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Navin Ong ELT 261 Romantic Writings In considering the subversion of the models and social expectations of femininity expressed through certain womens poetry during the Romantic Period, an examination of what was socially acceptable and what was not, is helpful. This can be undertaken by studying the socially-accepted purposes and audiences, sources, nature and subject matter of womens poems at the time in conjunction with an analysis of the extent to which Joanna Baillie, Mary Robinson, Anna Barbauld and Charlotte Smith incorporated or challenged those norms. Gilroy, in citing Gilfillans essay about Felicia Hermans as a model of femininity, communicates that a ubiquitous perception during the Romantic Period regarding women authors was that they were thought the natural guardians of morality and faith (Gilroy 189). Poetry would have been a vehicle of this higher purpose entrusted to women. However, in exploring the poems of Bailie et. al., we find much more diversity in their purposes for writing. In Bailies poem, The Horse and his Rider (Bailie 55), we find no trace of a discussion regarding the immorality of war or any hint of religious piety or a whispered prayer for the British soldier on his way to war. Instead, we find a passionate and grand celebration of the power of the horse a vehicle of war, juxtaposed against a passionless description of the British soldier. The choice of strong words such as vigour(line 1), strength(line 2), burst(line 8), thunder (line 10), stands out against Bailies choice of words and phrases to describe the soldier, who is referred to as creature (line 15), of portly stature(line 17) as compared to the stately steed (line 2). Interestingly, although the title includes two subjects, Bailie commits 14 lines to describing the horse and only 8 lines to describing the soldier. This hints that her concern is perhaps more with the horse than the rider. Along with her bland portrayal of the soldier, it suggests a negative attitude towards war, conveying the idea that a beautiful and powerful horse, would be sent to fields of death (line 19) at the control of a mere soldier. There is nothing in the poem that encourages spiritual reflection or provides a morally didactic objective as typical of the period.

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In addition, the subject matter chosen by Bailie war, challenges the conventional notion of a womans poetry being a versified journal of a quiet, ideal and beautiful life (Gilroy 189). There is hardly anything quiet or ideal about an angry horse about to go into battle. Furthermore, Bailies source of inspiration for the poem encroaches on the typical male domain of war and violence because it uses the images of conquest which is usually conceded to male poets. Furthermore, the poem could not possibly be further from the domestic affections that were thought to dominate womens poems (Gilroy 184). If Bailie had wanted to domesticate her poem, she would have described the tragic effects of war on family and home, infusing her poem with much emotional spillage (Gilroy 190). Neither is there any discussion of betrayed love, a supposedly favourite theme among women poets (Gilroy 185) or even a specter of love lost. There is no mention of a wife or fianc of the soldier, or even a passionate and heartrending goodbye. Instead, we have a stoic look from the rider towards the battlefield and a fleeting smile at his horse (lines 19 20). So even in subject matter, Bailie challenges the stereotypical perception of what a womans writing should be about, and subverts popular expectations of femininity in womens poetry.

Mary Robinsons January 1795 (Robinson 45-46) is another example of how women poets challenge existing social paradigms. A striking feature of Robinsons poem, is the phenomenon of sensibility (Gilroy 187) that seems to fulfill the perception of a pensive female heart as well as existing expectations of a womans poem (ibid.). There is a plethora of sights and sounds of busy London life, with descriptions such as pavement slippery, people sneezing, beggars freezing (lines 1 2), wives who laugh (line 9) and groans of anguish (line 12) undergirded by a strong emotional undertone in the poem. However, far from being a mere emotional spillage of the world around her, her piece gives the reader a slice of society, and its social inequalities juxtaposed against each other very much a deliberate, intellectual endeavour (Gilroy 190) traditionally ascribed to men. Her poem exits the female sphere of domestic concerns into the larger, male-dominated sphere of social-economic and moral concerns such as authors who cant earn a dinner (line 17), ladies gambling night and morning (line 25),

