aurora leigh book V

(pg. 151, lines 139-155)

the critics say that epics have died out

with agamemnon and the goat-nursed gods;

i'll not believe it.  i could never deem

as payne knight did (the mythic mountaineer

who travelled higher than he was born to live,

and showed sometimes the goitre in his throat

discoursing of an image seen through fog),

that homer's heroes measured twelve feet high.

they were but men — his helen's hair turned gray

like any plain miss smith's who wears a front;

and hector's infant whimpered at a plume

as yours last friday at a turkey cock.

all actual heroes are essential men,

and all men possible heroes: every age,

heroic in proportions, double-faced,

looks backward and before, expects a morn

and claims an epos.

-in this stanza from book V, EBB defends the vitality of epic poetry.  she does not believe that epic poems such as homer's can never again be repeated.  in fact, she names names of contemporary critics (i.e. payne knight) who she disagrees with.  payne knight, who viewed greek antiquated heroes as literally 12 feet high (hector), or always courageous (astyanax), or eternally beautiful (helen), also viewed these epic heroes as more abstract than did EBB.  her basic point is that these legendary characters were just as human and just as mortal as victorian contemporaries.  thus,  heroes from her era have just as much potential for epos as homer's characters do.  "all actual heroes are essential men."

-in defending her own generation as just as worthy of epos as homer's greek heroes, EBB takes a firm stance on not only victorian culture, but also the worth and lasting value of epic poetry.  aurora leigh was written at a time of crossroads for british poetry.  many writers and critics argued that the time of epic poems was over and that poets should confine themselves to topics and styles more realistic and relevant to contemporary life.  EBB does not completely disagree w/ this; she merely argues that epic poetry can still be as monumental as homer's was and is.  given the fact that 21st cent. students are still reading her poetry, it seems that both EBB and aurora were correct.

aurora leigh close reading

(book I, 304-12)

...she had lived

a sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage,

accounting that to leap from perch to perch

was act and joy enough for any bird.

dear heaven, how silly are the things that live

in thickets, and eat berries!

i, alas,

a wild bird scarcely fledged, was brought to her cage

and she was there to meet me.  very kind.

bring the clean  water, give out the fresh seed

1) how does the metaphor of the bird work in this passage?  (clue: what two things are being compared and how are they alike?  women and birds.  first discuss how the aunt is like a bird, and second how aurora is like a bird.)

as the question sort of answers itself, 2 things being compared in this excerpt are women (aurora and her aunt) and birds (cage bird and free bird).  the aunt is like a bird in that she is content to spend her life cooped up (i.e. in a cage) like a bird, rather than go out and really experience culture and the world.  

as aurora lands in england after the death of her father, she sees her father's sister standing outside of her house,

"...straight and calm, 

her somewhat narrow forehead braided tight as if for taming accidental thoughts 

from possible pulses..."

the aunt has trained herself to be restrained and conservative and dutiful at all times.  she is a caged, civilized, christian bird, and she's fine w/ it.  it's also interesting that the aunt is never given a name, further suggesting how impersonal she is towards aurora.

as for aurora, she can also be considered to be a bird, but more wild and free than her aunt.  she wants to "spread her wings," if you will.  however, her aunt views aurora as a wild italian tuscan girl that needs to be taught manners, modesty, hard work, etc.  since she is still so young at the time she moves in w/ her aunt, the aunt feels she has the opportunity to undo the progressive ideals instilled in her.  however, aurora doesn't think that people should be "tamed."  the term "fledged" applies to birds whose wings are clipped to prevent them from being able to fly.

