This is the weekly discussion of students enrolled in ENG 4327, Studies in British Literature II, at Texas Weselyan University.
Fall 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Elizabeth Barrett Browning as Protest Poet
How effective do you think poetry is as a form of social protest in general? Specifically, how effective is Elizabeth Barrett Browning as a protest poet? Please make specific references to the poems.
Poetry can appeal to the reader's pathos in a way that other forms of writing cannot. Some poetry is silly and fun to read, but other poetry, like Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems for this week, are more straightforward and hard-hitting. People sometimes don't realize what is in store for them when they start reading a piece like those we read until the graphic imagery comes into play.
For example, in "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" we are introduced to a slave who has committed a huge sin, but we do not know this yet until the middle of the poem. At first, I thought the poem was going to be about the normal woes of slaves and the fear of capture that a runaway has experienced. Imagine my shock at the part where she starts confessing her crime of murdering her own child! Only a poem could make such an impact on my creative mind in the way that this one did. Had I been reading a novel or an essay, I would not feel the same way about the death of the child. I don't think I would have been able to make the same connections with the mother's confusion and hesitation as I have been able to do with the flow of the poem. The rhythm was beautiful even though the story was tragic. At first I wasn't quite sure I was understanding the events correctly, so I had to go back and read a few stanzas to make sure.
Poems can drop subtle hints about something before they come out with the blunt details. I suppose an essay could as well, but we wouldn't get the same flow and range of emotions. I think the different structure of poems allows them to play with certain themes, such as social protest, without taking away from the overall effect of the story being told.
I like poetry, and in some cases it's just easier to "feel" more when I am reading something that has a specific rhythm that I am aware of. What I am trying to say, I suppose, is that I think poetry can be very effective as a form of social protest, but the poet must know exactly what he/she is doing, and must not be afraid to "go there".
During the election campaign of 2008, I remember hearing once that words were just words and do not mean anything. Later they added that they needed to be followed by action. My opinion is, words are the power behind the action. Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew this all too well. She intermingled her protest of many different social ills within the topic of just one cause. In The Cry of the Children, she writes of the evils of child labor and it as a form of slavery. She speaks of the power behind the greed at the cost of human life, specifically children. She wrote of the religious hypocrisy, the consequences of familial disjointing, death, and the role men played as the “masters” behind these movements.
In the Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point, Elizabeth Barrett Browning protests not only slavery, but brings to light the other indiscretions that occur within the same sphere. She allows the reader to see how one ill is connected to the other. Along the topic of slavery, Browning also makes a point to show the hypocrisy of religion and how it wrongfully allowed the continued treatment of slaves by their masters and not applying what it preaches to all humanity and creation. She sets to show how humanity is viewed through greed instead of God. So much so, that even after the runaway slave murders her child, she is not pursued for the murder, but for running away and causing a void in her master’s labor force.
It is to conclude that I believe Elizabeth Barrett Browning is extremely effective as a protest poet.
Poetry is a very effective outlet for protesting. Music and poems coincide in verse and both carry significant rhythm, rhymes, words, imagery, and beats that each person can relate to and understand. Protest music has been written throughout the ages, and has been an effective outlet to reach the people and the oppressors; Woodstock is a perfect example of how protest music has affected many people who are after the same end to an injustice. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a very persuasive protest poet.
E.B. Browning makes the subject matter of her poems come alive with imagery and personalizes the poem to the reader. In her poem, "The Cry of the Children", she writes the children as if they were real and pleading with the reader to understand their plight. The most shocking imagery in this poem is the fourth stanza, when she describes "Little Alice" and she writes "Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen/ Like a snowball, in the rime./ We looked into the pit prepared to take her:/ Was no room for any work in the close clay! (39-42)" The children would rather be dead than working and Browning does a magnificent job throwing that into the readers faces and forcing them to consider how they are affecting the lives of these children.
