This week, we're transitioning from the mapping of C18 women's poetry--what's out there, what are the various kinds of experience depicted in poetry, who's writing it and why, what does and doesn't get said in verse--to questions about what it all adds up to. What interesting interpretive claims can one make about C18 women's poetry (or any coherent subset thereof)? What are the key contextual questions to ask? What does the study of this body of literature tell us about the world that we didn't already know?
Obviously, an effort to answer those questions with reference to the whole of C18 women's poetry will result in claims that are so vague as to be useless. So let's start by trying to come to some interpretive conclusions about the particular subset of C18 women's poetry brought together in Martha Milcah Moore's book. Let me ask again the question I put on the board on Wednesday: To what extent (and how) does Martha Milcah Moore's book express/articulate/give voice to a feminist consciousness? Or to put the question another way, what does it matter that most of the poems included in MMM's book are by women?
In addition to the poems and prose from the book that we've been talking about this week, here are a couple of others that might be read as speaking directly to these women's awareness of the gendered parameters of their lives:
85. To the Memory of Sarah Morris... (p. 253-255): she was well-known Quaker preacher, who spoke not only within her own congregation but travelled widely to preach in other places.
99. On reading the Adventurer World &c. (p. 270-272): Griffitts here critiques British women based on their representation in British periodicals of the time.
We'll be talking about these poems in class on Friday. Feel free to respond here with your reflections on the MMM poems we've been reading this week, the issue of how the poets in the book treat their specifically female experience of the world, or more broadly, the question of the broader interpretive questions to which C18 women's poetry can supply useful or provocative answers.
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2 comments:
The fact that the poet of 99 starts out so strongly with a gendered opinion of a specific nationality, "british Females still regardless hear," is somewhat surprising because of the poems we've been reading, the gender of the writer or speaker has not always been so prevalent. If we know that the poet is female, we usually assume the speaker is too unless we have concrete evidence otherwise but so far, we have not read a poem in which the poet targets women so directly. In this poem, the poet seems to be making women the bearers of morality "shall virtue weeping call, shall satyr sneer, and british females still regardless hear?" which is in line with many other poets at this time such as Jonathan Swift's "The Lady's Dressing Room." Secondly, I find it interesting that the poet leaves women responsible to carry out morality..the only reason i can think of is perhaps because they are the creators of children? Phrases like "moral tyes," "deep corruption," and "prove your judgement in vain," show the poet's deep concern for the voice of women not being heard. One possible interpretation of this poet is that morality should be carried out by women but they may not be strong enough to make a bold statement about morality, thus causing falls in society.
Well, there are two ways of looking at the topic. You can try to analyze MMM's book by virtue of what it tells C21 readers about C18 women and feminist consciousness or you can try to analyze it from a C18 point of view. What was MMM trying to tell her readers and why? Did she expect this book to start some kind of intellectual movement or revolution? Or was it just a book of poetry and prose from some people she thought were good writers? Was she specifically targetting a male audience as a kind of "hey, look what women can do" or was she putting this together for women as a sort of collection of literary excellence to inspire those who had reservations about producing or publishing their own work?
In my opinion (which is almost completely unfounded on any sort of factual evidence) the purpose of putting together a book of poetry and prose that is almost exclusively composed by women is meant to reinforce women's solidarity as an oppressed gender and to exhibit their contributions to literature. I think at this period in time women have less influence and power than men do and they know it. However, they are just starting to realize that they are a gender that can do great things, even under the oppression of men and societal norms. More and more women are getting educated through their own means (like Ann Yearsley did :) and putting their thoughts, feelings and ideas to paper. They are in turn inspiring other women to do the same and in a kind of roundabout way taking the first steps into a feminist ideology.
... I think.
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