2) what does this passage say about the relationship b/t aurora and her aunt?  what can we infer from this passage to make sense of how aurora views her idea of femininity as it relates to the womanhood her aunt presents?

this passage illustrates the conditional love b/t aurora and her aunt.  when aurora writes "very kind," it sounds less than authentic, as if the reader is supposed to acknowledge that this is sarcasm.  the short staccato sentence suggests this further.  later, on pg. 14, she writes, 

" 'she(her aunt) loved my father and would love me too

as long as i deserved it.' very kind."

at this point, the reader knows that her aunt is basing her love for aurora off a failed ideology of british conservatism during the height of the victorian age of manners.  it also shows a flawed side of the aunt, who selfishly wants to change aurora so she is less and less like her dead mother, who the aunt did not approve of.  it seems the aunt quit loving her brother (aurora's father) once he left for italy and became immersed in culture and his love affair.

aurora's view of femininity do not align w/ her aunt's.  she has no desire to do house chores, dressing properly, etc.  aurora is a free spirit.  the womanhood her aunt presents is a reserved kind.  aurora has no interest in this type of housewife womanhood career.  she wants to make money through her writing, regardless of w/e plans her aunt might have for her.

aurora leigh by elizabeth barrett browning

elizabeth barrett browning brief bio

-EBB was born in 1806 and died in 1861.  when wordsworth died, EBB was considered for poet laureate (a revolutionary consideration for women writers).  her father was an enormous personality who dwarfed his children and enveloped all of them and did not want them to marry.  EBB (like most other women) became unknowingly addicted to morphine as an invalid child.  in 1845 EBB met robert browning via letters and soon eloped against her father's wishes. they loved each other until she died and to robert, she met some of what is considered to be the best love poetry of all time (ex: "how do i love thee? let me count the ways...").  they had one child and she died happy.

book I

-the 1st book in browning's long poem discusses aurora's (browning's semi-autobiographical alter ego) childhood growing up in florence, italy w/ her father. her mother, a tuscan (italian), had died when she was only 4, and aurora's english father was forced to raise her on his own w/o the supplement of her mother's additional, nurturing love. aurora meditates greatly on the life and death of her mother, of what she wished for her childhood vs. her reality and of her mother's presence in death (thru her father, thru portraits of her, thru her aunt, etc.) during aurora's early upbringing.

-aurora's father is an english man w/ property and money, who seems to be too old to marry. the lady of the house (in england) is his younger sister, so if he never married, his sister (aurora's aunt) would become lady of the house. while on vacation in florence, aurora's dad witnesses a catholic parade one afternoon and falls in love w/ a tuscan woman walking in the streets (aurora's future mom). they marry and give birth to aurora. her aunt resents aurora for this and sees aurora's mother's face in hers.

-this late marriage makes aurora's father become uncommon and a free spirit (although this is shortlived). forgetting his estate in england, he becomes more interested in love and the arts (to his sister's dismay and annoyance). this brief period of lifestyle difference and happiness ends when his bride dies and he becomes a man suffering from overbearing melancholy and a sense of loss. a broken man, he struggles to raise aurora on his own and does his best, in her opinion

-aurora leigh is up there w/ other epic poems such as milton's paradise lost. it is also a "bildungsromans" (a novel concerned w/ the edu, development and maturation of a young protagonist).

-EBB did not believe that humans are born as tabula rasas. instead she thinks that we are born as some form of parchment of papyrus that has previously been written on and continues to be written on while we grow. it shapes us. in book I, aurora ponders what has shaped her in her young life so far (like how tv and books have shaped us).

-in the beginning of book I, EBB explains the purpose for writing it. she is now writing for her own use to look upon it later to hold together what she was and is. the murmur of the outer infinite is what you hear if you disregard what culture is telling you (like listening to eternity). thus, the murmur from travels inland = experiencing what culture and life and youth have to offer.  aurora explains that her mother died out of a sense of joy and bliss at giving birth (another example of an adoring mother):

"...if her kiss
had left a longer weight upon my lips
it might have steadied the uneasy breath,
and reconciled and fraternised my soul
with the new order..." (pg. 6)

—> in this portion of book I, aurora tells how her childhood was spent looking for a maternal love that her father could not offer her, as mother's love foolishly and father's love wisely, as EBB puts it.  mothers understand all the little nuances that babies / their children have and they kiss "full sense into empty words" (pg. 6). they get it.  dads can only do so much (it is thought).

