Class Blog

Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s poem “The Marriage Vow” approaches the concept of marriage in what one could perceive as an attack on the institution, using the idea of language and words to illustrate the funeral Landon thinks a wedding to be. Landon makes this thought clear immediately, with her first line being “The altar, `tis of death!” (1). After all, the altar is where so many young women lay their dreams to rest, burying their hopes and desires to instead pledge fealty to a man who will never let her follow her heart. At the altar, a young woman is forced to “… sacrifice of all youth’s sweetest hopes” (2), is forced to give up so much of what makes her her – it makes sense that Landon would view a wedding as an occasion of sorrow and death, as something is dying, it’s just not a human being that’s being lifted into a coffin. This idea of the woman’s wedding being her funeral is also indicative of Landon’s own relationship with marriage and the way the institution was held in the Victorian era, as a woman would become her husband’s “property” in a sense after the marriage was sealed.

The power of words is a theme repeated in a lot of Landon’s work, and this theme is prevalent in “The Marriage Vow” as well. Landon writes, “It is a dreadful thing for woman’s lip / To swear the heart away” (3-4), indicating that it is the words of the marriage vow uttered by the woman that seals the heart’s fate and dooms her heart to death. This is Landon’s proof for the amount of power words hold, as the simple words of her vows are what put the woman to death, or at least condemn her heart to death. These words are binding, and are stronger than the woman’s passions, will, and dreams, strong enough to kill her.

Works Cited

Bridgewater State University Virtual Commons – Bridgewater State University. (n.d.). Retrieved March 31, 2023, from https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1420&context=honors_proj 

 

The color purple is mentioned 5 times throughout Elizabeth Barret Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. Each mention is found in a different poem; they all have connected meanings, but are cleverly disguised in various ways. The color works to convey the unique characteristics of her lover, highlighting their differences while subtly revealing the speaker’s deeper anxieties she sees within their relationship and in her own feelings. She uses the color to separate herself from her lover, using it as justification to brush aside her love. Yet, as she falls deeper in love and becomes more invested in the relationship, the color is used, not to separate the two, but as a means of bringing the two together. She continues to use the color to express the strong love she feels for the lover’s character and presence in her life, showing that she has, or is beginning to get over some of the anxieties previously expressed in the early sonnets. She finally uses the color to describe how perfect her love is. The color’s significance and meaning changes with the speaker’s feelings towards her lover and works to weave a complex story about coming to terms with and understanding the feeling of falling deeply in love. 

The first mention of the color is found in Sonnet 8, “And princely giver, who hast brought the gold/ And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold” (2-3). The alliteration found in the letter P of “princely” and “purple” connects the two, immediately showing the speaker’s association of her lover, described as princely, with the color purple. Purple is usually considered to be a very rich, wealthy, regal color. It is interesting that she considered her lover to be the more ‘purple’ of the two considering her own family holds greater status; perhaps she feels that she is not truly connected to this family status, or does not hold the same quality of royalty and status her lover does at his core “thine heart, unstained, untold”. This alludes to some of the anxieties she has surrounding the relationship. 

Her anxiety becomes much more clear in Sonnet 9 where the distinction between the two lovers is made again through the color purple.The speaker says, “I will not soil thy purple with my dust” (11). Again, purple is used to describe her lover, suggesting that the purple is something in danger of being spoiled shows that the vibrancy and richness of the lover’s personality is something the speaker admires. When talking about her own personality, she compares herself to dust, something that is swept away, colorless, barely there, a film that lessens the value of what it covers. Perhaps the speaker is scared of ‘soiling’ her lovers color, or their relationship by falling for them.​​ The juxtaposition could also be a way of noting the lover’s confidence, which as displayed by the nature of this sonnet is something the speaker does not have. 

