Heidi Soltis
Ms. Wilson
Brit Lit B
14 May 2013
Victorian
Period
The Victorian
Period was known as a more stable time during Queen Victoria’s reign. It was
also known as a period of progress (Holt 718), in which people of England began
to use questioning, scientific and universal understandings to form more
realistic solutions to a more stable life. The literature of this time also
turned from nature expressed through romanticism towards using nature and vivid
imagery in a more realistic perspective. This vivid imagery connected visual
art with the literature of this time to fully exemplify the life of this time (Norton
& Company 2) . In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “De Profundis” she uses
the use of nature imagery, similes, and purposeful repetition to portray the
guilt she feels responsible for her brother’s death.
Browning’s use
of nature imagery expresses the enduring guilt she feels for her brother’s
death. She uses nature to express the endless mourning cycle she feels
following her brother’s death which remains unchanged even as the seasons
change. “Breath freezes on my lips to moan:/ As one alone, once not alone,/ I
sit and knock at Nature’s door,/ Heart-bare, heart-hungry, very poor,/ Whose
desolated days go on” (ll. 31-35). This imagery shows it is the winter time and
uses personification to express to immense grief she is feeling. She uses
different metaphors and imagery to show the seasons changing as her mourning
continues., “This Nature, though the snows be down,/ Thinks kindly of the bird
of June:/ The little red hip on the tree/ Is ripe for such. What is for me,/
Whose days so winterly go on?” (ll. 36-40). This stanza shows how the author’s
emotion contradicts the expected feelings of warmth and life in June; instead
she compares her days moving on still as though they are in the winter, a time
of death and stagnancy.
Browning also uses similes to demonstrate
the guilt she feels following her brother’s death truly affects her. “The face,
which, duly as the sun,/ Rose up for me with life begun,/To mark all bright
hours of the day/ With hourly love, is dimmed away” (ll. 1-4). This shows how
her brother’s face used to be comparable to the sun, radiant and bright and she
no longer gets to witness this jubilant face. “The tongue which, like a stream,
could run/ Smooth music from the roughest stone,/ And every morning with ‘Good
day’/ Make each day good, is hushed away” (ll. 6-9). This shows that her
brother used to sin, talk and be merry, filled with joy and now that he is
gone, all the author can do it mourn. “The heart which, like a staff, was one/
for mine to lean and rest upon,/ The strongest on the longest day/ With
steadfast love, is caught away” (ll, 11-13). The author is mourning the loss of
her brother for she used to be able to tell him anything for he was strong and
full of compassion and trust.
Browning uses
purposeful repetition to emphasize the dragging of the days proceeding her
brother’s death for she is filled with guilt. Throughout the poem Browning
specifically repeats the words “my days go on, go on” at the end of every stanza
which shows the endless mourning cycle the author experiences after her brother’s
death and how the days seem as though they are never ending. However, towards
the end of the poem (around stanza XX) Browning shifts from the repetition of
nature to the repetition of religious imagery, “Take from my head the
thorn-wreath brown!/ No mortal grief deserves that crown./ O supreme Love,
chief misery,/ The sharp regalia are for
Thee/ Whose days eternally go on! (ll. 96-100). She still repeats how her days “go
on”, but they are no longer an endless, hopeless cycle, for she has now come to
the realization that her suffering cannot even compare with the suffering that
Jesus Christ had to endure. She realizes she has lost one person, while Jesus
has lost his own life, and had to endure beating and thorn crowns in order to
free us all from sins. “And having in
thy life-depth thrown/ Being and suffering (which are one),/ As a child drops
his pebble small/ Down some deep well, and hears it fall/ Smiling- so I. “THY
DAYS GO ON.” (ll. 121-125). Her suffering is as miniscule as a small pebble
falling in a well compared to the thorns and suffering Jesus Christ had to face
for us. She uses phrases such as I trust
Thee while my days go on” (105), “I praise Thee while my days go on (ll. 110-111),
“I love Thee while my days go on” (112), “I thank Thee while my days go on” (115).
Although the days do still go on, the added “Thee” before the “days go on” repetition
shows that she has broken the vicious grief cycle she feels following her
father’s death and instead she looks to God and Jesus, a greater being to help
her cope with the death. She no longer feels as though her life is hopeless and
as hard to endure for she realizes Jesus Christ has it so much worse.
Through
Browning’s vivid imagery expressed especially through nature, similes, and
repetition, she truly portrays the guilt she feels proceeding her brother’s
death. The vivid imagery she uses throughout the poem allows the reader to
paint a picture in their mind so they can fully envision the dragging of the
days and guilt the author feels. She is stuck in this continuous grieving cycle
which seems almost impossible to get out off because even as the seasons
change, her grief still continues to exist endlessly. Not until she comes to
realization that Jesus suffered from an unfathomable pain, she sees that her
cycle can be broken and does not deserve to make her days so endless. If Jesus
could suffer from the scorns, whips and thorns of his time, then she should
have no reason to express such an immense grief for such a miniscule loss.
Jesus not only helps her cope with her grieving cycle, but He also serves as an
inspiration for her. Although the days will always continue to go on, her
immense grief will stop for she realizes someone has it much worse, and if
Jesus Christ can endure these horrible sufferings, she can definitely withstand
the loss of one person.
textbook
Body Paragraph 1:
ReplyDelete-" to express to immense grief she is feeling" i think you meant the immense grief
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Body Paragraph 2:
-the last sentence of your paragraph, write about how he was her rock and she depended on him
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Body Paragraph 3:
-so good!
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