Poetry and Poetics–Lit 204

Upon the first read of William Blake’s “London”, I felt slightly confused at the poems higher message. Blake talks of the decay that is overflowing in the streets of London, with its poison reaching even the most wealthy of citizens (referring to both the church and the palace in the third stanza). This poem does not seem to have a tone shift from discussing sadness to discussing hope for a brighter future; it does not clearly end with a sentence that allows readers to look at this poem with a lighter heart. There are 16 lines in this poem — and all 16 talk of pain and suffering. This was what perplexed me. As readers of poetry we are used to searching for that sought-out “higher meaning” that will make us think deeply about the innate ways of life. So, is it possible that this poem’s higher meaning is that pain is always present? That the city of London (or any city that resembles Blakes description of London) is permanently doomed? It could even be that White wants to explain to his readers that living in an Urban climate is so hellish that even things usually connected to happiness (like marriage) are accompanied with death (a hearse, which is discussed as a “Marriage hearse” in the final line). Or, it’s possible that some poems do not need to have a resolution. Maybe Blake had feelings of hate about London, so he decided to write them down. Nothing more.

Initially, when reading A Description of a City Shower, I thought the poem was basically a double entendre based on the second half of the poem. Lines like “While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope / Such is that sprinkling which some carless quean / Flirts on you from her mop, but not so clean (Swift 18-20)” and “And wafted with its foe by violent gust, / Twas doubtful which was rain and which was dust (Swift 25-26)”. I believed this poem was going to just be another conceit on a person’s beauty before comparing it with a storm…

…then I realized I’ve only read the poem once and then I immediately drew conclusions from that. In all seriousness, while his humor is still stirring, his message is a lot less dramatic – it’s the poor weather in a poor town. Each of the caesura lines makes it even easier to understand what’s going on in a second read (“But, aided by the wind, fought still for life…”(Swift 24)). Swift wants to bring up how storms rain on everybody’s parade in this dingy town. Everybody is scurrying to get inside, but the winds and rain make the environment so grimy and dusty it’s a challenge to not complain about it. I think the author is basing his poem based on how the sanitation standards of his time were incredibly low, and is that the people are merely referencing and not directly stating what’s going is what makes it so funny.

“The Rights of Woman” by Anna Laetitia Barbauld was written in the proto-feminist time period, which was a time period when feminist ideas were arising but the feminist movement had not been established yet. This poem encourages women to stand up for their rights and not only be seen as equal to men, but rather superior. Barbauld makes an implicit extended metaphor comparing the fight for rights to a battle for an empire writing, “Thy rights are empire” (line 13). If women win the battle and conquer the empire, it really means that women have finally won their rights. She tells women to fight in “panoply,” or armor, and to “…collect thy store / Of bright artillery glancing from afar,” or gather their weapons for battle, further supporting the metaphor to a battle (lines 9-10). Each stanza follows a rhyme scheme pattern of abab cdcd efef and so on, with each line written in iambic pentameter. The pattern of unstressed/stressed syllables creates a rhythmic beat emphasizes the idea of going into battle because it mimics the marching footsteps of soldiers.

In line 1, she references women as “injured” women to express that women have been abused by men and stripped of their rights which has caused them to suffer. “Make treacherous Man thy subject, not thy friend” (line 19). Through this line, she portrays the idea of revenge and that the goal of the battle is not to win equal rights with men, but rather win the rights of men for themselves. By winning, she will make “Man thy subject” by controlling them and making them experience what it is like to feel worthless and be treated poorly by the other gender. The last three stanzas warn women that victory is not permanent and they should continue to fight for their rights so that men can never take it from them again. In line 32, she cautions, “…separate rights are lost in mutual love.” In the 1700s, a married woman was not allowed to do many things like own land, continue to be educated, control money and earn decent wages, etc. Men were even allowed to beat their wives if they felt it was necessary.¹ She wants to reiterate that these rights should remain regardless of a woman’s situation.  

1 https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/social-and-family-life-in-the-late17th-early-18th-centuries/#:~:text=Women%20could%20not%20vote%2C%20own,cruel%20and%20humiliating%20public%20penalties.

Bradstreet’s “Before the Birth of One of Her Children” deals not only in fear of dying but in articulating what one wants remembered after death. The dramatic situation of the poem is a woman about to give birth, communicating to her husband that she wants him to continue to love her after her death. It’s written in AABB… rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter. her subject matter is especially interesting because she is depicting a situation unique to women at the time – the fear of dying in childbirth was a very real one, and it adds stakes to the poem that wouldn’t be there if it was written about another way of dying. Bradstreet writes, “How soon, my dear, death may my steps attend,/How soon’t may be thy lot to lose thy friend” (ll. 8-9). She writes to her husband with love and familiarity and asks him to remember her fondly, imparting a sense that the two of them know each other well and love each other even with flaws. She even says, “What nature would, God grant to yours and you;/The many faults that well you know I have,/Let be interr’d in my oblivion’s grave” (ll. 14-16), revealing not only that she still wished him and her family well after her own death, but that she and her husband are close enough for him to be familiar with her faults and choose to love her anyways. She displays worry about her husband forgetting her, going as far as to say “And when thou feel’st no grief, as I no harms,/Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms” (ll. 19-20). She wants to be remembered and loved after death, and is clearly not ready to die, but is able to recognize the possibility and prepare for that outcome. In a way, also, she makes the claim that her poetry is her legacy and a way for her to live on, and in that sense compares it to their children; she both says to look to their children when her husband starts to forget her and to read her last poem in order to bring back her memory. 

Anne Bradstreet’s poem “The Author to Her Book” represents the speaker’s brainchild – her written work – in its living form. Yet, she holds little maternal pride for the “ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,” especially after this child was, from her side,  “snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true” (1, 3). She seems to hold her own mind in some contempt, though false friends seem interested in what it produces, and thus decide to steal away her ideas. She still considers these friends somewhat senseless as well as disloyal; she does not believe they could see real merit in her creations.

When she finally reclaims this creation, she feels embarrassed, as her “blushing was not small” (7). She considers her reclaimed work, or her “rambling brat (in print) should mother call” (8), to be “unfit for light” (9). The speaker refers to herself as ‘mother,’ but not in a manner that radiates the love she holds for this child. Rather, she seems to consider her attachment as something out of her control, but also irreversible. She knows this child as a reflection of herself: “The visage was so irksome in my sight; / Yet being mine own, at length affection would / Thy blemishes amend, if so I could” (10-12). The child’s image being ‘mine own’ could describe her motherly responsibility, but could also describe how she sees herself mirrored in the child. 

No matter what, her child’s existence reflects back on her. The speaker describes her tedious efforts to clean and polish their appearance: “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, / And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw. / I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet, / Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet” (13-16). She details her indelible sense of shame in the child’s flaws. Cleaning their face only reveals more ‘defects,’ and she attempts to literally mold their feet, though only further impairs their ability to run. The double meaning of ‘feet’ here, when thinking about poetic meter, also works really well when recalling that the child depicted here refers to a developing book. (see the footnote in Norton, 494). Ultimately, the disdainful portrayal of this child suggests the ingrained insecurities Bradstreet felt as a writer – especially as a female writer in the seventeenth century – releasing her work into the world.