Let me first say that I am deeply impressed by the close-reading skills that all of you have been bringing to class and the sophisticated level of engagement and analysis that has been characterizing our discussions. There are a lot of ways that a tiny class on rather off-beat subject matter can go, and I definitely feel like I'm living a best-case scenario. So thank you all! (And by all means, carry on!)
Let's step back for a minute, now that we're about midway through the student-led discussions, and think more broadly about these poems that we've been scrutinizing. So far we've mourned the death of Marie Antoinette, heard some good marital advice, explored the pleasures of cosy room on a stormy night, and considered the implications of a boy's first pair of pants.
What does it all add up to? Are we looking at a bunch of entertaining and diverse poems that happen to have existed within the same hundred-year span and were written by people with vaginas but otherwise have little to connect them? Or do these various works hang together with the other poems you've read in the course in ways that suggest that "C18 Poetry By Women" is a coherent, stable, and analyzable literary field? That may sound like a leading question, but it's not meant to be (I'm not looking for affirmation that the course title makes sense, but I am looking for an active engagement with the question).
Deadline: oh, fairly open-ended under the circumstances, but I did tally up the blog points thus far and some of you need to step up and start posting responses if you do not want your grade dragged down by this requirement.
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Although there do not seem to be many links between the disparate poetry we have read in class, one common trait could be relationships between men and women. As in my own poem "The Choice" there is the question of whether marriage can bring happiness. In "The Breeches" a mother fears for her son to gain adulthood. In Liz's poem a woman chooses death over men. It seems that, like today, the 'battle of the sexes' is a unifying force over this century.
I disagree with Emily's idea that the poems being presented don't contain links to one another. On the contrary, with each new presentation, I make different connections and gain a more complete picture of the C18 women poets, especially the process of writing poetry. Through the study and presentation of these poems, we seem to be grasping at the larger picture of "why" these poems are being written, and "what" their message is, below the surface. On one side, we are analyzing these poems through C21 lenses with limited education and resources, but on the other hand, we're constantly digging beneath the surface and trying to uncover the meaning with minimal guidance from Prof. Wilcox. It has been a real pleasure uncovering the poetic themes and structures without the general lecture/discussion format. I'm not saying that our classes before the student presentations started took this format, for throughout the semester we've all been very involved in discussion and analysis. We seem to be researching and studying on a more self-directed level, which is helping us (or at least me) flesh out our analytical skills. When I came into this class after taking a sabbatical from the university, I had no real feel for reading a poem. However, after the past eight weeks, I feel much more armed and qualified to speak on poems, or at least C18 poems.
If anything, the variety of poems that we have presented thus far come together to show that women in the eighteenth century wrote poetry on a fairly diverse topics. We have seen what can be viewed as possible evidence for lesbian relationships occurring during the time period in question, a gender issue raised by a change from a more effeminate mode of dress to breeches, and a renunciation of marriage (even if only verily attributable to one fictitious Celia) by an eighteenth-century version of the ‘independent woman’, among other social issues. Anne Yearsley’s poem based on Marie Antoinette raises political (let alone moral) issues regarding monarchy, justice, and revolution. To cite an example about which I have more immediate knowledge: my poet, Anne Bannerman, wrote in a characteristically male mood in “To the Nightingale,” as I mentioned in class a week ago. Women in the eighteenth century may not exactly follow a strict recipe for the style of or subjects treated within their poems. However, judging by the poetry to which we’ve been exposed, these women always make a pertinent point or say something in a relevant manner.
I agree with Emily that men, and the relationship that women have with them, seems to be a common thread that binds some of the poetry we have discussed together. Nonetheless, it is not evident in all of the poetry we have discussed. The examples many pulled out of Milcah Martha Moore's Book had nothing to do with men. Neither did the Smith poem I covered. Therefore, I would be more inclined to say that 18th century poetry written by women is not a cohesive subject.
Now, a question that occurs to me is this "why would anyone want to have 18C poetry written by women be a 'cohesive subject'?"
Think about it. It is impossible to form a cohesive subject without excluding material that does not agree with that which represents the majority of work. This immediately brings an artificial barrier to understanding/enjoying the work as it will be read as within/against the newly minted subject. This robs the poetry of its ability to be understood and enjoyed without the previously conceived ideas and understandings; to stand or fall on its own without modern artificial constructs warping the process.
If this hasn't confused you yet then you possess a sharper wit than mine. To explain (at least to myself), I offer a story about a man and a pond.
Once upon a time, there was a pond and a man. Why a man? Simple, it is my story and it came to mind first. The man wanted to understand the pond, and all that is in it so that he could further his understanding, his enjoyment and his mastery of such things. So he brought back a net to try to catch anything that was in the pond so that he could better know and appreciate it; to further the definition of the pond. He noticed that he could throw his net out and cover most of the pond, but as he pulled the net towards him he caught less and less of it as water and frogs and fish and all other things you might expect to find in a pond (and a few you wouldn't) slipped out of the net. In the end, he was left with only a frog.
The point is that when you try to define anything, you limit it in excluding parts of it. This is what I fear in creating a subject out of 18C poetry written by women. If one finds a theme that is shared by all 18C poetry written by women EXCEPT for one poem by an obscure author then you have truly come no closer to understanding than you were before searching for the theme. If one were to establish a literary canon out of 18C poetry written by women in which even one poem written by a woman during the 18C does not fit then it is doomed to be read as outside of/contrary to/in opposition to the canon. This is a literary construct that damages both the poetry in the canon and that without it (as both the frog and the pond suffer for their separation by artificial means). This poetry existed before the concept of 18C poetry by women writers being thought of as a subject did and it can only be lessened by what is almost certainly doomed to be the establishment of these works as a subject which will unnaturally influence both the way they are read and will fail to include all poetry written by women poets in the 18C. I know it is annoying to think of, but the stereotypes that allow us to function do not capture the whole truth. It is an imperfect understanding, and thus, no real understanding at all. Sometimes it is simply best to enjoy the pond, without needing to trap it with definition or cage it with category.
If this still doesn't make sense, you have my congratulations simply for reading this far and I encourage you to ask me in class by which time I might have thought of a better way to explain it.
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