the male l over's a bility to
extinguish her grief. And yet the way she sta nds before h i m , challenging him by
looking into his eyes, and calmly de positing her "grief" at his feet, seems to
implicate him in her situati on.
Why Electra ? Mermin argues that this is a reference to Sophocles'
Electra , who is handed an urn she believes to contain her brother's ashes, by
none other than her brother i n disguise . Electra 's speech on receiving her
brother's ashes must have had deep significance for EBB, who l ost her beloved
younger brother " Bro " at sea. But, as Mermin sa ys, " While we cannot help
reading i n this the poet's sorrow for Bro, it functions without biogra phical
reference" - for Merm i n , as an a llusion to the relati ons between " ne w l ove a nd
old grief" (Origins 1 39 ) . The i m plications of this reference go m uc h deeper,
though . The male lover is assigned the role of Orestes, pretendi ng to be dea d ,
deceiving his faithful, waiting a n d now grieving sister. S h e has hoped for her
brother's return to right the wrongs of the house of Agamemnon; news of his
a pparent death sinks her i nto utter hopelessness and despair. So " Orestes" the
brother/ l over/ saviour reveals himself, but now he must deal with the grief his
deception engendered i n her. She perceives how this grief has been
unnecessari l y and cruelly im posed upon her: in pouring out its ashes at his feet,
she i m plicitll ma kes him responsi ble.
14
E BB's use o f the Electra c haracter therefore carries profound significance.
Even as the male l over arrives to save the woman from the grief of her past l ife
(as alluded to in Sonnet 1), " Electra " c overtly im plicates him in that grief. Her
challenge to him i s clear i n the opening five lines: "solemnly [. .. ] l ooking i n [his]
eyes " , she deposits the ashes at his feet, and i nvites/ commands him to " Behold
and see " . Moreover, she poi nts out that her grief is n ot dead , but sparks of
emotion remain, potentially " w i l d " and dangerous. Again, his i nvolvement is
stressed : he m ight in " scorn [ . . . ] tread " those s parks " out to darkness utterly " ,
thus obliterating her grief entirely, presumably with joy a t h i s presence. But
again, an obverse reading is possible from the violent lang uage used to d escribe
that action of obl iteration, with its e m phasis on arrogance and brutal finality.
This suppressing of the woman's emotions clearly recalls Sophocles' play, and
the scene i m mediately following Orestes' disclosure of himself. There , he
attem pts to restrain and suppress Electra 's understandable joy, c onsta ntl y
adjuring her to be silent. Her emotions must be censored there , a nd i n S onnet V
the same sense of re pression i s evident. I f he sta nds aside, a nd allows the wind
to blow the sparks to flame, the woman's emotions, unrestrained, c ould be
enormously powerfu l . The spea ker links this potential flame with the male
lover' s vocation of poetry: his "laurels" will n ot protect him from her passion or
grief. His w ords, his poetry, will n ot " shield " him from her fire .
I n the c ontext provided by previous sonnets, the w oman's sorrows are
tied up with her role as poet. The previous sonnet ends with the w oman's grief
being voiced in weeping. Now, in Sonnet V, that expression of grief i s far m ore
powerfu l . The climaxing energy of the sonnet is conveyed in the fire i magery,
which recurs as a m otif throughout the S onnets. Fire is symboli c of passion, of
warmth, of human e m otion. lt is beneficial, giving both light and heat. Yet it i s
a l s o dangerous a nd potentially destructive . lt i s formless a nd i mpossible t o fix;
its nature is that of constant m ovement and flux. The spea ker uses this i mage in
.
the following sonnets to describe firstly grief, then her creativity, a nd final l y
their l ove.
The strength of the final sestet, beginning with " But if i nstead " , lies i n
t h e assurance that t h e alternative to crushing the w o m a n into silence (the
scornful male's usual response to w oman's emotion) i s t o a l l ow her t o express
15
her emotion i n creative energy. For this to happen, thoug h , the man must wait
beside the woman; his action, initiative , leadership or g uidance is not required
nor wanted - it is the wind that inspires the woman. And the results will
challenge and scorch even the fam ous poet, whose reputation ( "la urels " ) cannot
protect him from her light- and heat-giving words. Leighton writes: " lt is a witty
and assured l ogic which leads from the memory of grief to this imag ined threat
that comes from her creativity . . . The fire of her poetic heart will have designs
not only. on his hair, but also on his 'laurels"' ( Leighton 1 0 6 ) .
l t is nota ble that the spea ker uses a strong , proprietary l ove epithet for
the first time at this point. " O h my beloved " makes the speaker the initiator a nd
g iver, not the passive receiver, the l ove object . Her emoti ons are va l idated as
she confirms her role as speaking subject.
This demand for legitimate expression of powerful feelings remains
problematic for the speaker, however. Her poetry is sti l l clearly tied to grief and
negative emotion, and its expression is potentially destructive . The final line
exem plifies these problems . " Stand further off the n ! go" continues to assert
herself and challenge him , and yet, when coupled with the l ove e pithet, her
conflicting desires become evident. The male l over must g o , both to a l l ow her
legitimate self-expression, and to defend his own role as master-poet - a nd yet
he is the speaker's beloved. The warning occurs, then, at the expense of her
own l ove and desire .
VI
The emotional dilemma that ends Sonnet V is developed in S onnet VI ,
and indeed enacted in the split opening line: " G o from m e . Yet I feel that I sha l l
stand/ Henceforward in t h y shad ow . " Even if the l over does leave , the s peaker
feels that she will always miss his influence. Yet this l oss beg ins to carry new
overtones - the robbery of inde pendence that l ove brings. His growing
significanc e in her l i fe creates a d e pendence upon him , about which she is
deeply a mbivalent. Resuming the meta phor of her l i fe a s a dwelling place, as
depicted i n Sonnet I V , she now rea lises that she has rel i nquished sole
poss ession.
16
Neverm ore
Alone u pon the threshold of my d oor
Of individual life, I sha l l command
The uses of my soul [ . ]
The sense of finality i s inesca pable i n the structura l e m phasis of " Nevermore/
Alone " , and in the nostalgic proprietoria l language ( " m y door " , "I shall
command " ) which only shows what she has l ost. The physical sense of
oppression that accom panies his influence in her l ife is felt in his touch u pon her
hand , which she used to be able to l ift freely and effortlessly into the sun; it is
even felt i n his shadow u pon her.
Ironies a bound in these sentiments, however. lt is love that is creating
her feelings of l oss; the expected positive em oti ons or rhetoric are n ota bly
a bsent. She has ordered him away; yet she l oves him a nd wishes him near; and
yet that l ove means her l oss of i nd e pendent spirit. Her hesitancy is de picted in
an image of his physical touch: she says she forbore his handtouch but now
misses it, and yet that sense of l oss rem inds her that she has given up the
" i ndividual l ife " to one of influence. This process fills her with am bivalence ,
reinforced b y the sun/shadow imagery itself. I nde pendence meant she c ould
enjoy the full sun unmediated; dependence i ntroduces shadow into her life shadow that ecli pses her as poet and speaker.
When she d oes e m ploy the rhetoric of l ove, again it is n ot the pure ,
unalloyed adoration expected of the woman poetess. Am biguity remains: what
is usual l y a circumstance for rejoicing (that nothing can se parate the l overs) is
m ore l i ke a reason for m ourning . Her m ind and acti ons now incl ude h i m "as the
wine/ Must taste of its own g ra pes . " That " m ust" is a n i nd ictment of
inevitability. Moreover the image i m pl ies the spea ker i s a product of the
constitutive l over (the gra pe) - the woman l over responds to the male's l ove.
This a nd rocentric conception of l ove, i n which the man m a kes the woman,
emerges m ore fully i n the following sonnets. Later it a ppears that the spea ker
internalises it and believes it; at her first use of it here, it is evident that her
feelings toward his influence of l ove are m ore a m bivalent. 1 7
17
The point of this am bivalence i s that the woman speaker questions the
whole c o'ncept, or edifice, of l ove . Their exchange of affection occurs within a
patriarchal structure that privileges his love as the active , i nitiating , constitutive
agent. She m ust watch herself g ive u p her major defence - her non-participation
in the marriage-market, her " i ndividual life " . By e ntering the discourse of love ,
she has threatened the integrity of both her individuality and her poet's voice.
This threat is clear in the cl osing lines. Even when she prays, that m ost
intimate and personal exercise, the spea ker is aware that the l ove relationship
has subsumed her into the male lover:
And when I sue
G od for mysel f, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within m y eyes, the tears of two.
When she speaks, and prays for herself, God hears the male l over's name. Her
needs are effaced behind the male's identity, her voice is corrupted . Moreover,
he occupies her: his tears are interming led with her own. The ardent wish of
l overs - a bsolute union - is shown to be invasion for the woman. Their tears,
then - his, presumably because she is sending him away l i ke all traditional
courtly ladies; hers because she has l ost both self and l over - are products of
ideological constructions. Moreoever, the God of these opening sonnets
countenances these constructions, i nscri bing and end orsing the male right. The
Spea ker clearly distrusts this deity.
VI I
The growing i nfluence that the male l over exercises over the woman i s
further de picted in Sonnet V I I , where the power o f t h e l over is a ble to reorganise
the speaker's existence. He has saved her from " obvious" death and redefined
her outlook on life.
The l over's soul is descri bed as acting in stealth, i nterposing itself as the
future prospect for the woman, instead of death. The speaker had dreaded the
" outer brink" , as she describes death: it was the final limit, the periphery of
existence. She, as woman and poet, is already on the periphery of life, alienated
18
and excluded b y society not only a s Other, but a s unnatural (as i n sonnet I l l and
IV) for rejecting that peri pheral status. The biogra phical significance of these
lines is obvious in the picture of EBB
secluded as a n i nvalid i n her room
at Wimp ole Street, expecting death. The meta phor of the "brin k " recurs in her
courtship l etters to R obert, in which she pictures hersel f " on the edge of the
world with all done, n o prospect" ( Ki ntner vol . l 41 ) . Yet the wider psychological
validity of the d escription as that of the woman poet is simi larl y accurate . The
only possible future is to "sink" into oblivion, as is evident from the lack of
women poets in the canon, and from EBB's own descent i nto obscurity (until
rescued by recent femi nists).
I nstead of this i nevitable future of psychological and physical death, the
lover has presented himself as the future . The i m plication of the lines is that he
has rescued her by c hivalrousl y placing himself as a buffer between her a nd the
danger, l i ke a true courtly l over. But m ore is ha ppening in these lines. A basic
substitution has occurred: the male l over instead of death.
The spea ker remains on the peri phery, but instead of sinking over that
brink, however, she is rather " caught u p i nto l ove " , a nd this a p pears to reorient
her away from the brink, instead confronting l ife . Suddenly the " face" or
appearance of "all the w orld is changed " , and she learns "the whole/ Of life in a
new rhyth m . "
The long , climactic and e m otional sentence that describes this
reorientation at his initiative , c onveys a deep sense of gratitude and wonder,
appropriate for one who has been reintroduced to life. This new perspective is
crucially flawed h owever, as the s pea ker herself i m m ed iate l y m a kes clear:
The cup of d ole
G od g ave for ba ptism , I am fai n to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee a near.
As stated above , the speaker's position has not changed : she is still on the
periphery of l ife, a n other. This "cup of dole " , her a pparently G od-ordained l ot
from birth a s a female, has not been taken away. All that has changed i s her
perspective , her attitude. N ow she i s "fain" to dri n k of this cup, and even prai se
19
its sweetness, because the one who has made the cup palata ble and sweet is
ever close by her.
The indictment i n these words is profound. The l over's presence has
caused the spea ker to accept and even a p preciate the hitherto offensive and
bitter role that had been im posed upon her. As the Sonnets continue this
internalisation becomes m ore evident.
The fundamental nature of the change that the l over, through his quiet
'saving ' action , has wrought is conveyed in the remainder of the sonnet . The
spea ker's language and referents have been upset, disturbed:
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this .. this l ute and song .. l oved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear,
Because thy name moves right in what they say.
The disjunction of the syntax and meaning of the lines enactsthe disruption in
the speaker's values and outlook. She can no l onger distinguish earth from
heaven: he has become her point of orientation. But m ore sinister is the i m port
of the final l ines. Her lute and song of independence, her voice as spea king
subject rather than m ute object, her m uch-loved and defended i ntegrity as
depicted i n I l l , I V and V , are now only dear to her inasmuch as they speak of
him . When his name is 'rightly' proclaimed in the m , they are of value to her. Her
poetry has been a ppropriated by the structures of romantic l ove : she reflects
him as the powerful i nitiator and chivalric hero of their l ove .
Sonnet V I I thus displays the deep tensi ons within the woman speaker:
she is both g rateful to and desirous of the male l over, willing to submit to him as
the chival ri c hero, and yet simultaneously aware of the deeper i m plications for
her personal identity of such a relationship .
VI I I
The theme of Sonnet I V is reiterated here , as the princely g iving of the
l over only serves to m a ke the speaker feel a deep sense of poverty a nd inability
20
to respond i n kind . H ere the male l over brings riches of regal g old and purple, his
gifts of l ove and talent. The m otif of royalty a pplied to the male l over is tell i ng :
he rules her heart, a nd indeed has dominion over her very existence , as w e sa w
in Son net VI I . His g i fts are pure and unsullied , unlike her own " stuff " (fabri c ) .
which bears t h e tears (weeping) a n d tears (ri ps) o f t h e battles o f h e r fight for
voice a nd selfhood .
As in Sonnet IV, the l over g ives his w ords a nd l ove with a ba ndon a nd
almost careless disregard. Here he leaves them outside the wall of her dwelling
in " unexpected [and em barrassing] largesse " , " For such as I to take or l eave
withal " . 1 8 There is im personality in his action: the gifts are for " such" as her to
take or leave . His offhanded a p proach seems to suggest to the speaker a
carelessness a bout his l ove that calls into question its depth and sincerity - it
implies that the male lover is m ore concerned with the act of giving than with
the reci pient. " 0 l i beral/ And princely giver" (em phasis m i ne - the Morgan
manuscript origina l l y had " giver" with a ca pital " G " [ Ratchford 5 0 ] ) .
The g i fts, w i t h the re peated descri ptions o f their richness a nd a bundance ,
evoke the same nagging response in the speaker: "What can I g ive thee bac k [ ? ] "
She denies being cold and ungratefu l , o r remaining unm oved b y h i s largesse . Her
slowness to return the compliment devolves on the fact of her poverty. In a
repetition of the structure of S onnet IV, the octave description of his riches and
generosity i s followed by a sestet description of her em barrassment and poverty.
For the fabric of her l ife is faded from tears, leaving "so dead/ And pale a stuff,
it were n ot fitly done / To g ive the same as pillow to thy head . " The colour is
gone from her life; she has l ittle of talent or l ove to give to her l over. She i s not
a ble to fulfil the w omanly role and be a pillow for his comfort or pleasure.
Her reaction to this grinding feeling of inadequacy? " G o farther! let it
serve to tra m ple on. " The tone of the sonnet changes a bruptly here : till now the
primary feeling has been one of regret and self-de precation, but here im patience
and self-disgust seem to emerge. His presence defines her as unworthy a nd
poor, a definition she believes and yet chafes beneath . Then let her cloth of l ove
be a rag/rug for him to 'walk a l l over' - and the harshness and violence of
"tra m pl e on " betrays her anger at this whole situation. The richness of his life,
21
his power, his right to rule - these are the things the male l over g ives her when
he showers her with attention. The obverse to these things - poverty of life,
'impotence ' , subservience - are hammered home as being her lot. Hence the
repeated (from V and VI ) d irective to the lover to leave her.
IX
Elaine Showalter, in descri bing the stages w hereby one dominant social
group in any g iven society contains and controls su b-groups i nto subord ination,
describes the necessity of i nterna lisation of the d ominant group's definiti ons by
the subord inate group. In the hegemony of patriarchy, the su bordinate " m uted "
group called "women" i nternalise their imposed definitions and believe them
( " Feminist Criticism " 1 9 9 ) . 1 9 This process has become evident in the Sonnets,
as the spea ker a bsorbs and reflects her culture 's definition of her. The resulting
feelings of valuelessness a nd marg inalisation emerge in Sonnet I X . Here too,
though , a vein of re bel lion is evident beneath the skin of self-de precati on: d oes
the irony of the final line undermine the attitude ad opted i n the sonnet?
The spea ker's arg ument is the sa me as previously : her gifts of l ove , in
response to his, are unworthy gifts. lt is, moreover, m orally wrong for her to
g ive the m , as she believes her gifts are positivel y poisonous ( " Can it be right to
give what I can give ? " ) . Can she let him sit beneath her salt tears, l istening to
her sighs reliving the "sweet sad years" of her past (first m entioned i n Sonnet
I ) ? Those years brought gifts, but the g ifts her life proffers are sad and
"renunciative " - negative offerings.
Also emergi ng i n these first six lines is the aware ness that her will is
opposed to his. The spea ker is a l l owing her l over to sit, i m pl ying she has c ontrol
here . Her smiles do not last, despite his "adjurations" to let them live. And
perhaps m ost tell i ngly, she speaks her will of renunciation against his. The
spea ker is caught within the structures and assumptions of the Victorian l ove
process, which require her self-denial and self-devaluing , and yet here (and
elsewhere in the Sonnets) she a p propriates the rhetoric of c ourtly l ove to
transform her position of wea kness. I n this rhetoric , she is unworthy of her
l over, as the sonneteer is unworthy of the noble beloved . As both poisonous
22
woman and courtly sonneteer, then , she cannot a p proach the lover, and so
chooses to renounce him. She thus exposes the c ourtly roles, showing how the
sonneteer is really m ore concerned with his own voice than with consummation
with the beloved. I n c ourtly c onventions, the sonneteer m ust be rejected by his
beloved so that he can continue to make lamenting sonnets. Similarly, the
wom an poet-lover w i l l renounce l ove to preserve her own (disallowed) voice. 20
More over, the very speech by which she conveys this renunciation itself asserts
her voice and w i l l against his. Beneath the conventional self-deprecation is a
strong will which refuses to be absorbed into the male's l ove .
The flaw in this stratagem is obvious, though , and torments the speaker:
she must deny her l ove, and i n so doing deny her sexual desire . l t is indicative of
this whole sonnet sequence, in which consummation of l ove (which is also the
dissolving l oss of self i nto the colonizing male) is endlessly postponed by the
rhetoric of desire . Leighton comments that romantic l ove, based in med ieval
courtly traditions, "is a sentiment, satisfied in the i ndefinite postponement of its
final gratification. In that postponement. the l over finds time to speak . . . it is a
passion for expression which characterises romantic l ove . I n this tradition, 'the
sentimenta l ' d oes not aim to become 'the sexua l ' , but rather to postpone it"
( " Stirring" 1 2) . The speaker talks for forty-four sonnets about her l ove ,
perpetuating her self-creations at the cost of delaying consum mation of that
l ove . In these sonnets she receives definition through the self-other split of her
excluded poet/ w oman persona and society. 2 1 O nce in the l ove relationshi p ,
the opposition is between the self a n d the other o f the m a l e l over. The resulting
sense of separate c onsciousness can only be preserved if full consummation a nd
incorporation into the male l over i s avoided . Hence the words of the Sonnets are
the stal ling tactic , preserving her voice until she can achieve a l ove relationsh i p
in which t w o equal selves preserve difference, but c a n interact freely. Like the
courtly sonneteer, she is as much i n l ove with her own words (as the
preservation of self) as she is with the l over.
Finally, though , it is the spea ker's self-di sg ust that emerges in this sonnet
( "We are not peers. / So to be l overs " ) . and inequity is not the only fear in her
mind . Taking up the i mages of previous sonnets, she refuses to be an
23
instrument that conveys poison or disfigurement to her lover; she w ould rather
order him away from her.
I will not soil thy purple with my d ust,
Nor breathe m y poison on thy Venice-glass,
N or give thee any l ove . . . which were unjust.
Beloved , I only l ove thee ! let it pass.
She is a re pository of death and corruption : her flesh is dust a lready, and her
soul is poison (the Morga n ma nuscript has 'sou l ' i nstead of ' poison ' [Ratchford
5 2] ) . She could not bear to see the l over's rich, precious and fine qualities,
symbolised by the purple stuff and Ven ice-glass, 2 2 corrupted by her self. That
would be " u njust " .
The am big uity released i n the final line turns this superficially
conventional self-de precating (courtly) l ove sonnet into something far m ore
complex. On the surface , the line seems to d ownplay her l ove, to indicate that
it is secondary to his precious fineness: she only l oves him , and she ends by
a djuring him (and herself) to let it pass and l apse.
And yet the line a lso calls that self-suppression i nto question. As in the
first six l ines this is an assertion of her love for him - an a ctive l ove, m oreove r ,
o f w h i c h s h e i s t h e subject. I n earlier S onnets m a nuscri pts, t h e w ords " l ove
thee" are underli ned - twice in · the Morgan ( Ratchford 5 2 ) . The effect is retai ned
with the exclamation mark foregrounding " l ove thee " , e m phasising that this l ove
is im portant, vital and costly. Her conventional attitude of self-deprecation
requires suppression of l ove, not an overt declaration. Thus her dismissal here ,
as a b ove , reiterates a covert claim , as the surface text of effacement cracks ·
open to reveal a contrary i ntention that demands recognition a nd validation of
her l ove .
X
The subtexts of S onnet I X emerge overtly i n Sonnet X .
Yet, l ove , mere l ove , is beautiful i ndeed
And w orthy of acceptation.
24
' Even m y blighted l ove , my " mere " love , is valid , ' the spea ker affirms, a nd she
i l l ustrates this with the example of fire, which burns as brig htly whether temple
or flax, cedar-plank or weed, are i gnited. In the context of the previous sonnets,
where the spea ker continual l y com pares hersel f unfavourably with the male
l over, c ontrasting their " uses and destinies" ( I l l ) , their voices (IV), their " gifts"
(VI I a nd I X ) , the i m plied correlations of the images for their l ove in Sonnet X
convey much. The l over is the tem ple: man-made, a site for worshi p and
adoration, repository of divine presence. Or a cedar-plank, a fine precious w ood ,
already fashioned and smoothed by man. She, by c ontrast, is flax: the natura l ,
homely but useful plant, though o n l y valua ble when changed and refined b y
human hands. Or the weed: natura l , ubiquitous; threatening c ultivated growth
and so a dangerous enemy. The reader's speculative associations w ith
masculine a nd feminine positions within a patriarchy are e nlightening .
But the spea ker 's primary focus in this sonnet is the power of her love.
And so she paints it as fire , resuming that potent i mage of S onnet V, i n which
the e m bers in her grief flame into scorching, leaping creativity. I n S onnet X her
l ove is the fire , blown i nto flame by her statement "I l ove thee " .
and when I say a t need
I l ove thee .. mark! .. I l ove the e ! .. i n thy sight
I stand transfig ured , g l orified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
O ut of my face toward thine.
She m ust spea k her l ove "at need " , a s we saw i n sonnet I X , a nd she a nticipates
that the power of that self-assertion has a potent effect on the l istening male.
Suddenly he m ust perceive her a s a subject, a self apart from h i m , a w i l l and
voice. She is transfigured - deliberatel y using the w ord associated with C hrist
and d i vi ne endorsement - and as such "glorified a right " . 2 3 H e watches the rays
that proceed " O ut of [her) face" to his, initiated and propelled by the fire of l ove,
but she a dds that this observation of her transfiguration occurs consciously
( " With c onscience " ) . For her or him? The attribution i s uncertai n here. Perha ps
rather f or both : this "transfiguration" is a shared transaction i nvolving and
indeed defi ning both as subject a nd observer, a structuring that both are
conscious of. " C onscience" in this context may mean sim pl y self-awareness, or
consciousness - both watch with awareness of the significance of this process
25
for both of their selves. But the word also carries m oral overtones, i m plying that
this recog nition of her subjectivity is a m oral act. The corollary is that his non­
recognition of her subjectivity is an immoral act.
There is a darker potential to this transfig uration. H e is watching her,
e m pl oying that proprietary gaze of earlier sonnets that ca ptures her. The end
e m phasis on "in thy sight" reminds us of that. And her expectations of his
response to her m oment of self-asserti on are only expectations. Her
proclamation of love may for him be a reaffirmation of his potency as male,
initiating love in the other who therefore reflects that potency back to h i m .
I ndeed , all the g rammatical attributi ons o f pronouns a n d verbs in t h i s sonnet are
am biguous: is the woma n's assertion of voice a product of the fire of l ove which
transfig ures her, or does it initiate that fire ? Does the man's gaze ca use the
tra nsfig uration - "in thy sight/ I stand transfigured " ? 24 These uncertai nties
unsettle neat role correlati ons in the sonnet as to initiator and receptor,
prefig uring the process of interchange that the spea ker works toward in the
sonnet sequence. 2 5
This moment of g lorified l ove does not cancel out the self-de precation
that has gone before . The s peaker still refers to herself as a mean creature; her
point is that l ove ennobles such creatures . O r m ore crucially, the expression of
that l ove does: the repetition and foregrounding ( " mark ! " ) of her spoken
assertion, "I l ove thee ! " , remains the pivot of this experience. Nevertheless, the
sonnet concludes with an i nterna lisation of anti-woman definitions, and the
saving grace of " Love " .
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I a m , doth flash itself, and show
How that g reat work of Love enhances Nature 's.
Nature 's work, what " I a m " , i s her inferi ority, her weakness, her c orruption.
What she feels - power, strength, moral right, as expounded i n the
transfiguration experience - is the product of Love . That the first is a definition
that has been placed upon her seems to have been forg otten. That the second is
a product of her own language - her consciousness and m outh formi ng the
words " I l ove thee" - is similarly effaced (although tem porarily). lt is the
26
speaker's own l ove , formulated through language, that has e m powered a nd
ennobled her, yet this attribution is as yet submerged.
The final l i ne also raises the question about the status or meaning of the
concept of " L ove " (with a capital " L " ) , which the speaker uses here . I s this Love
d istinct from the (lower-case) love which she m ore g enera l l y uses? This sonnet
marks her second use of the word : it first occurred i n S onnet I , w here the
grieving woman is held by Love instead of Death, and it i s used again
i nfrequently throughout the sequence . Does the u ppercase d isting uish a
universal feeling, a n idealist force that can transform ? I s l ove ( lowercase) the
shared , personal experience between herself a nd her l over? To what extent d oes
the spea ker see both as cultural l y constructed experiences, each defining the
other in an i nterchange of public and private ? S onnets l i ke this tenth one seem
to beg i n with an idealist assum ption of an a bsol ute force called " Love " that can
save a pathetic woman, but end u p m oving toward a reworking of that Love as
a linguistic edifice both structuring a nd constructed by a subject consci ousness.
This process of reworking will emerge m ore fully in the l ater sonnets of the
sequence. 2 6
XI
The speaker's com pounding tensions between unworthiness ,
deservedness a nd suppression are evi dent again i n S onnet X I . She i s w e a k a nd
unworthy for the male l over, yet she is made w orthy by her l ove, and yet both
positi·ons demand her suppression of that l ove : " And therefore if to l ove can be
desert, I am not all unworthy . " Having exp! ained at the close of Sonnet X t he
ennobli ng power of Love , the speaker here claims it for herself. She deserves his
l ove , i s made worthy of it by her own. Yet that " desert" deconstructs the line
with its alternative meanings: while the primary meaning has t o d o w ith
deservedness, l ove for her a lso means a desert of d esertion, a "desolate and
barren region " (QE D ) , forsa ken o f people, o r in t h i s case , l over. A s t h i s sonnet
g oes on to say, she m us t renounce his l ove, a nd so resign herself to sadness
and d esolati on.
•
27
The spea ker continues to reiterate her frailty, but then concludes with the
line " - why advert/ To these things ? " Why i ndeed ? This rehearsal of her
wea kness is surely torture to her, em phasisi ng as it d oes the i nequity in their
relationship and her inevitable sacrifice of her l over. She d escribes her wea kness
in physical bodily terms - pale cheeks a nd tre m bling knees - a nd yet the
wea kness of which she speaks is in fact non-physica l , or rather, m ore than
physica l . She fails in her " heavy heart " , i n her fading " m instrel-life that once
was girt/ To c limb Aornus" and is now scarcely able to com pete in song with a
nightingal e . This is the real crux for her: she is a p parentl y unequal in voice.
Her reiterati ons of unworthi ness are thus expla ined , as she em phasises
that wea kness is not her natural state, but a received condition. Previously she
was vigorous in her voice and song , " g irt" implying a strong surrounding and
g athering force that prepared her to climb Aornus, the m ountain home of the
Muses. Again (as in Sonnet I l l ) the woman's enfee blement is brought back to
her enervation as a poet, singer or subject voice . I n her culture , the woman i s
deprived o f voice a n d broken d o w n to a position o f i nferiority a nd
'unworthiness ' . "0 Bel oved , it is plain/ I am not of thy w orth nor for thy place ! "
But she l oves , and so her anger at being a bsorbed into her culture 's roles
for l overs, further fixing her as other, has m oved to an acceptance of l ove as a
means by which she is granted w orthiness again: by a p propriating l ove 's
rhetoric, she retains a voice. As she is c onstructed by her culture, she
manipulates that constructi on to retain some personal power. The role of c ourtly
sonneteer is peculiarly suited to her position, and val idates her voice. M oreover,
that voice is a ble to exert wil l , by renouncing the l over and so resisting total
a bsorption into the male l ove fantasy.
And yet, because I l ove thee , I obtai n
From that same l ove this vindicating grace ,
To live on still in l ove , and yet i n vai n , . .
To bless thee , yet renounce thee t o thy face.
Her active l ove ("I l ove thee " ) gives her vindication, a pproves her self a nd
desires as valid, so she can atte m pt to " live on" as a self.
28
But the price of her subversive use of l ove to regain a sense of selfhood
i s inescapable, a s a lways. Her l ove i s i n vai n as l ove: it can never be fulfilled .
The final phrase exemplifies this i m passe . Whilst her l ove will endure beneath
the surface, publicly - to him - she m ust g ive it up: "renounce thee to thy face " .
The last three w ords suggest a declarati on of her w i l l , a s she stands face-to-face
opposing and challenging him in the manner of S onnet V's " looking in thine
eyes " . Yet i n the very act of asserting selfhood , she m ust sacrifice a nd suppress
her d esire. The cost of her subversion is cruel .
XIV
I n the sonnets w e have been examining, the spea ker evinces a strong
i nternal tensi on between asserting a sense of self-worth, and denying any self­
w orth because of the demands of both patriarchy a nd the conventions of the
courtly l over (whose traditional self-a bnegation before the ad ulated l oved object
is the role she is required to play in a p propriating the genre ) . In S onnet X I V , the
tension e merges in an a p peal against traditional masculine l ove for traditional
feminine traits . The spea ker decides to rewrite the c onventions of the c ourtly
l ove lyri c : praising the l oved one as object with particular parts, such as eyes,
hair, ski n . " If thou m ust l ove m e , " she pleads, " let it be for nought/ Except for
l ove's sake only . " She g oes on to mimic the man's voice in a parody of the
patronisin g , o bjectifying attitude of this masculine love:
' I l ove her for her smile .. her look .. her way
O f speaking gently, .. for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, a nd certes broug ht
A sense of pleasant ease on such a d a y ' [ . . . ]
Masculine l ove i s conditional u pon superficial physical qualities - a smile, a l oo k qualities that enact the feminine role of submissive , com pliant, beautiful man­
pleaser. She speaks gently; she has a " trick" (suggesting it i s an acquired feat,
not usual ) of thought that " falls in well with " his - his thought being superior,
the n orm that she should comply with. Her prime val ue is t o bring ease, a nd the
casual unimportance of "such a day" i s d ismissive of even that value . These
qualities are all changea ble, and l ove " wrought" on their basis m a y be a s easily
" unwrought" Y M oreover, these things " may/ Be cha n ged, or change for
29
thee " . The male l over plays the role of creator, m oulding the woman to his
fancy, which may then shift. In the whole scenario, l ove d e pends upon bodily
presence, and a bodil y presence of certain criteria .
The spea ker a lso rejects pity-induced l ove:
Neither l ove m e for
Thine own dear pity's wi ping my cheeks dry,­
A c reature might forget to wee p, who bore
Thy comfort l ong , and l ose thy l ove thereby!
Pity is as transient as physical qualities, because it enta ils keeping the object of
pity in a permanent state of pitiabil ity. She must c ontinue to weep to preserve
his l ove, and can never be com forted . The mani pulative selfishness of such a
l over (note that this c omfort m ust be borne) is suggested here. This comfortless
wee ping , however, is also the usual l ot of the ever-bereft courtl y lover: this
courtly l over/woman poet d oes not want to weep endlessly for a male l over's
benefit . In thus exposing the essentially static nature of courtly l ove (which is
also the danger i n her own a ppropriation of the role ) , she opens the way for
refig urings of l ove , based on more pragmatic roles.
But l ove m e for l ove 's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through l ove 's eternity.
Love here is appa rently presented as an ideal a bsolute, separate from the
structures that pass for l ove i n her culture . This d esire for a transcendent value,
something permanent beyond the material real m (and beyond androcentric l ove
demands for bodily presence ) , places the spea ker in the Victorian zeitgeist. In a
generation that yearned for a transcendent a bsolute i n the world they were
c om ing to see as evoluti onary and G od-forsa ken, the speaker's desire for a l ove
beyond the common and limiting delineations of her time is understandable. But,
as in S onnets X a nd X I , this c onception is almost simultaneously undercut by
the speaker's own configurations and reformulati ons of the experience of l ove ,
which show that " love " is not a transcendent a bsol ute . These final lines,
re peated from the opening line, demonstrate this undercutting , as the m ortal
male l over is tied i n to eternity by l ove . Yet that l ove has j ust been d efined by
the equally m ortal woman in the negative prescri ption of the preceding lines.
30
Love is therefore exposed as socially-constructed (as in her definition i n Sonnet
X , where l ove is the shared experience of transformation, depende nt u pon the
i nterrelations of l over and l over) even a s the spea ker tries t o a ssert its
transcendence.
XV
The possi bility/ hope of a transcendent l ove d oes n ot last long .
I mmediately, i n S onnet XV, the spea ker returns to pessim ism a nd doubt a bout
their relationship. She begins by answering an accusation of her lover's, that she
" wear[s]/ Too calm and sad a face" before him. " Accuse me n ot " , she
beseeches h i m ,
F o r we t w o l ook t w o ways, a n d cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow a nd hair.
That he accuses - with connotations of antagonism and judgement - is very
bitter: she is only too aware of both her dilemma of su ppressed l ove , a nd the
circumstances that m a ke it. Their two d ifferent positions and roles within their
culture make thei r outlooks entirely opposed: they " l ook two ways " . H e can
e njoy the sunshine of his world , whereas she is d riven into despair by that same
sunlight. His accusation is unfair, she believes, and his desire t o have her reflect
happi ness bac k to him again suggests the selfish egotism of a sun-king who
m ust be affirmed i n his role.
She takes u p the notion of two d ifferent ways of l ooking :
O n m e thou lookest, with no d oubting care ,
A s o n a bee shut i n a crystalline,Since sorrow hath shut m e safe i n l ove's divin e ,
A n d to spread w i n g a nd f l y in t h e outer air
Were m ost i m possible failure, if I strove
To fail so.
The earlier manuscri pts of the poem have the first" line of this extract as "Thou
l ookest, sweet, on m e , without a care " a nd this hints a s to the undermining
nature of those words "no d ou bting " i n the final version ( Ratchford 6 4 ) . She
hopes and assumes that he l ooks on her with care , but the manne r i n which he
31
l ooks belies this assumption: he observes her with the scientifi c , detached air of
one who examines an insect specimen caught forever under glass. She is the
object, and he is the detached su bject observer, sure and safe in his freedom
and superiority.
The description of herself as the bee in the crystalline is chillingly a pt i n
t h e circumstances. The i nsect o f industry and purpose , gathering the i ngredients
to make sweet honey, yet evincing a dangerous potential in its sting , offers a
suggestive representation of the woman poet, full of purpose and a bility to m a ke
her song of poetry, and with the linguistic power to defend herself and inflict
pain when attacked . But this bee is suffocated and dead, caught in cold , hard
crysta l and forever denied freedom , speech or self-defence again.
H ow d oes she gloss her own image ? She has been shut in her tra p by the
"sorrow" that is her situati on: she must choose between fulfilled love and
selfhood . The c rystal she g l osses as "love 's divine " : this is the tomb in which
she is tra ppe d . The phrase plays on the very rhetoric she e m pl oys in Sonnet
XIV, that 'love is divi ne ' , but here l ove's d ivinity is seen as an a ppalling cultural
i m position. The phrase also suggests that she is trapped by a l ove structure that
is m odelled on the divine, on G od 's grace and condescension to humankind . lt is
this perception of love between the sexes as a granting of grace and favour that
precisely places her as silent object a nd so sm others her selfhood .
Continuing her image, she admits that it is of course i m possi ble to escape
and fly - to even move within the crystal and attem pt to spread her wings is
" m ost i m possible fa ilure " . The double negative of the phrase ma kes the
a bsoluteness of her position unavoidably obvious: not only will this be a failure,
it i s i m possi ble . Nevertheless, that subject voice will persist in asserting its
selfhood , even if in ac knowledged futility: "if I strove/ To fail so" . The
placement of "I strove " at the close of the line em phasises its assertive voice.
Even within im possi ble parameters, a strong will is trying to operate.
The critical point behind this trope of the crystallined bee, though , is that
this vision is what the male l over sees. This is manifestly an i nd ictment of the
32
patriarchal gaze. According to the spea ker, he sees her as the trapped bee, kept
" safe " by being shut away, which means of course that the watcher i s safe .
I f this metaphor characterises her l over's objectifying and detached gaze,
accordi ng to the speaker, then how d oes she herself see ?
But I l ook on thee . . on thee . .
Beholding, besides l ove , the end o f l ove,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory!
As one who sits and gazes from a bove ,
Over the rivers to t h e bitter sea .
His gaze - particular, i m prisoning , objectifying - contrasts with her gaze, which is
inclusive, vast , almost n on-specific. When she l ooks at her l over she sees not
only l ove , but its companion, the end of l ove; she parad oxica lly 'hears' oblivion
beyond memory. The idea of the feminine outlook in ( French post-structuralist)
feminism equates with precisely these a bi lities, to see beyond the structures of
dualism to the way in which the opposites interplay a nd incorporate each other.
The d i ff e rance that occurs within and around language to create meaning, a lso
posits the vast end less sea of alternative meanings - the oblivion out of which
memory occurs and gains meaning . 2 8 The rivers are kept rigidly within their
defined ban ks until they reach the boundless formless sea. The rhetoric of such
feminism cannot be seamlessly fitted to EBB's poetry, but the echoes are
significant. Here we see the speaker descri bing a female way that is d i fferent
from the male way, that breaks d own the artificial boundaries of patriarchy. 29
Crucially, of course , the spea ker's vision here i s tragic; it e ntails the
a p prehension of the end of her l over's l ove for her, and the l oss of even
memories of that love . The oblivion, whilst deconstructing the masculinist
structures that im prison her, also appears to dismantle their s pecific l ove. 3 0
XVI
S onnet XVI mar ks a m oment of capitulation, when the speaker finally
'gives i n ' to the male l over's ' offensive' . The entire sonnet adopts this language
of battle with and surrender to a l ordly king , i n a deeply am bivalent manner.
33
The sonnet beg ins: "And yet " . Despite the c oncerns she has expressed in
the previous sonnets, he still overcomes her. The Morgan manuscri pt specifies
the literality of perspective in " overcomes" ( 'comes over ' ) : it reads " And yet
because thou art a bove me so" ( Ratchford 6 6 ) . But, she continues, because he
overcomes in such a noble manner, she finds she can surrender.
Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
Thy purple round me, till my heart shall g row
Too close against thine heart , henceforth to know
H ow it shook when alone.
Against all her personal feelings and i ntuition, and against those fears that have
been elaborated throughout the sonnets thus fa r, he can preva i l . Definitions of
' prevai l ' are: "To be superior in strength or influence; to have or gain the
su periority or advantage; to gain the mastery or ascendancy" ( O E D ) . The
spea ker re-uses her image of his garment of royal purpl e : here he flings it a bout
her, enfolding her within hi mself and his clothing , and so symbolising the
a ppropriation into himself that she feare d . Her selfhood is l ost as it is
i nc orporated i nto his (the Morgan ma nuscript has the final phrase of line 6 as
" Its separate trembl ing pulse" [ Ratchford 6 6 , em phasis m ine] ) .
N o wonder she ma kes the cryptic comment:
Why, conquering
May prove as lordly and complete a thing
I n lifting u pward , as i n crushing low !
C onquering i s still c onquering, still a n absolute , final "com plete " act, whether it
lifts the c onquered u p or c rushes her down. Ironically, a l m ost sarcastically, she
tells him not to deceive himself: this i s still as bitter a vanquishment as if he
c rushed her d own, because in effect the same result occurs. Her separate self
c eases to be :
And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
To one who l ifts him from the bloody earth ,­
Even so, Beloved , I at last record ,
Here ends m y strife .
34
The extended metaphor of battle, defeat and surrender is here taken to its
logical conclusion. She has fought him (or the ideology he represents) hard a nd
long, until the earth around i s bloody with her defeat. Now, h owever, she m ust
relinquish her weapon a nd defence (her i ndividual will ? her voice ? ) to the victor,
the male l over. The term " Beloved " falls with huge contrast into the c ontext,
juxta posing with the word " strife " which descri bes their courtshi p thus far. The
strife of contention a nd battle has been between the m , but there has also been
a personal strife of s plit desires warring within herself.
The action of the l over here is noble and fair as he lifts her from her
position of debasement, takes her weight and carries her. The earlier
m a nuscri pts have nothing of this. The Morgan m anuscript g ives lines 9 - 1 0 as:
And as a soldier, struck d own by a sword ,
Cries ' Here m y (battle) strife ends', & sinks
dea d to earth [ . . . ]
(Ratchford 6 6 )
T h e violence inflicted u pon the spea ker is quite p l a i n ; s h e h a s been struck d own
by the other's sword, a nd she is dea d . The image of the death of separate
selfhood is thus clear, perhaps too m uch so, hence the obscuring a nd rewriting
of it in the final versi on. The ' Beloved ' must be worthy of her surrender; there
m ust be some nobility a bout h i m .
The need t o justify surrender to such a m a n becomes overt i n t h e final
three l ines of the sonnet:
If thou i nvite m e forth,
I rise a bove a basement at the word .
Make thy l ove larger to enlarge m y w orth.
The w ord of the king (God-li ke) is all that will m otivate her, a nd only at his
i nvitation can the lowly subject rise . His word and power g ive her worth . Here
the theme of the male's initiating l ove givi ng l ove and val ue to the female
emerges, a s she asks him to enlarge his l ove a nd so to give her g reater worth .
S onnet XVI , with its conflicting ·im pulses of g ratitude and outrag e ,
exe m plifies t h e central a mbivalences a nd tensions i n both t h e speaker a n d her
35
sonnet sequence . O n one side is her obedience to esta blished roles within
patriarchy, roles she has internalised . Within this structure she plays the passive
woman: resuscitated , ennobled and inspired by male l ove . Submission to this
structure means reli nquishing her own will and personal responsibility, and the
tem ptation to g ive u p the battle is overwhelming . This tension i s n ot peculiar to
EBB's personae; many Victorian heroines experience similar conflicts. 3 1 Jane
Eyre has exactly the same struggle as she battles both R ochester and St. J ohn
Rivers, and she uses the imag ery of a flood that threatens to drown her in an
a l m ost pleasura ble end to resistance.
I was tem pted to cease struggling with him - to rush down the
torrent of his own will into the gulf of his existence , a nd there l ose
my own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been
once before, in a different way, by another. I was a fool both
times (Bront e 443 ) . 3 2
O n the other side of this internal conflict i s the Victorian heroi ne 's
reaction against these roles and her commitment to her own will, voice and
desire . The conflict between these states of m ind forms the central tension of
Sonnets from the Portuguese, a tension that the sonnets themselves rhetorically
atte m pt to resolve . Even as the woman descri bes her a bsorption i nto the male
lover, her poetic words continue to attem pt separate selfhood in their
descriptions of personal , different experience.
XVI I
The same tension between submission a nd rebellion continues i n S onnet
X VI I , nota bly in the sonnet's highly ambiguous tone. What begins as lyrical
praise of the male l over's poetic a bility ends i n extreme irony as the spea ker
speculates a s to her role in his art.
The sonnet begins by attri buting virtually divine power to the lover.
My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
God set between His After and Before ,
And strike u p a nd stri ke off the general roar
Of the rushing worlds, a melody that floats
In the serene a i r purely.
36
This poet can a l m ost touch eternity as he ranges in his poetry from the
beg i nning of creation to the projected end of the world (divinely speaking ) .
Moreover h e can wrest orde r from the chaos a nd cacophony o f the " rushing
worlds" (im plying he can range in space as well a s time) and create a " pure "
melody that " floats" i n " serene air" . Both his abilities a nd his creation o f pure
spirit-li ke poetry suggest he is a l m ost divine. Certainly the s pea ker reveres him
as g od-like , just as he himself l ooks u p to God for his inspirati on.
This reverence for the poet emerges from Romantic theories that poetry
i s a moral and religi ous influence for good and that " Poets are the
unacknowledged legislators of the worl d " . 33 The male l over's poetry is
" medicated music" that can com bat mankind's w orst " uses " , acting as an
a ntid ote to the chaos and sadness of existence. From his position floating in the
serene air he can pour this a ntidote into the ears of fallen humanity.
The a p parently sincere tone of this adorati on , as the spea ker shows
a ppreciation for her l over's role as soother and m inister to a troubled humanity,
becomes highly problematic i n the context of the bitter resignation of the
previous sonnet and the challenges presented at the close of this sonnet. The
massive presum ption and supe ri ority of the male's status tends to undermine her
a p parently ingenuous description of it. Certainly that status is in sharp c ontrast
with the speaker's role i n life , as his muse . The possi ble positions she might
occupy for him throw his position and purpose into a highly suspicious light.
G od 's will d evotes
Thine to such ends, and m i ne to wait on thine.
How , Dearest, wilt thou have m e for m ost use?
A hope , to sing by gladly? .. or a fine
Sad memory, with thy songs to i nterfuse ?
A shade, in which to sing . . . of palm or pine?
A grave, on which to rest from sing i n g ? . . Choose .
The first l i nes of the extract baldly state the chain of reverence mentioned
a bove , u pon which this patriarchy structures l ove a nd gender relations: woman
i s t o man a s m a n is t o God . According to such religious structuring , j ust a s
G od ' s w i l l f o r t h e male l over-poet is to administer t h e a ntidote of his poetry to
society, so H is will for her is to d evote her will to the male poet. H ence the
37
honeyed question of line 1 0 . She is the passive instrument waiting to fulfil her
purpose , to be useful to h i m .
The last four lines a re bril liantly structured around the speaker's declining
state of existence as potential muse. This st r ucturing exposes the masculine
project for women as destructive . In n one of the four stages she delineates is
the speaker a person, let al one a woman: her subjectivity is utterly denied .
Rather she is a form of representation, a sign or trace of a human self. I s this
how she is most useful to him ?
I n the first state she acts as a stimulus for hope, that ena bles him to sing
glad songs. Presumably she is a hope for l ove , of l ove returned , of desire
fulfilled . Certainly she focusses him towards the future . The second state rather
looks to the past, as she becomes a "fine/ Sad memory " . The l ove has ended
and the woman as other has been transmuted into an exquisitel y sad but
beautiful memory, as the man's life as poet g oes on . O f course , his songs are
" i nterfuse [ d ) " with her mem ory.
The next step in the woman's representation is as a shad e , a g h ost of a
dead person . Will she have received the pal m of heaven or will she perha ps be i n
t h e torment o f 'the other place' ? 34 A 'shade' is a l s o "something that h a s o n l y a
fleeting existence, or that has become reduced almost to nothin g " ( O E D ) . I n the
final stage of the disintegration of the woman as muse, she is reduced to d ust, a
g rave that sim ply ma rks that someone once was. The person is entirely effaced
a nd all that is left is dirt.
The Muse e pitomises the concept of the other. She d oes not e xist as a
subject person because her entire function is to be a site for a nother's
subjectivity and creativity. I n this seventeenth sonnet , the s pea ker places this
role before her lover and shows him its paucity in com parison with his role a s
t h e marvellous creating poet (of t h e octave ) . S h e satirizes h e r role as l over­
m use, asking which of the deathly roles in his representati on of her will be m ost
valuable to h i m .
38
The real bite of the sonnet, however, comes i n that final peremptory
command: "Choose . " lt bitterly submits to the dehumanisation of being a m use,
t o the phallocentric im perative that the male poet is the centre , a nd she a
'relati ve creature ' . And yet i n the very act of submission she a sserts her own
subjectivity - she commands him. Her i m perative t o him to proclaim his
i m perative, underm i nes his power to do so.
XVI I I
The next stage i n a patriarchal courtship, when a woman has surrendered
to a suitor's a ppl icati ons with an avowal of l ove (and all that means for a
Victorian woman), requires some kind of material exchange to occur, as a sign
for the l overs' physical betrothal . Masculinist l ove, as was evide nt in Sonnet
XIV, is tied to bodily presence - hence the courtly sonneteer's c oncern for
details of the beloved's beauty. For Victorian l overs the exchange of a lock of
hair effected the symbolic transaction that denotes this d e pendency upon the
physical, a nd sonnets XVI I I and XIX discuss this step i n the relationsh i p between
the speaker and her poet l over.
The woman's action here reveals the gendered imbalance i n this symbolic
transaction. She g ives first; a piece of her self is g i ven; a nd she g ives hair, the
symbol of erotic beauty i n a man's eyes. Certainly the speaker recognises the
significance of her action:
I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this t o thee ,
Which now u pon m y fingers thoughtfully
I ring out t o the full brown length a nd say
'Ta ke it . '
O stensibly the speaker's superficial meaning here i s that this man i s her first
'true' l ove : he is the first to be afforded this honour. Bearing in mind the a nxiety
that has suffused earlier sonnets concerning the necessity for her to g ive up her
selfhood for a nd to her l over, this action is, however, inesca pably dang erous for
the speaker. The hair-gift (and at this point it is only she who gives - he
responds i n kind later) sym boli$es too m uch the act of a ppropriation she has
feared : owning her hair means the man owns her self. S pecifically, he owns her
39
erotic self, which her hair sym bolises. The trope of women's hair is highly
significant i n Victorian society, as Eliza beth Gitter has shown i n her article, "The
Power of Women's Hair in the Victorian Imagination " . Hair symbolises a
woman's sexuality, and the more abundant it is, the m ore potent the sexual
i nvitation. Similarly, cutting a woman's hair is a sexual surrender, a nd Gitter
cites the male l over's request in this sonnet as " next to a request for sexual
surrender" (943 ) . Such a c onsummation has already been equated with l oss of
personal freed om a nd will in previous sonnets.
And yet the woman speaker stil l gives her ha ir. She has ended "her
strife " , and she n ow submits to the rules of patriarchal l ove . The speech that
accompanies her g ift to her lover, however, indicates by its solemnity and
deliberation her awareness of the circumstances. The plain opening statement
declares bluntly the depth of the sacrifice she now makes for him; the
'thoughtful ' stra ightening-out of the l ong l oc k to its full length, im presses upon
him just how m uch she is giving. And, as i n XVI I , she commands him: "Take it. "
Overt subm issi on sim ultaneously carries covert self-assertion .
The force of a symbol is in its interpretation. A masculinist reading of this
sym bol of her hair as a sign for her youthful beauty a nd eroticism can only be
d isa ppointed by the actual referent, she argues, because she is n o l onger a
young woma n . Rather, for the speaker, her hair is a symbol of something very
different:
l t only may
N ow shade on two pale cheeks, the mark of tears,
Ta ught drooping from the head that hangs aside
Throug h sorrow 's trick.
Perha ps the reason she g ives her hair so cal m l y i s that she has changed the
signification of the sym bol . To her the l oc k sta nds for her grief a nd her l oss; the
sorrow at both her suppressed situation and her resulting enervation. This is
what she bequeaths to him, and gladly: a sym bol of her oppressi on under a
woman-denying structure .
40
I thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first, but Love is justified ,Take it thou, .. finding pure, from all those years,
The kiss my m other l eft here when she died.
She had thought that she w ould die before a man made this request. Love ,
h owever, is "justified " in ta king the lock prematurely: it is proved right,
vindicated , a bsolved . Love , transcendent and powerful in Victorian sentiments,
is here portrayed as a usurping rival to death . lt m ust justify its action of
preempting death for this w oman, and the spea ker effects this justification by
l i n ki ng Love to the male lover: " Love is justified/ Ta ke it thou " . Is it Love or the
male l over who takes the lock of hair - or are both the same? In conflating the
two, the speaker i m plies that the public, apparently transcendent power she has
previously envisioned (though problematically) is a pprehended or experienced
only i n the private , personal relati onship. To all i ntents a nd purposes, her
idealistic " Love " is l ocated in, or represented by, the male l over . Later references
support this conflation: Sonnet XXI I I cries "The n , l ove me, Love ! " to the man;
Sonnet XXIV l inks the "close hand of Love " with the safe male lover; XXVI I
extols the l over a s her saviour and concludes that " Love , as strong as Death,
retrieves as wel l " . Love becomes the shared experience which defines two
l overs. 3 5
The final phrase of this sonnet with its passing reference to the s peaker's
m other is perhaps its most crypti c , as the shifting nature of her meta p hors of
hair and Love also becomes evident i n this image. The spea ker's last experience
of Love was her m other's kiss , ke pt pure ( i . e . virginal - not erased by a man's
kiss) over the passing of years. This kiss reiterates the idea that Love is only
articulated or defined within specific experiences of it. A transcendent, a bsolute
power is thus u n knowable (and irrelevant) besid e the l ove of her m other or the
male l over. The subversive potential this point carries for Victorian prescri ptions
a bout gender roles within an a p parently divinely-ordai ned l ove structure is
enormous. The shifting interpretations in this sonnet act as a commentary on
the possibilities for women and men within this patriarchal structure . As she
redefines the symbol of her hair and the signification of Love , the spea ker
foregrounds the power of tropes in exposing a p parently m onolithic structures.
41
XIX
The companion to Sonnet XVI I I , Sonnet X I X sees t h e return gift o f a lock
of hair from the male l over to the speaker. I n the opening two l i nes, she e m ploys
an image of the marketplace , the g reat Exchange of the Venetian R ialto. The
soul , she sees , has its marketplace and its merchandise: the two l overs' souls
barter in curls of hair. O nce again the i m portance of that exchange is evident: it
i s souls that are trading . The curls of hair obviousl y signify much:
And from my poet's forehead to m y heart,
Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,­
As purply black, as erst, to Pindar's eyes
The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
The nine white Muse-brows.
The commercial nature of these transactions is unsettl ing : l ove traded l i ke this
enacts a masculine l i bidinal economy, in which experience of l ove and gender
relations occur within a system of property and exchange . In this masculi ne
economy, giving is dangerous because it "is perceived as esta blishing a n
i nequal ity - a difference - that is threatening in that it seems to open u p a n
i m balance o f power" (Moi 1 1 2) . According to H e l € me Cixous, giving within this
economy is really a bout returns, a bout getting returns on i nvestments. Feminine
giving is, on the other hand, a p parently limitless and generous, without a
thought for returns (Castration 48-50; 5 3-54) . 3 6
The transactions of the two l overs here can be read i n the l i g ht of such
theories. The woman has had to enter the economy of l ove exchanges, and
rather than allowing a n i m balance of obligation to exist between them, the male
l over quickly returns the gift i n kind. He thus has invested , but has a return on
his investment: the woman's sym bolic submission to him . N o wonder the
exchanged tresses outweigh "arg osies" , the biggest merchant shi ps of Venice .
These curls - particularly hers - 'carry' or convey far m ore . 37
What is m ost i nteresting in these l i nes is the major role displacement that
occurs . The phrase " m y poet's hea d " seems to indicate the male l over , as i n
XVI I . Thus the lock comes from h i s forehead t o her heart; she receives the
invaluable g ift. If this is so, however, the remainder of the extract i s highly
42
suggestive . She receives the l oc k of purple-black hair - his hair - a s Pindar saw
the dark tresses on the brows of the nine classical Muses. The sim i l e clearly
a ssociates herself with the poet figure Pindar, whilst the male l over is a ssociated
with the Muses. The surprise in this major role reversal is prefigured in the
a m biguity of "my poet' s forehea d " ; the reader's initial im pression is that the
speaker refers to her own forehea d , that she is the poet. In both cases, the
speaker's self-characterisation as courtly poet and l over i s em phasise d . Yet, as
has become evident, she i s dissatisfied with the traditional conventions of that
c ourtly l ove relationship , even with gender inversi ons. Her resulting rewriting
( begun i n S onnet X I V ) , continues here .
For this counterpart, . .
Thy bay-crown's shade, Beloved , I surmise,
Still l ingers on thy curl , it is so blac k !
Thus, with a fillet o f smooth-kissing breath ,
I tie the shadow safe from gliding back [ . . . )
The bay or laurel leaves are traditionally used as a w reath for a conqueror or a
poet; the conquering (see Sonnet XVI ) male poet's crown casts shadows on his .
head. As if this were a danger or a trial to h i m , she will blow them away - or
rather , a s the image is m ore specific than this, she will m a ke a headband of
breath that will restrain the shadows. The echoes of his poetic role a re thus
removed from the curl of hair. And all this is acco m plished with "smooth-kissing
breat h " - her gentl e , e njoya ble, soft words?
In the sam e way that she has reread the signification her own lock of hair
in the prior sonnet, so the speaker now redefines the man's curl . She rem oves
from it the c ontam ination of the artificial role of society's poet (ela borated in
S onnet I l l ) . Exem plified by the metaphor of the laurel wreath , this masculinist
role of poet a nd conqueror is cold and deathly. lt d eprives h i m , as well as her, of
real warmth and love, by l oc ki ng both into an i m prisoning hierarchical dualism of
Poet a nd Muse , male a nd female, subject and object . This is why she w ould ,
with her own i nitiative and gentle but determined w ords, remove the crown that
endorses such roles, and i nstead i nstall his lock of hair and his l ove where
nothing will hinder them: on her warm , alive heart. There it receives her
" natural " , g ood heat a s long as she l ives.
43
H ow does this releasing from the role fit i n with the sonnet's earlier
reversal of poet-muse roles? The exchange of the curls in Sonnets XVI I I and X I X
h a d taken o n a commercial , value-competing o r proprietorial meaning . To expose
the structure that made it so, the speaker inverted its roles and so foregrounded
the structure and its danger to t hem as potentially equal fulfilled lovers. (The
l overs a re , a fter a l l , "counterparts " - two corresponding parts to a whol e . ) Her
rescue of him frees him (and by extension, her) from the 'artificial ' structures of
their culture, i ncidenta l l y showing that strength of purpose and a bility is n on­
g e nder specific. Finally, the exchange of hair is rewritten to mean what she
rather intended : a commitment to a " natura l " l ove is unhindered by social
c onstrai nts . The Romantic em phasis on the natural returns to a position of
exchange, in which love feeds and is fed by each participant.
Conclusion
I n this first cha pter, several themes have emerged from the opening
sonnets . The speaker's tension between submitting to or rejecting a l ove
relationship which she believes will silence her voice and rem ove her separate
selfhood , has emerged . So has her strategy of a ppropriating the courtly l ove
structure of sonneteer and bel oved , using the positi on of the sonneteer as a
metaphor for her position as isolated female poet, which a lso then g ives her a
valid site from which to speak and so retain her voice. Also evident is her
questioning of the nature of l ove : is it a transcendent, ideal force or i s it a n
experience constructed a nd defined locally, between t w o su bject beings who are
then transformed by the experience ? The following cha pters develop these and
related issues.
44
N OTES
1
See also Elaine Showalter's discussion of this perceived need for a classical
education in order to write (A Literature 42).
2 The " m ystic Shape " , according to Helen Cooper, refers to The Iliad Book
1 : 204, i n which Athene as the Shape holds Achilles back from fighting Agamemnon.
The picture may also suggest the medieval image of Fortune as a w oman with a
t o p-knot, which the clever individual siezes as Fortune passes by. Here the poet­
s pea ker plays the role of passive Fortune, grasped by opportunistic Love.
3 Fanny Ratchford , Sonnets from the Portuguese Variorum Edition (New
York: Philip C . Duschnes , 1 9 5 0 ) . This edition is used throughout this thesis.
Punctuation in square brac kets is my own.
4 According to Toril Moi , " Phallocentrism denotes a system that privileges
the pha ll us as the symbol or source of power. The conjuncture of log ocentrism and
phallocentrism is often called, after Derrida, phallogocentrism" ( 1 7 9 , endnote ) .
5 This process is what Luce l rigaray foregrounds in h e r use o f the w ord
" s pecularization " , and the pun in her title Spe culum - which conflates the idea of
gazing with a focus on female genitalia (which is the basis of psychoanalytical
m odels of female development). See, for exa m ple, Spe culum 47-49.
6 The Morgan Li brary manuscript contains the fol lowing development of this
line: "The sight of thee from me" is re placed by " My sight from thy sight " , which
i n turn is replaced by "My sight from seeing thee " . The l i ne m oves from the male
l over's centra lity ( " thee " , "thy sight " ) to making the woman's sight central and
active ( " My sight . . . seeing " ) (Ratchford 40) .
7 The touch symbolism occurs i n contradistinction t o the sight imagery
mentioned a bove . I n l rigaray's thesis, touch is i nclusive and n on-objectifying - the
feminine m ode to the masculine gaze. Already, though in a primitive form , the
s peaker-poet is m oving towards proposing an alternative to the phallog ocentric
w orld in which she exists. The conscious construction of such a world occurs later.
(See Stephenson 73, for a similar discussion of l rigarayan specularity a nd touch in
the S onnets . )
8 S e e Forster, Bi ography 1 46; Karlin 2 7 0 .
9 Cooper cites Elizabeth Barrett Browning's i ntroduction to A Drama of Exi l e ,
in which she re-writes Milton's Paradise Lost from Eve's point of view : '" I had
promised m y own prudence to shut close the gates of Eden between Milton a nd
m yself, so that none might say I dared to walk in his footsteps. H e should be
within , I thought, with his Adam and Eve unfailing or falling , - a nd I without, with
m y EXILES, - I also a n exile ! "' (Woman 5 8 ) .
45
1 0 The spea ker-poet leans against a cypress tree, the tree traditi onally
associated with m ourning and death ( Q E D ) .
11
See , for example, Stephenson's elucidation of the positions i n courtly l ove
{ Poetry 4 ) a nd the Sonnets' adaption of them { 73-74).
12
Leighton argues differently and suggestively that the spea ker rather
excludes the male l over altogether from her formulation: she plays both the subject
a nd the o bject - the l over poet and the silent m use - at different times. I n this way
she protects her l over from being drawn into the dualism; he never becomes the
o bject. Such i s the c onfidence of her "verbal self-sufficiency" that he is n ot needed
in her poetry, as she fills all the roles herself, with her own l ove {Eliza beth 1 02-0 3 ) .
13
Merm i n 's insig htful ela borati on o f the problems of interplaying subject and
object positi ons, whilst showing the " utopian" project of attem pting two subjects
and two objects, seems to accept the Victorian judgement that such a depiction
" violate[s] decorum " (O rigins 1 30-3 1 ) . Mermin reads the Sonnets as a conflation
of the figure of EBB as weak woman object, and the male courtly poet. She sees
l ittle i rony or subversi on in the Sonnets. Thus, "we assume . . . that what is not
c onventional i s autobiog ra phical, merely personal , maw kishly 'sincere"' ( 1 4 1 ) .
E B B ' s poetry chal lenges precisely that limiting assumption, by simultaneously
subverting the conventional roles , even as they are being posited .
1 4 C ooper n otes in passing how the early sonnets fuse "the traditional self­
a bnegation of the courtly l over with the conventional humility attri buted to
nineteenth-century woman" (Cooper 1 0 7 ) . This thesis o bviously ta kes this fusion
further.
15
Mermin points out that this self-denigration traditionally belongs to the
male l over-speaker of the courtly tradition ( "The Damse l " 7 2 ) . H ere again, though ,
t h e courtly conventions are used as a metaphor to reflect t h e female poet's
position.
16
I n historical terms, this picture i s i naccurate : Elizabeth enjoyed far m ore
success in this earlier stage of their careers than R o bert did. This dive rgence is
a nother indication of EBB's project in the Sonnets. The sequence is l ess a b out her
a nd R o bert's life, and m ore a bout a w oman a ppropriating the sonneteer's voice.
The picture of a w oman poet {placed beside an authorised male sonneteer)
reite rates the lonely m i nstrel figure of c ourtly l ove.
17
Both Leig hton and Stephenson read these images as purely pos1t1ve :
Stephenson reads a sensuous interchange between l overs occurring here ( 7 7-7 8 ) .
18
Both earlier manuscri pts read " unentreated " for " unexpecte d " - she did
not ask for these gifts.
19
See also Show alter, A Literature 1 3 .
20
The d ifference between the two positions of male sonneteer a nd female
poet a re that the male sonneteer has the a pprobation ·and validation of his society.
The female poet d oes not: her struggle to maintain power a nd subjectivity is a
m atter of surviva l .
·
46
2 1 Lacanian theory proposes that a child's consciousness emerges from the
a pprehension of self as separate from others, particularly from the mother.
22
Many of the images the spea ker-poet uses for the male l over are i mages
of man-made objects, artworks or producti ons, reflecting how his privileged
position is less a divine a bsolute and more a product of a patriarchal society. This
a pprehension by the spea ker-poet allows her to develop an ontology of linguistic
c onstruction in later sonnets, that li berates both her and her l over from reified roles.
