Art's Influence on the Consumer's Interpretation

Throughout history, men have created works or been patrons to the creation of art to honor the women they love.  This tradition seen not just in poetry but also artistic forms like paintings.  For instance, Jean Fouquet was commissioned by King Charles the VII's to create the Melun Diptych.  The left side of the diptych is a traditional prayer scene, but the right half is layered with meaning.  It is a classical representation of the madonna and child, but the figure used to represent Mary isn't typical.  Mary was modeled after King Charles the VII's mistress Agnès Sorel.  Using the mistress as a model lead to the overt sexualization of Mary.  The diptych pays honor to Mary but also to the mistress.  The representations of the women directly relates to what the patron or the artist wants.

Melun Diptych, Jean Fouquet

In the tradition of art paying homage to the love of women, Felicia Hemans told the story of Lady Arabella Stuart.  Where the paintings give artistic representations, they depict the physical attributes.  Poetry chronicles in detail what the writer wants to include.  With a lot of the novels and poems we've discussed in class, we've discussed the pros and cons of things like the epistolary novel and how in that form the characters chose to leave things out.  "Arabella Stuart" is written from the point of view of Arabella.  She sets up the entire experience like it's a dream, "Twas but a dream!"  Although she goes into describing a deer leaping though a forest, it left me think about dreams and the after effects of dreams.  How sometimes a dream can feel so real you're not sure if it was reality. The beginning of Arabella's journey is like a dream that turns into a nightmare.

Point of view is something that continually comes up when discussing each work that we've read in class.  Lots of questions about the legitimacy of point of view inevitably come up.  Are the characters concealing things they don't want the reader/ other characters to know?  Is the point of view from that of a man or a woman?  Can we trust the author's portrayal of the historical events that all of the works have grasped at in some way?  Is the author manipulating certain historical events to aid their argument?  Looking into the life of this historical character can help inform our analysis of any work of art that is supposed to detail or emulate a person.  Here's an interesting link about Arabella and her history.

Discussion Questions

1. What is Hemans' portrayal of Arabella and how does that compare to the other portrayals of women that we've encountered in class?  We've read a few texts from the point of view of men does that affect your opinion of the legitimacy of the narrator?  Why or why not, and how?

2. Does the time period that Hemans is sourcing from influence the way she describes Arabella, or does it seem like she is warping history to fit her needs like in Peru?  

Romanticism and Nature

One of the most important ideas that flourished during the Romantic time period was that of the goodness of nature.  Romantic writers were creating their stories during the time of the Industrial Revolution, leading to an increase in people inhabiting the cities.  This was a time that many people were nostalgic for the simple life in the country and a life in tune with nature.  These ideas are the main feature in Felicia Hemans poem "Edith, a Tale of the Woods."

Walden Pond featured in Henry David Thoreau's Walden

In "Edith, a Tale of the Woods," Hemans presents a field where a battle has just taken place, killing Edith's husband, along with many others.  Obviously, these deaths due to combat are very tragic, but the poem makes nature into a force that can alleviate the evils of the battle.  Edith sits all night with her husband's body and at one point the moonlight shines upon his face and "cast fitful radiance o'er the warrior's face" (40) which lets her see for the first time the "gathering haze" (42) that signals his death.  She yells out in agony over the death and only the forest hears her and seems to absorb her sadness.  She has the entire night to be sad and remain in the same state, but once the morning comes, nature seems to give her a fresh start and tries to make her move on:

 The pines grew red with morning; fresh winds play'd / Bright-colour'd birds with splendour cross'd the shade, / Flitting on flower-like wings; glad murmurs broke / From reed, and spray, and leaf, the living strings / of Earth's Eolian lyre, whose music woke / Into young life and joy all happy things (56-61).

