British Women Poetry - Elizabeth Hands - Book Report/Review Example

Critical analysis of A Poem, on the Supposition of an Advertisement appearing in a Morning Paper, of the Publication of a Volume of Poems, by a Servant Maid Elizabeth Hands, one of the notable women poets of the Romantic Era, satirizes the snobbish nature of the Aristocratic upper class ladies in the English society in her poem entitled "A Poem, on the Supposition of an Advertisement appearing in a Morning Paper, of the Publication of a Volume of Poems, by a Servant Maid". The poem also shows how the working class people are looked down with scorn and contempt by the dominant upper class society. The poem can also be read as a working class woman's attempt to establish herself as a writer against all kinds of suppression and oppression. Elizabeth Hands, as a poetess, is very much acclaimed for her conversational tone and the use of simple and effective dialogues in her poems and the poem under consideration is one of the best examples for the poetess's effective employment of dialogues. All throughout the poem a conversational tone is maintained and each conversation made by the various characters throws light on their snobbish nature and acts as tools of satire in the poem. The poem has an anapest double rhyme scheme with a hypermetrical light stress and the diction used by the poetess is quite simple and colloquial. Satire is employed as a powerful weapon in the poem to bring out the follies and the snobbish nature of all the aristocratic ladies who express themselves in the poem. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) defines satire as "the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc" ("Satire." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1), 2008). The poem begins under the setting where the ladies are assembled together to have their tea. As it was the custom, one of the ladies had to begin one discourse or other, and it was the turn of Mrs. Consequence to initiate the conversation. The formal and reserved affectations of the ladies are very well ridiculed by the poetess when she remarks: "And thus the discourse in an instant began: / (All affected reserve, and formality scorning,)"(lines 6-7). All the other ladies are shocked to hear that a servant girl has written a poem and this leads to speculations regarding the subject matter of her poetry. Their aristocratic superior sense do not permit them to admit the fact that a working class woman is capable of composing a sensible poem and they easily conclude that it must have been a feeble story on a broom, or a tool for cleaning floors or a dishcloth. (The term 'dishclout' is wrongly spelt by the poetess and the O.E.D defines the term dishcloth as "a cloth for washing dishes"). The poetess makes one of the Aristocratic ladies go to the extend of admitting that she did not have a taste for poetry as she realized that "the study of heraldry was more in fashion"(line 55).( The O.E.D defines 'heraldry' as " the study of the coats of arms and the history of old families"). Thus, the poetess' focus is to throw light on the snobbish nature of the upper-class people and she "portrays her working-class figures with dignity and questions many of the standard middle-and upper class conceptions of the labouring class" (Fieldman, p. 257). Even the names of the group of women seem to be ironic as names like Mrs. Consequence, Old lady Marr Joy, Mrs. Noworthy, Mrs. Prudella etc are suggestive of their aristocratic follies whereas Mrs. Rhymmer as her name suggests displays some poetic sense. It is as a consequence of Mrs. Consequence's remark on the servant writer that the poem begins; the names like Old lady Marr Joy (who spoils or damages joy), Mrs. Noworthy (who is devoid of worthiness), Mrs. Prudella (who actually lacks prudence), Mrs. Candour (who does not display openness), and Miss Prim (who is too formal) etc are suggestive of their personal characteristics. Within no time, one finds the ladies engaging themselves in cards playing and it is evident from their conversations that none of them took writing seriously and they just wanted to express their prejudiced whims and fancies on the issue. The poetess makes their follies revealed and it makes the reader in a comfortable position to pass his/ her judgments on these ridiculous characters. The derogative expressions and the diction used to refer to the servant girl writer in the poem remind one of the eighteenth century plebeian poetry that depicted the suppression and oppression of working class writers. A more sensible and convincing reading on the poem could be possible when one tries to find out the theme of the writing working class woman's difficulties in a society where the upper class dominates the writing scenario. As Paula R. Backscheider observes: "Elizabeth Hands combines the theme of the writing woman's difficulties in obtaining access to publication with the condemnation of women who maintain the tyrannical force of custom"(p.105) in the poem. Elizabeth Hands herself was a servant for many years in an upper class family and so she was very much familiar with the tribulations faced by the working class people in her contemporary society to get their poems published. The scorn, contempt and the pride shown by upper class ladies towards the working class is evident in their use of derogatory expressions like 'a servant write verses!', 'What ideas can such low-bred creatures conceive', 'Pray what is the subject - a Mop, or a Broom' and 'an Ode on a Dishclout' etc. Thus, the poem can be rightly categorized into the plebeian (working class) women poetry of the eighteenth century. As William.J.Christmas observes: "the eighteenth century was the first period in English literary history to see the ranks of published plebeian poets increase dramatically"(p. 15). Thus the poem is sound with Marxist undercurrents as Marxists believe that the division of society into classes is the actual reason for oppression of the working class people. In the poem we do find the working class poet being suppressed and oppressed by the dominant aristocratic society..The working class consciousness finds expression through the servant poet figure in the poem. Donna Landy (1990) believes that the use of tetrameter adds to the stylistic features of the poem and according to her the poem is a "critique of working-class