In sonnet 16, royalty, the color purple, and the speaker’s lover are all associated with one another, but now the relationship has developed a bit more and the speaker does not shy away from the prominent ‘purple’ manner the lover exudes, but wants to accept it into her life. “thou art more noble and like a king,/ Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling/ Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow” (2-4). In saying that her lover is more noble and king-like, she shows her true adoration of his character. She is perhaps more willing to worship his character, and their love than she is real royalty. The next line suggests that she cares more for her lover than she fears their relationship, and is willing to let him win against her weariness. In letting her lover’s purple to wrap around her, she is letting herself submit to the love she feels. What was once unknown and scary to her is now something she wants to learn from and incorporate in herself. 

In finally accepting this love, the speaker may finally realize its value, preparing herself for a future that includes her lover. Sonnet 26 compares the joy of imagination to the joy real life can offer. In thinking back to the comforts of daydreaming the speaker notes that “soon their trailing purple was not free/ Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow” (5-6). The color purple once again holds a positive connotation. The comparison between purple and dust, previously seen in sonnet 9 is repeated in the final usage of purple. As the speaker gets older her dreams and imagination begins to lose their allure as the real world begins to occupy her thoughts more than pleasant daydreams. In this case purple also seems to be heavily associated with a great, desirable, generally very happy quality of life or period of life for the speaker. “Their songs, their splendours…/Met in thee” (10-12) suggests that she is finding this same joy in her time spent with her new lover. Even implying that this new joy is better than her dream-filled younger years because it is based on real-life events. “Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame” (14). 

Purple, although seemingly minute in significance, is in reality one of the driving factors of the speaker’s feelings for her lover. Purple is fancy gifts, purple is different, purple brings anxiety, purple is eye-opening, purple is fun, and purple brings a new life for the speaker, one that the speaker eventually accepts with enthusiasm. It’s complex and changes with time, just like her love. 

!!There are spoilers for the show Daisy Jones & The Six in this post!!

 

When reading Victorian literature, I never really consider that some of the issues discussed or brought to light are still relevant in pop culture. Watching the TV show Daisy Jones & The Six (after reading the book of course), I realized just how relevant Victorian literature can be. Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s poem, “The Marriage Vow,” begins with the short statement “the altar, ‘tis of death!” (Landon 1). Unlike the Romantics, Landon gets right to her main idea through this exclamation and sets the framework for the rest of the poem. By providing a comma in between the altar and death parts of the exclamation, she leaves the readers with a pause that provides them a split second to wonder if it is a love poem.

Brandon goes on to continue that it is “the sacrifice of all youth’s sweetest hopes,” (2). When reading this line, I was utterly confused and surprised that marriage takes away youth because my parents got married young so I always viewed it as a good thing. However, after watching a young marriage in Daisy Jones & The Six which is set in the 1970s, this line made more sense. In the show, Billy Dunne is a musician who marries his wife Camilla at a very young age because she is pregnant. Due to this marriage, Billy ends up falling even deeper into his drug use and when his band goes on tour, he ultimately ends up in rehab and misses the birth of his daughter. In the show, his hopes of becoming a musician that he had when he was young are taken away because of marriage. Looking at it from a lens of a career or life-long dream being sacrificed for a marriage, Landon’s point is brought out but also complicated as in the show it is a man that gets stuck giving away his hopes while his wife, and unfortunately not well-explored character, seems to be content. However, this also furthers Landon’s point about how “It is a dreadful thing for woman’s lip,” (3). Having a very one-dimensional wife character in the show, this shows Landon’s point that marriage binds someone and it is dreadful for a woman as after marriage, her autonomy is gone. 

Also in the show, Camilla, the wife feels trapped but as mentioned, it is not explored through her eyes. However, it is explored through the eyes of Daisy Jones, someone who falls in love with Billy Dunne. She and Billy make music together and are deemed “soulmates” but because Billy is married, they can never be together. At the end of the show and book, one of the last things Camilla says is something along the lines that Billy cannot leave her and will not because she is his wife. Right there, Landon’s point about marriage “binds the victim, not the will” (9). Even though Camilla knows Billy is in love with someone else, they are still stuck in the marriage regardless due to family ties and having children. Landon’s point is still very relevant, marriage ties people together and takes away the autonomy of women even in the 70s and today. Unfortunately, there have been countless women in my life who had lost their will to their husbands. Landon fought to change marriage through the works of poetry, and yet, there are still issues almost two hundred years later. 

