Erin’s British Literature Blog

I think it is an oversimplification of Swift’s work to simply say that Yahoos are humans.  True, there are characteristics humans and Yahoos share, but one may also argue that humans have things in common with Houyhnhnms  Yahoos, like people, are very fearful and defensive (pg. 2419-2420).  Gulliver uses violence against the first Yahoo who approaches him, so it is understandable that the creature would react with anger, and others would try and attack Gulliver for hurting one of its own kind.  This mentality is common not only to Yahoos and humans, but all creatures have a sort of need to protect their own kind from foreign danger.

But I also think that comparisons can be made between the Houyhnhnms and humans.  They have a form of social order, unlike the Yahoos.  While this social order seems to be communist or socialist in nature, it can still be compared to social orders for humans.  Another, possibly negative way that Houyhnhnms are like humans are the fact that they are not accepting of others.  Gulliver tries to incorporate himself into their world, but they continue to view him as different and an outsider of the group.  But this mentality was also seen in the defensiveness of the Yahoos.  Almost all creature groups have a fear of what is different.

The role of sex in both the world of Yahoos and Houyhnhnms have parallels to human reproduction.  Swift makes young Yahoo women impulsively lustful (pg. 2444), and unable to control their urges.  Though this make be an extreme version of the case, human are known to be impulsively lustful and submissive to sexual and physical urges. For Houyhnhnms their procreation is very technical and clinical.  This mentality also exists in human culture, and was a major part of society in Swift’s times.  Arranged marriages for procreation within the same social classes was prevalent, and their was a formality to sex in this regard.  Especially thinking about royal families at the time in which the need to create the appropriate offspring led to intra-family relationships.

I believe that to say Yahoos are humans is too easy, and ignores the similarities that humans also share with Houyhnhnms, both good and bad.  I think the two species groups of Book 4 represent two ends of a spectrum that has human behavior across it.

I am going to admit to being confused as to the role of the prince/princess in “The Convent of Pleasure,” so let me see if I understand it correctly.  The Prince (as in the person Lady Happy marries at the end) disguises himself as a woman to gain access into the convent (as explained by Madame Mediator on pg. 244).  Within the convent, this woman dresses in male shepherd’s clothing (Act IV, Scene 1),  and embraces and kisses Lady happy.  So the prince is male, pretending to be female, pretending to be male. I think.

This being said, why would the Prince, or any male, want to access a convent full of women who have shunned men?  At the close of Act III, a few gentlemen are speaking and they realize the hardship the convent is causing them.  They decide to “endeavor to get Wives, before they are Incloister’d.” Essentially, men worry that if princesses and other women of high status join these convents, they will be left without suitable partners.  Likely, this was the mentality of all the men in the area.

So the convent is invaded, and broken, and Lady Happy marries the Prince.  However, she is not longer Lady Happy, neither in name nor in emotional status.  In the final scene, she makes no comment about her happiness and satisfaction in her marriage, and the line from Mimic makes us realize she’s probably not content.  “Man and Wife, ’tis said, makes but one Fool,” Mimic says.  A married couple is a fool?  Not a pro-marriage statement in the slightest.

I think the most convincing and persuasive argument in book nine of “Paradise Lost” is the serpent, or “Tempter”, when he convinces Eve to eat the apple.  I feel like this is not only because of the words he chooses to use and how well he addresses them to his audience.  By appealing to her lack of knowledge, the Tempter easily convinces Eve to eat the apple.  The Tempter was very smart for choosing Eve, and not Adam, because not only do his words convince her, but by giving her access to a conversationalist other than Adam, Eve’s eyes begin to open to possibility.  Adam does not need knowledge, and probably would not have even spoken with the Tempter.  Adam did not need the Tempter, or the knowledge, because he got to talk to God and the Angels. What more do you need?  However Eve only had the chores Adam assigned to her, and his accounts of the teachings of God and the Angels. 

The Tempter also speaks to the tree and its fruit, and gives it a sense of reverence, just as Adam and Eve revere God.  9.679: “O sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving plant, Mother of science, now I feel thy power within me clear, not only to discern Things in their causes, but to trace the ways of highest agents, deemed however wise.”  The Tempter is smart to praise the tree, and act as if it has spiritual power.  This convinces Eve about the wonder of the tree, and makes it seem more like a spiritual oppurtunity, and not simply her being tricked by Satan.

