{"id":378,"date":"2023-03-31T22:56:24","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T22:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/?p=378"},"modified":"2023-03-31T22:56:24","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T22:56:24","slug":"to-marry-is-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/2023\/03\/31\/to-marry-is-to-die\/","title":{"rendered":"To Marry is to Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

Letitia Elizabeth Landon\u2019s poem \u201cThe Marriage Vow\u201d 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 \u201cThe altar, `tis of death!\u201d (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 \u201c… sacrifice of all youth\u2019s sweetest hopes\u201d (2), is forced to give up so much of what makes her her \u2013 it makes sense that Landon would view a wedding as an occasion of sorrow and death, as something is dying, it\u2019s just not a human being that\u2019s being lifted into a coffin. This idea of the woman\u2019s wedding being her funeral is also indicative of Landon\u2019s own relationship with marriage and the way the institution was held in the Victorian era, as a woman would become her husband\u2019s \u201cproperty\u201d in a sense after the marriage was sealed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The power of words is a theme repeated in a lot of Landon\u2019s work, and this theme is prevalent in \u201cThe Marriage Vow\u201d as well. Landon writes, \u201cIt is a dreadful thing for woman\u2019s lip \/ To swear the heart away\u201d (3-4), indicating that it is the words of the marriage vow uttered by the woman that seals the heart\u2019s fate and dooms her heart to death. This is Landon\u2019s 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\u2019s passions, will, and dreams, strong enough to kill her.<\/span><\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/span><\/p>\n

Bridgewater State University Virtual Commons – Bridgewater State University<\/span><\/i>. (n.d.). Retrieved March 31, 2023, from https:\/\/vc.bridgew.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1420&context=honors_proj\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letitia Elizabeth Landon\u2019s poem \u201cThe Marriage Vow\u201d 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 \u201cThe altar, `tis of … Continue reading To Marry is to Die<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}