One of my favorite songs is “Dover Beach” by Baby Queen, which, through some research, I learned was inspired by Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach.” Bella Latham, known artistically as Baby Queen, loved the poem when she read it in school and actually visited Dover Beach due to her love for the poem. However, when there, she was so consumed by her unrequited love for another person that she wrote a song while sitting on the beach. When I first read Arnold’s “Dover Beach” for this class, all I could think about was this song, so I wanted to explore a side-by-side comparison of the two.

Both the poem and the song are written from the point of view of someone sitting on Dover Beach, overlooking the “tranquil bay” and “the cliffside” (Arnold Line 5, Latham Line 3). Arnold’s speaker reflects on the sublime nature of the sea, cliffs, and pounding waves, attributing an “eternal note of sadness” that nature instills in him (Arnold Line 14). On that beach, the speaker dreams of how Sophocles looked on similar waves in the Aegean thousands of years ago, pulling this singular moment of experiencing nature into a larger context of the interconnectedness of humanity.

On the other hand, Baby Queen sings about how even when in such a beautiful space that she has wanted to visit forever, she can’t stop thinking and daydreaming about this person she likes. Similar to Arnold’s speaker, the singer cannot appreciate the view in its entirety because “What’s the point in looking at the view? / ‘Cause every time I do, I just see you.” Although it is different than thinking wistfully on Sophocles, both speakers nevertheless are distracted even while in this beautiful landscape. 

More similar to Baby Queen’s lyrics, Arnold’s speaker moves from reflecting on the unchanging nature of humanity and his loss of faith due to scientific discovery to thinking about his lover, who is assumed to be his new wife. He pleads “Ah, love, let us be true / To one another!” (Arnold Lines 29-30). He then rejects the notion that the world is “a land of dreams” and is beautiful and new; instead, he darkly proclaims that the world “Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light” (Arnold Line 31, 32). A somber tone takes over, distorting this hope for everlasting love with melancholy views of humanity. In this way, the beauty of nature, which Arnold begins the poem describing in a Romantic way, is overtaken by the more pressing social issues and faults in society.

Likewise, Baby Queen’s self-hatred and hatred for the object of her affections ruins and distorts the beauty of Dover Beach. In the song’s outro, she repeats “I met your ghost, he followed me / Down to the coast of Dover Beach / I scream at you in poetry / You stole the view of Dover Beach.” This crush that only incites pain and sadness corrupts the beauty of nature once again, which corrupts the singer’s perception of Dover Beach. Both speakers are alienated from their surroundings by their own personal strife, leaving the main focus of the poem/song not on the titular feature, Dover Beach, but on the inner thoughts of the speaker. 

Additionally, similar to Arnold’s vow to his wife, Baby Queen sings “The world ends, it’s you and me / In my head if we can be together maybe we’ll live forever.” Yet both of them know that this dream is unattainable, either because the world is a dark place or the crush is unrequited. In this way, undying love exists only in each speaker’s head. The speaker’s thoughts become consuming, to the point that it distorts reality and experiences. 

I find it really interesting that these two artists, with over 150 years between them, have such similar experiences on Dover Beach. It seems that the exquisite and dangerous nature of the surroundings (with the crashing waves and steep cliff drops) inspires a somber feeling in the viewer. It is also notable how memories and thoughts can become consuming to the point that it can ruin something sublime. Unlike with the Romantics, it seems that here humanity triumphs over nature, at least in the minds of these two individuals.

I wanted to look at the poem, “Sonnet (To an Octogenarian) by William Wordsworth through the lens of comparing it to Wordsworth’s earlier poem, “An Old Man Travelling”. There were several themes in both of these poems that related to one another. They are both, at the core of their messages, about the concept of time, and how one accepts this constant movement in time. I found this interesting because both of these poems have such developed ideas about time, that differ greatly from one another. It was interesting to see how wordsworth’s perception of time had evolved as he lived through it on his own.