"the lifted veil" by george eliot

(news flash: "george" was a girl)

-pg. 28: "low spirits!" i [latimer] thought bitterly, as he rode away; "that is the sort of phrase with which coarse, narrow natures like yours [alfred's] think to describe experience of which you can know no more than your horse knows."  latimer says this in response to alfred, but really, this statement cannot be true, everyone feels low @ some point in there life, despite alfred's self-complacency —> so, if latimer were truly clairvoyant, he would be able to sense some of alfred's flaws / insecurities (it seems instead that latimer is blinded by his own passionate feelings towards bertha, alfred's beau)

-latimer's jealousy towards his older brother leads him to all of his self-pity & accusations.  latimer is jealous of alfred for 1) their father's preference for the older child and 2) their shared love for bertha, who at least outwardly prefers alfred.  these harsh critiques of alfred on the part of latimer are eliot's (the author's) way of revealing to the reader that he in an unreliable narrator

-for example, in chapter 2, alfred dies that day, so latimer's assumption that "there was no evil in store for him" (pg. 28) was completely wrong.

-"the fear of poison is feeble against the sense of thirst" (pg. 24) is an amazing quote uttered by latimer, who hates himself for loving bertha, who is the literal antithesis to his ideal woman, but his desire for her remains and is perhaps even stronger b/c of it.  bertha carelessly admits to latimer that she does not love alfred, who she agrees to marry.  latimer argues w/ her against this way of thinking, insisting that either she really loves alfred or must marry someone else: "bertha, that is not your real feeling.  why do you delight in trying to deceive me by inventing such cynical speeches?" (pg. 29)

-when latimer is in love w/ bertha, he projects onto her a perfect nature; when he doesn't have these feelings for her anymore, he resents he and projects a horrible nature onto her

-it may be impossible not to project onto somebody you really love (do you love the person or your projections?) —> latimer doesn't love bertha at all, but what he's made of her, she tells him how shallow and cynical she really is but he refuses to accept it as fact, he thinks she's still just trying to cover up some hidden feeling

-is latimer a sort of psychotic character who does evil acts w/o realizing them? (like robert deniro's character in hide and seek)  "latimer seeks desperately for ignorance, freedom from the terrifying, nauseating knowledge of human pettiness" (from new york times review titled "the wimp who knew too much")

-both bertha and latimer look at each other and judge each other —> he finally realizes there is no depth there, "the narrow room of this woman's soul" (pg. 35).  this question of judgment begs asking if you behave differently when you go to your teacher's or boss's office to discuss your work when he/she thinks you're brilliant vs. a teacher who thinks you're a slacker?  yes.  two opposite ends of the projection spectrum are: idealize (high) & demonize (low) —> judgment is not the way to know a person, and latimer can't presume bertha is either amazing or the worst person ever

-latimer's iconic & idealized projection of bertha could have stemmed from his mother's extreme caring & nurturing as a child.  from safe atop the judge's stand, latimer puts himself in the position where he himself cannot be looked at under a microscope or judged —> he never thinks to analyze or "judge" himself.  the blood transfusion scene towards the end of the novella was a sort of gothic, science-fiction, futuristic scene @ the lifted veil's time of publication (interesting that eliot's invention is now a reality)

frankenstein (end) + heromachine characters

*hero machine character would not upload to blogger (emailed to you instead)

-i based my character off of frankenstein's monster, like everybody else.  however, in an attempt to avoid making the hero look like 1) the cinematic portrayal of the monster and / or 2) the incredible hulk, i based my hero's look off of walton's last description of the monster when he boards the ship right after victor's death.  i gave him long ragged hair, scruff on his cheeks, mummy-esque bandages wrapped on his arms and other general characteristics like walton describes.  i couldn't help making most of his clothing and accessories "hulk green" however.

getting inside a character's head:

-free indirect discourse (getting inside the consciousness of a character) is different and unique to novels —> compared to movies, which use voiceovers, close-ups and cuts less effectively in an attempt to get the same effect —> what then do video and computer games do to develop a similar sense of interiority?  if you're acting out as the character, then that character's interiority = your interiority (if you have the option of killing off another character, that ethical decision is also up to you).  the poet william butler yates said, "who can tell the dancer from the dance?" (asks if a choreographer or a dancer, or a game's creator or a player, is truly expressing themselves thru dance)

end of novel:

-victor sees the flaws in his methods but can't seem to get past them.  he sacrifices family for a heroic ideal, the stereotypical hero who chooses career, fame, etc. over family commitments.  the monster is therefore an expression of victor's real desires (to escape intimacy w/ loved ones?)

frankenstein friday

-victor wants to destroy the potential relationship b/t the 2 monsters, so the monster seeks revenge on victor on his wedding nite.  victor is so blinded by ambition he is afraid that the monster's threat is for him (instead, the monster kills elizabeth) —> the monster COULD have killed victor at anytime throughout the novel, but instead tortures him by killing several of his loved ones (clerval, william, elizabeth, etc) —> the monster may also have chosen not to kill victor b/c he is his creator.  he tortures him by killing those closest to him.

- one of our class's theory: what if there is no monster?  what if victor and the monster are 1 and the same, a la fight club?  (victor hallucinates the monster).  this is backed up by the fact that even though walter thinks he sees the monster, he is just as confused and delirious at times as victor, so he could be mistaken as well —> both could be just sheer self-destruction

-victor seems to be taking his time in marrying elizabeth, he could have married her before creating the monster, so is it really the case that he wants his loved ones around?  does he want them to die?

searching for "wretch" in etext version of original edition of vol. III of frankenstein

chapter 3- "she (the new monster) might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness"

chapter 5- "(victor, talking to his father on the futility of pride, blaming himself for justine's murder) ... human beings, their feelings and passions, would indeed be degraded if such a wretch as i felt pride," then a couple paragraphs later, (victor, referring to the monster), "i avoided explanation, and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch i had created"

walton's letters- (writing to margaret, telling her of victor's horrible story) "[victor's] fine and lovely eyes were now lighted up with indignation, now subdued to downcast sorrow, and quenched in infinite wretchedness"

-shelley is deliberately setting up the question of if there is really a monster or not, or if he is really victor?  what's psychology's role in this?  usually, laura wants to blame victor for elizabeth's death and call him selfish.  but now she sees his whole attitude as a summation of his desire to be the one to save everyone and have the attention all on him, maybe his reason for wanting to be completely alone in the world.

frankenstein psychology & parenting

-"and now, once again, i bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper," is shelley equating her novel w/ the monster.  around the time of 2nd edition, locke wrote that he imagined all humans as "tabula rasas" (blank slates, nurture, etc), claiming that if you bring up children properly, you will have a more understanding, better world (some people took this too far, like thomas day, who adopted 2 young girls and told them nothing and left them to learn everything themselves b/c he felt culture was so corrupt —> allowed the children to even stick their hands in the fire to teach them that fire burns —> children grew up to be schizophrenic.

-as far as parenting goes, "sticking around" is step 1 for successfully raising children —> victor's total abandonment of his monster leaves the creature w/ no one to care for it.  BUT, on some kind of level, there is always a moral choice for the child (and the monster) ex: the monster frames justine, this shows he has some sense of right and wrong.  at first, the monster has no way of measuring himself in relation to other people before getting to observe families (monster tells victor he should have been his adam, but he abandoned him). 

-some parents put kids into extremely busy schedules b/c they don't know what else to do w/ them.  if a child is made to live out his parents' wishes, or made to prove something (like the way the monster was made to prove victor's genius), sometimes they make statements against this (either towards their parents or towards their institution, etc.).  for example, the monster will do anything to get his "father's" (victor's) attention, even (or especially) violent acts.  on pg. 109, shelley writes, "suddenly, as i gazed on him (william, victor's son), an idea seized me, that (william) was unprejudiced, and had lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity" —> later, the monster says to victor that essentially, "i was good, you made me bad."  on a related note, one  study claims that w/ the legalization of abortion, crime rates have gone down (less accidental or unwanted children or little unintended monsters entering the world).