I also think "zampak" makes a good point about her focusing on the hypocrisy of religion. Religion is a very important issue to most people, particularly the people of the 1800s and Browning does an excellent job of trying to get them to exam their "Christian" souls and to see that they might be breaking the rules. Stanzas four and thirteen of "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" speak of the injustice of God and how he has made inequality and has allowed this behavior to continue. The loss of faith is a shared issue of the children and the slave in both Browning's poems.
Browning does a nice job of finding things that the abusers can relate to and showing them in a negative light to allow the reader to understand their wrong-doing.
I agree with everything you discussed. You explained it much better than I did, but the message was simple: poetry "has the ability to appeal to the emotions much more forcefully than just a factual account would".
I also noticed that all of the people that have commented thus far are of the same mindframe that poetry can indeed be a very effective form of protest. The reason for this is mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Poetry has always been deep to me. You never know what to expect—especially when reading works by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In her poem “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point” we meet young slave who has committed a horrible crime. I was surprised to find out in the reading that they either didn’t care about what she had done, or did not know. They just wanted to capture her simply because of the color of her skin. Many emotions were evoked while I read this. At times I felt sorry for her, and other times I believed her to be the scum of the earth for committing such a horrendous crime against her own child. Not only is the murder in the poem, every detail comes along with it. She gives so much insight about the child’s death. She illustrates the baby’s short lived struggle as well. When the slave catchers are nearing, suddenly it’s her baby, her child again, and then its like she snaps back into reality and realizes that the white man is after her, and suddenly the child is “the white child”--The same white man who raped her. In fact; the same white man responsible for the white baby that she holds close to her bosom, close to her heart. While Browning not have been able to voice her opinions as she wanted to, her ideas continued to shine through her works. Her poems don’t come right out and say everything blatantly either. It takes some brain power to understand what she meant. In “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point” she stressed that freedom wasn’t apparent in the south. They came here to be free from England and yet you chose to trap and enslave another race just as you were before. America contradicted itself. It isn’t the “land of the free”. In “In The Cry of the Children” she gives us a look inside the day to day life of a child who is enslaved by the evils of child labor. There are religious overtones too. I agreed with her side one hundred percent. America was “Free”?! I think not. She wanted people to see that this land wasn’t free. Children were factory workers and treated just like slaves were. In fact, they were treated so wrongly that they lost their religion. “…he hasn’t helped us yet” They loose all hope and faith in God as well. I think she wanted people to realize that both sides were wrong. How can you enslave people and treat them horribly and enslave your own children and have them treated just as badly or worse? None of it made since to her. I applaud Elizabeth Barrett Browning for not keeping quiet, even in those times.
I love what you said about words just being words and having no meaning until someone puts forth and effort, followed by action. thats what EBB wanted people to see. Its sad because she was a woman and her voice was heard, but not as loud as it should have been
Although poetry can be a very effective method of protest, I think one must the time period in which it was written and to whom it was written to. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s day, poetry was a very different thing than it is today.
Effective things produce outcomes. An author always intends to do so. Unfortunately, in today’s time, if a poem does fulfill its indented outcome, it only accomplishes this task through a small audience. This is simply due to the fact that poetry is not as popular as it once was. The written word, especially poetry, is losing its power due to growing popularity of oral communication. Most would rather hear a motivational speech than read an article. Maybe it is more interesting. Maybe we are just too lazy to read. The fact stands, however, that even if a poet makes a strong, effective statement he or she is only affecting a small portion.
In contrast, if one views Browning’s works in a rhetorical manner, based from the perspective of her time period, one finds them to be quite effective. Her fame preceded her work; as proven in the fact that “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” was written upon request. This fame, being in her best interest, gave her credibility. Readers are much more likely to agree with what they read if they already have trust in the author.
In addition to her fame, Browning’s work was also effective due to her astute use of poetic techniques, pathos, and ethos. Both onomatopoeia and alliteration can be found in stanza seven of “The Cry of the Children.” The repetition of the sound “ing” creates rhythm as it mimics the sound of machines and monotony of industrial life. Pathos is impossible to ignore in this poem as well, as it speaks in the voice of a child. The placing of perspective is a main key to its power. Undeniable in “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” is the use of ethos. The simple repetition of “I am black, I am black” quickly sets the poem in the context of a racial and cultural struggle.