“The Old Man Travelling” emphasizes the idea of re-envisioning the concept of age and growing old in time. This poem romanticizes the experience of an old man and explores the beauty of having been raisined with time. There is this idea that there is a physical pain that may be present through the withering of time, but the mind is at peace. There is a lack of a mental burden in comparing it to physical pain. A line that highlights this idea is, “A man who does not move with pain, but moves | With thought. He is insensibly subdued” (L 6-7). This line captures the theme of the entire poem by expressing how important the old man’s mental space is, despite his old age.

In contrast to this, “Sonnet (To an Octogenarian)” takes a different approach to the idea of time. This poem is a lot more fearful, and in this, a lot more lonely. There is an emptiness to the experience of time that is not present in “The Old Man Travelling”. “Affections lose their object; Time brings forth / No successors; and, lodged in memory, / If love exist no longer, it must die,” (L 1-3). In these lines, Wordsworth expresses how time is not worth experiencing when love no longer exists. In other words, loneliness burdens your experience with time so much that it is empty. There is a lack of motivation to continue on without “love”. Wordsworth also adds to this idea by expressing how mourful it is to be given the part of being the “sole survivor of thy race” (L 10). By this, he is saying that it is painful to feel like you are the last person alive who understands you. Time has not only withered away your body, but the love surrounding you as well. This concept is so different from “The Old Man Travelling”, who, although never explicitly said to be alone, has also gone through the trials of growing old in time. The Old man was never so burdened by age. He was at peace, insensibly subdued.

The contrast of the ideas of time support how much more brutal “Sonnet (To an Octogenarian)” is. Without looking at this lens of comparing this poem to “The Old Man Travelling”, the raw idea of this poem is just focusing on a person who is experiencing an empty loneliness at an old age. However, by comparing the two poems, the audience is given the perspective that this speaker is experiencing an empty loneliness at an old age, but this is so far from their expectations and views on being old, that they had decades ago. It is so morbid because in “The Old Man Travelling” there was a sense of hope for the future. An expectation that time would wither away your body, but your mind would be nourished and at peace. In “Sonnet (To an Octogenarian)”, it is revealed that this is not how things turned out. The hope that was in “The Old Man Travelling” was unfulfilled. Wordsworth is digging at this theme of Man vs. Time in a way that exploits the duality in the beauty and the burden of nature, and things in nature that are out of human control (time).

These ideas are important in understanding both poems because you cannot have it one way or the other. The message that the two poems are speaking together is that time is uncontrollable. The human relationship with time is something that is hopeful and beautiful, but in the same will also always be brutal and painful. The poems together highlight this idea by being in conversation with one another, as opposed to individually. We are only given one side of this conversation by reading these poems separately.

Prior to the era of Victorian poetry, the genre of medieval romance had flourished in Europe from around the eleventh to the fifteenth century. Having taken several medieval literature classes with Professor Skalak and being somewhat knowledgeable on the subject, I found the parallels between thirteenth century Arthurian romances and Alfred Tennyson’s nineteenth century “The Lady of Shalott ” especially interesting. Throughout his poem, Tennyson draws on traditional medieval tropes and references famous medieval icons, like Sir Lancelot and Camelot, to critique the subjugation of women in the nineteenth century; framing the narrative of his poem hundreds of years before the time period of his criticism allows Tennyson distance from his otherwise obtuse commentary on the repression of female agency. 

Tennyson establishes the Lady of Shalott’s lack of agency throughout the first three parts of the poem. Despite being the main character of the narrative, the Lady of Shalott, trapped within “four gray walls, and four gray towers” on a desolate island, remains unnamed and unknown to everyone else; the poem’s narrator rhetorically asks, “who hath seen her wave her hand?” and “is she known in all the land?” to emphasize the Lady’s isolation and invisibility (134). While she is trapped in the physical space of her tower, she is also trapped emotionally by a curse that prohibits her from directly looking at the outside world. Instead of seeing and interacting with the outside world, the Lady has no choice but to stay in her tower, watch the world through a mirror, and weave. Many traditional medieval romances also employ this “damsel in distress” (and often trapped in a tower) trope, such as Marie de France’s “Yonec” and Chrétien de Troyes’s The Knight with the Lion, to depict female helplessness and the necessity of male saviors. By falling under the subjugation of a mystical curse and being characterized similarly to the “damsel in distress” trope, the Lady of Shalott experiences repression similar to that of women in nineteenth century Europe. In both instances, the women are expected to stay inside, engage in traditionally feminine activities like weaving, and avoid certain social interactions- especially those of a sexual or romantic nature. 