women's subordination, the simultaneous suffocation and the exploitation of their talents and desires". (p.6)This negative attitude towards lower class writers is evident in the poem when old lady Marr-Joy states: "Was she mine I'd employ her as long as 'twas light, / And send her to bed without candle at night" (lines 24-25). At another instance in the poem one finds Miss Prudella observing that working women should limit themselves to the four walls of then kitchen rather than "reaching at things so much out of their sphere"(line 35). For them, writing receipts, instructing them of how "To warm a cold breast of veal, like a ragou, / Or to make cowslip wine, that would pass for Champaign ;" (lines 51-52) were the things that a servant girl was supposed to and is capable of performing. But not all the ladies who were present negated the prospect of a servant becoming a writer. For example, Miss Rhymer and Miss Pines seem to respect writers who belong to lower strata. Miss Pines confides that she had a servant who wrote very good lines. Similarly, Miss Rhymer also shows her approval of writers who are genius: "I protest / 'Tis pity a genius should be so deprest!" (lines 26-27). However, these individual protests were not paid heed to and the discussions do progress based on the majority's views. Thus, the poem rightly echoes the problems and oppressions suffered by working class writers. One should also keep in mind that the poems of the women writers including Elizabeth Hands went unnoticed and rarely researched upon compared to that of their counterparts- the male writers in the Romantic writers. However, any study conducted on the women writers in the eighteenth century would figure the poem because of its thematic concerns and colloquial style. The poem is written in a colloquial style and the conversational tone in the poem is clearly evident to the reader. The reader when he goes through the poem feels that he is listening to a conversation made by Mrs. Consequence and her group of friends. However, the presence of the servant writer who does not figure in the actual conversation provides extra significance to the poem. Speaking about the conversational tone in Elizabeth's poems, Paula R. Fieldman observes: "her poems are written in colloquial language, some irreverently comic, and can be deceptively simple" (p. 257). Expressions like 'the company seated', 'great Mrs. Consequence open'd her fan', 'says Madam Du Bloom', 'says Miss Flounce', 'for my part I think', 'Why so says Miss Rhymer, displeas'd', 'I've now got a maid', and 'I cant see for my part' etc reveal the extend to which the poem sound more like a conversational piece. Similarly, the diction used in the poem, the rhyme scheme and the metre employed in the poem add to this colloquial treatment of the poetess. Words like 'Dishclout', 'ragou'(the actual word is 'ragout' which the OED defines as " a rich slow-cooked stew of meat and vegetables"), and 'cowslip' are suggestive of the colloquial language used by the poet. In the same way the rhymes and metres employed by the poetess also deserve attention. An anapest double rhyme with hypermetrical light stress is employed by Elizabeth in the poem. An anapestic verse is one where stress is laid on every third syllable. Let us consider the following two opening lines of the poem to have a thorough understanding of the rhymes and the metres used in the poem:- The tea-ke/ttle bubbled/, the tea things/ were set, The candles/ were lighted/, the ladies/ were met; As it is evident from the markings, both the lines do have anapestic trimetric construction (which consists of three feets) which is followed by hypermeters with double rhymes. The stressed syllables are given in bold black ink and the words given in italics are the hypermeters with double rhymes. Thus, one can undoubtedly state that the poem does have a colloquial style which is a result of the dictions, dialogues and the particular arrangement of rhyme and metre. Thus, having gone through the major thematic concerns, the formal and stylistic features of the poem, one can come to the conclusion that the poem does have significance in the present day. Social snobbery is still a part of the upper class way of life even today and so the poem has a strong message to convey in that respect. Similarly, the poem throws light on the initial difficulties of any upcoming writer who tries to establish himself. The poem is simple but thought provoking. There is not any complexity associated with the understanding of the poem, but the real appreciation of the poem necessitates good knowledge regarding the anapestic rhyme that is used in the poem. The poem reflects the dilemma faced by many writers who belonged to the working class people in England during the Romantic period, and even though one cannot make comparisons with the other major writers of the period like Wordsworth, Shelly or Keats, it does have a strong message to convey to humanity. Elizabeth Hands, undoubtedly, has an important place among the women writers of the period and the simplicity of her poems make many readers to like her poetry. SOURCE:- The source from where I came to understand the identity of the writer is Rob Pope's book, The English Studies Book: An Introduction to Language and Culture. (p. 294). Similarly, the two books that I have quoted in the body of the text also helped me to understand the period to which the writer belonged and they have been highly useful to me in doing this essay. Works cited Backscheider, Paula R. Eighteenth Century Women Poets and Their Poetry. Inventing Agency: JHU Press, 2005. Fieldman, Paula R. British Women Poets of the Romantic Era: An Anthology. JHU Press, p. 257. 2001. "Satire." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. Dictionary.com. 2008. 15 Mar. 2008. . Hornby, A. S., and Crowther, Jonathan (Ed). Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. 5th Edition. Oxford University Press, 1996. Hands, Elizabeth. "A Poem, on the Supposition of an Advertisement appearing in a Morning Paper, of the Publication of a Volume of Poems, by a Servant Maid" Landry, Donna. The Muses of Resistance: Labouring- Class Poetry in Britain, 1739- 1796. Oxford University Press, 1990. Christmas, William J. The Lab'Ring Muses: Work, Writing, and the Social Order in English Plebeian Poetry, 1730- 1830. University of Delaware Press, 2001. Read More