Review: "I Wanna Be Yours"

by Louisa Dassow

John Cooper Clarke (right)
(24.media.tumbler.com)

Overly excited on the morning of the 9th September, I sat arguing with my laptop that my iPod was connected. Of course I was attempting to download "AM", the new Arctic Monkeys album before I had to scramble to get ready for school. Now I'd like to imagine that this frantic downloading experience was the reason that my brain made no immediate connection with the final song of the album, "I Wanna Be Yours". Alongside the other track names such as "Knee Socks" and "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?", it didn't strike me as being out of place and it fitted with the more generic song titles that came to mind (indeed within the rest of my music library I have seven other songs which begin I want/I wanna).

But I was wrong; it was definitely not a generic choice of song title. 

When I finally reached the last track, the first line struck a memory bell inside my head; but it didn't quite ring true and I simply couldn't place where I'd heard the words before. It wasn't until perhaps the sixth time I listened to it that I was flung back into my old English classroom, I had spent hours studying the poem and I had even written my own version of the abstract lyrics. It's a staple of the English curriculum. So why on earth was it on the Arctic Monkeys' album (see video below to hear the song)? 
 

The bulk of the lyrics in this song were actually written almost thirty years ago by the punk poet John Cooper Clarke. The man in question already held a place on my iPod for his poem "Kung Fu International", but he is also rumoured to hold a place on part of Alex Turner's anatomy in the form of a tattoo, however if such a tattoo exists it has not yet been revealed to the public. Either way the poet definitely holds a place in Mr Turner's heart who claims that Clarke showed him that he could sing in his northern accent and his poetry inspired him to give song-writing a go. When writing the song "From the Ritz to the Rubble" (another favourite of mine), Turner was trying to emulate the style of his literary hero.

The song "I Wanna Be Yours" does contain all of the original poem; however, the band made a slight alteration, adding in the lyrics "Secrets I have held in my heart/Are harder to hide than I thought". Personally I don't think the additional lines add much more to the poem; however, in the context of the song the slight change in tone makes it slightly more interesting to listen to. The song is fairly melancholic, which doesn't quite capture the almost ironic meaning of Clarke's poem, but Turner defends this representation of the poem saying that the juxtaposition of the original meaning and the sound of the song makes it "more exciting" and he says his unusual twist is simply him being a "smart-arse."

The song does have Clarke's personal approval and I'm sure that, in this case, John Cooper Clarke's opinion is the most important opinion to the band. Anyway, I like it.

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'Blackberry-Picking' by Seamus Heaney



Seamus Heaney, poet (13 April, 1939 to 30 August, 2013)

Blackberry-Picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

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'Porphyria's Lover': An Aestheticist Reading

Ben Schofield offers an Aestheticist reading of Robert Browning's poem 'Porphyria's Lover'. This article was originally published in the 'Fight Club' issue of Portsmouth Point magazine in July 2013.

‘Porphyria’s Lover’ tells a tale out of the ordinary, the story of a murder and an exploration of insanity. As an earlier title of the piece, ‘Madhouse Cells’, indicates, the narrator is insane, yet in the narrative of the poem he goes undescribed, in fact we can only assume the narrator’s gender as Browning leaves us not even a stray pronoun as a clue. However due to the form of dramatic monologue, we learn far more about the inner mind of the narrator through his description than we would otherwise.

The poem begins with a succession of images of the storm raging outside the Lovers’ retreat, each seemingly unfit for a storm. How can wind be “sullen”, tearing down elm-tops “for spite”? As well as evoking a fitful storm the images reflect the nature of the narrator, his own “cheerless” mental state. Porphyria herself, the centre of the poem, is initially described in a manner as “soiled” as her gloves; she “glide[s]” into the poem at once carrying the storm in with her and shutting it out.

It is interesting that after death Porphyria appears more alive than when she first enters: “The smiling rosy little head,/So glad it has its utmost will”. An image at once macabre and beautiful, the still couple sitting there throughout the night, only one sits too still. The poem revolves between the aesthetic of two images then: the riotous storm, and the gentle couple. In one there is anger, imperfection, and spite; the other portrays rosy, perfection. The question Browning seems to put to us is which is better? Firstly in the mind of a madman, and then in us; should we choose life with all its stormy soiled imperfections, or the elegance and love of death.

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'Porphyria's Lover': A Structuralist Reading

Gregory Walton-Green offers a Structuralist reading of Robert Browning's poem 'Porphyria's Lover'. This article was originally published in the 'Fight Club' issue of Portsmouth Point magazine in July 2013.