 The next thing Edith knows, she has been taken in by an Indian chief and his wife, who traditionally are symbolic of being in tune with and respecting nature.  They too know the sadness of loss and together the three of them are able to find some happiness.  While her time with the chief and his wife was happy for them all, nature again takes its course and Edith dies.  Again, though, death is made to seem natural and peaceful because she is described as "to her home / was journeying fast" (155-156). Hemans also speaks about the moments just before the death and mentions the "'sounds and odours with the breezes' play, / Whispering of spring-time, thro' the cabin-door'" (165-166) as if to say that the process of dying is peaceful and that just before death a person can notice just the sound of the wind, instead of worrying.  At the very end of the poem, the chief tells Edith "Dim our cabin will be, and lone, / When thou, its light, art fled," (222-223) meaning that Edith is a light, or another nature symbol.

The fact that this entire poem was about nature and romanticized even the most sad and gruesome events is an important part of the culture at the time.  To some extent it was inspired by the Enlightenment, which encouraged a more spiritual take on the world, but it was also inspired by an opposition to the revolutionary time period that came before.  "Edith" is a good example of the kind of thinking that really was prominent in this time period.  In this poem, everything has a good aspect to it and it natural and fits in with the harmony of the world, unlike the turbulence that had been caused by the time of the revolutions.

Note: The epigraph translates to:

"My heart is broken, and dead to the world

And nothing remains of my joy and desire,

Oh heaven'y father-take home your child-

My journey in life now is over and done."

Links:

• This article talks about Romanticism more broadly and has a lot of historical perspective.
• This one is more specifically about Romanticism and nature.

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think Hemans decided to have Edith be fostered by an Indian chief and his wife rather than a different family or none at all?

2. Do you think the epigraph, a quote from "The Maiden's Lament," supports the ideas of the poem or contradicts them?  How does that relate to Romanticism and nature?

Unrequited Love Representing Femininity

All through modern culture are representations of unrequited love and the consequences of that type of relationship. Currently, our minds may go to examples in our realities or culturally centered television shows, magazine articles, movies, etc., but these options were not prevalent at the time of Felicia Hemans's writing and life. Published in 1828, the author's collection of poetry does not subscribe to our conceptions of unrequited love, femininity, or social roles, but provides her own definitions and ideas about these topics.

When reading "Properzia Rossi," the author is clear that she has loved and lost the love of the subject of her poem. However, the unrequited love does not just reflect the feelings of the author, but also represents a larger idea of femininity within its points. Beginning with somewhat of an outcry regarding all of the qualities that the author has that should ensure her happiness and presence of a husband, but she finds herself alone and thinking death may offer some relief to finding a lover. The idea of having a lover or the love of the poem's subject is certain to offer a fulfilled life for the speaker, "Tell me no more, no more/ Of my soul's lofty gifts! Are they not vain/ To quench its haunting search happiness?" (29 1-3). The woman admits she has such gifts as we learn later to be her artistry, along with other talents and personality traits, but this is not enough for her to feel happy with her life. Although this poem is almost 200 years old, its representation of femininity is still believed today - a woman is no woman alone. As the poem continues, there are an abundance of examples as to why the female subject of the poem cannot possibly live a life alone or without a companion of some sort.

Continuing to read the poem, the reader sees that the author is creating this sculpture to somehow express her grievance of a lack of love, and is having trouble getting through the art form despite her talents, because she has no sense of belonging and the man she has loved will not accept this love or reciprocate it. Speaking to just the sculpture itself, the author further establishes her priority for her companion as she is trying to finish her work, "I cannot make thee! Oh! I might have given/ Birth to creations of far nobler thought,/ I might have kindled. with the fire of heaven,/Things not of such as die! But I have been/ Too much alone; a heart whereon to lean." (31 65-70). Yet again, the talent of the author and artist is mentioned and her great accomplishments are obvious, but she cannot separate herself from this problem of love and need for a man. Allowing this supposedly amazing woman to lose herself in a problem of love or loneliness establishes a message that a woman of this time period not only needs a man at her side to ensure her social class and future due to society's expectations, but perhaps for her own sense of security and longing. There are still many modern ideals we hold that say you must have someone in this life to truly be happy or accepted into society, granted these ideas affect both genders, but there is a clear expectation that women need men more than men need women. By writing this poem, the author has made the reader accept that you can be the most talented sculptor in the world, but if you do not have a man to show for this, you have nothing in society's eyes and your own. 

