department of english

357 Pages·2016·2.13 MB·English

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DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
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(RE)VISIONS OF FORM: THE POLITICS OF POETICS AND THE
POETICS OF POLITICS IN ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING’S
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OEUVRE

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DOCTOR OFA PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION

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A ANASTASIA ANGELIDES

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2015
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DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
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(RE)VISIONS OF FORM: THE POLITICS OF POETICS AND THE
POETICS OF POLITICS IN ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING’S
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OEUVRE

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ANASTASIA ANGELIDES
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A Dissertation Submitted to the University of Cyprus in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
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March 2015
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© Anastasia Angelides, 2015
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VALIDATION PAGE
Doctoral Candidate: Anastasia Angelides
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Doctoral Thesis Title: (Re)Visions of Form: The Politics of Poetics and the Poetics of
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Politics in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Oeuvre.

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The present Doctoral Dissertation was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Department of English and wIas approved
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by the members of the Examination Committee on March 30, 2015.
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Examination Committee: G

Research Supervisor: Evy Varsamopoulou, Associate Professor, Department of English
Studies, University of Cyprus. N

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Committee Member: Stephanos Stephanides, Professor, Department of English Studies,
University of Cyprus.

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Committee Member: Maria Margaroni, Associate Professor, Department of English

Studies, University of Cyprus.

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Committee Member: Kirstie Blair, Professor, Department of English Studies, University
of Stirling.
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Committee Member: Melissa Schaub, Associate Professor, Department of English and
Theatre, University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
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DECLARATION OF DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
The present doctoral dissertation was submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements
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for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Cyprus. It is a product of
original work of my own, unless otherwise mentioned through references, notes or any E
other statements.
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Anastasia Angelides
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ABSTRACT
Η υφιστάμενη διδακτορική διατριβή διερευνά τις αναπροσαρμογές των παραδοσιακών
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ειδών ποίησης και την ενασχόληση με καίρια πολιτικά ζητήματα της εποχής στο έργο
της Ελισάβετ Μπάρετ-Μπράουνιγκ. Μέσα από την ανάλυση των βασικότερων έργων E
της, καταδεικνύεται ότι η ποιήτρια καταφέρνει να εισέλθει στην παροδοσιακά
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ανδροκρατούμενη λογοτεχνική περιοχή για να επαναπροσδιορίσει τα τυπολογικά
στοιχεία του έπους, του σονέτου και του δραματικού μονόλογου οδηγούμενη από την
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επιθυμία της να ανανεώσει τις ποιητικές φόρμες αλλά και να αναταπLοκριθεί στις
κοινωνικοπολιτικές συνθήκες της εποχής της. Το βασικό επιχείρημα αυτής της
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διατριβής έχει οδηγήσει στην αποδοχή της ύπαρξης μιας διαδραστικής λογοτεχνικής
κοινότητας που απορρίπτει τη διαιώνιση της περιθωριοποίηGσης των ποιητριών λόγω
της υποτιθέμενης τάσης τους προς το συναίσθημα. Αντίθετα, υποστηρίζεται ότι η
απόδοση της αρμόζουσας ιστορικής προσοχής στNο έργο της Ελισάβετ Μπάρετ-
Μπράουνιγκ προϋποθέτει την απάμβλυνση της έντασης ανάμεσα σε αντιθετικά ζεύγη
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όπως άνδρας/δημόσια ζωή/πολιτικός λόγος και γυναίκα/ιδιωτική ζωή/συναισθηματικός
λόγος, αναγνωρίζοντας έτσι τις πολιτικές προεκτάσεις του συναισθηματικού λόγου. Το

Ρομαντικό της ιδεώδες για ένα νέο Aκόσμο αποδεικνύεται να είναι άμεσα συνδεδεμένο
με τον επαναπροσδιορισμό της αντίληψης για τον εαυτό σε σχέση με τον άλλο και με
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τις μετασχηματιστικές δυνάμεις του ποιητή. Αποδεικνύεται ότι η ενασχόλησή της με
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κοινωνικοπολιτικά ζητήματα και η επιθυμία της να υψώσει μια επιβλητική φωνή στην
ανροκρατούμενη Aλογοτεχνική κοινότητα υπήρξαν νευραλγικής σημασίας για την
ποιητική της. Με σκοπό να προβληθεί ο τρόπος με τον οποίο επαναπροσδιορίζει την
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εμπειρία της γυναίκας συγγραφέως/ποιήτριας στοιχειοθετείται η καυστική κριτική της
ενάντSια στην κοινωνική ανισότητα, τα συστήματα καταπίεσης καθώς και η αξίωσή της
για οικουμενική ειρήνη και εθνικό αυτοπροσδιορισμό.
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ABSTRACT
This thesis investigates Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s revisions of traditional verse
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forms and her engagement with political debates of her time. Through an analysis of
key works, I demonstrate how the poet trespasses traditionally male literary territory E
and rewrites the map of composition of the epic, the sonnet and the dramatic
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monologue, arguing that her revisionary impulse was cognate with the desire to address
sociocultural contingencies. The main argument of this thesis has led to the acceptance
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of the existence of a dynamic interactive literary community and Lopposes the
perpetuation of women poets’ marginalization on account of their alleged
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predisposition to the sentimental. On the contrary, I argue that granting the deserved
historical attention to the oeuvre of Elizabeth Barrett BrGowning presupposes the
effacement of the tension between gendered antithetical pairs such as
male/public/political and female/domestic/sentimeNntal, thus acknowledging the
political undercurrents informing the discourse of the sentimental. Her Romantic ideal
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of a new, transfigured world is shown to arise from her investment in re-calibrating the
notion of the self in direct relation to the other and in assigning a transformative power

to the function of the poet. Her entaAnglement with sociopolitical issues and her drive to
assert an authoritative voice in the male dominated literary marketplace are shown to
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have played a seminal role in the shaping of her poetics. I demonstrate her trenchant
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critique of social inequality, and systems of oppression, as well as her plea for
international convAiviality and national self-definition showing how she manages to
redefine female poetic experience.
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Table of Contents

Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1
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Section I

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Chapter 1: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Concept of the Role of the (Woman) Poet
and Generic Innovation in Aurora Leigh ........................................................... 17
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Chapter 2: Androgynous Imagination and Prometheanism in Elizabeth Barrett
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Browning’s poetry of the 1830s and Aurora Leigh ........................................... 75
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Chapter 3: Constructed Authenticity and (Inter)Subjectivity in the Sonnets from the
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Portuguese ........................................................................................................... 139

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Section II

Chapter 4: The Cosmopolitan Ideal of Elizabeth BNarrett Browning in ‘Casa Guidi
Windows’, ‘Napoleon III in Italy’ and ‘Italy in the World’ from Poems before
Congress .............................................................................................................. 201
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Chapter 5: Biopolitics and Generic Implications in the ‘Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s
Point’ ..................................... .............................................................................. 263
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Epilogue ........................................................................................................................... 320
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Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 331

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Introduction
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Imperius Man! Is this alone thy pride E
T’ enslave the heart that lingers by your side?
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Eternal Genius! Thou mysterious tie,
That links the mortal, and Divinity!
Say, hath thy sacred influence never stole, I
With radiance unobscured, on Woman’s soul; L
Till, waking into greatness, it hath caught
The glow of fancy, and the life of thougEht,
Breathing Conception, eloquence that fires,
And all that learning gives & HeGav’n inspires?
Is Woman doomed obscure, and lone, to sigh?
Comnena, Dacier, More, DeStaël, reply! 1
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning was only sixteen when she wrote her first manifesto
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on female creativity which brilliantly encapsulates women’s diachronic claim to

intellectual achievement. Why wouAld a teenage girl who led a quiet life in a secluded
environment which offered countless books to read, yet no friends or tutors to discuss
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them with, be interested in the plight of the woman artist? What was it that aroused her
most intense attenAtion to the woman poet’s experience? Invisibility and sighing were
women’s lot, yet in casting anxious glances behind her at an array of literary women,
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she set a lifelong task for herself: to erase doubts about women’s genius.
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Her ‘Essay on Woman’ might be read as a complaint in response to Alexander
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Pope’s ‘An Essay on Man’ (1733-34), which is cast in the mould of heroic couplets and
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celebrates male literary greatness. Addressing her ‘Essay on Woman’ to the ‘imperious
Man’, the role of the literary women with which the poem breaks off is undermined,
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1 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ‘Essay on Woman’, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Selected Poems, eds.
Marjorie Stone and Beverly Taylor (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2009), p. 50, ll. 35-36, 50-61. Stone
and Taylor inform us that ‘the essay survives in a manuscript (R D308) carrying the watermark 1822 (when
EBB turned sixteen). The date of composition might be earlier however, since the manuscript is not a
working draft but a signed fair copy. The poem was first published in 1984 by Eleanor Hoag, yet the text
here differs from Hoag’s transcription at several points’. p. 52.
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betraying her anxiety as regards their efficacy to incite inspiration to future generations
of women poets, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning herself. ‘Is Woman doomed
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obscure, and lone, to sigh?’ she asks her female predecessors, inviting at the same time,
as if having a future grasp of the diverse reception of her work, the contemporary reader E
never to lose sight of this thread of thought. This question in all its capacity as a
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rhetorical device conveys the sheer affirmation of her preoccupation with female poetic
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experience, guiding us through her dialogues with the literary imaginationL and poetical
forms inherited by forefathers and forged by male peers. The uEnresolved cultural
tension inherent in pairs of binary concepts such as male / female, public / private,
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active / passive, speaking / silent was catalytic in the organization of private lives and
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public conduct in Victorian times, setting thus the wider background against which her
poetry demands to be measured. It is preciseAly this anxiety emanating from the elision
of women from public life, and consequently the literary scene, that was meant to

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supplant and invigorate her poetical endeavours along with the unremitting vitality of a
progressive mind. UltimatelIy, the question ‘Is Woman doomed obscure, and lone, to
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sigh?’ directs our attention to the fact that Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote from the
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gendered margins of art to claim an esteem that was denied to earlier women writers. At
the same timTe, it also harbors an anxiety emanating from her awareness of the persistent
association of female poetry with the expression of suffering and excessive emotion that
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countered her desire to perform socio-political critique.
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Ironically, early critics of her work were reluctant to acknowledge her concern
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with the lack of a female poetic tradition, silencing thus the ideological implications of
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were just a few of the commentators who provided idealized readings of her poetry and

2 Eric Robertson, English Poetesses (London: Cassell, 1893).
3 Lilian Whiting, A Study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (London: Gay, 1899).
4 Osbert Burdett, The Brownings (London: Constable, 1928).
5 Louise Boas, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (New York: Longman, 1930).
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