1
Nisbet
Stephen Nisbet
Professor William Johnsen
ENG 320A
30 December 2015
Charlotte Mew: Women in Modern British and Irish Poetry
Emerging at the beginning of the 20th century, and the beginning of the modern literary period, Charlotte Mew’sdistinct voice as a woman poet allowed her to explore themes central to the female identity in the 1900s. Discussing themes that include societal expectations and the treatment of woman as objects, and by using a satirical and almost comedic voice, she is able to criticize the role that woman are assigned in the modern world. Mew’s poetry, while it is probably not the first of its kind, it serves as a starting point for looking at other British and Irish female poets that followed her in the 20th century and the identity that these women adopted in their writing.
In the poems “The Farmer’s Bride” and the “Monsieur Qui Passe,” Mew tackles the issue of woman as objects and the confinement of societies expectations in a unique way by using a male speaker. By doing this she is able to use a satirical tone to approach her themes[j1]. “The Farmer’s Bride” focuses on a marriage that is probably based on an arrangement that is not mutual affection. This is suggested by the opening lines of “Three Summers since I chose a maid, / Too young maybe—but more ‘s to do / At harvest time than bide and woo” (“Farmer’s Bride” 1-3). Throughout the poem then, the speaker compares the bride to something that is not human, and something that is more just like another one the farmer’s animals that has gotten loose and must be caught and fenced in again. This can be seen in lines such as “One night, in the Fall, she runned away. / ‘Out ‘mong the sheep, her be,’ they said,” and also in “We caught her, fetched her home at last / And turned the key upon her, fast” (“Farmer’s Bride”9-10, 18-19). By comparing the woman to a loose animal, it also emphasizes her confinement in the expectations of society. In this marriage the bride tries to leave her husband by physically running away, which in her situation is probably the only way to get out of the marriage. However the bride “fetched up” and has the “key turned on her fast” much like a cow or other farm animal would be treated if it got out. Mew is communicating not only the strangeness of the situation and shows just how difficult it is to escape the woman’s situation. No matter how strong the effort, society will “fetch you back up” and ‘turn the key” on you fast. Mew shows just how troublesome this situation is.
Poet Anna Wickham also discusses this confinement in her 1916 poem “Divorce”. The poem, also set in a rural environment, deals with a female speaker (unlike "The Farmer's Bride") longing for freedom, suffocated by a failing marriage. The poem could even be seen as the internal monologue of somebody like the farmer’s bride in Mew’s poem. Wickham’s speaker exclaims:
Out in the dark cold winds rush free
To the rock heights of my desire.
I smother in the house in the valley below
Let me out to the night, let me go, let me go. (“Divorce” 3-6)
Wickham repeats the lines “I smother in the house in the house in the valley below / Let me out to the night, let me go, let me go” at the end of every stanza. By doing this Wickham emphasizes the “smothering” effect that the expectations of the “house” have on the speaker[j2].
Wickham’s poem “Meditation at Kew” takes a somewhat different approach to the theme of societies expectations on women. Here she suggests that women must take a stand for themselves and marry for love and whom they choose. The speaker suggests, “…all the pretty women who marry dull men, / Go into the suburbs and never come out again,” (“Kew”1-2). At the end of the poem the speaker says that “From the gay unions of choice / We’d have a race of splendid beauty and of thrilling voice” (“Kew” 17-18). While it may not have always been as easy as Wickham is speaker is suggesting in “Meditations at Kew,” Wickham is able to begin a shift away from addressing what the issue and is now able to suggest a plan of action[j3] at solving the problem. In “Meditations at Kew’s” second stanza, the idea of change being a necessity is most strongly addressed:
What do these pretty women suffer when they marry?
They bear a boy who is like Uncle Harry,
A girl who is like Aunt Eliza, and not new,
These old dull races must breed true. (“Kew” 5-8)
The poem is still very similar in regard to Mew’s theme of confinement, in that shows the consequences of these confinements,but it is much more progressive in this sense of an ability to change.
Forty-one years following the publishing of “The Farmer’s Bride,” Stevie Smith also looked at the confinements of societies expectations in her poem “My Hat.” The speaker is told to wear a hat in order to “get off with the right sort of chap” (“My Hat” 2). However the speaker finds that the hat has actually caused the opposite and she is now “on a desert island / With so far as I can see no one at all on hand” (“My Hat” 3-4). While the poem is highly satirical and the symbolism of the hat can be interpreted I many ways[j4], I find what Smith may be suggesting is that the hat is symbol for the female identity. Her mother is proclaiming you must use your identity to attract a mate or else you may end up like the speaker “on a desert island.” Mew wants to show that a balance can be found, and that woman can still have strong identities and self-security while still finding healthy relationships. Society confines woman into the roles of what the mother wants the hat (someone who devotes themselves to finding a husband) and what the hat actually causes in the speaker (isolation and freedom, but appearing prude). Smith’s satirical tone suggests that neither of these two confinements are true, and that a woman can be more than what society suggests they can.