2 3 At Christ's transfig uration, God the Father pronounces His divine
end orsement of His Son: "This is m y beloved Son , with whom I a m well-pleased ;
listen to Him " ( Matthew 1 7 : 5 ) . The spea ker-poet's adoption and adaption of the
occasion asserts the i m portance and validity of her own experience, to the male
lover.
24 The Morgan ma nuscript gives line 9 as " From out thy face to m i ne " ,
written over with the present form (Ratchford 54). Again pronoun attri butions are
confused.
25
Angela Leighton d oes not see this indeterminacy, preferring to read the
sonnet as paramountly asserting the woman's right to speak her feelings
(Ste phenson adopts the same reading : 84-8 5 ) . Leighton writes that the spea ker
remains firm ly the subject here : " (she] brings a bout her own transformation in her
lover's 'sight ' . She has no need of his eyes to be 'tra nsfigured ' : the change comes
from withi n . " And later: "she is, g ram matically, stil l the subject" (Elizabeth 1 0 1 ) .
Leighton 's reading effaces the tensions that lie i n the Sonnets, and the often quite
overt strugg l e between self-assertion and self-a bnegation in favour of the l over .
H ere t h e reading o f " i n t h y sight" is the critical point of interpretation: I believe that
the final l ines of the sonnet show a clear need to attri bute her tra nsfig uration to a
mutual experience of Love , not her "inferior" self.
O n a wider scale, however, Leighton 's account of the Sonnets is g round­
breaking in its constant cha llenge to traditional sentimental readings, and its
a ssertion of "The Woman's Right to Say" (9 1 ) .
26
I n " Caterina t o Camoens " , t h e dying female speaker describes a n
exchange o f looks with h e r m a l e l over that would restore t h e faded "sweetness "
of her e yes through shared l ove :
And if you l ooked down upon the m ,
A n d if they looked u p to you,
A l l the light which has foregone them
Would be gathered back anew .
They would truly
Be as duly
Love-transformed to beauty's sheen , " Sweetest eyes, were ever see n . "
Thus, l ove becomes a shared experience that both defines l ove i n each other , and
transforms each other. This process is precisel y repeated through the sonnet
sequence.
47
A definition of "wrought" is 'manufacture d ' : the word carries the
27
overtones of a 'man-made', self-consciously constructed emotion that continues
the links already made between l ove , patriarchy and social manufacturing .
28 Alterity, as defined by the Q ED , is "the being different; otherness" . lt i s
a w ord that i m pl ies not o n l y t h e subject position , b u t also t h e object position that
allows the subject to be subject. Alterity, then, includes both the specific and its
o bverse, the genera l ; both memory and oblivion.
2 9 See also Sonnet XXI I below.
30 lt also foregrounds another tension i n the sonnets, discussed m ore full y
Cha
pter
11. The vast o p e n space o f t h e " bitter sea " contrasts w i t h t h e enclosed
in
captivity of the crysta l , suggesting terrible danger and sadness in the former, but
also freed om . Conversely there is suppression a nd indeed death in the latter, and
yet there is also a perverse safety. The tension between rebellion and submission
rises out of the conflicting desires for freedom and safety.
31 Kathleen Hickok discusses the nineteenth-century female writer's technique of
clandestine challenge to the conventions of her day. Wide reading of such authors
" reveals a curious state of tension between conventional ideas a bout w omen a nd
reaction against those ideas" , and a varying degree of covert protest i n their writing
( R epresentations 8 ) . H ickok offers several cogent reasons for the conservative
element i n such writing, such as the internalisation of conventions. H owever, she
primarily focusses on audience expectations of w omen writers as the main cause
for their self-editing (see 1 1 - 1 3) .
32 This drowning imagery i s also used by E B B i n Sonnet XXV, i n a precisely
similar emotional context.
33 Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry (Reiman and Powers 5 08 ) .
34 The Q E D defines " pine" a s " Punishment; torment, torture ; spec the penal
sufferings of hell or purgatory" .
35 D orothy Merm i n comes closest to articulating this process when she
writes (in a different context ) : " She w rites the poems, but he draws them forth ,
both arousing her desire by his own i n an endless circle, a seamless reci procity"
( Origins 1 3 5 ) .
36 lt should b e n oted that i n this thesis the terms ' masculine ' a n d 'fe m i nine'
are distinct from 'male' and 'female ' , which refer to the physical d istinctions of
men and women. ' Masculine' and 'feminine' a re rather ideological constructs, and
so feminine giving, for exa m ple, is available to both men a nd wom e n . Feminists
inevita bly use these terms in d ifferent ways, and one of the criticisms levelled at
French psychoanalytical feminists is a tendency to essentialise the ideological : to
m ove feminine into femal e .
37 G itter also links women's h a i r w i t h money i n Victori a n m ythology. I n the
ca pitalist Victorian economy, both materially and sexually, trade in a nd ownershi p
48
of wealth - whether gold or women - was a source of great power and fascination
for the m a n of business . (See Gitter 943ft . )
49
CHAPT E R TWO
THE R O LES WE PLAY: G O D A N D S I N N E R
Cha pter O ne has already i ntrod uced the ideas t o b e explored i n this
chapter. Within the structure that was Victorian heterosexual l ove , male and
female had specific roles assigned to the m . One example of role m odels is the
courtly l ove trad ition of silent female and speaking male poet, a m odel that the
spea ker has very clearly inverted and then subverted i n the opening sonnets . In
this cha pter, we will exa mine other such models, particularly the potent l ove
roles of savi our and sinner . 1
E B B views such m odel relationships with well-d ocumented a ntipathy.
Dariiel Karlin quotes her comments to R obert Browning : '" I have n ot a high
a p preciation of what passes in the world . . . under the name of l ove ' . . . 'that
w ord which rhymes with g l ove & comes as easily off and on"' (Karlin 2 8 ) . Mar­
riage was a " 'g rowth of power on one side . & the struggle against it, by means
.
legal and illegal, on the other"' ( 2 9 ) . 2 Men i n l ove were too often vain despots
in EBB's eyes, and her readi ness and verve to describe them as such to her l over
Robert says m uch a bout her bold sense of humour and their relationsh i p .
Such humour, though evident, is less a pparent in S onnets from the
Portuguese , where the woman spea ker rather a p pears at times to delight in the
hierarchical roles of her society, roles which place her firml y a t a d isadvantage.
Her excessive self-de precation and corresponding adulation of her love r creates
problems for the modern (feminist) reader, who finds them offensive l y
anachronistic. G lennis Stephenson discusses this problem at some length,
summing u p the consensus of critical opinion when she decides that E B B
assumes "the stance [ of self-deprecation] f o r specific dramatic effects" , the
primary one being the "subversion of what m ight superficia l l y a ppear as the
dominant ideology of the Sonnets: the woman who speaks actual l y e merges as
a strong and active l over" (Poetry 70) . The stance of self-de precation, she
argues, feeds both the myth of EBB as romantic solitary "Slee ping Beauty" (70)
50
- a myth that EBB, for a l l her protestati ons a bout it, nevertheless encouraged and the "subtle competition" between Elizabeth and R obert as to who was the
l esser being , and therefore the courtly poet, n ot t he beloved. Stephenson c on­
c l udes: " As both Leighton and Mermin convincingl y show , Barrett Browning
exploits her ' personal ' situation, her 'unworthiness, ' t o claim the stronger role of
the l over and - by i nference - to claim the voice of the poet" (7 2 ) . M oreover,
Stephenson 's discussion of the Sonnets revolves around the trope of d istance,
m uch used in the sequence as a difficulty to be overcome, a courtly l ove
separation that is dissolved into a very non-courtly touch of erotic passion :
" Distance , as usua l , i ntensifies desire " (80). The self-deprecation, the n , is part
of this trope , a distancing of w orth and self-image that i s j oyfull y overcome . 3
These a re cogent and extremely useful readings, tying the attitudes of
the spea ker into the subtle play with courtl y conventions and emerging feminist
asserti on in the poetry. However, even these readings find the self-rejection ­
w hat I have called self-disgust - of the speaker excessive at times: Stephenson
n otes when discussing Sonnet VI I I that the "excessive self-a basement i n these
l i nes may be disturbin g , but it does, i n its angry rejection of her fade d , sterile
life, suggest the potentia l vigour and strength within her waiting to be released "
( Poetry 8 4 ) . That suggestion i s tenuous, to say the least: any such " potentia l " is
surely outweighed by that attitude of self-disgust. I n Stephenson's account of
the Sonnets, as in Leighton's account, there a p pears to be an effacing of the
sustained posture of self-deprecation b y the speaker, an effacing that only
serves to highlight the very embarrassment that bega n the discussion.
A n a lternative , or perhaps coexistent reading, i s that this attitude of self­
condemnation is part of the tension within the speaker between submission and
re bellion . I f we view the Sonnets as a n interrogation of a female's place i n
Victoria n heterosexual l ove ( a s Chapter O n e h a s shown), then these t w o
responses to that cultural structure become para m ount, a nd any discussion of
self-deprecation fits i nto those responses .
51
XII
A prime exa m ple of the speaker's a p pa rent g lorification o f the roles of
patriarchal l ove occurs in Sonnet X I I , a sonnet that may exasperate the m odern
reader i n its a nxiety to attri bute all source of value to the male. In the previous
Sonnet X I , discussed in Chapter One, the spea ker asserts her vindicating l ove as
the means whereby she reta ins voice a nd selfhood ( provided her l ove remains
unfulfilled). Here in Sonnet X I I , however, this l ife-saving l ove is, she a rg ues,
g iven to her by the male l over. The spea ker a ppears to be submitting to the rules
of the assigned romantic rol e .
O n the other hand, this submission is not unproblematic. Rather, the
tensions discussed in Chapter One emerge here, too: the la nguage of the sonnet
- ostensibly creating a surface of feminine self-effacement, attri buting power and
initiative to the man - carries a strong undercurrent of reacti on a g a inst this social
myth .
The first four lines of Sonnet X I I build u p the value of the l ove which the
speaker has been extolling . lt is her only worth, litera l l y her pride and joy. She
uses bi blical language to convey this: her l ove is her " boast " , echoing the
a postle Paul's use of the word , nota bly in the famous statement " Ma y I never
boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" .4 In the same way that
Paul's only cause for boasting is God's grace that covers his own wea kness, the
speaker's only cause for boasting is "this vindicating g race" (Sonnet X I ) of l ove
that covers her own wea kness. The male is placed in the position of the a ll­
powerful and g racious God; the woman is the unworthy sinner.
As if this patriarchal reading of her situation were n ot sufficiently
obvious, she uses another bi blical image of the ruby to recall the picture of the
ideal woman as depicted i n Proverbs 3 1 : " A wife of noble chara cter who can
find ? She is worth far m ore than rubies" ( 3 1 : 1 0). The ensuing depiction of the
self-denyin g , hard-working wife and mother, constantl y increasing the material
wealth of the household , is a patriarch's dre a m : " her husband has full
confidence i n her and lacks nothi ng of value" ( 3 1 : 1 1 ) . Or, a s the speaker ex­
presses it: she will "draw men's eyes a nd prove the inner cost " . The commercial
52
m otif i n both descri ptions reveals the basic position of the female a s valuable
o bject or commodity (and note again that proprietary gaze in the latter verse ) .
Both biblical echoes superficially endorse the patriarchal i nterpretation , a n d yet
their very use here exposes the a nti-female assumptions of that i nterpretation.
The purpose of the speaker's love is to draw men's eyes and so prove her inner
value (as efficient m an-reflector? ) . 5
The sonnet continues by stating that her "ruby " , this l ove , only exists in
response to his a ntecedent love . H e has set her a n e xa m pl e , shown her how ,
recalling the w ords of Christ, " I have set you a n exa m ple that you should d o a s I
have done for you " (John 1 3 : 1 5 ) . Now the l over is a Christ-fig ure .
The conclusion ? " And thus , I cannot speak/ Of l ove eve n , as a g ood thing
of m y own . " The undertone of loss, of regretfull y relinquishing the last vestige
of individual will or w orth ( " l ove even" - em phasis m i ne ) , is unmista kea ble. The
earlier Morgan manuscri pt has the phrase "as something w orthy of my own ! " ,
further underlining this feeling ( Ratchford 5 8 ) . The a m biva lence from the earlier
sonnets returns in the lines:
Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,
And placed it by thee on a g olden throne,And that I l ove ( 0 sou l , we m ust be m ee k ! )
I s b y thee only, whom I l ove a l one .
The favour of his l ove bestowed upon her is n ot entirely a p preciated , a s
" snatched" i ndicates. And the 'fact' o f h i s having initiated l ove is equally
unpalata ble, as is evident i n the injunction of meekness t o her soul . She m ust
assume the a ppropriate pose here , another i m posed role . The tone of the
pare nthesis i s as m oc ki ng as it is bitter, as she i nstructs her soul to submit to
conve ntion . Fina l l y there is a suspicious hint of e g otism in the male l over's
m otives as she descri bes the situation in the final l i nes. He engenders l ove i n
her, that she m ight l ove him a l one: the female as m i rror to t h e male's phallic
power!
53
XX
The roles of lover-god and woman-sinner a re developed m ore fully i n the
central section of the Sonnets. I n Sonnet X X , for exa m pl e , the spea ker m uses
on the sterile life of her past in images that seem to contradict her previous
re bellions:
Beloved , my Bel oved , when I thin k
That thou wast in t h e world a yea r ago,
What time I sate alone here i n the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
No moment at thy voice , . .
The picture here i s evocative . Before his arrival and love, her life was a winter
leading to death by exposure . Re-using earlier imagery, the spea ker pictures
herself as outside, exposed to the rig ours of unprotected existence. She is
excluded from society's pageants (Sonnet I l l ) ; her hovel i s broken down (Sonnet
IV) a nd she stands figuratively bare before the " d readful outer bri n k/ O f obvious
death" (Sonnet VI I ) . Or as she describes it here , she sits in the snow a lone , with
no human contact and therefore no possi bility of salvation from the death that
will inevita bly and rapidly occur.
The image is interesting for other reasons, though : she sat i n an
undifferentiated sphere - in unbroken white snow , surrounded by unbroken
silence. In m odern ling uistic terms, where consciousness is differentiation
through language, she was virtual l y in a state outside consciousness. Such a
condition a p proaches death (that dreadful " brink " ) . This scene i s a n i nteresting
re-presentation of her earlier situation. In those earlier sonnets, while the spea ker
was on the outside of society, rejected and broken down, the reason for her
isolation was her clinging preservation of her i ndividual voice, her determination
to m aintain herself as a poet, even i f that meant rejection and premature death
in a society whose structures had n o place for a renegade. Earlier, she had a
voice, but i n Sonnet XX she represents that time as voiceless and silent. Why?
An
obvious a nswer is that her position a l lows her to cast her male l over
in the role of G od . He i s the silence-breaker, the O ne who awakens her from this
semi-dead , unconscious state into new life. The whole e m phasis in the sonnet is
54
how unaware she was, during this time, of his presence i n the worl d . She had
n o idea that he had the power to bre a k the undifferentiated silence into discrete
w ords.
This power, of course , is the divinely-ord ai ned power of naming. G od
was the first to break the silence of undifferentiated chaos a t creation; His W ord
brought life (including human) into existence. The spea ker credits her l over with
this n ow-masculine power of naming . He has created her by l oosening her from
her chains of repressive non-existence . His voice can "si n k " the silence for a
m oment; his " possi ble" hand can strike those chai ns away. He can "thrill the
day or night/ With personal act or speech " , a nd the creation echoes in that l i ne
are clear: God's personal act via speech brought the day and night d ifferentiation - i nto being.
The com parison is made overt, of course , i n the final lines: " Atheists are
as dull,/ Who cannot g uess God's presence out of sight " . She was l i ke an
atheist, who because s/he cannot see God , assumes He does n ot exist. G od 's
a bsent presence is l i ke her l over's a bsent presence : he was there " i n the worl d "
during that winter o f unconsciousness. 6 I n the rhetoric o f post-conversi on, the
spea ker is a mazed at her own blind ign orance : she finds it " w onderful " that she
could not even "cull/ Some prescience " of her l over's a bi lity to reaw a ke n the
w orld , in the w hite blossoms that hera ld the a rrival of spring - bl ossoms he also
saw growing.
Why i s the spea ker i maging herself and her l over in this w a y ? Sure l y this
language reinforces and celebrates the pseudo-divine gender relations of
patriarchal society (discussed i n Sonnet XII a bove ) , an ideology which has been
exposed and rejected in Sonnets 11 , V I , VI I , X , X I I , XVI , XVI I , X I X . . . ?
I would suggest that i n this central section of the Sonnets, the s pe a ker
(and EBB) begins t o formulate her theory of ideal Love . For the spea ker, the
e ntrance i nto l a nguage celebrated i n this sonnet becomes a n a mbiguous and
finally threatening m ovement; she realises that language, and the power of
naming that it seems to endorse, is at the very centre of the ideology that she
has taken great pains to expose. I nstead , she comes t o vie w the perfect, equal
55
l ove between her and her lover a s outside such l a nguage, and so outside the
structures: it is a l ove in silence. They a re outside differentiation, outsid e
representation - indeed , outside human existence , as w e cannot exist i n
c onsciousness outside differentiation. This l ove is i m possi ble from t h e start, but
it becomes the spea ker's sustaining fiction during these middle sonnets to
enable her (rhetorically) to have her l ove without the re pressive structures within
which it occurs .
At this point, though, Sonnet XX clearly a p pears to be rejoicing i n the
l over's saving actions i n bringing language and l ife to the speaker. And yet, this
a dulation simultaneously exposes the very structures i n which these roles are
played out . Whether or not the spea ker is a ware of this is d e bata ble : i n other
sonnets her subversi ons of her situation have been m ore i m mediately evident.
Here, though, there are fewer cl ues to a subversive subtext. Nevertheless, irony
d oes seems present:
[ I ] Went counting all m y chains, as if that so
They never could fall off at any blow
Struc k by thy possi ble hand . . . . why, thus I drink
Of life's great cup of wonder!
The clumsi ness of "as if that so" a nd "They never could fall off" seems
d e l i berately to fudge the exact meaning; the negative expression creates a
possi ble opposite reading, that the chains will not fall off, no matter what blow
he stri kes. And that word " possi ble " raises the whole question of his existence
in this role of Namer and Actor: possibly he exists; possi bly he will act; possi bly
for m e ; possi bly he will succeed . . .
The expression of wonder i n line 9 , reiterated for em phasis, seems
excessive a nd almost parodic. G iven the sorrow which characterises previous
sonnets, this tone of g reat delight, com pounded as the sonnet continues in the
exclamation that his personal words "thrill " the basic revolutions of the universe,
and climaxing in indirectly naming him G od , becomes excessive .
The images the spea ker uses to describe her joy at finding this l ove are in
themselves politica l : the very lang uage she uses to speak her l ove is "shaded "
( l i ke her l over's brow i n XIX) or coloured by societal structures. I n effect, she i s
56
e nacting the central problem of their relationshi p : how their very
consciousnesses are already structured within a nd by phallocentric ideology.
XXI I I
Sonnet XXI I I m oves the roles o f saviour a nd saved i nto a m uch wider
c ontext. l t foll ows the pivotal twenty-second sonnet, i n which the s pe a ke r
fantasises a bout an ideal l ove relationship, but concludes by c onfronting death
a s the only possi ble end to such a relationship. 7 These thoug hts of death have
obviously been conveyed to the male l over , whose protesting response leads to
S onnet XXI I I . His protests a maze the speaker: her self-denigration has
d isallowed the possi bility of his need of her.
Is it indeed so? I f I lay here dead,
Would 'st thou m iss any life in l osing m ine ?
And would the sun for thee m ore coldly shine,
Because of g rave damps falling around m y head ?
I marvelled , m y Beloved , when I read
Thy thought so in the letter.
What has struck the speaker is her power i n their relationship . She has the
a bility to wound h i m , to reduce his quality of life . The tone of wonderment
c overs a simultaneous sense of delight i n her a bility t o affect h i m : " I a m thine - I
But . . so m uch to thee? " The syntactical arrangement of this sentence c onveys
the subtleties of thei r relationsh i p . The blunt endline statement - " I am thine " reiterates w hat has been the subject of bitter de bate for the s pea ker thus far
throughout the Sonnets: in l ove , she is his conquest. However, the new line
opens a new thought with " But" : the possibility that such a relationshi p i s
reci procal. He needs her; s h e matters to h i m , and t h e e m phasis g iven to "so"
·
underscores just how much.
The realisation of this interdependence affirms the speaker. What i s being
exposed here is a dialectic , a variation on the traditional master/slave
interaction . 8 What is perceived to be a dualism by the domina nt partner is
shown to be an interdependence : each role requires the other, in order to affirm
themselves. Whilst it a p pears that the master has all the power over the slave ,
the fact i s that the master needs the slave i n order to be a m aster. I n the same
57
way, the male lover/ saviour/ ennobler cannot play this role unless h e has
someone to l ove/ save/ ennoble. The l over's definition lies i n the position of the
l oved one. This becomes evident to the speaker i n that her l over g rieves at the
thought of her death . The basica l l y selfish m otivation of g rief is thus exposed we grieve because we lose.
The sense of power and value that the realisation of this interdependence
g ives to the spea ker is nevertheless limited . The crucial point here i s the nature
of that power, and the sonnet clearly and subversively exposes why the woman
is so needed. "Can I pour thy wine/ While my hands tre m ble ? " The servant
woman finds the thought of her power so i ntoxicating that she cannot pour her
l ord's wine properly! The irony of this picture shows the rea l nature of the
woman's position: the power that she has i n defining the male is a hol l ow
power, as it entails her subordination. Political l y and practically she has n o
power. 9 Further, t h e sonnet descri bes h o w this ' power' w o u l d b e enacted i n her
death, a nd the prospective m oment of her a bsolute and final a bdication of power
is what so affects the male l over. In l i nes 3 and 4 the speaker envisa ges the
effects of her death. For the male l over, the sun simply shines " m ore coldl y " ,
but it d oes not stop shining. The speaker's circumsta nces are somewhat
different: in her projected moment of ' power' over him, she has "grave damps "
falling a bout her head i nstead of sunshine. Thus her power i s o f a negative
nature, i n that i t has its g reatest effect i n her a bsence. Her l over will miss her
when she is g one. In these eight l i nes, EBB exposes d ualist relationships as a
means of showing the practical real ities for the subordinate party. (The pos­
sibility of a dialectical relationship, in which roles a re interchangea ble , emerges
d uring the sequence . )
The spea ker returns t o the thoughts o f death that opened the sonnet, a nd
'sacrificially' gives them u p for her l over's sake. Her wishful " dreams of death"
are d e batabl e : we saw i n Sonnet V I I how death was " a dreadful outer brin k " for
her, a nd so her descri ption here of her " near sweet vi e w of Heave n " is
somewhat underm i ned. The point she em phasises, though , is her sacrifice . For
him she will relinquish even her wish to die.
58
Then , l ove me, Love ! l ook on me . . breathe on m e !
A s brighter ladies d o n ot count it strange,
For l ove , to give u p acres a nd degre e ,
I yield t h e g rave f o r t h y s a k e , a nd exchange
My near sweet view of Heave n , for earth with thee !
She uses her newly-realised power t o d o the only thing i t can d o a t this point:
reinstate him in his role of l over/ saviour/ ennobler. She i nvites his gaze of
a p propriation, his breath that, l i ke G od 's , breathes l i fe into inanimate creatures.
And i n a final overt reference to the w oman's role i n this Victoria n society, she
com pares herself to women of wealth and degree who a re willing to give u p
both i n marriage to one they l ove. 1 0
I n Sonnet XXI I I the spea ker expl ores the political consequences of the
roles that men and women were required to assume in the Victori a n l ove
relationshi p . This relationship, structured as it was on a simple hierarchical
d ua lism copied from the God-hum a nity dualism of Christian theology , l oc ked
both parties i nto fixed and destructive positions. M oreover , at this stage it
a p pears that the only a lternative to these roles is rebellion against the m , so that
the woman is either the a ngel in the h ouse (submitting passively to the role) or
the w itch outside it (rebelling agai nst society) . In either case the woman's l ot is
one of suppression and eventual suffocation.
XXV
The male l over begi ns to assume g reater a n d g reater significance for the
spea ker, as i n this central section of the Sonnets she rhetorically reconstructs
her former l ife of excluded m isery, prior to his irruption into it.
A heavy heart , Bel oved , have I borne
From year to year until I saw thy face ,
And sorrow after sorrow took the place
Of all those natural joys as lightly w orn
As the stringed pearls .. each lifted i n its turn
By a beating heart at dance-time.
I mages of circularity em phasise the repetitions of life which characterised her
existence before his a rriva l , creating restriction and oppression. She carried her
" beating heart " - alive and hopeful - through these i n evita tl"lities, until it became
59
a "heavy heart" - despairing and hopeless. This l oss of hope and joy reca l ls the
w oman poet of the opening sonnets: excluded , denied voice and legitimacy, and
so emotionally and creatively dying. She even q uestions G od 's saving g race,
which is "scarcely" a ble to lift her heavy heart out of the grinding d ownward
spiral of existence .
Then thou d idst bid m e bring
And let it drop adown thy calmly g reat
Deep being ! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
Which its own nature d oth preci pitate ,
While thine d oth close a b ove it, med iating
Betwixt the stars and the unaccompl ished fate .
The male lover, however, has none of God's difficulty. I n a n idolatrous
m ovement the w oman replaces God with the l over: the m a n supersedes G od .
His power is g reater than G od 's, and the speaker's descri ption of him a s a
"calmly great/ Deep bei ng " suggests divinity. The spea ker unquestioningly obeys
his bidding, l i ke a true d isci ple. The em phasis on "thou" clearl y places the l over
as the superior alternative to God .
This deification o f the male l over i s not unproblematic, however. The
sestet of the sonnet raises the now a l m ost inevita ble a m biguities and
a m bivalences that questi on previ ous sentiments. At his bidding the woman
brings her burdensome heart to h i m , and drops it i nto the well of his "deep
being " . His assum ption of Christ's identity here ( " Come to m e , a l l you w h o are
weary and burdened , and I will give you rest " [ Matthew 1 1 : 28 ] ) continues the
theme of lover as G od . In the Christia n model, such a surrender of self to G od is
paradoxica l l y freeing; a fulfilment of personal identity. The male l over , h owever,
is not a n omniscient and l oving God, and accordi ng to that same Christian
theology, cannot save himself, let a l one a wom a n . But the speaker's heart si n ks
rapidly into the well of this man's being , and his nature cl oses over it. This
a ction is a repetition of the same action that the speaker so feared in the early
sonnets : her selfhood is subsumed into his. She is, in terms of the extended
metaphor used here , drowned in his being and selfhood .
Her heart sinks so heavily because " its own nature d oth preci pitate " it: it
is by nature heavy and so is propel led rapidly. A m ore subtle reading might
60
suggest that her heart sinks so quickly because it has a desire t o submerge itself
in this way, as the tension between struggle for selfhood and relinquishing
selfhood into another's is a ba ndoned t o the latter. Whatever readi ng prevails,
the problem remains, and i s clearly suggested i n the language the s peaker uses:
is the safety and relief that the g od-l i ke male l over offers w orth the concomitant
l oss/ drowning of separate identity?
The a m bi guity of the final l ine underscores this dilemma. The male l over's
heart/ nature closes over the sinking w oman's heart, a nd in thus covering her,
places himself between her a nd the sky a bove. H e mediates (and the w ord again
recalls Christ, the mediator) between the stars a bove and the " unaccom plished
fate " beneath . That latter phrase may be a simple (if obscure) reference to
death, the dreadful brink that the male l over has saved the spea ker fro m . I n
S onnet V I I h e places himself between her a nd that brink, in the sam e w a y that
he mediates here . Alternatively, the phrase could refer to the woman's future , as
yet unaccom plished , which will now never be pla yed out beca use she i s
submerged in h i s fate a n d future . Her life , i n either case , is no l onger in h e r own
hands: initiative now lies with the male lover.
XXVI
I n this twenty-sixth sonnet the speaker exam i nes the i nfluence of the
male lover upon her creativity, and she negates her earlier fear that her e ntry
into l ove necessitated the l oss of her poetic voice. I nstead , adopting her
g rateful , submissive persona , she l ocates a rediscovered voice i n him. The
implications of her rhetoric in this sonnet are, however, fascinating .
I l ived with visions for m y company,
I nstead of men and women, years a g o ,
A n d found t h e m gentle mates, n o r thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to m e .
I n t h i s descri ption o f t h e l oss of youthful creativity, t h e beautiful though isolated
w orld of the young spea ker's imagination eventually fades t o leave her "faint
and blind " . This imagination was powerfull y creative a nd satisfying; she d esired
n othing m ore than her visions which made sweet music.
61
The worl d , however, im pinges upon this beautiful and isolated existence,
c ontaminating a nd corrupting it. Her g lori ous and beautiful creativity ( " trailing
purple " ) is sta i ned , entra pped ( " not free " ) and eventual l y silenced as her voice
( " lutes " ) ceases. As her visions disappear, so does her own psychic health. She
grows " faint and blind " ; fig urative visions are replaced with l iteral
sightlessness. 1 1
The spea ker includes accounts of her strong youthful creativity
periodically throug hout the Sonnets to remind us of the potency and beauty of
her 'natura l ' poetic ability. lt is a crucial reminder, because it is precisely this gift
that her society denies her and attem pts to suppress. 1 2 Further, these
'reminders' conflict with the androcentric sentim ents espoused on the surface of
the S onnets: that the spea ker's a bi lity arises from her ennobling l ove for the
man. This is patently not so: " I l ived with visions for my company [. .. ] years
ago" .
Nevertheless, such a sentiment fol lows here:
Then THOU d idst come . . to be ,
Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
Their songs, their splendours, ( better, yet the
same,
As river-water hallowed i nto fonts)
Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
My soul with satisfaction of a l l wa nts Because G od's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.
I nto her declining l ife and l ost creativity comes the male lover, whose
i m portance warrants ca pital letters. He supersedes her visions - he is what they
seemed to be. A subtle shift has occurred here: the visi ons, previously deemed
valid and sufficient, are now no l onger so - they only seemed to be so. Certainly,
the male l over is a real person, whereas the visions were not rea l , but what has
nevertheless occurred is an i nval idation or exposure of the woman's creativity as
somehow lacking . Her poetic creations are n ot g ood enough a nymore .
I nstead , the male l over becomes the l ocus i n which the speaker's
creativity fuses and resurges. All her visions meet in h i m , a nd are " hallowed "
i nto productions better and m ore satisfying. The w ord " ha llowed " is deli berately
62
strong : the male l over's omni potence sanctifies the woman's creativity, a s the
ba ptismal image indicates. The visions a re the same, but a re made m ore holy by
the l over's i nfluence, in the sam e way that common river water i s hallowed for
the baptismal font. The woman's creativity is now transformed and consecrated .
Because of this process her soul i s overcome with " satisfaction of all
wants " , and the lang uage suggests a religious experience of fulfilment . Her
depiction of the male l over a s a sanctifying g od fulfils the requirements of her
role a s adoring receiving wom a n , a nd yet juxta posed with the opening
d escription of her self-sufficient creativity, it provokes questions. I s a woman's
creativity only truly realised i n a m a n ? I s her w or k somehow deficient until
'sanctified' by a m a n ? 1 3 The i ronies of this position are shown i n the final line,
where the l over/ god 's "g ifts " a p pa rently expose the woman's " best dreams" as
lacking . What was clearly val ua ble and beautiful i n the first quatra i n is now put
"to sha me " . The hierarchical relig ious structure u pon which patriarchal gender
relations are built is quite clearly re produced here. The male l over is cast i n the
role of G od a nd the s pea ker plays the role of man ( " man's best drea m s " ) .
Milton's precept " H e for God , a nd she for G od i n h i m " i s the m odel for the
i mage i n the final line: the lower half of the hierarchy i mitates the u pper half . 1 4
XXV I I
The speaker continues to reconstruct h e r past i n Sonnet XXVI I , a nd s o
reiterates h e r contradictory need to see man as g od .
M y own beloved , w h o hast lifted m e
From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown ,
And, i n betwixt the languid ringlets, blown
A l ife-breath , till the forehead hopefully
Shines out again, as all the angels see ,
Before thy saving kiss !
Several commentators speak of the heig ht/depth perspective that often features
in the S onnets. Mermin w rites: "The space [in the S onnets] i s symbolical and
highly schematic , tightly constricted on the horizontal plane but open to heaven
a bove a nd the g rave below . . . Typical re peated w ords a re down, fal l , deep, rise ,
63
beneath, and especially d rop, used eleven times i n the forty-four poems, and @,
used fifteen times" (Origi ns 1 39 ) . Alhough Mermin ma kes l ittle comment on this
preponderance of vertical imagery, both Leighton and Stephenson tie it i nto the
courtly distances between the l overs (see note 3 , p.St) . lt clearly also has
significance in terms of the hierarchical schema of roles within the Sonnets G od saves man; man saves woman.
I n Sonnet XXVI I the " beloved " has lifted the victim w oman from the
" d rear flat" that is earth . She is a bsolutely passive : having been thrown here she
remains here , pre pa red to die, until the male raises and revives her. He, of
c ourse , plays the role of the Creator-God , breathing life into the human form to
make it l ive . 1 5 His "saving kiss " on her " languid ringlets" (or, to be specific,
between them onto her forehead , in true paternal fashion) transfigures her, a nd
the angels bear witness as, no d oubt, they did at creation.
My own, m y own ,
Who camest to me when the w orld was g one ,
And I who looked for only God , found thee !
I find thee; I am safe , and stron g , and g la d .
A s in the previous t w o sonnets, t h e l over not o n l y com petes with G o d , b u t h e
fina l l y replaces G od . The speaker expected death, a n d l ooked o n l y for G od a nd
heave n . That "only" is highl y provocative, particularly i n conjunction with the
e mphasised "thee " . She was expecting merely God; instead she got her l over !
Moreover, the shift from " found " to "find " m oves the action from t h e past t o
the present: G od-li ke , h i s saving presence remains with her, a n d she continues
to find h i m .
The w oman's activity in these lines, and t h e positive self-assertions of
the final phrase quoted a bove , indi cate that the passive woman of the beginning
of the sonnet is now acting - the male lover's presence so i nvigorates her. As
the line progresses, she is firstl y assured of safety ( presumably from death) ;
safety in turn strengthens her; strength i n turn g laddens her.
As one who stands in dewless asphodel ,
Looks backward o n the tedious time h e had
In the u pper l ife, - so I, with bosom-swell,
64
Make witness, here , between the g ood and bad ,
That Love , as strong as Death, retrieves as well.
These final lines offer a potentially disruptive i m a g e . The speaker identifies with
a person in the blessed underworld of Elysium , the latter d enoted by the
" dewless asphodel " , which is poetical l y " a n i m mortal flower, . . . said to cover the
Elysian meads" ( Q E D ) . Just as such a person reflects upon t h e tedium of l ife in
the "upper" m ortal world, so the speaker reflects on her previous life, before her
rescue and blessing by the male l over. She proudl y bears w itness to the
difference between the past " ba d " a nd the present "good " , and the fact that
Love is as powerful as Death to effect the change from one state to the other.
As Death "retrieves" the m ortal into blessed i m m ortality, so Love " retrieves " the
isolated woman i nto a blessed relationship .
There are t w o points t o m a ke here . Firstly, t o " retrieve " means to recover
something that was originally present , but became a bsent. O ED states: "To
restore , revive ; to bring bac k to the original state . . . " . This is highly suggestive in
the context of Sonnet XXVI I : it i m plies what has been esta blished i n earlier
sonnets (see particularly XXV and XXVI ) , that the woman was once i n a
position of activity, strength, joy a nd animation. M oreover, the speaker
continues that same motif by identifying with one who i s dead . O nce again her
engagement with l ove has required her psychic death. If this i s an emotional
figuration of the spiritual experience of 'dying ' (whether l itera l l y or s piritually) to
G od , the difficulty with this transposition of the Christian m odel to g ender
relations remains. I n the former, the dualism remains: only G od saves; humanity
" dies to the world " . Does this limit the woman to only ever playing the role of
d yi ng into 'life ' , under the aegis of a permanently saving m a n ?
Sonnet XXVI I 's reiteration o f this central problem contains seeds for its
solution, though . The repeated a ppel lation of " m y own" within this sonnet
a ppears to ind icate the speaker's delight that this male l over is for her a nd no
other - he has chosen her (cf. " My Lord a nd G od " ) . Yet the phrase is clearly
proprietoria l , and rather suggests that the saviour belongs t o the saved . Even
within an a pparently adulatory sonnet such as this, with its acquiescence to
dualist roles, the i nterdependence of the relationshi p is i m pl icit. The sonnet
65
begins b y attributing t o the lover the power t o tra nsform her, but i t ends by
affirming Love as the agent. This Love (articulated in the opening sonnets ) , is
the transforming experience with another subject (here the male l over) that
redefines both subjects. The em powering of both parties that occurs i n this
process necessitates the disruption and potential breaking of the original d ualist
relationshi p between subject and object, savi our and victim, G od and sinner.
XXXI
The speaker's su perficial determination to de pict the male l over as a
divine hero continues to be challenged by her own subversive tendencies a nd
language . I n Sonnet XXX, the speaker expressed doubts and fears as to the
reality of the man's love - anxieties that are suddenly and a p parently magically
dismissed in S onnet XXXI by the interposition of the male l over. 1 6 Yet the
effect of his presence on the woman poet is sti l l problematic.
Thou comest ! all is said without a w ord .
I sit beneath thy looks, as children d o
I n the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through
Their happy eyelids from an unaverred
Yet prodigal inward joy.
The ra pturous brevity of the opening statement i m pl ies that all is resolved by
this simple yet transform i ng action: the l over has arrived. Doubts dissolve i n his
presence and w ords are now unnecessary as his l ove is tacitly i ncarnate . lt
would a ppear that a relationship of silent equality a nd mutual presence i s
achieved.
And yet, the extended simile that follows shows that such equality is n ot
i n evidence . Rather, hierarchical dualisms remain intact, as the woman plays the
naive, vulnera ble child, joyfully soa king up the warmth of the n oon-da y sun,
played by the male l over. That sun is at the zenith of its path and its power and
the woman sits " beneath" its/his looks. Once again, the male l over plays the role
of potent, beneficent, higher bein g , whi lst the woman is the weak , receiving ,
g rateful lesser being.
66
Behol d , I erred
In that last doubt ! a nd yet I cannot rue
The sin m ost, but the occasion . . . that we two
Should for a m oment stand unministered
By a m utual presence .
Recalling the d oubts and a nxieties of the previous sonnet, the speaker adopts
the language of the penitent sinner. She was wrong to question the reality of his
l ove and the nature of their relationship; indee d , the d oubt was a "sin " . The
dualism has now m oved i nto the m oral realm as the male l over bestows
forgiving m ercy on the confessing sinner. 1 7
At the same time , the speaker does not fully acquiesce in the role she
depicts here . She comments that she d oes not reg ret the "sin" of doubt as m uch
as the occasion that precipitated that doubt. That occasion, suggested in the
rather am biguous l ines 7-9 , was an inability to 'read ' him or to communicate
effectively, as they now are . N ow they " stand Unministered/ By a m utual
presence " , and can achieve the tacit understanding of the opening l ines. I n
Sonnet X X X , such a n understa nding w a s restrai ned b y something o r someone in
their presence , and this fail ure precipitated the climate of a nxiety i n that sonnet.
That failure suggests the 'external ' social forces that are c onstantly acting upon
this relationship.
Ah, kee p near a nd close,
Thou d oveli ke hel p ! and, when m y fears w ould rise,
With thy broad heart serenely i nterpose .
Brood d ow n with thy d ivine sufficiencies
These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those ,
Like callow birds left desert to the skies.
The terrible irony of these l overs' position (already suggested i n S onnet XX) i s
here foregrounde d : t h e a p prehension o f re pressive social i nfluences d oes n ot
h owever free the l overs from those influences. Even as the speaker " rues" the
" occasion " , she remains part of the structures that caused the occasion - here
she uses another m eta phor based on paternalistic roles to describe her
perception of her l over's presence. The w oman de picts him now as the H ol y
Spirit, using t h e bibl ical d ove s i m i l e . 1 8 All t h e qualities s h e mentions a re bibl ical
descriptions of the S pirit's presence : Genesis 1 : 2 speaks of " the Spirit of G od
hovering over the waters" at creation; the Psalms speak of finding refuge i n the
67
shadow o f H is wings; the S pirit i s the " C ounsellor" o r " comforter " . These lines
become a prayer to this spiritual power for divine comfort, to protect the
vulnerable woman from her own fears and thoughts with his "divine
sufficiencies" (cf. " My g race is sufficient for thee" [ 1 1 Cor. 1 2 : 9 ] ) . Again vertical
m ovement is in play here: as her thoughts " rise " , his " broad heart " broods down
to calm the frightened thoughts. The speaker's own language and m eta phors
recreate the very roles she elsewhere exposes.
XXX I I
The first time that the sun rose o n thine oath
To l ove m e , I l ooked forward to the moon
To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon
And quickly tied to m a ke a lasting troth .
Quick-loving hea rts , I thought, m a y quickly loathe;
And , l ooking on m yself, I seemed not one
For such man's l ove !
Here in S onnet XXX I I the speaker reappraises her early fears in this relationship,
i n a n attempt to show their g round lessness. Yet, i n d oing so, she proceeds
through the medium of metaphors - her weapon as poet, but a two-edged sword
of c onstruction and deconstruction, as seen in the previous sonnet.
The sonnet opens with the spea ker recalling her early pessim ism
concerning their relationship, for reasons eloquently suggested i n S onnet XIV. I n
S onnet XXX I I , though , she l ocates her pessimism i n her own unworthiness: she
was hardly a ble to maintain a man's l ove, especially a man such a s this one ! Her
self-disparagement covers an i nsurrectionary attitude, however, particularly i n
the i mages used to describe their vows o f commitment to e a c h other . His " oath "
of "troth " she describes as a bond tying them together , while she " l ooked
forward " to that bond 's "slacken[ing ] " . A feeli ng of im prisonment is c onveyed
here, resurfacing from the sonnets of the first half of the sequence, where the
woman's primary reacti on to the male l over's declarati ons was a foreboding that
incorporation and l oss of inde pendent self could only ensue. Related to this fear
is an i m plied criticism of the male l over: he is portrayed . as rash and unrelia ble in
his emotional attachments - q uick to l ove and therefore quite l i kely quick to
l oathe. Thus the woman's past response was one of self-defence, a s she
68
endeavoured to protect herself from both col onisation and pain from the male
lover.
Such responses, though , lie beneath the immediate surface o f the poem .
The surface itsel f is busily reconstructing the hierarchical roles of androcentric
culture, using a metaphor from very early in the sonnet sequence. The speaker,
decrying herself as unworthy of the l over, sees herself rather as
m ore like a n out of tune
Worn viol , a g ood singer would be wroth
To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in
haste ,
I s laid d own at the first i l l-sounding note .
I did n ot wrong m yself so, but I placed
A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float
' Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,­
And g reat souls, at one stroke , m a y d o and d oat.
In Sonnet I l l , the speaker paints the fa mous picture of the male l over as
the "chief m usician " within the lattice , playing his part i n the social pagea ntry
for q ueens and "a hundred " bright eyes. Conversely , the s pea ker is the poor,
excluded and wasting courtly m instrel/ woman poet, who refuses to be part of
the c onventional setting w here women are instruments for the master male
musician t o play upon . I n a profound alteration of both perspective and position,
the speaker now employs the same image to show that she has been incor­
porated into the c onventions of l ove , and has become the i nstrument for the
m aster musician to play upon . She is not, however, a perfect instrument
providing pleasure and satisfaction to the m usician: she is i nstead wayward ,
e mitting " ill-sounding " n otes. l t is tem pting to read this as a reference t o the
speaker's protestations throug hout this l ove relationshi p, a nd her refusal to 'go
d ow n without a fight' . Her suspicion of, and reluctance to engage in traditional
l ove roles mark her as out of ste p with her society, a nd promoting disharmony,
to c ontinue the metaphor. Hence her statement, "I did n ot wrong m yself so" :
beyond the surface of self-deprecation is a clear a p preciation of her unsuitability
for the role of instrument to the male m usician.
Nevertheless, she is now playing this very rol e . The sonnet, despite these
s ubversive undertones, still depicts an essential inequality. The male l over is the
69
master m usician, with power t o make the instrument speak i n the way he
chooses. Conversely, the woman is the silent object, only ever capable of giving
beauty and value when touched by the male . Here, the woman responds to her
account of her initial reluctance in the relationsh i p , with the 'confession' that
she underestimated the man: "I placed/ A wrong on thee" . She failed to
a ppreciate that under great hands, any i nstrument may make perfect sounds.
This claim is, of course , extravagant: an untuned instrument remains untuned no
matter who plays, and as such " perfect strains" are im possible. But the male
l over is superhuman, g od l i ke - a "great" soul. I n the same way that G od uses
sinful creatures to effect His perfect will, so the master m usician can m a ke
perfect music from "defaced" instruments. " Defaced " is how the woman
describes herself: to deface is to mar or disfig ure. The word e m phasises again
tht she is the victim of external l y-inflicted damage. Moreover, it l iteral l y
suggests that h e r face h a s been removed , denoting t h e erasure o f her separate
identity.
The final l i ne of the poem is a marvellously subtle (and cynical )
description of the traditional process o f l ove as i t has been delineated i n the
sonnet sequence. Love and creation of the other are simultaneous for a
masculinist lover . He acts/ creates ( playi ng the instrument: " d o " ) and at the
same time ( "at one stroke " ) l oves ( "doat" ) . This l ove inevita bly entails
c onstructing the beloved , and so the woman's value lies in the masculine
c onstruction of her. The narcissism of such love - the woman reflects the man's
c reative power a nd viril ity back to him - is thus descri bed .
The reuse of a prior image signals another element i n the speaker's
exploration of the experience of l ove . I n Sonnet I l l , the metaphor of instrument/
m usician is used to de pict the speaker's position of relative autonomy; here it
d epicts the woman's position of incorporation and dependency. In the earlier
i nstance, the woman stood outside l ove; here she is well and truly i n l ove . This
reworking of images, allowing her tropes to shift and slide, indicates a growing
awareness of the power of metaphor to change meaning . The full i m plication of
this power is explored i n Chapter Three: for the present the speaker has yet t o
find a non-patriarcha l l y defined role in this relati onshi p, a n d h e r language
expl orations and metaphors convey the difficulty of this search .
70
XXXI I I
I n S onnet XXX I I I the speaker continues to rework her figures, this time
reem ploying the image from S onnet XXXI i n w hich she plays the child to the
male parent/ g od figure. Sonnets XXX I I I a nd XXXIV are companion pieces,
correlating this parent-child i nteraction with the conventional l ove relationship.
Yes, call m e by m y pet-name ! let m e hear
The name I used to run at, when a child,
From innocent play, a nd leave the cowslips piled,
To glance up in some face that proved m e dear
With the look of its eyes .
The first l ines of this sonnet reveal a nostalgic desire for the carefree security
and assured love of the parent-child relationshi p , a relationship that i s now lost
to the adult. She hears her l over use a " pet-nam e " that recalls the i nnocent,
trusting child of the past, certai n of love . The romanticising of childhood is
evident in the " innocent play" and the piled "cowslips " , the w ild-growing plant
of pastures a nd ban ks . The child of this natural , e uphoric scenario is named ,
called , a nd l ove d , each aspect g iving i ntegral val ue a nd identity to the child . The
speaker descri bes parental love as "some face that proved me dear/ With the
look of its eyes" . The child has her worth proved to her, in the look of love in
the pare nt ' s eyes.
All this makes an interesting comment on the position of the speaker in
adult life . N ow the woman's identity i s also d ependent u pon a nother , in this
case the stronger figure of the man. As the previous sonnets have show n , the
woman is named , called and loved by the man. lt i s his action that g ives her
value in society, and hence the correlation of the two relationsh i ps . The adult,
mature and potentially self-assured woman is not a d e pendent, i mmature child ,
however, a nd so the d ifferences between the two relationships become obvious.
Such parental 'naming ' i s too often i m prisoning a nd stultifying , denying the
woman self-constructed identity. She assumes the negative position of silent
object; she is the m use; she is the site for male exercise of identity.
71
Yet the spea ker clearly finds some satisfaction in this role, a s she invokes
the happier parent-child relationshi p . "Yes, call me by my pet-name ! " she i nvites
him.
I miss the clear
Fond voices, which, being drawn and reconciled
I nto the music of Heaven's undefiled ,
Call m e no longer. Silence on the bier,
While I call G od .. call G od !
For EBB, the deprivation i n these lines was very real , grieving a s she did the l oss
of cl ose a nd dearly loved and l oving family members, particularly her m other and
her favourite brother Bro. With this account of l oved ones' withdra wa l , a
shocking sense of l oss interrupts the sonnet's idyllic childhood remem brances.
The spea ker has been left forl orn of unconditional l ove a nd affirmation of
identity. I nstead there is "silence on the bier" - silence not only from the now­
a bsent l oved ones, but also a pparently from God , her only resource now. When
she petitions H i m , all she hears is the silence of the bier. The profundity of this
isolation a ppare ntly excludes all non-m ortal recourse . Accordingly, the spea ker's
syntax is disrupted, as she la pses herself into silence (in the elli pses) .
The tone of the re peated phrase "call G od ! " is a m biguous: does this
express im patience a nd contempt, both with self and G od at a bsence of relief,
or is this said i n a tone of surprise and g rowing enlightenment, as the spea ker
realises that " God" has in fact answered ? " So let thy m outh/ Be heir to those
who are now exanimate. " In typical fashion, the speaker suppla nts the divine
person with the m ortal male. When she calls for God i n her desolation, it is the
male l over who a nswers; his voice will replace the voices that are now l ost to
her. He will become 'family' for her, and in so doing he inherits their right t o
n a m e a n d call t h e child/ woman - a n d s h e promises to respond with t h e same
child-l i ke readiness. I n the image of fl owers in l ines 1 1 - 1 2 she instructs the l over
to finish gathering the fl owers (cowslips) she began to g ather in her childhood,
thus linking the pleasures and l oves of those times with their l ove now . Their
" late" l ove so c ontinues the early l ove .
The e m otional narrative in this sonnet reveals the woman's fear of
isolation and l oss of filial l ove and definition. Her a ppeal t o the male l over
72
therefore i s a n a ppeal for security and safety within familial relationships. His a p­
parent willingness to fill this need i n her gratifies her; hence her final promi se to
exhibit the obedience a nd trust of a child. H owever, the danger evident from the
whole context of the Sonnets i s that this potentially fulfilling relationsh i p for the
woman i s imagined within the fixed , hierarchical a nd repressive structures of her
cultural traditions. When the woman i nvites the safety (and dependency) of the
parent-child structure i nto their l ove, she i nvites a potential replaying of those
repressive roles. The sonnet exe m plifies how her constructions both a rise out of,
a nd a re caught within, the psychology of her society.
XXXIV
I n a m icrocosmic replay of the central tension of Sonnets from the
Portuguese , Sonnet XXXIV a nswers the fantasies dreamt in S onnet X XX I I I .
With the same heart , I said , I 'l l a nswer thee
As those , when thou sha lt call me by my name Lo, the vain promise ! is the same, the same,
Perplexed a nd ruffled by life's strategy ?
T h e danger that closed t h e previous sonnet is overtl y discussed here, a s the
speaker questions the possi bility of unproblematically recreating the filial roles
within a romantic context. How can she answer the male l over's call with the
same heart with which she answered her parents' call as a child ? Her heart is
not "the same " , but has been " perplexed and ruffled" by the strategy of life . The
language here contrasts with the simple romanticism of the last sonnet. The
woman's adult experience has bewildered and troubled her: life's strate g y , as it
as a ffected her, seem s t o be the silencing and objectifying of w omen for men's
pleasure/ satisfaction/ protection. 1 9 Line 4 of the British Museum m anuscri pt
reads: " I f vexed by years and w orn by memory" ( Ratchford 1 0 2 ) . The woman of
these sonnets constantl y rem i nds both l over and reader that she has been worn
d ow n by this strategy to a state a pproaching death. She can never be the
i nn ocent trusting child of the past again. Com pare what e m otions the adult
woman brings when her l over calls:
When I a nswer now,
I drop a g rave thought, - break from solitude; -
73
Yet still m y heart goes to thee . . . ponder how . .
Not a s t o a single good , but all m y g ood !
Lay thy hand on it, best one, and a llow
That no child's foot could run
fast as this
blood .
The context i n which the woman lives is very different to that of the child .
I nn ocent happy play has become gravity and solitude; filial assurance has
become female sadness. And yet the speaker is fascinated to see that she sti l l
a nswers the l over w h e n he calls. Despite h e r context - living in a society whose
strategy is to deny women such as herself - she sti l l obeys because her need of
him outweighs her fear of the relationship. He is "al l " her g ood .
The tone of this sonnet is m uch darker and quieter than that of its
com panion sonnet. The adult woman acknowledges her fantasies and reviews
the actual nature of her l ove : caught within and rocentric boundaries which her
own language reproduces, and yet nevertheless choosing to work within those
boundaries because of her l ove and need . She still describes herself as havi ng no
va lue without h i m , even though such description is part of the " strategy" of life.
Hence the sadness that exudes from this sonnet : there a p pears to be n o outside
existence to ideological structures, nowhere to site their l ove without its being
already structured .
XXXV
The speaker continues to explore the rami fications of this m ost recent
idea - the replacement of parenta l , familial l ove with the male lover's
commitment. In S onnet XXXV, she is painfully aware of the sacrifices i nvolved
i n this substituti on, and i n true feminist fashion expresses c oncern that such
sacrifices should be equally shared between the l overs:
I f I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to m e ? Shall I never miss
H ome-ta l k and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look u p , to drop on a new range
Of walls a nd floors .. another home than this?
74
I n the l a nguage of the market-place , recalling Sonnets XVI I I and X I X and the
e xchange of the l oc ks of hair, the spea ker suggests a bargain with her lover. 20
The concise , immediate force of the o pening sentence states the woman's case
clearly a nd simply, and demands a p propriate recom pense from the male in
equally clear terms. She proposes to leave " a l l " for him, and the correlation with
EBB's l ife i s o bvious, in the planned exodus to the c ontinent, leaving behind
family a nd a father of enormous significance i n her life .
" [A ] I I " the speaker's sacrifices have been witnessed through out the
sequence: the relinquishing of personal i nitiative and voice in poetry to become
the Muse or the product of the male poet; the concomitant l oss of separate
selfhood and identity; subjection to societally-defined hiera rchical roles in the
Victorian l ove structure . N o w , she invites her lover to supplant the m ost
meaningful relati onships of her life hitherto: those with her fa mily. This desire is
sti l l a sacrifice, as he m ust conquer both her grief a nd l ove for those people .
Such a lterations c a n only b e made upon the assurance o f something t o take the
place of their loss: the l over's committed, abiding, fulfilling presence. 2 1
That the woman i s d ou btful, or at least uncerta i n , that such substitutions
will be made, i s evident in the fact that her proposals all ta ke the form of
questions. " I f I [ . . . ] , wilt thou ? " "Shall I ? [ . . . ] Wilt thou ? " I ndeed , there i s a very
real sense in which these statements are conditional ones, that the woman can
only acquiesce to the situation if she i s assured of the sti pulations mentione d .
A g a i n , t h e context is mercantile , a s t h e sonnet speaks i n contractual terms.
The speaker's desire for safety a nd certai nty in secure surroundings is
clear from l i nes 2-6. The equality and non-threate ning atmosphere described
here evokes happy family life, and her realisation that she will l ose these positive
experiences in going with him i ndicates a change i n perspective from that of the
adoring woman for whom the lover is a saviour from a life near death. Will the
male lover be able to create this positive atmosphere in their relationshi p ? The
security of home surroundi ng s i s unwilling l y rel i nquished: she trusts that she will
not find the new home " strang e " . The recreation here of a n enclosed i nterior
indicates the speaker's desire for security. Similarly, the height imagery
continues i n " look u p " and " d rop" : the speaker w o r ks i n a small h orizontal
75
space, a nd yet the vertical possibilities are endless. 2 2 The woman poet/ l over
m a y only be allowed a tiny part of social space , yet within that small s phere she
explores alternatives of great depth a nd soaring heights.
The substitutions that the male lover must make a re m ore than living
ones - he is also to fill the place left by dead fam i l y members. This responsi bility
is indeed hardest, the woman acknowledges in l ines 7 - 1 1 , because her l oving
memories are inextrica bly mixed with the sense of l oss for the l oved ones. The
male l over has tried to conquer her l ove , she knows, but to conquer her grief will
be m ore 'tryi ng ' for him, because "grief indeed is l ove a nd grief besid e " . Such
em oti ons are more profound than simple love , she asserts.
The responsi bilities incumbent upon the male in this sonnet are thus
clearly delineated . The spea ker wants to make her needs a bsolutely a p parent to
the man, because conventi ona l l y her needs have no bearing on the relati onship.
And yet the tensi on between such self-assertion and submission to safe and yet
im prisoning roles emerges in the final lines.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love .
Yet love m e - wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,
And fold within, the wet wings of thy d ove .
Line 1 2 is m ore than the i m portunity and self-d isparagement of the courtly l over.
The spea ker is a ware that her marketable value in this l ove economy is
extremely l imited : she is excluded and marginalised by society, a nd the resulting
efforts and griefs have aged and enervated her. Her sense of l osses - both
familial a nd personal - have all but destroyed her. Having m ade sincere but blunt
calls for e quality of givi ng in their relationshi p , she recognises the fact that such
calls carry no weight in her society; she is pricing herself out of the market, as it
were. Always behind her requests to him i s uncertainty, the knowledge that her
self-assertions in this relationship have little influence , a nd that the male l over
may refuse to play the game. And so she returns to the meta phor of Sonnet
X XX I , that of the parent bird brooding and gathering the fledgling. She a p peals
to the male as her protector and great resource , with heart large enough to
encom pass her. This enfolding satisfies all her desires for security and enclosure ,
d isplaced from the removed family into the parent/ g od / lover.
76
And yet i n c ontinuing the image from Sonnet XXXI , where she plays the
fledgling bird, the speaker's image of herself as a d ove here stresses that she
too can fly (and potentia lly a ppropriate the higher positio n of the vertical
imagery) . Her subjectivity as poet a nd lover i s thus i m plied here , and yet her
vulnera bility i s foremost: she requires the shelter and comfort of the g reater
male .
This sonnet is a particularly clear exa m ple of the problematic conflict that
the speaker has with her desire for i ndependent selfhood and her sense of need
for l ove a nd security. The latter leads her to seek refuge in potentially
paternalistic roles which she questions. Her exploration thus becomes a circular,
self-denying process of which she is painfully aware .
XXXVI
Anxiety a nd uncertai nty also characterise the thirty-sixth sonnet.
When we m et first a nd l oved , I did n ot build
U pon the event with m arble. Could it mean
To last, a l ove set pendulous between
S orrow and sorrow ? Nay, I rather thrilled,
Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
The onward path , a nd feared to overlean
A finger even .
The s pea ker's continuing attitude to their relationsh i p i s that it must be
transitory. Their i nitial attraction was too sha ky a foundation for a relationshi p ,
a nd so s h e refuses to believe i n any a p parently positive developments i n their
friendshi p - the l i g hts that " seemed to gild " their future path together. I nstead,
she "thrilled " , a nd the w ord successfully conveys the m i xture of fear,
excite ment and tremulous nervousness that e pitomised her response to the
relationshi p i n the first half of the Sonnets. The w ord itself i m plies a n i nternal
conflict between fear a nd attraction - the central tension within the speaker.
As the spea ker piles image upon i mage i n these l i nes, she builds up a
definition of the nature of their l ove . Again, that definition i s l ocated i n the
intimate, personal experience of the l overs, not in a n external force . The building
77
metaphor of foundations and marble i s foll owed by the image of their l ove as a
suspended pendulum , set hanging between two sorrows - her past life a nd
future hopelessness ? 2 3 Their l ove is then quickly reimagined a s a path lying
ahead of them , gilded with hopeful but untrustworthy light. The path m oves
between the two sorrows: to foll ow it, the woman must exercise extrem e
caution, not to " overlean/ A finger even" a n d s o u pset the balance.
Each of these concrete images evokes an atmosphere of physical danger,
of a w orld of uncertain foothold and constantly threatening collapse. There is n o
safe place in these images; hence t h e woman's emotional responses i n the
words "thrilled " , " Distrusting " , "feared " . The images both reflect and a lso create
her uncerta inty.
And , though I have grown serene
And strong since then, I think that God has willed
A still renewable fear 0 l ove , 0 troth . .
Lest these enclasped hands should never hold,
This m utual kiss drop down between us both
As an unowned thing , once the l i ps being cold.
..
This uncertainty, according to these lines, is both permanent and G od-ordained the " still renewable fear" enjoins caution u pon the woman . She must be
watchful concerning the very source of her serenity and strength, their l ove and
commitment to each other. " 0 l ove , 0 troth . . " Love , throughout the S onnets ,
has been the cause of her fear and anxiety, and the subject of her exploration. lt
has also, paradoxically, been the source of her happi ness and a site upon which
t o exercise her poetic voice. But the latter is dependent upon the nature of their
l ove : whether it can eschew the roles of patriarchal l ove . Hence her constant
refiguring of their love experience , as she strugg les to depict mutuality in their
relationship. Lines 1 0- 1 2 describe the way such mutuality should be. The
spea ker fears, thoug h , that "these enclasped hands" will not hold together, that
their " m utual kiss " may be disowned and "drop down" between the l overs, if
the l i ps g row cold to such kissing. This kiss recalls Sonnet XXI I , "When our two
souls stand u p erect and strong " , i n which their " lengthening wings" m eet a nd
catch fire in a mutual act. 24 Here, the danger i s that such a l ove will be lost,
and the thought i mmediately invokes the vertical imagery of hierarchy in " drop
d o w n " . Her rei magined l ove could so easily be l ost.
78
And Love , be false ! if he, to keep one oath,
Must l ose one joy, b y his life's star foretold .
What seems l i ke a cryptic after-thought to the m a i n sentiments of the sonnet
nevertheless supports the speaker's theme of their l ove 's fragility. " Love " will
prove false if at any stage the male l over m ust sacrifice a future joy of his own
to their m utual l ove. I n the context of this particular sonnet, the lines seems to
suggest that if he m ust sacrifice personal fulfilment ( " by his life's star foretold "
i m plies a n am bition t o b e fulfilled) t o " keep one oath" (note the e m phasis o n his
obligation, n ot his l ove) , the relationship would be i n jeopard y . Under such
conditions the male w ould resent the oaths of m utuality; he will have had to
forgo a personal joy for the m utual joy, and the speaker has no illusions as to
the outcome of such a sacrifice . The e ntire sonnet has stressed the preca rious,
vulnerable nature of woma n-defined l ove .
XXXVI I I
The dilemma that has been elaborated i n the final sonnets o f this cha pter
has shown how the roles that the l overs play and that the spea ker reconstructs
in her d iscourse , are limiting for both, and potentially destructive for the woma n ,
i f t h e y remain within the strictly duali st structure that is a ndrocentric love. The
physical relationsh i p between the l overs is also a bsorbed into this structure . I n
one o f the few sonnets that speaks o f a physical exchange between the l overs,
S onnet XXXVI I I m ythologises the kisses that the male l over has bestowed upon
the woman, using the sam e m odel of divinity that prese rves hierarchical
distinctions.
First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
And , ever sinc e , it grew m ore clean and white, . .
Slow t o w orld-greetings . . quick with its " O h ,
list , "
When the angels spea k . A ring o f a methyst
I could not wear here , plainer to m y sight,
Than that first kiss .
The lover's kisses are here i nterpreted as a process of purification. His first kiss
d eferentially " but only" kissed her fingers, but this action i s highly significant fo r
79
the speaker, who considers the kiss to have clea nsed her from the g rossness of
m ortal existence. She now shuns earthly contacts ( " world-g reetings " ) for
heavenly ones ( " a ngels " ) . His bestowal of l ove has idealised her; their l ove is
very 'spiritua l ' .
This purification i s visually obvious t o t h e speaker, in that her hand has
grown "clean and white " . The preciousness of that kiss is as plain a s a jewelled
ring would be upon her finger. The latter reference sugg ests a n engagement
ring : the l over has not given her one, but she i m plies that the kiss is effectivel y
such a token o f betrothal.
There are disquieting features to this process, though . The spea ker reads
this token action as the male l over claiming and purifying her; she gains value as
a result of his merciful actions. Specifically he has kissed her fingers " wherewith
I write " , indicating that his purifying i nfluence acts firstly upon her writing
capa bilities, her voice as a poet. The i m plication is deadly: does her desire for
a utonomy of voice and expression require purging ? 25 Certainly his action
a ppears to have affected her writing m use, as she responds readily to heavenly
prom pts, and less to worldly ones.
The second kiss that the male l over bestows is almost casual i n its
proprietorial sensuality:
The second passed in height
The first, and sought the forehead , and half missed,
Half falling on the hair. 0 beyond meed !
That was the chrism of l ove , which l ove 's own crown
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede .
Cooper writes that this kiss is " suggestive o f a n i ncreasing sexuality in the care­
l essness of its being 'half m issed/ Half falling on the hair' " (Cooper 1 0 6 ) . lt
recalls Sonnet XVI I I i n which the woman relinquishes a lock of hair, the latter
being representative of her bea uty a nd eroticism which the l over now 'owns ' .
Here the m a n ' s casua lly paternal kiss o n the forehead also includes t h e hair,
with its e rotic elements. I ndeed , this kiss " passes in height" the first , n ot only
physically, but also sym bolically. His purifying c ol onisation is m oving from the
spiritual to the physica l .
80
The spea ker is once m ore de picting her lover in the role of G od . His l ove
cleansed the unworthy w om a n with " sanctifying sweetness " , crowned her with
love, and so made her w orthy. Then followed this kiss on her head , a " chrism "
or baptism of l ove , a seal of the cleansing a nd purifying act of the l over. Her
response , " 0 beyond meed ! " , reiterates her unworthiness and his g race a nd
mercy: his gifts to her a re undeserved . The echo of the w ord " chrism " recalls
S onnet I l l , w here the excluded courtly l over/ woman comments to the included,
feted male poet that "The chrism is on thine head , - on mine, the dew " . l t would
seem that the only way the w oman receives that chrism i s via l ove .
