Class discussion today brought forward a number of elements in the poem that might suggest what that larger purpose is:
- unlike most writers of country-house poems she includes people (Biron in the study and "the menial Train")
- she contrasts past, present, and future
- she invokes a muse AND an implied reader/tour participant
- she contrasts interior and exterior, house and garden, man-made and natural
- she frames the poem with two meals
Which of these elements of the poem strike you as most significant? Alternatively, how might these elements be working together? Just how satirical/critical is Leapor's tone? What is her atttude toward the country house and its owners? Does "Man the Monarch" display any continuities with Leapor's passages of natural description in "Crumble-Hall"?
Choose whatever dimension of this poem interests you most and continue the discussion here.
Deadline: Monday (4/27), noon.
3 comments:
I think the most significant thing in this poem was the time shift from the past to present and future. It gives the poem a disintegrating feel and ties well into the title "Crumble Hall". The poem express how lavish the house once was as well as where it is headed in the present. The fact that Leapor uses the servants of the house to show its present condition is also significant because it shows that the inside of the house is what truly counts and not just the house's outward appearance. Additionally, portraying the servants as dissatisfied with the household brings up the idea that keeping your servants happy might lead to a better appearing house because it is them most likely who are cleaning and taking care of it.
I find the fact that Leapor contrasts Crumble Hall with nature most interesting. In "Crumble Hall," Leapor marks the home's exquisite nature, but her admiration can be read as sarcasm. Her descriptions of the house often take an eerie turn, such as when she notes the "oaken Pillars – where a gallant Show / Of mimic Pears and carv'd Pomgranates twine, / With the plump Clusters of the spreading Vine. / Strange Forms above, present themselves to View; / Some Mouths that grin, some smile, and some that spew." In contrast with the smiling forms, the grinning mouths seem mischievous or potential harbingers of something more sinister at work. The word spew has a negative connotation, most often associated with a sort of regurgitation or with foul language, so I find Leapor's use of this word to be bizarre if not intentional.
In fact, Leapor is not so keen on the furnishings of Crumble Hall and other country houses. She questions whether the oaks "Shall . . . ignobly from their Roots be torn, / And perish shameful . . . While the slow Carr bears off their aged Limbs, / To clear the Way for Slopes, and modern Whims; / Where banish'd Nature leaves a barren Gloom, / And aukward Art supplies the vacant Room?" The poet does not approve of the slow process by which nature becomes vacant in order to fill countless country homes. She even finds nature's presence as art within the home "aukward," and finally demands "Then cease, Diracto, stay thy desp'rate Hand; / And let the Grove, if not the Parlour, stand." She prefers the pristine natural settings around Crumble Hall over the home itself.
For me, the framing of the poem between two meals provides the most significant narrative shift. Since Leapor decides to title the poem "Crumble-Hall" and not "Edgecote Hall," she is toying with ideas of decay and refuse within the manor. She relates the decaying presence of natural and organic compositions within the household and its surrounding landscape by replacing them with images of refuse and pretense, like the two meals and the books that surround a sleeping master, few of which "wear the Mark of Biron's Hand" (93).
The first meal, which Leapor describes in great detail, invokes imagery of the folkloric times of yore, where Crumble-Hall "Has fed the Stranger, and reliev'd the Poor" (14). The food previously served a venerable purpose and is represented as a marker of tradition. However, the second meal goes to show the state of moral decay that has descended upon the estate. Instead of Knights and noblemen dining, Leapor represents the drunken and overstuffed servants passed out as the solitary Ursula cleans up after them. As she cleans around her somnolent compatriot, she laments, "Is wretched Urs'la then your Care no more, / That, while I sigh, thus you can sleep and snore?" (138-9). Her address seems to play out on a couple of levels, as she laments not only for her personal neglected condition, but also that of erstwhile values. The meal is no longer represented as an occasion to showcase the society Crumble-Hall offers, but has become an occasion for overindulgence to the point of sleep. Tradition is cast aside and replaced with gaudy decadence, and a sole maiden, perhaps the poetess, is left to pick up the pices.
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