Charlotte Smith Flashcards
She was the first woman writer from the romantic period to be included in what
the Oxford series, Women writers in English ,1350-1850,clearly marking her as a distinctive voice.
Themes in To Melancholy
Women and feminity
sadness
natural world
the supernatural
What does to melancholy contain an abundance of
sibilance.
In particular line 11 is dominated by this ‘S’ sound. The ‘deep sighs’ that ‘swell the sadden’d wind’
create quite a harsh sinister sound which effectively helps to reflect the meditative mournful tone of the poem.
rhyme scheme of to melancholy
. In line with the traditional Petrarchan sonnet, the poem is written as an octet followed by a sestet with an ABBAABBA rhyme scheme.
Smith employs multiple eye rhymes ‘eyes/melodies’ and ‘wind/mind’. These incomplete rhymes disrupt the perfect balance, yet this only makes sense as the poem is professing a deep sense of melancholy not the binary emotion of love.
what is the form of to melancholy
combines and elegy and a sonnet
revolutionary move
This instantly creates a form that can be twinned with a mix of sadness and pleasure, akin to the state of mind that melancholy induces.
How did Wordsworth describe her
as “a lady to whom English verse is under greater obligations than are likely to be either acknowledged or remembered.”
How poetry contains both a critique and an investigation of what
the artificiality of socliazed gender
What is the effect of reading sonnet LXII on its own and not within gender frame
It could easily be called Wordsworthian and thereby identifeid as masculine Romantic
His fragment “The discharged Soldier’ almost exactly replicates the scenario of a lone speaker, a deserted public way and a nightime wonder
What is the rhyme scheme of sonnet LXII
strictly Shakespearian
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG- even as the speaker wonders from the paths of gender the poem sticks to the rules of genre
What elements do the Elgaic sonnets contain that are traditionally associated with romantic period
experiments in poetic form,
memory
Nature/the pastoral
figure of the solitary poet/genius
How does she describe sleep in the sonnet to sleep
denying an “opiate aid” (13) to an “anxious breast” (14) and “streaming eye” (14).
This indicates that she does not wish to experience these negative emotions, and would rather be made insensible of them by sleep.
Clearly, not all writers in the Romantic period saw sensibility in a positive light, and the theme of wanting to be emotionless is a recurring one.
what is sleep a metaphor for
death
what was so interesting about sleep for the romantics
it relationship to the unconcious and its access to revelations and visions not accessible during waking hours
allows mind to enter different realm
What does smith do in the first line of to melancholy
personifies autumn
uses interesting metaphor of the feminine autumn spreading her ‘evening veil’
metaphor for darkeness in speakers world?
Autumn, which is personified as a woman wearing a “veil,” is a kind of stand-in for Charlotte Smith herself, who felt the need to “veil” herself in a world dominated by male writers and publishers?
What does smith say in line 6 of to melancholy about gender
Oft seems to fleet before the poet’s eyes
doesn’t say my eyes- Instead, she refers to herself in a distanced and universal way as “the poet.” It seems like she wants to emphasize the fact that she’s a poet, and therefore has stuff in common with all other poets, male and female.