To: Allison Kane You are so right about Browning using the "voices" of the children to tell about the injustices being committed. The horrific details about poor little Alice's death and all these children desiring her death for themselves is extremely heart wrenching. Taking the situation away from the perspective of an adult and putting it into the persepctive of a child really makes the reader feel more compelled to react.
I like that you pointed out that poetry has a way of hinting at things before they happen in a way that essays cannot. I agree that the structure of poem gives this genre of writing the advantage in this case. Also, the more straightforward appeal to emotion makes it more powerful. Poets also have the advantage of using things like persona, just as Browning used a child's perspective, to make their pieces more effective. Poets have so many rhetorical options that essayists do not.
In response to Joy: You are right about music being a very effective medium for protest. The music of the 1960s was famous for making social statements, and some of it was instrumental in changing people's attitudes about many issues, for example with racial equality and equal rights for women, etc. I think music is just poetry set to music anyway, and the more accessible it is to more people, the more effective the messages can be.
Based on what I have read recently and in the past I would say that poetry is very effective as a form of social protest. There have been many poems written about slavery, racial equality, womens rights and so forth that have caused political uprisings in our nation. In the poetry writings of Elizabeth Barrett Browning she focuses on slavery of blacks and the slavery of women and children in an industrialized society. In the "Cry of the Children" she sends the message of how children are being used more than women to work in an adult world and how their childhood is being stolen from them. It is so horrible that the children feel that in the "eyes" of God that they are irrevelant and that he is just another master who oversees them. In the poem " The Greek Slave," Elizabeth helps her readers to visulize a daunting yet beautiful woman who is shackled and is a slave. Although, we are not sure why or to what she is being enslaved we can somewhat paint a very vivid picture of possibly being enslaved by a horrible husband or by her beauty.
I agree with you about the part where they just wanted to "They just wanted to capture her simply because of the color of her skin." During that era it did not matter how many children a black woman killed because to the slave owners she was worth more to them alive than dead. But, I did not feel that she was the scum of the earth because she killed her baby. I agree with you about the part where they just wanted to "They just wanted to capture her simply because of the color of her skin." During that era it did not matter how many children a black woman killed because to the slave owners she was worth more to them alive than dead. But, I did not feel that she was the scum of the earth because she killed her baby. She knew that if they caught her she would either be raped all over again or forced to suffer a fate that is much worse. Besides, the spiritual nature that she felt at that moment in sacrificing her baby was of honor and courage.
Poetry as a form of social protest can be both effective and removed from the common man. Poetry can use language beautifully to create sounds and imagery in the reader that are strong cries of protest against an injustice. However, I feel poetry is a genre aimed at the educated or at least mid-to upper class level of society which excludes the lower groups the protest poetry is trying to help. I agree with those who added music to the list of protest poetry that is effective as it seems more relatable to the least common denominator of society and proably more readily available than a written poem.
E.B.B. uses no subtlety in either of her poems that we have discussed in class. In "The Cry of the Children" she uses the voice of a child to demonstrate the personal level of which these atrocities are taking place and clearly puts blames on the society which created families who send their children off to work in harsh conditions and a capitalistic system which has no empathy for them as long as there is a profit coming in. The poem was aimed at helping to cause a change in the system and thus was directed at those in charge of creating reform. I wonder, though, how many of those children or their mothers and fathers would have known about and been literate enough to read the poem, while being able to appreciate the structure and imagery, and what their feelings on it would have been.
Poetry can appeal to the reader's pathos in a way that other forms of writing cannot. Some poetry is silly and fun to read, but other poetry, like Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems for this week, are more straightforward and hard-hitting. People sometimes don't realize what is in store for them when they start reading a piece like those we read until the graphic imagery comes into play.