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Gallant souls with empty purses (line 37) and all the laws of truth perverted (line 22). Hence, we see the power of a womans privileged feminine qualities (Gilroy 186) being put to good use through the intellectual activity of social critique. A womans sensibility is leveraged here to achieve an unfeminine objective. This leads us to consider the audience of her writing. It would hardly seem likely that Robinson is writing merely to women to encourage morality and faith because 9 out of 11 stanzas address mens concerns. Only two of the stanzas describe women, but not in the conventional stereotypical manner of depicting women as muses or as passive, quasi-natural objects or even the object of the gaze (Gilroy 184). Instead, we find women as the subject and men as the object with wives who laugh at passive spouses (line 9), and women breaking societys behavioral ideals of purity and religiosity and engaged in immoral acts such as gambling night and morning (line 25). The unmistakable violence that emanates from the poem, contradicts the romantic idealism that femininity in womans poem would be composed of a journal of a quiet, ideal, and beautiful life (Gilroy 189). Instead, it projects a somewhat forceful and masculine voice and manner of using language. The stark depravity and injustice of what the poet sees is fiercely emphasized to the reader in the very first stanza, through the only quatrain in the poem with an AAAA rhyme scheme. Tension is introduced in the stanza through the deliberate placement of the subject next or close to its verb, as well as the rhyming of these verbs, people sneezing, beggars freezing, gluttonscarving, genius starving (Stanza 1) to achieve the intended cynicism and gloom. Nothing in the poem discusses home, beauty and virtue, neither is there evidence that her poem is an improvisation or an extension of any domestic role (Gilroy 191). Instead, we find attacks on the rich (lines 20 & 29), the legal system (line 22), economic crisis (line 14), human ambition (lines 33-36) and unemployment (lines 37 40). The only possible hint of feminine notion of betrayed love (Gilroy 185), is perhaps in line 28, where there are youthful damsels quite forsaken. However, an intertextual reading, with the preceding line where there are ancient dames for girls mistaken (line 27), seems to suggest

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that Robinson intends the reader to see the distortion of social perception and values. Mary Robinsons ability to mesh her feminine powers perceptions with masculine language and phrasing, allows her to overcome the obstacles of existing perceptions of womens poetry. Hence, she is able to appeal to both men and women readers, in her critique of the social and economic inequalities and realities of city life. Anna Barbaulds The Rights of Women (Barbauld 5-6), starts off with a bold address and an emotionally charged challenge to women readers to rise, assert thy right! (line 1). This call to resume thy native empire (line 4), bid proud Man his boasted rule resign (line 7) and kiss the golden scepter of thy reign (line 8), presents a rebellious and subversive attitude and propagates the notion that women have the power to rule and that they should claim their empire, although they should treat it like sacred mysteries which are felt, not defined, debated or discussed and rightly left in the private sphere (lines 13 15). This appeal towards sensibility is immediately followed by a stanza admonishing women to use all that wit and art to bend the stubborn knee of their imperial foe (lines 17 18). This arrangement seems to suggest that women should think as well as feel if they were to break out of their ideological corsets (Gilroy 187). Like Robinsons poem, this is a far cry from poetry that is inspired in continuity with womens domestic roles (Gilroy 191). Unlike Robinsons poem which is focused on socio-economic concerns of persons across various strata of society, Barbaulds poem is singularly addressed to injured, too long degraded, scorned and oppressed women (lines 1 2) and at the same time vindictively targeted at treacherous Man (line 19), which she relegates to a position of being these womens subject, not their friend (line 19). This subverts and reverses the seat of power, negotiating a space for women within contemporary discourses of gender and authorship (Gilroy 185) and drawing inspiration from The French Revolution and its push for democratic rule and liberty. Like Robinsons poem, nothing in the Barbaulds The Rights of Women discusses home, beauty and virtue in a manner that glorifies these ideals espoused by society. Neither does the poem discuss them as extensions of any domestic role (Gilroy 191). Instead, we find them the active

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means by which the dethronement of man is subtly achieved. Hence, the women are not conceived or addressed as objects of mens gaze or entities onto which men projected themselves (Gilroy 184) but subversive adversaries, capable of active agency in their fight for supremacy over males. Interestingly, their tools of warfare against men are the very tools by which men are attracted to. They are called to gird themselves with grace, use their soft melting tones as their thundering cannons roar and to use their blushes and fears as there bullet magazines (lines 9 12). In essence, Barbauld is calling on women to use their femininity as a weapon which they turn against their oppressors in order to subvert their power and lordship and subdue to them. Unlike Bailie and Robinson however, who do not attempt to reconcile or compromise their subversion of femininity through their works, Barbaulds poem does a double subversion in the end, possibly leaving her female readers pondering over or incensed about her final proposal to abandon each ambitious thought and adopt the attitude of mutual love which will remove the need for separate rights (lines 29 32). The spirited and agreement with the injured Woman on her demand for her rights in the first stanza, is slowly but surely transformed stanza by stanza to the point of encouraging the Woman to abandon her rights altogether. Male readers may in this case, concede that she is advocating love above all, perhaps admonishing the pursuit of mutual love between both males and females as a higher ethical morality than gender rights. Charlotte Smiths sentimentality in The Emigrants: A Poem (Smith 11) is an example of the phenomenon of sensibility with its deep nostalgia through phrasing such as so many years have passed (line 1), my soul feels not the joy reviving Nature brings; but, in dark retrospect, dejected dwells (lines 5-6) and mournful looks (line 12). Unlike her poem Melancholy (Smith 10), however, we do get a specific reason for the speakers much sorrow his exile from his native hills and reflections on human follies, and on human woes (line 6). Nature is employed here to contrast the speakers feeling of sadness and misery as descriptions such as delightful landscapes (line 3) along with the use of gothic elements such as hills (line 2), ruined mass (line 15).