The regality a nd sense of pride that the woman can now claim as a result
of the man's gifts shine out in the final three lines. His kiss is l i ke a royal robe ,
"folded down/ I n perfect, purple state " . The i mage from Sonnets V I I I (the
" p urple of thine heart " ) and XVI ( " fling/ Thy purple round m e " ) is used to
describe the saving/ conquering generosity of the male lover. Similarly here :
since the pressure of his l i ps a nd love on hers, she has " been proud " , and her
w ords have been " My Love , m y own . " She gains self-worth and self-respect
through his l ove a nd her words are now a bout him and his l ove for her. His
" pe rfect" love ma kes her l i kewise perfect.
In this epitome of the theme of l over as g od , the spea ker descri bes his
action u pon her life a s a process of purification: firstly her fingers - her action
and writing; secondl y her forehead/hair - paternal l y subduing her beneath his
kiss; finally her l i ps - enfolding and sealing her e rotic and speaking life . Cooper
w rites: "The attem pt to spiritualise physical love collapses with this kiss 'upon
m y lips' . . . .The speaker's response to this kiss is n o longer to deny it by
purifying it, but to e njoy it - 'I have been proud ' - and to claim it - ' M y l ove, my
own"' ( 1 06-1 0 7 ) . I concur with Cooper's a pprehension of the m ovement from
spiritual to physical , but the c ontext of religious purification by the l over/ g od
m a kes that m ovement problematic. I n the speaker's depiction, the male is
claiming all aspects of her existence . This rare account of physical tenderness
between the lovers reveals the woman's tensions within the relationshi p. By
portraying his kisses a s divine g races, she shows c onventional g ratitude a s both
lowly woman and courtly lover, but the d ualist i�age i nevita bly raises q uestions
for her position both as a separate identity and a s a poet.
81
Yet the spea ker 's invocation of love in these final lines also brings to the
surface the im plicit exploration of the nature of l ove, which has been continuing
through the sequence. That exploration has seen the speaker's depiction of l ove
m ove from positing an ideal external force that acts u pon the l overs, to positing
rather a m utual experience that defines both the l overs and l ove itself, a nd that
can transform the participants. Thus, " Love " is less external, a nd comes i nstead
to be related to the l over, and the mutual experience. In Sonnet XXXVI I I , the
speaker i nvokes this Love in a manner that potentially shifts the focus from the
portrayal of male l over as god.
The male l over's kisses are the ba ptism or crown of l ove , cul m i nating in
the "perfect" kiss on the woman's lips. I n this kiss, the woman has for the first
time opportunity to respond simultaneously to his action: previousl y her hand
and forehead c ould only passively receive the g i ft. Since that mutual kiss the
s peaker has " been proud " . and asserted both her participation in, and ownershi p
of, the experience. " My Love , my own " c a n refer both t o t h e m a l e l over and t o
t h e transforming , self-defining and self-affirming ( being " p roud " ) experience o f
l ove that both have created a n d enjoyed.
Thus, within the dilemma of these sonnets, the speaker's discourse sows
the seeds for a prospective solution to her dilemma . By redefining the nature of
l ove, her words offer a way to allow mutual i nvolvement and affirmation for
both l overs. The overt development of this strategy is the subject of the
following chapter.
XXXI X
I n the final sonnet of this section, the spea ker engages i n an
extraordinary l inguistic dance, as the effort of attem pting to juggle the
fundamental opposition between conventional roles and feminist self-assertion
becomes extrem e . Here she rewrites a bi bl ical text in an attem pt to describe the
nature of their l ove - an attem pt that is nevertheless based i n prevailing
(religious) conventions.
82
Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace
To look throug h and behind this mask of m e ,
(Against w h i c h years have beat thus blanchingly
With their rains,) and behold m y soul's true face,
The dim and weary witness of life's race ! [ . . . ]
Two paramount points a re evident from this excerpt. Firstly, the cha racterisation
of the male lover obviously repeats the n ow-familiar role of l over as god. This is
particularly a p posite after Sonnet XXXVI I I , i n which the male's kisses enact his
mercy and g race bestowed upon the sinner-woman. N ow this sonnet opens by
testifying to his " power" a nd " g race " , the attri butes of G od , a bl e to see into the
heart/ mind/ soul of the woman.
Secondly, these l i nes focus on the nature of that heart/ mi nd/ soul . The
speaker wants to describe a d isjunction between her a p pearance and her i nternal
'reality', a distinction which suggests a belief in an a bsolute self, a fixed 'rea l '
entity. She refers to h e r externa l a p pearance a n d existence a s "this m a s k o f m e "
which has been blanched a n d drawn by the " rains" or sorrows of the years. The
male l over is able to see past or "throug h " this pale mask to the " soul's true
face " behind, a "dim and weary" face that bears w itness to the hard " race " that
life has been. The i mmediate irony here is that there is no d ifference: the
external and the i nternal are the sam e . The mask, with all its c onnotations of
illusion, acting and false i mages, is basically the same as the 'reality ' .
The ensuing l ines g o o n to t r y a nd m a ke a clearer distinction :
Because thou hast the faith and l ove to see,
Through that same soul 's distracting lethargy,
The patient a ngel waiting for a place
In the new H eavens !
N ow the male l over i s required to 'see' even further, "through " the false m ask of
the soul, and its " di stracting lethargy " - distracting because it diverts attention
from the ' real ' person beneath it. That 'real ' person i s the " patient a ngel " who
waits to be taken to a new heaven. Some extraordi nary sleight of hand i s
occurring here . The speaker a p pears to be mooting a series o f receding selves,
each new one a p parently superseding the 'reality' of the previous self - or
alternatively, the illusion a nd mask of the previous self. Furthermore, the male
83
l over must have the religi ous qualities of " faith and l ove to see " her, qual ities
required to accept and believe the unseeable a nd unprova ble (which is, after a l l ,
w h a t angels are ) .
A l l this argument tends in the same direction: the w oman's assertions of
a true sel f are shown to be her own linguistic c onstructions. The d istinctions of
"mask", "true face " and " patient a ngel " are her own creations, pictures she
draws of herself. Why? The main thrust of the sonnets i n this cha pter is that the
weak, worthless w oman has been saved by the stronger, g reater man. The
speaker's contention here is that her worthlessness is a social impositi on, and
beneath it she instead posits an angel, a pure , val ua ble spiritual being. I n other
w ords, the compl icated repositioning that she engages in here is primarily to
assert her own worth, whilst a ppearing not to.
Secondly, and perha ps m ore i m portantl y, the speaker is here m oving
toward an alternative to the strict dualism of conventional Victorian l ove . As we
saw in Sonnet XXXVI I I , this a lternative suggests that concepts - l i ke l ove, or
male and female - can be redefined metaphorically to suggest new structures.
The implications of this alternative are expl ored in the foll owing cha pter.
Now, however, the sonnet m oves into its bi blical m od e :
- because n o r s i n nor woe,
Nor G od 's infliction , nor death's neighbourhood,
Nor all which others viewing , turn t o go, . .
Nor a l l which makes m e tired o f a l l , self-viewed , . .
N othing re pels thee , . . Dearest, teach m e so
To pour out g ratitude , as thou dost, good .
Com pare Romans 8 : 38-3 9 :
For I am sure that neither death, n o r l ife, n o r a ngels, nor
principa lities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the l ove of G od in
Christ Jesus our Lord .
I m port and structure i n both are strikingly similar, e m phasising that the l over will
n ot be separated from the l oved one. Nothin g , the speaker rejoices, will repel the
-
84
male l over, and she l ists a l l the past prohi bitions t o their l ove . Sin and w oe
a ppear to be the reg ulation descri ption of her position prior to the man's a rriva l :
w o e is certainly evident i n t h e opening sonnets; s i n i s society's cha racterisation
of her l ife before the i rruption of the male lover. " God's i nfliction" - punishment,
pain or annoyance from G od - recalls the early sonnets a s well, particularly
Sonnet 11: " ' Nay' i s w orse/ From G od than from all others, 0 my friend ! " . Lines
1 1 and 1 2 keenly delineate the speaker's sense of isolation a nd rejection, and
the resulting self-disparagement. Everything a bout her repels others, a nd indeed
repels herself: when she views herself she is "tired of a l l " . The list she has given
encom passes her whole w orld , for on a l l sides she believes she faces negative
judgement. And yet , Christ-like, the male l over cuts through such judgement
with his " power" a nd "grace " . Accordingly the poem ends with the a ppropriate
response from the g rateful sinner: a pra yer to be taught how to pour out
g ratitude , in the same way and measure that the male l over pours out g ood .
The whole structure of the sonnet reflects this basic m ovement . lt is one
l ong sentence on the simple framework of " Because you . . . then 1 . . . ". Because
you have persisted a nd perceived the w orthy person behind the surface, I will
respond w ith a p propriate g ratitude. The sonnet would a ppear to be the
culmination of the entire sequence's preoccupation with the ostensible
theological basis of romantic l ove .
The crucial subversion that e m erges from this sonnet's restatement of
theological romanticism is the difference beween the usual Chri stian scenario
and the scenario here. I n ( EBB's) Protestant C hristi a n theology, humankind is
a bsolutely fallen a nd Christ's l ove is sheer grace on the unworthy. The latter half
of this sonnet w ould seem to adopt the same picture , and yet it i s underm ined
by the preceding octave , which depa rts significantly from the accepted d octrine.
In this sonnet the woman responds t o the dilemma of representation within
repressive structures. She will not remain i n the role of penitent sinner,
acknowledging a bsolute unworthiness. I nstead she asserts her value, which has
been covered over and effaced by the pains and degradations of life. That
" patient angel " is one of those subversive flashes that both foregrounds the
prevailing structures and finds them wanting. Clearly, the C hristian theological
85
metaphor, because i t remains dualist, i s inappropriate as a structure for gender
relations.
Conclusion
In Cha pter One I argued that the speaker articulated her tension between
submitting to prevailing social codes a bout l ove , and rejecting them to a ssert her
separate i dentity. She a p propriated and transformed the courtly love tradition
both to d epict that tensi on, a nd to provide a speaking site for herself. Final l y she
began to question the nature of l ove , and to redefine it in terms of her own
experience.
I n this second chapter, I have shown that the speaker expl ores the
gender roles involved in patriarcha l love , particularly through the metaphor of
G od a nd sinner. Her discourse shows how the Christian dualist m odel , when
used a s a basis for romantic l ove , leads to re pressive hierarchical roles. Her
legitimate desires, for security and transformation or simply to praise her l over
(all of which precipitate her use of the divine m eta phor). become m utually
exclusive with her similarly leg itimate desire for persona l determination and a
personal speaking voice . As in the courtly l ove structure, the roles have been
reified into exclusive opposites.
Secondly, this chapter has revealed the dilemma posed by a female voice
attem pting to speak through such 'tainting' dualistic m odels. The speaker's own
formulations a nd constructions themselves reenact the destructive hierarchies
discussed i n Cha pter One.
Finally, this chapter has begun to show the speaker's strategy of re-using
meta phors to re-define situations and conce pts . In the same way that she
tnt
">011•''"-�.,
J,'x .... ,.,., ,t
mani pulated the courtl y l ove metaphor, the speaker (commencing i n Chapter
"
One) reworks the concept of Love . Finall y , by Sonnet XXXIX, she has begun to
rework the divine meta phor to allow herself d i gnity and w orth within it. This
strategy of mani pulating tropes (the focus of Chapter Three) becomes the means
whereby she challenges the dualisms of Victorian gender relations.
'"
86
N OTES
1 The lover's role as G od is also discussed by Stephenson ( Poetry 8 3 ) , Karlin
( 27 1 ) a nd Zimmerman ( 6 9 ) .
2 Karlin's source i s Kintner. The a bove q uotations come from letters dated
2 1 December, 1 84 5 ( Ki ntner 340- 1 ) , and 4 July, 1 846 (844).
3 Leighton also raises this point of spatial distance, this time i n the heig ht
and d e pth i magery. She reads this i magery as further evidence of the "subtle
com petition between them to be the lover, not the beloved" ( E liza beth 94).
Leighton's reasons for the Sonnets' self-de precation are more tenuous: the
speaker's humility makes up for her a p propriation of the role of poet, a nd a lso
reflects the grief that EBB sti l l felt over Bro's death ( 1 04-0 5 ) .
4 1 1 Corinthians 1 0- 1 2 i s particularly concerned with Paul boasting i n his
weakness.
5 Stephenson reads this ruby image as com pletely pos1t1ve : "The ruby,
sym bol of love , passion, and beauty, and reputed to give health, courage, and
happi ness, is a m ost a p propriate choice . lt becomes a visi ble sign not only of her
love , but also of her new strength and joy" ( Poetry 8 7 ) . There is no discussion of
the following l i nes of the sonnet.
6 Cf. J ohn 1 : 1 0 , discussing the creating Word, Christ: "He was in the worl d ,
and though t h e world w a s m a d e through him, t h e world did not recog nize h i m . "
7 E B B lived with the constant expectation that her life would b e short: the
conviction that she would not survive another w i nter i n England was a catalyst for
her m a rrying R obert. Many commentators have tied such biographical reasons into
the speaker's m orbidity: Leighton, for example, points to E BB's continuing grief
over Bro as the reason for the spea ker's preoccupations with dying (Eliza beth 1 0 5 ) .
8 The master-slave exa m ple originated with Hegel a nd was picked u p by
early Marxist criticism.
9 This practical inequity also i m pacts upon the master/slave relationship. As
long as that relationshi p remains a dualism , i n w hich the master can fix the
subord inate position of the slave ( physically, economically or psycholog ically) , the
latter's power is negligible .
10
This female a bdication of material power was, of course , enshrined in
English law until 1 8 6 6 , when J . S . Mill presented his petition to Parliament on the
rights of women. Women (including EBB) had been signing a nd presenting petitions
concerning the rights of married women for at least ten years previous, but it took
a m a n 's voice to validate the a ppeals.
87
1 1 Dorothy Mermin's brief com ment on this sonnet overl ooks its overt sense
of l oss. She reads the spea ker as " repudiating (as many Victorian poets felt it
necessary to do) art bred in i solation" (Origins 1 30 ) . The " re pudiation" in this
sonnet d oes not, however, erase the prior value g iven to that art " bred i n isolation " .
12
There is an i nteresting shift in the use of i magery i n l i nes 5-6, as
compared with Sonnet IX, where the spea ker-poet avows that she "will not soil thy
[the male l over-poet's] purple with m y dust " . Self-deprecation there has become
self-assertion here : in Sonnet XXVI it is the worl d 's d ust that sullies her purple.
1 3 An interesting variation on this idea is suggested by Mermin in a
discussion of Emily Bronte 's poetry. A continuing theme in Bronte 's w ork is the
effect of the male rescuer on woman's creativity: "the woman's visionary power
d i sa p pears under the gaze of an intruder-rescuer - is it rescue or rape ? - that
objectifies and transforms her" ( "The Damse l " 7 7 ) .
1 4 Zimmerman also notes in passing the transference of the G od-humanity
relationship onto gender relations. The woman " m ust rel inquish her direct
relationship with G o d , standing henceforward in relation to her husband as he d oes
to G od a nd as the church d oes to Christ . Her sovereignty m ust g ive way" ( 6 9 ) .
Zimmerman im portantly ind icates the speaker's sacrifice in her a rticle, but she
concludes that in the context of a ma rriage poem , which is how she reads the
S onnets, this hierarchical relationship becomes acce pta ble.
1 5 "And the Lord G od formed man from the dust of the g round a nd breathed
i nto his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being " (Genesis 2 : 7 ) .
1
6
See discussi on below p . 1 0 6ff.
1 7 The use of " prod i g a l " in the prior line evokes rem i nders of the bi blical
prodigal son, who required forgiveness and assurance of l ove from the merciful
father. The child i magery that the spea ker-poet has used further ela borates this
echo.
18
" ( H]e saw the Spirit of G od descending l ike a d ove and lighting on h i m "
( Matthew 3 : 1 6 ) .
19
The O E D 's definition o f 'perplexed ' reads: " i n doubt a n d a nxiety a b out a
m atter on account of its intricate nature " . The spea ker-poet used the same w ord
in S onnet XXX; she clearly sees it as a ptly descri bing her situation. Words such as
these , that provide linguistic touchstones for Sonnets from the Portuguese , a re
stri king evidence of the fundamenta l l y troubled nature of the sonnets. They have
obviously been overl ooked for many years by critics who chose to read the sonnets
as unalloyed romantic effusions, exalting the l over and the relationship .
20
Mary R ose Sullivan em phasises the " keynote of 'exchange'" which is
struc k in the letters between EBB and Robert Browning : " each poet has something
to offer the other, both will benefit a nd neither will be d e btors" (Sullivan 5 6 ) .
Sullivan draws interesting com parisons with the poetry that each w rote during and
a fter the courtshi p period , nota bly the Sonnets and " Saul " , and she finds m uch
i nterchange between the two w orks and writers. She does not, howeve r , q uestion
the anxieties of hiera rchy that she notes in EBB's letters and poetry, and she
88
unproblematically comments that " Later re-readings of their courtship letters m ust
have made it clear to EBB . . . that, i n their infinitely complex Ars Poetica 'giving a nd
taking by turns , ' m uch of what he g ratefully 'took' from her was essentially a re­
working of ideas that had originated with h i m " ( 6 5 , e m phasis m i ne ) .
21 The British Museum manuscri pt has "thee" and " be " in the first sentence
underlined , there by e mphasizing the obligatory nature of the request.
22 See earlier discussi on of this meta phor of distance. Both Mermin a nd
Stephenson expand the m eta phor to include the o pposition of " bleak w ide-open
spaces" with enclosed domestic interiors (Stephenson 7 9 ) . Mermin comments that
"The reader may feel uncomforta bly hemmed i n , but the speaker usually imagines
enclosure as protective , openness as allowing separation" (Origins 1 39 ) . Mermin
briefly discusses this trope as enacting some of the main themes from Victorian a rt ,
such as w o m e n shut u p i n confined spaces; t h e image a lso reiterates t h e speaker
as the i ntroverted , isolated, self-doubting Victorian poet. Stephenson is also brief:
the metaphor of enclosure is an expression of the s peaker's "desire for a place
w here l ove becomes i ntensely concentrated" ( 7 9 ) .
2 3 Before the l over's entrance into her life, the speaker envisaged only death
for herself. See Sonnet VI I .
24 See discussion below, p . 9 5 ff.
25 This recalls Sonnet VI I , in which "the face of all the w orld is chang e d " for
the speaker-poet by the a dvent of her l over. The final l ines of that sonnet relate
how her " l ute and son g " are now "only dear/ Because thy name m oves right in
w hat they say " . Her son g , previ ously l oved for itself, is now only valua ble
inasmuch as it extols the male l over.
r
89
CHAPTER THREE
LOVE A N D LANGUAGE
The previous cha pters have shown how the woman speaker of the
S onnets confronts and l i ng uistically g rapples with her society's construction of
gender relati onships. lt has become clear that she reproduces that structure
within herself and her language, and yet she also exposes the restrictive
binarisms of that structure. Her conflicting and apparently i rreconcila ble
responses to desire lead her to seek an alternative to the roles and rules of l ove
as m ooted by Victorian society. The pervasive depth a nd breadth of hegemonic
val ues require her to examine the m ost basic philosophical assum ptions of
gender relations. S pecifically, she attem pts to redefine l ove, refuting the
ideology that equates l ove with a hierarchical masculinist narcissism .
This third chapter shows how the speaker comes to a n awareness of the
transformative power of her own meta phors, enabling her to redefine " l ove " in
terms of m utuality and self-affirmation .
XIII
There are severa l early speculations i n the sequence a s to the role that
language has in gender relationships. Sonnet 11 speaks of the power of lang uage ,
traditionally held by the G od of Victorian society and his proxy, man. Woman,
the third element in this triangle of power relations, has n o lang uage a nd hence
n o power: she is intended to be the silent, listening a nd excluded object. This
view of language as power, as the key and mode to action within the
hegemony, is attested to in Sonnet X, where the woman revels in the power of
her words "I l ove thee" to transfigure herself, g lorifying and vindicating her to
the male l over.
Yet in the central sonnets the woman comes to m od ify this perce ption of
.
langua ge and its involvement in l ove relations as an instrument of power. She
90
views it as a n instrument of the hegemony; using it involves her in the
androcentric structure that is so problematic for her.
S onnet X I I I i s a crucial enunciation of this fear, and so launches the
speaker's developing concept of an alternative l ove which is related rather to a
new concept of 'woman-self' . I n Sonnet X I I I , the male lover has obviously
requested that the woman speak her love , but she refuses the request , seeing it
as a threat to her l ove and therefore to her subject self as woman.
And wilt thou have m e fashion i nto s peech
The l ove I bear thee, find i ng words enough ,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are roug h ,
Between o u r faces, t o cast light on each ? I drop it at thy feet.
The thought of having to w restle with her fiery emotions and desires , m oulding
and 'fashioning ' to give them verbal form , is repugnant to her. Her love is fire,
formless, or rather having a constantly changing for m . He w ould have her
contai n it, bring it to him as a " proof " .
H e r repug nance arises from several m otives. Firstly, how can she find
w ords "enoug h " to contai n in w ords the flux of her " w oman-l ove " ? Clearly the
woman considers language here as an enemy, fixing and i m prisoning .
Secondly, the lines conta i n an i mplicit q uestioning of the male l over's
m otives for this request . The w ords she fashions m ust be placed between them
as a torch, to cast light on their faces, to expose their positions. What will that
light show ? I nevita bly the situation already descri bed : his male-designated power
to c reate love and w orsh i p i n a lesser female , this endorsement of his phallicism.
She believes that she is required to reiterate their respective positions i n this
l ove relationsh i p by a verbal expression of l ove. H e demands " proof/ I n words,
of l ove hid in m e out of reach " , but the early sonnets show why she hides this
l ove: "To live on still i n l ove , a nd yet i n vai n , . . / To bless thee , yet renounce thee
to thy face" (Sonnet X I ) . Her sense of self will be a nnihilated when she
surrenders entirely, a nd the division between her self a nd his other which
perpetuates her sense of a separate c onsci ousness, will collapse i nto
i ncor poration. 1 Language is here a static light of exposure, used to reproduce
91
the patriarchal structure . S o she hides her l ove within herself, " out of reac h " of
h i m , which is why he now asks for proof of it.
A third reason for her repugnance is her fear a t what might happe n when
she holds the torch of her l ove out. The winds (of c ultural requirements ? ) are
rough between their faces - m ight they not extinguish her torch of l ove ?
Demands for her acquiescence to masculinist l ove structures that efface and
crush her subjectivity, endanger the l ove she has for h i m .
I cannot teach
My hand to hold m y spirit so far off
From myself . . me . .
The torch o f love she holds i s now a lso her spirit. Both her l ove and her spirit are
descri bed in terms of fire throughout the sonnets, and both are used a l m ost
intercha ngeably. " S pirit" is an elusive term, defined variously as " the animating
or vital principle in man . . . the soul of a person . . . the sentient part of a person
. . . the e m otional part of man . . . courage; d isposition to assert oneself" ( O E D ) .
The definitions suggest the assertive soul a n d consciousness of the speaker,
which she sees as inextrica bly m ixed with her l ove . The latter a rose out of the
fiercel y maintained selfhood of the opening sonnets, a nd that l ove has a l l owed a
new voice and rhetoric to her endangered selfhood. The danger of exposing that
selfhood-in-love is, however, frightening . She cannot d ivorce her l ove from her
s u bject self ( " From myself .. me .. " ) - qualities m ust remain together, m ixed .
Nay, let the silence of m y woman-hood
Commend m y woman-love to thy belief . . .
This classically feminist phrase conveys the situation o f the speake r i n a l l its
a m bivalence: silence is the heritage of the other - effectively n on-existence - a nd
yet i s paradoxically what this woman wants i n order to m ai ntain her i ntegrity of
selfhood. The dilemma that this desire for silence proposes, refusing
i ncorporation into the sym bolic order but necessarily remaining outside it i n
silence , i s a n i mpossible position for the spea ker.
This latter perspective has m odern echoes i n the w or k of many recent
post-structuralist French feminists. They argue for a feminine l a nguage that is
92
outside the lang uage of patriarchy. To use language is to enter pha l l ocentric
discourse, because patriarchy has a ppropriated language and established the
structures of syntax , grammar, logic, naming - all dualistically restricting a nd
defining (confining) language's natural play. H ow can a subject find a language
use that reflects an unconfined , non-dualistic, open perspective ?
At this point any unanimity i n psychoanalytical French femi ni st theory
frag ments , as some theorists argue that such a subversive lang uage can be
achieved within society, while others, such as Julia Kristeva , hold that w e can
only w ork within the existing structures , constantly dec onstructing and
subverting them to reveal the basic dualistic, l og ocentric assum ptions m entioned
a bove . Discussion on the nature of such a feminine langua g e , and whether or
not it can enter consciousness , has close analogy with EBB's descri ption here .
Such a language i s effectively silent i n patriarchy, because i t explodes the
boundaries of 'comm onsense '; it is a lang uage of totality, not based on
s pecificity and hierarchical dualisms, as is pha l l ocentric language. 2
I d o not wish to make too many claims for EBB's feminism , but it d oes
seem that the spea ker's conce pts of woman's l ove a nd selfhood prefigure the
descri ptions of the French feminists. Certainly she describes her l ove a s d ifferent
from his; it is " woman-love " . 3
Seeing that I stand unwon, h owever wooed ,
And rend the garment of m y life, i n brief,
By a m ost d auntless, voiceless fortitu d e ,
Lest one touch of t h i s heart conveys i t s grief.
She i s " unwon " , h owever he tries to woo her l i ke a prize, and these phrases a l l
suggest t h e proprietorial nature of the struggle here. Cha pter One showed that
this stance of rejection entails a huge cost. Her refusal to a l l ow her passion by
surrendering creates a self-inflicted rip in the g arment of her life. But she is
"dauntless " (intrepi d , not crushed i nto submission) in order t o retai n a " voiceless
fortitude " , staying outside his w ords and his control . Rather than speak , and
(she believes) be a p propriated , she will remain silent i n her l ove , a nd deliver
herself u p t o grief.
93
The final l i ne leaves us with this miserable dilemma . Her attitude of
defensive silence masks emotions of thwarted l ove a nd grief, which she w ould
readily express. The speaker has m oved from her difficulties in speech in the
opening lines to a point w here she now feels how easily she could betray her
position and self to his i m portuning touch. 4 This early sonnet already shows the
woman speaker wanting to redefine her conception of l ove , to em phasise a
d ifferent l ove to that her culture proposes. Yet her definition here leaves her i n
an i m passe , maintaining a silent desire that necessitates its endless non­
fulfillment.
XXI
Sonnet XXI contrasts dramatica lly with Sonnet X I I I , and yet the same
philosophical assumption underpins both . O n the one hand is the language of
pha l locentric culture and presumably the male l over; on the other is the w oman
poet's province , the silent world of feminine love. I n the earlier sonnet, the
spea ker refused to enter this patriarchal language; here she seems to rejoice in
the male l over's use of that language. Her joy is problematic and short-Jive d ,
thoug h , and soon h e r fears and philosophical d ifficulties assert themselves.
The previous sonnet, S onnet XX, has descri bed the male l over as the g od
of language, who burst through the s peaker's winter of isolation and silence, to
bring spring and release to the frozen, psychically dead woman. His " personal
act or speech" "thrill [s] " her. The same rejoicing attitude sparkles on the surface
of Sonnet XXI . The male l over has spoken words of l ove, which a ppear t o have
effected the l oosening of chains and arrival of spring mentioned in Sonnet X X .
T h e speaker wishes t o celebrate t h e effect b y repeating i t : s h e demands a
c onstant reiteration of his w ords, a multitude of w ords.
Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou d ost l ove me. Though the w ord repeated
Should seem a 'cuckoo-song , ' as thou d ost treat it,
Remem ber never to the hill or plain,
Valley and w ood , without her cuckoo-strain ,
Comes the fresh S pring in all her green complete d .
94
The repetition seems unnecessary to him, and he "treat[s] it" a s a re petitive ,
a l m ost m i ndless utterance . She, however, attributes deep significance t o the
words, because they denote her rescue and a w a kening by h i m . This significance
seems t o be l ost on him. 5 Her celebration is further undermin ei by her romantic
idea that the S pring will never come complete without the cuckoo's call . The
symbolic i m plication is that her spring - her re birth - is similarl y incom plete
without this avowal of love from him. But S pring is not de pendent upon a
cuckoo; i f anything the cuc koo is depe ndent upon spring. Does his statement of
l ove d e pend u pon her 'awakening ' , u pon her joining his a ndrocentric world of
differentiation and language ?
She continues:
Beloved, I, amid the darkness g reeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice , i n that d ou bt's pain
Cry, . . ' S peak once m ore . . thou lovest ! '
Here she imagines herself back i n undifferentiated d arkness ( l i ke the snow of
XX), but the lover's w ords dispel the fear a nd loneliness by bringing light and
d istinction . The earlier Morgan manuscri pt replaces "in that doubt's pai n " w ith
" i n m ortal pain " , m a king the distinction between his s pi rit-voice of almost divine
nature a nd her mortal , dying natu re ( Ratchford 7 6 ) . But it i s a d oubtful voice:
she i s not sure of it, which is why she asks it to repeat itself. Very close
beneath the surface of her jubilation lies the fear that his w ords are n ot a bsolute
nor reliable, but m a y betray her. Her language slips a nd reveals this fear:
Too
Too
Say
The
Who can fear
many stars, though each i n heaven shall roll many flowers , thoug h each shall crown the year ?
thou dost l ove m e , love m e , l ove m e - toll
(em phasis mine)
silver iterance !
As i f to block the fearful undercurrent i n the sonnet, she la pses i nto child-l i ke
sing-song repetition of the crucial words "love m e " . I ronically, the reiteration has
a n opposite effect to reassurance, and the line turns i nto a plea , as i f the woman
begs the man to continue l oving her. This "silver iterance" is a bell 's peal that
" toll [s] " the g ood news, but that w ord also carries the negative connotation of a
death knel l .
95
The accumul ating reservations emerge fully i n the last lines of the sonnet:
"only minding , Dear,/ To l ove m e also i n silence , with thy soul . " This l ove i n and
of w ords - many, many w ords - is finally not trustworthy: only the ideal l ove of
silence she believes can be untainted by their culture . And so the a p pa rently
ra pturous, but m ore a ccurately desperate , pleas of the sonnet end in an
awareness of their futility. The undercurrent of anxiety slowly surfaces, and
m oves the spea ker into further redefinitions of l ove , as she considers the way
she would have their l ove really be .
XXII
When our two souls stand up erect and strong ,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh a n d nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point, - what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not l ong
Be here contented ?
Words fail finally. The ideal love that the spea ker envisions between
herself and her lover transcends the structures of society, and even of theology.
In this relationship, they two a re equal in power, voice , subjectivity. The speake r
refers to themselves as souls to indicate the transcendence o f the relationshi p ,
a n d this a l s o continues the link s h e h a s made in Sonnet X I I I between l ove a nd
spirit. Here , their souls are upright and strong , confronting and accepting each
other as they sta nd face to face.
Their relationship g rows i n m utuality; they merge into each other i n a
sharing that d oes not deny the other's subjectivity. These lines closely
a pproximate the interchange descri bed in H e l ;-m e Cixous' The Laugh of the
Medusa . She writes :
I want a l l . I want all of me with a l l of him. Why should I d eprive
m yself of a part of us? I want all of us. Woman of course has a
desire for a " loving desire " and not a jealous one. But not because
she is gelded; n ot because she 's deprived and needs t o be filled
out, like some w ounded person who w ants to console herself or
see k vengeance. I d on 't w ant a penis t o decorate m y body with.
But I do desire the other for the other, whole and e ntire, male or
female . . .
96
Other love . - I n t h e beginning a r e o u r d i fferences. T h e n e w love
dares for the other, wants the other . . . [The woman is] without
the fear of ever reaching a limit; she thrills in our becoming. And
we'll keep o n becoming ! She cuts through defensive loves,
m otherages, a nd devourations . . . she scorns at an Er os dynamic
that would be fed by hatred. Hatred: a heritage, again, a rem i nder,
a dupi ng subservience to the pha llus. To l ove , t o watch-think-seek
the other i n the other, to despecul a rize , to unh oard . Does this
seem difficult? lt's not i m possible, a nd this is what n ourishes l ife . . . a l ove that rejoices i n the exchange that m ultiplies ( Marks and
de Courtivron 2 6 2 ; 2 63-264) .
More m ig ht be cited here , but these extracts s uffice to show the
simi larity in both writers' vision of a l ove that is outs i d e pha l l ocentrism . Both
women assert female desire that is not defined by m a l e desire or needs; both
w omen assert the d ifference of each l over and yet the possi bility of a givi n g ,
i nterpla ying , explorative l ove. Both women d e n y t h e traditional hierarchical l ove
'economy ' , based on male power and m isogyny. Both women em phasise touch
over sight . And perhaps m ost tellingly, both women believe such an a l ternative
love is possi ble .
The spea ker describes the i nterplay of souls a s they " draw nigh and
nigher" , until their wings m eet at the points and " brea k into fire " . This fire
sym bolises both the soul and its creative power, a nd yet there is also great
physicality as this e rotic i nterplay of spirits sparks off i mmense creative energy.
Two i nterplaying subjects - particula rly poets - create m ore power together than
a part. The i mage also suggests the speaker's redefined concept of love (fire also
means l ove i n the w oman's language constructions - see Sonnet X I I I a bove) as a
process of sharing a nd defining between two subjects , a process that has power
t o transform .
The major part of this sonnet, though, is m ore c oncerned with the
externa l w orld's reaction to this union than the union itself. That reaction is
indicative of the highly unusual nature of the relationship, which attem pts to
pose an a lternative to patriarchal gender relations. In this equality of subjectivity,
the l overs a re content: what can the w orld of patria rchy do to us, the speaker
asks , that could remove this c ontentment? The l overs would necessarily o perate
outside, a nd therefore largely u naffected by, that w orld . Neve rtheless, their
97
unique relationship of equality stands i n direct opposition t o the society of their
day.
But the relationshi p's uniqueness g oes even further.
Think. I n m ounting higher,
The angels would press on us, and aspire
To drop some g olden orb of perfect song
I nto our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Bel oved, - where the unfit
Contrarious m oods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and l ove in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
Because the lovers' comm union will be silent, refusing to partici pate i n language
that differentiates , names and fixes, any lang uage use is abhorrent to the m .
"Think" , she urges h i m , a nd the pere m ptory tone o f the command again
reinforces her selfhood, 'in heaven we would be forced to join langua g e ' . Even
the " g olden orb of perfect [angels'] song " is unaccepta ble to the l overs because
it is o ppressive ( " press[ed ] on us") in their "deep, dear silence " .
S uch aesthetic oppression makes earth a better bet for the l overs. There
" me n " tend to recoi l from and isolate " pure spirits " . The overt declarations of
superiority assert the moral right of this relationship in that the " m oods of men"
are " u nfit" and contrary in com parison with the l overs' purity of spirit.
Despite the (litera l l y) high-flown fantasy that the spea ker engages in here ,
the sonnet ends i n a tone of som bre rea lism . The isolation that the l overs are
permitted in this world is only temporary: the final two lines show that thei r
lifetimes a r e but " a day" in which to love , and that death e n d s t h e relati onship.
The 'd' alliteration of these lines ham mers home the truth of their l ove: its
transience is closed into darkness.
The emotional trajectory of this sonnet - soaring from a stance of equality
to the heights of angels, then returning to earth , and finally dropping to darkness
and death - plays out the speaker's response to her ideal of silent l ove . Her
distrust of w ords leads her to making a myth of transcendent silence. But her
98
own need to speak of that silence, not least i n these sonnets, shows her the
i m possi bJ ity of existing outside language, and further, of escaping its
consciousness-structuring. Her ideal l ove, then , is i m possi ble from the start, a nd
this fantasy, l i ke H e ll � ne Cixous' , remains utopian.
XXIV
Despite the i m possi bility that closed Sonnet XXI I , the speaker still desires
at this point to represent their l ove a s unique a nd a lm ost transcendent. And so
in Sonnet XXIV she returns to the theme of the w orld 's enmity towards their
m orally valid l ove . I n one of the m ost memorable i mages of the sequence, the
speaker describes the world as a pocket knife whose blade closes into itself.
Let the world's sharpness l i ke a clasping knife
Shut i n upon itself a nd do no harm
In this cl ose hand of Love, now soft and warm ,
And let us hear no sound of human strife
After the click of the shutting .
Love is l i ke a closed hand, "soft and warm " - another image of safe enclosure.
The danger of the knife 's sharpness is turned upon itself, but the hand that
holds it i s safe . The world's " sharpness " to the l overs' ideal relationship of
equality i s thus nullified : indeed, the superiority of the hand of love i s i m plicit in
that it holds a nd surrounds the knife, the world of human strife . These two
points - the moral superiority of thei r l ove over the world 's pettiness, and the
safety within that l ove - a re developed i n the remainder of the sonnet.
The speaker's close proximity to the male l over in l ines 5-6 recalls the
surrender of S onnet XVI (the "vanquished soldier" sonnet) , where she also
physically leans on him. Whereas the earlier sonnet sees this " li fe to life "
m ovement as subsuming her self i nto his, in this later sonnet her reliance u pon
the male l over i s a positive thing , because it is safe. The change in attitude
denotes the speaker's constant conflict between rebellion a nd surrender. Here,
the woman's pleasure i n the safety the male l over offers i s o bvious, and she
describes her g uardian as a charm - a supe rnatural force. The male lover i s once
more assuming extra-human resources in the spea ker's mind.
99
The world's resources , b y compa rison , are fee b l e . The " sta b " they offer
(extending the knife i mage) occasions her no a larm. I ndeed , the l over's enemies
a re but " worldling s " , and the suffix on this contem ptuous w ord i tself suggests
d i m inution. They are, after a l l , "weak to injure " . 6
Very whitely stil l
The l il ies o f our l ives m a y reassure
Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;
G rowing straight, out of man's reach , on the hil l .
G od only, who made u s rich, can make u s poor.
I n c ontrast to the m ora l wea kness of the worl d , the l overs a re compared to lilies,
the fl owers of purity. The rather tortuous syntax em phasises "very white l y still " ,
to indicate the continuing moral purity and righteousness o f the ' flower' o f their
lives, their love . The pivotal point of this rather obscure i m a g e , thoug h , is that
these " lilies" of love continue to be reassured of God's endorsement: H e sends
the " heavenly dews" that feed the roots , and through the m , the flowers. There
is no decrease in these dews: their c ontinuous a bundance a ffirms God's
protection. 7 The speaker goes further, to imply that this d ivine aid is exclusive l y
theirs: t h e i r roots "alone" are accessible to His beneficence, and thei r flowers of
l ove g row (moral l y) straight, " out of ma n's reach" on the h i l l a bove mankind .
The l overs ' relationshi p is right, g ood , d i vinely i nspired and endorsed , and
s uperior t o common humanity. This s uperiority protects their relationship from
m ortal a ttack, because only God can take away what H e H imself gave.
The speaker thus celebrates the i r love of e quality, w hich her emerging
philosophy has defined as pure and good , g reater than their tainted worl d . I n
n o w presenting G od a s o n the side o f the lovers, she revises h e r first
i mpressions in the opening sonnets of the sequence, that G od was
representative of her oppressive society. Now, G od i s seen a s transcending that
c u lture, and becomes i n this sonnet, a n advocate of the s peaker's redefined love
of e quality.
100
XXVI I I
I n S onnet X XVI I I the speaker reviews the c ourse o f her relationship with
her l over via the letters she has received from h i m :
My letters ! a l l dead paper, . . m ute and white ! And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against m y tremul ous hands which l oose the string
And let them drop down on m y knee t o-ni g ht.
The woman has seen the letters a s dead (white a nd silent) , past history. N o w ,
however, the letters appear ( " seem " ) t o b e a l ive , fluttering and quivering a g a i nst
her hand l i ke creatures im prisoned within the stri ng , struggli ng to be freed ,
which occurs when the spea ker " l ooses" that string a nd " let[s] " or al lows them
to flutter into her lap. In this personificati on the s peaker's presence or action
seems to revive the letters. The words can be read a g a i n , to do their w or k of
communication again:
This said , .. he w ished to have m e i n his sight
O nce, as a friend: this fixed a day i n spring
To come and touch m y hand . . . a simple thing ,
Yet I wept for i t ! - this, . . the paper's l ight . .
Said, Dea r, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As i f God's future thundered on m y past.
This sai d , I am thine - and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
The letters - or, m ore s pecifically, the w ords - speak again, apparently recreating
the voice of the male l over i n the woman's m ind . His w i l l , a ut hority and naming
p o� e r are what the speaker reads: " he wished " , he " fixed a day", he " sa i d " his
l ove. The words revisit the s pea ker's a p prehension of the male l over's physical
and sensory power i n the earlier sonnets, recalling his w i sh t o have her "in his
sight" l i ke the proprietary gaze first encountered i n S onnet I l l . I n another letter
h e fixes a day " i n spri n g " to come and "touc h " her hand: the G od-l i ke touch of
power and reanimation that wakens the woman from her 'winter' .
The speaker's reading of these revivified w ords seems t o create the same
response i n her that she had at the time of the letters' first receipt. That
response is n ot simple pleasur:e or a nticipation: her hands a re tremulous - and
101
this means more than "tre m bling " , which was the word originally used i n the
Morgan manuscri pt ( Ratchford 90). "Tremulous" carries overtones of m isgiving,
suggesting that the speaker fears what the letters say. A "sim ple thing " such as
a touch on the hand causes her to weep , perhaps in joy, a nd yet the
overwhelming tone of the sonnet is one of a pprehension and trepidation. The
spea ker fears lang uage as a means of asserting power over her, the receiver.
This fear is a p parent in lines eight to ten, w here words from the letters
are actually quoted for the first time. lt amazes the speaker that the "light " ,
u n i m portant paper can carry such heavy communications a s " Dear. I l ove thee " .
This avowal overwhelms the woman. She "sinks " , again using vertical i m a gery
of d ropping and submerging . She " quail [s] " : "to lose heart, be cowed; . . . to bring
into subjection by fear" ( O E D ) . lt is as if God has spoken, she says i n line ten,
a n d earlier readings expand this thought. The Morgan manuscript begins with
"As i f God 's future gathered on m y past ! " , but " gathered on" is replaced with
" stra ight a bsorbed " , which is finally replaced with the present reading of
"thundered on " . The spea ker e nvisions her life and its past as being a bsorbed
i nto the will and ordaining future of the lover-god . The avowa l of love by the
man is read by her as i ndicating his read iness to m ove upon her life and ta ke it
over, and so she quails before such thunder. She fears the i m plicit threat
(thunder is a threat of storm) that the words "I l ove you" can mean from a
(Victorian) m a n .
These lines compare closely with the earlier fears of t h e sonnets.
O vershadowing; subjection; erasure of personal past; submersion into the male's
future : these are the re peated concerns of the sonnet sequence.
The final two lines of the a bove extract m ove the em phasis bac k again to
the w ords i n the letters. The lines suggest that her heartbeats have faded the
ink on the page, specifical l y his words "I am thine " . She fears that his
declaration will fade with the words on the page; that his love only has reality i n
those w ritten w ords.
The sonnet's em phasis i s thus on the w ords i n the letters. These w ords
at first seem to be lifeless and transparent, the inanimate tool of communication.
102
But they are not: the speaker perceives that language remains 'alive ' : the w ords
have life and meaning for her when she reads them again. I ndeed, her rereading
of those w ords constructs her experience of l ove, and her a p prehension of her
male l over. Her " l oos[ing ] " of the living w ords, and e ntering i nto negotiation with
them by rereading them, describes the process of post-structuralist reading (and
w riti ng ) . As she reads, she is read : the process of i nteraction between text a nd
consciousness shapes her feelings a bout, and response to, the relationshi p
suggested i n the letters. And a s she w rites, she i s w ritten : her own metaphors
( of sinking and quailing, or of God-like thunder) both reflect and shape her
response .
This process is evident even i n the final two l i nes of the sonnet, w hich
formulate one of the most a m big uous statements of the e ntire sequenc e . The
speaker refrains from quoting words from a particular letter , lest their purpose and possi bly all the l over's words - be exposed as failing . ( Perha ps this is a
specific biographical reference concerning R B's plans t o take E B out of England a plan that could never be revealed to the 'tyrant ' , Mr. Barrett. ) Whatever the
referent, the speaker's fear is that repetition of the living w ords m a y well
demonstrate their negative result.
The power of words thus strikes the speaker negatively i n this sonnet.
Those w ords recreate her early fears, but she is unaware of her own
i nvolvement in constructing this response. Her reading of those living w ords ,
a nd w riting living w ords o f h e r own, is a process w h ose power s h e has yet t o
a ppreciate .
XXIX
The speaker's growing aware ness of the role language plays i n their
relationship prom pts the subject of the next sonnet. Here, she deplores the
a l m ost inevitable imaginative construction that constitutes her l ove and her
perception of her l over. "I think of thee ! " , she begins. The cry i s joyous a nd yet
e xaspe rated, because
103
my thoug hts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines, a bout a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there 's nought to see
Exce pt the straggling green which hides the wood .
Her complaint i s that her thoug hts - her words, her image-making, particularly in
these sonnets - slowly efface the 'rea l ' man. His real presence i s l ost behind her
constructions of him . The im plication of the metaphor is that her thoughts and
constructions are parasitic l i ke the vine, depending but also preying upon the
actual person . But the meta phor also makes other interesting associations. The
man, in his physical reality, is the tree, a powerfu l , superior phallic presence of
rigid strength and permanence . In contrast, the woman is the " wild vine " ,
flowing and sprawling, natural and unta med, uncontrolled b y the m a n . The
action of the vine in obscuring the mighty tree, while ostensibly deplored, is
nevertheless described in positive , energetic terms. The w oman's creative
thoug hts that obscure the 'real' male "twine and bud " in fertile, productive
activity. She p uts out broad, healthy leaves. The male has become the site, or
muse , for the female poet.
The speaker's tension between submission and self-asserti on is still
evident, however, because the metaphor is profoundly am bivalent, both rejoicing
in and yet regretting the woman's linguistic power as artist, re presenting her
l over in meta phors l i ke these. Moreover, a parasitic vine begi ns by depending
u pon the tree for its sustenance , and yet ends by controlling a nd smothering the
tree . The m eta phor thus a p plied to the l overs' position remains d ualistic, offering
only competing positions of power and su �ression.
(\
Yet, 0 m y palm-tree , be it understood
I will not have my thoug hts instead of thee
Who art dearer, better ! rather instantl y
Renew thy presence !
I n biogra phical terms, Eliza beth believes she has been too long separated
from R obert and has had to rel y on memory and imagination for recollection of
him; here she pleads for him to come to her and so supe rsede her thoughts. But
again the wider context of the nature of the l ove relationship for Victorian
women m oves her demand onto a deeper plane. The phrase " i nstantly/ Renew
thy presence ! " attri butes a miraculous supernatural a bility of instantaneous
104
a p pearance t o the l over, like that o f the risen Christ. 8 Further, her demand here
is for a bsolute presence, bypassing the language that a ppears to be o btruding i n
thei r relationship. I n a cry that echoes t h e plea f o r a silent, idealistic l ove ( i n
S onnet XXI I ) , t h e speaker reiterates h e r c a l l f o r her male l over's renewed
presence.
As a strong tree should ,
R ustle thy boughs a n d set thy trunk a l l bare ,
And let these bands of g reenery which insphere thee ,
Drop heavily down, . . burst, shattered, everywhere !
She wants the referent, not the sign; the presence, not the a bsence; desire
fulfilled, not desire. In Lacanian terms, she wants what is fina l l y outside this
consciousness, because desire is the condition of human consci ousness : a lways
split, consciousness desires a unity that would denote the end of consciousness
and differentiation. Like the call for the silent interplaying l ove that esca pes the
structuring processes of language, this a bsolute presence indicates a bsol ute
unity.
Because , i n this deep joy t o see and hear thee
And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
I do n ot think of thee - I am too near thee.
In his a bsolute presence, distinctions dissolve and unity is achieved. She sees,
hears and breathes with him, becomes part of h i m , " within" his shadow . Vita l l y,
her thoughts a re subsumed by his presence, she is "too near" him t o think. Her
c onscio usness has effectivel y ceased . In this projected , anticipated unity, her joy
is deep a nd com plete, satisfied desire . The Lacanian m odel of fulfilled desire in
unity a nd l oss of differentiating c onsciousness is thus suggested, and yet the
speaker imag ines it as occurring within heterosexual distinctions. As a result,
the process d �cribed remains a replay of the l oss of female self into androcentric
l ove. Finally, this whol e fantasy is purel y a product of the s peaker's imagination,
a nd is itself an unfulfilled desire .
That fact is i mplicit in the sonnet . l t lies beneath the speaker's ra pturous
fantasies, and e merges deconstructivel y in her metaph or. In lines 8 - 1 1 , she tells
her l over what he "should" do, a s "a strong tree " . In her fantasy of the phallic
male restoring his a bsolute presence t o the delighted woman, she imagines a
105
tree sha king itself free of the vig orous parasitic vine that " insphere [s]" it.
" Strong tree [s] should" be a ble to do this. The image, of course, is fantastic:
rigid trees cannot suddenly and decisively sha ke off a vi ne in this manner. And
her demand for her l over to act in this way is similarly fantastic and i m possible,
because she is asking him to short-circuit the whole process of consciousness,
specifica lly our structuring of experience in language. She w ould have him
silence her thoug hts, and so her constructions of him. The only means by which
he can do this, of course , is by removing her consciousness a ltogether , a nd
killing her. Like the g reenery of the vine, which falls heavily from the now-bare
tre e , she would be " burst , shattered, everywhere ! " , diffused and broken down.
Angela Leighton comments perceptivel y on this sonnet when she w rites :
This sense of the bel oved's a bsence is what m a kes the poem both
strong and false . . . For as l ong as the speaker thinks her poe m ,
she m ust m iss the presence which supports it. Y e t the alternative
is that the object renews its ' prese nce' by de priving her of the
power of her poetic art. 'I do not think of thee - I am too near
thee' would be the end of the poems if she were truly content to
be in R obert's 'shadow ' . I nstead, the exchange of her thoughts for
thoughtlessness is one she can afford to m a ke , having w ritten the
poem. The self-renouncing m odesty of her intention is undermined
by the self-conscious evidence of a l l the poe m 's 'straggling g reen'
( Elizabeth 1 09 - 1 1 0 ) .
S onnet XXIX shows the speaker's continuing suspicion of language, now turned
onto her own metaphors. As she remains within the dualist models of g ender
relations, language is still related to power struggles. She recognises that in
a ppropriating the role of poet she has also a ppropriated the power of naming . I n
h e r o w n experience , this c a n b e a destructive power, defining a n d restricting
i ndividuals into repressive roles. lt is destructive here because it intrudes upon
the Romantic idealism of their silent love of a bsolute presence .
Yet, as Leighton indicates, the sonnet a lso enjoys the very process of
m eta phorising that it ostensibly decries. The metaphor of her images a s healthy,
budding vines celebrates the process of image-m a king , and her demand for her
l over's image-shattering presence i s nevertheless c ouched in the sam e vivid
i mages . Her representation of the l over as phallic tree is precisely that - her
representation. The tension in the spea ker's discourse between submission to
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conventional structures of l ove , and sel f-assertive rejecti on o f those structures,
has m oved onto the different plane of language. Now the woman is caught
between her conception of an idealist, Romantic love of silent presence , a nd her
own, self-assertive delight in tropes, and their potentially transforming power.
XXX
The tensions within language and l ove continue t o concern the speaker in
this thirtieth sonnet .
I see thine i mage through m y tears tonight,
And yet to-day I saw thee smiling . H o w
Refer t h e cause ? - Beloved, is it thou
Or I ? who ma kes me sad ?
C ontrary t o the expectations o f the previous sonnet, here the l over's presence
d oes not effect the wonderful union that the spea ker so desire d . 9 Rather, the
l over's presence is overta ken by the woman's thoughts: though he smiled today,
her i mage of him is a tearful one. How can this be ? she asks. The a nswer is
a p pa rent in her next question: the start-li ne emphasis g iven t o "Or I ? " together
with the brea k in the sentence effected by the extra q uestion-mark, points to her
own perspective as creating her sadness. The voca bulary of represe ntation " thine image" - foregrounds this constructive perspective . Which is m ore real,
"thee" or "thine image " ? The sonnet continues :
The acolyte
Amid the cha nted joy and thankful rite,
May so fall flat, with pale i nsensate bro w ,
O n t h e altar-stair. I hear t h y voice a n d v o w
Perplexed , uncertain, since thou art o u t of sight,
As he , i n his swooning ears, the choir's amen.
Li ke the attendant at the altar, who in the midst of the joy of the Eucharist
( n otably celebrating Christ's presence) unexpectedly faints, so she, in the midst
of l ove , weeps with sadness. I n both cases the e m otion a nd e xperience a re self­
produced , but are nevertheless real . That experience i s perplexity and
uncertainty, rather than the trust and faith that should mark l overs. The
meta phor i s again deliberate : the woman is the devoted follower and servant of
the g od-like lover. She, l i ke the young acolyte , i s overcome i n the divine
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presence ( before the altar) of the lover's smile. And yet that a p parently divine
presence does not create joy and trust: the a pprehension (in both senses of the
w ord ) of the acolyte woman is m ore powerful than even that divine presence.
The male l over's voice and promise (his words) are as distant and confused as
the choir's amen in the ears of the fainting a ltar-boy.
Beloved , dost thou l ove? or did I see a l l
The gl ory as I dreamed, a n d fainted when
Too vehement light di lated m y idea l ,
For my soul 's eyes? Wil l that light come again,
As now these tears come . . . falling hot and rea l ?
The overwhelming feeling of these lines i s uncerta inty, anxiety and i m plicit fea r.
She doubts the a pparent actuality of her experience: was her 'sight' of him i n
smiling g l ory and f u l l o f l oving words simply a dreaming visi on , as the a ltar boy
sees i n the height of spiritual engagement? The resulting question is crucia l , for
it a ddresses the substantiality of his l ove . " Beloved , d ost thou l ove ? "
The lines quoted a bove again push the em phasis onto the confusion
arising from the inesca pability of her thoughts and images. Her a pprehension of
him and his l ove now seems to be sim ply her drea m , and the voca bulary of
these lines supports the insubstantiality of her fond hopes. Her d reaming
imagination has " dilated " his " ideal " , g lorious l ove to a point where it
overwhelms her " soul 's eyes " in a self-initiated s piritual overl oad .
The confusion and fear that underlie this sonnet - i s the man's l ove rea l
o r i s it a figment o f a wish-filled imagination? - are summed u p stri kingly in the
last q uestion of the sonnet. The spea ker asks if the hope-filled light of her
imaginative construction of her l over will return, to suggest his l ove and fidelity
to her. Further, if it returns , will it be real , a s real as the tears she now cries?
The com plexities behind this question expose the speaker's growing realisation
that her visi ons and thoughts of her l over are her reality, her experience of h i m .
B u t this becomes problematic : which o f her thoug hts is m ore rea l ? I s h e r vision
of his m asterful ideal presence, overwhelming a nd full of g l ory, as rea l as her
feelings of perplexity and uncerta inty? O r is her d ou bt a bout his l ove a nd the
nature of their relationshi p the stronger perception? Certainly the whole m ood of
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the sonnet suggests the latter, a nd it is strongly represented by the final
physical actuality of hot, real tears .
XXXVI I
Sonnet XXXVI I returns t o the now-central disc ussion o f the s pea ker's
fictive creations of the male lover. I n this sonnet (one of the highlig hts of the
sequence) , she a pologises to him for this fictive process in which she m ust
engage , a process w hereby his 'real ' , 'divine' strength is effaced or elided in her
l i ng uistic descriptions of him.
Pardon, oh, pardon, that m y soul should m a ke
Of all that strong d ivineness which I know
For thine and thee , a n i mage only so
Formed of the san d , and fit to shift and brea k .
These l i nes reiterate clearly the tension described a t the cl ose o f Sonnet
X X I X , a tension between a Romantic ideal of silent presence a nd a self-asserting
power for m a king tropes. The spea ker preserves the n otion of her lover's
essentia l character over and a bove the personae she i nvests him with. His
" strong divineness" seems to be unquestioned on the surface of the poe m ;
i ndeed, l i ke G o d , that divinity is a bsolute despite t h e a nthropomorphising
depictions of mere m ortals such as herself.
What i s significant, however, is the speaker's act of 'creating ' him. Her
soul " m a ke[s]" of h i m a n image of sand : i n other words, she reconstructs h i m .
Biblical creation echoes a re evident here a s s h e plays t h e part o f G o d the
Creator, form i ng man out of the d ust of the earth. G od created man i n "his own
i mage " ; the speaker also creates "an i mage " , but hers is l ess a copy than an
a rtform - she is the potter m oulding the clay, to use a n other biblical echo. This,
of course, reverses the patriarchal roles of man as creator and woman as
create d .
Furthermore , h e r i m a g e i s m a d e o f s a n d , w h i c h i s " fit to shift a n d brea k " .
H i s reified presence a s divine being i s recreated a s a shifting , m ovin g , never­
fixed image: from an a bsolute , centred being he has become a deconstructed ,
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decentred image. That word "image" foreg rounds the primary action i n this
sonnet: m aking meta phors. H e has been recreated through meta phors, and as a
word e ntity he is open to the endless shifting and unfixity of languag e . Thus, the
m eta phor that the speaker uses to portray her descri ptive process successfully
undermines her a p pa rent a pology for that process : i n trying to affirm his
a bsoluteness, she re places it with her deconstructive sand image, and in so
doing dem onstrates the power of the trope to transform characterisation.
This inversion of the creation act, and the su bse q uent em phasis on the
meta phoric construction of personae, has far-reaching i m plications for the man
and woman of this sonnet sequence . lt offers the a bandonment of the
patriarchal hierarchy that has hitherto structured their relati onship. I nstead,
creator a nd created are shown to be roles defined through meta phor: whoever
m a kes the images has the power to define the other . These roles are not gender­
base d : if a woman has access to the language, she, l i ke the man, can create
i mages of her lover, of their l ove , and of her experience, in endlessl y reworked
constructions. In other words, this is their 'level playing fiel d ' , the site whereon
they can be equal a nd mutual - in the meta phors of creative langua g e .
These positive impl ications a r e not f u l l y explored by t h e spea ker yet.
Returning to Sonnet XXXVI I , we see her m a king excuse for the process of
metaphoric construction that she has just demonstrated :
l t i s that d istant years which d i d not ta ke
Thy sovranty, recoil ing with a blow ,
Have forced m y swimming brain to undergo
Their doubt and dread , and blindly to forsa ke
Thy purity of l i keness, and distort
Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit.
Her reason is that her past im pinges upon her present, bringi ng her earlier fears
and doubts (remembering the opening sonnets) i nto the l overs' relationship now.
This i ncursion from the past m a kes her forsa ke his 'pure l i keness' to reconstruct
counterfeit i mages, presumably based on her fea rs.
There are a mbiguities i n these l i nes, however, that require attention. First
is the description of the male l over's "sovranty " , which i m pl ies that he has
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a bsol ute rule over her, as depicted i n previous sonnets ( particularly the
ca pitulation of Sonnet XVI ) . And yet the nature of that sovereignty i s surely
questiona ble : not only was it unable to i nfluence her memories and fears from
the past, but its control of her creative m ind (as depicted in S onnet XXVI , for
e xa m ple) is proven here to be illusory. Her creative image-making of him and
their l ove i s so assertive that she must a pologise for it! Secondly, " l i keness" is
defined in the QED as a " form , sha pe . . . figure " , a fairly clear interpretation for
its use i n this sonnet. But the far readier definition of the w ord i s " resemblance,
similarity" , and even "a copy, counterpart, imag e " . The speaker's words again
potentially suggest an opposite subtext: that his ' pure ' , a bsolute self is a lso a
copy or image. The "strong divineness " is simply another linguistic persona or
trope.
To conclude her exposition of the process of construction a nd
deconstruction, the woman offers another meta phor. And here too, it
deconstructs:
As if a shi pwrecked Pagan, safe in port,
His guardian sea-g od to commem orate ,
Should set a scul ptured porpoise , gills a -snort,
And vi brant tai l , within the temple-gate .
O n the surface this simile reiterates the old roles of rescuing l over-god and saved
woman-victim. The spea ker is the pagan, preserved despite shipwreck, deeply
than kful and in a w e of the g reat sea-g od that effected the rescue. To
commemorate both the wreck and the rescue, the pagan makes and d isplays his
image of the .sea-god - a sculpted porpoise - which h e places a s a focus for his
w orship of the g od ( " within the tem ple-gate " ) . Similarly, the woman,
remem bering both the sorrows of her past and the rescue by her l over,
commemorates by creating an image of him, which then assumes the focus of
her w orship . This d epiction of the g reat g od in a w oman-made, 'lesser' image,
and her worship of the image, not the g od, she m ust then a pologise for.
There is m ore to this simile, however. Many commentators have n oted
the powerful sexual imagery in the spea ker's description of the porpoise .
D orothy Mermin refutes the need for the woman's a pology i n this sonnet,
-- -·-- ------
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com menting that " N o a pology i s necessary, however, for this w itty com parison
to a sexy sea-god, or for the delightfully erotic porpoise " (Origins 1 3 2 ) . The
por poise is sinuous and lithe: with "gills a-snort/ And vi brant tail " , it is the
picture of aroused masculinity. The point is, though , that the image is m ore
attractive and sexy than the g od . Stephenson writes: " lt is as a man, with all
the erotic attracti ons suggested by the porpoise 's g ills and vi brant tai l , not as
some divine spiritual being , that the beloved comes alive for the reader in these
poems - a nd it is clearly the man, not the divine essence, who holds the primary
a ppeal for the speaker" (Poetry 8 3 ) . Stephenson rather m isses the vital point of
the sonnet, however, that this image is stronger tha n the a bstract mythic figure .
The woman's erotic desire is thus central and is far m ore earthy and 'rea l ' than
(Victorian) l ove convention a ll ows. The speaker's own "counterfeit" image of her
l over depicts him as virile, sexy and desira ble; the " strong divineness " of the
lover's " purity of l i keness " carries no such earthy a ppea l ! 1 0
The cheeky self-assertiveness of the speaker's i mage here takes the
further ste p of dismantling the 'myth' of the male lover's essence. The l over's
essential "divineness " is depicted as a sea-god - one of the pagan deities - a
m ythic figure and another product of human invention. The same is true, by
extension , of the male l over's "divine" essence . l t is sim pl y a conventional trope,
a language construction. His divinity and " sovranty" a re only as real as
Poseidon/ N e ptune.
EBB's project in these latter sonnets is n ot only to represent woma n 's
desire i n woman's voice , but also to represent the representation of desire. In
other w ords , she wishes to show how we construct our experience - i n this
case , the profound experience of love - in languag e . These l overs' roles (of
courtly l over and beloved , or of g od-like redeeming male and w orthless female)
are already c onstructed for them by their culture . But the woma n 's expe ri ence
of those roles and her own exploration of them occurs within language. The very
sonnets themselves foreground that fact: their w ritten w ords formul ate the
woman lover's experience .
The speaker's perception of the power of refig uring , then , i s truly
subversive. All those depictions of the two l overs in varying patriarchal roles can
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b e seen as constructions. The saviour/saved relationshi p , for exa m pl e , i s not .Q.
pri ori a d ivine decree, or a natural and right trut h , but is s i m pl y a language
construction. Here , in Sonnet XXXVI I , she e nj oys what she has previously
feared - her own image-making and re-ma ki ng . This a bility g i ves her the power
to re-present herself, her l over and her world , i n n e w , less re pressive images.
The tension between an idea l , rem oved but silent l ove, and her desire for her
own power of naming , is thus defused. By writin g new definitions for l ove , she
can l ove and spea k.
XL
In Sonnet XL the speaker foregrounds her redefinition of love, by
opposing it to conventional uses of the word . The sonnet continual l y repeats the
w ord " love " as a citati on: "they l ove " , "called love " , " heard l ove " . Her a rgument
here thus em phasises " l ove " as a label w hose referent shifts, a nd so a llows her
to celebrate the different l ove that she and her lover now share. For he is now
i ncluded in her redefinition: the theory of m utuality is at last in practice .
O h , yes ! they l ove through all this w orld of ours!
I will not gainsay love , called l ove forsooth.
I have heard l ove tal ked in m y early youth ,
And since , not so long back but that the flowers
Then gathered , smell sti l l .
T h e derisory tone o f the opening line indicates t h e spea ker's continuing distrust
and scepticism a bout avowals of " l ove " . She will n ot "gainsa y " , or oppose or
deny, what is h onestly and truly ( " forsooth " ) called l ove. In lines 5-7 she refers
to the shallow, trivial l ove of the wider world 1 1 that can only ever c ou ntenance
smiles, never sorrow or weepin g , because the pleasure in such relationsh i ps is
purely self-gratifying and self-centred . Such self-gratification i s evident i n the
e xa m ple of Polyphemus, the Cyclops of Homer's O dyssey, w h o devoured many
of Odysseus' men in bestial cruelty. " Polypheme's w hite tooth/ S l i ps o n the nut,
if, after frequent showers, / The shell is over-sm ooth , " the s peaker comments,
and that " white tooth " stresses the carnivorous, devouring nature of shallow
self-centred love. The Cyclops will grow tired of attem pting to crack open the
nut whose shell has been sm oothed by too many showers of rai n , m a king his
crushing and devouring tooth sli p . Similarly, the consumers of shallow false l ove
1 13
will soon tire of the woman who refuses easy and ready conquest, the
proverbial 'tough nut to crack'. This woman's external manner has bee n
'finished' through trials a n d sorrows to repel invaders and defend t h e kernel . She
is the woman poet of the opening sonnets, refusing colonisation and rejecting
any truck with the fearful prospect of Victorian l ove-making. Her eventual
conquest is a reluctant one, a nd much of her ensuing poetry attem pts to refigure
th e relationship differently to conventional l ove terms.