Reading this poem really reminded me of the show How I Met Your Mother, which has the same type of story-line, but with a male character needing a wife in order to be happy. The main character, Ted Mosby, is an amazing architect with all sorts of his own accomplishments to take up his time and friends to enjoy seeing, but he cannot get past the lack of a lover in his life and is always on the hunt. Ted also has a spread out unrequited love in the last part of the show with Robin, a woman he has loved since the moment he met, and when she finally shuts him down he appears to be just as broken as the author, which you can view here. My apologies for the bad quality, there were no better clips!

Questions:

1) Are there other ways that femininity is shown through the poem? Is my interpretation too far one way, and could the actual love and yearning the author expresses be a good way to show more feminine power?

2) Does this poem's picture of women fit with the other poem's representations? Why or why not?

Property, Identity and Maria Edgeworth

In the essay "Homage to the Empty Armor" Natasha Tessone explores the roles that identity and property play within Maria Edgeworth's Harrington. Tessone argues that these themes are the primary reason behind the "fairy-tale" like ending. In the concluding chapter of the novel, we learn that Berenice's mother was a Christian Protestant, thus removing the issue between a husband and wife being of different religions (Edgeworth, 290). Likewise, this allows Harrington to once again be eligible for his father's inheritance. Considering that Tessone argues that "Edgeworth's ideologically inflected need to deessentialize, deflate, and indeed destabilize the political category of property," it would seem that this ending does the exact opposite (Tessone, 460).

Further issues that Tessone raises with Harrington include Edgeworth's blending of historical events to conform to what she is trying to say through her novel. The antisemitism displayed in the 1780 riots wasn't quite as present as Edgeworth leads readers to believe. Tessone argues that making the focus of the mob to be both Catholics and Jews, "religious identities collapse into one another to emphasize the damaging effects of an irrational prejudice" (Tessone, 461). Throughout the duration of the riots, Mr. Montenero and Harrington are protected by "the orange lady," a character of the lower working-class, yet who nevertheless shows herself to be cunning and earnest. Through the orange lady an entirely different perception of religious identity is offered. Unlike Harrington, who has had to go through a great deal of inner turmoil in order to reconcile his antisemitic beliefs, the orange lady shows that ignorance does not always lead to discrimination.

Further obscuring both property and identity is the scene in chapter ten where Harrington is forced to address the intolerance of both himself and his country. Tessone says it best when she states that: "The tower of London, thus, figures as a site where England's ideal of heritage, its persistent history of xenophobic intolerance, and the pathology resulting from both of these notably English traditions converge" (Tessone, 451). In terms of identity, this scene depicts that the inner struggles Harrington has been having with his own antisemitism reflect the difficulty that the whole of England has with confronting and acknowledging its own racism. Regarding property, the Tower of London mirrors the dichotomy found in Harrington, and by extension all of England. Along with functioning as a museum emphasizing English heritage, during the French revolution the tower was used to hold and interrogate French spies. Confronted with this blatant duality, "Once forced to reflect on the horrors of his childhood, Harrington's associative mind can no longer interpret these national icons without referencing murder and torture" (Tessones, 451).

Discussion Questions:
1) Aside from the Orange Lady, what other characters obscure the conventional perceptions of identity?
2) Is Edgeworth's manipulation of historical events tactful or does it needlessly insert her own personal opinions? From the other authors we have read, where else does the manipulation of history occur and how does Edgeworth compare?

related articles:
James Harrington's "The Commonwealth of Oceana; and, A System of Politics" cited throughout Tessone's article.