The Lady does not remain helpless or without agency for the entire poem, however. Upon observing a knight, Sir Lancelot, through her mirror, the Lady’s intense feelings of attraction compel her to act. Tennyson describes the Lady’s actions in successive order, as “she left the web… [and] the loom”, “she made three paces thro’ the room”, “she saw the water lily bloom…[and] the helmet and the plume”, and “she looked down to Camelot” (137). The use of anaphora, through the repetition of the phrases “she left”, “she made”, “she saw”, and “she looked”, amplifies the verbs that signify the Lady’s actions and agency. Ironically, the Lady only develops this sense of agency in response to a man, and acting upon it triggers her curse and leads to her death. Unlike traditional medieval romances, the Lady of Shalott is not saved by a man or knight and instead attempts to save herself. Her death, then, acts as a punishment for her earlier displays of independent agency. The Lady cannot win- remaining without agency means being unhappily trapped in a tower, but developing agency and leaving the tower leads to her death. Reading “The Lady of Shalott” as a double poem that criticizes the oppression of nineteenth century women shows the lack of attention given to women’s desires and capabilities, as well as the negative repercussions for challenging these gender norms.

Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” describes the fleeting nature of the human condition. By the fleeting nature of the human condition, I am referring to the sensation of the world and human state being temporal. Arnold invokes the sound of crashing waves, the loss of Christianity and the feeling of romantic love as a background for understanding this aspect of life.

Arnold begins with a description of Dover Beach and the auditory sensation of the waves crashing over the rocks. Arnold writes that the waves “begin, and cease, and then begin again” (line 12) creating cyclical imagery. Arnold then associates the continuous ebb and flow of the waves with human emotion, specifically, “the eternal note of sadness” (line 14). At first, Arnold’s description of the unceasing ocean may seem to be in contrast to the idea that there is an inconsistency in human nature. However, through Arnold’s appeal to the Ancient Greeks, it becomes clear that for centuries, we have been contemplating the “turbid ebb and flow / of human misery” (lines 17-18). The only thing constant in life, besides the crashing of the waves, is the prospect of turbulent human emotion. We know that when we are sad, we will be happy again, and we know that when we are happy it will not last forever. Emotions, like the ocean, are a cyclical motion.

Straying away from the idea of emotion and human sentimentality, Arnold arrives at an examination of Christianity in the third stanza. Arnold writes, “The Seat of Faith / Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore” (lines 21-22). Using our knowledge of Victorian-era history, we can infer that Christianity’s presence is beginning to fade due to science and the mission of progress. Arnold suggests that Christianity’s once powerful roar is transforming into a quiet breath (lines 25-26). Thus, abstract concepts such as religion are just as temporal as the emotional state of a human. Again, “Dover Beach” serves to suggest that nothing is constant in our world except the prospect of change, be it a change in human emotion or a larger abstract change in societal thought.

In the final stanza of the poem, the poetic voice speaks directly to the object of its affection writing, “Ah, love, let us be true / To one another!” (lines 29-30). Matthew Arnold, who is also the poetic voice, is aware of the changing state of the world and asks his lover to be the one thing that remains constant. Moreover, Arnold embarks on a bleak description of the world, citing that is “hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light” (line 33) among many other pains. Arnold writes that he and his lover are “swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight” (line 36) creating an image of the couple attempting to remain grounded as the world around them changes.