ReplyDeleteFor example, in "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" we are introduced to a slave who has committed a huge sin, but we do not know this yet until the middle of the poem. At first, I thought the poem was going to be about the normal woes of slaves and the fear of capture that a runaway has experienced. Imagine my shock at the part where she starts confessing her crime of murdering her own child! Only a poem could make such an impact on my creative mind in the way that this one did. Had I been reading a novel or an essay, I would not feel the same way about the death of the child. I don't think I would have been able to make the same connections with the mother's confusion and hesitation as I have been able to do with the flow of the poem. The rhythm was beautiful even though the story was tragic. At first I wasn't quite sure I was understanding the events correctly, so I had to go back and read a few stanzas to make sure.
Poems can drop subtle hints about something before they come out with the blunt details. I suppose an essay could as well, but we wouldn't get the same flow and range of emotions. I think the different structure of poems allows them to play with certain themes, such as social protest, without taking away from the overall effect of the story being told.
I like poetry, and in some cases it's just easier to "feel" more when I am reading something that has a specific rhythm that I am aware of. What I am trying to say, I suppose, is that I think poetry can be very effective as a form of social protest, but the poet must know exactly what he/she is doing, and must not be afraid to "go there".
During the election campaign of 2008, I remember hearing once that words were just words and do not mean anything. Later they added that they needed to be followed by action. My opinion is, words are the power behind the action. Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew this all too well. She intermingled her protest of many different social ills within the topic of just one cause. In The Cry of the Children, she writes of the evils of child labor and it as a form of slavery. She speaks of the power behind the greed at the cost of human life, specifically children. She wrote of the religious hypocrisy, the consequences of familial disjointing, death, and the role men played as the “masters” behind these movements.
ReplyDeleteIn the Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point, Elizabeth Barrett Browning protests not only slavery, but brings to light the other indiscretions that occur within the same sphere. She allows the reader to see how one ill is connected to the other. Along the topic of slavery, Browning also makes a point to show the hypocrisy of religion and how it wrongfully allowed the continued treatment of slaves by their masters and not applying what it preaches to all humanity and creation. She sets to show how humanity is viewed through greed instead of God. So much so, that even after the runaway slave murders her child, she is not pursued for the murder, but for running away and causing a void in her master’s labor force.
It is to conclude that I believe Elizabeth Barrett Browning is extremely effective as a protest poet.
Poetry is a very effective outlet for protesting. Music and poems coincide in verse and both carry significant rhythm, rhymes, words, imagery, and beats that each person can relate to and understand. Protest music has been written throughout the ages, and has been an effective outlet to reach the people and the oppressors; Woodstock is a perfect example of how protest music has affected many people who are after the same end to an injustice. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a very persuasive protest poet.
ReplyDeleteE.B. Browning makes the subject matter of her poems come alive with imagery and personalizes the poem to the reader. In her poem, "The Cry of the Children", she writes the children as if they were real and pleading with the reader to understand their plight. The most shocking imagery in this poem is the fourth stanza, when she describes "Little Alice" and she writes "Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen/ Like a snowball, in the rime./ We looked into the pit prepared to take her:/ Was no room for any work in the close clay! (39-42)" The children would rather be dead than working and Browning does a magnificent job throwing that into the readers faces and forcing them to consider how they are affecting the lives of these children.
I also think "zampak" makes a good point about her focusing on the hypocrisy of religion. Religion is a very important issue to most people, particularly the people of the 1800s and Browning does an excellent job of trying to get them to exam their "Christian" souls and to see that they might be breaking the rules. Stanzas four and thirteen of "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" speak of the injustice of God and how he has made inequality and has allowed this behavior to continue. The loss of faith is a shared issue of the children and the slave in both Browning's poems.
Browning does a nice job of finding things that the abusers can relate to and showing them in a negative light to allow the reader to understand their wrong-doing.
