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Crafting Social Criticism: Infanticide in “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” and Aurora Leigh

Crafting Social Criticism: Infanticide in “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” and Aurora Leigh SaRah h. FICke hat kind of poetry can promote meaningful social change? Can women write such poetry? These are two of the questions elizabeth Barrett Browning grappled with in her 1857 novel-poem Aurora Leigh. Romney Leigh is the voice of dissent in the poem. early in the text, he informs aurora that women are "weak for art" and only fitted for "life and duty."1 according to Romney, this is a result of women's inability to generalize from individual cases of oppression to the larger social problems that cause that oppression: The human race To you means, such a child, or such a man, You saw one morning waiting in the cold, Beside that gate, perhaps. You gather up a few such cases, and, when strong, sometimes Will write of factories and of slaves, as if Your father were a negro, and your son a spinner in the mills. (2.189­196) Romney's accusation is drawn from actual debates over women's capabilities taking place in the Victorian press. 2 however, the examples he gives in the passage above are tailored specifically to fit Barrett Browning's own body of work. Just as aurora proves Romney wrong about woman's capacity to create significant http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Victorian Poetry West Virginia University Press

Crafting Social Criticism: Infanticide in “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” and Aurora Leigh

Ficke, Sarah H.
Victorian Poetry , Volume 51 (2) – Jul 27, 2013
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Publisher
West Virginia University Press
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Copyright © West Virginia University.
ISSN
1530-7190
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Abstract

SaRah h. FICke hat kind of poetry can promote meaningful social change? Can women write such poetry? These are two of the questions elizabeth Barrett Browning grappled with in her 1857 novel-poem Aurora Leigh. Romney Leigh is the voice of dissent in the poem. early in the text, he informs aurora that women are "weak for art" and only fitted for "life and duty."1 according to Romney, this is a result of women's inability to generalize from individual cases of oppression to the larger social problems that cause that oppression: The human race To you means, such a child, or such a man, You saw one morning waiting in the cold, Beside that gate, perhaps. You gather up a few such cases, and, when strong, sometimes Will write of factories and of slaves, as if Your father were a negro, and your son a spinner in the mills. (2.189­196) Romney's accusation is drawn from actual debates over women's capabilities taking place in the Victorian press. 2 however, the examples he gives in the passage above are tailored specifically to fit Barrett Browning's own body of work. Just as aurora proves Romney wrong about woman's capacity to create significant

Journal

Victorian Poetry – West Virginia University Press

Published: Jul 27, 2013

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