Karma/Sin and Penitence: the Christian Way

In Maria Edgeworth's Harrington, there is an obvious dichotomy created between Christianity and Judaism.  We have previously discussed how Harrington's Antisemitic illness is a result of what society and the Christians within it have taught him about Jews.  A divide between the Christian British and the Jewish British is established very quickly in the novel because of this.  That divide is only emphasized as the Christians of the novel discriminate and actively hate the Jewish people throughout the entire novel. Instances of this are when Harrington and Mowbray bully and abuse the Jew Jacob and through the representations and references to Shakespeare's Jew Shylock.  The Jewish people are constantly discriminated against in some way, and there is never an instance of the Christians apologizing for this discrimination.  In fact, as we have discussed, there is a focus on how a Christian regrets discriminating against the Jews, but not an instance of the Christian realizing how the Jew might feel about being discriminated against.  This focus on the Christian's point of view on Antisemitism is carried throughout the novel and shows an inherent tendency for Christians to be self-centered.  In fact, this tendency is especially prominent in the last section we read through the reveal of Mowbray and Fowler's "jest."  The reveal of the jest and the consequences that Mowbray and Fowler face in relation to it show the karma of their self-centered actions, and their request for penitence from Harrington shows another tendency to be self-centered.  In this instance, Fowler shows a tendency of being self-centered that can attributed to her status as a Christian than Mowbray.

We see Fowler's first tendency toward self-centeredness in the first chapter of the novel when she tells Harrington the story about Simon the Jew in order to force him into "passive obedience" and "get [him] to bed, and out of her way" (70; 74).  She then proceeds to tell him more terrifying stories about Simon and Jews in general in order to "reduce" his "rebel spirit" so she would have an easier time managing him (70).  As we know, Fowler's selfish actions to make her life easier scar Harrington and give him his Antisemitic sickness and fits.  Even after Fowler is dismissed as his nursemaid, Harrington still suffers from her self-centeredness and lies.  Instead of apologizing to Harrington for essentially ruining his childhood and most of his life, Fowler demands that Harrington "never tell anybody the secret she has communicated" with him so she is not in "disgrace with [his] mother" (71).  Fowler shows no real repentance for her actions until she too begins to suffer because of them, which in turn leads her to try and correct them.  Unfortunately for Harrington, she only makes the problem worse and then, in a fantastic display of self-centeredness, runs off to become the nursemaid of the young Lady Anne Mowbray.

When we see Fowler again at the end of the novel, it is revealed that Fowler has once again committed a heinous act in her self-centeredness that directly affects Harrington.  She worked with Mowbray in his "jest" to ruin Harrington's reputation with Berenice when Mowbray bribed her with the marriage between a rich apothecary and her daughter.  This marriage is one that Fowler was desperate to see come true, and she leapt at the chance to see it happen despite how the jest might affect others - an act of selfishness.  Her entire treachery is only revealed when Harrington is about to accuse her of stealing from Lady de Brantefield, and it is Fowler who reveals her treachery in its entirety in an effort to save herself.  It is Fowler's self-centeredness that causes her to reveal everything to the Harringtons while she throws Mowbray under the bus as being the one who "knew better" and was "the wickedest" of them both (282-283).  Even as Fowler reveals what she has done, she bases her reveal around how sorry she is and if Harrington will ever forgive her.  Fowler tries to show her penitence as she begs for forgiveness for her sins.  Now, sin is a Christian concept similar to karma in that both are a cause-and-effect relationship between one's actions and the results of those actions.  However, sin is a concept that is focused more on how the self is affected by its actions as opposed to how the actions can affect others.  In addition, a Christian can ask for forgiveness for their sin as a means of counteracting that karma.  So Fowler insisting she is a "great sinner" that is not the "worse one" shows that Fowler is trying to excuse her heinous actions by begging for forgiveness for those sins and implying that her sins should be forgiven because they are not nearly as bad as the sins of others (read: Mowbray) (279).  She even asks for forgiveness for her actions when Harrington was a child and she was his nursemaid.

Fowler shows a great tendency towards self-centeredness that can be tied in with her status as a Christian and their concept of sin and penitence.  Fowler focuses on how she is affected by her own actions and only begins to beg forgiveness for her misdeeds once she begins to suffer some consequences.  This penchant for only asking forgiveness and feeling penitence when it affects her shows how Fowler uses her religion as a way to excuse her actions and lessen her own suffering.

This article explains the similarities and differences between "karma" and "sin" in Christianity.  It's a short but informative read that gives you the impression that Christians focus more on how they are affected by something than how others can be affected by it.