Ultimately, at the center of “Dover Beach” lives a couple, imploring that the other remain constant in a time of uncertainty surrounding large societal change and the familiar human condition of fleeting emotion.  Arnold’s poem perfectly details the various changes occurring in Victorian history, along with Victorian poetry, and allows us as readers to sympathize with the turbulence of the time period.

 

“May the odds be ever in your favor.” But what are the odds? Life? Death? Rather, those selected in the draw aren’t your children, letting them live another day. This is the premise of Susanne Collins’ 2008 dystopian novel, and later film adaption, The Hunger Games, a work that follows teenager Katniss Everdeen and her coming-of-age story while fighting for her life in the Capital’s games, which exist only to prove the power of their institution over the rest of Panem after an uprising. Besides having gone through a Hunger Games phase ten years ago (sorry, Twilight), I feel that this series could have an interesting relation to one of the poems we read in class, specifically Caroline Norton’s A Voice from the Factories. Norton’s piece focuses on the pain and terror associated with selecting a child to “labour life away…to the receptable for dreary woe,/The Factory Mill” (l. 343, 346-347). While the children in Collins’ novel aren’t working their lives away in a factory, these two pieces of literature have similar concerns and comments on the role children played in the government and production industries by mere selection and the death of their innocence.

I think it’s important that these two works are in conversation because, although they cover fundamentally different concepts, the role of children and the destruction of their innocence by government policies is shared between the two women. These children in each literary work have little to zero autonomy in their life due to government institutions and cultural ideals. In The Hunger Games, the children are subject to being reaped for the Hunger Games. This government-sanctioned killing spree pools from children to show the Capital’s power over its subjects and safeguard the future from another uprising against the government’s power. All but one child dies, and the lone victor walks away with riches for their home district, however, these victors are then pawns of the Capital. They are servants who maintain the nationally recognized narrative that the Capital is a generous being, not a villain; subsequently, these victors are never free from their past and the violence they committed for the government.

Similarly, the children in A Voice from the Factories detail the lack of control these children have in their selection to work in the factories to benefit the production industry. Having small hands and bodies, these children are commodities in factories; they can fit into crevasses that men cannot, for one, leading them to be more susceptible to injury and death. However, Norton doesn’t take this route immediately, she instead details each child’s personality and appearance to the reader, then asks them to choose which should go, labour, and suffer, which matches Collins’ process in her novel. These children described are like those in the reaping—the decision as to whom will be working in the factory is something the parent has to make, instead of a government agent. But just like those kids that are reaped and are subject to the Capital in The Hunger Games, they exist and serve at the beck and call of the “Taskmaster’s commands” within the factory (l. 414).

In both works of literature, the role of government institutions heavily plays in children’s lives to promote the advancements of the government by virtually taking the innocent lives of children. Collins and Norton prioritize the lives of children by demonstrating the ease at which they can be disposed of within the governmental system chosen, whether in the Victorian era or in Panem in the near future.

 

Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s poem “The Factory” describes the state of childhood in England amidst the mounting issue of child labor, in direct address to the country in accusatory stance towards their lack of sympathetic legislature. The use of second person “yon” in the first line of the poem, “There rests a shade above yon town” (1) immediately alerts the reader that the speaker is addressing someone specific, other than the general reader. At the end of the poem, Landon closes with the address, “Oh England, though thy tribute waves/Proclaim thee great and free, /While those small children pine like slaves/There is a curse on thee!” (89-92). Her invocation of “England” itself makes it clear that the entire poem is an accusatory address towards the faulty party, whose inaction directly results in childhood death–a theme continuous throughout the poem. Landon invokes the biblical character Moloch as well, “We read of Moloch’s sacrifice, /We sicken at the name, /And seem to hear the infant cries– /And yet we do the same!” (21-24). Moloch is associated with human sacrifice; thus, this allusion demonstrates Landon’s belief that England is sacrificing children to the labor force for the sake of economic productivity. She also highlights their hypocrisy within religion, as they are acting in what the Bible has already represented, and what they have acknowledged, as a sinful manner.