In l i nes 9 - 1 1 she fears the end result of consum ptio n : satiety or boredom .
and n ot so m uch
Will turn the thing called love , aside to hate ,
O r else to oblivi on .
Such surface emotion as this false l ove will not last: it will
turn to hate or
indifference (see Sonnets XIV, XV, XXX I I , XXXVI ) . I n XV specifically, the
spea ker descri bes the possible outlook of l ove between herself a nd the m a n . She
concludes:
But I look on thee .. on thee . .
Behold ing, besides l ove, the end of l ove,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory!
As one who sits and gazes from a b ove,
Over the rivers to the bitter sea.
This oblivion i n both sonnets is an erasure of her a nd her l ove from the man's
mind, a nd it i s the fearful future of the " l ove " she derides here.
C ontrasting with this prol onged fear , however, is the s peaker's recent
discovery that this man g ives worthy l ove :
But thou art not such
A l over, m y Bel oved ! thou canst wait
Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch
And think it soon when others cry 'Too late . '
This m a n a p parently refuses to silence her. H e waits through the fears a nd
doubts of the suspici ous speaker, and " brings souls to touch " . This phrase
recalls her prescri pti on for ideal 'true' l ove , g iven i n Sonnet X X I I ( " When our two
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souls stand u p erect and strong " ) . The strength of this ideal relationship i s its
equality and m utuality: the moment when the angel-souls of that sonnet touch
and fuse is a transformative and powerfully erotic creatio n . Her i nvocation of
that m oment here , and her suggestion that the male l over allows and in fact
e nc ourages it to happen ( "to bring souls" ) is a brea k-through . The male l over has
a p parently proved himself. His is not the self-interested , consuming a nd
ultimately finite l ove of convention. I n their relationshi p , h e w aits for the woman
to commit herself, and allows her equal existence . Thus, " love " is neither
patriarchal love , nor an external universal force, nor i ndeed a n i nternal , silent
idealism . Love is instead defined as the personal, m utual experience of two
people , whose experience redefines (and potentially transforms) themselves. The
l overs a p pear to have disrupted the structure enough to clear a small space for
their own interaction.
XLI
The positive hope of the last sonnet is a m plified i n Sonnet XLI :
I than k all who have l oved me in their hearts,
With thanks and l ove from mine. Deep than ks to all
Who paused a little near the prison-wal l ,
To hear m y m usic i n its l ouder parts,
Ere they went onward , each one to the m a rt's
O r tem ple's occu pation, beyond call.
Suspicion and distrust are m i nimised . N ow she acknowledges the listeners to her
voice who have l oved her "in their hearts " , and to whom she offers than ks a nd
l ove from her own heart. These heart references i ntend to c onvey the sincerity
of 'heartfelt' emotions, but they also rework an earlier m otif. The image of the
woman's heart being a bsorbed into the man's heart has recurred throughout the
sequence. In Sonnet VI , a poem of enormous a m bivalence, the speaker rues the
l oss of separate self-hood , saying that "thy heart [is left] in m ine/ With pulses
that beat double " . Sonnet XVI uses the lines: "till my heart shal l g row/ Too close
against thine heart, henceforth to know/ How it shook when alone " . And S onnet
XXV speaks of dropping her heavy heart "adow n thy calmly g reat/ Deep being " ,
which " d oth close a bove it" . The image i n each is of the resulting loss of
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personal selfhood or individuality to that of the lover's, whose individuality
dictates for both of them.
I n the first two lines of Sonnet X L I , however, the hearts of both speaker
and listeners are se pa rate . Of course , these listeners are n ot necessarily
potential l overs, demanding the fusion of souls w hich Victorian romance
structures seemed to require. Nevertheless , the e m phasis on distinctly separate
people remains, and it is as much for the preservation of this separateness, as
for what follows, that the spea ker is thankfu l .
What d oes follow ? " Deep than ks " , t o a l l who have paused i n their daily
occu pations and responsi bilities to hear the speaker's " m usic" issuing forth from
her " prison " . The correlation with Elizabeth Ba rrett's personal circum stances in
the (largely self-im posed) prison of Wimpole Street i s obvious, but the same is
true, in a wider sense, for the spea ker. Her life, as de picted i n S onnet I l l and
throughout the sequence , has been on the peri phery of society, marginalised and
shunned as the unnatural woman poet and courtly lover. The prison-wall has
been society itself, and its refusal to countenance the woman poet's voice,
selfhood, power and love . Like many prisoners she has languished a nd come
c l ose to death in her prison , yet she has still made m usic. And so her "deep
than ks " carry her extreme gratitude to those who have i n some ways defied
society's prison to listen to the woman's voice . Yet even here, the speaker is
aware of her isolation: these listeners pause only for a m oment, " a l ittle " , before
rejoining the society of which they are necessaril y a part. Too soon they
continue on to the marketplace or to the "temple. " 1 2 And there, they a re
" beyond call " .
By contrast, her l over, has proved his consta ncy:
But thou , who, in my voice's sin k and fal l ,
When the sob took it, thy divinest Art's
Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot,
To ha rken what I said between m y tears, . .
I nstruct me how to thank thee !
H e , unlike the a bove listeners, d oes not leave the captive, crying woman for his
own l ife of action and words in society. I nstead he demonstrates self-sacrificing
' ,.
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l ove that acknowledges and encourages the independent voice of the woman
poet/ l over. He hears the woman's sorrow and enervation (the "sink a nd fal l " of
her voice reiterating the depth i magery that she i s subject to within patriarchy),
and understands what is required . And that is simply his silence; the read iness
to stil l his own poetic voice (that is otherwise permitted to overwhelm a nd
incorporate hers) i n order to let her spea k. He drops his own " i nstrument" , not
simply to allow hers - a very paternalistic m ove - but to listen to hers . 1 3 This is
no token gesture, but a validation of her existence a nd outlook.
This evidence of " Love " from the man overwhelms the speaker: " I nstruct
me how to than k thee ! " , she cries. Even as she asserts herself and her separate
voice , the speaker seems to reuse hierarchical i mages - here of teacher a nd
pupi l . Yet in the context of this new, mutual l ove that she has defined, such a
request need not be hierarchical . I nstead her request em phasises mutual ity, a nd
the seeking of the other's desires and needs . This is not self-a bnegati on , as the
final lines of the sonnet clearly show.
Oh, to shoot
My soul 's full meaning into future years,
That they should lend it utterance , and salute
Love that endures, from Life that d isa p pears!
This cry i s n othing less than a desire to be immortalised through her poetry
(another c onventional trope ) . But the desire is not simply personal a m bition,
though this is surely present, and i s itself an astonishing eventuality bearing in
mind the self-deprecation that has characterised the spea ker's references to
herself hitherto. The speaker i s a nxious to preserve her "soul's full meaning " that is, the preservation and validation of the woman a s poet and as subject.
This has been the context both of the previous l i nes a nd indeed the whole
sonnet sequence. l t is the truth that she would have preserved a nd repeated in
the future .
The speaker describes this preservation i n terms of w ords: her " meaning "
w i l l be lent " utterance " by the future years. The words she has written a nd
s poken here will be w ritten and spoken then as the years continue to keep the
w ords a live . H uman existence is transitory, but Love - and words - endure. The
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two are intimately related in the speaker's conce pti ons: without the l ove that
enables mutual validity, words obtai n neither voice nor i m m ortality. But with the
l ove that the speaker promulgates here, women's words are revered and
repeated, and outlive the individua l author. So she "salute[s]/ Love that
endures " , because it allows her "soul's full meaning " to endure a lso.
Of course , the " Love " that allows this whole process i s itself a product of
words. The speaker, though, has come to a ppreciate how her i mages define and
transform her experience. Here, the l overs' w ords sha pe the l ove which then
all ows m ore words.
XLII
The hope that the spea ker now entertai ns is here placed i n context with
her past and her l over's role in her l ife .
" My future will not copy fair my past" I wrote that once; and thinking at m y side
My m inistering life-angel justified
The word by his a p pealing look u pcast
To the white throne of G od , I turned at last,
And there , i nstead, was thee , n ot unallied
To angels in thy soul !
I n the opening line we are shown that coexistent w ith the speaker's
h o pelessness and fatalism i n the earlier sonnets has been a determination to
change this despondent outl ook. This coexistence is simply a nother facet to the
submission/ rebellion conflict that bubbles beneath the surface of the sonnets.
R esisting past and present inequities in her society g oes hand-in-hand w ith
resisting a hopeless future . So the speaker has written her determination that
her future will not be a replay of her past: a fair copy of a rough dra ft ; a
perfected repetition of what has gone before .
The writing metaphor 1 4 suggests that existence i s a written piece , i n
which themes a n d images a r e reiterated a n d reworked as time passes. The
spea ker em phasises this writing process in her own recollection: "I w rote that
once, " she tells us, recalling the line and its metaphor. The l i ne has survived the
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i m med iate context, a s words do, and now relives i n the new context that the
spea ker creates here . The entire metaphor stresses fictive construction of
experience: how we w rite our experience i n metaphors and images, which
themsel ves are open to play a nd reworking . lt i s this a pprehension that has
allowed the woman to refigure her life and outlook, to anticipate and indeed
write a new experience.
The speaker then uses a favourite i mage of the male l over a s savi ng
celestial being , as she continues her recollection of the opening phrase . And yet
there are crucial differences from earlier uses of the image. She tells us that
when she first wrote the line , she assumed that her " m inistering life-a ngel " ,
standing by her side, both a p proved a nd justified her w ords b y referring them to
G od a s a prayer for the woman. The a ngel's action validated the woman's
rejection of her oppressed past, and her desire to esca pe its i nfluence in her
future. (The religious vocabulary of these lines i m plicitly underlines divi ne
a p probation : the angel is g iven by G od to m inister to the woman, and he
justifies the woman's statement, the Protestant w ord indicating a process of
perfecting and vindication, a ppropriate a nd acceptable to the " w hite [and
therefore perfect] throne of G od " . Even the unusual phrase " li fe-ange l " i ndicates
that this woman's life matters, that there is divine concern for her existence . )
A t i ssue , however, i s the substitution of her lover for this " life-ange l " .
Crucially, the speaker indicates that she hersel f has made the substitution ,
casting h i m , a man, i n the role of her m inistering a n g e l . Her l ight, g ently
bantering tone in the phrase " n ot unallied/ To a ngels in thy soul ! " reflects this
distinction: he is n ot in essence divine; she just i m a g i nes him a s such. Thus, the
speaker reworks the i mages that she i s used to - images that have traditionally
borne patriarchal meanings - but her c onscious mani pulation of the i mages
foregrounds the fact that they are only i mages, n ot a pri ori facts. The male l over
remains sim ply a man: the value he has for her i s the value she g ives h i m .
The remainder of the sonnet powerfully portrays exactly w h a t that val ue
is.
119
Then I , l ong tried
By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
While budding , at thy sight, m y pilgrim's staff
Gave out green leaves with m orning dews i m pearled .
I seek n o copy now of l ife's first half:
Leave here the pages with long musing curled ,
And write m e new my future's epigra ph,
New a ngel mine, unhoped for in the worl d !
U pon placing her l over i n this role as m inistering angel , the " l ong trie d " woman
receives comfort that simultaneously stimulates her poetry. In an i mage
suggestive of the spring that occurs in Sonnets XX, XXI and even XXIX, the
speaker's " pi lgrim staff" issues forth new green leaves. The a p parently dead
piece of w ood is a l ive a nd productive . The meta phor of the pilgri m 's staff is
extremely suggestive . lt conveys the status of writing in the woman's life:
poetry is her staff ( 'the staff of life' - her daily brea d ? ) and aid through her l ife of
wandering as the minstrel poet/woma n . But the phallic nature of the staff also
suggests the 'pen' of voice. Susan G u bar elucid ates this meta phor in her article
"The Blank Page a nd Woman's Creativity " , describing how woman is the site for
male creativity, the blank page on which the phallic pen writes. Feminists have
continua l l y urged women to therefore 'seize the pen ' : to take the creative power
for their own use. The danger in the metaphor is that creativity is seen to be
exclusively a male property, as only owners of the phallus have power. This is
not, however, where m ost feminists would leave the metaphor; the point is that
it m ust be reworked to m ove creativity from a biolog ical basis to a l inguistic
basis. 1 5
That shift i s what occurs here . The phallic staff i s turned into a l iving
thing , resem bling the vine that grows so prolifically in Sonnet X X I X . The pen of
creativity that the s pea ker has held, despite her society's accusations of
u nnaturalness in a woman's appropriation of a man's i nstrument, has been
transformed into her own i nstrument of creativity, through her own words.
M oreover, her resulting poetry is crowned (or " i m pearled " ) with the 'chrism of
heave n ' , the " heavenly dews" of Sonnet XXIV. She has received d ivine
a p probation and val idation; her ' pe n ' is strong and right.
120
Hence her confident reiteration of her opening statement: " I seek no copy
now of life 's first half " . The silen C ing a nd objectifying of the w oman under
Victoria n patriarchy i s rejected ; the speaker will write herself a new future .
Returning to the writing metaphor, she ponders the "curled " pages of " l ong
m using " poetry that record the history of her subjection to her society - the
previous sonnets ? The letharg ic, conte m plative nature of these m usings is
reflected i n the pages curled with time and inactivity. 1 6 C ontrastingly, the
following l ines exude energy a nd vigour, as the s peaker a p pa rently states her
i ntention to " write me new m y future 's e pigra ph " . A n e pigraph is the i nscri ption
or m otto at the beg inning of a written work: the new book which is the rest of
her life will carry the e pigraph of the male l over a s her created ang e l , "unhoped
for in the w orld ! " This is not a rei nstatement of hierarchical structures with the
man as a divine being , because the em phasis now is on the w oman's creative
imagination that w rites her male lover i nto this rol e . 1 7 With their m utual l ove
that encourages her (and his) voice and i mages, her future as woma n , l over and
especially poet i s transformed from the past.
A n alternative reading of these final l ines is a lso possi ble , however. Lines
1 2 - 1 4 m ig ht be read as a n i nstruction to the male l over to leave her past
m usings, and to w rite her e pigraph for her. If so, it would seem that the w oman
has placed the pen back i n the man's hands. Yet, i n terms of their redefined l ove
of mutuality, this possi bility is also a ppropriate . The a l location of action here is
unclear, and actually seems to i nvolve both. This lack of distinction can become
another evocation of a l ove which is a m utual experience of exchange , with the
potential to transform l ives - as here it will transform hers . The am biguity i n
reading these lines thus c a n b e a creative one.
X LI I I
The penultimate a nd m ost famous sonnet o f the sequence celebrates the
joy and c onfidence that the speaker has achieved i n this last section of sonnets.
lt i s memora ble , n ot because of the sentimentality with which the sonnet has
been i mbued over the last century, but because it culminates all that has g one
before. The woman who s pea ks these l i nes i s calmly fearless in stating her l ove;
there i s n o shrinking from self-expression, n o self-de precation, no prostration
121
before the male l over. The spea ker is unashamedly the focus of this sonnet: she
is the subject voice; she is the l over. Within this l ove relati onshi p , the w oman
has m oved from silent object to sharing the speaking voice of the subject poet.
D orothy Mermin summarises the essence of the sonnet a s the
culmination of themes that have run throug h the sequence, such a s definition of
s pace or the relations of new love to the past. She n otes that the spea ker is at
long last a nsweri ng the male l over's question by spea king her l ove. Mermin
concludes: "the repetitive structure (six lines beg i n , ' I l ove thee , ' a nd the phrase
a p pears three m ore times as well) forms a {riking contrast to the other sonnets,
while thematically it echoes with trium phant ela boration the 'silver itera nce' of ' I
"
l ove thee' that she had asked of him earlier (O rigi ns 1 4 5 ) . 1 8
How do I l ove thee? Let me count the ways.
I l ove 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 .
The spea ker has claimed the conventi onal mode of the courtly lover, l isting the
ways in which she l oves her pa rtner. The focus is crucial , though , and too often
overlooke d . This is not a list of the male lover's gifts a nd g races to her: she is
the active , initiating giver. 1 9 She is not the simple one-dimensional figure , of
m uc h male literature; rather she m ust count the ways by which she l oves. The
whole sonnet enumerates the myriad levels at which the com plex woman feels
and acts.
The second line i ndicates her a p preciation of the way the patria rchal
structure has been d isrupted i n their relati onship. The line uses the descri ption
that Paul uses to convey the vastness of Christ's l ove : "that you . . . may have
power to comprehend . . . what is the breadth a nd length and height a nd d e pth ,
and to know the l ove of Christ which surpasses knowledg e " ( E phesians 3 : 1 81 9 ) . 2 0 I nstead of the usual portrayal of the male l over as Christ, the speaker
uses the description as a m eta phor for herself. She now has the love to bestow
in virtual l y limitless a bundance . Mermin adds that these l i nes conclude the
spea ker's thematic redefinition of space in the sonnets (Origin 1 45 ) . M oreover,
the second phrase of the bi blical text is also echoed i n the sonnet i n l i nes 3-4.
122
The speaker l oves a s far a s her soul will go, and this extent far surpa sses that of
c onventional patriarchal l ove of sight and knowledge. The l rigarayan m otif of the
gaze, used within patriarchy to fix and a ppropriate the woman o bject, i s here
overturned : this woman's l ove g oes beyond sight, i nstead feeli ng to the limits of
existence . That " feeling " is both emotional and tactil e , touching i nstead of
watching . As Stephenson writes:
The male lyric typical l y relies upon d istance to i m pose a
space between l over and unattainable bel oved which is
never actually traversed ; the l over views his beloved across
this space, and frustrated desire is expressed pri marily with
the use of the visual metaphor. A number of recent critics
have suggested that women's love poetry, in contrast,
depends m ore upon the tactual [sic) than the visual (Poetry
73).
S h e then g oes o n to quote from Luce l rigaray's This sex which is not one,
particularly the sentence : "Woman ta kes pleasure m ore from touching than
l ooking , and her entry into the d ominant scopic economy signifies, again, her
consignment to passivity: she is to be the beautiful object of contem plation"
( Ma rks and de Courtivron 1 0 1 ) . Both quotations point to the fact that the l overs'
relationshi p in the sonnets has a p parently disrupted the "dominant scopic
economy" enough to allow m utual acknowledgement a nd interchange to occur.
Such i nterchange i s suggested in Sonnet XXI I , where the face-to-face angel­
souls of the l overs touch at their wingti ps i n another example of this m otif.
Sonnet XXII is a ppropriatel y recalled here , as l i ne 4 of this forty-third
sonnet ma kes gestures towards transcendent realms, just as Sonnet X X I I
attem pted to d o . The w o m a n feels out o f sight f o r "the ends of Being a n d ideal
G race " : presumably this denotes the end of human existence a nd the e ntrance
into a pseudo-Platonic ideal rea l m which is also a heaven of C hristian grace. But
here the woman only reaches; she d oes not attain. The i m possibility - and
silence - of that earlier fantasy l ove of !Janscendence is suggested here a s an
ideal, but the woman does not remove herself from the human relationship that
she has now. That relationship i s clearly rooted in the mortal present.
I l ove thee to the level of everyday's
M ost quiet need, by sun and candlelight .
123
I l ove thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I l ove thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
Her l ove is also as basic as the needs of daily life, specifically the m ost basic
human need for light that dispels darkness.
The rather sancti monious senti ments of lines 7 and 8 a re nevertheless
i m portant i n claim ing the high moral g round for thei r love . I n the m , the speaker
shows the fundamentally pure basis to their relationshi p . This has been a
continuing theme in the sonnets, the need to show that this relationsh i p that
disru pts society's conventi ons is both valid and m orally right.
I love thee with the passi on put to use
In my old griefs, and with my child hood 's faith.
I l ove thee with a l ove I seemed to l ose
With my l ost saints, - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life !
The dee pest aspect o f the woman's l ove is, a s Sonnets XXX I I I-XXXV showed ,
her past . And so she recalls it here , noting that the " passion " that she used to
expend u pon grief is now redirected . " [O]Id griefs" are the sorrows that have
been well-aired throug hout the sonnets - both societal and familial . Hand-i n-hand
with these , however, must go the brea king of childhood "faith " : the sureness
a nd expectations of youth that have been crushed by societa l pressures and
structures (see Sonnet XXV) . The reference to " l ost sai nts" suggests her dead
family l oved ones, now translated into sainthood in heaven (see Sonnet XXXI I I ) .
The wider significance of the l i nes focusses o n the process of crushing
disill usionment and suppression that turns the child of abilities and (relative)
voice into the silent Victorian woman. This was a very real process for EBB,
who saw her d omestic walls closing in around her as she reached womanhood.
Helen Cooper is perceptive in interpreting EBB's i l lness as one way she managed
to evade the crushing d omestic duties of Victorian women, a nd to retain her
voice a nd o pportunity as a writer. The denial of the faith of the growing woman/
poet, who believed that she would be able to e m ploy her talents a nd voice i n a
fai r a nd just world, is reg retted here .
124
But with this new love relationship comes a return of the voice and
opportunity, and so a commensurate l ove . The past is vindicated and answered
by the present. So the speaker concludes this section by summarising a l l that
she has d escri bed: she l oves with every aspect of her being - her tears a nd her
smiles, a nd even the life within her, her breath. The sonnet has shown us the
whole woman, " a l l of m y life ! " , and now it concludes with an even stronger
hope: "and, if G od choose ,/ I shal l but l ove thee better after death . " Because
this relati onshi p is so right a nd has divine blessing , the speaker can express the
hope that it will last even beyond the g rave , as she i m plied in the fourth l ine of
the sonnet. Thi s h o pe stri kes away her earlier uncertai nty a nd suspicion. Sonnet
X X I I concluded the cele bration of their ideal m utual l ove with an expression of
transience and m utability. Their relationshi p was but " A place to stand and love
in for a day,/ With darkness and the death-hour rounding it . " Then heaven and
G od were potential threats to their love , as the spea ker believed they endorsed
patriarchy. But by Sonnet X L I I I the speaker has rewritten the scri pt: God a nd
heaven a re now on her side, supporters of this pure, real l ove. I n this, the m ost
trium phant sonnet of the sequence, the woman seizes victory: G od-ordained,
woman-written victory.
XLIV
l t seems highly a ppropriate that the final poem i n this sonnet sequence
should express the conditional and tenuous basis of the l overs' relationshi p . The
speaker has e nunciated a history i n the sonnets that reveals her i nternal tension
a nd c onflict in response to her w orld . The poise i n the l overs' relationshi p ,
celebrated i n these final sonnets, is a result o f h e r transforming through tropes
that l ove relationshi p . And yet for that poise to be maintaine d , the second party
to this relationshi p m ust also accept the new conditions. The male l over m ust be
e qually ready to share roles, to e ncourage and explore an alternative subjectivity,
to be l over and beloved , poet and m use.
lt is this final tension that the speaker exposes in S onnet XLIV.
Beloved , thou hast brought me many flowers
Plucked i n the garden, all the summer through
And w i nter, and it seemed as if they grew
I n this close room, nor m issed the sun and showers.
125
The image of the c lassical token of lovers - fl owers - here employed by the
s pea ker is d iscussed brilliantly by Angela Lei g hton, who draws together the
" wealth of playful variations on the theme of flowers" that have been used by
EBB and Robert Browning in their letters and poems. "The play on flowers
throughout the courtship offers a continual , delightful , metaphorical substitution
of one thing for another: poems, flowers, life, l ove , memories, fl owers and
poems, again" ( " Stirring" 1 4) . Leig hton thus offers an example of the Sonnets'
process of re-meta phorisi ng .
The first quatrain of this sonnet focusses on the male l over as the giver:
he has brought g ifts to the altar of his bel oved , the objectified woman. The
fl owers have been " plucked " from the garden, taken from their life-source to be
presented and preserved artificially in the "close room " that is the woman's
sphere . There , the fl owers "seemed" to survive rather than die, a p pare ntl y not
m issing their vital food of sun and showers. (Of course , this is an il lusion : the
rea lity is that the l over has brought flowers so often that there are never any
dead ones to be seen. ) The image draws attention to the way the flowers have
been " plucked " , de prived of their natural ha bitat . I n reality such flowers should
die, m issing the c onditi ons of their growth.
The geography of this quatrain is also noteworthy. The garden , the place
of l ush g rowth a nd creativity, is apart from the woman, who is i nstead shut
away i n the "close room " - EBB's position in the sealed-up back bedroom of
W i m pole Street. This "close room " also descri bes the psychical position of the
speaker, denied access to the garden of creativity in her society; a l l owed to
share i n the delig hts of that garden only through the mediation of the male l over/
g iver/ poet. The spaces " which so long im prisoned her" have been "transformed
to a place of imag inative freed om" (Cooper 1 0 9 ) .
So, in the l i ke name of that love o f ours,
Ta ke back these thoughts which here unfolded too,
And which on warm and cold days I withdrew
From my heart's ground .
But the woman has learnt to rewrite the tropes of l ove . And so she turns this
one on its head : she too has a garden of creativity that has been prolific in
126
flowers of various kinds. Her own " heart's ground " i s the site for this garden,
and her thoughts are the sonnets, plucked with the same sense of a m putation
from their life-source . Like h i m , she has produced such flowers throughout
summer and w i nter; through the warm times of happiness a nd the cold times of
sorrow . 21
The crucial point, however, is that she g ives them to h i m . She has
become the lover/ g iver/ poet offering her 'flowers ' . She can only do so, though ,
by prefacing her offer with an i nvocation of thei r redefined love: " S o , i n the l i ke
name of that l ove of ours,/ Take back these " . I n the same way that you give to
me, I a lso give to you. "That l ove " eschews the hierarchical structure of
patriarchy for this m utual interaction which allows se parate subjectivity. Her
thoughts are as valid and as va lua ble as his.
I ndeed, those beds and bowers
Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue ,
And wait thy weeding; yet, here 's eglantine,
Here 's ivy! - take the m , as I used to d o
Thy flowers, a n d keep them where t h e y s h a l l not
pine.
I nstruct thine eyes to keep their colours true ,
And tell thy soul , their roots are left i n m i ne .
The beds a nd bowers o f h e r heart are, she feels, overgrown with the bitter
weeds of sorrow and anger, natural occu piers of a garden uncared-for a nd left to
the elements. I n a gesture of self-deprecation reminiscent of the speaker's earlier
characterisation a s humble w oman, she 'confesses' to the man that her garden
waits for " weeding " at his hand - and yet this statement is undermined by the
a ssertiveness that foll ows. She has claimed a garden of her own; she has
offered her own creations as equally valid to those of the male; now her humbl e
req uest f o r t h e m a l e ' s help to tend h e r garden is exploded by t h e delighted
phrase : " yet here 's eglantine ,/ Here's ivy ! " The i m plicati on is clear: even without
the man's " weeding " she can produce her own flowers, and have pride in the m .
Eglantine (honeysuckle) and ivy are both stron g , semi-wild vines - the " wild
vines" of S onnet X X I X , whose " broad leaves " threaten to overwhelm the male
tre e ?
127
The sonnet (and the sequence) ends with a deeply serious i njunction to
the male l over. As she encourages him to ta ke her wild and beautiful flowers,
reminding him yet again how often he has g iven to her, she e nforces u pon him
the vital need to preserve these flowers, as she preserved his. By investing the
flowers with human characteristics ( " where they sha l l n ot pine " ) she e m phasises
the i m portance and value of her gifts. These thoug hts of her heart, these words
of hers, m ust not be a ll owed to miss the sun and showers of their home garden,
her heart. They m ust be provided with the same conditions i n which they were
g rown, with equal l ove and attri bution of va lue. To explain the reason for this
she manipulates the sym bol, as she has now learned to do. These flowers have
roots sti l l left in the woman's sou l : unlike the real fl owers that the man brought,
cut off and d ying , these flowers are stil l part of the vine. They will grow and
flourish if kept in cond iti ons that are suita ble. The significa nce of this point
cannot be overstated . The thoug hts and w ords of the woman will only remain
alive if the man undertakes to provide them with the conditions for being heard .
I f he will listen and value these words - i n other words, if he will continue to
enact the l ove relationship that they have esta blished - the poetic creations of
the woman's can survive and flourish.
And so she tells him to " I nstruct thine e yes to kee p their [her flowers']
col ours true " . The only way her thoughts can be preserved i n their 'true colours'
(denoting her e qual subjectivity) is through his eyes: his perceptions m ust be
kept ' pure ' . The male lover m ust continue to see the woman as equal subject,
n ot as unequal object: the latter mode of perce ption will kill both the flowers and
their relationshi p . Thus the trope of seeing is also reworked, overturning the
patriarchal gaze which objectifies and appropriates, a nd replacing it with a new
m od e of perception that keeps the woman's creativity intact.
This final condition to their relationship leaves the responsi bility for its
preservati on squarely in the hands (or eyes ! ) of the male l over. He can crush it
by simply reverti ng to the old c onventional modes of existence. Yet, i n typically
subtle fashion, the final l ines of the poem suggest that it is n ot just the
relationship and the woman's subjectivity that lie in his hands. Consider the
pronoun "their" in l i nes 1 3 and 1 4 . Ostensibly it refers to the woman's
" flowers " , yet it can also refer to the male 's eyes a nd sou l . I n this case, the
128
danger a lso includes h i m : he i s threatened with dissolution i f he fails to preserve
the atmos phere of m utual l ove . This is surely true for their relationsh i p , i n which
both parties are accepted and affirmed i n their i ndividuality. The denial of such a
relationsh i p would therefore cut off both w oman and m a n from this
strengthening and creative atmosphere .
Sonnet XLIV, then, ends with a note of warning, characteristic of the
wary nature of the speaker throughout the sequence. Her caution i s another
reason for e m ploying the flower imagery to conclude her exploration of l ove.
Flowers sym bolise beauty and transience, aspects representative of their
relationshi p . lt, too, i s beautiful , for very different reasons than those usually
g i ven for c onventional l ove relationships. But it is also potentially transient,
c onstantly threatened by the oppressive structures of the society around it.
et='
Thus the speaker's senseAdoubt and vulnera bility underlies this final sonnet, a nd
asks the i nevitable and unanswera ble questi on: how can a disru ptive , alternative
relationsh i p l i ke this survive in the all-pervasive structure that is patriarchal
society?
129
NOTES
1 I ronically, of course , the speaker is speaking her l ove in the sonnet, even
as she m a kes this protestation in defence of silence. These poetic w ords are
i nstrumental in maintaini ng the distinction between the l overs, avoiding the
a bsorption i nto the male that is otherwise required under this culture 's structures.
This need for language to assert her se parate selfhood eventually overcomes the
strategy of silence ad opted by the spea ker in this and other sonnets.
2 Both H e l e ne Cixous and Luce l rigaray, l i ke Kristeva , similarly a rgue that the
feminine language is form less, crossing boundaries, eternally changing, never fixed .
The image of water is often used, though fire is equally, if n ot m ore a pposite . The
Other ceases to be a fixed polar opposite , outside the subject's (central )
consciousness; rather the woman "c onsta ntl y trades herself for the other w ithout
any possi ble identification of either one of them " ( Luce l rigaray in "This sex which
is not one " , Marks and Courtivron 1 0 5 ) . Or, as H e l e ne Cixous w rites i n her utopian
"The Laugh of the Med usa " , feminine writing is "the ense m ble of the one and the
other" ( Marks and de Courtivron 254). One of the main criticisms levelled against
these feminists is a tendency to essentialise the fem inine position in their
arguments. l rigaray's "This sex . . . ", for example is read by m ost feminists as making
female a nt
omy the source of an ecrtture f�m t i Ht'le, and yet a m ore subtle reading
1\
sees l rigara y using the female anatom y as a meta phor for a n on-dualist, 'not-one '
m ode o f thinking . (See below , Chapter Six.)
3 lt m a y be argued that the word " woman-l ove " suggests a n essentialism in
EBB of the type a rg ued in the previous note . lt becomes clear, however, reading
EBB's letters and poems, that the terms 'female' and 'male' become almost
meta phoric , equivalent to 'feminine' and 'masculine 'as described a bove ( p . 4 7 , note
3 6 ) . That E B B endorsed a kind of psychic androgyny, without the negative
connotations now a pplied to the latter word , has been a rg ued by Virginia
Steinmetz: "The a ndrogynous 'soul' or 'heart' is a ble to transcend the sex-rol e
behaviour society prescribes" ( " Beyon d " 1 8 , note ) . EBB's two sonnets to George
Sand explore precisel y such a n otion (see Kaplan , Aurora Leiqh 3 9 1 ) .
4 Angela Leighton offers a different reading o f this sonnet: s h e sees the
" rough w i nds" as potentially fanning the flames of her d esire into uncontrollable
and dangerous passion. Her silence therefore protects the beloved from the
threatening power of " w oman-words " , though the self-restraint i nvolved nearly
breaks her (Elizabeth 1 1 2 ) . The reading fails to take into account the self­
defensiveness in l ines 5 - 7 , 1 1 or 1 3.
5 Associating the male l over with a cuckoo also suggests c overt anxieties
in the female speaker. The cuckoo is a migratory bird which d oes n ot hatch its own
eggs but leaves them in the nests of other birds. Having deposited this 'eg g ' of l ove
in the s pea ker-poet's nest, will he stay?
130
6 The Morgan manuscript reads " But weak t o attai nt m e " ( Ratchford 8 2 ,
e mphasis m i ne ) . This earlier manuscript thus m a kes overt t h e world 's c orruption
and propensity to stain, in com parison with the l overs' g oodness: the line
i m m ed iately m oves i nto discussing the white purity a nd cleanliness of their l ove .
7 The lilies also recal l the biblical 'lilies of the field ' , w h o " neither toil nor
spin; yet . . . even Sol omon in all his g l ory was n ot a rrayed l i ke one of these "
( Matthew 6 : 28-9 ) . The context discusses G od 's loving care for His creation, and
so reiterates the speaker-poet's point that the l overs have divi ne endorsement and
protection.
8 Dorothy Mermin w rites that the "imagery suggests a Bacchic i nvocation
of d ivine presence " (Origins 1 34 ) .
9 T h e following sonnet, X X X I , seems to cele brate t h e moment of u n i o n in
the l over's presence . As the d iscussi on of that sonnet i n Cha pter Two reveal s (see
a bove p . 6 5ff), the a p parent idealism of that union is undermined, because it is
represented within the potentially re pressive and hierarchical divine mode l .
10
Angela Leighton also notes the speaker's " playful politics" here. " For a l l
h e r acknowledgement o f Robert's 'strong divineness' , it is t h e shi pwrecked Pagan's
humble liveliness of i magination that inspires the poe m " ( Leig hton 1 0 9 ) . Leighton
sees the sonnet as retaining R obert' s ideal divinity, however, so as to protectively
exclude him from her " verbal travesty " .
1 1 " Mussulmans" o f l i ne 5 denotes Muslims and " G iaours" i s a Turkish term
for n on-Muslims, particularly Christians. Presumably EBB's point i s that the whole
world , not just Christian Victorian England , engages i n holl ow l ove relationships.
12
I n capitalist, utilitarian Victorian society, the middleclass w om a n was
a l l owed n o active role in marketplace or tem ple , in business or church/ law courts.
Even as a m other her primary purpose was to reproduce the units for these
spheres.
1 3 In Sonnet V , the speaker challenges the m a n : " But i f i nstead/ Thou wait
beside m e for the wind to blow/ The g rey dust u p " . The res u lt of this restrai nt is
that the woman's creativity flam es i nto powerful fire . Presumably his restraint does
n ot require unnatural self-suppressi on on the man's part : he m ust only give u p
domina nce, to a l l o w equality o f existence.
1 4 The "fair copy" figure m ig ht also be read g ra phically, as for exa m ple i n a
painting meta phor. H owever, the context of the final l i nes of the sonnet place the
opening line i nto a specifically w ritten mode.
1 5 Cf. Cixous, who sees writing as the way t o bre a k down logocentric
definitions, and to free the woman u p to spea k . " [The w oman] m ust w rite her self,
because this is the i nvention of a new insurgent writin g , which, when the m oment
of her l i be ration has come, w i l l enable her to carry out the i ndispensa ble ruptures
a nd transformations in her history" (Marks and C ourtivron 2 5 0 ) .
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13 1
H l These writings are not rejected ; they are rather reflections on the feelings
of being caught within a patriarchy. The British Museum manuscript gives line 1 2
as "The blots will be there on the pages curled ! " . E B B presumably a lters this
because it i m plies that the earlier writings are m istakes or " bl ots" , rather than a
process of release via writing .
1 7 Helen Cooper reads the angel reference as placing the man i n the position
of m use for the writing woman (Cooper 1 0 8 ) .
1 8 Glennis Stephenson is one of the few cnt1cs who find this sonnet
disa p pointing, commenting that " its i nsistent listing of a bstractions" is "certainly
not representative of the sequence as a whol e " ( Poetry 8 8 ) .
1 9 See Leighton : "This i s a love s o confident o f its o bject that i t n o l onger
needs it" (Eliza beth 1 0 2 ) . Helen Cooper comments that the sonnet is "less
sentimental tha n authoritative a bout its speaker's desire" (Woman 1 0 8 ) .
20
John Phil l i pson also notes how the sonnet echoes " Paul's thought and
phraseology" i n "spirit and expression " ( 2 2 ) .
21
Mermin comments on the poetical use of flowers , which traditionally
re present " female objects of male desire" - as indeed the male l over a p pears to be
using them here . Mermin comments: "Women poets tend to identify with the
flowe r " , in a collapsing of subject and object ( "The Damsel " 69-70). Certainly EBB
d oes that here , but her identification is only to m ove the d iscussion into a
dismantling of subject-object reificati ons.
134
PART TWO :
AURORA L E I G H
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135
CHAPT E R FOUR
A U RO RA I N PATR IARCHY
O ne of the pleasures in reading Aurora Leigh is that Aurora tells a great
story. The same plot that ma kes Charlotte Bronte's novels so reada ble is at
work here in E BB's n ovel-poem : the young, strong , idealistic woman determined
to survive , and m ore , succeed in life and love in an antagonistic or indifferent
world . This favourite ideal of women accounts in part for the phenomenal
success of the modern romance genre. EBB thoug h , l i ke Bronte , adds depth and
ana l ysis to her account of this archetypal plot, and it is this analysis that ma kes
Aurora Leigh the extra ord inary work that it is. Ba rrett Browning not only tells the
story, but she also asks why the story exists, and why it has t o follow
a p parently inevita ble courses. I n other words, she analyses the structures behind
her society, and so questions every aspect of the traditi onal romance plot.
i . T h e Patriarch
Paternity
" Patriarch
. . . 1 . The father and ruler of a family or tri be " ( O E D ) . This
succinct definition carries g reat significance in E BB's worl d . The patriarch, and
by extension the system that is built upon patriarchs, has two crucial and
related facets: paternity and authority. The father's seed i s the i m portant
perpetuator of the society, a nd the father's word is the law of that society.
Victorian England was without doubt a patriarchy. The male seed held a
man's vitality and definition: to be im potent or sterile was to be less than
a
man.
And the father's word was law as he ruled the home, the business a nd
academic worlds, the g overnment. 1 Moreover, the law was needed to protect
the sanctity of the male seed , because in physical reality paternity was
136
im possi ble to prove . Laws maintaining the power of paternity kept at bay the
threatening possi bility of maternal power, whose ascendancy w ould inevitably
denote the brea kdown of patriarchy.
In Cha pter Six the deeper significance of the father fig ure will be
considered m ore closel y, but certain points can be made here . The father
becomes a sym bolic figure or force i n the patriarchal society, metonymica l l y
carrying t h e l a w s a n d regulations o f that society. Physica l , specific fathers need
not be present: they are sym bolical l y represented by other i ndividuals,
i nstitutions or even a bstract attitudes. I n Aurora Leigh the father figures are
numerous and clearly centra l . They represent Victorian English patriarchy, and in
the case of the poem (and m ost patriarchies) they often also re present the
suppression and a buse of women.
Aurora opens her novel-poem with a disquisition on fathers , as she reca lls
her own. Reflecting how different paternal l ove is to maternal , she writes:
Fathers love as well [as m others]
- Mine did, I know , - but sti l l with heavier brains,
And wills m ore consciously responsi ble,
And n ot as wisely, since less foolishly;
So m others have God's license to be m i ssed .
( 1 : 60-64) 2
The father carries the burden of his office : to be the law-m a ker, the ruler.
I mm ediately the sense of difference is here : the father's role i s weighty but
right, i mportant because responsi ble, and is a matter of w i l l and conscious
effort. This sense of self-im portance is in contrast t o the m other's role , which is
seen as foolish a nd light , a matter of " kissing full sense i nto e m pty w ords"
( 1 : 5 2) . Yet this very phrase reveals the paradoxical wisd om of the m other,
whose very " foolishness" is the means by which children are n urtured. The
oppositions here are thus hierarchical - the father i s m ore i m portant/ responsible/
i ntelligent than the trivial/ light/ foolish m other. The fact that the poem
c onstantly depicts the m other's way being effaced by this paternal assumption
shows that 'di fferent' in patriarchy means 'wrong ' . H owever, the poem
simultaneously shows how that value judgement i s erroneous: "Women know/
The way to rear u p children" ( 1 :47-48 ) . Thus maternal " foolishness" becomes
137
" wisdom" i n a subversion of traditi ona lly appositional definitions that prefig ures
the whole action of the poem. 3
Aurora 's sense of her own father is fascinatingly am bivalent. Her
description of his life which follows the a bove extract on fathers reveals another
opposition , this time between England and Italy. This somewhat simplistic but
highly symbolic opposition gathers momentum throughout the poe m , coming to
re present the central battle between masculine a nd feminine worlds in Aurora
Leigh . 4 Aurora 's father is born and bred English, and in Aurora 's terms this
means aridity:
My father was an austere Englishman,
Who, after a dry lifetime spent at home
In college-learning, law, and parish tal k ,
Was fl ooded with a passi on unaware,
His whole provisioned and complacent past
Drowned out from him that moment.
( 1 : 6 5-70)
I n oppositi on to this dry world of order and law is the flooding, drowni ng ,
passi onate world o f Italy, t o which h e succumbs. Aurora tells w ith her typica lly
ironic sense of humour, how he had come to Italy to note "the secret of Da
Vinci's drains" ( 1 : 7 2 ; 74) - the orderly remova l of excess waters. I nstead other
flood waters overwhelm him: Aurora tells us that he " received his sacramental
g ift/ With eucharistic meanings; for he loved " ( 1 : 90-9 1 ) . Witnessing a rel i g i ous
procession, he has seen and fallen in l ove with Aurora 's m other. Aurora clearly
identifies this wonderful l i berating l ove as a Godly gift, a cleansing , transfiguring
experience from his previ ous existence and value syste m .
Aurora descri bes how the religi ous procession "drifted past [ h e r father]
(sca rcel y marked enough/ To move his comforta ble island scorn ) " ( 1 : 78-7 9 ) . This
image of an island m entality, around which drift a nd flow different and m arginal
elements, reflects Aurora 's apprehension of England as a hegemony: it is the
centre of consciousness, with Italy as an outside other, a dangerous yet i nviting
foreignness . The island believes it is the centre of existence, but can only
maintain that belief by rejecting foreign elements. R od Edmond writes: "any
dominant culture m ust select from, and hence exclude, the full range of human
practice" (Edmonds 1 0 ) . Rejecti on occurs through devaluation a nd scorn of the
138
properties of those elements . l t is precisely this process that occurs i n Aurora
Leiqh .
I n the case of Aurora 's father, his island mentality has been " Drowned
out from h i m " ( 1 : 7 0 ) . But he is not able to m ove fully from his previous life i nto a
new life, particularly because Aurora 's m other dies only four years after g iving
birth to Aurora , a n experience both father and daughter never recover fro m :
My father, w h o through l ove h a d suddenly
Thrown off the old conventions , broken l oose
From chin-bands of the sou l , like Lazarus,
Yet had no time to learn to talk and walk
O r grow anew familiar with the sun, [ . . ] Whom l ove had unmade from a common m a n
But not com pleted t o an uncommon man[ . . ]
.
.
( 1 : 1 7 6-84)
Aurora's father rejects his "common" Engl ish insularity, a nd yet Aurora
comments that he rema ins ca ught in it. Aurora tells how he teaches her " a l l the
i gn orance of men " , a nd how God laughs when men profess knowledge : " ' Here
I 'm learned; this, I understand ; / I n that, I am never caught at fault or doubt"'
( 1 : 1 90-9 3 ) . He instructs his young daughter in scepticism and analysis, and m ost
i m portantly i n what to reject:
He sent the schools to school , demonstrating
A fool will pass for such through one m ista ke ,
While a philosopher will pass for such,
Through said m ista kes being ventured in the g ross
And hea ped up to a system .
( 1 : 1 9 4-9 8)
Aurora learns to examine the underpinning structures of any system , a nd to
identify " mistakes" . l t is this training , along with " her father's disregard of
1 43 ) , that leads to her rejection of Romney's
chauvinistic philosophy of women and poets. 5
g e nder roles " (Edmond
Yet A urora 's father, despite his late 'rebirth' a nd his obvious l ove for his
daug hter, remains a problematic figure for Aurora . Very early i n the poem she
d escribes her father's hand stroking her hair:
139
0 my father's hand,
Stroke heavily, heavily the poor hair down,
Draw, press the chi l d 's head closer to thy knee !
( 1 : 25-27)
There is a strange am bivalence i n these lines. T h e older Aurora , writing this
description of the young Aurora 's childhood i n retrospect, brings the past i nto
present tense , reliving it and inviting - even commanding - her father's touch
once again. Her terri ble regret at the im possi bility of fulfi l l i ng her desire emerges
i n the next line, which confesses that " I 'm sti l l too youn g , too young , to sit
alone " . There is safety and order in this paternal touch , a relinquishing of self­
determi nation and responsi bil ity to the father.
Yet the lines also sug gest a simultaneous feeling of repression i n the
repeated adverb "heavily" , and i n those mounting verbs: "stroke " , " draw " ,
" press " . The child Aurora here incurs the older woman's sym pathy: she i s a
vict i m , her " poor" hair im prisoned within the space formed by the father's hand
and knee. This is a clear recurrence of a theme from the Sonnets: the tension
between desire for submissive safety and re bell i on against a paternal authority.
Angela Leig hton writes: "The image of the father's hand i n [ EBB's] poetry is one
which, as Virginia Steinmetz points out, often links strong human l ove and hard,
G od-li ke authority" ( Leig hton 1 1 9 ) . 6 But must male love necessarily entail
patriarcha l power? Certainly Aurora appears to reject this association when
Romney, during his attem pted courtship, tries to a p propriate her as belove d :
Once, h e stood so near
He dropped a sudden hand upon my head
Bent down on woman's work, as soft as rain But then I rose and shook it off as fire,
The stranger's touch that took my father's place
Yet dared seem soft.
( 1 : 543-48)
R om ney, Aurora tells us, wants to save her: he is eager to play the role of
paternal l over. Aurora rejects it as effrontery to usurp her father's place - yet the
final line suggests again a covert attraction to the touch. 7
140
The fathe r's sil ence
The " stranger" mentioned in 1 : 54 7 is a re presentative of the patriarchal
fTli�lc...r..
�t
system that would take over Aurora 's life and "conform
to a sense of English
order. One such stranger is the nameless, faceless operative who intervenes
a fter the sudden death of Aurora 's father. I nto her grief
there came
A stranger with authority, not right,
(I thought not) who commanded, caught me u p
From old Assunta 's neck; how, with a shriek,
She let me go, - while I , with ears too full
Of m y father's silence , to shriek back a word [ . .. ]
( 1 : 223-28, underlining mine)
This stranger carries the law and command of the hegemony, but Aurora cannot
accept that authority as synonymous with moral right. Under this law she m ust
undergo a nother maternal separation like that from her m other, this time from
Assunta , her housekeeper/ friend . During this separation Aurora is a ppalled and
silenced by the a bsence of her father's voice . She is clearly grieving his l oss, but
the lines also suggest that the child considers his a bsence a tacit betrayal .
Despite the fact that his a bsence is ca used b y death, she seems t o read i t as a
failure that has exposed her to a cruel world. 8 She later bitterly comments on
the final wishes of her father concerning her:
There seemed m ore true life i n my father's g rave
Than in all England. Since that threw m e off
Who fai n would cleave , (his latest wil l , they say,
Consigned me to his land)[ . . . ]
( 1 : 3 7 5- 7 8 )
I n death, he h a s a p parently a bandoned h e r t o a hostile l a n d a nd society. Angela
Leig hton n otes that it is " not [Aurora 's] father's last word to ' l ove' which rings
i n her ears, but his last 'silence"' (Elizabeth 1 2 3-24). Leighton 's entire thesis
a rg ues that Aurora 's l ife - and the life of the woman poet - is a quest of the
" estranged and bewildered child" for the lost father, whose silence becomes the
mark of his a bsence . I n the second book, a distraught Aurora a ppeals to her
father in heaven for c om fort, and is a ppa lled by the "deaf blue sky" that l eaves
her " alone, a l one" ( 1 1 : 7 34-4 9 ) . She emphasises how the previously loving,
attentive father is silent to her "cries " . The extensi on here to the l oving Father
141
G od is i m pl icit: " O h , how fa r,/ How fa r and safe , God, dost thou keep thy
saints/ When once g one from us ! " ( 1 1 : 7 3 5-37). At this point Aurora also feels
a band oned by the Father of fathers, the Patriarch of Heaven.
Aurora's ideas of a bandonment and betra yal reiterate the am bivalence
she l ocates in the figure of her father. He is love d , grieved and desired , and yet
both his presence and his a bsence de note feelings of oppression or cruelty.
Reasons for her contradictory responses can again be l ocated i n masculinist
d efinitions of "father " . When men are defined as women's saviours, protectors
or owners, their withdrawal from those women becomes an act of cruel
a ba nd onment. Romney is silent and inattentive when Marian tries to tell him of
Lady Wa ldemar's false solicitude. "I once began to tell you how she ca m e , / The
woman . . . and you stared upon the fl oor/ I n one of your fixed thoughts . . . which
put m e out/ For that day" ( I V: 9 1 1 - 1 4) . In the world of Aurora Leigh where
'fathers' own and protect , women will be left bereft - " orphaned " , in Leighton's
terms - when those fathers leave (l iterally or meta phorica l l y) .
Regulating the daughter
Men, however, are not the only representatives of patriarchy. Women
can also fill that rol e , and Aurora's aunt is an obvious example. She is the sister
of Aurora's father, a paterna l aunt in blood and attitude. She i s i m bued with the
English attributes that Aurora has already contrasted i n her father:
She stood stra ight a nd calm,
Her somewhat narrow forehead braided tight
As if for taming accidental thoughts
From possible pulses; brown hair pricked with g rey
By frigid use of l ife [ . .. ]
( 1 : 2 7 2-76)
O rder, repression of emotion and unaccepta ble or d isruptive thoughts, a ri dity
a nd coldness: these are the aspects of both the woman and the land . Aurora is
i nitially horrified by England , a land of "frosty cliffs " , divided fields "as m a n from
man " , low skies and "indifferent air" ( 1 : 2 5 1 -69). England has no welcome for
the Italian Aurora , a nd her aunt none either. Rather her aunt plays the patriarch,
seeking to control and regulate Aurora 's thoughts, emotions and l ife.
142
Aurora 's account of her aunt's cold g reeting i s strikingly i ntense :
she wrung loose m y hands
I m periously, and held me at arm's length,
And with two grey-steel na ked-bladed eyes
Searched through m y face , - a y, sta bbed it through
and through[ . . ]
.
( 1 : 3 2 6-28)
A urora perceives that her aunt seeks to associate the child w ith her m other, and
so to marginalise and condemn her. The child's m other, re presentative of
treacherous Italy, " fooled away/ A wise man from wise courses, a g ood man/
From obvious duties" ( 1 : 342-44). This is m ore than a clash of cultures: this is
the hierarchical opposition of sanity and madness, wisdom and foolishness
a lready seen i n the d istinctions between fathers a nd m others. Thus Italy
becomes further distinguished as the feminine world of m othering , contrasting
·
with England as the masculine world of fathers.
Naturally Aurora 's aunt ma kes it her duty to rescue her niece from as
m uch of her unfortunate past as possi ble, with a g ood " English " education. But
she never loves or trusts the child beca use of the dangerous " otherness" in her.
Later, after Aurora has refused Romney's proposal and a ppalled her aunt with an
i mpassioned outburst, we see this distrust and repugnance surface : she d rops
Aurora's hands "in sedate d isgust " as if she had touched a dead sna ke , 9 and
advises her niece to '"leave Italian manners, if you please"' ( 1 1 : 7 24-2 7 ) . She is
determined to uphold the masculinist values of her society by repressing any
challenge or expression of difference .
The life that Aurora 's aunt esta blishes for her exemplifies how paternal
a uthority is exercised for Victorian women . 1 0 Aurora describes it in ironic detail
i n Book I. Firstly, her a p pearance is ordered by confi ning her Tuscan curls in
braids - a symbolic gesture that attem pts to contai n Aurora 's sensual ity i n the
same way the aunt has a l ready repressed her own hair and sensua l ity. (Aurora
herself tries the same thing much later in Book V : 1 1 2 6-34, w he n she
s u ppresses her passion for Romney and forces herself to renounce h i m . ) N ext,
her language is reg ulated : she m ust spea k English rather than her i nstinctive
Tuscan words, because her aunt " l i ked m y father's child to speak his tongue "
143
( 1 : 3 9 1 ) . Third l y Aurora 's religious faith m ust conform to hegemonic standards,
which Aurora notes preclude any teaching on love !
Crucially, of course , the "father" must regulate the daughter's educati on.
I n Aurora 's case her father had been remarka bly l i bera l , so a m ore conventional
feminine education is belatedl y required . This involves a smattering of safe
subjects and a g ood grounding in the fem in i ne accom plishments of
watercolours, bravura piano playing and m odelling wax fl owers . A wide berth is
taken of m ost books except those on "womanhood " which Aurora sums up as
advising young women to " keep quiet by the fire/ And never sa y 'no' when the
world says 'ay,' I For that is fata l " ( 1 :437-3 8 ) . The lines descri bing Aurora 's
i nstructi on are a delight to read : they are wittil y parodic at the expense of the
Victorian ed ucation of women. But there is serious challenge behind the hum our.
Aurora clearly recogn ises what this l ife means for women: "their, i n brief,/
Potential faculty i n everything/ Of a bdicating power i n it" ( 1 :440-42 ) .
She com pletes her education by learning to sew , a n occupati on to keep
women useful by sewing trivial articles for their i nattentive menfolk who dream
of " something we are not/ But would be for your sake " . Aurora concludes:
Alas, alas !
This hurts m ost, this - that, after a l l , we are paid
The w orth of our work, perha ps.
( 1 :463-6 5 )
Women a r e o n l y allowed va lueless tasks a n d s o i nevita bly are not va lued
themselves. But to be the valued "thing " of men's d reams - m istresses?
prostitutes? - w ould im mediately remove their position as gentlewomen, which
is apparently their main attribute of value within society. And in either case ,
women remain male-defined objects of desire.
The commerce of patriarchal love
The ordering of Aurora 's life by the edict of patriarchal authority is to a
purpose , that of perpetuating that authority through marriage . lt is n o
coincidence that Romney is i ntroduced following Aurora's account o f her
144
constrai ned life with her aunt. l t becomes clear that Aurora i s being g roomed for
marriage to R omney, and this is later confirmed by her aunt w h o tells how
A urora was requested by Romney' s father at her birth: 1 1
" I ask your baby daug hter for my son
In whom the e ntail now merges by the l a w .
Betroth h e r to u s out of l ove, i nstead
Of colder reasons, and she shall n ot l ose
By l ove or law from henceforth[ . . . ] "
( 1 : 6 26-7 1 )
This quotation, comingling l ove with commercial value a nd law, g ives a n insight
i nto the nature of marriage in Aurora 's worl d . As i n the Sonnets, patriarchal l ove
relations occur in an atmosphere of transaction. In that work, the Rialto of the
Victorian marriage market can be seen as a crude exa m ple of the l rigara ya n
sexual economy, Cixous' masculinist g iving-to-get. Certainly commercial
considerations are upperm ost in the m ind of Aurora's a unt, whose immediate
response to her niece's refusal of Romney is an i m passioned s peech a bout their
( both her own and Aurora 's) poverty in the world and their d e pendence on
R om ney Leigh's money and benevolence. Aurora 's m a rriage i s thus the obvious
solution to their precarious state.
R om ney also thinks in terms of commerce, but i n a m ore s u btle way.
Throughout the long argument of Book 1 1 , his chauvinism i s a p parent, and it
m a kes his eventual proposal simply that: a proposa l , a c ontractual offer. H e asks
for what he believes to be the only thing of value a woman can g ive: l ove (see
1 1 : 3 50) . H e later defines l ove : "if your sex i s wea k for a rt/ . . . it is strong / For life
a nd duty" ( 1 1 : 3 7 2-7 5 ) . Aurora perceives that Romney reads " he l pmate " for
" wife " , and that his marriage vows will take second place to his social theory.
She m im ics Romney's offer:
"I have some w orthy work for thee below .
Come, sweep m y barns and keep m y hospitals,
And I will pay thee with a current coin
Which men g ive women . "
That is, marriage and (relative) security.
( 1 1 : 5 38 -4 1 )
14 5
Later Aurora charita bly attri butes Romney's bartering attitudes to his
im potence i n the face of the apparent fait accompli of their betrothal : he was
" self-tied/ By a c ontract" . She rei nterprets his opinions i n the light of this:
Love , to him, was made
A simple law-clause. If I married h i m ,
I should not dare t o call my soul my o w n
Which s o h e h a d bought a n d paid for: every thought
And every heart-beat down there i n the bill;
N ot one found honestly deductible
From any use that pleased h i m ! He might cut
My body into coins to give away
Among his other paupers[ . . . )
( 1 1 : 7 84-9 2 )
Romney's sense o f honour a n d duty t o the betrothal c ontract is even m ore
abhorrent than his sexism , beca use it rem oves the mitigation of love . Aurora
believes that R omney has proposed out of duty, not desire, a nd that her
acquiesence would com plete a purely mercenary contract. The im plications are
a ppal l i ng : every aspect of her being would be signed over to his ownersh i p .
Soul , mind, e m otion a n d body would become h i s property, w h i l e Aurora would
be left w orse than poverty-stricken: her woman's body become the very
currency bestowed on the " other paupers " by his philanthropy.
l t is m indful to note that at this early point i n their relationshi p both
R om ney and Aurora m isconstrue each other. Certainly the reader is expected to
see the ironic self-deception in Aurora 's protestations that she d oes not l ove
R om ney. Nevertheless, Aurora 's distressful perceptions of R omney's attitudes
here cannot be dismissed as fancy, or over-reaction. This is, after all, the
woman trained in detecting errors i n systems of thought. Moreover, Romney
a p pa rently confirms her interpretation of him. After her a unt's funeral he m a kes
a very generous offer to a stubbornly resistant Aurora . She can see that he
continues to want to play the role of provider and benefactor to a defenceless
a nd poor woman. When she fa rewells him, he responds: '" Ah, poor child,/ Who
fight against the m other's 'tiring hand,/ And choose the headsman's ! "' ( 1 1 : 1 1 8 89 0 ) . R om ney is casting himself in the role of m other, whom Aurora has c hosen
to reject for the harsher hand of the the world . The word " headsman" is a n
i nteresting choice , meaning chief o r head man - another patriarch. I ronically,
R om ney cannot see that he is in fact playing the father role i n atte m pting to buy
146
this woman's marital committment (as Aurora sees it) . His self-delusion extends
t o casting himself as a l oving maternal figure. 1 2
This idea of gender relations as a marketplace of men/fathers with
m a rriage a s the desired contract a nd women the exchangabl e g oods emerges
further in the wonderfully dramatic account of Romney a nd Marian's a borted
wedding . When Marian fails to show, Romney begins his public a pology
a ppropriately ( " M y brothers ! " ) and then confesses (with the language of the
business place) that he has l ost his bride. The public ceremony w i l l not occur;
the audience is "dismissed " . The response of the poor g athered to witness this
unique transaction is violent, and they demand their " rights " : "We'll have the
girl, the g irl ! ' " (IV: 8 4 1 -42 ) . Marian becomes a sym bolic battleg round , a
dehumanised piece of property, the control of which is now disputed between
R om ney and the under-classes. After this l ong and extra ordi nary account,
Aurora then by contrast g ives us the woman herself - Marian's i ntimate letter of
explanation to Romney. 1 3 All the fea rs and thoughts that he had no conception
of, nor i nclination for, are here . Marian the woman has chosen to refuse
m arriage to Romney, though admittedly under the malign influence of Lady
Waldemar.
Fema le competition
Mention of Lady Waldemar raises another facet of women's l ives that a
patriarchal culture c ontrols: female relations. Because a ny sense of female
a l l ia nce is a potential threat to paternal control , such a l liances are negated early.
Aurora i s thwarted i n a l m ost every attempt to esta blish a lasting a nd deep
relationshi p with another woman: her m other; Assunta; her a u nt; Lady
Waldemar; even Mari a n , with whom she tries to esta blish a female community.
The final cha pter discusses how the reasons for these fai lures a re im plemented
from earliest child hood , a nd how almost a l l are related to the patriarchal
arrangement of women's society. The results for women are l oss of permanent
female frie ndshi p a nd the esta blishment instead of a divi sive female competition.
Within this culture w omen are prepared only for marriage (as Aurora 's education
reveals) ; their career therefore becomes a search for the best husband. The
147
rivalry that results i s exemplified by Lady Wald emar, who covertly battles both
Aurora and Marian in her need to win Romney.
Similarly, Aurora perceives that her aunt has nourished hatred for her
m other (and by extension herself) beca use the Italian woman supplanted the
English w oman, "depriving her,/ His sister, of the household precedence" ( 1 : 3444 5 ) and relegating her to a " pitta nce " ( 1 1 : 6 38) thereafter. Her aunt's only
honourable alternative to marriage was housekeeper to her brother - both careers
l ocated i n a male. De prived of either she becomes disaffecte d , and Aurora is
amazed at the fund of hate that can focus on a woman she has never even met:
She had pored for years
What sort of woman could be suita ble
To her sort of hate , to entertain it with,
And so, her very curiosity
Became hate too, and all the idealism
She ever used in life, was used for hate ,
Till hate, so nourished, did exceed at last
The l ove from which it grew[ ]
( 1 : 348- 5 5 )
. . .
When a woman's life is l i mited t o living throug h a man, a n d then a man i s
denied her, a l l that woman's energies, talents a n d desires become focussed on
the a pparent cause for that denial - inevita bly, another woman. The initial l ove
for her brother is thus ecli psed by growing bitterness for his wife. Aurora
concludes: "And thus m y father's sister was to me/ My m other's hater" ( 1 : 3 5960).
Lady Waldemar's disastrous machinations to win Romney leave h e r in a
similar state. Her final words to Aurora, by letter, are extra ordinarily similar to
those a bove :
" O bserve , Aurora Lei g h ,
Your droop o f eyelid i s the same as his,
And , but for you, I might have won his l ove ,
And, to you, I have shown my naked heart;
For which three things, I hate, hate , hate you[ . . ]
so I hate you from this gulf
And hollow of m y soul, which opens out
To what, except for you, had been my heave n ,
A n d is, instead , a place t o curse b y ! LOV E . "
.
( I X : 1 6 2-7 2 )
148
Lady Waldemar's happiness i s l ocated i n R omney; without him, she can only
turn her hollow desire , intelligence a nd energies - her personality - onto A urora ,
her riva l . What is so awful a bout this result, though , is the destruction of a
potential relationshi p : Aurora i s the only person who has seen Lady Waldemar's
dee pest feelings, who has heard her speak honestly (in Book I l l ) . Aurora ,
however, is unable to accept this w oman's openness because she is re pressing
her own rival l ove for Romney. Lady Waldemar is w ithout doubt selfish and
mani pulative, but she is not the evil schemer of Aurora 's imagination, as Helen
Cooper also n otes ( 1 5 7 ) . These two intelligent and perceptive women cannot be
a llies within the situation they are placed i n .
Female voice marginal ised
Another effect of patriarchal control of women is the romanticisation,
trivialisation and marginalisation of the female voice. R om ney is of course the
prim e promulgator of this process. In his argument with Aurora in Book 1 1 a bout
the w orth of poets - particularly female ones - he m a kes his position clear from
the outset: " 'men, and stil l less women, happily,/ Scarce need be poets. "'
Dreaming of such " defiles" Aurora's clean white ( i . e virginal) dress, he adds
( 1 1 : 9 2-9 6 ) . R om ney's reasoning i s that the world i s i n such a desperate state that
it requires only the " Best" in Art, the Best being g ritty realism. Women a re
unable to d o this because they cannot generalise or see past the particular to the
u niversa l . This in turn is because of w omen's nature : they a re too feeling, too
lovi n g , too sympathetic for the i nd ividual.
"does one woman of you all
(You who weep easily)[ . . . ]
- does one of you
Stand still from dancing , stop from stringing pearls,
And pine and die because of the g reat sum
O f universal a ng uish ? [ . . ]
Therefore , this same world
Uncom prehended by you, m ust remain
Uninfluenced by you. - Women as you are,
Mere women, personal a nd passionate [ . ) "
( 1 1 : 204-2 1 )
.
. .