I think that poetry can be a very powerful form of social protest, because it has the ability to appeal to the emotions much more forcefully than just a factual account would. For example, you can read about some sort of an injustice in a magazine exposé, and it would describe the facts of the situation, but a poet can evoke the emotions much better than mere fact or description. In the poem “The Cry of the Children,” Browning takes on the voices of the children when they talk about “Little Alice” who died. A magazine article may report a child’s death in the factory, and people may be outraged, but an article’s factual report can’t compare to lines like: “We looked into the pit prepared to take her: Was no room for any work in the close clay! From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her…” The poetic description of the event has a much more compelling emotional impact. In the same way, a book about slavery could describe the lives and experiences of slaves and could give facts that would outrage the readers. But in a poem like “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” the poet can show the emotional experience of slavery. For example, in this poem, the slave woman’s grief over the loss of her lover and subsequent rape is conveyed in lines like, “Mere grief’s too good for such as I: So the white men brought the shame ere long to strangle the sob of my agony.” The expression of emotion is much more compelling in poetry like this, and would create a more forceful impact on a reader than would be possible in most books.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Allison Kane,
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you discussed. You explained it much better than I did, but the message was simple: poetry "has the ability to appeal to the emotions much more forcefully than just a factual account would".
I also noticed that all of the people that have commented thus far are of the same mindframe that poetry can indeed be a very effective form of protest. The reason for this is mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Poetry has always been deep to me. You never know what to expect—especially when reading works by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In her poem “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point” we meet young slave who has committed a horrible crime. I was surprised to find out in the reading that they either didn’t care about what she had done, or did not know. They just wanted to capture her simply because of the color of her skin. Many emotions were evoked while I read this. At times I felt sorry for her, and other times I believed her to be the scum of the earth for committing such a horrendous crime against her own child. Not only is the murder in the poem, every detail comes along with it. She gives so much insight about the child’s death. She illustrates the baby’s short lived struggle as well. When the slave catchers are nearing, suddenly it’s her baby, her child again, and then its like she snaps back into reality and realizes that the white man is after her, and suddenly the child is “the white child”--The same white man who raped her. In fact; the same white man responsible for the white baby that she holds close to her bosom, close to her heart. While Browning not have been able to voice her opinions as she wanted to, her ideas continued to shine through her works. Her poems don’t come right out and say everything blatantly either. It takes some brain power to understand what she meant. In “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point” she stressed that freedom wasn’t apparent in the south. They came here to be free from England and yet you chose to trap and enslave another race just as you were before. America contradicted itself. It isn’t the “land of the free”. In “In The Cry of the Children” she gives us a look inside the day to day life of a child who is enslaved by the evils of child labor. There are religious overtones too. I agreed with her side one hundred percent. America was “Free”?! I think not. She wanted people to see that this land wasn’t free. Children were factory workers and treated just like slaves were. In fact, they were treated so wrongly that they lost their religion. “…he hasn’t helped us yet” They loose all hope and faith in God as well. I think she wanted people to realize that both sides were wrong. How can you enslave people and treat them horribly and enslave your own children and have them treated just as badly or worse? None of it made since to her. I applaud Elizabeth Barrett Browning for not keeping quiet, even in those times.
ReplyDeleteTo:Zampak
ReplyDeleteI love what you said about words just being words and having no meaning until someone puts forth and effort, followed by action. thats what EBB wanted people to see. Its sad because she was a woman and her voice was heard, but not as loud as it should have been
Although poetry can be a very effective method of protest, I think one must the time period in which it was written and to whom it was written to. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s day, poetry was a very different thing than it is today.
ReplyDeleteEffective things produce outcomes. An author always intends to do so. Unfortunately, in today’s time, if a poem does fulfill its indented outcome, it only accomplishes this task through a small audience. This is simply due to the fact that poetry is not as popular as it once was. The written word, especially poetry, is losing its power due to growing popularity of oral communication. Most would rather hear a motivational speech than read an article. Maybe it is more interesting. Maybe we are just too lazy to read. The fact stands, however, that even if a poet makes a strong, effective statement he or she is only affecting a small portion.
In contrast, if one views Browning’s works in a rhetorical manner, based from the perspective of her time period, one finds them to be quite effective. Her fame preceded her work; as proven in the fact that “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” was written upon request. This fame, being in her best interest, gave her credibility. Readers are much more likely to agree with what they read if they already have trust in the author.