The key element to appreciating Porphyria’s lover is in understanding how Browning repeatedly subverts our expectations. In the first nine lines, we are offered a scene that could come just as easily from the Romantic poetry of the earlier 19th Century; the immensely impressive might of nature at its most ferocious is juxtaposed with the doting girl who makes the rural cottage comfortable and warm for the narrator. From this we might expect something along the lines of Coleridges’s “Frost at Midnight”, another poem set in a cottage, with a fire burning, but this one goes on to reflect at length on the power of nature, a common theme in Romantic poetry. Instead of these musings, Browning plunges us into a description of a woman being overtly sexual, undressing in front of her lover and taking the lead in their relationship. This sort of open display of sexuality had been absent from poetry since the Renaissance, and so is entirely unexpected in a poem that starts off in a Romantic vein.

If Browning were to continue to develop along this plot-line, he might have taken a similar route as Renaissance poet Sir Thomas Wyatt in his poem “They flee from me”. In it, we are offered a description of female dominance also seen in Porphyria: the title characters are described as “seek[ing]” the narrator with “naked feet”, and one woman is said to have “caught me [the narrator] in her arms” after her “loose gown” had fallen from her shoulders. The parallels with Porphyria are self-evident. However, from line twenty-two, Browning moves away somewhat from suggestive imagery, and instead focuses onto Porphyria’s innermost emotions, almost reminiscent of his contemporary Tennyson. Godiva, in relation to her internal struggle between “proper” behaviour and her obligations, and Mariana, in her unfulfilled desire for her absent lover, surrounded by a depressing, decaying landscape, both share some similarities with Porphyria.

Just as we are starting to identify with Porphyria, Browning immediately turns our view instead onto her lover, the narrator, instead. The romantic imagery of his “heart swell[ing]”, means that we expect what he was “to do” to be something sexual in nature, to release the tension built up in the earlier seductive depiction of Porphyria undressing. Yet once again, Browning has deceived us as to where the poem is leading. He releases the tension not by a sexual encounter, but by murder. This plot twist is central to the poem, highlighting Browning’s skill at structuring his work, but remaining in keeping with the poem as a whole. For instance, he continues to describe the actions after the death in terms of the language of desire, albeit having perverted such language to depict a selfish need for control rather than love. Furthermore, the macabre ending leads us to see the Gothic suggestions in the introductory lines when the narrator is describing the tempestuous weather.

By these methods, Browning manages to tie the poem together as one complete work despite the numerous subversions of expectation. In Porphyria’s lover, Browning has mastered the skill of manipulating plot, which allows him to consistently surprise the reader. As a narrative poem, plot is crucial in shaping our understanding, and this is why I believe the careful structuring of “Porphyria’s Lover”, which draws on so many genres and literary traditions, is the most important element both in forming the character of the poem, and in our interpretation.

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'Porphyria's Lover': A Historicist Reading

Tom Harper offers a Historicist reading of Robert Browning's poem 'Porphyria's Lover'. This article was originally published in the 'Fight Club' issue of Portsmouth Point magazine in July 2013.

Browning’s work with the dramatic monologue form stems from numerous accusations of ‘perversity’ from contemporaries on account of the disturbing characters he invents in his poetry, and hence the form was utilised as a means of distancing himself from his more sinister speakers. However, where the historical reading in this piece lies is in the fact that such accusations were based on many readers feeling the need to sympathise with such vulgar characters, as many of the themes highlighted in the poem (not including spontaneous murder) were indeed typical of the Victorian context in which this narrative was created.

In the article ‘Men of Blood’ author Carter J. Wood acknowledges that analyses of Victorian violence necessitate an understanding of that period’s “constructions of dutiful femininity that excused men’s ‘disciplinary’ violence ... or even actively supported male household dominance”, as Victorian gender ideology held women in a passive, loyal and submissive role with men having the authority to keep them in such a category. When analysing the poem more closely various references can be found as evidence towards Porphyria’s potential infidelity and hence a violation of the Victorian mindset: whether it be the “gay feast” bringing implications of a lust-driven evening out or the more subtle word “fall” perhaps making a reference to the Victorian “fallen woman” and hence prostitute. Thus one might take the view that in killing Porphyria the narrator is executing justice upon her in accordance with the time period, as female sexual promiscuity was heavily condemned by such a culture.

Interestingly, the poem’s triumphant ultimate line “And yet God has not said a word!” can also be seen to reflect the crisis of faith occurring in the Victorian era. Darwin’s publication of The Origins of Species in the mid-1800s instigated an unprecedented debate over the existence of God and so arguably by potentially challenging a divine intervention the speaker can be seen to highlight the loss in faith of that period. Hence the narrator’s brutish act goes unpunished by the end of the narrative due to the context in which he resides, as from a historical reading not only can the murder be perceived as justifiable due to it conforming to Victorian social ideologies but also due to no spiritual repercussions being implied, thereby transforming a seemingly mindless act into debatably logical.

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'Porphyria's Lover': A Feminist Reading

Josh Rampton offers a Feminist reading of Robert Browning's poem 'Porphyria's Lover'. This article was originally published in the 'Fight Club' issue of Portsmouth Point magazine in July 2013.