149
R om ney's language and images here betray his conception of feminine activity
a s effete a nd unconcerned with public action (he here esta blishes an opposition
between the male universal view and the female particular vie w ) . Women dance
or string pearls - and if one unusual woman could perceive the anguish of the
world , she would not act but would wee p, " pine and d ie " . R omney clearly
und erstands his world that will judge women's writing on a lesser scale than
men's, because for women "true action is im possi ble" ( 1 1 : 2 3 1 ). Men, on the
othe r hand, are capable of action , and so Romney's a m bition is to find "some
g reat cure " ( 1 1 : 28 2 ) for the world 's ills. With all the a rroga nce of patriarchal
power, which sees itself as the centre and source of knowledge, Romney will
find the solution. This, of course , is precisely the attitude that Aurora 's father
pilloried in his teaching: the masculine desire for control, the belief in a bsol ute
knowled g e . H ierarchical oppositions are reiterated again here as Romney
contrasts his work with hers . He will be "el bow-deep/ I n social problems " ,
attem pting t o " bring the uneven world back t o its round " ( 1 1 : 1 2 1 6- 1 9 ) . S h e , he
says, will "Write woman's verses and dream woman's d reams" ( 1 1 : 8 3 1 ) - m a king
Aurora 's poetry effetel y romantic, trivial, and marginal to manly work. Aurora 's
rea l task in life, R omney concludes , is attending on h i m , aid ing and supporting
him i n his l ife 's work. Like the other women of the poem , she is only really
val ued when defined b y a man.
R omney's attitude remains consistent for m uch of the poe m . After
A urora nurses h i m through the debacle of his failed wedding and Marian's
a p parent fall, he m uses self-pitying l y to her:
"You, at least,
Have ruined no one through your d reams. I nstead,
You've helped the facile youth to live youth 's day
With innocent distraction, still perha ps
Suggestive of things better than your rhymes.
The little shepherd maiden, eight years old ,
I 've seen upon the m ountains of Va ucl use ,
Asleep i ' the sun, her head upon her knees,
The flocks all scattered, - is more laudable
Than any sheep-dog trained i m perfectly,
Who bites the kids through too much zeal . "
(IV: 1 1 1 4-24)
150
EBB's astute reprod uction of this patronizing and deepl y offensive tone perhaps
reveals her own personal experience of it. Certainly Romney's w ords here are
proba bly recognised by most women writers: the casual, arrogant assum ption
that women's writing is emascul ated and fee ble, suita ble for " facile " young
people who desire naive "distraction " from the rigours of a d ult responsibi l ities although that d istraction may prove useful in suggesting better, g reater things
"than your rhymes" . His final simile contrasts the i rresponsible, self-ind ulgent
and useless ( i . e . fem i ni ne) shepherdess with the zealous, active , faithful (male?)
shee p-dog . Romney's insult is a p parentl y meant as a compliment. Aurora 's
fla bbergasted reaction challenges a l l his assumptions that her w ork is merely
play: "I look/ As if I had slept, then ? " (IV: 1 1 24- 2 5 ) . R om ne y eventual l y sees
some of the reality of Aurora 's committed , hard-working existence in her tired
face. But Aurora is left with the im pressi on that she and her work are a mi nor
i rritation on the surface of Romney's l ife : "a thing too small, to deign to know
[ . . . ] /Not worth the pains of his analysis/ Absorbed on nobler subjects"
( I V: 1 2 1 5- 1 9 ) .
R elated t o this point i s the assum ption of Aurora's culture that women , if
they m ust w rite poetry, will write a bout l ove. This fits with R om ney's definition
of them as romantic and emotional , concerned with the i ndividua l . Aurora in
Book V imagines the pastoral scene of a father returning to his hearth and home,
tossing into the lap of his oldest daughter Aurora 's book, exclaiming, '"A h you ,
you care for rhymes;/ So here be rhymes to pore on under trees,/ When A pril
comes to let you ! "' (V:4 6 5-67 ) . The father sets his daug hter in the fitting scene
of classical romance , a p propriately accompanied by some poetess' " rhymes " .
Poetry i s thus reduced t o mere " rhymes " , a l inguistic a nd attitudinal dimi nution.
Marga ret Reynolds discusses the Victorian utilitarian attitude that saw poetry as
effe mi nate : l i ke middle-class women it was d omestic , personal, spiritual, sma l l .
This was doubly so w h e n the poet w a s a woman. 1 4
The father's actions i n this little story thoug h , uncover assu m ptions
a bout paternity and the daughter that shadow his expression of l ove for her:
" 'Tis yours, the book; I 'l l w rite your name i n it,
So that you may n ot l ose, however l ost
I n poet's lore a nd charming reverie,
------- ----- -
151
The thought of how your father thought of you
I n riding from the town. "
(V:470-74)
Beneath this c onventional scene of l ove , apparently e pitomised by a book of
" rhymes" , remains a patriarch's definitions of women and l ove . Despite the
daughter's tem porarily " l osing " herself in romantic l ove rhymes, she will not l ose
her naming and fixing by her father - the marking of the woman as paternal
property. He knows, and m ore crucia lly, she must know , that the father is i n
control here, and a n y feminine preoccupation with feminine things w i l l not
displace his centra lity.
Woman as object
Fina l l y , of course , women under patriarchy lose definition as persons in
their own right. They become dehumanised objects, ci phers for masculine
needs, desires a nd purposes. This has been the i m plicit result of all the a bove
d iscussed aspects of patriarchal regulation.
Women are presented as objects at various points in the poe m . Vincent
Carrington 's l etter in Book I l l describes sketches he is working on - descri ptions
unnecessary for the plot and character developments elsewhere in the letter .
T h e t w o sketches depict Danae waiting for her l over Zeus. 1 5 O ne shows a
woman i n the throes of desire, actively and l ustil y waiting, " overbold a nd h ot " .
The other shows a passive woman, l ying " flat upon her prison-fl oor " , " Ha lf­
bl otted out" both visua lly and emotiona l l y by Zeus' rain of l ove , " heavy as fate " .
I nterestingly, Carrington the male artist prefers the second : i t " indicates/ M ore
passion" ( I l l : 1 20-3 5 ) . The woman's passion is thus represented in a manner
m ore desira ble to the male artist. She is the ci pher or object that can be
refashioned to suit his Zeus-like desire (which presumably needs reflected power
and i nitiative ) : her own self is correspondingly " bl otted out " .
Aurora 's response t o Carrington's choice i s heavil y i ronic:
152
Surely. Self is put away,
And calm with a bdicati on. She is J ove,
And no m ore Danae - greater thus.
( 1 1 1 : 1 3 6-38)
Danae is n o longer simply Danae, but is effaced by J ove 's presence . She
a bdicates her self calmly to receive the g reat god. G lennis Stephenson n otes
how Aurora aestheticises the pictures, by reading them as a metaphor for the
" a rtist-soul " . Stephenson believes that by doing this Aurora can " m ove a way
from the painful identification with the woman as object" , by i nstead assuming
the role of a rtist ( Poetry 9 7 ) . 1 6 This is true , but Aurora is also clearly satirising
the masculine placement of w oman as object here . As she concludes, " when
i ndeed our J oves come down,/ We all turn sti ller than we have ever bee n "
( I l l : 1 42-43) . F o r " sti l l " read d e a d : the arrival of the o bl iterating g od effectivel y
k i l l s t h e woman. She becomes the site for the male g od 's (or a rtist's) creative
power.
The coda to this account of Vincent's sketches occurs i n Book V I I , where
he w rites to Aurora in Italy a bout his marriage to Kate Ward. This time he
s pea ks of painting Kate , not a m ythical Danae:
" Such eyes! I could not paint or think of eyes
But those , - and so I flung them i nto paint
And turned them to the wall's care . Ay, but now
I 've let them out, m y Kate 's: I 've painted her,
( I change m y style and leave mythol ogies)
The whole sweet face [ . . . ) "
( VI I : 5 88-93)
Vincent's desire to " have " Kate - that i s , to control her for his desire - is
exemplified i n his painting of her eyes so as to banish them to look at the wall .
Now h e has released them from that figurative i mprisonment to look a t the
world (and him) again. The freedom is i l l usory though, for he tells Aurora i n the
concluding lines that he has com pleted his control of the woman by painting her
whole face - indeed, half her body ( " A half-length portrait" [VI I : 59 5 ) ) .
Presumably the full portrait will fol l ow after the marriage i s consummated.
·
The a ssum ption that woman is an object for man's a ppraisa l , and i ndeed
a ci pher for his desire, i s a lso evidenced later in Book V at Lord H owe's party,
w here Aurora listens to two men discussing Lady Waldemar's beauty. The two
153
men speak of her a s a flower, a n identification that disallows her human
personal ity, and that enables them to interpret and judge her by her physical
a p pearance. She becomes the static o bject upon which they build their own
opinions a nd pronouncements a bout her and women i n genera l . When Lord
H owe interrupts them to draw attention to the silent listening Aurora , the two
men, to whom Aurora has been invisi ble, remove themselves, presumably i n
some em barrassment. Lord H owe 's opening words exem plify the objectification
of women that has underpinned this whole episode:
"What, tal king poetry
So near the image of the unfavoring Muse ?
That's you, Miss Leigh: I 've watched you half a n
hour,
Precisely as I watched the statue called
A Pa llas in the Vatica n [ . .. ) "
( V : 7 9 5-9 9 )
Lord H owe, w h o knows Aurora better than most , nevertheless sti ll considers her
the Muse, not the poet who presumably must be male. His gaze defines Aurora
as the passive art object. The effect of Romney's gaze at the young Aurora ,
described by Mermi n , is precisely the same: " I nstead of an artist she becomes a
work of art, and an archaic, useless one at that " (Origins 1 8 9 ) . 1 7 By comparing
her to a statue of the g oddess of chastity, Lord Howe may well be satirising
Aurora here, showing her how she is perceived as the stern , powerful but
passionless Athena. But Aurora 's clever response reveals the essential i m passe
in her position: because her culture places woman as object or muse, she cannot
be the poet. Therefore Aurora as poet cannot be a woman but must play the
role of passionless, chaste - and masculinist - Athena.
"Ah, "
Said I , " m y dear Lord H owe, you shal l not speak
To a printing woman wh0 has l ost her place,
(The sweet safe corner of the household fire
Behind the heads of children) compli ments,
As if she were a woman. We who have clipt
The curls before our eyes, may see at least
As plain as men do. S peak out, man to man[ . . . ) "
(V:804-09 )
A urora i s very clear-sig hted a bout h e r options: t h e safe effacement of identity
and career into conventional wife- and m other-hood , or the pseudo-masculine
but d esexed and marginalised role of poet.
154
Marian's story
lt is a p parent that much of Aurora Leigh is concerned with descri bing i n
human terms the nature o f m a l e and female relations within Aurora's culture.
Marian's story becomes the archetypa l example of a woman who i s victim to
total patriarchal control . lt is worth taking a moment to consider Marian's
account of her early l ife as Aurora retells it in Book I l l , as a summary of the
discussion so far.
Marian is born to itinerant workers in an i l legal hovel on Malvern H i l l . Her
father, when not working , drinks and a buses his wife, who in turn vents her
m isery on her ba by da ughter. Aurora 's editorial recounting of this situati on
clearly a pporti ons blame to her society: " G od sent [ Marian] to His worl d ,
comm issioned right" ( 1 1 1 : 8 3 7 ) , but human evil intervenes from Marian's first
breath.
N o place for her,
By man's law ! born an outlaw, was this babe;
Her first cry in our stra nge and strangling air,
When cast in spasms out by the shuddering womb,
Was wrong against the social code , - forced wrong : What busi ness had the ba by to c r y there ?
( 1 1 1 : 8 4 1 -46)
Mari a n 's existence begins and continues with rejection. As Aurora's extreme
voca bulary makes clear, Marian's birth is a tra umatic expulsion from her
m other's womb, and her very existence i s a transgression of her culture 's
codes. Her m other's lack of maternal l ove is disparaged by Aurora only l i g htly:
again, the real blame lies at a deeper level. The woman's " broken heart " from
her husband 's violence and her hopeless life causes "the worm " to turn on an
equally hel pless daughter ( 1 1 1 : 8 69-70). Thus, concludes Aurora ,
There's not a crime
But ta kes its proper change out still in crime
I f once rung on the counter of this worl d :
Let sinners look to it.
( I l l : 8 70-7 3)
The ca pitalist economy of patriarchy i s once m ore suggested i n the imagery
here , a n economy that demands equal exchange and commerce i n human lives.
155
Crimes against human freedom and dig nity must inevita bly be met with
equivalences to maintain the balances of power.
Marian the child nevertheless discovers some i ntuitive knowledge o f a
" grand blind Love " { 1 1 1 : 8 9 3 )
-
God , Aurora calls it - by escapi ng her immediate
situation and communing with nature . This G od , we are told, is a " skyey father
and m other both in one " ( 1 1 1 : 8 9 9 ) : a l oving parent a s distinct from the unloving
a uthorities of her life. The Sunday school she attends i s one such authority,
where she meets merry little R ose Bel l , whose " pelting glee" a nd " mirth"
( 1 1 1 : 9 1 4- 1 5 ) cannot be restra ined by the schoolmaster ( but which is soon
c onstrained by a l ife of prostitution). Here Marian learns of the m ore forma l
C hristian God, a n d h e r knowledge leads to a further a lienation from her parents,
w h ose sin before G od she now a p prehends. Aurora a ppreciates Marian's
torment:
Oh, 'tis hard
To learn you have a father u p in heaven
By a g athering certain sense of bei ng , on earth , Still w orse than
orphaned : 'tis too heavy a grief,
( 1 1 1 : 942-46)
The having to thank God for such a joy!
Aurora finds problematic the God of rig hteousness , who has come to assume
the qualities of her w orld - demanding quid quo pro. By the end of the poem
A urora has chosen to shift her focus to a m ore New Testament-style G od of
l ove a s her deity.
Marian's childhood is spent following her parents in their wanderings
around Britain, during which she gathers hard knowledge from experience , and
scra ps of literature from obliging pedlars. 1 8 Her childhood is d ra matica l l y ended
when her m other - again after the provocation of a severe beating from her
husband - attem pts to sell her daughter i nto prostitution. Aurora 's narrative here
i s g ra phic and powerful , describing the buyer's " beast's eyes " that threaten to
"swallow [ Marian] alive/ Com plete in body and spirit, hair and a l l " ( I l l : 1 0 50 - 5 2 ) .
We recall Aurora 's descri ption o f Romney's proposal , i n which s h e " should not
dare to call [her] soul [her] own/ Which he had so bought and paid for" ( 1 1 : 7 8 68 7 ) . The sale of both women e ntails soul and body : Marian's hair, that potent
Victorian symbol of female sensuality, will be devoure d . This i m agery of
156
consuming continues as Marian brea ks free from her m other and the man and
flees, pursued by their calls as " famished hounds at a hare " . Her name is thrown
hissing after her l i ke " shot from g uns " . She is prey to the predatory transactions
of this culture's economy.
Marian's story continues with her rescue and del iverance to a hospital by
a caring waggoner. Here she is astonished and "half tranced " by the "sim ple
d ues of fel l owshi p/ And social comfort " she experiences. (Aurora exclaims in
indignation, "Oh m y God ,/ H ow sick we must be , ere we make men just ! "
[ I l l : 1 1 1 9-20 ) . ) But her fi rst experience of ministration i s undermined when
"some one who had nursed her as a friend/ Said coldly to her, as an ene m y , "
that she must l eave t h e hospita l . The hospital must function within a w orld of
utilitarianism and profit, just as its women patients exist in a society where
females are defined by their relations to husbands and children. Marian
overhears other convalescents discussing the lives they are about to return to,
and each is anxious for her position either as wife/lover or m other. Marian, never
having had any such definition exce pt the negative ones of rejection and
a lienation, envies the women these limited roles: " Marian felt the worse/ For
having m issed the worst of all their wrongs" ( I l l : 1 1 67-68 ) . She is thus highly
susceptible t o R omney Leig h's gentle concern for her as an individual . His
i ntervention i n find ing her work and purpose raises him to hero status i n her
eyes. Aurora descri bes her and her mother as " worm [ s ) " ( 1 1 1 : 8 6 9 ; 1 1 8 1 )
d iscovered beneath stones - the worms with whom Romney is continua l l y
c oncerned i n t h e poem , as Aurora first points out i n Book I .
Always Romney Leig h
Was l ooking for the worms, I for the g ods.
[. .. ) I was a worm too, and he l ooked on me.
( 1 : 5 5 1 - 5 2 ; 5 5 6)
These worms feed and writhe throug h the dirt of society, vulnera ble, trivial - and
yet necessary. Aurora , Marian, Maria n's mother, the working classes - these are
a l l the fodder for R omney's g reat social action . I n Book VI I I he confesses his
m isplaced zea l to Aurora :
157
I beheld the world
As one g reat tarnishing carnivorous m outh, A huge , deserted, call o w , blind bird Thi n g ,
With piteous o p e n bea k that hurt m y heart ,
T i l l d o w n upon t h e filthy ground I dropped ,
And tore the violets u p to get the w orms.
Worms, w orms, was all m y cry: an open m outh,
A g ross want, bread to fill it to the l i ps ,
N o m ore .
(VI I I : 3 9 5-403)
I n his painful a nxiety to deal with the unive rsal probl e m , R omney forgets that
worms m a ke the earth, and so he ma kes victims of the m ost hel pless of
i ndividuals. His earlier dismissa l of concern for the persona l as a female fault is
thus revise d , as he belatedly understa nds the need for such a concern in both
sexes.
Marian's early story concludes in Book IV. Romney finds Marian attending
to the dying Lucy G resham , a fellow sem pstress. Marian's decision to d o this
flies i n the face of accepted wisdom : she forfeits her job and her chance to
return t o that job because she bel ieves that assisting a "solitary sou l " ( I V : 3 7 )
foundering i n the dark is o f m ore value than sewing dresses f o r Lady Waldemar.
This is foolishness within the economy of returns that Maria n's society dictates.
She will gain n othing from aiding Lucy - indeed she loses more. When R om ney
turns u p , a s h e d oes through out the poem with an a l m ost divine preknowledge,
he i s i m pressed with Marian 's " woman's heart" (IV: 1 43 ) and eventual l y
proposes m arriage to h e r with m uch tal k a bout drawing t h e " t w o extre mes/ Of
social cla sses" together (IV: 1 38-39 ) . There is little l ove i n his language, though
some respect. But what is primarily obvious i n Romney's proposal i s his concern
with his project of " mercy and m inistration " (IV: 1 4 1 ) for which Marian has
proved herself admirably suited . There is n o mention of Marian's desire or
feelings; she i s the hel pmeet without personal identity. R omney uses a striki ng
i mage to d escribe their prospective union:
" Let us lean
And strai n t ogether rather, each to each,
Com press the red l i ps of this ga ping w ound
As far as two souls can, - ay, lean and league,
I from m y supera bundance, - from your w a nt
You [ . . . ) "
(IV: 1 2 5-30)
158
The wound of which Romney speaks i s i n the crucified Christ's heart, derived
from the sword which simultaneously "cleft" the world in twai n , particularly
class from class. 1 9 But the image suggests far more . lt invokes the masculine
interpretation of female genitalia as two red l i ps disclosing a g a ping wound . This
is the rhetoric of masculine fear of female desire , particularly evident in medieval
texts a nd still carrying overtones into discussions of female sexuality today. 20
The woman's sexuality is based on the lack of the penis: her " nothing-to-be­
seen " is thus a terri ble gap i ndicative of castration - a " ga ping wound " .
R om ney's words here can thus be read as a dee p-seated fear a nd evasion of
female sexuality, as is more clearly evident in his phil osophies a bout women. His
attem pts to romanticise women and to deny them any desire or i nitiative except
an effete propensity to " l ove " can be descri bed as an attem pt to compress the
red l i ps of female sexua lity together, to close off the wound , to remove it from
view , to "hea l " women of their own "terri ble " sexuality. His proposal to Marian
is thus for a passionless marriage, in which Marian's female sexuality i s cl osed
off, her i nitiative and selfhood denied. Moreover, he asks her to assist in this
process of her self-erasure , she from her positi on of lack and he from his
"supera bundance " .
Marian's l ifestory thus can be read as a case-study i n Victorian
patriarchal regulation. As she m oves from a position of oppressi on to a new
position of suppression, she has little awa reness of a possibiity of otherness, of
legitimate alternatives to this existence . Thus this culture effectivel y erases any
possi bility of critique.
ii. Female roles wihin patriarchy
After such a com prehensive account of women's position within the
w orld of Aurora Leigh , what roles are open to individual women within the
poe m ? 2 1
159
The spi nster aunt
Aurora 's aunt is the " od d " or " redundant" woman of Victorian society,
the spinster. Ta king the position of the pseudo-father, she u pholds the val ues of
her English w orld and enforces repression of herself a nd Aurora as women.
Aurora describes what this entails:
She had live d , we'll say,
A harmless life, she called a virtuous life ,
A quiet life , which was not l ife at a l l ,
( But that, she h a d not lived enough to know)
Between the vicar and the county squires,
The l ord-lieutenant looking d own sometimes
From the em pyrean to assure. .their souls
Against chance vulgarisms[ . .. ]
( 1 : 2 8 7-94)
The aunt's life is l ived via others: she receives self-definition from her
associations with the carefully ranked men of quality and sta nding a round her.
Her definition is built upon a p parently Christian virtues; the sure mark of the
Victorian gentlewoman . This dictate of pseudo-Christianity kept intact the
restrictive structures of society: virtuous m iddleclass women only remained so
by keeping a strong distinction between themselves and non-virtuous women.
Thus their own sense of va l ue and worth depended upon preserving the non­
value of others " less fortunate " , and the whole circular system was rarely
d issected to expose e ither the erroneous nature of the distinctions or the
hollowness of the values. Leighton m a kes a strong a rg ument that the feminism
of A u rora Leiqh lies i n the way Aurora comes to spea k for - a nd g ive voice to her 'sister', the silenced , outcast fallen woman (Marian) . Such a feminism
bre a ks down the code of silence and evasion with w hich Victoria n society
treated the issue of prostitution.
The fathers' way of dealing w ith these things is to keep the
[ ' pure ' ) women hushed and veiled , and thus, from e nforced sexual
m odesty, im potent to change the system in which they too are
tra pped . . . [ Barrett Browning] d oes n ot range Mad onnas against
Magdalens, pure women against fallen w omen; [she] ranges them
all against men, against ' paterfamilias' . . . Both the exaggerated
m odesty of the ' pure and prosperous' and the exploited
i m m odesty of the 'miserable' serve to perpetuate the sexual rule
of men" (Eliza beth 1 4 7 ) .
160
Aurora 's aunt re presents a woman caught i n this vici ous circle.
Aurora descri bes her a unt's " quiet " , " virtuous" life - which demands a
woman c onform to na rrow dictates a nd val ues that deny her i ntelligence, power
and abilities - in a favourite metaphor:
She had lived
A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage,
Accounting that to leap from perch to perch
Was act a nd joy enough for any bird .
Dear heave n , how silly are the things that live
In thickets, a nd eat berries!
I, alas,
A wild bird scarcel y fledged, was brought to her
And she was there to meet me. Very kind.
Bring the clean water, g ive out fresh seed .
cage,
( 1 : 304- 1 2)
The w oman born into these assu m pti ons can rarely see her i m prisonment: the
world outside the cage is beyond her experience and her desire. But the wild
bird , who knows freedom , can never be happy inside the cage of this role.
A urora 's ironic and fore bod ing tone warns us that she can never play this
"virtuous" role. I nstead, Aurora tells us, she plays the cl oset renegade , balancing
a l l her aunt's i nstruction i n the " quiet" life with her own i nstincts for something
else .
I kept the life thrust on me, on the outside
Of the inner life with all its ample room
For heart and lungs, for will and intellect,
I nviolable by conventions. G od ,
I tha n k thee for that g race o f thine!
( 1 : 4 7 7-8 1 )
Aurora m a kes a R omantic distinction between the im posed constricting l ife of
false convention and a spacious, natural , h olistic existence, which receives
d ivine a p probation. This distinction also a pplies to Aurora 's Christianity and
conventional religion, and prefigures her reinterpretati on of C hristianity in her
later experiences:
[ I ] l ived m y life, and thought my thoughts, and
pra yed
My prayers without the vicar; read my books,
Without considering whether they were fit
To d o me g ood .
( 1 : 699-702)
161
Aurora will not, and d oes not, acce pt the role of the quiet life; she will not be
the image of her unmarried aunt, playing the virtuous spinster woman.
Wife and helpmeet
Without the clear, 'safe' definition of wife, Aurora's a unt needs to
maintain positive definitions from the men in her wider society. A wife ,
however, m ust also be "vi rtuous" - and Aurora is t o be R omney's wife.
Romney's attitudes i n Book 11 seem fairly representative of his culture's view of
a wife. 22 She is to be virg i na l , pure, undefiled , and m ust act as the comforter
a nd hel pmeet to her husband. This view is later devel oped by the devout Sir
Blaise Delorm e , who wittily advises young Smith aga inst choosing the physica l l y
alluring L a d y Waldemar as w i f e , a n d g ives the correct criteria f o r such a
decision:
" Otherwise
Our father....chose,and therefore , when they had hung
.
Their h ousehold keys a bout a lady's waist,
The sense of duty gave her dig nity;
She ke pt her bosom holy to her ba bes,
And , i f a moralist reproved her dress,
'Twas, 'Too much starch ! ' - and not, 'Too little law n ! "'
c. , ·..J
(V: 6 8 6-9 2)
Sir Blaise ta kes a virtuous young virgi n a nd m a kes her a virtuous housekeeper
and m other. Her identity ( bestowed by her husband) gives "dignity " , preserves
her reputation, but again ties her i nto a pseudo-Christian m oral ity from which
she cann ot esca pe. 23
Aurora vehemently rejects this role when offered it by R omney. She
responds acerbical l y to his call to kee p her clean white 24 morning dress
undefiled by the world of poetry:
" I would rather take my part
With G od 's Dead , who afford t o walk in white
Yet spread His g l ory, than keep quiet here
And gather u p my feet from even a step
For fear to soil my g own in so m uch dust.
I choose to walk at all risks . "
( 1 1 : 1 0 1 -06)
162
She would rather b e dead than loc ked i nto Rom ney's idea o f her a s wife remaining unsoiled and " quiet " . That latter word reca l l s Aurora's descri ption of
her aunt's life , but also refers to Aurora 's poetic voice. Marriage to R om ne y now
would render her si lent. Rather she desires to take " risks" - a nother word
em phasising what is at sta ke . I n rejecting the limited role of marriage, she
brea ks the self-preserving cycle of virtuous womanhood u pon which this
chauvinistic society depends. She risks her identity as a virtuous gentlewoman;
yet i f she can maintain herself within a higher m orality she becomes a
subversive cha llenge to the hegemonic structure. Aurora is very aware of the
price of such her decision:
If he had l oved ,
[ . . . ] I might have been a common woman now
And happier, less known and less left alone,
Perha ps a better woman a fter a l l ,
With chubby children hanging o n my nec k
To keep me l ow and wise. Ah me, the vines
That bear such fruit, are proud to stoop with it.
The palm sta nds upright in a real m of sand .
(11: 5 1 1 -1 9)
I n the remainder of the nine books Aurora " proves" that she was right to make
her choice as she d i d , but this early reg ret points to her sense of loss. She
remonstrates with that regret by decrying marriage: "0 woman's vile remorse ,/
To hanker after a mere na m e , a show " ( 1 1 : 5 23-24 ) . Her desire for love a nd
children cannot be met in R om ney's offer; it would entail a devaluing of herself
and her sense of purpose to submit to his marital tra nsaction, so she m ust
assume a different role - the l onely palm in the desert. Similarly, after
overhearing Sir Blaise's advice (see a bove ) , she finds she m ust reject a marriage
offer from a rich gentleman, delivered to her by her friend Lord Howe (see
V : 8 6 3ff) . He im presses upon her the need for compromise , to marry so as to
support hersel f . He em phasises the reputation and deserving nature of the
prospective l over who is both m orally and financially a g ood catch. Aurora is
deeply hurt that a friend should so m isundersta nd her own m orality a nd values:
again she rejects the mercenary proposition for a l onely and poor existence.
163
The Madonna
Marian , on the other hand, takes the role of the virtuous w i fe to a n
extreme: she becomes the virginal angel w h o will sacrifice everything to h e r idol
of a husband. Her relationship w ith R om ney, Aurora suggests, i s less c ontractual
a nd m ore religious: "a simple fealty" (IV: 1 9 3 ) . Aurora compares Marian's total
self-surrender with the I ndian practice of suttee - only here in England , she adds
drily, the husband is stil l a live . Marian reveals how she made Romney her life in
a letter to him after the failed wedding:
0 , m y sta r ,
M y saint, my soul ! f o r surely you're m y sou l ,
Through whom G od touched m e !
( I V : 970-72)
Marian has l ocated her moral and spiritual identity i n Romney. After finding
Marian in Paris, Aurora recounts Marian's admission of this total submission :
She felt his
For just his uses, not her own at a l l ,
His stool , t o sit o n o r put u p h i s foot,
His cup, to fill with wine or vinegar,
Whichever drink might please him at the chance
For that should please her a l ways: let him w rite
His name upon her . . . it seemed natura l [ . . . ]
(VI : 9 0 6- 1 2)
In these l ines Marian is Romney's object, Susan G u bar's " blank page" bearing
the male a uthor's a utogra ph. Moreover Marian offered to play this role, a nd
R om ney felt no qualms in accepting . Even when Marian renounces R om ney, it is
out of consideration for him. Lady Waldemar convinces her that she will be a
bane and burden to her idol, who did n ot l ove her but w ould marry her out of
l oyalty.
A ppropriately, Aurora associates Marian with religious iconography: she
i s the martyred Christ-figure whom R om ney anoints with "the rich medicative
nard " of his voice (in an ironic and subversive inversion of the account of the
prostitute Mary a nointing Christ's feet); he also touches the " wounds of Christ"
when he aids her i n the hospital . Her l ove for Romney is a Christ-li ke l ove of
endless g iving , and Aurora's unhappy i m pl ication i s that Marian too w i l l be
a bused a nd martyred .
164
She i s frequently descri bed a s " blind " , for example. Ostensibly this term
refers to Marian's hair which voluminously shades her face , but it also denotes
her naive blindness in her relationshi p with Romney, which is domi nated by her
trademark, passivity. Trai ned into the victim 's role from birth, descri bed as being
"d og-l i ke " in her patience (IV: 28 1 ), she takes on passivity as her d om i nant
mode . O ne extraordinary example of this mode is when Aurora first visits Marian
in her garret at the suggestion of the jea lous Lady Waldemar. Marian tells her
story, and then Romney arrives to find his long-lost beloved (Aurora) speaking
with his fiancee. A l ong conversation ensues, exclusively between Aurora and
R omney. Although the conversation is predomi nantly a bout Marian, she never
spea ks during it, and at its close , Aurora leaves accompanied by R om ney, with
ba rel y a word to Maria n. Even given the di fference in class between her a nd
the m , this is extra ordinary behavi our on both sides. Marian becomes invisi ble ,
crucially believing this to be appropriate . lt is this bli n dness - to her own value
and strength, and to her world's a busiveness - that she m ust clear.
The name " Marian" is a clear reference to the Madonna , the m other of
Christ, and thus deli neates both her role as "virg i n " m other and her relationshi p
with her son, also " fatherless" and rejected by his society. Marian's position is
fasci natin g : she begins as the innocent virgin, turns into the fallen woman, and
ends as a saint-li ke Madonna . Under the terms of Victorian society these are all
mutually exclusive roles, except where they meet in the highly a mbivalent figure
of Mary, the m other of Christ. lt becomes clear that the narrow distinctions
made by this patriarchal culture - fitting women into one-dimensional roles cannot contain real women. Someone l i ke Marian will inevita bly transgress
boundaries. 25
Crucially, Marian herself rejects the role of the Madonna . She tells Aurora
when they remeet in Paris how some charita ble peasants cared for her during
her wanderings after the ra pe:
"and twice they tied,
At parting, Mary's image round m y neck H ow heavy it seemed ! as heavy as stone;
A woman has been strangled with less weight:
I threw it in a ditch to keep it clean
And ease my breath a l ittle, when none looked [ . ] "
..
(VI : 1 2 5 5-60)
165
The Madonna role is deathly heavy to a normal woman, whose three­
dimensionality w i l l never kee p it pure and intact. Marian rejects this
identification; it cannot be filled by any m ortal woman.
The courtly lady
Lady Waldemar is the other female character of note i n Aurora Leiqh .
Because she i s a member of the upper classes, the spaces a l l otted t o her i n her
culture are limited in a different way. I n Book I l l Aurora i ntroduces her as the
archetypal society woman - that is, a product of society. 2 6 "You know the sort
of woma n , " she tells us, " brilliant stuff,/ And out of nature " ( 1 1 1 : 3 5 7- 5 8 ) . That
is, i m mensely gracious and reg a l , immensely self-possessed and proud . Her
w ords a nd actions in the poem always feel l i ke a superb performance , as i ndeed
Lady Waldemar's life is. I n her interview with Aurora she opens herself u p to
i m mense risk by confessing l ove for R om ney. Like the beautiful lady of courtly
traditions, she should remain al oof and cool , ad ored from afar by young men l i ke
the a nonymous S mith . Yet she quickly disa buses the reader and Aurora of this
image of her, choosing to demonstrate the three-di mensional w om a n beneath
the role :
Drape u s perfectly
I n Lyons' velvet, - we are n ot, for that,
Lay-figures, l ook you : we have hearts within ,
Warm , live, i m provident, indecent hearts,
As ready for outrageous ends and acts
As any distressed sem pstress of them a l l
That Romney groans a n d toils for. We catch l ove
And other fevers, in the vulgar way.
( 1 1 1 : 4 5 9-66)
Li ke Lady Dedlock i n Dickens' Bleak House, Lady Waldemar m ust keep her
i m provident desiring heart under l ock and key, or as she puts it elsewhere , under
the " iron rule of w omanly reserve/ I n lip and l i fe " ( 1 1 1 : 6 9 5-9 6 ) . Aurora soon sees
this, and as usual descri bes it with her own a pposite image:
This palfrey pranced in harness, arched her neck,
And , only by the foam upon the bit,
You saw she cham ped against it.
( 1 1 1 : 69 9-70 1 )
166
Lady Waldemar's only means of winning her desire , given her constricted
situation, is to dissemble. Firstly she tries unsuccessfully to win R om ney's
attention and l ove by playing the role of d evoted disciple to his social m i ssion.
Her sha l low performa nce will never succeed with a man who sets so m uch store
by the ardent honesty and sense of purpose of an Aurora Lei g h . Secondly she
attem pts to enlist Aurora to advise Romney against his prospective marriag e .
With h e r perspicacity, she has noted already both Romney's deep regard for
Aurora, and her returned "cousinly" love ( 1 1 1 : 403) . When this scheme fails she
m ust final l y resort to undermining and removing Maria n . Aurora readi l y casts her
in the role of the evil tem ptress: she is a " woman of the world " ,
centre to herself,
Who has wheeled on her own pivot half a life
I n isolated self-love and self-will,
As a windmill seen at a d istance radiating
Its del icate white vans against the sky,
So soft and soundless, sim ply beauti ful ,
Seen nearer, - what a roar and tea r i t makes,
How it grinds and bruises!
( I V: 5 1 3-2 1 )
Aurora believes that Lady Waldemar's l ove is simply " a re-adjustment of self­
l ove " (IV: 5 2 2 ) . Certainly Lad y Waldemar is cruel and selfish , a nd m ust ta ke
personal responsi bility for those qualities, as her bitterness a nd isolation at the
c l ose of the poem attest. Yet Aurora does not ask who built the wind m i l l , or
what wind propel s its vanes. What Aurora finally discovers is that simplistic
judgements are futil e . This " Lady" is a " woman of the world " - a product of her
own society's re pressive assumptions. She is as m uch a victim of her society's
ideology as Marian .
Aurora the poet
The role that Aurora chooses, in contradistinction to those depicted
a bove , is that of the poet. Yet her perce ptions of that career a nd the
a ssum ptions of her world are very different. R om ney's dismissive a nd
patronising response to Aurora 's am biti ons have already been cite d , a nd he is
n ot a lone i n these sentiments. Her friends - Vincent Carrington , Lord Howe offer their admiration and support to a certain point but there is a lways the
167
problem o f Aurora 's sex. She is, finally, a woman , and her gender presupposes
passivity and m use-status in both men's minds at d ifferent, unguarded
m oments. At w orst, if Aurora is maki ng some im pact i n her poetry, she can be
dep icted as unnatural and therefore marginalised. Lord H owe ma kes an
amazingly insulting com parison when he describes Aurora a s " m y " Delphic
" prophetess" :
Think, - the g od comes d ow n a s fierce
As twenty bloodhounds, sha kes you , strangles you,
U ntil the oracular shrie k shall ooze i n froth !
(V: 9 43-4 5 )
His ostensible point is that her j o b i s hard work a nd she should marry w e l l to
m a ke it easier, but his chosen meta phor also betra ys his presum ption of her
unnaturalness and of her intrinsic inability. Aurora is rendered a manic,
possessed ci pher for a masculine god-voice, and his c om ment on her m aterial
poverty (she is " poor, exce pt in what [she] richly give[s] " ) also i ronically
conveys his underlying assumption of her poetic 'emptiness' .
Even other women choose to read Aurora 's career i n these terms . Lady
Waldemar (who on arriving in Aurora 's studio the first time asks Aurora , " Is this
[ . . . ] the Muse ? " [ 1 1 1 : 3 6 3 ] ) makes frequent (catty) reference to Aurora 's
extraordinary status: " You stand outside,/ You artist women, of the c om m on
sex;/ You share n ot with us," she tells Aurora ( 1 1 1 : 40 6-08 ) . A pparently Aurora 's
heart i s starved to feed her head; she does not l ove as othe r w omen d o .
More over her poetry i s judged as both effete a n d redundant i n Lady Waldemar's
guerrilla attac k on Aurora at Lord Howe's society party:
" You'll l i ke to hear
Your last book l ies at the phalanstery,
As judged innocuous for the elder girls
And younger women who sti l l care for books.
We m ust all read , you see, before w e live [ . . . ] "
(V: 1 002-0 6 )
L a d y Waldemar, desperately pursuing h e r p l a n of i nsinuating herself i nto
R omney's phalanstery and life , and so usurping Aurora's unconscious i nfluence
there , knows precisely the means by which to w ound her riva l : she reproduces
all the conventional 'wisdom' concerning women a nd poetry.
168
Clearly the opti ons are l i mited for a woman i n Aurora 's world . I n each
exa m ple o bserved by her, women are defined and g iven value by men, as befits
a patriarchy. They are prescribed limited roles that deny their c om plex humanity
and their personal autonomy. Throughout the poem Aurora constantly canvasses
this proble m , writing and rewriting her reactions to it. After first leaving
Romney, following her aunt's death, Aurora works for three years i n a not-so­
romantic garret, from which she views the great city of London a rise a nd
" perish" each day into the m ist of fog " Li ke Pharoah's arma ments i n the deep
Red Sea " ( I l l : 1 9 7 ) . When she is m oved by "a sudden sense of vision a nd of
tune" to write a bout this vast scene, she feels l i ke a conqueror herself, even
though she " d id not fight " . She is l i ke Miriam and the other singing w omen of
Isra e l : you "sing the song you choose " , she tells us Y
Her meta phors here reflect precisel y her perception of her role as a poet
in this culture . She is a spectator on the battle of l i fe - a singing "girl " . Despite
the reductiveness of her position, she revels in the autonomy of her son g ,
knowing at t h e same t i m e that h e r world w i l l not ac knowledge that autonomy.
She continues:
I worked with patience, which means a l m ost power:
I did some excellent things indifferently,
Some bad things excellently. Both were praised ,
The latter the l oudest .
( 1 1 1 : 204-07 )
S h e is learning her craft, a n d yet her world prefers the l esser achievements i n
h e r poetry as they confirm h e r a s t h e feeble o r emasculated female poetess.
At the opening of Book V, her disquisition on poetry, genres, and society,
Aurora is rankling under Romney's dismissal of her career at the c lose of Book
IV. What real l y galls her, however, is that she is rankled .
There it is,
We women are too a pt to l ook to One,
Which proves a certain im potence in art.
[. .. ] We must have mediators
Betwixt our highest conscience and the judge[ . . . ]
(V:42-50)
169
Aurora recalls R om ney's early ind ictment of women a s being too personal , not
a ble to a bstract: she agrees here that w omen write for men, or a particular man
(the " O n e " - a Christ figure ? ) for male a pprova l . The male must mediate between
the w oman's highest endeavour and "the judge" - G od ? the readi ng public? All
of which ma kes w omen " i m p otent" in their art, litera l l y requiring the masculine
phallus t o endorse their work. The word " i m potent" i s ironic: w omen cannot
w rite with male power precisely because they are w omen a nd therefore d enied
the power of a utonomy and individual validity. 28 In Book V, however, Aurora
defies her depressed " confession" with a rejection of " i m p otence " :
This vile woman's way
O f tra i ling garments , sha ll nQt trip me up:
I '11 have no traffic with the personal thought
I n Art 's pure temple. Must I work i n vai n ,
Without the a pprobation o f a m a n ?
lt cann ot be; it sha l l not.
(V:5 9-64)
Aurora will avoid feminine im potence by denying her femininity, rejecting
" womanly" ways. She will therefore not need a man's mediation. Her decision,
however, cannot e rase her femaleness :
We'll kee p our aims sublime, our e yes e rect,
Although our woma n-hands should shake and fail;
And if we fail . . . But m ust w e ? Shall I fai l ?
( V: 7 1 -73)
The shift i n her verbs here ( " if " - " m ust " - "shall " ) and the stag gered line reveal
her a nxiety and m ove her oration onto a very personal level . Aurora i s only too
aware that her choice i s by n o means unproblematic.
H owever, the process she begins here , to g i ve w omen a place t o s pea k
from within patriarchy, is finally worthwhile. lt is n o coincidence that Aurora's
greatest and m ost powerful work finally is written out of a n i mpassioned belief
i n her own a bility to percei ve truth as a woman. In Book V I I I she can m a ke the
strong assertion t o R omney that her work va l idates her: "The unive rse shal l
henceforth s p e a k f o r [ m e ] , " s h e declares, "And witness, 'She who d i d this
thing , was born/ To do it, - claims her license in her work"' (VI I I : 8 39-4 1 ). As the
w ork validates the woman, the woman also validates the w ork: she was born
this gender to do j ust this work.
170
I n the first five books of the poem, thoug h , the problem for women raised
within a patriarchal system is made a bundantly clear. Aurora i s constructed by
its definitions: l i ke all the other women in the poem she too needs masculine
a pprobation and va lidation for her work (and existence ) , despite her unusual
d ecision to eschew traditional roles. She mourns: "I cannot thoroughly l ove a
w ork of mine [
. . .
] He has shot them down,/ My Phoebus Apollo, soul within my
soul " (V:41 1 - 1 4) . Aurora cannot separate her or her poetry's value from the
definitions of that archetypal patriarch, Romney.
171
N OTES
1 EBB's own father g ives an a pposite example of the father's power: he even
attem pted to leg islate lifelong cel i bacy for his children.
2
The edition used throughout this thesis is Margaret Reynolds ed . , Aurora
Leigh (Athens: Ohio UP, 1 9 9 2 ) . Line numbers are cited in the text ( i . e . [ Book] 1:
[ lines] 60-64 ) . I have placed m y e l l i pses in square brackets in order to d isting uish
them from EBB's use of ellipses in the poem.
3 The final line of this extract puns the word " m issed " , suggesting that it is
acceptable both to rue the l oss of mothers, but also to overlook them , because they
are not principally im porta nt in a patriarchy.
4 Most critics have noted this oppositi on . See Dorothy Merm i n , O rigi ns 209 ,
who argues that EBB's childhood d ichotomy of classical G reece and Rome emerge
in another dichotomy: Romney, male culture and England are aligned with R oman
virtues and Aurora , female culture and Italy are aligned with Greek virtues. In " From
Patria to Matria . " 1 9 4-2 1 1 , Sandra G i l bert discusses how Italy is the l ost m other
figure for Aurora , while England is the land of patriarchy.
.
.
5 Throug hout Book I the binarism of ig norance ( " foolishness " ) and
knowledge is implicitly d iscusse d . When Aurora 's father teaches a l ogical way of
d isputing knowledge, he is both sharing in and challenging logocentric assum ptions
a bout knowledge. Jane Moore 's argument that ignorance is " a n i ntegral part of the
production of meaning and the process of knowing " can be read in Aurora Leigh,
where this binaris m , l i ke so many others, is broken down ( Moore 7 3 ) .
6 Virginia Steinmetz arg ues that E BB's early poetry uses i mages of t h e hand
and the sun to depict patriarchal interpolations in the daughter's life . These i mages
culminate in Aurora Leigh , w here hand i mages "re present the earthly counterpart
to the solar images" ( " Beyon d " 2 8 ) .
7 Edmond a lso reads Romney's touch a s an a ffront to Aurora , but, by
contrast, reads Aurora's father to be an entirely benign figure (see Edmonds 1 4344; 1 48 ) . Such a reading takes no account of the am bivalence in Aurora's
descri pti ons of her father.
8 Dorothy Mermin believes, somewhat unfairly, that Aurora 's father is
" ineffectual a nd incom plete " , im potent and a bsent l i ke the other fathers in the
poem (Origins 208 ) .
9
Aurora 's behavi our i s treacherous and dangerous (sna ke-li ke ) in her aunt's
eyes.
10
Other brief accounts of this 'education' can be found in Kathleen Hickok
1 8 5 ; Helen Cooper 1 5 8 ; Mermin, Origins 1 9 2 .
172
1 1 Aurora is excl uded from inheriting the Leigh fortune by a codicil in an
a ncestor's wil l , which disinherits any offspring from a Leigh 's marriage w ith a
foreign wife. Thus this betrothal request by Aurora's uncle is intended to reconcile
both family and fortune (see 1 1 : 606- 1 6 ) .
1 2 Other commentators have pointed out how R om ney attem pts to 'mother'
his worl d . Steinmetz sees him as acting out the role of the idealised mother to the
poor: "a super-m other " ( " I mages" 360). G i l bert d escri bes him as " yearning to heal
i n his own person the wounds of the body politic" (202) . Mermin reads R o m ney's
philanthropic efforts as a " grim determination to be a rescuing knight" , a nd his
failure to succeed suggests EBB's " decisive revisions of the chivalric q uest and
rescue story which had structured Barrett Browning's imagination since childhood "
( Origins 1 8 7 ) .
1 3 Considering Marian's selfless adoration for R omney, Aurora comments
that w omen of her own (ca pital ist m iddle-) class:
haggle for the small change of our gold,
And so m uch l ove accord for so m uch l ove,
Rialto-prices . Are we therefore wrong ?
I f marriage be a c ontract , l ook to it then ,
Contracting parties should b e equa l , just . . .
( I V : 1 88-92)
I f we m ust operate l ove relationships within a marketplace, Aurora declares, such
contracts should at least be equa l . U nfortunately they a re not.
1 4 See Reynolds ed . , Aurora 2-3. Quite why this effeminization of poetry
during the nineteenth century occurred is a matter for speculation. One possible
theory i s that as women, previ ously excluded from literary pursuits, especially
poetry, nevertheless began to w rite in larger numbers, a second denial came into
play, in which poetry itself was marginalised and denied a place in the 'objective'
soc i a l w orld . By effeminising it, the masculinist Victorian thus attem pted to remove
it. Such d ouble denials have been evident throughout this discussion (see, for
exa m ple, p . 1 1 a bove ) .
1 5 Danae , daug hter o f Acrisius, w a s im prisoned by h e r father, b u t h e r l over
Zeus visited her in a shower of g olden rain, and Perseus was conceive d . (See
Aeschylus' Suppliants.)
1 6 Mermin also reads Aurora's response without irony. " Aurora a p parently
accepts the i m pl ication of these images, which sta nd outside the pl ot to suggest
that for women, writing is a kind of sexual submission " , although Mermin believes
that Aurora c omes to reverse this su bject/ object relationship to play J ove to
Romney's " Danae" ( Origins 2 1 1 ) . Reynolds supports this reading of the female
a rtist possessed by a male g od-like muse: " it is the second [ picture] w hich she
[Aurora] considers to be a picture of the m ore efficacious poet - though ,
para d oxically, that power is d erived from the Danae's surrender o f individual
identity" ( "Writi n g " 7 ) . Steinmetz, however, detects the " rueful " tone of Aurora 's
comments which reflects her "despair that she is prisoner to a patriarchal tradition"
( " Beyon d " 3 3 ) .
173
1 7 Athena 's statue is anachronistic i n the Christi an setting of the Vatican,
suggesting Aurora 's redundancy exce pt as a work of art .
18
The im probability of Marian's middle-class speech is faulted by C . Castan ,
w h o says that Marian's words (not in this early book, but i n the later Book V I I I ) are
actually Aurora 's language, and a fault of EBB's w ritin g . Cooper answers this
charge , showing that Aurora's retelling of Marian's story i n this third book
" a p propriates Marian to Aurora 's own likeness " , objectifying a nd i nterpreting her
and so alienating herself from the poorer woman (Woman 1 6 5 ) . By Book VI ,
however, Marian " refuses to be defined by Aurora 's midd le-class ideolog y and
language " and tells her own story, although her d iction is still " suspiciously m iddle­
class " , because Marian's function is to be a bsorbed and " exploited by Aurora 's
middle-class story" ( 1 7 2-7 3 ) .
1 9 This extract exemplifies, for Diedre David, the central i mage o f w ounding
and healing i n the poem . I n David's potent read ing , the body politic of Aurora 's
world is an H ogarthian hell, a festering wound that the w oman poet must m inister
to and heal ( I ntellectual 1 2 3-2 7 ) .
2 ° Com pare the graphic image of the female vam pire, a n d the origin o f the
vagina dentata .
21
Commentators have made brief reference to the way in which the female
characters of Aurora Leigh act as potential m odels for its heroine. H ic kok c onsiders
the various women characters " i n terms of their social rol e " (though with l ittle
ana l ysis) , c oncluding that "Aurora Leigh rejects the conventional wisd o m a b out
w omen at virtually every point " (Representations 1 8 2 ) . Reynolds concurs, simply
noting that the " sexual stereotypes" which are the " m odels of orthodox feminine
potenti a l " d o not fit Aurora the professional woman ( "Writing " 6). Mermin g oes
further: " Barrett Browning works out the question of a woman poet's place within
poems, h owever - as informing intelligence and spea king subject rather than object
and other - m ostly i n terms of Aurora 's relations with the kinds of female figures
w h o normally a ppea r in nineteenth-century poems by men but c ould not themselves
be poets or e pic protagonists" ( " Genre " 1 0). David takes the m ost extreme position
(typically) concerning the characters in the poem: she argues (from huma nist
assum ptions, as does Virginia Woolf) that the characters are merely "emblematic
sketches" , indeed " hardly characters at a l l " ( I ntellectual 1 1 5 ) . lt is precisely this
type of reading that Hickok takes pains to challenge.
22
J ohn Woolford comments that R omney is "an a bstract of Victori a n Man,
and his words the articulation of a whole way of thought" ( "Woman and Poet" 3).
23
N ote the way Aurora descri bes her aunt's response to her rejection of
R om ney: "If she said a word [ . . ] She meant a co!Timination , or, at best,/ An
exorcism against the devildom/ Which plainly held me" ( 1 1 : 8 68-7 2 ) . Aurora 's action
in defying the c ultural norms immediately places her outside society's religion a nd
morality.
.
24
David el ucidates the colour imagery surrounding the female characters in
Aurora Leigh . Green signifies the serenity and vi brancy of free w omanhood ,
whereas red and white signify the " prevailing nineteenth-century fragme ntation of
woman" i nto oppositions such as sexuality and purity ( I ntellectual 1 1 9 ) .
174
25 Marian's example raises speculation about the Madonna : i s Mary's
canonisation in order to efface her huma nity which dangerously m ixes female
types ? Mary the Mother of G od is thus g reater and somehow apart from common
humanity; Mary the J ewess from Nazareth is not . The Madonna 's experiences can
therefore be se parated from normal female experiences; they are the stuff of m yth.
lt is tempting to suggest that this superhuman role is created i n order to efface that
female human experience which will not fit the mascul i ne-defined 'norm a l ' roles.
26 G i l bert reads Lady Waldemar as the " (false) wife/mother whose l ove the
(false) father [ R omney] must reject if he is to convert himself i nto a (true) brother"
(203 ) . Mermin concurs : the "wicked Lady Waldemar" is the m ythic " ba d " m other
( Origins 1 9 2 ) . This highly em blematic i nterpretati on of her character, while useful,
does n ot sufficiently take into account the tragic woman who w rites the final l etter
to Aurora . That letter shows that Aurora has been wrong a bout Lady Waldemar,
at l east on some points, and that the " Lady" , like Marian, i s a com plex woman.
27 1 nterestingly, EBB's working ma nuscri pts offer insights into this very i ssue
of female w riting . Line 200 originally reads "The poet sings l i ke Moses" , in which
the poet's gender is irrelevant and can be affiliated wi.th the g reat patriarch Moses.
This phrase changes to "There 's (vision ? ) to stretch hands & to sing i ndeed/ Like
Moses & l i ke Miria m " , in which both genders are now catered for, i n M oses a nd his
sister Miri a m . The final version, however, removes any affiliation with the male
voice, and fixes the roles very clearl y, with the w omen (or "girl s " ) watching and
singi n g . (See Reynolds 2 6 9 , footnotes . )
28 The elision of penis and power is discussed in a psychoanalytical c ontext
in Chapter Six.
175
CHAPTER FIVE
R EWRITI N G PATRIARCHY'S DUALI S M S
The roles a n d identities o f Victorian women w h i c h were explained i n
Cha pter Four all emerge from a series o f d ualistic oppositions w hich sustain the
social hegemony. These dualisms, with their separate and hierarchical poles,
were also descri bed in the cha pters on the Sonnets, but a summary, in the
manner of H � l e ne Cixous, 1 is perhaps sufficient here :
MALE - FEMALE
Father - Daughter
active - passive
free - im prisoned
law - tra nsgressor
author - blank page
I n Aurora Leigh , the roles that are so clearly delineated for women de pend for
their definition upon the preservation of these d ualisms. As feminist theorists
have observed, women are effectively i m prisoned within these structures,
usua l l y associated with the less privileged term in each opposition. Eventually,
however, Aurora 's story is about the a pprehension and deconstruction of these
binary forms.
i . The language of the prisoner
In a poem that has been much feted for its bold " female" i magery, the
reader is soon aware of its extra ordinary language. '" I 'm a woman, sir, " says
Aurora , '" I use the w oman's fig ures natural l y"' (VI I I : 1 1 30-3 1 ) . These " fig ures"
dramatise the com plexity of both Aurora 's perceptions, and the c onditions
within which women exist. What emerges from a stud y of them i s the
pre ponderance of images of d rowning, i m prisonment a nd death.
17 6
Drowned emotions
When the child Aurora leaves Italy for England, the sea i s used to de pict
the harsh world that demands the separation of child from the m other fig ures (of
I ta l y and Assunta ) :
Then the bitter sea
I nexora bly pushed between us both ,
And sweeping u p the ship of my despair
Threw us out as a pasture to the stars.
( 1 : 2 3 5-38 )
This voyage continues for ten days under a sky o f " blind ferocity" , that d rops
" its bell-net down upon the sea/ As if no human heart should 'scape alive "
( 1 : 243-4 6 ) . Aurora journeys in a malignant universe w hich i m prisons her, but
particularly nota ble is the correlation of this world with a harsh sea, in which
victim s are drowne d . E BB's manuscript workings show this correlation clearly in
lines 36-3 7 , which, in an earlier version, read: "And then the l ittle shi p i n the
great seas ! / And then the l onely heart in the g reat w orld" ( Reynolds, Aurora
1 7 3 , footnote) . Similarly, in Book 1 1 , Aurora is m ortified when R omney d iscovers
her crowning herself as poet, and she recounts her em barrassment using the
same images:
Hand stretched out
I clasped , as shipwrecked men will clasp a hand,
Indifferent to the sort of pal m . The tide
Had caught me at m y pastime, writing down
My foolish name too near upon the sea
Which drowned me with a blush as foolish.
( 1 1 : 66-7 1 )
Aurora has played dangerously close to the water's edge; she presumed the
right to write her own name, a right which, as we have see n , is the man's
province solely. So the tide of her emotion - precipitated by R omney's scorn ­
swa m ps her, and her a p prehension of tra nsgression d rowns her. She a p peals to
Romney's cousinly l ove as her saviour, but as l ine 68 suggests, this i s a
treacherous sort of saving. 2
Aurora c ontinues to correlate the sea w ith a harsh world by extending the
m eta phoric reading of her journey to England. Concerning her arrival at her
aunt's house , she w rites:
177
I only thought
Of lying quiet there where I was thrown
Like sea-weed on the rocks, and suffering her
To prick me to a pattern with her pin
Fi bre from fibre, delicate leaf from leaf,
And d ry out from my drowned anatomy
The last sea-sa lt left in me.
( 1 : 3 7 8-84)
I nstead of being a shi p on the " bitter sea " , she is now a weed in it, "drowned "
and flung aside on the rocks. I n each of the three a bove exa m ples, the sea
i nvolves Aurora's emotions in its action. In the first, it deals harshly with
Aurora's " despair" and in the sec ond, it works upon her sense of exposure . I n
the last, however, Aurora descri bes hersel f as passive and unresisting - her
emotions have been " d rowned " by the sea . The world that the sea re presents
thus plays upon female emotion , the conventi onal 'essence ' of femininity. The
end result of the sea is drowning, and so - l i ke Vincent Carrington's preferred
Danae , passive , " Half blotted out " like " wet sea-weed " but indicating " More
passi on" ( I l l : 1 34-3 5 ) - wom a n 's emotion is used against herself, to ind uce
passivity. 3
H owever, passivity brings another, related sort of death. I n the seaweed
simile Aurora is ba ked , dried out and disi ntegrated by the sun of her aunt's
" regard " , and her probi ng, dissecting eyes (see 1 : 3 2 7 - 2 8 ) . Virg i nia Steinmetz has
uncovered the deep seam of solar imagery in EBB's poetry, issuing from her
relationship with her father. From her earliest writing , EBB "Associated her
father with the sun especially in the benignant/ destructive glance of his e ye­
ray" ( " Beyond " 2 3 ) . The child 's fear and vulnera bility at this power is evident i n
t h e young Aurora 's apprehension o f a similar destructive "eye-ray " in her
paternal aunt. lt is also evident in her descri ption of the sun that shines on the
" bitter sea " conveying Aurora to England , a sun that "starve[ d ] i nto a blind
ferocity/ And glare unnatura l " ( 1 : 243-44) . I n both the i mages of drowning a nd
parching , Aurora conveys a sense of vulnerability, throug h e m otion, to massive
and malevolent forces.
Marian also comes to understand the sea image. She a nd Aurora walk
through the streets of Paris in Book VI , Aurora recalls, "As if I led her by a
narrow plank/ Across devouring waters, ste p by step " (VI : 482-8 3 ) . The same
178
w ords are used twenty l ines later when Marian leads Aurora , g iving the
i m pression of two a llies leading each other along a treacherous a nd highly
precarious path, with hosti le forces threatening to overwhelm them at every
point. 4 And later in the same book Marian develops the imag e :
"that little stone, called Marian Earle
[. .. ] Was ground and tortured by the i ncessant sea
And bruised from what she was, - changed ! death's a
change,
And she, I sai d , was murdered; Marian's dead . "
(VI : 809- 1 3)
The w orld of these women tortures, distorts and eventually kills its victims,
according to Maria n . The fina l , and m ost extra ordinary exa m ple of this image of
the world of the poem as a drowning sea occurs in Book VI I I , when the l onely
Aurora experiences a form of dream-vision as she w atches the sun set over
Florence. She watches as the city is flooded with shadows, until it becomes l i ke
a " drowned city in some encha nted sea " (VI I I : 3 8 ) . Aurora m uses how such a
vision d raws "you who gaze " ,
With passionate desire, to leap and plunge
And find a sea-king with a voice of waves,
And treacherous soft eyes, and sli ppery locks
You cannot kiss but you sha l l bring away
Their salt u pon your lips[ . . . )
Methinks I have plunged , I see it all so clear . . .
And , 0 m y heart, . . . the sea-king !
I n m y ears
The sound of waters. There he stood , my king !
(VI I I : 39-6 1 )
( R omney makes one of his miraculous a p pearances at this m oment . ) This vision
superbly expl ores the wretchedness of Aurora 's situation. The 'sea world' again
plays upon her emotions, particularly her loneliness a nd her (also physical ) desire
for R om ney. She fantasises about leaping into the treacherous waters of this
world to find her sea-king . But, l i ke the protean g od s of the sea , that sea-king is
e lusive and "slippery " : he is not all that he seems. R omney the l over is also
Romney the patriarch, one who devalues and denies Aurora . To kiss him is to
come away with the salt of tears on your l i ps, if you do not drown first. As her
d ream-vision melts back into her present situation, it seems as i f her "sea-king "
has come. But as the ensuing Books reveal , Romney is a m uc h changed and
chastened man. 5
179
The life of repression
Like these images of drowning in a hostile sea, 6 images of repression
a nd i mprisonment also mark Aurora 's narrati on: the cage-bird existence of her
aunt, which Aurora is required to join; the bell-net of a forbidding sky that
i mprisons the child Aurora's passage; the heavy weight of both her father's and
R om ney's hands and personalities "droppi n g " on Aurora . Such imagery is
particularly evident in the earlier books, where Aurora suffers under the
i m position of a foreign and threatening order. Even the English landsca pe is
perceived i n terms of Aurora 's feelings of re pressio n :
All the fields
Are tied up fast with hedges, nosegay-like;
[ . . . ] The trees, round , woolly, ready to be cli pped ,
And if you seek for any wilderness
You find, at best , a pa rk. A nature ta med[ . . . ]
( 1 : 6 29-34)
Even the view from Aurora 's window i n her aunt's home confirms this
im pression of im prisonment. The large garden is finally restrained by a l ine of
elms, which " stopped the grounds and da mmed the overflow/ Of arbutus and
laure l " . The teenage Aurora ma kes nightly " esca pe[s) " from this prison, "As a
soul from the body, out of doors " (1 : 5 8 7-88; 694) . Using an i mage later
repeated i n Marian's story, Aurora sees such esca pes as critical in evading her
predators: she speaks of her determination to survive this im posed repression,
saying '"We 'll live, Aurora ! we'll be strong . / The dogs are on us - but we will n ot
die ' " . I nstead, she tells us, " I threw my hunters off " and l i ke " a hunted stag "
put ground between herself and "the enemy's house " ( 1 : 1 0 6 5 - 7 6 ) .
This language conveys the sense Aurora h a s o f being e m battled , under
siege. Subscri bing to the binary oppositions of her c ulture , i n which w oman is
'nature ' , she depicts hersel f as the natural , untamed, free animal which the
forces of " civilisatio n " wish to entra p and tame. Such taming , of course , entails
submission to the hegemony, with its disastrous i m pl ications for women.
" [W)here the middle-class Aurora is ind ucted i nto conventional social order by
her father's education and her aunt's function as ' patriarchy's paradigmatic
h ouse keeper,' Marian, partly as a result of her class, remains altogether
180
unsocial ized , naturally female - a nettle and not a n artificially selected pin k "
( R eynolds, Aurora 4 1 ) . Here, though, the young Aurora resists h e r socialisation
to enact the roles of the Romantic poet and natural w oman. Aurora's choice of
i mages, then, becomes a tacit justification for her rebellion against the
hegemony. 7
Her rebellion, l i ke any re bellion, inevita bly meets with retri bution a nd
c l oser i m prisonment . Hence, after Aurora 's "mad" refusal of R om ney's marriage
offer, her aunt a nd her society surround Aurora with a tighter mental repression,
this time through the subtler means of observation a nd silence. " She seems to
be surrounded by curious, hostile eyes," Mermin w rites (Origins 1 8 9 ) . The
patriarch's sun-like 'gaze' is recalled here , and Aurora feels its pressure l i ke a
torture :
A Roman died so; smeared with honey, teased
By insects, stared to torture by the noon[ . . . ]
( 1 1 : 8 90-9 1 )
Even the h ousehold dog watches her from " his sun-patch on the floor,/ I n
alternation with the large black fly/ N ot yet in reach o f sna pping " ( 1 1 : 88 7-89 ) .
She i s prey again, under a slow, teasing sentence o f death .
Aurora 's representations of repression shift as she m oves out i nto the
world, becoming m ore universal . She speaks of her time working in her London
g arrett with m ixed emotions. G od's "curse " (to Adam ) of w ork is, she feels, a
better gift than the " crowns " that men put on each other, " tormenting circle[s]
of steel" ( I l l : 1 6 5- 6 6 , reca lling Christ's crown of thorns) . 8 She sees the sun on
the city,
(Like some Druidic idol 's fiery brass
With fixed unflickering outline of dead heat,
From which the blood of w retches pent inside
Seems oozing forth to incarnadine the air)[ . . . ]
( 1 1 1 : 1 7 2- 7 5 )
Alte rnatively t h e f o g plays o n the " passive city, strangl[ing] it/ Alive " ( I l l : 1 808 1 ) . Aurora 's attention has turned from her individual feel i ng of oppression to
that of the city, the teeming mass of i ndividuals all caught in the vast machine
of (Victorian) society. 9 Like the legendary "dark Satanic mills " , Aurora 's London
181
i s a hell that squeezes the human blood from its victims who a l l , a s she puts it
elsewhere , sit quietly:
tired, patient as a fool,
While others gird [the m ] with the vi olent bands
Of social figments, feints, and formalisms[. .. ]
( 1 1 1 : 1 6- 1 8 )
Aurora , noting this passive acceptance o f "violent" su bjugation , thus finds a
focus for her own life, for the l ives of those around her (nota bly Marian's) and
for her poetry. She will resist the repression of the i ndividual - pa rticularly
women - by the laws of her culture. EBB's Romanticism , as Reynolds has shown
(Aurora 1 6- 1 7 ) , demanded the exercise of individual will. However, cultural
laws, ever-prese nt, oppressive and making no distinctions, fed upon and
eventua l l y destroyed their subjects.