In addition to her fame, Browning’s work was also effective due to her astute use of poetic techniques, pathos, and ethos. Both onomatopoeia and alliteration can be found in stanza seven of “The Cry of the Children.” The repetition of the sound “ing” creates rhythm as it mimics the sound of machines and monotony of industrial life. Pathos is impossible to ignore in this poem as well, as it speaks in the voice of a child. The placing of perspective is a main key to its power. Undeniable in “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” is the use of ethos. The simple repetition of “I am black, I am black” quickly sets the poem in the context of a racial and cultural struggle.
To: Allison Kane
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about Browning using the "voices" of the children to tell about the injustices being committed. The horrific details about poor little Alice's death and all these children desiring her death for themselves is extremely heart wrenching. Taking the situation away from the perspective of an adult and putting it into the persepctive of a child really makes the reader feel more compelled to react.
In response to Claudia:
ReplyDeleteI like that you pointed out that poetry has a way of hinting at things before they happen in a way that essays cannot. I agree that the structure of poem gives this genre of writing the advantage in this case. Also, the more straightforward appeal to emotion makes it more powerful. Poets also have the advantage of using things like persona, just as Browning used a child's perspective, to make their pieces more effective. Poets have so many rhetorical options that essayists do not.
In response to Joy:
ReplyDeleteYou are right about music being a very effective medium for protest. The music of the 1960s was famous for making social statements, and some of it was instrumental in changing people's attitudes about many issues, for example with racial equality and equal rights for women, etc. I think music is just poetry set to music anyway, and the more accessible it is to more people, the more effective the messages can be.
Based on what I have read recently and in the past I would say that poetry is very effective as a form of social protest. There have been many poems written about slavery, racial equality, womens rights and so forth that have caused political uprisings in our nation. In the poetry writings of Elizabeth Barrett Browning she focuses on slavery of blacks and the slavery of women and children in an industrialized society.
ReplyDeleteIn the "Cry of the Children" she sends the message of how children are being used more than women to work in an adult world and how their childhood is being stolen from them. It is so horrible that the children feel that in the "eyes" of God that they are irrevelant and that he is just another master who oversees them. In the poem " The Greek Slave," Elizabeth helps her readers to visulize a daunting yet beautiful woman who is shackled and is a slave. Although, we are not sure why or to what she is being enslaved we can somewhat paint a very vivid picture of possibly being enslaved by a horrible husband or by her beauty.
To: ssmitchell
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the part where they just wanted to "They just wanted to capture her simply because of the color of her skin." During that era it did not matter how many children a black woman killed because to the slave owners she was worth more to them alive than dead. But, I did not feel that she was the scum of the earth because she killed her baby. I agree with you about the part where they just wanted to "They just wanted to capture her simply because of the color of her skin." During that era it did not matter how many children a black woman killed because to the slave owners she was worth more to them alive than dead. But, I did not feel that she was the scum of the earth because she killed her baby. She knew that if they caught her she would either be raped all over again or forced to suffer a fate that is much worse. Besides, the spiritual nature that she felt at that moment in sacrificing her baby was of honor and courage.
Poetry as a form of social protest can be both effective and removed from the common man. Poetry can use language beautifully to create sounds and imagery in the reader that are strong cries of protest against an injustice. However, I feel poetry is a genre aimed at the educated or at least mid-to upper class level of society which excludes the lower groups the protest poetry is trying to help. I agree with those who added music to the list of protest poetry that is effective as it seems more relatable to the least common denominator of society and proably more readily available than a written poem.
ReplyDeleteE.B.B. uses no subtlety in either of her poems that we have discussed in class. In "The Cry of the Children" she uses the voice of a child to demonstrate the personal level of which these atrocities are taking place and clearly puts blames on the society which created families who send their children off to work in harsh conditions and a capitalistic system which has no empathy for them as long as there is a profit coming in. The poem was aimed at helping to cause a change in the system and thus was directed at those in charge of creating reform. I wonder, though, how many of those children or their mothers and fathers would have known about and been literate enough to read the poem, while being able to appreciate the structure and imagery, and what their feelings on it would have been.