My recently published essay on gender performativity in Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' and Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop can be found on page 57 of this journal:

Love is Frozen... Wider Reading 17: Annabel Lee

Composed in May 1849, Edgar Allen Poe's last complete work was not published until shortly after his death that same year. Poe himself made sure the poem would be seen in print. He gave a copy to Rufus Wilmot Griswold, his personal rival, another to John Thompson to repay a $5 debt, and sold a copy to Sartain's Union Magazine for publication. It is unclear to whom the eponymous Annabel Lee is referring. Biographers and critics often suggest Poe's frequent use of the theme of death, particularly of beautiful women, stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his own life, including his mother Eliza Poe and his foster mother Frances Allan. Biographers often interpret that "Annabel Lee" was written for Poe's wife Virginia, who had died two years prior. "Annabel Lee" and Poe’s other works were an inspiration for Vladimir Nabokov in his novel Lolita (1955), in which the narrator, as a child, falls in love with the terminally ill Annabel Leigh "in a princedom by the sea". Originally, Nabokov titled the novel The Kingdom by the Sea.

The speaker laments the death of his childhood sweetheart, Annabel Lee, reminiscing about their time together and defies even angels and demons to tear his love apart. Poe often associated death with the freezing and capturing of beauty, and “Annabel Lee” is no exception. Just as words can suspend and encapsulate a single moment, so can this poem capture the idyllic childhood romance of the speaker and Annabel. The poem specifically mentions the youth of the unnamed narrator and of Annabel Lee, and it celebrates child-like emotions in a way consistent with the ideals of the Romantic era. Many Romantics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries viewed adulthood as a corruption of the purer instincts of childhood, and they preferred nature to society because they considered it to be a better and more instinctive state.

The name "Annabel Lee" continues the pattern of a number of Poe's names for his dead women, which contain the lulling but melancholy "L" sound. Furthermore, "Annabel Lee" has a peaceful, musical rhythm and makes heavy use of the refrain phrases "in this kingdom by the sea" and "of the beautiful Annabel Lee.” In particular, although the poem's stanzas have a somewhat irregular length and structure, the poet continually emphasizes the three words "me," "Lee," and "sea," enforcing the linked nature of these concepts within the poem.

Annabel Lee - Quotations

The Edge of Love... Wider Reading 12: Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

"Thomas is the greatest living poet in the English language.” Thus gushed one critic upon this poem's publication in the Botteghe Oscure, and later featured in Collected Poems, 1934–52. Winning him the Foyle poetry prize, Thomas’ most famous poem marked the twilight of his turbulent life and career. The poem was a success and continues to be popular to this day. It was written for his dying octogenarian father, and also unnervingly foreshadows the poet’s own death following a spell of bad luck for his family and friends. Despite the well-known address to his father, Thomas never actually showed the poem to him, giving the impression that the poet composed it more for his own benefit, rather than his father’s as Thomas watched the veteran grow weak, frail and blind with old age. The poet relates his experience in this poem. The speaker tries to convince his father to fight against imminent death. He addresses his father using men as examples to illustrate the same message: that no matter how they have lived their lives, or what they feel at the end, they should fight death.

It could be interpreted that the speaker admits death is unavoidable, but encourages all men to fight it anyway. This is not for their own sake, but to give closure and hope to the kin that they will leave behind. To support this, he gives examples of wise men, good men, wild men, and grave men to his dying father. There is little textual evidence for this interpretation, however, except the words "curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray." Another reading of this poem shows the author's own fear of death. He seems to fear having little separation between life and death. As such, he feels the need for a strong indication of the difference between the two. The poem could be written in the hope that the speaker would be able to see his dying father. He gives the impression that, since all men regret leaving this world, his father as well should not wish to leave it without a fight. It seems to be a wild hope, that he will be able to see his father before he passes; that each will be able to say last words to each other—whether they are curses or blessings.

The poem uses parallelism as the actions of the different types of men are listed. Each of these three stanzas begins by listing the type of men in question, then describing something amazing that they have done. The speaker ends each by reminding the reader that these men will not let themselves die without a struggle. This builds the case he is offering his father, and is highly persuasive. The poem is also a villanelle, which would to imply a light gay tone, in contrast to the poem’s actual content. This alludes to a profound paradox and the prevalent conflict in the poem: unavoidable death in the face of the perpetual rhythm of poetry and rebirth. The haunting refrains trap the poem and draw a fine line between courage and frustration, strength and grieving. "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" begins with an address to an unknown listener and ends by revealing that this listener is the speaker's father. In between these direct addresses, however, the speaker describes the valiant and praiseworthy behaviour of many different kinds of exemplary men – "wise men," "good men," "wild men," and "grave men." The speaker touchingly hopes that his father will be all these things.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Quotations