That destruction is death, whether of physical or psychical nature . And
Aurora 's text is littered with ima ges of death, thus d isplaying both her conscious
a pprehension of this result i n the lives of those around her, and her anxiety
a bout her own "death " as a d iscrete, va lid human being in her w orld .
Death i n custody
Aurora 's first main explorati on of the trope of death comes d uring the
re pressive period of her l ife with her aunt, which Aurora herself summarises
with the lines:
And I , I was a good child on the whole ,
A meek a nd manageable child . Why not?
I did not l ive , to have the faults of life [ . . ]
.
( 1 : 3 7 2-74)
The description of herself as drowned seaweed being dried out and disintegrated
by her aunt's attention i mmediately follows. Torture sym bolism is rife
throughout these books: l ater Aurora compares her education with the w ater­
torture that the Marquise de Brinvilliers endured: "flood succeeding flood/ To
drench the i ncapa ble throat and split the veins . " ( 1 :468-6 9 ) - another drowning.
. .
- --
- - - - ---
182
I m prisonment and enforced subjection to autocratic rule involves torture that
eventually renders the subject " inca pable" and overwhelmed - dead .
Moreover , the subject wants to die, to esca pe the torture . When R omney
rebukes the young Aurora for pining away, she responds:
I looked into his face defyingly;
H e might have known that, being what I was,
'Twas natural to l i ke to get away
As fa r as dead folk can: and then indeed
Some people m a ke no trouble when they d i e .
( 1 : 504-0 8 )
" Being what I was " : that is, a subject being , a prisoner, who therefore wishes t o
" g et a w a y " as f a r as possi ble - t h e farthest being death. Then s h e ceases t o be
a trouble to her world; there is no further need for im prisonment. To Aurora at
this point, this a p pears to be her best option. She will defy the living death she
is enduring by esca ping to a rea l , physical death. Thus defeat resem bles victory
to the prisoner.
Aurora quickly perceives the fallacy in this reasoning . Within fifty l ines of
these she i s asserting herself against her own desire to d i e : the "visionary
chariots" ( 1 : 5 63 ) m ust retreat as Aurora encounters nature a nd her own strength
of chara cter. " Life calls to us/ In some transformed , a pocal yptic voice " , she
says , so " Regenerating what I was" ( 1 : 67 3-74; 6 6 6 ) . Thus Aurora's first
encounter with her own potential death passes. Even the o ppression she feels
later, a fter refusing R omney and enduring her society's condemnation, d oes not
bring her to this point again. I nstead , Aurora describes her a unt's death. She is
w a kened by " a single g hastly shriek " , and she imagi nes the h ouse itsel f a s " one
who wa kens in a g rave and shrieks" ( 1 1 : 9 1 1 - 1 3 ) . With the a u nt's death the
h ouse has wakened to that woman's life-i n-death, to the paradox that she is
freer now than she was i n her l ife. Rather than remaining buried a live in that
fearful existence , the " stil l h ouse " , Aurora tells us, "seemed to shriek itself
a l ive" ( 1 : 9 1 4 ) . The image, of course , underlines Aurora 's political point that
condemns the buried life of her aunt, and so many other Victorian w omen. Such
images also tacitly vindicate Aurora 's refusal to accede to that " life " , a nd her
rebell i on against it.
183
Death by self-suppressi on
Aurora 's second exploration of death imagery occurs later in the poem ,
with the discovery of Marian and her son . Firstly, it is Marian who i s d e a d , but
as time wears on Aurora too feels as though she is dying , though for di fferent
immediate reasons.
Marian is dead, she continual l y tells Aurora , because the hard sea has
tortured and drowned her:
" I 'm dead , I say,
And if, to save the child from· death as wel l ,
The m other i n m e has survived the rest ,
Why, that's God's miracle you must not tax ,
I 'm not less dead for that[. . ] "
.
(VI : 8 1 9-23)
Thereafter she refers to herself in variations on this metaphor: as a d ying man
(VI : 1 1 3 6-39 ) , a soul interred with a corpse (VI : 1 1 94-0 3 ) , a buried Christ
(VI : 1 273-74) . A victim of su bterfuge, betrayal and rape , and now an outcast by
the society that inflicted those wrongs, Marian has died emotionally and socially
to her worl d . She only remains alive to be mother to her bastard son - the sole
reason she knows for continuing her existence .
I n Book VI I , following Marian's story of her corruption, Aurora confronts
what she believes to be the fact of Romney's marriage to Lad y Waldemar. For
the first time she adm its openly to herself her love for Romney, but hand-in-hand
with that confession comes a related belief in her own g uilt for failing to keep
Romney from his present predicament by marrying h i m . Despite the vast holes in
her logic here , Aurora is convinced that she has l ost R omney forever, a n d ,
m oreover, h a s a l l owed Romney t o lose himself to a vicious w oma n . The
" knowledge " com pletely defeats her: she writes the a p propriate letters ( but
crucially not to Romney) and resigns her l ove to the g rave . But it seems to take
her self with it: she imagines constantly hearing R omney's marriage bells
As some child's go-cart in the street beneath
To a dying man who will not pass the day,
And knows it[. . ]
.
(VII :460-6 1 )
184
She, too, i s "satisfied with death" (VI I : 4 6 3 ) . Later she disti ng uishes just what it
is that has died.
I 'm not too m uc h
A w o m a n , not to b e man f o r once
And bury all my Dead l i ke Alaric,
Depositing the treasures of my soul
In this drained watercourse , then letting flow
The river of life again[ . ]
. .
(VI I : 98 4-8 9 )
Aurora h a s buried "the treasures" o f h e r soul: the vita l , l ife-giving a nd female
a spects of her being - her desire , her love, her self-respect. The flood of l ife
washes over the m , veiling the burial , rendering it invisi ble. 1 0 For Aurora , the
e m otional death i nvolved here is too much to bear; she desires physical death:
how I covet here
The Dead's provision on the river-couch
[ . ] O r else their rest i n quiet crypts[ ]
. .
. . .
(VI I : 994-9 7 )
During this terri ble time, Aurora c onfronts again the deaths o f h e r parents and
her isolation in this h ostile world. In returning to Italy with Marian and the chi l d ,
Aurora h a s sought to reca pture Italy as m other. This m otherhood proves i l l usory,
though, as she realises that the restrictive structures of her w orld also apply on
Italian soi l . 1 1 Book VI I ends with Aurora at a nadir; even her c reative self has
g round to a halt:
I did n ot w rite , nor read, nor even think,
But sate a bsorbed amid the quickening g l ooms,
M ost l i ke some passive broken lump of salt
Dropt i n by chance to a bowl of oenomel ,
To spoil the d ri n k a l ittle and l ose itself,
Dissolvi ng slowly, slowly, u ntil lost.
(VI I : 1 306- 1 1 )
Lot's wife (aband oned for l ooking bac k, as Aurora is doing ) is i m m ersed into a
c u p of wine a nd honey, drink of the a nc ient Greeks ( O E D ) , and d issolved a n other drowning of e m otion into passivity. lt may spoil the drink " a little " , but
primarily the damage is all one-sided , as she loses hersel f slowly but i nevita bly
i nto the fluid , leaving only the salt taste of tears.
Why d oes this second "death" occur? Aurora 's first c onfrontation with
death occurs when she is threatened by externally imposed l i m its t o her psyche;
185
far m ore dangerous are the interna lly i m posed limits . At this second point,
Aurora confronts the i nevita ble result of a splitting of herself. Hitherto she has
only coped with the hierarchical d ualisms of her culture by acting within a nother
dualism , between woman and artist.
In Aurora 's world, a woman seems to have two opti ons: to submit to the
hegemony and suffer i n the roles assigned - a suffering g ra phical l y de picted both
in the lives of the female characters of the poem and in Aurora 's metaphors - or
to re bel against the hegemony. But the second option would place her outside
the norms of existence . Aurora chooses this option and opens herself u p to a
d ifferent kind of suffering . As Aurora herself has descri bed it earlier, woman
m ust either be the fruitfu l , low vine , or the lonely, upright palm tree in the desert
( 1 1 : 5 1 2- 1 9 ) . She can either be the virtuous spinster/ wife/ mother or the
defeminised, marginal ised and d ying artist . Here, then, in w hat R od Edm ond
calls a "tension between the pen and the hearth , between vocation and fa mily"
( 1 54) , is another dualism to add to the list:
MALE - FEMALE
artist - w oman
Apparently a rtist and woman are mutually exclusive : in order to be the one,
Aurora has had to resign all claim on the other. 1 2 She must suppress her desire
and l ove , her pain and emotional responses, so as to be a ble to write. H ence
Aurora 's continuing need to reg ret a nd punish the " female" i n herself, a nd to
grasp male images and attri butes instead . (Mermin's long list of Aurora 's
derogation of women and self-contempt stresses her deep need to d ivide off her
own gender in order to be the a rtist [O rigins 20 1 ] ) . For example:
.
.
Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow, A mere, mere woman, a mere flaccid nerve ,
A kerchief left out a l l night i n the rai n ,
Turned soft s o , - overtasked and overstra ined
And overl ived i n this cl ose London l ife !
And yet I should be stronger.
( I l l : 3 6-4 1 )
This is the hard w orking , l onely Aurora of the London garret. Her language
betrays her emotional frustration: the continual repetition of " mere " ,
em phasising her triviality a s a w oman; the stress on emotional i nsta bility -
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" pettish " , " petty " , " nerve " - thus reinforcing societal gender expectations of
women as entirel y emotional; the i m plied spinelessness and wea kness of the
" flaccid nerve " and the "soft" handkerchief. That latter i mage itself summarises
all these attri butes i n that she com pares herself to a n inanimate object: the
pretty, delicate hand kerchief, somewhat useful until overused, finally more a
decorative accessory than a vital necessity, and certainly i nadequate for the
rig ours of the city. And concluding this damning indictment of her sex, the
frustrated struggle against it - "And yet I should be stronger" .
Some two hundred l i nes after this outburst, Aurora a pparentl y finds the
answer to her struggle. When visitors, concerned for her health, chastise her for
overwork, she rema i ns unconcerned . Physical function is of n o consequence to
Aurora; what matters is spirit.
O bserve - " 1 , " means i n youth
J ust L the c onscious and eternal soul
With a l l its ends, and not the outside life,
The parcel-man, the d ou blet of the flesh ,
The so much liver, lung, integument,
Which make the sum of " I " hereafter when
World-tal kers tal k of d oing well or ill.
1 prosper if I gain a ste p, although
A nail then pierced m y foot: although my brai n
Embracing a n y truth froze paralysed,
1 prosper[ . . ]
.
( 1 1 1 : 2 8 3-9 3)
Aurora has separated body and soul in the most a ncient of d ualisms, a nd so has
separated her sexualised body - her femaleness - from what 'real l y matters ' , her
asexual spirit. I n the style and language of medieval hermits who "subd ued " the
body to enhance a nd purify the soul, Aurora denies her physical existence i n
pursuit of t h e pure s pi rit o f h e r poetry. That denial i nvolves n ot only extreme
physical exertion but a lso denial of human emoti onal and sexual needs. R omney
i s now clearly 'off the menu ' .
Aurora's reaction t o the com plex a n d restrictive structuring o f h e r w orld
that demands adherence to various hierarchical dualisms i nevita bly returns her to
the same position of suppression and deathliness - whether the death of the
young Aurora faced with " English" existence, or the death of the older Aurora
faced with punishing her own 'illegal ' desire.
.
.
--- ·
187
Aurora 's narrative demonstrates the futi lity and cruelty in trying t o ad here
to these d ualisms. As time passes, this dem onstration becomes a pparent to the
story-teller herself, with her growing awareness of the ina bil ity of her society to
offer w omen any positive choices within this structure . The separation of her
spirit from her bod y becomes ever more problemati c , as she begins to see their
i nevita ble involvement with each other.
When Aurora returns from Lord Howe's party in Book V, w here she has
encountered a spiteful Lady Waldemar who g ives a convincing account of her
and R om ney's partnership, the complex interrelation of body and soul is
pa rticularly evident. Aurora is frustrated and disturbed :
And I breathe large at home. I drop my cloa k
Unclasp my girdle, loose the band that ties
My hair . . . now could I but unloose my soul !
We are sepulchred al ive in this close world ,
And want more room .
(V: 1 0 3 7-4 1 )
Aurora frees herself briefly from physical restricti on, and the action tem pora rily
frees her from both social and emotional restraint. lt allows her to think of
Romney and Lady Waldemar, with much venom and jeal ousy. But the freedom is
only superficial : Aurora 's desire and anger remain suppresse d , and the images of
torturous death, being "sepulchred alive " , return.
M oreover, Aurora 's response as she considers whether R omney and Lady
Waldemar can l ove each other, a nd indeed whether Romney i s capable of l ove,
is i nterestin g :
My l oose long h a i r began t o burn a n d creep ,
A live to t h e very ends, a bout my knees:
I swept it backward as the wind sweeps flame,
With the passion of m y hands. Ah, R omney laughed
One day . . . (how full the memories come u p ! )
" - Your Fl orence fire-flies live o n in your hair, "
He sai d , "it g leams so. " Wel l , I wrung them out ,
My fire-flies; made a knot as hard as life
O f those loose , soft, impracticable curls.
(V: 1 1 2 6-34)
Aurora 's body e nacts her repressed passion, in her hands and her hair. She plays
with its potentia l danger for a m oment - the wind sweeps the fla m e , fanning
--
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fire . There i s the reference t o Italy, the place of freedom and a p parently val i d
passion , but Aurora chooses then to crush forcibly t h i s living passion. S h e ties
her soft, im practicable hair (recalling the hand kerchief image earl ier) u p i n i n a
constricting hard knot, and in so d oing once more attem pts to deny and
obliterate her femaleness, and its "sublimation i nto masculinity" (Cooper,
Woman 1 7 1 ). Hair, that potent image to Victorians of female sexuality, is
constrained a nd repressed in order to accord with " li fe " .
The futility o f the action i s a pparent even i n its performance: her female
passion clearly remains very m uch a live and active . Aurora 's attem pts at self­
suppression simply reiterate the strength of the elements she tries to suppress.
Female excess
Finally, a l l of the w omen characters in Aurora Leigh fai l , i n their society's
terms , to deal successfully with their roles. From a different perspective,
however, this 'fa ilure' rather dem onstrates women exploding those im posed and
i nadequate roles. Lady Waldemar bursts out from behind her cool courtly lady
performance with a n " i m provident, indecent heart " . Yet she cannot be the
d evoted servant to a n inattentive R omney (as Marian would be) , either; her pride
will not endure servitude to one whose l ove is elsewhere. She m ust settle back
i nt o playing the courtly lady, but i n bitterness and hate.
"I have been too coarse ,
Too human. Have we business, i n our rank,
With blood i' the veins? I will have henceforth
none [ . . . ] "
O X : 1 2 6-28)
O nce m ore a death is the consequence of a woman's life within this culture.
Lady Waldemar has no blood in her veins; she is emotionally dead. She
concludes her final l etter to Aurora with a curse from "this g ulf/ And hollow of
my soul " ( I X : 1 69-7 0 ) .
Similarly, Marian h a s exploded every convention assigned to working
class w omen. The d og-like adorati on of the servant wife, transmuted into Christ-
189
l i ke sacrifice and martyrd om , leaves her also i n a state of death. Marian's story
d oes n ot end there , however. She finally assumes the status of another "virg i n "
Mary, somehow uncorrupted a n d bestowing blessing from a position of elevated
purity a nd wisdom . This position - in which she has the first real autonomy of
her life - sti l l places her outside her cultural comm unity, signifying super-nature :
Marian is a l oose end, something that the world of the poem cannot
accomm odate . Hence she is cast as a Madonna , although she finally exceeds
even that image, too. In descri bing the exchanges beween A urora and Marian i n
Book VI , Helen Cooper comments that " Earlier Marian refused to al low Aurora 's
patriarchal rhetoric to descri be her as 'fallen woma n ' ; now she resists its cult of
true womanhood " - that is, as " sweet holy Maria n " , the Madonna (Woman 1 7 7 ) .
Aurora marvels in Book I X at Marian's voice, " thrilling , solemn, proud ,
pathetic " : the voice of one who " had authority to spea k./ And not as Marian"
( I X : 1 9 6; 2 5 0-5 1 ) . No-one in the poem - not even Aurora - allows that Marian
may be other than her culture leg islates. She is " outside the linguistic, social ,
a n d political systems typified b y middle-class white m e n " (Cooper, Woman
1 78 ) . The Marian of this Book makes no sacrifice in refusing to marry R omney.
I ndeed, she d om inates the poem in these lines, as she interrogates both R omney
and Aurora concerning their responses to her and her child. Although she sti l l
considers R om ney g od l i ke, a n d kisses h i s feet i n thanks, she refuses to b e
d rawn i nto a relationship w i t h h i m . Rather s h e esca pes from his embrace,
A urora tells us, " As any leaping fawn from a huntsman's grasp " , and stands
before h i m " with a stag-li ke majesty/ O f soft, serene defiance" ( I X : 288-9 1 ) .
Marian will n ot b e caught again, and yet neither d oes she flee from her
huntsman , as she did when confronted by the malevolent world in her
childhood . Now she stands in defiance of that world, a feminine ( " soft " )
defiance, and repeats several times " you and 1 / Must never, never, never join
hands so" ( I X : 3 1 1 - 1 2) . This refusal is not out of any sense of humility or
unworthiness, but, Marian announces , out of pride: a belief in her own validity
and purity. She knows she d oes not love Romney, and so will not sully herself
with false ties. M ore over, she rejects patriarchy's l a be l of illegitimacy on her and
her child: he may be fatherless in her culture, but he has God as his othe r
parent. Marian never explicitly c a l l s G o d "father" : fathers belong to t h e w orld,
and G od is rather with m others . As Marian repeatedly states , here to Romney:
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" a ng el s are less tender-wise/ Than G od and m others : even you would thi n k/
What we think never. He is ours, the child " ; and "We only, never call him
fatherless/ Who has God and his m other " . "We " here are G od and m other. A
" fathered child, with father's l ove and race" is resolutely rejected ( I X :4071 9) . 1 3
Marian thus linguistically removes herself and her child (at least for the
present) from the world of patriarchy. Her son " when he's asked his name/ [. . . ]
has n o a nswer" ( I X :42 1 -2 2 ) . Her society deletes her from itself, and she also
c hooses to rem ove herself from it (in her self-professed death ) , in order to
attem pt a maternal world outside the confines of her culture. S he thus attem pts
to place herself beyond that culture 's roles and re presentati ons, in control of her
own signification. H ow real or effective this attempt at separation is will be
disc ussed more fully in the following cha pter, but the pa ram ount point here is
that Marian stil l must figure herself as dead . She is excess, unre presenta ble in
the w orld of the poe m .
Aurora a lso exceeds all attem pts t o fix h e r in the poe m . W e have seen
her reactions against the roles represented by other women characters, but
Aurora a lso finds she cannot fill the narrow role of defeminised poet that she
has assig ned herself:
Books succeed ,
And lives fai l . D o I feel it so, at last?
[ . . . ] I live self-despised for being m yself[. . . ]
(VI I : 704-0 7 )
A n d later she confesses to Romney that she h a s failed , l i ke h i m , in h e r life 's
work, because it has not brought her the joy and fulfi l l ment she believed it
would . " I 've surely failed, I know, if failure means/ To look back sad l y on work
gladly done" ( VI I I :478-7 9 ) . Both the fruitful, l ow vine that is the virtuous wife,
and the lonely, upright pal m that is the defeminised poet, are unsatisfactory.
Perha ps the m ost i nc isive symbol of the process which attem pts to
contain women within roles is found i n the picture of Aurora 's m other, a picture
that remains a pivotal influence on Aurora . S he tells us in Book I how the
191
picture of the dead woman ( " The pa inter drew i t after she was dea d " [ 1 : 1 2 6 ] ) is
" made a live " by sudden l ight from the fire :
I , a little chi l d , would crouch
For hours upon the floor with knees drawn up,
And gaze across them, half in terror, half
I n ad oration, at the picture there , That swa n-li ke supernatural white life
J ust sailing upward from the red stiff silk
Which seemed to have no part in it nor power
To keep it from quite breaking out of bounds.
( 1 : 1 3 5-42 )
This is t h e mother whom Aurora barely knew. S h e has few attri butes of human
reality for Aurora , who views her as a supernatural thing . Aurora l i kens the
white life of the paradoxica l l y dead woman to a swan, the strange, bea utiful ,
d ying creature of fai rytale meta morphoses. The confusion of the life a nd death
d ualism is rife in the child Aurora's mind , as her imagination revivifies the dead
woman into - what?
And as I grew
In years, I m ixed , confused , unconsciously,
Whatever I last read or heard or dreamed,
A bhorrent , admirable, beautiful,
Pathetica l , or g hastly, or grotesque,
With still that face . . . which did not therefore change,
But kept the mystic level of all forms
Hates, fears , and adm irations[ . . . ]
( 1 : 1 46-53)
A s Aurora grows she brings to her interpretation of her mother's portrait all she
learns and a bsorbs: all the discourses that are c onstructing her. The portrait thus
becomes the text for her reading - a pa radoxically unchanging and yet polysemic
text. The text she is attem pting to read , of course , is that of her own sexuality
and sel f . The portrait reflects both her origins, from which she has been cut off
(a dead m other), and her development as a gendered psyche since that
a m putati on (her socialisation within patria rchy). Her reading of the portrait thus
is simultaneousl y a reading of herself, of the creation of the self known as
Aurora Lei g h . 1 4
Aurora 's response to the portrait is therefore her response to herself as a
femal e : "abhorrent, a dmirable, beautifu l ,/ Pathetica l , or ghastl y, or
g rotesque[ . ] " . All a re present in Aurora Leigh as responses to various women,
. .
192
w ritten b y Aurora hersel f . Her defi nitions are even m ore exact, though , a s she
brings to bear i n her interpretation of her m other's portrait all the g reat female
m yths of (male) l iterature. O nce m ore we are " reading femininity" :
[that face] was b y turns
Ghost, fiend , a nd a ngel , fai ry, witch, and sprite ,
A dauntless Muse who eyes a dreadful Fate ,
A l oving Psyche who l oses sight of Love ,
A still Medusa with mild m i l ky brows
All curdled a nd all clothed upon with snakes
Whose slime falls fast as sweat will; or anon
Our Lady of the Passion , sta bbed with swords
Where the Ba be suc ked; or Lamia in her first
Moonlig hted pa l l or, ere she shrunk and blinked
And shuddering wriggled d own to the unclea n;
O r m y own m other, leaving her last smile
I n her last kiss upon the ba by-m outh
My father pushed down on the bed for that, O r m y dead m other, without smile or kiss ,
Buried at Fl orence.
(I:
1 5 3-6 8 )
I n these lines Aurora formulates h e r gender both generical l y a nd individually.
Woman is created as a n y num ber of human-denying roles. The m other is
perceived as both fiend a nd angel , another " i m possi ble" dualism . The trul y
stri king element of t h i s fantastic list, h owever, is how its items become
prefiguring images of female characters in the poe m , including Aurora herself. 1 5
She is the dauntless Muse with a portentous future (lord Howe, V : 7 9 5-9 6 ) .
Similarly she is the l oving s pi rit w h o l oses her l ove , Romney. The Lady o f the
Passion clearly suggests Mari a n , who i s c onstantly reminded of her " death" at
her society's hands by her child's presence. The figure also suggests Aurora
herself i n a m ore m eta phorical way: in Book V she feels Lady Waldemar's tal k as
being stabbed by "the delicatest needl e " in her m ost vulnerable part , her
passion-filled heart . Lad y Waldemar, of c ourse , fills the roles of the Lamia or
Medusa : Aurora brands Lady Waldemar as Lamia throughout Book V I I
(VI I : 1 47ft ) . B u t Aurora hersel f is also a Medusa figure i n the e yes o f h e r aunt ,
who recoils from Aurora's passion as if " she h a d touched a sna ke " ( 1 1 : 7 2 5 ) . The
Lamia figure particularly plays u pon the physical nature of the female: the Lamia
had the body of the woman but was in reality a m onster who preyed u pon
human beings. The female body's danger and treachery is thus esta blished in
Aurora 's consciousness .
193
Finally, though, Aurora reads her mother's picture as " m other " , a concept
of which she has but the barest memory. For Aurora , " m other" i s the female
who bequeathed to her the inheritance of femininity within a patriarchal culture.
The image of the father " pushing " the baby child down to be kissed by the
d yi ng m other is disturbing to Aurora . This benedi cti on, presided over by the
father, i nvolves the child in the world of the mother, the deathly world of
femininity. lt is little w onder that her mother never recovers from child birth :
symbolically the " m other's ra pture " is to die. 1 6 That death, m ost prosaically, is
the m ost real picture Aurora has of her mother: a g rave in Fl orence.
The final point in this extra ordinary account of the picture of the m other
i s that, despite the readings and constraining interpretations that her world , and
then her da ughter, place upon the woman in the portra it, she is nevertheless
portrayed as exceeding or escaping final fixing . In the pa intin g , the "white life "
sails u pward from the stiff red sil k brocade which seeks t o contain it. This
brocade evening g own (in which she has been d ressed after death by her Italian
" ca meriera " or maid) can be read as representing, in this c ontext, the social
c onstrai nts on her l i fe as woma n . Significantly the red silk is descri bed by
A u rora a s separate from her m other. lt seems to have " no pa rt " in her " white
life " , nor i s it able to keep that life "from quite brea king out of bounds" ( 1 : 1 404 1 ) . As with the l iving female characters of the poem , here too Aurora prefers
to portray the w oman transcending the roles assigned her.
i i . Reading and
w riting
the world
Aurora's experience indicates that the appositional structure of her
society, defining human beings sim plisticall y by d ivisi on and excl usion, allows no
a lternative to itself. The fixing of i ndividuals i nto categories that deny
complexity or change relies upon the preservation of the a pparently intrinsic
h ierarchical dualisms of gender, race, class. The one a ffirms the other:
individuals performi ng certain roles ' prove ' the 'validity' and 'essentiality' of the
194
underlying dual ist assum ptions . But, a s Aurora herself illustrates, a n y attem pt to
esca pe or deny these roles is simply an (im possible ? ) atte m pt to place oneself
outside the structure , which is in itself an appositional response . A change of
position in regard to the structure still leaves that structure intact. 1 7
Finally, i n order t o change the way a c ulture views women and other
'different' beings, the structure itself has to be challenged . The means by which
this appositional binarism becam e the one way m ust be uncovered . I ronically,
though n ot fortuitously, Aurora 's career choice brings her to that means.
Language - writing - depends upon di fference; 18 Aurora decides to be a dealer
in language, a writer. This is not si mply fortuitous, because Aurora 's experience
has already shown her the power of lang uage to demarcate and label , to identify
and i nterpret, as the account of her read ing her m other's portra it evinces.
Similarly, her father's teaching " out of books [. .. ) all the ig norance of men "
( I : 1 90 ) , and her own later reading of "a score of books on w omanhood " ( I : 4 2 7 )
s h o w t h e i m portance o f language to teach thi nking . Language a nd writing
creates as it is created, it reads as it is read. Aurora Leigh is as m uch a story of
a w oman's a pprehension of the power of language to transform as it is (in
traditional readings) a story of a w oman's a pprehension of the transformative
power of l ove .
The texts of life
Before considering how Aurora deconstructs the many binary oppositi ons
of her w orld , both her reading a nd her writing of that world - her role as poet m ust be examined . Certainly Aurora conceives the world as a text or a volume
to be read or interprete d . 1 9 In descri bing Marian's journeys as a child, she
depicts England as "a w ic ked book" ( 1 1 1 : 9 5 2) , the text that Marian has read to
her cost. The past is another sort of text to be rea d :
The d a ys went by. I took u p the o l d days,
With all their Tuscan pleasures w orn a nd s poiled ,
Li ke some l ost book we dropped i n the long g rass
On such a happy summer-afternoon
When we last read it with a loving friend [ . . . )
(VI I : 1 040-44)
195
People are a lso texts : Aurora comments with frustration at the beginning of
Book V that R om ney considers her "Too light a book for a grave man's reading ! "
(V:41 ) And at the conclusion of the same book she uses the same simile, this
.
time with Lady Waldemar as reader:
Sweet heaven, she takes me up
As if she had fingered me and dog-eared me
And spelled me by the fireside half a life !
She knows m y turns, m y feeble points [ . . ]
O f course , she found that in me, she saw that ,
Her pencil underscored this for a fault,
(V: 1 0 5 3- 1 060 )
And I , sti l l ig norant. Shut the book up, - close !
.
Being read i n t h i s way - i n which text is dissected , meaning d iscovered a nd fixed
- is reductive a nd disempoweri ng. Aurora is exposed a nd apparently known; any
a lternative read ing is i m plicitly effaced , and her self-ignorance condemns her.
Yet Aurora does precisely the same to Lady Waldemar in her i nterpretation of
the events around Marian's rape . Her letter to Lady Waldemar is a reading and
writing of that lady's life which is just as reductive and im prisoning as those
inflicted upon Aurora hersel f .
Readings and writings are simultaneous, and it is clear from h e r poem 's
opening that writing is the source of life for Aurora :
O f writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine, Will write m y story for m y better self
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it i n a drawer and l ooks at it
Long after he has ceased to l ove you, j ust
To hold together what he was and is.
( 1 : 1 -8 )
This extraordinary opening i mage dem onstrates Aurora 's purpose : she will write
her story for her " better self " , in order to " hold together" that self. Aurora,
w riting this some years on, is as yet unreconciled with R omney; she apparently
w rites this story at the point of her misery in Italy, aware she has fai led to be
happy in the role she has chosen. 20 She has ceased to l ove the painter, the
w riter of the story - herself. 2 1 Thus Aurora 's commencement of her story here
is a n act of self-preservation . The images in these opening l i nes indicate a
196
splitting of selves, as Aurora the writer constructs Aurora the text in order to
preserve Aurora the " better sel f " , the latter a " friend " to the former two. I n
other words, A urora will w rite h e r l ife i n an effort t o make it coherent and
meaningful for her split and decentred self.
Margaret Reynolds i s the only critic to discuss full y the significance of
Aurora 's split narration. 22 She c ites the opening l ines of the poem as positing a
conception of the s plit self as a rtist and viewer (in the painting ana l og y) , or actor
a nd poet. The "very act of writing , will enable Aurora to c onstruct a nd analyze
herself " , a construction that re places the " preorda ined story a nd the pl otted self
w ritten for her by others" (Aurora 3 3 ) . Reynolds l ocates the poem-'s strength in
its extraordinary tem poral structure and genre, a nd its unreliable a nd often
ind i rect narrative . lt is self-consciously "a text-in-process and Aurora's "very act
of writing up her journal entries . . . becomes the i nstrument of that process " (37;
34) . Finally, by '" publishing herself"' , Aurora writes herself into her culture , and
final l y can be accurate l y 'rea d ' by her l over Romney ( "Writing " 9-1 0). Reynolds
believes that the resolution of Aurora 's story is dangerous in that it silences her
self-creation. EBB's i nternalised nineteenth-century ideology required Aurora to
achieve romantic l ove for com plete fulfillment: such an end , thoug h , endangers
Aurora 's " self-determination which [was) the i ncentive to narrative in the first
place " (Aurora 3 8 ) .
Reynolds' fascinating account offers a teleological e n d to Aurora 's self­
c reation: the " heroine's q uest [is] for the whole self " , and w i l l end " once she is
com plete as a woman - a nd resolved as a story" (Aurora 3 7 -3 8 ) . Aurora 's
narration, however, constantly foregrounds writing as a fluid a nd unending
process - as R eynolds herself brilliantly reveals (the poem's strengths " lie in its
process rather than its resoluti on" [ 1 1 ) ) . Aurora never will achieve synthesis
under such a process , specifically because human consci ousness is enacted on
split perception . Angela Leighton, in her most recent articl e , also mentions how
the s peech of the poem is dispersed am ongst women, a " shared and relativized
speech" ( " Because" 347 ) . She l ocates the Victorian female writer's split voice i n
t h e image o f t h e fallen woman, w h o becomes the woman poet's d ouble. I n
imaginatively identifying with her m oral opposite, the 'pure' writer c rosses a
social boundary, " a n act of social protest which is also a n act of daring self-
197
recovery" ( 3 5 7 ) . Leig hton 's argument, l i ke Reynolds, presupposes a final
position of integration for the self, a position dear to feminists attem pting t o
d i scover a n identity a part from phall ocentric constructi ons. Yet Alicia Ostriker, i n
an article that discusses (m odern) women poets as "thieves o f language " ,
revisi ng a ncient m yths t o enact "feminist a ntiauthoritarianism " , notes that the
m ost sig nificant aspect of this techni que is the use of multiple intertwined
voices: "these poems challenge the va l id ity of the ' I ' , of any ' I ' " ( 8 7-88 ) . A
similar challenge is issued i n Aurora Leigh , where the poem's whole process
resists final closure. New positions for female and male are writte n , but their
genesis in flux em phasises their fluidity.
The pl ural persona lity evident in the opening li nes remains throughout the
poem . Aurora exhorts hersel f at the close of Book I, when she feels the
unnatural o ppression of life with her aunt, with the brave words, '"We 'll l ive ,
Aurora ! we'll be strong . / The dogs are on us - but we will not d ie ' " ( 1 : 1 0 6 5- 6 6 ) .
With that plural persona l pronoun Aurora describes herself as a disparate bein g ,
a self-reflective b o d y o f selves o f com peting c l a i m s a n d powers . Her attem pts t o
be a c oherent singular s e l f coincide with h e r attem pts t o live the one­
dimensional role of non-woman poet which she later assigns to herself. Both
require the inevita ble suppressi on of a lternative or d ifferent elements of her
psyche. 2 3
N otwithsta nding this point concerning Aurora 's perception of her d ivided
self, the Christian idealism which remains at the heart of her morality cannot be
d isregarded . In Book I, where she relates the required reading under her aunt's
educative syste m , Aurora expands upon the critical theme of reading a nd its
relation to i ndividual consci ousness. She begins (lines 79 2ft) by recounting her
struggles in the w orld of books, "swimming " hard "through/ The deeps " ,
trusting o n l y t o occasional i nstinctive glimpses o f "the centra l truth " . That
central truth is highly probl ematic, however:
Let who says
"The soul 's a clean white paper, " rather say,
A palim psest, a prophet's holograph
Defiled, erased and covered by a monk's, The a pocalypse, by a Longus! poring on
Which obscene text, we may discern perhaps
198
Some fair, fine trace of what was written once,
Some u pstroke of an a l pha and omega
Expressing the old scri pture .
( 1 : 8 24-3 2)
The soul is less a Lockean ta bula rasa and m ore a corrupted overwritten text to
be rea d . Beneath the rewriting can be barely discerned the original text, the
human soul made in God's image of perfecti on . EBB's Protesta nt Christianity is
clearly evident here , as Diedre David affirms. Davi d , however, reads this
complex image as Aurora (and David reads Aurora as EBB) " proclaiming herself
a s G od's new i nterpreter and i nscri ber of the ideal w orld " , which i s evident in
the " original text " . The image is read as a sim ple matter of red i scovery. 24
Yet these l ines also continue the theme of self-writing , and this theme
overlays (rewrite s ? ) Aurora 's idealism . A holograph is "a . . . d ocument written
wholly by the person in whose name it a p pears" ( O E D 9 7 5 ) . Here the prophet
w rites her/ himself, only to be overwritten by the m onk's holograph, thus
defiling the original text with lesser writing - as if Longus, a pagan G reek writer
of light romances, should write on the profound Christian subject of the
a pocalypse. 25 Whilst Aurora 's context im plies that the original w riter was G od
(see l ines 8 20-24 ) , what she de picts is human beings rewriting selves that have
a lready been w ritten. Longus w rites St. J ohn's a pocalypse, but St. J ohn has
presumably rewritten G od 's w ords. The image of the holographs foreg rounds
the human self as a text al ways in production. This rewriting of the self is
further suggested i n the reference to the pali m psest, which also denoted a
writing surface which could be erased a nd prepared for rewritin g , l i ke a slate .
The images thus offered here by Aurora c ontinually reiterate human
consciousness a s Reynold 's "text-in-process " , a c oncept that Reynolds herself
then l oses.
Poetry as the text of l ife
How d oes Aurora w rite herself? In poetry, because poetry, a s she
expatiates i n Book I, is "elemental freedom " : her sou l , w hen first readi ng it, " Let
go c onventions and sprang up surprise d " ( 1 : 8 50 ; 8 5 2) . Poets are vital i n
A urora ' s opinion because they deal i n eternal verities, not " relative ,
199
com parative ,/ And tem poral truths" ( 1 : 8 6 1 - 6 2 ) . They have clearer perception, in
the m idst of confused and corrupt human existence, of priorities - they take
Plato's shadows on the cave (here a charnel) wall and construct " the measure of
a m a n " for humanity's i nstruction. Poets re-spea k the world to bring it back to
life , to strike the common hearer with "a special revelation " ( 1 : 90 5 - 1 0) .
Aurora concludes this rapturous descri ption of poetry in Book I with the
statement "0 life! 0 poetry, / - Which means life in life ! " ( 1 : 9 1 4- 1 5 ) . This is why
Aurora considers poetry to be the mode for writing herself: because poetry is
life . Poets' words are recreati ons of huma nity and human consciousness that
strike the reader afresh and so recreate the reader's percepti ons of self and
w orld . If human existence is a process of continua l l y rewriting the self, poetry
becomes the e pitome of that human process - the "eternal verity" of human
existence.
l t is little w onder that Aurora , when caught crowning herself a poet in
Book 1 1 , descri bes the act as " writing down/ My foolish name " ( 1 1 : 69-70 ) . She
has been creating herself as a creator, writing her name (fig uratively) as a writer
of selves, of life.
Aurora refers to poetry's a bility to " let g o conventi ons" ( 1 : 8 5 2 ) . Yet
Aurora 's first attem pts at poetry are unconsciously restricted to c onvention, as
she writes according to previ ous poets' styles:
And so, l i ke m ost young poets, i n a flush
O f individual life I poured myself
Along the veins of others, and achieved
Mere l i fe less imitati ons of l ive verse,
And made the living answer for the dead,
Profaning nature .
( 1 : 9 7 1 -76)
To follow convention , Aurora reproduces the work of the fathers in a Bloomian
crisis of heritage. As G i l bert and Gubar and feminist critics since have
demonstrate d , however, for the woman poet the Bl oomian 'anxiety of influence '
is m ore an 'anxiety of authorshi p ' : how can the daughter ' play at being the
fathe r ' ? 26 During this period of imitation , and beyond , Aurora ' plays at being
200
the father' by denying her femaleness. The result, she tells us, is " False poems"
(1 : 1 023).
Aurora 's career as poet fluctuates a n d develops through the poem , from
her joy in singing the "song you choose " , l i ke " I srael's other singing girls"
( 1 1 1 : 202-0 3 ) , t o her simultaneous self-revulsion at her womanly ina bility to
c reate , despite feeling the " hot fire-seeds of creation" with which her " w hole life
burnt" ( 1 1 1 : 25 2; 2 6 1 ) She rips u p verses, finding that
.
The heart i n them was just an em bryo's heart
Which never yet had beat, that it should die;
J ust gasps of make-believe galvanic life[ . . . ]
( 1 1 1 : 247-49)
Her (conventional ) i mages of poetic i m pulse as c onception a nd pregnancy (and
in the latter q u otation, a bortion) contradict her c onviction that femaleness
precl udes poetic authorshi p. 27 Yet it is precisely her use of those images that
eventual l y offers her - enacts for her - a rewriting of cultural norms. She finally
decides that a woman i s only too qualified for poetry. In Book I l l , though , the
female g estation image clashes with her constricted beliefs, i nsisting that life is
in her poetry: " But I felt/ My heart's life throbbing in my verse to show/ lt l ived " .
I ncom plete , disordered perhaps, but " Still organised by a nd i m plying life"
( 1 1 1 : 338-4 3 ) . 2 8
The self-distrust a nd gender-hatred that c hara cterises Aurora 's feelings
toward s her career at this time come to a head in Book V, where she d iscourses
on the role of poetry in her w orld . She d iscusses each of the genres: ballad ,
pastoral , epic, courtly romance , drama - rejecting conventional wisdom on the
a ppropriateness o r otherwise of these various forms:
What form is best for poems? Let me think
O f forms less, a nd the external . Trust the s pirit,
As sovran nature does, to m a ke the form[ . ]
. .
(V: 2 23-2 5 )
This defence o f the freedom o f the poet's i magination places Aurora squarely i n
t h e Romantic tradition: "What the poet writes,/ H e writes: mankind accepts it i f
it suits" (V: 2 6 1 - 6 2 ) . The l i berating effect o f this poetic inde pendence i s
201
tem pered in Aurora 's case, as she cannot esca pe the gender va l ue judgements
she herself places on her newly com pleted book:
But I am sad :
I cannot thoroughly l ove a work of mine,
Since none seems worthy of my thought and hope
More highly mated . He has shot them down,
My Phoebus Apol l o , soul within m y soul ,
[ . . . ] While I said nothi ng. Is there aught to sa y?
(V: 4 1 0- 1 8 )
Aurora cannot l ove her work because she cannot love herself as a woma n . She
is, she tells us, a lone - bereft of either filial or marital l ove . She has chosen
against these roles so that she can have the role of creating poet , and yet she is
consig ned to i nevita ble failure i n that role by her m ost vital critic , R om ney. In
shooting down her poetry he shoots down herself, beca use that poetry is, she
sa ys, a writing of her own life . Whether R omney actually makes such a
judgement is uncerta i n : Aurora has also created this response . Her sense of
failure is thus also a product of her own writi ng, as she ties herself into need i ng
his a p proval, a n a pprova l which she also desig nates he will never give.
Finally Aurora m ust leave England to gain some perspective on the
society which has so c onditi oned her outl ook. In Book VI , as she wanders in
Paris, she muses on " life and art " . She comes to the conclusion that art's
greatest su bject is human kind itself, with all its inconsistencies and i rregularities:
Let us pra y
God's grace to keep God 's image i n repute ,
That so, the poet and philanthropist
(Even I and R omney) may stand side by side,
Because we both sta nd face to face with men,
Conte m plating the people i n the rough ,
Yet each s o follow a vocation, his
And m i n e .
(VI : 1 9 7-204)
Aurora d oes n ot accept the utilitarian argument that art is peripheral , and here
she rejects the hierarchical judgements on science/ art, male/ female, active/
passive and so on, for a n ethic of difference without competiti on. Both parties
are engaged in the para m ount activity of the representation of human
experience, and therefore both are val i d .
2 02
I wal ked on, musing with m yself
On life a nd art, and whether a fter a l l
A larger m eta physics might not h e l p
O u r physics, a com pleter poetry
Adjust our daily life and vulgar wants[ . . . ]
(VI : 204-08 )
Poetry, in its a bility t o rewrite l ife, becomes t h e means t o li berate human
existence from the injustices of daily life , because it suggests a larger
metaphysics to the restrictive structures presently operating on human
experience.
Aurora ends her m using on the prophetic nature of poetry with a fine
oration:
we thunder d own
We prophets , poets, - Virtue's i n the word !
The m a ke r burnt the darkness u p with His,
To inaugurate the use of vocal life[ . ]
. .
(VI : 2 1 7-20)
Plant a poet's w ord in a man's heart, she concludes, and you have done m ore
for him than any physical charity: you have shown him himself, as he could be.
The power (and moral force) of the creating w ord is fascinating to Aurora , not
the least because it is the means for her own salvation.
Books VI and VI I bring Aurora to the present tense of the poe m , i n Ita l y
with Marian a n d h e r child , yet a l one, unhappy a n d f u l l o f self-disg ust. l t i s
a p parently at this poi nt that s h e h a s w ritten the previ ous three books,
a rticulating the superficial success of her rad ical career choice , but also its
terrible sacri fice of female desire . The dark night of the soul that Aurora
experiences in Books VI a nd VI I g ives her opportunity to examine and detect the
failure of the a ppositional system she has been i m plicated in, even despite her
c h oice of rejection. She begins to understand how the strict d ualisms that she
has followed have been i nstrumental in her unha p piness.
203
iii.
Dualisms deconstructed
Book Vl l 's d espairing statement, " Books succeed,/ And lives fai l . Do I feel
it so, at last ? " (VI I : 704-0 5 ) , is eventual l y arrested when Aurora begins to
perceive herself m ore clearl y:
And I, too, . . . G od has made me, - I 've a heart
That's capable of worship, l ove , and l oss;
We say the same of Sha kespea re 's. I 'l l be meek
And learn to reverence , even this poor myself.
(VI I : 7 34-37)
These first words of sel f-a pprobation that Aurora has uttered since leaving her
aunt's home are vita l i n that they allow Aurora her own desire and passi on.
Passion is n ot the e nfee bling attri bute of despised fema leness, but a G od-given
a nd therefore g ood human dig nity. The de-gendering of these feel ings, and her
n ot-so-covert identification with Sha kespea re, allow her a perception of herself
that no l onger entails self-hatred. That changing perception also leads to a
.
different eva luation of her work, as is evident from the reference to
Sha kespeare . She begins to rethink the relationships between vari ous socially­
structured terms and oppositions.
Physica l/ spiritual
Aurora 's first subversion is of the physical/ spiritual opposition, a dualism
which has denied her part of her own being :
Natural things
And spiritual , - who separates those two
I n art, in morals, or the social drift,
Tea rs u p the bond of nature a nd brings death,
Paints futile pictures, w rites unreal verse ,
Leads vulgar days, deals ignorantly with men,
I s wrong , in short, at all points.
(VI I : 7 63-69)
Of course , this sepa ration is what Aurora herself has d one hitherto: denied her
sexualised body so as to a ppropriate the asexual , " spiritua l " existence of
(defeminised) poet . Such a separation has preci pitated the death she represents
2 04
in her metaphors . I n her own words, then, this action is indicted - her poetry,
her morality and her social existence have been "wrong, in short, at all points " .
Why? She explains:
We divide
This a pple of life, and cut it through the pips, The perfect round which fitted Venus' hand
Has perished as utterly as if we ate
Both ha lves . Without the spiritual , observe ,
The natura l 's im possi ble - no form ,
No m otion: without sensuous , spiritual
Is inappreciable, - no beauty or power[. . ]
.
(VI I : 7 69-76)
Here Aurora dem onstrates the relatedness and interdependence of a p parent
opposites . Nature/ sensuality/ physicality a re im plicitly part of the spiritual : one
cannot be without the other. To divide either from the other is to destroy the
living process which incorporates both. I ronically, the Aurora who previ ously
chose to deny female passion uses as her image here the a pple of Venus, the
g oddess of sexua l l ove .
Woman/ artist
Her perception that the physical is not to be se parated from the s piritual
provides Aurora with the ground to reassess one of the oppositions which has
been m ost crippling for her - the separation of the a rtist (or poet) from the
woman. When she comments in Book VII that she has " w ritten truth " , and "the
truth itself,/ That's neither man's nor woman's, but just G od 's " (VI I : 749- 5 3 ) ,
she opens u p the possibility that human gendering d oes n ot d ictate poetic 'truth­
telling ' . This possi bility, and her subve rsion of the physical/ spiritual opposition,
finally challenge the spectre of the woman/ artist binarism . That binarism
underlies all the others in the poem - physical and spiritual ; male and female;
public and private; personal and universal - and natura lly becomes a focus for
many issues related to dualist readings of Aurora Leigh .
I n "Woman and Poet" , for example, John Woolford discusses EBB's
poetry i n terms of J . S . Mill's distinctions between public and private , which
relegated poetry to the realm of the private, which was also the realm of
2 05
women. ( Later critics, nota bly Mermin and Reynolds, develop this issue . ) Both
realms are " retracted from immediate social involvement; both occupied with
highe r things; both m ysteriously but i m peratively inca pacitated from any direct
effect u pon the world; both concerned with passion, i ntuition , inspiration, rather
than reason a nd order, the One rather than the Many, the self rather than the
w orl d " ( "Woman and Poet" 4 ) . But Woolford finds the resolution of Aurora Leigh
d i sa p pointing i n that it simply reinforces the societal attitude of effetely divine
w oman/ poet. Because Aurora insists upon being a woman and a poet, Woolford
argues, she comm its herself to non-commerce with the w orld and continued
self-indulgence a s an emotional (and inferior) woman, as the passages of
" h ysterical maternalism " in the poem sho w . Thus, he concludes, EBB's nerve
fai l s : she links poetry with woman in order to recoup the latter, but as she
d oesn't really bel ieve in woman's equality, she only succeeds in dragging d own
poetry.
Woolford 's argument exem plifies the cui-de-sac that Aurora also finds
herself in. Having brilliantly exposed the dualist definitions of Victorian society
c oncerning women and poetry, Woolford proceeds to argue on the basis of their
a pri ori validity. He asserts that Aurora fails because she restricts herself to
writing as a "woman" and a " poet" ; yet much of the poem shows Aurora
renegotiating what it means to be a woman and a poet , so that it is possi ble and
in fact valua ble to be both. 29 Much of this renegotiation, as Chapter Six
discusses, i s l ocated in that " h ysterical maternalism " that Woolford d ismisses.
This same a cceptance of the dualism central to his argument exists in
Woolford 's other article on EBB, "The Natural and the S piritua l " , w here he
a rg ues that Aurora fails because she remains l oc ked i n her own transforming
poet's m i n d . The poet becomes the source of "vitalising power" i n true
R o mantic fashion , and any outward excursi on into the world or nature is "simply
a secret self-extension " ( 1 7 ) . H e sees Aurora as the e pitome of soli psism in
which a l l externals are drawn i nto her self, an " exalted heterocosm " of self and
God. Even if we read the whole poem as a n extended d ra m atic m onologue,
W oolford 's judgement here obscures Aurora 's a p prehension of her own ironic
positions. Rather, he fails to see the restrictive structure that c reates such a
philosophy, a structure that Aurora breaks d own precisely with her poetic
206
" vitalising power" - that is, her language. I n short, Wool ford 's perception of
Aurora 's fail ure is based on the structures we have been analysing , structures
that mean Aurora w i l l always " fai l " , unless she changes the m . This she
attem pts to do, by exposing and reworking them in her poetry.
Book VI I also sees Aurora revising her association between her self or
life, and her work. Where before she elided the woman and her text, now she
prefers to distinguish between them .
The end of woman (or of man, I think)
Is not a book. Alas, the best of books
Is but a word in Art, which soon grows crampe d [ . ]
(VI I : 8 8 3- 8 5 )
I n true ideal ist manner, Aurora asserts the supremacy o f the soul over the
written word , even as that written word delineates the sou l . She wishes to raise
the status of her text a bove the autobiogra phical (and therefore l i mited ) , a nd
also to lift the status of her life and sel f above being passive text. But her text is
not passive, as we have seen: even as Aurora wishes to preserve her soul as
something precious and immorta l , her own textual practice is revealing that soul
to be a product of her own words.
R omney refers to this issue of the self and text in Book VI I I , when he
d escri bes his response to Aurora 's latest work.
I n all your other books, I saw but you :
[ . . . ] But , in this last book,
You showed me something separate from yourself,
Beyond you, and I bore to take it in
(VI I I : 5 9 9 ; 605-08)
And let it draw me.
I n these w ords, which EBB courageously puts into the m outh of a man, Romne y
debunks t h e Victorian idea that women writers could o n l y re produce
themselves. " Because women were traditi onally the raw material for poetry,
when they themselves came to write they were supposed to be capable only of
producing autobiography" (Reynolds, Aurora 3 ) . O n a deeper level, though , i n
this passage Romney also debunks dualistic restricti ons. He retai ns the
language of separation, rem oving Aurora from her text as he attem pts to show
2 07
that he now considers her a true poet. but then the language of opposition
m oves i nto a form of dialectical thinking:
Veril y I was wrong;
And verily many thinkers of this age,
Ay, many Christian teachers , half i n heave n ,
Are w rong i n j ust m y sense who understood
O u r natural w orld too insularly, as if
No spiritual counterpart com pleted it,
Consummating its meaning , rounding all
To justice a nd perfection, line by line,
Form by form , nothing single nor a lone,
The g reat below clenched by the g reat a bove ,
Shade here authenticating su bstance there ,
The body proving spirit, as the effect
The cause [ . . . )
(VI I I : 6 1 3-25)
R om ne y perceives that the other is necessary for the existence and definition of
the one - a critical revelation if he is to enjoy a fruitful relationship with Aurora .
Although he talks m ore in terms of halves ba lancing each other, he nevertheless
a ppreciates that those ha lves are i m pl icated in each other: the one clenches or
holds the other, a nd fulfils or com pletes its mea ning . One " form " refers to
another i n a network of signification in which nothing is "single or a lone " .
Rather, "shade[ . . . ) authenticat[es) substance" and effect " prove[ s ) " cause , and
n o position remains a fixe d , separate , a priori a bsol ute.
Personal/ universal
R om ney's a pprehension of dia lectical exchanges between differences
leads him to a revision of his long-held theories a b out the personal a nd the
universal which were the basis of his argument with Aurora i n Book 1 1 . Then
R omney maintained that females were concerned only with personal or
i nd ividual experience , a nd c ould not conceive the wider, universal "truths" of
humanity, let a lone correct the m . This was his primary a rgument against
Aurora 's becoming a poet.
B y Book V I I , however, R omney feels d i fferently.
208
Genuine government
Is but the expressi on of a nation, good
Or less good , - even as all society,
H owe'er unequa l , m onstrous, crazed and cursed,
I s but the expressi on of men's single lives,
The loud sum of the silent units .
( VI I I : 8 73-78)
The personal com prises the universa l : any analysis of the one entails analysis of
the other. Or, as he says earlier, "each individual man/ Remains a n Adam to the
general race" (VI I I : 8 54-5 5 ) : like the bi blical Adam, the individ ual human being
defines the nature of the wider race . In this way private becomes public (a
process that R omney hi mself enacted in his private engagement to Marian which
functioned simultaneously as a public signal or act ) . The disruption of this
d ua l ism a lso crucially undermines Victorian society's marginalisation of women
and poetry as essentia lly ' private ' spheres, allowing the d omestic to become the
soci a l , and vice-versa .
Female/ male
A major d ualism that is deconstructed by the cl ose of the poem is that of
male and female, and the a lteration in Aurora's outl ook on this structure
becomes evident as the poem progresses. I n Book VI I , as she despises herself
for the feminine wea kness of tears , she remarks:
l t seems as if I had a man i n me,
Despising such a w oman.
Yet indeed,
To see a wrong or suffering moves us all
To undo it though we should undo ourselves,
Ay, all the more , that we undo ourselves, That's womanly, past d oubt, and not ill-m oved .
(VI I : 2 1 3- 1 8 )
What is womanly, Aurora says, is the com pulsion to sacrifice self for another's
c omfort, to be " knights-errant to the last" (VI I : 2 2 5 ) . Yet the gender allocations
in this extract indicate confusion as to what is intrinsic and what is social l y­
defined. A pparently to be manly is to despise the wea kness of sym pathy; to be
w omanly is to sym pathise and sacrifice. Yet Aurora , a woman, experiences both
feel i ngs, and her simile of the male knight-errant i m plies a man acting in
2 09
w omanly ways. Gender roles are being confused here. The " undoing " that
A urora describes - presumably succum bing to sym pathetic emotion - also
suggests the undoing of definitions. To undo, or fix the wrong, i n order " that we
undo ourselves" (underlining m ine) i m plies that the fixing allows the associated
pleasure or purpose of this " w omanly" activity, which is the undoing of self.
While she g oes on to refer to the apparent masochistic desire of women to
suffer , the idea of undoing selves remains a suggestive image for the
dismantling of gendered roles here.
The image of the knight-errant suggests other meta phors of masculinity
that Aurora uses to describe herself - and not in an attem pt to suppress her
femininity, as she did in earlier books. In Book V I I I (line 509) she com pares
herself to Ulysses the G reek hero, returning from Troy. This readiness to play
the w arrior stands i n sharp contrast with the Aurora of Book I l l , who was
i nstead one of I srael ' s singing g i rls, watching the warriors conquer Pharaoh's
chariots ( 1 1 1 : 2 0 1 ). And in the ecstatic reunion scene between Aurora and
R om ne y that occurs in Book IX, Aurora relates how she " flung c l oser to his
breast,/ As sword that, after battle, fl ings to sheath " ( I X : 8 3 3-34). In an
i nversion of traditional imagery that posits the woman as the sheath or passive
recipient of the man's active , powerful phallus, Aurora takes upon herself the
role of the active phallus. She is, after a l l , the wielder of the sword/pen i n this
relationshi p .
What emerges i n Aurora's w riting is a sense that m asculinity a nd
femininity are cultural attri butions, arbitrary and often limiting . R od Edmond
relates how Aurora 's " meta phors . . . confuse the masculine a nd the feminine " ,
a nd h e argues against the sim plistic reading by certain commentators w h o
uncritically s e e this metaphor sli ppage as Aurora 's gender confusion ( 1 5 7 ) .
Rather, Aurora deli berately figures herself and her l over a s com plex formations
of both masculine a nd feminine, thus li berating both individuals to play both
roles (as in the Sonnets) . Aurora m a kes explicit the equality that this refig uring
i m plies i n her comments on the necessity of honest work:
The h onest earnest man m ust stand and w ork,
The woman also, - otherwise she drops
2 10
At once below the dig nity of man,
Accepting serfd om . Free men freel y work.
(VI I I : 7 1 2- 1 5 )
This extract also shows h o w t h e deconstruction o f male/ female oppositions
i nevita bly deconstructs related dualisms, such as those between passivity and
activity, or between i nstrument and initiator. Aurora 's masculine meta phors
exe m plify how assum ptions a bout female passivity and male activity have
broken down. Marian understands this final l y in her second refusal to ma rry
R omney: she distinguishes l ove from the a bject self-sacrifice which was her
previous response to R omney's offer, and chooses to rema in single and "clean" ­
" As Marian Lei g h , I know , I were not clea n " ( I X : 3 9 9 ) . To be m orally pure and
right is to exert the human faculty of choice, to be the active decider of one's
life, n ot the passive instrument. Aurora also ma kes this point: " What we choose
m a y not be good , / But, that we c hoose it, proves it good for us" (VI I I : 2 3 2-33 ) .
Femi nist love/ masculi nist love
. Marian , in rejecting Romney again, does so after considering what is valid
l ove , which she defines as active giving :
To be your l ove . . . I never thought of that:
To give you l ove . . . still less. I gave you l ove ?
I think I d i d not give you anything;
I was but only yours[ . . ]
.
( I X : 3 7 1 -74)
A relationship in which one element resigns all active partic i pation or choice to
the other, i n a total a bnegation of power, is no love relationshi p , accord i ng to
Marian. Where there was previously acceptance and a dherence to fixed
dualistic roles, now there is a l i berating apprehension of personal freedom .
Marian's new view of l ove as active giving is also the opinion of Aurora ,
who has struggled throughout the poem to redefine l ove , particularly to Romney.
Such l ove c ontrasts with the commercial transaction which patriarchy calls
" l ove " , delineated i n the opening books of the poe m . Romney's early view of
l ove offers a variation on this patriarchal m ode when he descri bes his and
211
Marian 's " love " to Aurora when she visits Marian i n her ga rret prior to the
a bortive weddi ng .
"We're fallen o n days,
We two who a re not poets, when to wed
Requires less mutual l ove than common love
[ . . . ] But l ove
(You poets are benig hted in this age,
The hour's too late for catching even m oths,
You've gnats i nstead , ) l ove ! - l ove's fool-paradise
I s out of date , l i ke Adam 's. "
( I V : 3 2 9-40)
Romney rejects m utual l ove as an anachronistic Paradise in his post-Edenic
w orld . His relationship w ith Marian is apparently based u pon a fellow feeling for
the ha pless huma nity around them, not on any sense of mutual respect or
regard. His penchant to answer for Marian ( " I accept for her/ Your favoura ble
thoughts" he tells Aurora at I V : 3 28-29) exposes his lack of regard for Marian as
an equal - she is the handmaid who will help in his project. Aurora privately
gives her opinion of R om ney's conception of " l ove " , and the feminine c ontrast:
where we [women] yearn to l ose ourselves
And melt l i ke white pearls i n another's wine,
H e seeks to double himself by what he l oves ,
And make his drink m ore costly by our pearls.
(V: 1 078-8 1 )
Women l ose their identities in their husband's pleasure , drowning and d issolving
l i ke the lump of salt Aurora e nvisions later. The husband , conversely, is
c oncerned with "doubl i n g " himself by this investment. In Luce l rigaray's words,
the w oman is the " m i rror entrusted by the (masculine) 'subject' with the tas k of
reflecti ng a nd red oubling himself" ( Marks and d e Courtivron 1 04) .
Aurora 's conception of l ove is very different. Her father's d ying
i njunction, to '" Love , m y child , l ove , love ! ' " ( 1 : 2 1 2 ) has been ringing i n her ears
since she was a child . I nitially, however, Aurora 's ideas of l ove founder upon her
d ualistic thin king . In Book V she exposes her confusion as she c onsiders her
place a s a female artist, still within the dualism that separates femininity a nd
artistry. After ma king the decisive statement ( " I 'l l have n o traffic with the
personal thought/ I n a rt's pure tem ple " [V: 6 1 - 6 2 ] ) i n which she subscribes to
------- - - --------
2 12
R omney's assum pti ons about feminine art being personal , she considers again
and decides:
But poets should
Exert a d ouble vision; should have eyes
To see near things as com prehensively
As if afar they took their point of sight,
And distant things as intimately deep
As i f they touched them.
(V: 1 83-88)
Now she believes that poets must see both the individual and the universa l .
I ndeed , the t w o vantage points - near and afar - move i nto each other in her
descri pti on , as cl oseness requires com prehensiveness a nd d ista nce requires
intimacy. But this interplay of the intimate and the universal i nevita bly calls i nto
question her own life:
How dreary 'tis for women to sit sti l l
O n w inter nights by sol itary fires
And hear the nations praising them far off ,
Too far! ay, praising our quick sense of love ,
Our very heart of passionate womanhood ,
Which c ould not beat so in the verse without
Being present also in the unkissed l i ps
And eyes undried because there 's none to ask
The reason they grew moist.
(V:439-47)
Or, as she w rites further on, "To have our books/ A p praised by l ove , associated
with l ove ,/ While we sit l oveless ! " (V:474-7 6 ) . As her (female) w ork is confined
to l ove both as subject matter and yardstick of w orth , Aurora necessarily sees
the i nterrelatedness of the personal and the public i n her own m isery and l a c k of
l ove . The metaphor of vantage points continues from lines 1 8 3-88 a bove , as
Aurora reflects that w omen poets' immediate experience (of solitary deprivation)
is n ot commensurate with the d istant, wider, and less specific public praise . The
two experiences exist a part : the latter fails to see the former experience. Aurora
recognises that the interrelatedness has been effaced , and the result of this
separation of her private experience from her public experience is the elision of
the former: her real g rief must be ed ited out.
And yet, the next event in Book V is Lord H owe's party, w here he
recommends that Aurora marry an admirer for her material well-being. Aurora
213
rejects the proposal out-of-ha nd : '" Love , you sa y? I M y l ord , I cannot l ove: I only
find/ The rhyme for l ove , - and that's n ot l ove , m y l ord"' (V: 8 9 4-9 6 ) . Despite
her recog nition of her own m isery (and threatened poetic failure) because of her
lack of romantic companionsh i p , she nevertheless refuses to undermine or
betray the l ove her father urged upon her, or as she descri bed it to Lady
Waldemar i n Book I l l :
" I l ove l ove : truth's n o cleaner thing than l ove .
I com prehend a l ove so fiery hot,
l t burns its natural vei l of August shame,
And sta nds sublimely i n the nude, as chaste
As Med icean Venus. But I know,
A l ove that burns through veils will burn through
masks
And shrivel u p treachery . "
( 1 1 1 : 70 2-08)
Aurora 's conception of l ove is of a "clean" passi on w ithout deceit or counterfeit
emotion. She cannot make poor su bstitutes to bring together public and private
experience - nor i ndeed spiritual and physical experience. The fire imagery here
recalls Aurora's " burning " hair after Lord Howe's party, betraying her physical
passion. This fiery passion is only finally achieved and enjoyed i n Book IX, when
all the disparate references to l ove and rewritten dualisms come together as
Aurora and Romney come together:
"I l ove you Romne y -"
Could I see his face,
I wept so? Did I drop against his breast,
Or did his a rms c onstrai n me? were my cheeks
H ot, overflooded , with m y tears , or his?
And which of our two large expl osive hearts
So shook m e ? That, I know not. There were words
That broke i n utterance . . . melted , i n the fire,­
Em brace, that was convulsi on, . . . then a kiss
As long and silent as the ecstatic night,
And deep, deep, shuddering breaths, which meant beyond
What ever could be told by word or kiss.
( I X : 7 1 4-24)
The passionate , ecstatic language descri bes a climax that suggests sexual
consummation. Significantly, Aurora wants to em phasise the i nterchange
between the two of them as a dialectical activity that cannot be separated into
opp osites. There is difference - "two [ . . . ] hearts " - but not opposition: " there is
no sense of Aurora , a s a n i ndividua l , being overwhelmed or subsumed by l ove "
2 14
(Stephenson, Poetry 1 1 4) . Words are (meta phorical l y) made fluid as they are
spoke n , " melt[ing] i n the fire" that this passionate exchange ignites. Personal
pronouns eventually cease as each response becomes a shared activity:
"em brace " , " kiss " , " breaths " . The extreme language conveys the revolutionary
nature of this d ynamic . Physicality seems to be breaking d own , or rather,
reconstituting itself i n a kind of rebirth : "explosive " , " broke " , "melted " ,
" convulsi on " , "deep, shuddering " . All the separations of mascul ine and feminine,
active a nd passive , universal and personal , natural and spiritua l , are refigured i n
the final hundred lines o f the poem as shared processes or exchanges.