As I was clicking through stories on my Instagram since Monday of this week, I was unfortunately met with current uses of Landon’s rhetoric, but this time, speaking against gun violence and school shootings in the US. There are many eerily similarities that can be drawn between elements of the “The Factory” and posts that are circulating on social media to promote sympathy and action towards stricter gun laws. Generally speaking, the access and popularity of written circulations during the Victorian era is comparable to that of information diffused through social media in present day. Essentially everyone in the general public sees and reacts to this messaging, although it may not actually reach or affect the most powerful audience: the lawmakers. I’ve attached a cartoon that I think aligns well with the elements of “The Factory”. Within the caption “They just loved their guns more, that’s all”, I perceive “they” to reference American lawmakers and those who prioritize their gun rights in the US, suggesting a similar sacrifice of children-for-national-values that Landon alludes to in her work. Childhood death and popular religion are present in the cartoon as well, as the children are being addressed by “God” at what appears to be the gates of Heaven. The cartoon God’s dissociation from the choices of the US in his address to the children demonstrates an argument similar to that of Landon, a divergence from religion which supposedly guides many lawmakers in the country.

Although centuries apart, both “The Factory” and this Instagram political cartoon generate sympathy for children who are losing their lives–whether to labor or to violence, assert religious contradictions, and effectively reach a wide audience through their platform, in hopes of instigating social movement. I can only hope that child mortality due to gun violence becomes a vestige of the past for future consumers of such media, just as child labor in the Victorian era has for us as readers of “The Factory”.

In Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s poem “Gossipping,” she creates a metaphor that likens those who gossip to “the spiders of society” in order to reveal their viciousness as well as her own subversive hatred of nature (line 1).  The traits normally associated with spiders, especially spiders as symbols, are not typically negative, as they include ones such as patience and persistence due to the spider’s method of working hard on a web and then waiting for prey.  However, in Landon’s poem, she asserts heavily that spiders are unwelcome and unpleasant through her use of malicious diction to describe spiders and gossipers.  Landon utilizes the words “petty,” “lies,” “sneers,” “misery,” “false,” “cruel,” and “torment” when discussing the subjects of her poem and their effect on their victims.  Whereas the web of a spider outside of this work may resent patience and intelligence, Landon’s “cruel” spider weaves a “petty” and “false” web that only leaves “misery” in its wake.  This spider is a small-minded liar that has no concern for the destruction it places upon its victims.  The malicious diction incorporated throughout “Gossipping” lends the work a very angry tone, with the only indication that this spider is intelligent is the word “ingenious” placed right before the word “torment” (line 11).  The overall effect of this pairing of words, however, is that Landon admits that although gossipers are clever, they ultimately use this skill for evil.  

This hatred of nature seems especially significant when analyzing the transition from the Romantic period to the Victorian period.  During the previous, romantic era of literature, poems praised and even seemingly worshiped nature, even if that nature was striking fear into the narrator’s heart.  Most works that made allusions to nature showed an immense respect for it, and yet upon leaving the Romantic era and entering the Victorian era, Landon writes “Gossipping” to spite nature.  When interpreting spiders as the link between humans and nature, it is clear that Landon is insulting nature.  The angry, hateful tone in “Gossipping” directed at a part of nature is unusual during this period of literary history, and the incorporation of such a tone reveals that Landon is a rather subversive writer for her time.  Even in the Victorian era of poetry, while many authors wrote about a darker side of nature, none of them incorporated the venomous hatred into their pieces that Landon has here.  Her subversiveness is emphasized by the modernity of this poem.  It is very easily understood by the 21st century reader due to its clarity, straightforwardness, palpable infusion of emotion, and standard word order.  Where other poets of Landon’s time are following the trends of writing about the sublime, the awe of nature, and broad and complicated concepts, all while employing an unusual word or sentence order, Landon insults nature, and makes it very clear that she is doing this as well.  

Landon’s subversiveness is significant because during a time where women were often discriminated against, her inclination to go against the grain paired with her gender emphasize not only her braveness, but perhaps her roadblocks to a higher status.  If Landon wrote under a male pen name and made her poems as complex and pretentious as some of her male counterparts, how much more successful would she have been?