Revies on EBB in Appendix D6-D9

In this blog, I will be summarizing and analyzing three different texts from the “Appendix D 6-9: “The Italian Question, Reviews of Poems before Congress” section of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Selected Poems. These texts include “Poems before Congress” by Henry Forhergill Chorley, “Mrs. Browning’s New Poems, The Atlas”, and “Poetic Aberrations by William Edmondstoune Aytoun. These three blogs talk about women and some talk about EBB and others talk about women of the time.

Summary

The three of these articles were kind of confusing to follow along, but each article I read seemed to be a little different. In the first review I read, “Poems before Congress” Chorley talks about EBB and her writing. “She is more political than poetical, expressing her blind faith in Napoleon the Third as the hope of Italy, and flinging out a malediction against England” (351). I do agree that EBB is more of a political writer, but I don’t see anything wrong with that because women at this time didn’t like to know about politics let alone create poems about political issues. This review also says “…One who has written, in her time, better than the best of English poetesses” (352). I don’t think that EBB is one of the best English poetesses and I think that because I like Robert Browning’s poetry better. Elizabeth is still a very great poet, I just don’t “click” with her poems. In the next review, Mrs. Browning’s new poems, they also talk about how great of a poet EBB is! “a writer who unites the strength of a man’s intellect to the largeness of a woman’s heart” (353). He also talks about one of her other poems “A Curse for a Nation” and in this poem, Elizabeth talks about cursing her own country. At the time, this wasn’t right for people to do, not even a little bit. “A curse from the depths of womanhood, its very salt, and bitter, and good” (353). Then, in the last review that I read by William Aytoun he talks about women in general, not so much about EBB. He states that women shouldn’t interfere with politics. He says that “we love the fair sex too well, to desire that they should be withdrawn from their own sphere, which is that of adorning the domestic circle, and tempering by their gentleness the asperities of our ruder nature…” (354). I don’t think it’s “bad” that women can be involved in politics, I mean maybe it was like this at the time, but anyone who wanted to be involved could be. Like I mentioned above, these reviews were pretty hard to understand, so hopefully I got the basic information out.

Analysis

Even though I was a little confused on the reviews, I still liked reading them. I just find it very interesting that women were looked down if they were into politics, or even if they wrote about politics in their poems. Women are strong and independent and now that women have a say it shouldn’t matter if they want to talk about politics in their poetry or not. And I do agree that EBB is a great poet, but I don’t think she is the best female poet of this time.

EBB's Appendix C in "Selected Poems"

In this blog, I will be summarizing and analyzing three different texts from the “Appendix C: Trans-Atlantic Abolitionism and Responses to EBB’s Anti-Slavery Poems” section of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Selected Poems. These texts include “The Slave-mother” by Maria Lowell, “The Original Opening of The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point” and The literary World on Hiram Powers Greek Slave and The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point” All of these short passages are different because they don’t all have reviews specifically on EBB, but they do talk about her anti-slavery poem The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point.

Summary:

Like I just mentioned above, these passages aren’t all critiquing EBB’s poetry, theses passages more describe her poetry and the emotions throughout her poems especially in her poem The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point. The first passage I chose, Lowell writes a passage in the form of a poem. In this poem, there are six stanzas and each stanza has four lines. The poem’s poetry form has rhyme to it. The last word in each line rhymes with the last word in the next line, so the first two end words rhyme and the next two lines rhyme. For example on page 337:

“Then on her face she looketh, but not as mother proud,

And seeth how her features, as from out a dusky cloud,

Are tenderly unfolding, far softer than her own,

And how, upon the rounded cheek, a fairer light is thrown;”

The next passage I chose wasn’t written by someone, it’s just an added in passage.  And in this passage, it talks about EBB’s opening of the poem The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point. I liked this little passage because it gives a great explanation on the beginning of her poem. I would encourage anyone who wanted to read this poem to read this short little passage first. It states how in the beginning of the poem, the dramatic speaker is a black slave and how later in the poem (stanza 16) the speaker changes to a female slave “I am black. I am black/ I wear a child upon my breasts”. Then in the passage it states how the beginning of this poem talks about a child being abandoned and gives different titles to others poem about children being abandoned. Then the last passage I looked at talked about how EBB’s poem The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point had erred (made a mistake). “With slavery, whether it be regarded with loathing, liking, or indifference, the Union has nothing to do; the American is not responsible for it; it is purely a local institution…” (342). As I read EBB’s poem, I didn’t notice that she made a mistake. I enjoyed this poem because there was so much emotion in it and even though it was sad it was still a very well written poem.

Analysis:

So the three texts that I choose were all different in some sort of way, but that’s why I chose those three..I wanted there to be a variety of EBB’s poem The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point. As I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed her poem because it made me understand the whole slavery point of view and how children are put into slavery whether the male of the master was a slave and definitely if the mother/female was a slave bore child. The emotion was also outstanding and I would recommend this poem to anyone because I really did think it was interesting!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

In this blog, I will be summarizing and analyzing three different texts from the “Appendix B: Religion and Factory Reform” section of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Selected Poems. These texts include “Reviews” “The Guardian (22 January 1851), “Death of Mrs. Browning” by Samuel B. Holcombe, and “Mrs. Browning’s Poetry” by Hannah Lawrance. Not all of the reviews talked about EBB’s poetry, but all described a little how she wrote or who her influences were, and this is what I found to be interesting within the three separate reviews.

Summary:

Like I stated above, not all of these reviews critiqued her poetry, but all of the reviews did mention her influences or compared her poetry to other poets. We haven’t read much of EBB yet, but Lawrance states that EBB is “highly favored among women” (322). EBB talks about The Virgin Mary and how a mother should give so much love to her child, so this part of her poetry obviously pulls young women and grown women to read her poetry. Holcombe then compares EBB to the girl version of Shakespeare. “She is truly the Shakespeare among her sex; and yet, no women has written in a spirit of such genuine, intense, and pathetic womanliness…” (321). Going along with what Lawrence said about her talking about The Virgin Mary, Holcombe describes how she is a Christian poet. Not all of her pieces have Christianity in them, and she doesn’t use it too often, but Christianity is hidden secretly in her pieces. Then we have the Reviews who tell us that Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Tennyson, and her husband Mr. Browning are EBB’s idols. Even though I don’t know who two of these men are, I do believe that Mr. Browning had a big effect on EBB’s poetry. So yes, all of these texts are different, but they all describe EBB in a different way, and that what I found interesting about these different texts.

Analysis:

Like I stated above, we haven’t really read much of EBB’s poems, but from what the texts have said, I can see how each one connects. For example, when the “reviews” talk about her idols, I do agree that Mr. Browning was one of her idols because he was also a very well-known poet and I do believe that he influenced EBB to write poetry. This is why half of her poems in this book are about Mr. Browning and how she fell in love with him. Her poetry is different than Roberts and that’s a good thing because they aren’t writing about the same things, but if they are then they are written in a different way. And when Holcombe says that she’s like the women Shakespeare I can already start to see it. Maybe once we read a few more of her pieces it will be clear who she writes like, but I agree with Holcombe.