All this occurs within the new phil osophy of l ove which R omney and
Aurora together del ineate . '" First , God 's love "' , Aurora asserts;
"And next , " he smiled , "the love of wedded souls,
Which still presents that mystery's counterpa rt.
Sweet shadow-rose, upon the water of life,
Of such a mystic substance , Sharon gave
A name to! human, vital, fructuous rose ,
Whose calyx holds the multitude of leaves ,
Loves filia l , l oves fraternal, neighbour-loves
And civic - a l l fair peta ls, all good scents,
All reddened , sweetened from one central Heart ! "
( I X : 8 8 1 -90)
R omney's R ose of Sharon here represents the ideal l ove of wedded souls, 30
which indicates not only ma rriage but the process of committed exchange
Aurora has been promoting . lt is both spi ritual and physical - a "shadow " a nd
yet vital and fruitful . S uch l ove is intensel y personal , and yet contains a
" m ultitude" of other relationships, public and private . And it is both "human"
and divine, the " counterpart " of God 's l ove; its descri pti on as the " one central
Heart " clearly ties it back to the Heart, the original l over, G od .
Thus, under the new order that Aurora and R omney construct i n Book I X ,
G o d ' s l ove comming les with human love , which commingles in human souls .
From that sou l , " m a n " gets his "ma nhood " , which i s t o work, " with tenderest
human hands" - "as G od in Nazareth " ( I X : 8 58-8 1 ) . Thus the new order comes
full circle , returning to divinity. Aurora ta kes up R om ney's gendered language
here:
2 15
I echoed thoughtfully - "The man, m ost man,
Works best for men, and, if most man indeed ,
He gets his manhood plainest from his soul [ . . . ) "
( I X : 8 74- 7 6 )
That soul , as w e have seen, is m oved by the non-gendered, but not asexual ,
l ove of i nterchange. S o Aurora g losses manhood here as humanhood : our
humanity is m ost " human" when working for humanity, in a playing-out of the
a ctive , giving l ove here described . I ronica lly, of course , it is Aurora who will play
the generic " ma n " in this relationshi p, just as R omney will play the l oving
attendant. He encourages Aurora : " work for two,/ As I, though thus restrained ,
for two, shal l l ove ! " ( I X : 9 1 1 - 1 2 ) . Thus gendered d ualisms are shown to be
dismantled i n their relati onshi p . The Protestant work-ethic is also transformed
( but not erased ! ) into a self-affirm ing , unfixed process of exchange . 3 1 As in the
Sonnets, where the same l ove is delineated, there is a strong resem blance here
to the ideal l ove of French feminism , Cixous' outflowing , commingling love
which endlessly recreates the l overs. Mermin descri bes the experience in Aurora
Leigh as a " sacramental notion of sexuality" , and comments on "The fusion of
matter and spirit into which their conflicting phil osophies resolve themselves,
l i ke the belief that G od is immanent in nature and souls perceptible through
flesh " . She notes how the " c onflict between l ove a nd work fades away when
Aurora 's work is redefined as including . . . Romney's" (Origins 2 1 3 ) , 3 2 but any
a pp rehension of dissolving bounda ries in Mermin's reading is limited , since she
g oes on to state that the " p rice of female triumph . . . is male a basement" in
which " R omney's punishment seems excessive " ( 2 1 4 ) . Certainly Aurora is
victorious i n the poem , but fina l l y so too is Romney: both arrive at this point of
renegotiation a nd equality after m utual admission of failure. Again, Mermin
seems to remain within the very d ua lisms that Aurora is at such pains to
dismantle.
Temporal m ortality/ Timeless i m morta l ity
The final d ua lism that is challenged in the poem is that of the im manent
m ortal a nd the transcendent immortal .
2 16
" N ow press the clarion on thy woman's l i p
(Love 's h o l y kiss shall still keep consecrate)
And breathe thy fine keen breath a l ong the brass,
And blow all c lass-walls level as Jericho's
[ . . . ) The world's old ,
But the old world waits the time to be renewed,
Toward which, new hearts in individ ual growth
Must quicken, and increase to multitude
In new d ynasties of the race of men;
Developed whence, sha ll g row spontaneously
New churches, new oeconomies, new laws
Admitting freedom , new societies
Excluding falsehood : HE sha ll make all new . " ( I X : 9 29-32; 9 4 1 -49 )
R om ney's words here reveal h i m to b e a visionary saint, " seeing " t h e new
Jerusalem of equa l ity and ideal love . He affirms Aurora as the prophet , the
player of the a pocal yptic trum pet . She is consecrated to this role because she is
a poet of l ove , and her message will tell of the love that brea ks d own social
barriers. This word from God , borne on the l i ps of a woman, will usher in a new
existence, with new social structures and individuals of mature soul. The poem
concludes with R om ney gazing blindly into the east, where the new dawn is
brea king , literally and a p parently figuratively. Aurora comments: "I saw his soul
saw " , as R omney feeds on "the thought of perfect noon " ( I X : 9 6 1 - 6 2 ) . I s this an
a pprehension of heaven, of the Paradise after death where Aurora and R om ney's
l ove w i l l be fulfilled ? O r do Aurora and R omney believe that this new Jerusalem
of equality is already occurri ng , in themselves?
it is the hour for souls,
That bodies, leavened by the will a nd l ove ,
Be lightened to redemption.
( I X : 9 3 9-4 1 )
Once again Aurora creates an image of process as the soul and body commingle,
infused by will and l ove . The a lteration in their attitudes has enabled both l overs
to m ove out of stasis and limitation into a process of g rowth and renewa l , both
physically a nd spiritually. The process is dependent u pon - indeed , ari ses out of ­
their words: Aurora 's poetry and Romney's a poca lyptic language create this new
Jerusalem. The final lines of the poem see Aurora l i nguistically " building " the
"new, near Day" as, q uoting from Revelation 2 1 : 1 9- 2 1 , she l ists the jewels of
that place. And, as R omney impresses upon Aurora , her responsibility is to
continue in that ling uistic creation:
2 17
"A silver key is g iven to thy clasp,
And thou shalt stand unwearied, night a nd day,
And fix it in the hard, sl ow-turning wards,
To open, so, that intermediate door
Betwixt the different planes of sensuous form
And form i nsensuous, that inferior men
May learn to feel on stil l through these to those ,
And bless thy ministration . "
( I X : 9 1 6-23)
Aurora 's task is to break down the barriers, to open the "hard " d oors33
between d ifferent planes, and through her words to release the a bi lity to
exchange and m ove between " form [ s ) " of body and spirit. Aurora , a s both
woman a nd poet , is supremely and uniquely a ble to effect this " expansion of
boundaries" (Stephenson , Poetry 9 1 ) . As Mermin c oncludes: " Barrett
Browning's urge to dissolve boundaries and reconcile opposites here receives its
fullest play, and the multifarious tra nsg ressiveness was not only essential to the
poe m ' s meaning but meant to be provocative " (O rigi ns 224). The strictures and
mental i m positions of Aurora 's past dissolve in Book IX: this truly i s the " new
w o m a n " of Victorian society.
The cautionary coda
Perhaps the fina l , and demoralising comment on the g l orious c onclusion
of A urora leigh i s g iven by Aurora herself, when she contem plates the idealism
of France in Book VI .
And so I a m strong to l ove this noble France,
This poet of the nations, who dreams on
And wails on (while the household g oes to wreck)
Forever, a fter some ideal g ood , Some equal poise of sex, some unvowed l ove
I nviolate, some spontaneous brotherhood,
Some wealth that leaves none poor a nd finds none tired ,
S om e freedom of the many that respects
The wisdom of the few . Heroic drea m s !
Subl i m e , to dream s o ; natura l , t o wake:
And sad , to use such l ofty scaffoldings,
Erected for the building of a church,
To build i nstead a brothel or a prison May G od save France !
(VI : 53-66)
2 18
Even d own to the building metaphor, this is a commentary on Aurora and
Romne y's visions of the final Book. What to conclude ? Does the later o ptimism
prove the earlier scepticism wrong, simply a reflection of the jaded , sad and
hopeless Aurora of the central section of the poem ? O r d oes this extract show
the final g lorious vision to be im possibly idealistic?
O r is it perhaps a m onitory comment - the warning , similar to that in
S onnet XLIV, of what will ha ppen if the new phil osophy is not adhered to with
"the will a nd l ove " , as R omney insists? The difficulty for any person challenging
the structures of her society is that it is apparently i m possible to exist socially
outside those structures, as they are indeed the discourses that g ive i nd ividual
meaning and definiti on. Any rewriting of cultural identities is therefore always a
revolutionary and yet de pendent activity, responding to existing discourses. 34
And it is also necessarily vulnerable to overwriting or erasure by those " louder"
d iscourses . As Aurora herself descri bes the situation early in the poem :
And , i n between us, rushed the torrent-w orld
To blanch our faces like divided rocks,
And bar for ever mutual sight and touch
Except throug h swirl of spray and all that roar .
( 1 1 : 1 245-48)
Mutuality of the type celebrated in Book IX must always only occur throug h the
"swirl and spra y " and " roar" of the "torrent-worl d " - a cultural sea of mediation
that a l ways threatens to overwhelm individual experience and definition.
2 19
N OTES
1
Marks and de C ourtivron 9 0 .
2 Cooper a nd Mermin treat this account o f R om ney's d iscovery o f Aurora
crowning herself as an exa m ple of his objectifying gaze, which reads her as a work
of art, rather than an a rtist. Both quote l ines 60-64, showing that " U nder his
a m used , admiring gaze her aspirations dwindle into g irlish narcissism " ( Mermin,
Origins 1 89 ) . M oreover, Cooper adds, Aurora acquiesces to this transformation
from subject to object (Woman 1 5 6 ) . Neither critic g oes on to consider Aurora 's
depiction of her response , and the significance of her similes.
3 Stephenson also notes in passing that the images of " water, flood i n g , and
drowning [that] are used throughout Aurora Leigh . . . suggest passion or the
aband onment of the self to passion" (Poetry 1 1 0 ) . Aurora 's sea i mages are m ore
com plex in that human emotion, not sim ply passion , is involved. Moreover , in the
(sol e ? ) example of a man's emotion subject to the same force (Aurora 's father
" Drowned " with an Italian passion in 1 : 6 5-70) , the e m phasis fa lls on the feminine
nature of his experience. This 'sea ' is clearly related to female/ feminine e m otion,
but the power of that emotion on its female subjects is, in the context of their
culture, disastrous . Aurora 's images clearly betra y a deep distrust a nd fear of the
effects of feminine emotion for women in her w orld. This use of the sea image
shifts from its usage in the Sonnets, where it denoted a wider w orld of unfixity.
Even there , though , am bivalence remains around the image (see a bove p . 3 2 ) .
4 Cooper suggests that this reiterated but reversed action signifies Maria n's
leading Aurora across the class gulf sepa rating them. Aurora now g ives u p her
fiercely guarded autonomy to be led by a "common wom a n " , and so is i ntroduced
to female experience and sisterhood (Woman 1 73-7 4). See also Leighton, Eliza beth
1 5 5 , and Merm i n , O rigins 1 9 3 . This reading is deve loped i n Cha pter Six.
5 Gilbert reads this dream vision d ifferently: i n the first a ssociation of
R om ne y w ith the ocean, G i l bert perceives EBB's fantasy reconstruction of Bro, her
drowned younger brother , returning from the deep. Bro, l i ke R o bert Browning , is the
the " brother-reader who can at last com prehend the revisionary m other tongue in
which the w oman poet speaks and writes" (Gil bert 206-0 7 ) . Romney, coming from
the deep l i ke this, demonstrates his tra nsformation from a patriarch into a nother
brother-reader. Mermin sim ply reads this vision as consolidating Aurora as
"speaking subject whose desire el icits its object " : R om ney the sexy sea-god
a p pears (Origins 1 8 9-90 ) . Both useful readings do n ot take into sufficient account
the treacherous nature of the sea-king figure, nor Aurora 's anxiety i n the image.
Christine Sutphin d oes n ote that anxiety in this image of sexuality: " Heterosexual
l ove is still very m uch a power struggle i n Aurora's vie w " ( 5 1 ) .
6 See also 1 : 6 5-70; 46 5-70; V l : 390-94; 8 6 3-6 5 ; 1 1 1 0- 1 8 .
220
7 John Wool ford demonstrates A urora 's R oma ntic belief, reflected i n these
l ines, that repudiates past learning and holds that truth is an i nner experience,
occurring within "the l ocus of personal cognition, and outside the networks of
history" ( " Natural and Spiritua l " 1 5 ) . He also points to the use of nature as the
"symbology of G od " , the means by which the R omantic poet ostensi bly reaches the
spiritual . Aurora 's story i n Book I, and her account of Maria n 's childhood , reflects
this use of nature as the path to the spiritual . The a p prehension that such a
philosophy rests on a dualistic division of the personal and public, self and other ,
transcendant and i m manent, is suggested in Woolford 's analysis w i t h h i s reference
to the Victorian anxiety a bout R omantic individualism , and a m ovement towards
collectivism and recog nition of other subjectivities. But Wool ford d oes n ot see that
these dual isms are precisely Aurora 's problem , l ocking her into a m ode of thi nking
that demands rejection of one or the other (see below p . 205 ff) . The same problem
a rises out of Reynolds' discussion of the effeminisation of Victorian poetry (see
a bove p . 1 50; 1 7 2 , note 1 4) ) .
8 The same image i s later used for Marian, when Aurora searches for her i n
Pa ris. Giving her descri ption o f Marian t o the police, Aurora de picts Maria n's hair
w orn low on the brow , " As if it were an iron crown and pressed " (VI :40 1 ). Christ
w ore thorns, Mari a n an iron crow n : both are the martyred victims of their cultures.
9 " Caesar g ives an account of the ritual human sacrifice supervised by the
Druids, but he describes the huge idol i n which the victi ms were burnt as being
made of woven twigs, not of brass " (Reynolds 609; endnote to 1 1 1 : 1 7 2-74) .
Steinmetz also notes these lines with a similar read i ng ( " Beyond " 34-3 5 ) . David's
exposition of an i magery of socia l wounding clearly relates to the imagery of d eath
described in this section (I ntellectual 1 2 2 ) .
10
Leighton reads these l i nes a s Aurora 's continuing attempt to bury her
" Dead " , s peci fical l y her l ost father figure a nd Muse, whose a bsence i s a silent echo
of l ost childhood definition.
11
Such a reading d iverges from Gil bert's a p prehension of Italy as the land
of the matri a , where t h e "redeemed beings" Aurora , R om ney a nd Marian find their
" Easter" , their "new day" (Gilbert 207 ) . While new perspectives a re clearly possible
i n Italy for these " Eng lish-bred " victims, Italy itself is no promised land , as Gil bert
acknowledges in her final comments ( 2 0 9 ) . Even Aurora , ltalian-born, realises this
when she finds her old home occupied by Italian peasants . In a m emorable little
vignette , A urora describes the peasant g irl sitting in the doorway plaiting straw , her
black hair " strained away" and "too heavy" eyes "dropped and lifted " to where the
" lads were busy with their staves/ In shout and laughter, stri p pi ng every bough " of
the m u l berry tree " ba re as w i nter" (VI I : 1 1 30-3 7 ) . Aurora is horrified by the ravaging
a nd consuming of the tree, but also - as her weighted description i ndicates - by the
roles that are bei ng played i n this acti on: the passive , restricted girl and the
cheerful , active males. As Leighton a lso remarks, "To interpret the episode as an
ideological statement a bout the patriarchal house being taken over by 'female
fertility sym bols' , as Sandra Gil bert does, is to miss the emotional point. Aurora is
a ppalled a nd stunned by what she sees . . . the total fail ure of an old , idyllic world
of childhood . . . and in their place . . . the crudely utilitarian rule of trade and wealth"
(Eliza beth 1 37 ) . Leighton herself, though , m isses Aurora 's continuing unha ppi ness.
Her assertion that " Aurora is chang e d [ , ] no l onger nostalgic, lonely and haunted "
( 1 3 9 ) after this visit d oes not tally with the closing l ines of Book VI I .
221
1 2 M ost commentators have a lso noted this central conflict i n Aurora 's
narration, but very few consider the structure sustaining her problem, or the
possibility of reworking that structure . Cooper describes Aurora assuming "the
identity of subject and (male) poet, rather than of object and w oma n " (Woman
1 5 8 ) , and Mermin w rites in similar terms of male watcher and female art object
(Origins 1 88-90). Both decide that the poem c l oses with a simple i nversion of the
d ualism : Aurora recovers her femaleness but remains the subject speaker, and
R omney the m use-object. Edmond uses Aurora 's imagery to show how she
"confuses" definitions of femininity a nd masculinity ( 1 54-5 7 ) , but Reynolds comes
closest to describing the construction of female self as negative o pposition,
h owever without offering any substantial ela boration or explanation (Aurora 4 7-48 ) .
1 3 Nina Auerbach states: " Even the best o f m e n are excluded from this G od­
end owed authority of true w omanhood : G od obligingly a bd icates his conventional
fatherhood t o legitimize a mother's self-completeness. As Marian is to her child, so
is Aurora to her poe m . Both women are the only begetters, the sol e , self­
c onsecrating a uthorities" (Romantic 1 0 2 ) .
1 4 See Chapter S i x for a fuller expositi on o f this gendering . M ost other
com mentators also point to the m other's portrait as representing Aurora 's fears
a bout femininity and particularly maternity. Barbara Gelpi sees it as a " strange
piling-up of a m biva lent and paradoxical images" of w omanhood (Gelpi 3 8 ) , a nd
Dolores Rosenblum ( " Face " 3 2 1 - 2 8 ) , Leighton (Eliza beth 1 2 1 ) , Cooper (Woman
1 5 6 ) , Mermin O rigins 1 5 1 ) and Reynolds (Aurora 3 8 ) concur. There is less
discussion on the way Aurora 's reading of the portrait i s also a self-reading .
Stephenson w rites that "Aurora begins to view women as a bunch of m oral and
sexual splinters . . . - n ot as something she identifies with, but as something to be
viewed and a nalyzed from a distance " ( Poetry 9 6 ) . Stephenson's reading fails to
note the effect this viewpoint has on Aurora , who is also reading hersel f as a
female i n the portrait: she expe riences self-disconnection a nd a l ienation.
,
1 5 Cooper also l ists some of these connections, and m a kes an i nteresting
com parison between the m other's depiction in the portrait, a nd Lady Waldemar's
a p pearance at Lord H owe's party. Presumably the latter comparison accentuates
treacherous m aternity (Woman 1 5 7 ) .
16
Cf. " Be rtha in the Lane " ( Forster, Selected Poems 1 5 1 ), where a feminine
inheritance i s passed on from m other to daughter. The inheritance entails self-denial
and self-sacrifice: a giving-up of hope, l ove and eventually life . The final gift to the
d a ug hter is therefore death. Chapter Six exami nes the maternal death i n Aurora
Leigh m ore fully.
1 7 The c onstruction of the subject, a nd of meaning , depends u pon the
suppression of the o bject, or of other meanings. I n l ri garayan terms, this i s the law
of the one i n o pe ration: a l l that is n ot of the one (i.e. the other) i s excluded as being
" not one " . Hence her famous w ork punningly entitled This Sex Which I s Not O n e ,
w h i c h m oves from t h e woman's a p parent " lack" ( of t h e phal lus) to t h e woman's
multiplicity of sexuality - not e ither/ or but many.
222
1 8 Describing the Sa ussurean acc ount of languag e , Antony Easthope outlines
the function of the syntag matic and paradigmatic axes which ena ble chains of
words to have mea n i n g . This meaning is based on the exclusion of other possi ble
m eanings: "a signifier . . . is there, present for the subject . . . only as a result of the
a bsence of others against which it is differentially defined ( because , i n other w ords,
i n order to say /big/ we positively don't say /pig/, /dig/ or /gig/ etc . ) " . And later:
"All of these absences and d ependencies which have to be barred in order for
meaning to take place c onstitute what Lacan designates as the Other. The presence
of meaning along the syntagmatic chain necessa rily d e pends upon the a bsence of
the Other, the rest of l a ng uage " (Easthope 3 6-3 7 ) . The repressi on of these other
potential meanings " p roduces" the unconscious: Lacan's fusion of the Freudian
repressed other and the Saussurean " outside d iscourse " . Differentiation i s quickly
made political : Freud includes woman i n his " other" , and so H e l e me Cixous brings
all these ideas together to point out how "Thought has a lways w orked by
opposition . . . By d u a l , hierarchized [sic] oppositions" (Marks and d e Courtivron 9 1 ).
1 9 Edmond lists some uses of the writing metaphor i n Aurora Leiqh ( 1 5 0 ) .
2 ° F o r discussions concerning the complex time frames o f A urora Leigh , see
C. Castan's artic l e , " Structura l Problems and the Poetry of Aurora Leigh " , a n d m ore
recently Reynold (Aurora 28-3 2 ) .
2 1 See line 707 of Book VI I : "While I l ive self-despised for being m yself " . Or
1 . 5 1 3 , where Marian looks at her as if, Aurora says, " I too were somethi ng " . A urora
to herself is nothin g .
2 2 Reynolds' edition of Aurora Leiqh , with its superb critical introducti on,
became ava ilable only after much of this thesis had been written . Many of the
a rguments are consistent with my own read ing, a lthough there a re significant
differences i n overa l l focus, as will become evident.
23 Travelling in the tra i n with Marian and the child to Italy, Aurora describes
her feelings of near madness (she believes that R omney has married Lad y
Waldemar) , and t h e struggle to rema in in control f o r Marian's sa ke. She remarks:
" [ I ) recovered what I called myself" (VI I :4 1 6 ) .
24 Much o f David 's thesis a bout EBB rests on such a bsolutist readings. David
asserts that EBB was not a proto-feminist but a conservative , e litist intellectual
whose anti-middleclass, a nti-social ist, traditionalist idealism rendered her a w i l ling
" Servant of Patriarchy" ( I ntellectual 1 43 ) . She bases this readi ng upon
unquestioned claims, for exa m ple that EBB modelled her career a nd poetics upon
traditionally male l ines. This may i nitially have been so, but such a claim ig nores a
wealth of readings that demonstrate how EBB's reworking of 'male' g enres effected
real chal lenges to both genre and gender boundaries. Similarly, David consistently
reads EBB's poetry at face value, ignoring any possi bility of irony, subtexts, or even
at times employment of personae. Such set and summary m odes of a p proaching
EBB's poetry (in what is otherwise often a fascinating a nd highly original
interpretation) refuse to allow the subversive elements which I am arguing for in
E BB's works.
25 Reynolds, A urora 5 9 8 ; footnote to 1 : 8 2 8 .
223
26
,,
See Gil bert and G u bar, Madwoman. Helen Cooper's discussion of this
issue in her i ntrod uction is particularly a p posite (Woman 1 - 1 1 ) .
27
Mermin believes that Aurora reworks the conventional image of poets
' giving birth' to poems to express her doubts a bout maternity: she becomes "the
m u rderous poet-mother of stil l born children " . Mermin concludes that this reworked
image reflects Aurora 's " realization " that "the satisfactions of art do n ot suffice for
life " ( Origins 1 9 6 ) . I would argue that the image is m ore a reflection of the
stultifying dualisms of Aurora 's culture .
28
I n these lines Aurora assumes a connection between personal life and
writing - the w oman is the poe m . She thus reiterates the conventional structures
that place w oman as art object, even if of her own creation (see Reynolds, Aurora
2; Mermi n , O rigins 1 8 8-8 9 ; 2 1 0- 1 1 ; also Mermin , " Genre" 1 0 : " [Aurora] both
spea ks and is the poem whose name is also her own, and she spends a l ot of time
trying to disting uish between her poems and herself " ) . Aurora comes to realise that
a s the w oman exceeds the poe m , so the poem exceeds the woman; it is grounded
i n her experience but exceeds that experience . See Romney's role i n revealing this
point at V l l l : 5 9 9ff.
2 9 The same acceptance of d ualisms, although in a different context, occurs
in David 's readi ng of EBB, which preserves ideas of what constitutes 'male' and
'female' poetic forms and images, without seeing that Aurora effectively dissolves
such distinctions, a nd uses 'male' for 'female' (see I ntellectual 1 1 6 ) .
30 The R ose o f Sharon, from the Bible's Song o f Songs, i s the name the main
l over-spea ker of that book gives her/himself. The genders of the speakers are never
clear in the S ong of Songs, and delineating the i nterchanges between them is the
focus of m uch d e bate . l t is precisely this point that makes the R ose of Sharon, a nd
i nd eed the whole bi blical book, such a potent image for the i nterchanging,
passionate l ove that is descri bed in Book I X of Aurora Leigh . The male a nd female
spea kers cross over and merge i n the Song of Songs; m oreover , this m ost i ntimate
a nd personal of songs also i nvolves a public chorus, which also merges into the
d iscourse . (Susan Zimmerman cites the Song of Songs as the m odel for the
S onnets, which she reads as a marriage poe m , and she convincingly shows the
similarity in language between the two works [ 7 6ff] . )
3 1 Mermi n also discusses the cele bration o f work (O rigins 2 1 3 ) , but Davi d ,
w orking from a position that assumes d ualist distinctions, sees this w o r k ethic a s
sinister, placing t h e w oman " i n service to G o d , manki nd , a n d man" ( I ntellectual
1 55).
3 2 Christine Sutphin reads Aurora Leigh as a fusion of "two d i fferent m oral
perspectives, one based on an ethic of care [for others] a nd one based on an ethic
of individual rights" (44 ) . According to her theoretical source, whereas w omen are
m ore l i kely t o base their m orality on the former ethic, men operate on the latter;
a nd they discount w omen's m orality as i m mature . Sutphin argues that Aurora 's
story is revoluti onary because it dares to combine the two m oralities: " Aurora d oes
not give up her self when she marries, but creates a self in which a rtistic
achievement and care for another can be fuse d " (44).
224
33 "Wards" of line 9 1 8 is gl ossed variously in the O E D as defences , or
places needing guards, such as a prison. These definitions a re highly suggestive:
they i m pl y that the areas that Aurora is going to li berate or open out are guarded
a reas, but also prisons. As a descri ption of the rigi d , petrifying i nstitutions and
structures of Aurora 's worl d , these definitions are entirely a pt.
34 Toril Moi ta kes the same point from Derrida: " But if, as Derrida has
argued , we are stil l living under the reign of meta physics, it is im possi ble to
produce new concepts untainted by the meta physics of presence . This is why he
sees deconstruction as an activity rather than as a new 'theory'. Deconstruction
is in other words self-confessedly parasitic upon the metaphysical discourses it is
out to subvert " ( 1 3 9 ) .
225
C H APTER SIX
R E PO SITING T H E FEMALE
The dilemma that cl osed both Chapter Five on Aurora Leigh and the
Sonnets is rel ocated in the fusion of post-structuralist and psychoana l ytical
feminist theories. Is it possible to posit an existence or d iscourse outside the
hegemonic structures of our culture ? If my language-constructed consci ousness
is already written by patriarchal discourses, will any other discourse or existence
be representa ble ? 1
Certainly feminists such as Luce l rigaray and H e l e ne Cixous would
challenge the supremacy of a ( Lacanian) patriarchal Symbolic O rder. 2 For
l rigaray, the Lacanian reading of human development enacts patriarchal
su ppression of alternative readings which may allow another " order " . Lacan
assumes that there is only one la nguage system , from which women are
excluded under the phallogocentric distinction that man is l a nguage and woman
is body. She is therefore outside language , the other. Cixous writes that a
woman d oes not recog nise her so-ca lled "lack" until the male i nforms her of it:
"Without him she 'd remain i n a state of d istressing and distressed
undifferentiation, un bordered , unorganized , 'unpoliced ' by the pha llus . . .
incoherent, chaotic and em bedded i n the I maginary i n her ignorance of the Law
of the Signifier" - which is the Father's law of the primacy of the phallus
( " Castrati on" 46). The c ontradictions inherent i n the phallogocentric argument
are rarely acknowledged by patriarchy, let alone canvassed . The woman m ust be
brought out of the Imaginary as part of her female d evel opment, schooled into
the Sym bolic. But i n mascul i ne terms she forever remains i n the I maginary ,
despite t h i s socialisati on: s h e is consigned to t h e place o f mystery (com pare
Freud's comments i n his essay "On Femininity " : " women . . . you yourselves are
the problem " ; "the riddle o f femininity"; " insufficiently understood " etc. [ Freud
1 1 3ft, m y emphasis ] ) . Her l ocation is epitomised by her silence: though she
talks ( "chatter") she d oes not spea k, as women have nothing to say within
masculine d iscourse . Women "always inhabit the place of silence , or at m ost
226
m a ke it echo with their si nging . And neither is to their benefit, for they remain
outside knowledge" - knowledge being the sign of the patriarchal Symbolic
(Cixous, Castration 4 9 ) .
S u c h a process o f exclusion recalls t h e double denial that E B B faces i n
t h e S onnets, where women poets a r e first denied a l l d iscourse except l ove, and
then d enied that d iscourse as wel l , being relegated to the place of the poetess,
outside the discourse of 'rea l ' poetry. I n the more profound psychoanalytical
process, thoug h , the critical contrad iction remains: if there is n o outsid e
textual ity, outsid e l a ng uage , how can w o m e n be placed o u t "there " ? The
process is thus revealed as being less a bout socialising w omen and m ore a bout
attem pting to erase them altogether by l osing them in an untheorizable place ,
dropping them down a linguistic black hol e . (Toril Moi d escri bes this defi nition of
femininity as " non-Being" [ 1 6 6 ] . ) Finally, though, women d o exist, and their
presence and conti nuing survival despite these attem pts to dis-l ocate them
sugg ests that there are d i fferent texts of existence . 3
Psychoanalytical theory has traditionally read the recentl y-theorised
dialectical relationship between the self/ one and the other as a hierarchical
dualism . Freud 's consci ous or Lacan and Kristeva 's symbolic a re shown to be
underpinned by, and i nterfused with, the repressed unconscious: the Lacanian
I ma gi nary or Kristeva 's semioti c . Yet any dia lectic is potentia lly a dualism ,
i nsofar a s the semiotic is repressed and denied by the privileged sym bolic. The
( Kristeva n ) symbolic i s sense , meaning , order: the semi otic non-sense ,
polysemic, disordered . Can the semi otic be al l owed a position so that existence
is n o l onger divided between semiotic babble and symbolic meaning , but l ocated
a mong different discourses? Kristevan theory comes closest to such a
possibility, in its em phasis on positional ity. While Kristeva 's chora - the pre­
Oedipal, sem i otic 'space' of heterogenous articulation - is repressed under the
Sym bolic O rder, when its "sem iotic continuum " is split to allow signification,
nevertheless its " pulsions" [sic] re main to "pressure " symbolic language ( Moi
1 6 2 ) . M oreover, Kristeva i nsists that the l ocating of woman as excess 'other' to
the sym bolic order is l ess a matter of essence than of positionality: femininity,
l i ke the semiotic, 1s seen as marginal and d isru ptive to patriarchy. In other
227
words, all positions are signs, n ot essences, and women can use their a l l ocated
definition of marginality to em phasise difference . Women become dissidents. 4
·
Quite how such d issidence operates in practice is always the stumbl ing
block, w orking as women do within symbolic assum ptions of fixed meaning and
syntactic order. The French feminists turn to the avant garde writers - J oyce ,
Mallarm � - t o find these other discourses existing . But as l ong as we work
within the hierarchica l , d ual ist modes of a phallocentric sym bolic, such
discourses will al ways be read as 'other ' , a nd therefore as foreign, not the ' one ' .
And they will b e re pressed .
EBB's two great poems are l ocated within this dilemma . Within the
Sonnets, the speaker consta ntly tries to fig ure a n ' other' love , but is constantly
stymied by her own i nclusion , both psychically and l i nguistica l l y , within the
structures of her culture . As she uses the destabil ising nature of language 5 to
show the arbitrary privileging of the hegemony, she finds she cannot remove
that hegemony, remaining part of it. Similarly, Aurora Leigh cannot remove
herself from the Law of the Father in her society, even though she and R omney
attem pt a linguistic construction of the ' other' at the cl ose of the poe m . lt
becomes clear, throug h considering the poems in these terms, that they demand
a n examination of origins: where and how the Symbolic and I maginary achieve
their articulations and status. 6
This final chapter, the n , considers Aurora Leigh as a woman's
inauguration i nto the Symbolic Order: 7 her creation as (gendered)
c onsciousness. A brief l ook at Freudian and Lacanian structures will show how
(Western) i ndividuals a re written into these same structures from birth . Such a
writing requires certa in actions and prohi bitions that inevita bly d isadvantage and
entrap females. Aurora 's life can be read as exemplifying this narrative, and yet
m oving beyond it by attem pting to create a different narrative that allows her
broader defi nitions of femaleness .
228
i.
An overview of Freudian/ Lacanian theory
T oril Moi writes:
The Oedipal c risis re presents the [child's] entry into the Sym bolic
O rder. This entry is also li nked to the acquisition of language. In
the Oedipa l crisis the father splits u p the dyadic unity between the
m other and child and forbids the child further access t o the
m other and the m other's body. The phallus, re presenting the Law
of the Father (or the threat of castration ) , thus comes to signify
separation and l oss to the child. The l oss or lack suffered is the
l oss of the maternal body, a nd from now on the desire for the
m other or the imaginary unity with her must be repressed. This
first repression is what Lacan calls the primary re pression and it is
this primary repression that opens up the unconscious.
( Moi 9 9 )
Freud, of course , w a s thinking primarily about t h e male child when he e l a borated
these theories. For the male child , this prohibition of the mother's body was
acce pta ble, beca use the male then moved into full "normal " heterosexuality, in
which he could fraudulently " rega in" his mother's body by marrying , thus
perpetuating the human race and fulfilling primal desire. But the position of the
female child was m ore problemati c : her movement from desiring unity with the
m other to rejecting the m other and desiring the father was necessary for the
smooth running of the heterosexual c ontract. But this meant that the w oman
was forever cut off from that primal relationshi p, that "dyadic unity" between
m other a nd chil d . I nstead, she was required to hate her m other (and by
extension other females) so as to m a ke the male the object of her desire. A n
ela boration o f these i ssues follows.
The a p prehension of sepa ration a nd the objectification of the self, both of
which occur as the infant perceives the mother as lost or a part, a re predicated
u pon desire. The child desi res to be united with the mother (a position which
w ould be paradoxical l y a death of self, a dissolution of differenc e ) . The phallus
becomes the sign for this desire : as J uliet Mitchell writes, "The phallus is the
very mark of human desire; it is the expression of the wish for what is a bsent,
for reunion (initially with the m other) " (Mitchell 3 9 5 ) . l t is the sign for the object
of desire - which is not necessarily the penis. That elision (between pha llus a nd
penis) is Freud's invention (and is pursued by Lacan ) : in a n androcentric culture
229
the pha llus - the symbol for the ( l ost) object of desire upon which consci ousness
is predicated - is g iven male symbolism.
The desire to return to the mother is the Oedipa l crisis. I n the male child,
the boy desires the mother a nd wants to kill the father, but he is fearful of a nd
so restrained by the father who has the power, both to possess the mother and
to castrate the boy. The father thus represents to the child the law of society:
the law of the (sym bolic) father (Freud's supereg o). 8 The Oedipal crisis is thus
resolved by the castration complex: " I n submitting to the com pletely unreal
possi bility of castration the little boy acknowledges the situation and learns that
one day he, too, will acced e to the father's function" ( Mitchell 3 9 7 ) . He is
pacified and socialise d .
But what o f the female child ? She w i l l never accede to that functi on; she
d oes not possess the now penile pha llus. The pre-Oedipal desire for - and
identification with - her m other must be overc ome by an Oedipal desire to get rid
of the m other and have the father. How to preci pitate the female child i nto this
Oedipa l phase (from which she must never recover) ? Freud decides that the
child develops hate for her mother based on the child's a p prehension of her own
castrati on, and her blaming of the equally castrated m other for this unfortunate
state of lack. 9 The child then m oves her desire to the father who does possess
the phallus, because she bel ieves that she will gain the phallus through husband
a nd (male) ba by. Thus the female's development is directly opposite to the
m a l e ' s : for her the "castration complex pre pares for the Oedi pus complex
instead of destroying it" ( Freud 1 2 9 ) , and her i ndefinite stay in the Oedipal stage
renders her superego (her sense of the law of the father) wea k.
Luce l rigaray's interrog ation of Freud 's theories in Speculum of the Other
Woman, a tour de force of analytical exposure, is based on her analysis of the
assumption at the heart of Freudian (and Laca nian) theory: the l ogic of the one .
I f the male org a n is the phallus , the !egocentric object of desire, then anything
else, such as female genitalia, is the not-one , the other - or, as l rigaray titles it,
"The Blind S pot of a n Old Dream of Symmetry" . Freud " defines sexual
differences as a function of the a priori of the same, having recourse . . . to the
age-old processe s : analogy, com parison, symmetry, dichotomic oppositions, and
230
so o n " ( l rigaray, Speculum 2 8 ) . Within this function, one and plural are m utually
exclusive : if there is plurality, there cannot be a d istinct, privileged one . So
plurality m ust be denied in order to maintain that privileged position for the male
phallus. Thus Freud's conclusions a bout fema l e devel opment emerg e from his
i nterpretation that the female lacks the penis, the currency of value. And this
i nterpretation means that he must conceive a deve lopment for female children
that e ntails a wrenching away from original relationships - a wrenching not
required for male children.
l rigaray (and Nancy Chodorow, and other feminist theorists) have
exposed this argument from the logic of the one , in order to posit alternatives to
that l a w , and to refocus attention on that pre-O edipal relationship between
m other and da ug hter, which even Fre ud admits is vita l and complex. I s a
recapturing of that relationship possi ble ? Can we expl ore new ways of maternal­
d aughter relations within consciousness ? And if so, will these relationships offer
new definitions and roles for women, previ ously defined by masculine
currencies?
Aurora Leigh offers a n attem pt at this very project. The poem reworks
Aurora 's socialisati on into traditional female deve l opment, a socialisation which
is found wantin g . Consequently Aurora pursues new relationships with a n
alm ost pre-Oedipa l mother figure ( Italy), a n d fina lly revises masculine a n d
fem i nine roles a nd definitions. "Woma n " , in these n e w terms, becomes a new
culture of plurality.
ii. The death of the mother
' N ormal' female development requires a female child's m ovement into
heterosexuality, away from the l ove of the m other figure . Thus, the daughter
m ust be cut off from the m other: a l oss or death of her origins. Freud d e picts
this as a ' naturally-deve l oping' hatred; rather it is a prohi bition placed u pon the
little g irl in order to perpetuate the system . I nstea d she m ust become a nother
place of origin - a m other - for the boy/man, who searches for union with a
231
wife/m other. But she herself loses her origins. Aurora suggests the profund ity of
such l oss in Book V:
Who loves me? Dearest father, - mother sweet, I spea k the names out sometimes by myself,
And make the silence shiver. They sound strange,
As Hindosta nee to a n l nd-born man
Accustomed many years to Engl ish speech;
O r lovely poet-w ords grown obsolete,
Which will not leave off singing . Up in heaven
I have my father, - with my mother's face
Beside him in a blotch of heavenly l ight;
No m ore for earth 's fa miliar, household use,
No m ore .
(V: 540-50)
Aurora 's origins are lost to her, like a forg otten la nguage whose echoes haunt.
This is l i ke the language of Kristeva 's semiotic, pulsations which sti r basic
mem ories of pre-Oedipal existence, incapable of recovery. Aurora refers to both
parents as l ost here , and yet the real absence is the mother : she cannot even be
imagi ned . Her face is a " blotch " of heavenly li ght: she is an onymous and
unre presenta ble. Aurora 's whole life is spent trying to reca pture the a bsent
maternal relationship. 1 0
Aurora 's early life replays the initial trauma of loss . Book I begins with a
reference to the pre-Oedipa l , as Aurora attempts to recall its " murmurs " .
I have not s o fa r left the coasts of life
To travel inland , that I cannot hear
That m urmur of the outer I nfinite
Which unweaned ba bies smile at in their sleep
When w ondered at for smiling; not so far,
But still I catch my mother at her post
Beside the nursery door, with finger up,
" Hush, hush - here 's too much noise ! " while her
sweet eyes
Lea p forward , taking pa rt against her word
In the child's riot.
(1: 1 0- 1 9)
While this passage is traditiona lly read as a Wordsworthian reference to the pre­
conscious i nfinite of the I m m ortal ity Ode, 1 1 the overt maternal imagery raises
the far m ore suggestive possi bility that it may be read as a reference to the pre­
O ed i pal union between m other and child . Aurora as an ad ult sti l l s feels the
echoes of that relationship, hinted at by babies on their m others' breasts:
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unseparated, satisfied , at peace. That maternal context continues in that even
when separation is required, the m other is still close, the bond still primary. The
child has been separated from the m other by the conventions of nursery and the
demands for (female) silence , yet the m other's " post " is as near as practicable ­
by the nursery door - and her will supports the child in its noise , even as she is
required to e nforce cultural inhibitions.
The adult Aurora a lso remem bers the next phase of the daughter's
experience: coming under the power of the Father. Cha pter Four has already
exa m i ned Aurora 's mem ory of her father's heavy hand u pon her hea d , stroking
the " poor hair d own " . The i ntroduction of this heavy note i n to the m other­
daughter relationship sym bolises the intervention of the third term of Lacanian
a na lysis , particularly as it is reca lled in relation to the loss of the m other: " Still I
sit a nd feel/ My father's slow hand , when she had left us both " ( 1 : 1 9-20 ) .
Aurora becomes a m other-de prived daughter.
My m other was a Fl orentine,
Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me
When scarcely I was four years old, m y l ife
A poor spark snatched up from a failing l a m p
Which went out therefore . She w a s w e a k and fra il;
She c ould not bea r the joy of giving life ,
The m other's ra pture slew her.
( 1 : 29-3 5 )
Aurora's interpretations and inferences are crucial here, a s the mother's l itera l
and presum a bl y natural death comes to represent a deeper, m ore sinister
process for the daughter. Firstly she im plies a n enforced separation, as her
m other's eyes were "shut from seeing" her. The m other is somehow prohi bited
from observing her four-year-old daughter (at the time of her emergence from
the pre-oedipal into the gendered symbolic order) . 1 2 Secondly, this separation
is portrayed as a natural or inevita ble pa rt of m otheri n g : the m other's "rapture "
actually preci pitates that separati on. Both Mermin and Leighton note this
connection. The mother's death " seems to have been somehow (not in any
o bvious way) a consequence of l ove " and Aurora fears that " m otherhood costs
a woman, figuratively or literally, her life" (Mermi n , O rigins 1 90; 1 94) . Leighton
adds, concerning line 3 5 , "lt is not a literal death in child birth which is referred
to here , but some vague excess of m otherly experience " ( Eliza beth 1 20 ) . Aurora
233
clearly bel ieves that the role re quired of maternity (under the culture of her time)
is self-excision from the child's life , and self-erasure. 1 3 The disturbing corrollary
of this second point, as Rod Edm onds note ( 1 46), is Aurora 's im plication that
her m other's death is the daughter's fault. As the " poor spark snatched u p from
the failing l a m p " who "therefore " went out, Aurora portrays hersel f as parasitic
upon her m other, eventua lly ( unintentiona lly) killing her. 1 4 These lines, then,
are Aurora 's conscious articulation of the normally unconscious trauma of the
da ughter's Oedipal m ovement in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Aurora 's separation
from her m other, and her ensuing sense of mother-want, is fra ught with feelings
of maternal distrust and blame, fear of intervening forces a n d , m ost deeply,
guilt. The maternal death ma rks Aurora 's painful socialisation i nto pha l l ocentric
codes.
I f her kiss
Had le ft a longer weight upon my lips
l t might have stea died the uneasy breath ,
And reconciled and fraternised my soul
With the new order. As it was, indee d ,
I f e l t a m other-want a bout the world ,
And sti ll went see king , l i ke a bleating lamb
Left out at night in shutting up the fol d , As restless as a nest-deserted bird
Grown chill through somethi ng being away, though what
( 1 : 3 5-45 )
lt knows not.
The corollary o f this separation from the m other i s the female child's
e ntry i nto the Sym bolic O rder and the Father's Law. Aurora feels she is now
subject to a " new order" ( 3 9 ) which is intimidating and stra nge to the child . Her
m other's kiss might have steadied those fears; the maternal kiss that Aurora
remem bers m ost is the last kiss her father insisted the dying woman bestow
u pon the child, symbolising her bequest of femininity (1: 1 64-6 6 ) . Such a kiss
w ould i ndeed have "reconciled and fraternised " the daughter to the regulations
and requirements of that culture. But Aurora is, like all women under Western
patriarchy, a disenfranchised daughter, lacking self-definition and assurance
because of the ma ndatory " mother-wa nt" . She does not have a place within the
"fol d " of patriarchy, as she is not of the flock. Moreover, she has n ot even the
l a nguage to articulate what is l ost. This inarticulacy is the final torture i n the
development of women, l rigaray argues. Commodities cannot speak in the
m a r ketplace a nd have no language. And even if they a re emanci pated enough to
234
acquire language, how can something be represented that is outside the scope
of representati on? Under the law of the self-same, any " other" is a blind spot ­
i m possi ble to see and so assumed not to exist . lt cannot be re presented because
it d oes n ot officially exist (Speculum 1 1 8- 1 9 ) . Aurora 's feeling of l oss cannot
therefore be articulated beyond the vague sense of a " m other-want " .
With the death of the m other and the m ovement i nto the rea l m of the
Father, the " m other" is reduced to a picture, a lifeless ci pher carrying the
interpretati ons and rewritings of patriarchy. Now the m other is fearful and
fascinating, a threat to the terrified female child. Aurora crouches i n front of her
mother's portrait for hours, " half in terror, half/ I n a d oratio n " ( 1 : 1 37-3 8 ) , reading
into the picture all the d iscourses she is learning in this " new order " . As
suggested in Chapter Five, Aurora searches the picture for clues a bout herself as
much as for clues a bout her m other. This primal relationship is where the female
child defines herself as woma n . Aurora writes:
All which images,
Concentred on the picture , g lassed themselves
Before my med itative child hood , a s
The incoherencies o f change and death
Are re presented fully, mixed and merged,
In the sm ooth fa ir mystery of perpetual Life .
( 1 : 1 68-73)
The images of her own creati on glass or reflect Aurora back to herself: she does
not see her mother, only patriarchy's re presentations of femininity. And those
representations reiterate the twin conti ngencies of female d evel opment: change
and death. The m ove from m other l ove a nd identification to m other d istrust, and
the resulting death of the m other (and the wom a n ) , is mixed i nto the " m ystery"
of Life . The daughter's experience is both incoherent and m ysterious to her.
Significantly, the only family portrait that R om ney Leig h saves from his
burning a ncestral home is of another mother figure for Aurora :
N ot one was rescued , save the Lady Maud ,
Who threw you d own , that morning you were born,
The undeniable l ineal m outh and chin
To wear for ever for her g racious sa ke,
For which g ood deed I saved her[. . . ]
(VI I I : 9 5 5-59)
235
Aurora is once m ore offered the m irror to see herself as society defines her: one
of the bea utiful and " proud a ncestra l Leig hs" (VI I I : 9 50 ) , a ppropriate wife for
Romney. Aurora never knows the woman whose bl ood she shares, only her
culture ' s a p propriati on and representation of "the Lady Maud " . I ronica lly, this is
the only picture saved : R omney lets the rest of the paternal inheritance go up in
smoke . Sa ndra G i l bert infers that " his saving of the picture suggests also that
the power of the Leighs has not been destroyed but instead tra nsferred to 'a
fairy bride from Italy' ( I X : 7 6 6 ) , who has now become the true heir and ' head ' of
the family" ( 2 0 6 ) . This read ing assumes the recovery of the maternal , but the
sad irony here is that the portra it is only a representation, a socialised cipher for
the mother that was. Aurora may be inheriting the new worl d , but her m other
and prehistory are stil l lost.
Aurora 's account of her l ost m other in Book I m oves almost immediately
into an account of her father, as the new order succeeds the old . And fathers
have " w i l ls m ore consciously responsible " , or as a n earlier manuscri pt had it,
" m ore predictive will . . [& will m ore consciously administrative ) " ( Reynolds,
.
Aurora 1 6 6 ) . The human father must re present the Law of the sym bolic Father;
it is his responsi bility to be the third term breaking the dyadic unity of mother
and daughter. Although i n strict terms this d isruption occurs at the i nfant stage,
Aurora 's life constantly replays the exertion of will by father re presentatives (see
Cha pter Four ) . They m ust ad minister laws, to use the verb of the earlier
manuscri pt. O r be " p redictive " : having the power to foretel l , to prophesy - in
this case, to ordain a daughter's life and rol e .
The critical result o f t h e father's intervention is that the daug hter's
cathexis now theoretica l l y shifts from m other to father, who becomes the centre
a nd l ocus of desire for her. And this is surely true of Aurora , whose l ove for her
father succeeds her l ove for her m other. In Book V I I , when she returns to her
beloved Italy, she speaks with longing and sadness a bout her father:
How I heard
My father's step on that deserted ground ,
His voice along that silence , as he told
The names of bird and insect, tree and flower,
And all the presentati ons of the stars
Across Valdarno, interposing stil l
236
" My child , " " m y child . " When fathers say " m y chi l d , "
'Tis easier to conceive the universe ,
(VI I : 1 1 1 0- 1 8 )
And life's transitions d own the ste ps of law.
The father's w ord is l i ke G od ' s word : creating and naming the universe . H e
ma kes order a n d meaning f o r t h e chi l d , both o f surroundings a nd o f the child's
self. He places his ownershi p on the child , and all these paterna l abilities ena ble
the child to neg otiate l ife's transitions as preordained by the Law of the Father.
The simultaneous sense of security and yet d omination i n these lines
underscores the daug hter's position under the power of the father - " safe " as a
" bee shut i n a crystalline " , to quote the Sonnets (XV) .
J ust as paterna l infl uences are conti nuall y replayed i n Aurora Leiqh , so
are m aternal losses. Throughout Aurora 's life sepa rations from m others are
being refigured . The second time is Aurora 's remova l from Assunta and Italy:
I d o remember clearly, how there came
A stranger with authority, not right,
( I thought not) who commanded , caught m e up
From old Assunta 's neck; how, with a shriek,
She let m e g o,- while I , with ears too full
Of m y father's silence, to shriek back a word,
I n all a child's astonishment at grief
Stared at the wharf-edge where she stood a nd m oaned ,
My poor Assunta , where she stood a nd m oa ned !
The white walls, the blue hills, m y Italy,
Drawn backward from the shuddering steame r-deck,
Like one i n a nger drawing back her skirts
Which suppliants catch at. Then the bitter sea
I nexora bly pushed between us both,
And sweeping u p the ship of m y despair
( 1 : 223-38)
Threw us out as a pasture to the stars.
Again the Law of the Father, in this case the "stranger" (and, to a certain
extent, the sea ) , has intervened i n the m other-daughter bond to enforce what
Aurora sees as a m orally wrong separation. Assunta's pain i n these lines is like
the pain of child birth , the first separation of mother a nd chil d . She shrieks and
m oans, but the child cannot respond as she is too overwhelmed at the Father's
power i n doing this terri ble thing. Aurora never sees Assunta a g a i n : we are told
i n Book VII that " My old Assunta , too, was dead, was dead -1 0 land of all
men's past ! for me alone,/ l t would not mix its tenses" (VI I : 1 1 5 6-5 8 ) . Italy, the
237
re pository of so much Weste rn history, cannot give A urora her history bac k : this
m other is dead too, l i ke her biological mother, and c a nnot be recouped .
Even m ore poignantly, Italy herself, Aurora 's psychic m other, is " draw n
b a c k " from h e r child i n the a bove lines, as the " bitter sea " " i nexora bly"
i nterposes. So effective is the separation , that the child reads this drawing back
as anger directed toward herself: the mother now is seen as proud , hea rtless
and a loof. The mother's rea l feel i ngs at this separation a re plain to see i n
Assunta 's grief a nd pa i n , but , as in Aurora 's account o f her biological m other's
death, the female child takes upon herself the guilt_ for her m other's a nger ­
a nger rather directed at the bitter sea and authoritative stra nger.
The rewriting of maternity i n this exam ple (loving mother becomes cruel
m other) is a consequence of the required separation of the m other a nd daug hter
under Lacanian psychoanalysis. Maternity is cultura l l y defined in sim plisti c ,
appositi onal terms o f good a n d bad . 1 5 The good m other i s pure and Madonna­
like, passively sacrificing herself to her children and master/ husband (as in
A urora 's image of the fruitful vine that describes m others with "chubby c hildren
hang i n g " round their necks; such women are thus kept "low a nd wise" [ 1 1 : 5 1 61 8 ] ) . This cultura l l y-defined m other is effaced and redundant when children
grow up, and is eventually l ost. She becomes i nvisi ble. 1 6
Alternatively, because under a pha l l ocentric culture fem a les become rivals
for the male phallus, m others must com pete with their daughters for supremacy
within this econom y. So dramatically has the maternal relationship been
rewritten to fit into patriarchal terms, that the strong m otherly bond is replaced
with a deep distrust of fa lse m others . Aurora Leigh i s full of such m others , w h o
betray a nd mislead their da ughters into a buse . Dorothy Merm i n com prehensively
lists " the large company of rejecti ng mothers who crowd the pages of the
poem " (Origins 1 9 3-9 4 ) . Maria n's life offers one such exam ple. Her m other
ta kes " revenge" for her own " broken heart " on the daug hter, a nd Aurora 's
account of Marian's early childhood ( 1 1 1 : 8 6 5- 9 2 5 ) c onstantly returns to Marian's
lack of a right m other. The relationship has been warped and perverted under
the aegis of this culture : Marian feels none of the " m other's special patience " or
" irre pressive instinct " . We learn that Marian is a " poor weaned kid " ,
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em phasising the inevita ble physical separation that sig nifies the daughter's
psychic separation from the materna l . And when Marian envies merry R ose Bell
for a m other who lets her laugh, she is told by Rose: '"She lets me. She was
dug i nto the ground/ Six years since, I being but a yearling wean . / [. . . ] D on't you
wish/ You had one l i ke that?"' ( 1 1 1 : 9 2 1 -26) . Rose has been de prived ( " weaned " )
o f her m other from her first year; R ose 's " merriness " a band ons her t o
prostituti on and misery.
Marian's mother tries to prostitute Maria n , too, presumably because her
daug hter will fetch m ore than herself. Marian's response (and Aurora 's) indicts
this definition of " mother " :
The child [Marian] turned round
And looked u p piteous in the mother's face,
( Be sure that m other's death-bed will not want
Another devil to damn, than such a look)
"Oh, m other ! " then, with desperate glance to heaven,
"God, free me from my m other," she shrieked out,
"These m others are too dreadful . "
( I l l : 1 0 5 8-64)
The re petition of " mother" in these few lines focusses on Aurora's obsession
with the role. What is a m other? From her readings of her own m other's portrait
t o her i nterpretations of this scene, her confusion between her own " m other­
want" and her h orror at cultura l maternity is appa rent . Her bereft instincts
cannot be e quated with the way maternity operates in her society. She has l ost
her origins, but now m ust deal with foreign phallocentric inscri ptions of
maternity. The g ood/ bad mother opposition, like the other d ualisms in the
poe m , will eventually be broken down, but at this point Aurora perceives only
the two roles, and rejects both for arid non-maternity.
'Wicked ' m others are not confined to worki ng-class exa m ples. The poem
presents us with another false m other in Lady Waldemar, in whom m otherless
Marian perceives maternal wisd om. '"She wrapt me in her generous a rm s at
once , / And let me d ream a m oment how it feels/ To have a real m other, l i ke
some girls,"' says Marian (VI : 1 00 1 -04) . Lady Waldemar perceptively obliges
Marian with her "counsel " , and then w ith her "waiting-mai d " when Marian
" realises" she m ust leave England and not marry R om ney. The waiting-maid is to
239
offer pseud o-maternal solicitude to Maria n , but she becomes, i n Marian's terms,
a " Devi l 's da ug hter " (another motherless figure, with only a father - Sata n ) :
" A woman . . . hear m e , let me m a ke it plain, . . .
A woman . . . not a m onster . . . both her breasts
Made right to suckle ba bes . . . she took me off
A woman also, young a nd ignorant
And heavy with m y grief[ . . . ] "
(VI : 1 1 8 2-86)
Marian is a ppalled that a woman can so pervert the maternal role to use her
m aternity to corrupt and ruin a daughter. Like Aurora , Marian feels the m other­
want, the l oss central to fem inine definition , but l i ke Aurora she is horrified by
what her culture offers in place of the mother. Such " m others" enact patriarchal
values: the waiti ng-ma i d , we later lea r n , has a bsconded with the m oney
intended to c onvey Marian to Austra lia (VI I : 1 - 1 0; I X : 84-90 ) . U nder such
definitions, the woman's acti ons a re not surprisi n g : she did only what Maria n 's
own m other would have done - "A motherl y, right damnable good turn " (VI I : 1 0 ) .
Li ke Aurora 's aunt, another pseudo-mother, maternal relations a r e obliterated i n
t h e face o f patriarchal mercantile va lues. Marian concludes : '"When m others fail
us, can we hel p ourselves ?/ That's fatal ! "' (VI : 1 229-30 ) .
Little wonder that under such re writi ngs o f maternity, women (nota bly
Aurora ) distrust a nd denigrate each other. Romney notes hew Aurora
" sweep[s] " her sex "With somewhat bitter g usts " from her height far a bove
them , recognising her (proud ) denial of her own gender (VI I I : 202-0 3 ) . When
Aurora wanders Fl orence i n Book V I I , she happens upon Florentine women
praying i n the cathedra l . At fi rst she dismisses the m , imagining trivial
" womanly" petitions for the individuals she watches. One will be pra ying that
her l over Gigi m ight turn from her rival and l ook again at herself; a n other is so
old she has only the Madonna to gossi p with, a nd to bribe with candles so as to
win the lottery. Yet another is so hum p-backed a " thing " that the black kerchief
around her neck is, Aurora remarks, " S ole proof she had had a m other"
(VI I : 1 23 4 ) . For each, Aurora assumes an existence where m others and
daughters are remote , where women are rivals and where even the m other of
a l l , " Our Lady" Mary, m ust be cajoled and blackmailed for attention ( '"Would
sweetest Mary cheat her so[ ? ] ' " [VI I : 1 2 5 2 ] ) . At this point, Aurora simply
reiterates what the death of the mother means for w omen i n this culture: l oss of
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a n a p parently deep, instinctive and secure relationshi p, the related l oss of self­
ide ntity as a woman, and a n associated d isintegration of other female
relationships.
iii . The Freudian mother
Within Freudian interpretations, of course, these l osses are normal for
heterosexual reasons. Yet Freud also recognises the importance of the m aternal
relationship for daughters: "the phase of the affecti onate pre-Oedi pus
attachment [to the m other] is the decisive one for a woman's future : d uring it
preparations are made for the acquisition of the characteristics with which she
will later fulfil her role in the sexua l functi on and perform her i nvaluable social
tasks. lt is in this identificati on too that she acquires her attractiveness to a
man, whose O ed i pus attachment to his m other it kindles into passio n " ( Freud
1 34 ) . Thus even the unknown pre-Oedipal relationship is reinscribed within
phall ocentric ideology, as a school in which to learn fem i ni nity, Freudia n-style . In
this hermeneutical circle, where the only i nteger i s the male org a n , n o other way
of being is acknowledg ed. Females seeking to find other defi nitions of
femaleness from other m others are stymied from the start: a m other under Freud
is a pattern of heterosexual humiliation and penis-envy.
Consider the few m other-son relationships mentioned i n Aurora Leigh .
Aurora d escribes one with sarcasm in Book V, when Lord Howe offers a
nobleman suitor to Aurora . He describes this w ould-be husband to Aurora as a
" g ood son " , a descri ption Aurora seizes upon with scorn .
"To a m ost obedient m other. Born to wear
His father's shoes, he wears her husband's too:
I ndeed I 've heard it's touching . "
(V:8 84-8 6 )
The Freudian analysis is here fulfilled: t h e s o n succeeds to t h e father's place i n
law and in power over t h e m other/woman. Whether t h e sexual i nnuendo i s
justified is irrelevant. The s o n h a s succeeded t h e father, and t h e m other/woman
is confirmed a � the token of exchange and possession and a g rateful recipient of
the desired phal l ic treasure .
241
The other, more centra l m other-son relationship is that between Marian
a nd her i llegitimate son. Here, too, we see a playing-out of Freudian theories,
yet in ways that expose the fallacies of those theories. That Marian d otes on her
son with alm ost desperate attachment is obvious:
" Mine, m i ne , " she said . "I have as sure a right
As any glad proud m other i n the worl d ,
[ . . ] If she talks o f l a w ,
I t a l k o f la w ! I claim m y m other-dues
By law, - the law which now is para mount, The common law, by which the poor and wea k
Are trodden underfoot by vici ous men,
And loathed for ever after by the good . "
.
(VI : 6 6 1 -69)
Mari a n 's maternity is esta blished, as she only too clearl y knows, via her corrupt,
woma n-a busing society. She is a mother under " common law " , where by woman
is turned against woman out of desire for the man; where the wea k become
d upes for the powerful and greedy and objects of self-righteous scorn for the
" g ood " . U nder this l a w , which Leighton describes as " a social com m odity
affordable by the rich" ( " Because" 346 ) , Maria n's body, sexuality a nd maternity
are currency to be used . Yet even so, Marian sti ll delights in her maternity, in
her son as her own .
Com pare Freud : " A mother is only brought unlimited satisfaction b y her
relation to a son; this is a ltogether the most perfect, the m ost free from
a m bivalence of all human relati onships. A m other can transfer to her son the
am bition which she has been obliged to suppress i n herself, a nd she can expect
from him the satisfaction of all that has been left over in her of her masculinity
complex" (Freud 1 3 3 ) . Marian ' s son, then , gives Marian the phallus that she
herself does not have. This is no disappointing daughter (beca use 'lacking ' ) ; this
i s a future father, and Marian possesses h i m .
B u t w h o possesses whom ? T h e boy's control over h i s m other already
suggests his masculine power as a father to order the woman's existence .
Marian tells Aurora i n Book VI how she must woo her baby son, wearing '"A
sort of smile to please h i m "' , because he may not l i ke her if he sees her fretting .
As she demonstrates this for Aurora , the child laughs, a nd Marian cries: '" Ah,
ah! he laughs ! he l i kes m e' " . Turning to Aurora she exults that n o matter how
242
pure and great Aurora is, '"the child would keep to me,/ Would choose his poor
l ost Marian, l i ke m e best"' (VI : 700-23) . Aurora is seen as a rival for the male
child's affection: his choice bestows worth and honour.
Similarly, Aurora later descri bes the male child making demands of his
m other:
[ Marian] peeled a new fig from that purple heap
I n the g rass beside her, turning out the red
To feed her eager child (who sucked at it
With vehement lips across a gap of air
As he stood opposite , face and curls a-flame
With that last sun-ray, crying " give me, give , "
And stam ping with i m perious ba by-feet,
We're all born princes)[ . . . )
(VI I I : 8- 1 5 )
The scene i s bea utifully evoked, and yet i t has disturbing overtones. The m other
peels and exposes the heart of the l u.scious figs for the consumi ng male child ,
w h o demands satisfaction. He is "eager " , "vehement " , " i m perious " , portrayed
as a flaming sun-kin g . His m other, by contrast, is effaced in the scene: she is
the sacrificing , anonymous functi ona ry. Moreover , the i mage of the peeled ,
turned-out fig is suggestive of the female body: a plump m orsel that m ust be
exposed and sacrificed to the sucking l i ps of the male.
Marian's relationship with her son, whilst initially affirming her, now
effaces her. The m other has become the handmaid of the patriarch, even though
he i s yet a child . We are not all born princes : one has to be male to i nherit that
particular title . Eve n as she delights in being everything t o her son, Marian
comes to see how m others under patriarchy are eventually written out of
existence . I n rejecting Romney's proposal at the start of Book I X , she cites her
relationship with her son, a relationshi p which negates marriage for her.
" I 've room for no m ore children i n m y arms,
M y kisses are all melted on one mouth,
I would not push my darling to a stool
To dandle babies. Here's a hand shall keep
For ever clean without a marriage-rin g ,
T o tend m y boy until he cease to need
One steadyi ng finger of it, and desert
( N ot m iss) his mother's lap, to sit with men.
And when I miss him (not he m e ) , I 'll come
243
And say, ' N ow give me some of Romney's work,
To hel p your outcast orphans of the world
And comfort grief with grief . "'
( I X : 428-39)
Though , i n true Freud ian style , she is m other and pseudo-wife to her son - l oving
both maternally and erotically (melted kisses) - she also knows that she is l osing
that relationship. As the boy inherits the Father's law, the 'good m other'
disa ppears. She will miss him but, as she repeats, he will not m iss her. For the
same reason , we never hear of R omney's mother. She has ceased to exist .
Romney's (dead) father remains a potent fig ure in the poem , but she, whoever
she is or was, is nowhere. To repeat Aurora 's dou ble-edged remark from the
start of the poem, "So mothers have God 's license to be m issed" (1 : 64) .
As observed in Cha pter Four, Marian insists that she is dead psychica lly
and socially in the latter half of the poem . All she is, she tells Aurora, is a
mother: " 'The m other in me has survived the rest ' " (VI : 8 2 1 ) . With these words
Marian attem pts to escape or remove herself from patriarchy; she is no longer
an element within her society, nor is her 'unfathered' (except for God) child . She
linguistica l l y creates a maternal world for both her and her child , where the
paternal world cannot reach. Yet in the same speech we see the fai lure of that
creation against the a pparent tota lity of the sym bolic. Her maternal world is
constructed within the Sym bolic Order, even though she attem pts to site it
beyond or a part from it. As a mother, and only a m other (the rest of her psyche
being dead ) , she will eventually become red undant within the sym bolic - killed
off, or erased . I n the lines quoted a bove , she recognises this, and so plans a n
a lternative future a s a pseud o-mother to m otherless children. She thus maintains
a de facto position in society, but more to the point, she has expression for the
grief she feels at losing her final human definition, as her child's m other. The
m otherless m other is now not even that.