Coming back to Mew, her poetry also explores the theme of females viewed as something less than human or objects. This is seen obviously in “The Farmer’s Bride” when the woman is compared to the other animals, but also is the primary theme in “Monsieur Qui Passe,” another satirical poem written from the point of view of a male speaker.“Monsieur Qui Passe” brings the theme to the forefront at the very beginning of the poem when the speaker refers to the woman of the poem by saying, “A purple blot against the dead white door / In my friend’s rooms, bathed in their vile pink light, / I had not noticed her before” (“Monsieur” 1-3[j5]). The speaker then tells the story of how the woman did not speak until they went out in the night, however he does not listen saying “God knows precisely what she said— / I left to her the twisted skein” ( “Monsieur” 7-8). As the speaker continues to describe the woman’s “ramblings” he closes by saying, “Some sort of beauty once, but turning yellow, getting old. / Pouah! These women and their nerves! / God! but the night is cold!” (“Monsieur” 35-37). The speaker shows his distaste for the woman to open up to him and even questions the nerve of woman to do so, however by emphasizing the coldness of the night in the final line of the poem, the speaker still suggeststhe value that the woman has sexually. Using this male perspective, Mew easily is able to criticize the hypocritical notion that women are merely objects. The man is able to speak his mind and emotions through poetry, however a woman opening up to him offends him.
Eavan Boland’s graphic and intense poem, “The Woman Turns Herself into a Fish” also describes the phenomenon of female objectivity. The speaker describes the act of reproduction from a female perspective using images of a fish to emphasize the inhuman aspect of it all. The theme of objectivity is most prevalent in the lines:
It’s done.
I turn
I flab upward
blub-lipped,
hipless
and I am
sexless,
shed
of ecstasy,
a pale
swimmer,
sequin-skinned,
pearling eggs
screamlessly
in seaweed. (“Fish” 25-29)
For the speaker, she is no more than a body to give birth in human reproduction and object for her male counterpart to have sex with. She is “sexless” which shows that sex is really only for the male’s enjoyment. When she mentions she is “shed of ecstasy” she emphasizes her feelings of being object for sex and reproduction and not an equal in the affair. The speaker continues by saying “It’s what / I set my heart on[j6]” (“Fish” 40-41). This brings back the theme of social confinement and inability to escape expectations. It is expected of her to want this, to be a mother and to bear children. She recognizes the problem yet she still cannot break societies pressures.
Carol Ann Duffy also tackles female objectivity in her poem, “Standing Female Nude.” The poem is spoken from a female posing nude as an artist paints her. The speaker is not thrilled to have to pose nude but she knows it is a way for her to make money. Duffy uses a sarcastic tone. The speaker says, “I shall be represented analytically and hung / in great museums. The bourgeoisie will coo/ at such an image of a river-whore. They call it art,” because she knows that there will be little meaning in it other than sex appeal (“Standing Female Nude” 5-7). The speaker makes fun of the artist claiming, “They tell me he’s a genius. / There are times he does not concentrate and stiffens for my warmth,” and then saying, “Little man, / you’ve not the money for the arts I sell. / Both poor, we make our living how we can” (“Standing Female Nude” 15-17, 18-20).
Duffy’s poem is a very unique way of looking at objectivity as the speaker expresses her feelings in such a nonchalant way. Duffy is just showing how painting a female nude is not “analytical” as it if the painting will actually only be a woman standing naked, and saying “These artists / take themselves too seriously” (“Nude” 24-25). The title of poem “Standing Female Nude” acts as the reality of painting. While the painting may actually take the name to make it seem deep, the speaker is well aware all it really is just a standing female nude. It does not seem that the speaker is taking a hard stance on the subject of objectivity, but rather seems to be saying that this type of “art” has been occurring for years and is no longer fooling anybody.
From when Mew first published “Farmer’s Bride” in 1916, it is interesting to see how each poet had their own take on these themes and how the evolution of talking about them changed. Mew takes a satirical and fairly passive aggressive take while somebody Eavean Boland has a very blunt and graphic way to express her themes. This shows that while change was occurring, and people were more willing to tackle the issues, the issues still exists as the themes continue to show up again and again. The themes may change form, but at the core the themes basically stay the same and continue to persist. We can look at Mew’s poetry, as it is the first female poet to appear in Tuma’sAnthology of Twentieth-Century British &Irish Poetry, but in reality these themes began earlier than the twentieth century, and will continue to be the themes of many more female poets in centuries to come.
Of course Tuma has a hand in the seemingly objective narrative this sequence of poems across a century of poets seems to tell. But it also suggests the poets themselves have a historical sense, looking both backward and forward
Works Cited
Mew, Charlotte.“The Farmers Bride.”Anthology of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry.
Ed. Tuma, Keith. 1sted. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 60-61. Print.
Wickham, Anna. “Divorce.”Anthology of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry.
Ed. Tuma, Keith. 1sted. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 96-97. Print.
Wickham, Anna. “Meditation at Kew.”Anthology of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry.
Ed. Tuma, Keith. 1sted. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 98. Print.
Smith, Stevie. “My Hat.”Anthology of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry.
Ed. Tuma, Keith. 1sted. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 267. Print.
Mew, Charlotte.“Monsier Qui Passe.”Anthology of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry.
Ed. Tuma, Keith. 1sted. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 63-64. Print.
Boland, Eavan. “The Woman Turns Herself into a Fish.” Anthology of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry.Ed. Tuma, Keith. 1sted. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 705-706. Print.
Duffy, Carol Ann. “Standing Female Nude.” Anthology of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry.Ed. Tuma, Keith. 1sted. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 850-851. Print.
[j1]I wonder if she was able perform these poems in readings?
[j2]as well as her 'I have to get free' strength in resisting.
[j3]Yes, the word "organize" rings out
[j4]Yes, see Hermes/Mercury's magical hat
[j5]It might also suggest, very indirectly, that women can be controlled or ignored by estheticizing them
[j6]This line might suggest that she deliberately transforms herself into a fish