Love is Trouble... Wider Reading 8: Leda and the Swan

Leda and the Swan" was published in Yeats's 1928 collection “The Tower,” after being rejected for publication by The Irish Statesman. The collection is often considered to be one of the most celebrated and important literary works of the twentieth century. Yeats started writing the poem for a political publication when he was well into his sixties, presumably intending to inject political meaning into it, but he changed it several times before the final version that we know with a new title. Leda, the beautiful Queen of Sparta is bathing when Zeus, disguised as a large swan knocks her off balance. The swan is ferocious as it lands on top of her, and caresses her thighs with his webbed feet and holds the back of her neck in his bill. She can't escape as the swan presses down with his chest on her own. The swan completes the act, and Leda becomes pregnant with, among others, Helen of Troy. This act will cause the entire Trojan War, the death of Agamemnon and the beginning of Rome. As the swan overpowered her, the poet wonders if Leda acquired any of Zeus's knowledge before, his appetite sated, he “let her drop.”

“Leda and the Swan” describes a precise moment which represents a change of era in Yeats’s historical model of gyres, in which a great, changing event happens every two thousand years – the fall of Troy in 2000 B.C, the birth of Christ in A.D. 0, and a “rough beast,” which was supposed to appear around 2000 A.D. It is important to note the lasting impact of the Trojan War. The conflict brought about the end of the ancient mythological era, and the birth of Rome and modern history. Like “The Second Coming,” “Leda and the Swan” is valuable more for its powerful and evocative language — which manages to imagine vividly such a bizarre phenomenon as a girl’s rape by an immense swan — than for its place in Yeats’s occult history of the world.

While the use of sexually suggestive language does alter the perception of rape in the sonnet, it does not thwart it entirely. The references to sexual desires in conjunction with rape are likely the result of cultural attitudes towards rape during the time period in which the piece was written, such as blaming women. Despite its ABAB rhyme scheme, the poem maintains a breathlessness that is partially due to enjambment, a poetic technique that Yeats uses liberally in his poetry. While the subject matter of the poem is violent and disturbing, the structure of "Leda and the Swan" conveys feelings of love, safety and beauty. The intensity of the rape is controlled by the narrow confines of the sonnet, an aesthetically pleasing and heavily structured art form traditionally associated with romance. The violence of the rape is then controlled within the constraints of the sonnet. Additionally, the sonnet itself is brief, thus ensuring the rape will be brief as well.

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Leda and the Swan - Quotations

Love is Unquantifiable... Wider Reading 5: Sonnet 43

Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning was initially unwilling to publish her collection of 44 love sonnets, feeling that they were too personal. Her husband Robert Browning, however, persuaded her that they were the best sequence of English sonnets to be written since Shakespeare, and the collection was published under the title "Letters from the Portugese."

Sonnet 43 mainly describes Browning's love for her husband, and there are many examples of the romantic, unquantifiable love which she must have felt. The sonnet is the length of a traditional one, that is, 14 lines but otherwise does not conform to the traditional rules of the form. The rhyme scheme is fairly irregular and flexible, and Browning often makes use of assonance, for example "Praise" and "Faith". Strikingly so, because the poem is about defining one's love, and yet it avoids perfection. The sonnet liberally employs repetitive language; "I love thee" is used eight times, reflecting the persistent nature of the poet's love. This could also suggest breathlessness and excitement. Repetition is also used in a list on line 2 "depth and breadth and height". To suggest that one could measure this love is to imply that it is comprehensive and all-encompassing.

The poem also has a religious element underlying the sentimentalities - perhaps the poet has exchanged the worship of God for devotion to a much earthlier being. Interestingly, Browning also compares herself to men - "I love thee freely, as men strive for Right", possibly implying that if she were a strong man she could love him more.

Sonnet 43 - quotations by

Love is Everlasting... Wider Reading 3: In Memoriam A.H.H.

Often considered to be the greatest poem of the 19th century, "In Memoriam" is a poem of epic proportions, whose sensitive portrayal of heartache and loss tugged on the heartstrings of Victorian society. At first known only for his short, rhythmic pieces, poet Lord Tennyson satisfied critics who doubted he could produce something more strenuous and sustained, by shaping a long prophetic poem from the short personal lyrics that came naturally to him.

At the end of 1850 Tennyson succeeded William Wordsworth as Poet Laureate to Queen Victoria, and published "In Memoriam" 17 years after the death of Arthur Henry Hallam, the poet's artistic mentor and dear friend, to whom the poem is dedicated. It was an instant and resounding success, even surpassing the past popularity of great writers such as Byron. Queen Victoria also found solace in the poem after the death of Prince Albert.

One of the many reasons for "In Memoriam's" lasting effect is that the sense of loss it carries within it is something very relevant to everyone who has lost someone, whether it be a contemporary reader or one studying it today. The main theme of love is the platonic friendship between two people, which we can all relate to.

In Memoriam - Quotations