And again, Marian still must figure herself as dead. Whether she is the
redundant, self-erased mother that patriarchy defines, or a recouped maternal
figure of pre-Oedipal relationships, she is in either case the " blind spot" within
her culture. In the first case her invisibility is required; i n the second case her
invisi bility is inevita ble because she is excess, unre presenta ble in the world of
the poe m .
244
iv. The death of the Father
Clearly, in order for women to find alternatives to the constricting
structures of female development outlined in post-Freudian psychoanalytical
theories, new conceptions of woman must be negotiated . Moreover, such
c onceptions may be usefully derived from a dismantling of Freud 's assum ptions
- using the theory against itself, as it were. Certainly in Aurora Leigh there is a
clear method of attack that breaks down Aurora 's l im iting c onceptions of herself
a nd her gender. Much of this method has been ela borated i n Chapter Five , but
there are significant psychoanalytical aspects to Aurora 's progress that can be
explored here, nota bly the concept of the death of the Father and the
rediscovery of female l ove and tradition.
I s it possi ble to 'kill' or remove the Father fig ure of patriarchal law? Can
the power of the Father and his law be deconstructed , significance removed
from the male organ as phallus? As al ways, such agendas come up against the
central dilemma with which this cha pter began. In Aurora Leigh, though , there
a re real attem pts to undo the power of the Father in Aurora 's l ife . These smaller
attempts perha ps suggest a way: if the sym bolic is perceived l ess as a
m onolithic reified structure, than as a fluid , changi ng entity i n constant
negotiation with its constituents, then the renegotiations made by those
constituents redefine the sym bolic. Such redefinitions, of c ourse , depend upon
collective agreement, w hereas patriarchy rather demands reified structures
based on a p parent a bsolutes, with power and authority the primary m odes of
o peration. 1 7
I n Aurora 's life a pattern emerges of fathers being removed or killed off.
While the dead re presentative of the law is almost a l ways replaced with a new
representative, the pattern is sig nificant for Aurora 's development. First to die i s
h e r o w n biological father. T h i s is a cause o f d e e p sadness f o r Aurora , for
although he i nevita bly brought her into the culture of their patriarchal world , he
was a lso sufficiently emanci pated from its assum ptions t o see its injustices . He
is l i ke Lazarus raised from death, "unmade from a common man/ But n ot
completed to an uncommon m a n " ( 1 : 1 8 3 - 1 84) . 1 8 Leighton's unique account of
245
Aurora Leigh is particularly stri king in its account of Aurora 's relationship with
her father. She uses several references (nota bly 1 : 20 5 - 1 1 ) to a rgue that "the
daughter's g rowth into womanhood , with all its wider physica l a nd emotional
needs . . . signifies the l oss of the father to her; she has ceased to be to him 'as
if . . . a child"' . Moreover, the daughter's awakening "to womanhood and self­
expressi on" seems inevita bly to i nvolve the father's death. " S o sharp i s the
clash between daughter and father that it seems l i ke life won at the cost of
death; like speech won from some profound subconscious crime against the
father " ( Leig hton , Eliza beth 1 2 2-2 3 ) . Leighton im mediately goes on to descri be
Aurora 's enormous sense of loss, but she has significantly esta bl ished the
poe m 's subtle suggestion that the daughter's volition to art kills the father ( 5 2 ) .
That s h e l oves h i m , and grieves his loss i s clear, yet Aurora 's father also has the
power to name Aurora 's world and to order her existence , and it is this power
that seems to place him in an antithetica l , and i ndeed dangerous, relation to her.
He " w ra pt his little daug hter i n his large/ Man's doublet, careless did i t fit or no"
( 1 : 7 27-28 ) . Whilst this education i n masculine pursuits a nd learning sta nds
Aurora i n g ood stead for her poetic career and undermines traditional distinctions
between masculinity and femininity, this is also an education i nto the Father's
law. This education is made clear in the manuscript workings of these lines
( 1 : 7 2 7- 2 8 ) : the " large doublet" is a " < grave > [dark ] " d oublet of " Dead
< learning > < tongues > [ l ore] " ( Reynolds, Aurora 1 9 2 , footnot e ) . She learns
the language of phallog ocentrism .
Significantly, Aurora 's best a nd most loved mementoes of her father are
his books, carried with her to England and rediscovered by her there. Most
commentators note Aurora 's self-education into the " masculine principle" . 1 9
Gilbert describes it as Aurora 's a bsorption into the masculine world a nd its
discourses: " Creeping through the patriarchal attic ' Like some small nim ble
mouse between the ri bs/ Of a mastod on' ( 1 : 838-3 9 ) , she finds a room ' Pi led high
with cases i n m y father's name' ( 1 : 8 3 5 ) and 'ni bbles' fiercely but randomly at
what a mounts to a paradig matic li brary of Western culture " . These " texts that
incarnate patriarchal history" i nevita bly corrupt her own poetry a nd her attempts
to find a female voice (20 1 -02 ) .
246
At the same time, though, her father's books are also her passport to
freedom , as she d iscovers poetry and her vocation for rewriting life. Thus the
father's books are n ot simply synonym ous with the Father's law: they may be
used to represent that law but they may also be used to disrupt that law.
The books are also a passport to another sort of freedom. I n Book V
A urora ta kes the d ifficult ste p of selling some of her father's texts. Why this
a bandonment of the Father's words? To finance her journey back to m other
Italy. A urora 's recognition of the futi lity of life for daug hters under the Law of
the Father has precipitated this ste p; she has just heard Marian's terri ble story of
d estruction and death under the aegis of the Father.
The secti on begins with Aurora musing whether the manuscript of her
long poem will fetch enough to make the journey. She decides not, and so turns
to her father's books: typically, the da ughter's words are insignificant and
undervalued beside the words of the Father. And these texts really d o carry the
w ords of her father. The fly-leaves are
overwritten by his hand
In faded notes as thick and fine and brown
As cobwebs on a tawny m onument
Of the old Greeks - conferenda haec cum his Corrupte citat - lege potius,
And so on, in the scholar's regal way
Of givi ng judgement on the parts of speech ,
As i f he sate o n all twelve thrones up-piled,
Arraigning I srael.
(V: 1 2 1 9-27)
The scholar is l ord of meaning and value, deciding right a nd wrong : he
overwrites the original text with his reading, arbitrating interpretations. H e has
the a uthority to judge fellow humanity, as was promised by C hrist to the
d isciples i n Matthew 1 9 : 28 (Reynolds, Aurora 642). H e is thus the e pitomic
represe ntative of the Father's law. Yet the image that Aurora chooses to
d escri be his role also undercuts it. His words are faded l i ke cobwebs on a n
a ncient m onument - a rchaic commentary o n a declining institution. Neither
patriarchy's laws, nor her father's legislation of the m , matter as m uch to Aurora .
These values are no l onger enough.
247
Her descri ption of these books continues with the d iscovery of a Proclus
edition , com plete with blue sta in where the child Aurora pressed a Florentine iris
i n it. Aurora remem bers her father's peevish chiding : '"Silly girls,/ Who plant
their flowers in our philosophy/ To make it fine, and only spoil the book ! / N o
m ore o f i t , Aurora "' ( V : 1 238-4 1 ) . The clash of the g irl child's values a n d desires
with those of the father is em blematic of the central clash of maternal and
paternal values i n this poem. U nder the latter, Aurora 's i nsertion of the beautiful
flower - I ris was the messenger of the gods - i nto masculinist philosophy only
" spoi l [ s ) " the book for the m . The text is disrupted with the " bl ood " (1 . 1 2 3 7 ) of
living things - a message too disturbing for patriarchy to countenance . Yet it is
this i nsertion of female val ues i nto pha llocentric culture that offers the g reatest
hope for the world of the poe m . As mentioned a bove, the sym bolic must be
seen as negotia ble, not a reified structure of mysogynist theories of female
development and definition .. I f women are able to plant their messages i nto
existing philosophies to modify, disrupt and redefine those philosophies, then
the restrictive Law of the Father will be broken down.
Significantly, the book, with its female stain i ntact, is not spoilt for
Aurora . I ndeed , it is even m ore precious, both beca use it carries memories of her
l oving father, but a lso beca use of these dee per feelings of asserted va lue. She
keeps this book, preferring to sell off her gorgeous edition of H omer, whose
editor, Wolf, arguesthat Homer was not a single poet but that the I l iad a nd
Odyssey were a collection of ballads by multiple authors (Reynolds, Aurora 6424 3 ) . Aurora 's comments on this text and on Wolf's thesis are suggestive. He
com piles a " roya l book" to honour a "chief-poet " . says Aurora , only to m a ke it
fatherless . There i s no chief-poet; the book comes from '"The house of
N obod y ! "' :
[Wolf) floats i n crea m , as rich as any sucked
From J uno's breasts, the broad Homeric lines,
And , while with their spondaic prodig ious m ouths
They lap the lucent margins as ba be-gods,
Proclaims them basta rds.
(V: 1 2 50-54)
In this memorable image Aurora portrays the lines of Homer's poetry floating in
the rich cream of the pages, their strong spondaic start-words l a pping the
margins l i ke baby Mercury or Hercules sucked at Juno's breast ( Reynolds,
248
Aurora 643 ) . Yet these babies have no father; Wolf has rem oved the father. This
death of the father i s shocking for Aurora , who concl udes that " Wolf's an
atheist" , arguing ( pro-)creation from random chance . Though Aurora wants to
loose the shackle-hold of the Father's law so as to find the m other, she cannot
imagine l ife without a father. Li ke life without a God, such total fatherlessness is
clearly threatening to her.
Yet the mother's love is much, too, and Aurora 's i mages here of J u n o's
creamy m i l k and luminous breasts convey yet again her deep yearning for that
l ost maternal relationshi p . This account of her choosing books to sell concl udes
with the reason for the choosing:
And now I come, m y Italy,
My own hills! Are you 'ware of me, my hills,
How I burn toward you? d o you feel tonight
The urgency and yearning of my soul,
As sleeping mothers feel the sucking babe
And smile?
(V: 1 2 66-7 1 )
I n a n i nversion of the image which opened the poem - the smiling ba by on the
m other's breast - Aurora envisions the smiling , sleeping m other feeling the suck
of the feeding ba by. This symbiosis of the pre-Oedi pal relationship i s m ysterious
to sym bolic representation, and yet deeply fulfilling for both m other and child.
And Aurora 's desperate language here conveys her profound desire for this
relationshi p , a spiritual ( " m y soul " ) and erotic ( " I burn " ) desire for union with the
m other. Yet her exclamations of desire a re tem pered with a knowledge of the
i mpossibility of attaining that desire . Aurora answers her own questi on posed in
the a bove l i nes:
- Nay, not so m uch as when i n heat
Vain lightnings catch at your i nviolate tops
And tre m ble while ye are stedfast. Still ye go
Your own determined, cal m , indifferent way
T o ward sunrise, shade by shade, and light by l ight,
Of all the grand prog ressi on nought left out,
As if G od verily made you for yourselves
And would not i nterrupt your life with ours.
(V: 1 2 7 1 -7 8 )
249
E B B l oved t o make such comme nts on Italy's political history, and yet these
l i nes can also be read i n terms of the psychoana l ytical model explored here. As a
sym bol for the lost maternal relati onsh i p , Italy is im pervious a nd inaccessible to
the divorced chi l d . The pre-Oedipa l , semiotic space is outside consciousness; its
l ife cannot be i nterru pted with ours. Attem pts to engage with the l ost m other
a re futile, " Vain lightnings" whose heat of desire m a kes no connection w it h the
" i nviolate " hills/breasts of the lost mother. Even before she leaves, Aurora
knows that she cannot escape her position in the sym bolic to find that forg otten
relationship - such an esca pe would mean death (a desire for which emerges
overtl y i n Book VI I ) . In Italy she can only hope to find solace and as yet
unarticulated possi bilities for other maternal replacements.
Other father figures meet their deaths in the poe m , d eaths that have
sig nificant influences on Aurora . Her aunt's death (see Cha pter Five ) im presses
upon Aurora the sense of terri ble release from the stra i - t-jac ket of patriarchal
roles. The aunt, who has been a female re presentative of the Law of the Father,
dies with her eyes open, staring:
What last sight
Had left them blank and flat so, - drawing out
The faculty of vision from the roots,
As nothing m ore, worth seeing, remained behind ?
( 1 1 : 942-45)
The m otif of sight and blind ness in Aurora Leigh takes on deeper relevance when
c onsidered in the l ig ht of l rigaray's thesis of the a p propriating masculine gaze,
already discussed elsewhere . The gaze is not necessarily exclusively male; it is
predicated u pon parasitic power relations that prey upon the object i n order to
sustain self-conception. This predation is reflected in Aurora 's comments on her
aunt, in the lines following the a bove :
Were those the eyes that watched m e , worried m e ?
That d ogged me up a n d down the hours a n d d a ys,
A beate n , breathless, miserable soul ?
And did I pray, a half-hour back, but so,
To escape the burden of those eyes . . . those e yes ?
"Sleep late ! " I sai d ? Why now, indeed , they sleep.
( 1 1 : 946-5 1 )
250
The a unt has hunted Aurora with her eyes, seeking to break d own the young
woman's resistance to marriage with Romney. In her desire to esta blish a bsolute
c ontrol over Aurora , her predation threatens Aurora 's ( psychica l ) life : " I felt her
looks/ Still cleaving to m e , like the sucking asp/ To Cleopatra 's breast " ( 1 1 : 8 636 5 ) . In a nother i mage of the maternal breast , now under threat, 20 the aunt is
the vi per i n Aurora 's boso m , killing her. I f the Father requires the daug hter's
psychical death, the da ughter's self-defence is the 'death' of the Father.
Aurora 's response to the threat of the Father's law is a prayer for the cessation
of that power, if meta phorical l y and tem porari l y. The prayer receives a n
" answer" h owever; h e r a unt "sleep[s ] " very late. N ow h e r predatory e yes can
hunt n o longer, a s the faculty of visi on has been dragged out of them by death.
Divine retri bution ? Aurora im plies as m uch.
" I f your eye offend you, pluck it out" (Matthew 5 : 2 9 ) . The same
retri butive stance ("An eye for an eye " ) is often read into R om ney's blinding, a
replaying of R ochester's maiming in Jane Eyre. Certainly R omney's gaze on both
Aurora and Marian exem plified l rigaray's description, in that both women were
seen as ciphers for his project as sel f-a ppointed messiah. l t seems therefore to
be fitting that R omney is blinded at the height of his project, when his
phalanstery burns down. And yet such a reading is sim plistic, i gnoring a s it does
the whole context of the poe m . Romney is blinded by Marian's father in what
seems t o be a deliberate , malici ous act. Marian's father considers 'his' women
to be objects for his exploitation. (As R omney puts it, such men "call their w ives
their own/ To kick l i ke Britons" [ VI I I : 9 20-2 1 ] . ) Within this economy R om ney is
seen to havedeprived the man of his daug hter, and so the father ta kes his
payment i n violence. Even though R om ney's methods themse lves enact the
c orrupt assumptions that m a ke the world he is trying to change, his phalanstery
is a threat to his culture . His account of his neig hbours' responses to the
phalanstery in Book V I I I reinforces the threat his attem pts are to the prevailing
ideology.
Finally, though , Romney's blinding taps i nto the whole Oed i pal process
that is being explored in the poe m . The patriarchal gaze that is so overtly
indicted by Aurora m ust be removed before any conciliation can take place
between man a nd wom a n . As Stephenson a lso poi nts out, Aurora only adm its
251
her l ove to R omney a fter the final reve lation that he is blind. 2 1 lt has already
been esta blished that there is no i m pediment to their union: Lad y Waldemar's
g h ost has been laid, and Marian has removed herself from the equati on. Yet
Aurora waits until confirming Romney's blindness before revealing her feelings.
lt is n ot pity that m otivates her adm ission: Romney immed iately jumps to this
conclusi on, but Aurora is adamant in disa busing him. She begi ns her explanation
by reca l ling her refusal of his marriage offer in Book 1 1 ; she refused him then
because she begrudged his power to give and his " power to judge/ For m e ,
Aurora " . She w o u l d have no gifts but God 's, which s h e would use for her
choice. Yet she 'confesses' she went wrong in her thinking :
Betrayed the thing I sa w , and wronged my own
life
For which I pleaded . Passi oned to exalt
The artist's instinct i n me at the cost
Of putting down the woman's, I forg ot
No perfect artist is devel oped here
From any imperfect woman . Flower from root ,
And spiritual from natural[ . . . ) "
"(I]
( I X : 644-5 1 )
Aurora reiterates the d ualisms that so distorted her life , and traces her
m ovement throug h them to a position where woman could be artist. This
passage concludes in the notorious (for many femi nist critics) 22 lines where
A urora extols Love over Art, and berates herself for not being satisfied with that
same Love that satisfies G od . H owever, as explained in Cha pter Four, Aurora 's
c onception of Love is of a dia lectical relationship of equality. Romney did not
offer this l ove until now , and despite Aurora 's condemning herself for being
fussy a bout "the kind of preferred love " that "sought a wife/ To use " , she only
now feels a ble to accept R omney's l ove , precisely because he has proved that
l ove t o be consistent with her own values. Even as she confesses her
shortcomings to R om ney (as he has to her) she tacitl y dem onstrates the val ue of
equal l ove.
Romney's blindness is the final mark of his re-education. Like Oedipus,
w h o 'sa w ' m ost clearly after his (self) blinding, Romney has come to a position
of self-knowledge which he was i ncapable of whilst looking with the patriarch's
gaze . Only now is he acceptable to Aurora , and i ndeed a ble to understa nd
252
Aurora : the " Father" is dea d . That death occurred in the fire that burned the
Leigh patriarchy to the ground , the day '"The H ouse went out"' (VI I I : 1 0 1 4) .
" 'I f you pushed one d a y
Through all t h e g reen hills to o u r fathers' house,
You'd come u pon a great charred circ l e , w here
The patient earth was singed an a cre round;
With one stone stair, symbolic of my life,
Ascending , winding , leading u p to nought!
'Tis worth a poet's seeing. Will you g o ? "
(VI I I : 1 030-3 5 )
The fathers' house is destroyed, but not without cost: the " patient eart h " is
singed a nd burned a n acre around . All that is left is the useless stone stair,
clim bing t o nowhere, a m onument to a futile edifice. Aurora often uses i mages
of stone m onuments for her patriarchal culture, as with her father's books of
phil osophy: reified (converted into materia lity) , dead, cold and a p parently
i m m ova ble . That stone imagery suggests that the symbolic cannot be redefined ,
yet Aurora 's story and poem prove otherwise. The sym bolic can be
reneg otiated; what is a l wa ys already w ritten (here with phallocentric
inscriptions) can be - is continually being - rewritten . This hopeful task, as
R omney so clearly understands from the final l ine of the a bove extract, is the
poet's role . As Margaret Reynolds concludes:
R omney has to be blind to the material w orld i n order to learn to
see the spiritual truths of Aurora 's argument - and Aurora herself.
But once R om ney is blin d , Aurora l oses the gaze which created
her d ifference of opposition and resistance - a difference which
constructed herself, certainly, but constructed that self as a
negative ter m . With Romney's gaze rem oved , Aurora can start
with new terms, new forms of language. Having acce pted a
valuing of her female identity, Aurora needs to shed ideas of
hiera rchy and va lue in male and female - a nd one way that
reeducation takes place is through the a bolition of the systems of
difference and measurement which Aurora had used to " ma ke " a
self (Aurora 47-8 ) .
H ow far the masculinist ideology o f Aurora 's world c a n b e 'abolishe d ' is
a rguable, but Aurora the poet is in prime position for its rewriting .
253
v.
R ediscovering female love
Aurora 's " m others" a l l die to her in one way or another. And yet the
a l l iances they offer while they are sti l l i n her reach present Aurora with other
m odes of conducting female relationshi ps than those offered by her society's
ideology. M oreover, the complex female bonds that Aurora forms throughout the
poem enable her to understand her own female desire, and to define it in terms
other than those prescri bed around the (male) phallus. As Aurora rediscovers
herself as a l oving sister/ m other/ daughter to other women, they and she are
revalued in her eyes, because to find and love a woman is to find a nd l ove one's
self - both " others " on the edge of a hosti le worl d . Here is Aurora , having
discovered her " sister" Mari a n :
Then s h e led
The way, and I, as by a narrow plank
Across devouring waters, followed her,
Stepping by her footste ps, breathing by her breath,
And holding her with eyes that would not slip;
And so, without a word , we walked a mile,
And so, a nother mile, without a word .
(VI : 500-06)
Their separation from the hostile world around them; the intimate sharing of
experience and space ( " breathing by her breath " ) ; the tactility of female l ooking
( " holding her with eyes " ) ; all enunciated through a stra ngely ritua lised or dream­
l i ke language - these l i nes suggest the status of otherness in female
relationships.
Aurora 's m other and Assunta provide early but distant clues to female
l ove . The joyful, sharing nature of their maternity, participating i n the child's
e nthusiasm , is wistfully described by Aurora early i n the poe m :
[ . . ] chi ldren learn b y such,
Love 's hol y earnest i n a pretty play
And get not over-early solemnised,
But seeing , as i n a rose-bush, Love's Divine
Which burns and hurts not, - not a single bloom , Become aware and unafraid of Love .
.
( 1 : 5 4-59)
Solemnity she g oes on to ascribe to the father - the solemnity of conscious
" responsibility " . But, accord ing to Aurora , the mother g ives the child a happy,
2 54
safe and fearless experience of love. This " Love " prefigures the Love that
reaches its climax in Book I X , sym bolized in both places by the rose . R om ney's
R ose of Sharon, like this rose of maternal l ove , burns with fiery passion but
neither c onsumes nor scorches. lt d oes n ot demand restrictin g , hierarchical roles
that suffocate the partici pants. Aurora thus rewrites l ove 's definitions, as the
spea ker of the Sonnets also did, and similarly symbolises the new definition in a
flower i mage (see Sonnet XLIV). Here , though , Love is specifically l inked to
m other-child relationships, relationships hitherto suppressed and de-legitimised .
Other women offer different sorts of relationships to Aurora . Kate Ward
is only a distant cha racter in the poem, and yet her l ove and reverence for
CCI•·,-; ()ji e o \
Aurora hel p to m ove Aurora beyond self-hatred. Vincent
L
w rites to tell her
of his marriage to Kate :
" A h , m y frien d ,
You 'll write and say she sha l l not m i s s your l ove
Throug h meeting mine? in faith , she w ould n ot
change.
She has your books by heart m ore than m y w ords,
And quotes you up against m e till I ' m pushed
Where , three m onths since, her eyes were[ . ]
'Tis pretty, to remark
How women can l ove women of your sort,
And tie their hearts with l ove-knots to your feet,
Grow insolent a bout you against m e n
A n d p u t us dow n by putting u p t h e l i p [ . . . ] "
. .
(VI I : 600- 1 6 )
Kate is a f a n o f Aurora , wearing h e r ol.d cloak l i ke a prized possessio n , defending
her reputation and poetry against all corners. In her l etters to Aurora she signs
herself '"Eiisha to you"' ( 1 1 1 : 54 ) . She considers Aurora her maternal m e ntor, and
yet has n o female m odel for such a mentor; she m ust use a b i blical male
relationshi p, that between Elijah and Elisha , as her a nalogy. This very analogy
i ndicates her view of Aurora as a prophet , one who speaks G od 's w ords to
humanity. Yet Vincent portrays this female relati onshi p condescendingly, as a
rather amusing crush of Kate 's. The slighting and trivialising tone of lines 6 1 21 3 ( '"Tis pretty[ . . . ) "' ) i ndicates Vincent's inability t o understand the i mportance
of this relationship to both women. N ote Kate's first request: that Aurora w ould
n ot withhold her l ove now that Kate has married Aurora 's friend Vincent. Kate is
immediately aware that under their culture this realignment of relationships
255
around a male puts the two women i n positi ons of riva l ry. She does not want to
l ose the female friendship because of the male i nterpolation. Clearly the
relationship is i m portant to her, and yet Vincent portrays it as a n extravagant
hero-worshi p : '"there 'll be women who believe of you/ ( Besides m y Kate ) that if
you walked on sand/ You would not leave a footprint"' (VI I : 6 20-22 ) .
Vincent, thoug h , trivial ises this female relationship o f mentor and
d evote e , because Kate has located value in a source other than her husba n d .
S h e quotes Aurora 's poetry '"more than my words"' , Vincent o n l y half-jokingly
complains, and i nsists u pon being painted with Aurora's volume i n her han d ,
rather t h a n h i s pal lette . Kate is locating herself and her values beyond those
prescri bed by a nd around her husband; she asserts female va lue. Accordingly
her verbal defences of Aurora are labelled insolence. The message is clear: for a
woman to love and revere another woman as heroine and ideal is at first
laughable and simpl istic, and then repugnant. Vi ncent's barbed comment that
Kate 's quotations of Aurora 's words ' push ' him to the wall, which Kate's e yes
used to face, expresses his exasperation at being controlled by the woman he
usually controls. But the line also carries an i m plicit threat: he may choose to
reassert control again, and re-'turn' Kate to the wall. Masculi nity must remain
both the object of value, and the locus of power.
That Kate 's love for Aurora is significant beyond hero-worship is evident
from its effect on Aurora . Eventua lly, a fter considering Vincent's m ore
immediately momentous news concerning Romney, Aurora falls to m using on his
comments a bout his marriage to Kate . I nitially she rega rds Kate with the same
trivialising attitude as Vincent, dimi nishing her to " l ittle Kate ! ". She reflects w hat
a g ood wife she will be for Vincent, but she then concludes:
I will not scorn her, after all, too much,
That so much she should love me: a wise man
Can pluck a leaf, and find a lecture i n't;
And I , too, . . . G od has made me, - I 've a heart
That's capable of worship, l ove, and l oss;
We sa y the same of Shakespeare's. I 'll be meek
And learn to reverence, even this poor m yself.
(VI I : 7 3 1 -37)
256
Because Aurora at this stage sees little worth in herself as a woman, she scorns
those who val ue her. And yet Kate l oves her precisely because she i s a woman;
this i s what Kate perceives to be so val ua ble i n her. The clash of two value
system s here becomes overt, even to Aurora . Aurora cannot scorn Kate because
she , l i ke Kate , is capable of " worshi p, l ove , and l oss " . These a re n ot the
attributes of a n enfeebled femininity, as suggested by her masculinist culture;
they a re the m arks of a fee ling humanity, either male or fema l e . lt takes the
alternative l ove of an other, a woman, to show Aurora her own val u e a s a
feeling woman, and to teach reverence for herself.
Primarily it is Aurora 's relationship with Marian that is so pivotal to her
growth i n feminine l ove . As the quotation at the beginning of this section
suggested (VI : 500-0 6 ) , the experience these two women share is critical i n
showing both the inevita ble fail ures o f a n d restrictions on fema l e relationshi ps
within the Sym bolic Order, and yet also the potential for these relationships:
Poor Marian Eri e , m y sister Marian Erie,
My woodland sister, sweet maid Marian,
Whose memory moans on in me l i ke the wind
Through ill-shut casements, making me m ore sad
Than ever I find reasons for.
(V: 1 0 9 5-9 9 )
This i s Aurora in Book V, before she meets with Marian again i n Paris. The l oss
that Aurora feels in Marian 's a bsence is m ore than can be rationally explained .
Marian was to be her cousin-in-law, not a particularly close relation. Their
friendship was not deep a nd they spent very littl e time together. Yet Aurora 's
sense of l oss i s profoun d : she m ourns a sister. Marian's memory haunts her,
probably partly out of guilt at Aurora 's inaction over Lady Waldemar's i nfluence
on Marian , but m ore because of the relationship that i s forg one . Aurora has i n
these l ines e levated Marian from potential cousin to sister: a "sweet" sister,
m oreover " m y sister" . What Aurora has lost is a female relationshi p , a " sororal
bond " ( Mermin, O rigins 208) of real worth and vital ity, one that evokes
memories that d o not exist in their brief relati ons. These mem ories stretch back
to the pre-Oedi pal maternal relationship, and the m other-daughter bond of
sharing and exchange . This is the communion that Aurora desires; Marian is the
l ocus for this potential communion. Angela Leighton w rites perceptively a bout
Aurora 's strange and desperate need for Mari a n , l ocating it in the psychological
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257
narrative she has detailed i n her reading of the poe m . I n Aurora 's quest for the
dead father, which spreads wider to a desire for the l ost presences of childh ood
(father, m other, E BB's brother Bro ) , Marian becomes "a substitute for the old
forsa king m uses " , and her "tanta l ising evasion of Aurora in Pa ris finds its
meaning in the su b-text of Aurora's repeatedly 'orpha ned ' consciousness "
(Eliza beth 1 5 3 ) . Where Leighton argues for a paternal orpha ning , the maternal
orphaning that occurs under psychoanalytical theory a lso explains Aurora 's
behaviour here .
Hence Aurora 's strange, obsessive need to find Marian in Book VI . After
seeing her face fleetingly whi lst deep in thoug ht , Aurora frantica l l y searches
Paris for her lost sister:
N o Marian; nowhere Maria n . Al most, now,
I could call Marian , Marian, with the shriek
Of desperate creatures calling for the Dea d .
Where is she, was she? was she anywhere ?
(VI : 2 5 5- 5 8 )
The despairing confusion o f place and time evident in Aurora 's panic at l osing
Marian reflects the l oss of the pre-O edipal place and time. The m other is dead to
the desperate daughter: she is present neither in the present nor in the past.
Even memory has been erase d . Leighton also notes the "sudden and persistent
a ssociation of Marian with 'the Dead"' ( 1 5 3 ) and relates it to EBB's imaginative
need t o find the l ost relationships of childhood . The association also suggests
the m aternal se paration. Aurora uses the same w ord repeatedl y at these
m oments that relive the crisis of maternal separation: " shriek " . The O E D defines
the w ord as a shri l l , hig h-pitched cry that expresses terror or pai n , and perhaps
because of that shrillness it carries feminine overtones. Assunta shrieks when
Aurora is torn from her; a shriek awa kens the house and Aurora to her aunt's
death; Marian shrieks " G od , free me from my m other, [ . . ] / These m others are
.
too dreadful " ( 1 1 1 : 1 06 3-64 ) . Similarly, Aurora here imagines herself shrieking for
the dead . In each case , the shriek, a female cry of agony, centres on a
c orruption of the maternal relationship. Daughters a re wrenched from m others or
w ould-be mothers by a variation of circumstances played out w ithin a
chauvinistic culture.
2 58
After m uch searching in Pa ris, Aurora eventually finds Marian buying
flowers. Seizing her by the wrists, Aurora holds her firml y , d es pite Marian's plea
(she d istrusts women by now) to be a l l owed to go. A urora refuses:
" I l ost my sister Marian many d a ys,
And sought her ever i n my walks and prayers ,
And , now I find her . . . d o we throw a w a y
T h e bread we worked and prayed for, - crumble i t
And d r o p i t , . . . to d o even so by thee
Whom still I 've hungered after m ore than bread ,
My sister Maria n ? "
(VI : 449-54)
Marian is m ore necessary to Aurora than her daily bread. She has sought this
sister relationship mentally, emotionally and physically; she cannot now disva lue
and discard it. 23 Even when she rea l ises the nature of Ma rian's circumstances,
as single m other of a n il legitimate child, Aurora cannot l ose this treasure now
found . Her ignorant cruelty in Book VI (see, for exa m ple l i nes 6 1 7-23) is very
quickly melted by Marian's sincerity and misery, and Aurora m a kes an
extraordinary a d m issi on:
But I, c onvicted, broken utterly,
With woman's passion clung a bout her waist
And kissed her hair and eyes, - " I have been wrong ,
S weet Marian" . . . (weeping in a tender rage)
" Sweet holy Marian ! "
(VI : 7 78-8 2 )
W h a t is " broken utterly" here ? Aurora h a s been repri manding Marian w i t h the
mora lity of her society which damns a seduced woman a n d her offsprin g .
According to such l a w s , Marian h a s stolen t h e child '"Through G od ' s own
barrier-hedges of true l ove , / Which fence out license"' ; he is a n orphan and she
" 'n o m other, but a kidna pper' " (VI : 6 34-3 7 ) . This is the o ppressive Law of the
Father, protecting the male (seducer/ ra pist) and l ocating blame for this
corruption of the patriarchy in the m other, who is then erased. But, Cooper
w rites, " Marian speaks of female experience in a w a y quite new to Aurora . Her
narrative disrupts Aurora's patriarchal discourse and transforms woman from
scorned object to angry subject " (Woma n 1 7 6 ) . Leighton ela borates: Marian
does n ot retire " i nto a self-effacing and thus conventionally i nnocent silence"
but rather " accuses the world around her, which is vociferous to condemn but
not to cure " . In s pea king in her own defence, Marian challenges the " sexual
--·----
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259
slur" that falls on women who dare to speak or write. Thus Aurora 's " quest to
tell " , as a poet, finds its object i n Marian, the sister who speaks across
ideologies ( Leighton, Elizabeth 1 48 - 1 5 1 ) . 24 Final l y A urora real i ses that the
judgements of her culture on Marian are wrong according to a higher morality,
a nd she at l ast beg ins to a ppreciate female va lues. Her adherence to the Law of
the Father is broken; she is convicted by "w oman's passion" a nd surrounds
Marian with examples of rati ona l , mora l , spiritual and physical l ove that differ
from traditional understandings of those attributes. Her e nsuing speech a ppeals
t o the "dark facts " , her own conscience and God 's a pprova l , and her acti ons
pour a very physical expressi on of her " woman's passio n " out on Marian.
Aurora 's need of, and desire for, Marian culmi nates i n the very beautiful
i nvitation she offers to Marian to join her i n Italy:
" Come with me, sweetest sister , " I returned,
"And sit within my house and d o me good
From henceforth, thou and thine ! ye are my own
From henceforth. I am lonely i n the worl d ,
A n d thou art lonely, a n d the child i s half
An orphan . Come, - and henceforth thou and I
Being stil l together will not miss a friend ,
N or he a father, since two m others shal l
Make that u p t o him . "
(VI I : 1 1 7-25)
The intimate, informal "thou" is used in these l ines, as Aurora addresses Marian
l i ke a l over. Aurora needs Marian for emotional reasons as m uch as Marian
needs Aurora for practical reasons. Moreover, the father is rendered redundant
in their attem pt at a sisterl y househol d . Marian's answer is eloquent: w ordlessly
she offers her child to Aurora to kiss, thus drawing her i nto m otherhood a nd the
m aternal relationship.
vi.
F e m a l e rel at io n shi p s surviving i n
patri a rch y
I nsofar as the female relationships that Aurora enjoys at different times
all occur within the Symbolic O rder, they are not the idealistic relationships of
French feminism, the Cixousian "vatic bisexuality" which is " infinitely dynamized
by an i ncessant process of exchange from one subject to a nother " ( Marks and
2 60
de Courtivron 2 5 4) . Such a relationship reaches back into pre-sym bolic spaces,
and to human connections unstructured by pha l l ocentric culture . All A urora 's
female friendships are i nterfused with the assum pti ons of her society and a re
w ritten within the sym bolic. Hence her relationsh i p with Marian never reaches
the heights that she has imagined it w oul d . As i n Lacanian theory, where the
l ost o bject of desire can never be found or replaced, so the l ost m other-da ughter
d yadic cannot be recouped into the sym bolic. Aurora cannot meet the essential
need of her displaced personality, and its place is filled by tem pora l
substitutes . 25
Even as she ta kes in Marian and her ba by, pla ying sister and m other to
both of them, she continues to pine after Romney. He is her primary object of
Cl
desire as a soci�ised woman; her desire for the m other is an il legitimate a nd
covert one within her culture . She is l i ke the Freudian woman who must m ove
the cathexis of her desire from l ost m other to father/husba nd , a nd yet a l w a ys
feel s the dislocation from the first l oss. R omney remains the main substitute for
her sense of loss. Of course , her involvement i n this ordained psychical process
reiterates the val ues of that process. Despite the lessons she has a p parently
learnt from Marian, she continues to operate under the assum ptions of
pha l l ocentrism . Her first significant action after the reunion with Marian is to
w rite a venom ous a nd threatening letter to her (subconscious) riva l , Lady
Waldemar, warning her to be a faithful and true wife to her c ousin or else she
and Marian will come and " stir [ . . . ] dangerous e m bers" for "The Lamia-woman"
(VI I : 364; 1 5 2 ) . For Aurora , Lady Waldemar represents threatening female desire ,
her rival for the phal lus. Aurora 's primal desire remains, and her method of
dealing with it continues to be prescri bed by patriarchal ideology.
Marian, re presenting the desired sister/ m other, rarel y penetrates Aurora's
sadness . Aurora nearly breaks down during the journey to I taly, d riven near to
madness by the thought of Romney's marriage . Her personal l oss to a
threatening female plays upon her fears of herself and female d esire , a nd her
sense of l oss a nd isolati on. Marian cannot solve these crises i n Aurora; their
relationship is punctuated by missed communion.
261
I leaned and l ooked,
Then, turning back to Maria n, smiled to mark
That she looked only on her child, who sle pt[ . .. ]
(VI I :4 2 6-28)
As Aurora kee ps vigil on the boat to Italy, waiting for the first g l i m pse of her
beloved m otherlan d , Marian keeps vigil on Aurora . And when Aurora's face
betrays her renewed awareness of loss, Marian offers sympathy:
'"And you' re a l one,' she a nswered, - and she l ooked
As if I too were something . Sweet the help
Of one we have hel ped ! Thanks, Marian, for such help.
(VI I : 5 1 2- 1 4)
Yet this sym pathy is a l l the help that Marian can offer Aurora , and it d oes not
solve her problems. Ensuing references to Marian a l ways i nvolve the male child
as he becomes not only a link but also a n interpolation between the two
women . " Marian's good , " Aurora comments at one point, " Gentle and l ovi n g , ­
lets m e h o l d t h e child" (VI I : 9 30-3 1 , underlining mine). Marian tries t o share her
maternity with Aurora , to satisfy the need she perceives in the other woman,
and yet such sharing is im possi ble: ownershi p and riva l ry are i m plicit i n their
exchanges (com pare Vl : 6 6 1 ; 7 1 0-23). In the account discussed earlier where
Aurora descri bes Marian feeding peeled figs to a demand i n g , i m perious child,
Aurora 's separation from the pair is painfull y evident. When Marian laughs,
Aurora notes:
I saw her g la nce a bove
I n sudden shame that I should hear her laugh,
And straightway dropped my eyes upon my boo k [ . .. ]
(VI I I : 1 8-20)
Aurora d oes not begrudge Marian her la ughter, but both women know that
Aurora cannot join it. This maternal relationship cannot be shared; i t is by
definition d yadic. And the male child's presence, a lread y taking over Fatherly
distinctions, reim presses u pon the women their roles within patriarchy, and so
c onstrai ns the g rowth of their female relati onshi p .
Similarly, Aurora cannot f i n d i n mother-ltaly t h e fulfi l lment s h e so craves.
As the shi p on which she keeps watch a pproaches the coast of Italy, Aurora
262
describes the " old miraculous mountains " as the y " heaved in sight,/ O ne
strai ning past another a l ong the shore " (VI I :468- 6 9 ) . These a re the ' breasts' she
longs to 'suc k ' , the hills she " burn[s] toward" (V: 1 2 6 8 ) . Yet her description
continues:
Pea k pushing pea k
They stood : I watched , beyond that Tyrian belt
O f i ntense sea betwixt them and the shi p [ . .. ]
(VI I :4 7 2-74)
Always something stands between Aurora and her l ost " m other " . Here it i s the
intense sea , the same " b itter" sea that first separated her from Italy and
Assunta ( 1 : 2 3 5 ) . Similarly, when she finds a house , it is on sl opes opposite the
mountains, from which she is separated by the valley of Arno and the city of
Florence . Her descriptions of the mountains and valley evoke the maternal body:
even the river suggests an umbil ical cord ,
trailing l i ke a silver cord
Through a l l , and curling loosely, both before
And a fter, over the whole stretch of land
S own whitely up and down its opposite sl opes[ . . . ]
(VI I : 5 3 7 -40)
Yet Aurora is apart from it, watching the sun "die [. . . and] be born" each day
through this maternal body, uninvolved . Even as Aurora rewrites Italy a s the
mother in her i mages, she can only approach that maternity through a n
imagination a l ready constructed within the sym bolic. H e r images a nd i ndeed her
d esires a re already overwritten with cul tural assum ptions. As the shi p returning
her to Italy a pproaches the coast and dawn breaks, she confesses:
And then I did not think, "my Ita l y , "
I thought , " M y father ! " 0 m y father's house ,
Without his presence !
( V I I :490-92)
Italy i s now the land of her dead father. Its status as m other i s doubly l ost, as it
is now reinscri bed as the site of the l ost father. l n. t he l ines following these,
Aurora m a kes the a na l ogy of having a dream "on such a stone " ,
but, once being wholly wa ked
And come back to the stone without the dream ,
W e tri p u pon't, - alas, a nd hurt ourselves;
Or else it falls on us and grinds us flat,
The heaviest g ravestone on this burying earth.
(VI I : 49 9-503)
263
Mother-ltaly is now a crushing, killing gravestone, replaying Aurora 's loss of her
father. The attri butions of her meta phors here are telling : Italy, the l ost maternal
experience , is the stone; the paternal relationship is the drea m , from which
Aurora has w a kened . But any positive experience on the site of the former is
l ost i n the mem ories of the latter; instead the stone becomes a terri ble mark for
the l ost drea m . Its initial value is erased and it now ma rks the (ephemera l ) value
of the drea m . But that mark, a " g ravestone " , crushes the woman. I n this
extreme exa m ple of the image of stones memorialising the reified system s of her
world (see a bove p . 2 5 2 ) , Aurora i n her disa ppointment sees maternal Ita l y
rewritten as a memorial stone t o the father's a bsent power. 2 6
The im plication of these complex images is that maternity and paternity,
under a patriarchal hegemony, are mutua l l y exclusive . I nclusion into the
Symbolic Order necessitates the loss of the mother and the gain of a Father;
attem pts by a woman to find maternal definition necessa rily entail the l oss of
the F/father . Finally women l ose their parent either way. Aurora 's m other-want
preci pitates a father-want as well, but not for the Father of patriarchal
inscri ption and the law. What she desires is a different father, in the same way
that she desires a m other who is different from patriarcha lly defined mothers.
Aurora Leigh suggests that new definitions are necessary for m other a nd father
as the sym bolic is rewritte n . R od Edmond remarks that " Fathering in Aurora 's
history is not synonymous with patriarchy" (Edmond
1 48 ) , and both her
' resurrected' father and the changed R omney testify to this. They g esture
towards a fatherhood that is not a Fatherhood .
Later in the Book Aurora reiterates her terri ble sense of double separation
from the maternal , throug h its rewriting as father-loss. Trying to recall the
c reatures of her child hood, she notes sadly:
But now the creatures all seemed farther off,
N o longer mine, nor l ike me, only there ,
A g u l ph between us. I could yearn indee d ,
Like other rich men, for a drop o f dew
To cool this heat, - a drop of the early dew,
The i rrecoverable child-innocence
( Before the heart took fire a nd withered life)
[ . .. ] And I, I had come back to an e m pty nest[ . ]
. .
(VI I : 1 0 99-09)
264
The time of childhood i nnocence, l i ke the time of maternal unity, i s irrevocably
g on e , and i n its place is a hell of sorts, l i ke the hell of the rich man in Jesus'
parable of Laza rus (Luke 1 6 : 1 9-3 1 ). Aurora has l ost her past , and with it her
sense of identity and peace. She has come home to an empty nest , with neither
m other nor father. The significance of the nest ( Italy) is change d , and it is now a
mark for l oss and d is-location.
Despite this terrible awareness that Aurora 's past, either with m other or
with father, is forever l ost to her, the poem does not end on this elegaic note .
I nstead she m oves beyond grieving for the past and writes a future for herself
that posits new roles for both male a nd fema le, m other and father. Central to
those roles is a respect a nd l ove for women, underlining the vital function played
by Aurora 's female relationships. Despite their lim ited , even com promised nature
within the sym bol ic, these relationships offer Aurora an understanding of herself
as a w oman within patriarchy, and also a glimpse of her potential val ue beyond
patriarch y - the val ue of the other. This self-acce ptance a nd self-potential is
taught to Aurora pri marily by wom e n , both through negative and positive
exa m ples. The o ptions taken by her aunt and Lady Waldemar i mpress upon her
the i m possi bility of female g rowth or fulfillment whilst playing culturally­
restricting roles. C onversely, Assunta , Kate , Marian and even the Florentine
women praying in the cathedral show Aurora the possi bility for a lternative
m odes of existence and self-definition, m odes that d o not rely on the erasure of
female d esire , values or definitions.
The women i n the cathedral are at first m ocked by Aurora , but a fter a
while she begins t o see through the corru pted female relations to the fact that
there a re female relationships here . The " little hum pback thin g " had a m other;
the " So solitary" old woman, effectively erased from her culture , has n q(> ne for
company now except the Queen of Heave n . These women, all defined by and
o perating within the phallocentric culture that renders them rivals, nevertheless
all come here t o express their shared anxieties. This is a place where women's
d esires and val ues can be spoken - even val idated - before God. Aurora
perceives balm in such shared experience; she ma kes "the important transition
from o bserver t o partici pant" (Stephenson, Poetry 1 1 0) and relinquishes her
(masculinist) position of superiority over these " poor blind souls" : 27
265
Then I knelt,
And dropped m y head upon the pavement too,
And praye d , since I was foolish i n desire
Li ke other creatures, craving offal-food ,
That He would stop his ears to what I sai d ,
And o n l y l isten t o t h e r u n a n d beat
O f this poor, passionate, hel pless blood And then
I lay, and spoke not: but He heard i n heaven.
(VI I : 1 2 6 5 - 7 2 )
Her w o m a n ' s desire is " foolish" (like mothers' love at 1 : 6 3 ) ; she craves " offal­
food " . S o 'wrong' are her words and desires that she must simultaneously
devalue and erase them even as she expresses the m . This exem plifies female
experience i n the world of the poe m : feelings of female desire a re accompanied
by simultaneous and contradictory d isg ust and rejection of that female desire.
(Cf. Lady Waldemar's "Am I coarse ?/ Wel l , love 's coarse " , and "I have been too
coarse ,/ Too human " [ 1 1 1 : 4 5 4-5 5 ; I X : 1 25-2 6 ] . ) Aurora , pra ying i n the cathedra l ,
is eventually silenced b y this internal dilemma , beaten b y her culture. The final
line , however, ind icates her belief that her dilemma is heard , ironica l l y by the
G od who has been i nscribed as the Patriarch of patriarchs. As the women all
pray to H i m i n the cathedra l , Aurora wonders whether this a pparently a rchetypal
representative of the mascul ine world , a silent Father al oof and deaf to female
c ries (see 1 1 : 7 34-49 ) , will respond to female need . Aurora the poet , however,
also rewrites defi nitions of God. U nder her i nscri ption, G od is n ot bound by her
culture, and this G od later presides over her a nd R om ney's sublime marriage of
e quality. By d epicting Him as l istening to her, Aurora esta blishes divine
endorsement, both for her desire and for her expression of that desire.
vii.
A conclusion
Aurora 's passage throug h the poem is guided by two critical processes:
her poetry, and her female relationships. Her poetry shows her that l i fe can be
rewritten , that the a p pa re ntl y rigi d culture that e ntra ps her and the women
around her is a text waiting to be rei nscribed . Her female relationships provid e
h e r w i t h t h e potential l y new i nscripti on, i n which t h e m other a nd father are
redefined a nd new feminist values of equa l , interacting l ove and roles are
2 66
offered . These two complem entary processes disl ocate her patriarchal world,
revealing its essentially destructive assum ptions and structures. I n e nvisioning
the death of that old order, Aurora re-visions the birth of a utopian New
Jerusa l e m . This new order is in itself a rewriting of the "new order" that she
was inducted i nto a s a child ( 1 : 3 9 ) , which required the l oss of her m other and
the i mposition of Fatherly law. Whether Aurora 's new order can supersede a
p ha l l ocentric Sym bolic Order remains a tension in the poe m . But Aurora 's
images c onstantly yearn toward a n order that would e m brace , n ot repress,
otherness. The narrative of a masculinist psychoanalysis e nsures that i ndivi d uals
are a lready w ritten i nto a prescribed ontology; Aurora Leigh i nsists that we must
be a bl e to write a nd read ourselves anew.
I n her g reat d isquisition i n Book V, when she reflects on the structure of
her culture, Aurora m a kes the famous a nd memorable image that e pitomises her
desires i n the poe m . As she extols the poet's a rt and responsi bility to " re present
the a g e " that they live i n , she draws together the two threads that we have
seen e merge a s the poe m 's central ideas: poetic rewriting and maternal
revaluing:
Never flinch,
But stil l , unscru pul ously epic, catch
U pon the burning lava of a song
The full-veined, heaving , double-breasted Age :
That, when the next sha ll come, t h e m e n o f that
May touch the i m press with reverent hand, and say
" Behold , - behold the pa ps we all have sucked !
This bosom seems to beat stil l , or at least
l t sets ours beating: this is living art,
Which thus presents and thus records true life . "
(V: 2 1 3-22)
I n this call t o relevant writing, Aurora raises the battle cry for " unscrupulously
e pi c " writi n g , unscrupulous because it engenders and nurtures the " living art" of
" true life " . Marjorie Stone notes how Aurora 's unscrupulous - not scrupul ous ­
e pic com bines many g enres to form a new hybrid form . This experiment plays
with and parodies e pic, and so subverts its rigid assum ptions - specifica l l y that
epic, with its satiric a nd philosophic concerns , was exclusivel y a male domain.
Thus, Aurora 's genre subversions become gender subversions (Stone 1 0 1 2 8 ) . 2a
2 67
Certa inly the strong (offensive to many Victorian and later critics)
imagery in the a bove lines effects this subversion, making a m other figure (not a
M iltonic father) the parent and infl uence for following writers . Here, too, the
confluence of Italy's m ountains and the m other's body is suggested , as the m i l k
o f those "full-veined, heaving breasts " is " burning lava " . The volcanic image
suggests the power and potentia l danger of this m other's milk, for that lava/m i l k
is song - writing, poetry . The poetry o f t h e mother age feeds t h e poets o f a later
age, who reverence the m other that fed the m . Her milk feeds them; her heart
sets theirs beating. She g ives life, not a father or l over/saviour. And the life she
gives is the a bility to rewrite , to present " l iving art " , as opposed to d ea d , fixed
forms, l i ke the m onolithic texts of patriarchy.
This extra ordinary c onflation of maternal strength and value, living poetry
a nd progressive ages, dem onstrates the project at the heart of the whole poe m .
Aurora wants to rewrite h e r culture's consciousness (the Symbolic Order) , t o
e na ble t h e m a n y t o exist, rather than simply the one . I n this pl ura lity, the
maternal role is n ot effaced but revered , thus acknowledging the pre-Oe d i pa l and
semiotic spaces of otherness . I nterchange with such spaces is effecte d , i nstead
of a d om inating hierarchy of symbolic over semi oti c , conscious over
unconscious, male over female. All this occurs throug h the endless rewriting
which is poetry. Finally, then, the "new order" or new Jerusalem is really a
return to the old, as the oldest of ages, the mother-child dya d , is reinscribed i n
new terms. 2 9 I n these f e w lines ( V : 2 1 3-22) Aurora attem pts such a
reinscri ption, i nterweaving her images and m odes a nd meanings to rewrite her
culture - a project that will eventually enable her to reclaim herself as woman ,
m other/ daughter and poet.
268
N OTES
1 David opens her final chapter on EBB asking precisely the same questions:
" I f women w riters have worked within the context of male-dominated systems of
discourse , then how is women's discourse to be defined ? " David g oes on to argue
cogently against an " essentialist integrity of something labe lled 'women's
language"' ( 1 45 ) , but her discussion comes to very different conclusions from
mine. This difference relates to David 's view that " l a nguage is in some sense
'made' by culture and society, and if culture and society have been controlled by
patriarchy, then any language 'suppressed' by these patriarchal formations m ust
. . . also be controlled by the hegemonic structures of patria rchy" ( 1 44). My thesis
argues precisel y this problem of working within cultural hegemonies, but offers a
view of language not as " made by culture " , but as making culture, or more properly
a dia lectic of the two. Such a theory of language shifts from the m onolithic, reified
i nterpretations David tends to make, to possi bil ities of rewriting culture . Aurora
Leigh , which is actually discussed very l ittl e in David's four cha pters on EBB,
demonstrates these possibilities.
2
For a fuller account of Freudian/ Lacanian theory see below p . 228ff.
3
Elaine Millard comments: " Because women are both inside and outside a
discourse that gives no space to the feminine, the primary task is to disrupt the
settled order rather than to define what an other might in fact be(come) " (Mills, et
a l . 1 60). This comment sums u p the debate at the centre of post-structuralist
feminism (and this reading of Barrett Browning 's poetry) : must w e only
deconstruct, or can we (re)construct as wel l ?
4 I a m indebted t o Toril Moi's account o f Kristevan theory here (see M oi
1 6 1 -6 7 ) . Kristevan analysis does remain problematic, however (as Moi herself
points out, 1 64-7 3 ) , not the least because of Kristeva 's fusion of Derridean
semiotics and Lacanian psychoanalysis . Freud and Lacan place women ' outside'
language, a nd yet Derrida asserts that there is no outside textuality. Kristeva thus
relocates women as marginal, on the borders between the symbolic and the
semiotic. The metaphor of l ocation remains cryptic beca use , as Moi says, "We have
to accept our position as already inserted into an order that precedes us and from
which there is no escape. There is no other space from which we can spea k: if we
a re to spea k at a l l , it will have to be within the framework of sym bolic language "
( Moi 1 70 ) . Kristeva 's commitment (especia l l y i n her later writings) to a Lacanian
form of psychoanalysis, seems to take women from Derridean textuality back into
psychoanalytical exclusi on.
5 Language's semiotic qualities , in Kristevan terms: disruptive , polysemic,
c ontradictory.
6 Steinmetz considers the Victorian mythol ogizing of maternity as consonant
269
with Victorian anxiety a bout ongms. Such an obsession w ith inscri ptions of
maternity reveals the sense of " insatiablil ity, strain and l oss" ( " I mages" 3 5 3 ) .
7 Lacan ca pitalises Symbolic O rder; Kristeva does n ot capitalise symbolic
(presumably i n keeping with her e m phasis on non-essentiality).
8 "The father, i n the context of the Oedipal complex, is n ot part of a dyadic
relationshi p of m other a nd child, but a third ter m . The self and the other of the
m other-and-child has its duality broken by the interventi on of this third term , one
who here represents all that is essential to society - its laws" ( Mitchell 3 9 2 ) .
9
C ixous writes: " Men have comm itted the g reatest crime against women.
I nsidiously, violently, they have led them to hate women, to be their own enemies,
to m obilize their i m mense strength against themselves, to be the executa nts of
their virile needs. They have made for women an antinarcissism ! " (Ma rks and de
Courtivron 248 ) .
1 0 Several critics have n oticed a potential psychoanalytical rea ding in the
poe m , but few have developed it. Mermin ma kes the summary statement: " Aurora
is l ooking for a m other in relation to whom she might find her place and her
identity: in the tradition of women's bildungsromanen, the poem traces the
heroine's attem pt to return to the pre-Oedipal maternal world fig ured by nature "
( " Genre" 1 0 ) . Mermin does not develop this reference to the pre-Oed i pal in this
article or in her subsequent book (Origins) . Cooper gives an unconvi ncing and
s ketchy a rgument that attem pts to draw Romney as both 'father' m use and ' infant
son' muse - the latter "ma intaining the privileged preoedi pal affectional bond of
m other a nd i nfant" (Aurora 1 8 6-8 7 ) . Her last paragraph on Aurora Leigh raises the
possibility that feminist theory in the area of maternal relations might be " brought
to bear" on EBB's poetry, pa rticularly in the construction of poet and m use ( 1 8 8 ) ,
but t h e issue i s left there. A m ore useful work o n a psychoanalytical reading o f the
poem is from an early article by Steinmetz ( " I mages " ) , in which Aurora 's " m other­
want" i s explored . The a rticle relates her search for the l ost m other, and concludes
that for Aurora , there i s no simple fulfillment: "the truth of l ove lies beyond what
can be told ' by a w ord or kiss ' , in non-verba l , undifferentiated union with a l ove
object fused in fantasy with her first object , her mother" ( 3 6 7 ) . Leighton offers a
fascinating psychoanalytical account, but it is l ocated i n a search for the father­
m use , not the pre-Oedipal m other ( Eliza beth ) . (See a l s o Rosenblum a n d Marxist­
Fem inist Literature C ollective . )
1 1 " Aurora 's m other, a ssociated with a n other prearticulate w orld (a
Wordsworthian 'outer I nfinite' where the only w ord she speaks is ' H ush ' ) and a
foreign and sensuous land, is . . . the embodiment of Aurora 's 'anxiety of
womanliness"' - an i njunction to femininity ( Reynolds, Aurora 3 8 ) . Mermin also
notes the word '"H ush"' as an "ominous legacy to a poet-daughter" (Origins 1 90 ) .
1 2 " Aurora l oses her m other a t the Oed i pal m oment - a g e four" ( Marxist
Fem inist Literature Collective 2 0 3 ) .
1 3 l rigara y writes: "The wife , t h e mother, in different ways o f course , will
aid and a bet this tyra nny. Women's instincts are i nhibite d , turned back i nto their
o pposites . . . . Such as the forms of " sublimation" that man, that society, demands
270
of woman . . . . Patient lab or at i nstinctua l self-destruction. Ceaseless "activity" of
m ortification. In this way, both by her and for her, the invisi ble work of d eath g oes
on" (Speculum 1 27 ) .
1 4 " Bertha i n the Lane " summarises a similar process o f maternal excision,
self-erasure and sacrifice to the da ughter.
1 5 Steinmetz describes the "split m other image" as between a sexually
devouring m other and a chaste virgin mother, re presented respectivel y in the poem
by Lady Waldemar and Marian ( " I mages" 360). Mermin concurs i n this reading ,
comm e nting that the two characters " retain traces of m ythic doubleness" (O rigins
1 9 2 ) . See a lso Alethea Hayter (Mrs. Browning 1 0 5 , 1 7 1 ) , Stephenson (Poetry 9 8 ) ,
a n d Leighton's discussion o f the "types" o f vice a n d virtue ( " Because " 342-344).
16
See below, "The Freudian Mother" , p . 240 .
1 7 R od Edmond , i n a fascinating introduction to his book on the nineteenth­
century literary construction of the family, discusses a similar theory of hegemony.
" Hegemony is neither static nor u niform , but active , formative , and
transformation a l . lt must be alert and responsive to anything which questi ons its
d om inance; it must be continua lly renewed , recreated , and defended , there by
sustaining and extending its power. No hegemony, however, can be tota l or
exclusive . l t is never organic; it is always full of contrad ictions and unresolved
conflicts" ( 9 ) . Although there is a crucial di fference between the theory of a
hegemony and the psyc hoanalytical theory of a sym bolic - nota bly the a pparent
psychic tota lity of the latter - the process described by Edmond offers a powerful
challenge to the construction of a sym bolic , a challenge that Aurora Leigh also
issues.
18
The word "common" here recalls the "common l a w " that decides Marian's
fate.
19
Reynolds, Aurora 3 8 . For other reference to this education, see Cooper
(Wom a n 1 5 8 ) a nd Mermin (O rigins 2 1 0 ) .
2 0 The image echoes the mother's portra it i n 1 : 1 60, where " Our Lady of the
Passio n " is " sta bbed . . . I Where the Babe sucked " .
21
Stephenson argues (from Elaine Showalter) that Romney's blinding g ives
him a taste of womanhood - that is, " dependency, frustration , and powerlessness " .
This experience is paradoxically his new strength, as he understands and assumes
female qualities which " a l l ow him to become whol e " . Stephenson concludes
sensibly, " C onjecture a bout the possibility of hostility or castration wishes being
present i n Barrett Browning's decision to blind her hero seems relatively futile " ; its
real i m portance is i n the significance the blinding has for Aurora ( Poetry 1 1 2- 1 3 ) .
Other critical reactions to Romney's blinding include Mermin, w h o sees R omney's
excessive " su bjugati on" as representing the "thoroughgoing d estruction of all the
forms of male power " in the poem (Origins 2 1 4) ; Cooper, who argues that the
blinded R om ney is now no l onger the Father muse for the woman poet, but a
d e pendent child-m use to the m other-poet (Woma n 1 8 6-8 7 ) ; G e l p i , who sees
Romney as a projection of Aurora 's self-criticism , a judge-l i ke figure whose blinding
then changes him to a n affirming muse figure for Aurora (48 ) . Sutphin sees him as
·
271
" morally stronger" than before ( 5 2 ) ; Ed m ond sees the blinding as "the equivalent
of the feminization of Aurora's father" ( 1 64) and Steinmetz concl udes her account
of the patriarchal images of a glaring sun in the poem with the figure of R omney,
a now-darkened sun, who " neither asserts his masculine prerogatives of sexua l and
economic domina nce " . Steinmetz also footnotes the Oedipal connection ( " Beyon d "
38).
2 2 N ota bly G i l bert a nd Gubar, who decide that Aurora 's "Art is m uch, but
Love is m ore" comment resigns her to a com promise between traditional womanly
roles and a revolutionary poetic role ( Madwoman 5 7 5-80 ) . Their very brief reading
of Aurora Leigh d oes not really begin to grapple with the poem , a fact that Sandra
Gilbert later remedied ( " Patria " ) .
23 Leighton's recent a rticle , '" Because men made the laws"' , d iscusses
Marian as Aurora 's double, her self that has been split off by " m oral law " into her
m oral opposite . Finding Marian is therefore an act of transgression but also of self­
l i beration for Aurora : "The political other is the poetic self" ( 3 5 8 ) .
24 David asserts precisely the opposite : that "the one thing that Barrett
Browning could not, or would not, give Marian [was] a cursing , authentic voice
e m p owered by rag e " ( I ntellectual 1 40 ) . Her arg ument offers no exa mination of
Mari a n 's words or behaviour in the latter half of the poem .
25 There is some d ifference of opinion as to the success or otherwise of
Aurora 's attem pt to fill her 'mother-want' in her relationshi p with Marian. Leighton
climaxes her d iscussion of Aurora Leigh with the trium phant coalition of Aurora a nd
Marian, and has almost nothing to say a bout the final two books of the poe m .
Reynolds also reads t h e two women's relati onshi p unproblematically, regarding the
" feminized environment" in the second half of the poem as all owing "a 'correct'
balance between womanly and manly attri butes" (Aurora 44-4 5 ) . Both Mermin a nd
Step he nson offer m ore realistic readings, noting that the w omen's relationship is
hardly idyllic. Mermin w rites that Aurora " remains outside the charmed circle of
m other and child into which she had hoped 'to creep'" ( Origins 1 9 3 ) , and
Stephenson challenges the idyllic reading offered by Nina Auerbach, concluding that
"While we might l i ke to think Barrett Browning capa ble of envisioning a relationship
between two women as com pletely satisfyi n g , the text cannot support such a
s u pposition" ( Poetry 1 0 2 ) . Ste phenson's comment, whilst correct i n its reading of
the text, is fascinating for its assum ptions a bout EBB's capability. lt ignores the
poe m 's troubled pursuit of female al liance, a pursuit that explores as it exe m plifies
the c onstraints against such a n al liance.
26 Leighton offers another, though related, reading of these lines, i n Eliza beth
1 33-34.
27 Gelpi sees this moment of identification as crucial i n Aurora's recognition
of her own femaleness (Gel pi 4 7 ) .
28 Reynolds also expl ores this area o f genre subversion a n d literary
allusiveness, and comments : "this mag pie form , which steals frag me nts of a
tradition or language from which w omen have been alienated , to rewrite or invert
the m , can be defined in itself (though practiced in m odernist a nd post-modernist
works by both w omen and men) as culturally feminine" (Aurora 5 0 ) .
272
29 Linda R . Williams challenges the pre-Oedipal configurations of a female
tradition, arguing that feminist reverence of the m other-daughter relationship locks
women into potentia lly hierarchical familial relationships. She d isputes the premise
that " w omen have access to purity of sublime or semiotic comm unication " , and
that "authentic female communication takes place throug h matriarchal or matrilineal
networks " , rather pointing out how transm ission of i nformati on (even from mother
t o daughter) inevita bly places the tra nsmitter into a position of power over the
receiver ( 5 2 ) . Williams' argument is im portant in that it chal lenges a bsol utist and
essentialist claims a bout female relationshi ps, but it is also red uctive . Her lang uage
- "women have access " , " purity" , "authentic " - indicates a readiness to read the
psychoanalytical na rrative l iterally. I have already suggested that a metaphoric
a pproach to psychoanalytical feminism offers m ore prod uctive i nsights, and I would
a rgue that, as the post-Freudian na rrative continues to inscribe western w omen's
psychic life , inevita bly into self-destructive roles, we cannot simply disregard it. By
focussing on its g a ps and contradictions (as, for exam ple, concerning the pre­
Oedipal m other-daug hter relationshi p) , women (and men) can rewrite the narrative
and themselves, until a different, better narrative is found . Finally, this latter phrase
is commensurate with Wi lliams' concluding questi on: " H ow . . . is one to 'think
differently' powerful relationships of intellectual giving and creativity which don't
i nvolve one having power over another ? " ( 6 1 ). Aurora Leigh demonstrates that
c onsta nt rewriting prevents the reification of such relationships.
273
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