The Pfeiffer quotes are more than interesting. Do the O'Leary and
Blind pieces stand up to these? If so, some samples?
Mark
Oh, and on the feminized image of male poets, if the source was as
you suggest, Alison, "the Romantic poet personified [as] both
masculine (Intellect)
and feminine (Soul)," it's become sufficiently embedded in our
culture to produce Percy Dovetonsils, wisecracks from my father,
sneers in bars, etc., with very little awareness of Keats and
Shelley. Annoying, but too silly to get upset about.
At 07:19 AM 5/7/2006, you wrote:
>Well, I do think Elizabeth Barrett was shrivelling *before her
>elopement. Was George Eliot "unsexy"? Lewes seems not to have
>thought so and their liaison caused social unease. What David points
>out can be interestingly modified, though: Women Poets (sic) were
>sometimes praised , as were (I first typed "qwere") male poets , for
>their masculinity; thus, Richard Garnett introducing Sara Coleridge
>in the volume of A.H.Miles *The poets and the poetry of the century*
>devoted to Women Poets wrote "While deficient in no female grace,
>she is intellectually distinguished by a quality for which we can
>find no better name than manliness" etc, or Mackenzie Bell
>judiciously remarked that Augusta Webster (no drooping or
>spinsterish flower she), while lacking E.B. Browning's "impulse and
>fire" or C.Rossetti's "deep and searching symbolism" surpassed all
>"other women poets of England" "in that quality which, as it is
>generally deemed the specially masculine quality, is called
>virility." (One will note the hesitation of both writers as to the
>specifically male nature of "virility".) In the above-mentioned
>anthology there are many poets, by the way, whose lives in no way
>suggest gender-related marginalisation. No less a personage than
>W.B.Yeats intro's Ellen O'Leary, whom he admiringly describes as an
>active Fenian. Mathilde Blind, though apparently unmarried ("Miss
>Blind") is described with unconcealed admiration as a "traveller,
>continually on the move from land to land, [who] has accumulated the
>impressions derived from many different regions, and many different
>societies." Emily Pfeiffer (what? never heard her piping?) seems to
>fit in with the drooping stereotype ("from the first weak, and
>almost morbidly sensitive"), yet "Her husband believed in her
>powers, and was wise in his suggestions and encouragements [....] Mr
>Pfeiffer predeceased his wife by exactly a year." Doesn't sound much
>like marginalisation in that marriage, does it? "I would be a
>goddess in/The light of those dear eyes,/Apt to hold you as to
>win,/All-beautiful, all-wise,/Pray you wherefore should you
>deem/This a vain and idle dream?/Purblind love that cannot see/That
>woman still to man may be/Whatever she can seem!" And she writes a
>sonnet on Evolution: "Hunger that strivest in the restless arms/Of
>the sea-flower [...]/Thou art the Unknown God on whom we wait. Thy
>path the course of our unfolding fate", while she eulogizes George
>Eliot as "Lost queen and captain, Pallas of our band" etc. No
>shrinking violet, she.
>I've enjoyed dipping into this dusty tome after its years of
>marginalised shelf-life...
>mj
>
>Alison Croggon wrote:
>
>>On 7/5/06 2:42 PM, "David Bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>One of the interesting aspects of this debate has been the amnesia about the
>>>marked way in which our culture often has seen poetry as an 'unmanly'
>>>occupation: male poets are associated with 'nancy boys', 'stuff for women',
>>>with the exhibition of sensitivity and feeling, those 'feminine' qualities,
>>>rather than sports-field prowess, as well 'bookishness' which is not again
>>>a macho activity.
>>>
>>
>>Good point, David; the Romantic poet personified both masculine (Intellect)
>>and feminine (Soul) brought together behind that famous brooding brow; which
>>always "conceieved", "gestated" and "gave birth" to Genius. Etc. This by way
>>of marginalising actual women, btw, who were doomed to hairy unsexieness a
>>la George Eliot, eternal spinsterhood (any number of poets) or facing having
>>their mortal frames shrivelling under the flame of Genius a la Elizabeth
>>Barrett ...
>>
>>All best
>>
>>A
>>
>>
>>Alison Croggon
>>
>>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>>Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
>>
>>
>
>--
>
>The self that shines in the greying sunshine
>of the immediate is actual, though it is
>not all that is there. - Douglas Oliver
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