In Book 1 of “The Faerie Queene,” Una is a guiding force for Red Cross Knight.  She represents one-ness, and forgiveness and other positive virtues of the English church.  Duessa represents falsehood, duality, and the evilness of the Catholic church.  So, to summarize thus far: Protestant church good, Catholic church bad, according to Spenser.  The Red Cross Knight is good.  He is the embodiment of holiness, he goes on his quest, he’s helped by the female embodiment of the Protestant church.  And yet, he is revealed to be Saint George, the Patron Saint of England.  Saints (at least to my understanding as a girl who sat through ten years of Roman Catholic Sunday school) are a predominantly Catholic belief.  The protestant church believes it is unholy and sinful for Catholics to pray or revere saints, because they’re praying to and revering something that is not God.  What was Spenser doing then?  He made a hero of his protestant “one-church” allegory a Catholic entity.  Was he trying to make the argument that the Saint needed the “one-church” (Una) in order to survive and fluorish.  Then why make him a saint at all?  Shouldn’t he simply be a man like all others according to the dogma of the English church?  Are not all who are not God equal men?  How come Red Crosse gets to be a Saint?

I believe in many ways, Salome is a rebel, or a revolutionary for women in the time of “The Tragedy of Mariam.”  She is the most proactive woman in the play, and is an importnant contrast to Mariam.  Just as Mariam is a martyr for women in unhappy marriages, Salome is the leader, using Mariam’s inaction and ultimate death as proof for the necessity of female action.  However, we can also focus on the limitations of Salome.  She does not have the innocence that Mariam has, and can rely only on her action, confidence, and other masculinized traits to accomplish her objectives.  Salome labels herself as a leader of women in 1.4.49-50. “I’ll be the custon breaker, and begin/To show my sex the way to freedom’s door.”  Cary’s diction paints Salome as a type of revolutionary, leading women to freedom and a better light.  However in Cary’s time there could not be a completely feminine leader/rebel/revolutionary, and in many ways the same idea holds true today.  Women who are considered great leaders are often viewed as masculinized, for power is still associated with men.  So while Cary has done something new with the creation of a female leader, she is limited in having to make it a masculinized female.

I’ve often wondered about the relationship between Antonio and Sebastian.  My questions are always in regards to the manner in which Antonio loves Sebastian.  Is it possible the love in the form of affection and respect has been mistaken for romantic love?  The dynamic of male relationships have changed over the preceding centuries.  Love between males is automatically labeled as romantic and homosexual, when really this wasn’t always the dynamic.  It used to be that the dynamic between a master and a servant was one of love, but love in terms of respect and comradeship.  In many ways the relationship of Antonio and Sebastian can be explained like this.  Antonio says “If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant” (2.1:31-32), which I believe shows Antonio as needing dependence on another.

At the end of the story, Antonio is one of the few left without a lover, which does promote the ambiguity of his sexuality.  Would it have caused a stir in Shakespeare’s day to have Antonio end up with another man?  Or would it have been more acceptable because everyone was theoretically of the same sex (and only different in gender)?  Shakespeare’s other works have shown male to male affection.  His first 126 sonnets were written to a young man, but whether it be as poet to poet or lover to lover, one’s not sure.  However, it is possible that our society’s prejudices against homosexuality aren’t necessarily deep-seeded hatreds and are developments of later centuries.

The relationship between the lover and beloved varies from sonnet to sonnet.  And while the roles of the speaker and the subject are usually defined as the “lover” and “beloved,” within some poems the roles would be more appropriate as “the luster” and “the lusted.”  Two cases of this lustful relationship is Marvel’s “To His Coy Mistress” and Herrick’s “The Vine.”