Questions

• We've seen how self-centered Fowler is in her actions and how that leads to a focus on the self in karma/sin and penitence.  How does Mowbray show a focus on the self in karma/sin and penitence? If possible, how does Mowbray's karma/sin and penitence tie in with his status as a Christian?
• Who, if any, are the other characters who have a tendency towards self-centeredness?

Harrington's "Jewess"

We have talked before about how Harrington, as the speaker of the novel, is speaking from a place of reflective enlightenment.  We see him explaining his past perspective with hindsight's advantage.  Harrington goes through a genuine transformation and that transformation is fueled by his passion for Miss Montenero.   Edgeworth is saying that the pursuit of genuine love is a catalyst for change because it has more personal meaning than hatred built by society.  Miss Montenero and Harrington have to truly resolve and traverse the psychological barriers that keep them separated. Harrington has to fight the battle on two levels.  He has to overcome the battle within himself and he has to defend his actions to his friends and family.  Harrington's father, who helped ingrain the antisemitism into his son represents a influential standpoint in Harrington's life. We see his father's backlash in chapter 12 when he states, "if he marry a Jewess! Every inch of my estate shall go from him to his cousin Longshanks in the North, though I hate him like sin. But a Jewess for my daughter-in-law I will never have".  In this moment we get a feel for the type of backlash that Harrington's actions warranted.  With the threat of ostricism,  he conciously took a leap of faith to continue his pursuit of Miss Montenero even though he is risking his livelihood and security.  This action was a catalyst for change because the farther Harrington went with his attachment to Miss Montenero, the more his family found his love had genuineness.  He was able to change his mom's frivolous mind because there were social benefits that came with a union with Miss Montenero that swayed her form her position. Miss Montenero was wealthy and people wanted her and for that reason his mother was changed her perspective about the marriage.  Over time it became increasingly apparent that Harrington's decision was steeped in truth and his family was force to understand.  In the 18th chapter when Harrington's father finally admits his wrongdoing but still won't give , Harrington says, "But you ought to eat your own words, sir," said I, venturing to jest, as I knew that I might in his present humour, and while his heart was warmed; "your words were a libel upon Jews and Jewesses; and the most appropriate and approved punishment invented for the libeller is—to eat his own words."   In this moment we see Harrington  gain his father's respect for his decision and see him come to terms with his own shortcomings.

What does this say about bridging the social gap between Jews and Christians?
Does this play out in society today?

Mr.Montenero:The Good Christian Jew

     I initially though I would be focusing on Harrington's assumption that Bernice would convert to Christianity upon their supposed marriage despite his previous acceptance of her religion (196). Yet, while reading the newest chapters in Harrington, a phrase kept jumping out at me; a phrase that I thought to be even more important than Harrington's presumption . More than once in the chapters read for today, Mr. Montenero was referred to as a Christian.  For example, the orange woman talked to Mr.Montenero, stating, "Jew as you have this day the misfortune to be, you're the best Christian any way ever I happened upon" (236).  This happens once again when Lady Anne and Lady Brantefield are taking refuge in Mr. Montenero's home, the widow states, "There goes as good a Christian . . . Oh, if he isn't a jewl of a Jew!" (243).  Mr Montenero also embodies positive christian values when he disregards the state of his house in efforts to keep the two women safe. Mr.Montenero is a rich man, and more than that, he is a rich Jew. Yet, he willing to put his possessions into the line danger to protect the two "papists" while they sat worrying over the state of their own home (264).
   
     It is common knowledge that Christians and Jews hold different beliefs when it comes to Jesus. As a result a it is a peculiar decision to call a Jewish person a Christian. Mr.Montenero is a character who works to break down the previously held conceptions about Jewish people. Edgeworth paints an easily favorable picture of Montenero which, in the context of the novel, important to be recognized by the main character.  Through the novel, we have witnessed Harrington's views toward Jewish people change. That is why transformation and recognition of the goodness in Mr.Montenero is so important. His realization leads the audience to possibly make the same connection in their own lives.

What is the affect of Characterizing Montenero as a Christian/ What parts of her characterization either weaken or strengthen her case for the better treatment of Jews?
What may the affect have been if Edgeworth portrayed Montenro solely as "good Jew"?