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The speakers disgust and disillusionment of the French Revolution is clearly depicted through cynicism and sarcasm in the repetition of the question, what is the promise of the infant year (lines 8 & 27) and other negatively-charged language such as scorns to distain (line 24), make the sick heart shudder (line 32), wide-ravaging (line 38), annihilates the hope of cultivation (lines 38 39). The fashionable quality of sensibility which privileges supposedly feminine qualities such as morality and feeling is an acceptable voice for women poets (Gilroy 186187) during the period and Smith conforms to this social convention. What is subversive about the poem is really its personified figures, subject-matter and audience. The Fiend of Discord (line 16), Mercy (line 20) and Liberty (line 22) are all women. They are given prominence through detailed descriptions of their physical appearance and behaviour such as the Fiend of Discord who sits in savage triumph; mocking every plea (line 17), Mercy who turnsher swollen eyes (lines 20 21) and Liberty who with calm, unruffled brow.scorns to distain her righteous cause with carnage (line 22 23). Men are nameless and faceless and reduced to being part of the infuriated crowd, the increasing flock of his rich master (lines 29 30) or resigned to being embarrassed for thinking (lines 32- 33). The traditional social roles in war are not only dislocated, they are reversed. (Gilroy 188). Women become the aggressors and men the victims of their aggression. In the poem, Smith is reticent about domestic affections that were thought to dominate womens poems (Gilroy 184). Instead her focus is on domestic politics on a national scale. Through the poem, Smith exits the traditional feminine sphere of domestic concerns and encroaches upon the male-dominated subject-matter of emigration, politics and war. In doing so, Smith breaks a natural continuity between the woman poets life and work (Gilroy 190). The poetess is no longer simply an extension of the woman, with all the same characteristics (ibid.). Instead, she subverts this male-projected notion by entering into conversation with men within their own sphere of concerns. Smiths readers and conversation partners become men who, like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Bowles, Scott and Keats, appreciate and read her works (Gilroy 187). Because of this, Wordsworths assertion that a poet is a man speaking to men is clearly subverted (ibid.).

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In conclusion, the analysis of the poetic works of Joanna Baillie, Mary Robinson, Anna Barbauld and Charlotte Smith shows how these female poets incorporated, manipulated, challenged and subverted existing paradigms of femininity. While the language used in their poems may have been imbued with emotional lexis, it by no means obscured the depth of their intellectual prowess or the force of their arguments. Through their works, these poets not only confronted the conventional social perceptions and expectations of the nature and content of female poetry, they were deeply concerned with, and intellectually engaged in discussion about the larger socio-economic and political issues of the day.
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Bibliography
Bailie, Joanna. "The Horse and his Rider." Romantic Writingss: An Anthology. Ed. W.R. Owens and Hamish Johnson. London: The Open University, 1998. 55. Barbauld, Anna Laetitia. "The Rights of Woman." Romantic Writings: An Anthology. London: The Open University, 1998. 5-6. Gilroy, Amanda. "Women Poets 1780 - 1830." Approaching Literature: Romantic Writings. Ed. Stephen Bygrave. London: Routledge, 1998. 183-203. Robinson, Mary. "January 1795." Romantic Writings: An Anthology. Ed. W.R. Owens and Hamish Johnson. London: The Open University, 1998. 45-46. Smith, Charlotte. "The Emigrants: A Poem." Romantic Writings: An Anthology. Ed. W.R. Owens and Hamish Johnson. The Open University, 1998. 11.