Marvel’s and Herrick’s works are similar in their male focused lusts. Both entail men with the desire to bed their women.  However the mood of each poem is quite different.  Andrew Marvel’s “To His Coy Mistress” is fittingly named for it is a coy and flirtatious poem.  Marvel tries to make light of the situation in trying to claim his mistress’ virginity.  However Herrick’s poem is more graphic, and entails a fantasy about rape.  Herrick does not try and persuade his beloved to be with him, but rather fantasizes about his genitalia becoming a vine and controlling her.  Herrick says “And arms and hands they did enthrall, So that she could not freely stir,” showing that the lover wants to complete submission of the beloved. While the relationship between lover and beloved is similar in both poems, it is the tone that puts the poems on different ends of the spectrum.  Herrick binds and takes advantage of his victim, Marvel teases her and tells her “worms shall try that long-preserved virginity.”  While contrasted to Marvel’s light-hearted tone, Herrick’s poem seems incredibly graphic, even though it is a dream.

The clergy in the “Canterbury Tales” make up the largest group of the travelers.  However, this is not a crew of pious nuns or God-fearing monks that go on this pilgrimage.  Instead, these characters enjoy secular, worldly activities and goods: hunting, eating, jewelery, among others.

The first character we come across is the Prioresse, who is seen as a gluttonous, indulgent woman, who loves to eat.  She also puts on airs about being worldly, acting like she speaks French, and she often “countrefete cheere of court” [l. 139-140] trying to behave like a courtly woman.  She wears a beautiful cloak, and a bracelet that says “love conquers all,” behavior and customs not common to the clergy.  While she a nun, and supposed to be acting the word of God, she indulges in these material goods.

The Monk is shown as overly masculine, loving hunting and holding a position of power within his cloister.  He also behaves with a sense of superiority, believing its beneath him to perform physical labor.  He wears “sleeves purfiled at the hand with gris, and that the fineste of a land” [l. 193-194], so Chaucer once again shows the people who are supposed to live in poverty living in richness.

The friar has the “power of confessioun” [l. 218]  with many a women throughout town. I find that Chaucer’s wit at times like this very entertaining. He never says that the friar is galavanting around with other women, instead he is suggestive of what the women “confess.”  The friar “knew the tavernes wel in every town,” [l. 240], and basically like the other members of the clergy, enjoys a little bit of good old fashioned debauchery

Now while in these instance Chaucer may be criticizing the institution of the clergy and pointing out obvious corruption, he is also humanizing its members.  By making the monk and friar men who like to hunt and drink, and the prioress a woman who enjoys jewelery and nice clothes, they have a certain universal quality.  The lower classes can feel that perhapys they too have a sense of religion, since they’re no so far from these “pious” people.

I think the character of Grendel’s mother stands out of the text for a few reasons.  As pointed out, she’s one of the few females in the poem. She is also the only character to act in order to revenge.  While Hrothgar and the other Danes had reasons for creating an opposition and attacking Grendel, they never do.  Their position is always defensive.  But I believe that the poet (whoever he may be) is pointing out maternal instinct, more than female lust for vengenace. Though evil and monstruous, Grendel was her offspring and mothers have an animalistic impulse to protect their young.

The other female in the text, Hrotghar’s wife  Wealtheow, serves a very different purpose.  She represents the more customary female position at the time. She does not attack for vengeance, or even participate in fighting at all.  Instead she is a ceremonial wife, appearing to give rewards and accalaid to Beowulf and his warriors.  She is explained as beautiful, and acts more of a symbol of what the warriors (and Beowulf) must protect.  In her role as a peace-weaver is represents the opposite of Grendel’s mother.  While Grendel’s mother creates violence and destruction, Wealtheow and the other women do their part to stop it.  In this way Wealtheow and Grendel’s mother are opposites, one causes violence, the other attempts to supress it.

 In looking at the two different women, you have to also consider Beowulf’s relationship towards these two women.  Beowulf has a type of respect for both women. He praises the peace that Wealtheow and the other peace-weavers bring to their halls, saying “I have never seen mead enjoyed more in any hall on earth” (lines 2015-2016).  It is clear that he values the peace and comfort these women bring to their men enough to praise about it in his homeland.  But though it is based in fear, Beowulf shows a different type of respect to Grendel’s mother.  Even though she is a female, Beowulf does not assume Grendel’s mother to be weaker than Grendel.  He prepares for his fight with Grendel’s mother, with as much determination (if not more so) as Grendel.