This poem is clearly a controversial one, in the eyes of contemporary Victorian audiences and even more so in the eyes of an audience of today, accustomed to relative equality. To be shocking and controversial may have been the aim of Robert Browning, who with his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning campaigned for liberal causes such as the rights of women. This poem could therefore have been aimed to satirise the stringency of the idea of perfect femininity, tied to husband and home, and the endemic domestic violence that was only just coming into public awareness.

From a feminist’s point of view, this poem could be seen to represent the indifference that men seem to show towards women exerting power and control to a degree, especially in a sexual sense, where this poem seems to infer the way men seem to find the reversal of dominance and passivity in this area erotic and even preferable. However, once women assert “too much power” men immediately take advantage of their testosterone fuelled brute force to restore women to their “rightful place”. This could be seen, to an extent, to reflect the discomfort that some men still feel towards women who are powerful or assert power or control.

This poem could be a reflection, satirical or non satirical, on the immensely popular contemporary work by Coventry Patmore ‘The Angel In The House’, becoming a household term to describe a woman who embodied the Victorian ideal of femininity, devoted to husband and family, that was epitomised by the Royal family (Queen Victoria and her devotion to Prince Albert) for the middle classes to emulate. A feminist may well see this as a nauseating reminder of the sickening and even pathetic devotion of women to their husbands that feminists still criticise some women for today.

Although those who retain a Victorian perspective on women might argue that Porphyria is some kind of loose woman or whore, a feminist or indeed a male inclined to respect the prerogatives of women over their own bodies and their sexual liberation would disagree. The way Porphyria “Made her smooth white shoulder bare” and made the lover’s “cheek lie there” is more of a sign of sexual independence and assertion than the vulgar, lewd acts of a “fallen woman” if one adopts this point of view.

The title of this poem “Porphyria’s Lover”  immediately satirises the convention that the woman would always be the possessed object however as it turns out it is the man who is passive, sitting waiting for her in a cottage and watching her action drive the narrative while he is inert. On one level this poem could be a reflection of the Pygmalion Myth, a male delusion that women can only be pure and truly feminine when they are an art object, under total control of men. Or simply, on a more disturbing level, the murder of Porphyria may just be simply a bid to regain control of a woman who has subverted the expectations and limitations of her sex as opposed to an attempt to attain some kind of warped perfection. The fact that the versification (the way the poem looks on the page) and the rhyme scheme remain unbroken even by the killing is a chilling suggestion that the lover is callous, cold and calculating.

Although open to different interpretations, the final line of this poem “And yet God has not said a word!” could be interpreted by a feminist as reminiscent of the religious roots of the oppression and mistreatment of women in that God “has not said a word” to condemn the cold blooded killing of Porphyria. Moreover, ironically linking back to the idea of ‘The Angel in the House’ Porphyria is portrayed as almost angelic at the beginning of the poem “when glided in Porphyria”, “making all the cottage warm” this not only emphasises the cruelty of her death but makes her an angelic martyr in a way that mirrors the portrayal of Emily Davison years later after her perceived martyrdom to the cause of women’s suffrage.

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Different Interpretations of 'Porphyria's Lover': Introduction

Fay Davies introduces a series of articles responding to Robert Browning's poem 'Porphyria's Lover'. This series of articles was originally published in the 'Fight Club' issue of Portsmouth Point magazine in July 2013.

When we think of the term ‘fight’, poetry interpretation might not immediately spring to mind. But I would like to propose that ‘Fight Club’ is not such a far cry from ‘Poetry Club’. An interpretation (or reading) of a text is, in some ways, an argument. You are telling people what you believe this text to mean. You are bringing your own philosophical, ideological, political and personal stance to the text; a stance that is to some extent unique. You are pitting yourself against other interpretations of this text, which may indeed contradict your own. In his 1976 article ‘Interpreting the Variorum’ the literary theorist Stanley Fish claims that we interpret texts as part of ‘interpretive communities’. This gives us a particular way of reading the text; a particular set of cultural assumptions. So, a group of different readings of a poem is really a clash between different ways of thinking.

These readings of ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ do indeed encompass different ways of thinking. Poetry is rooted firmly in historical context in Tom’s Historicist piece, but it has less prominence in Ben’s Aestheticist reading where he explores the conflicting images of the text. Josh brings a Feminist slant in his examination of power relations; such concerns are absent in Gregory’s Structuralist reading, in which he identifies allusions to other texts, genres and ideas. He argues that such allusions create expectations on the part of the reader, which Browning goes on to subvert. Note how Josh and Tom offer differing interpretations of the final line. Both attribute great importance to these last words, but their reasons are distinct.

Of course, meaning and significance is a vague area. Different interpretations will often overlap, drawing on similar ideas to shape meaning. But even when they collide head-on, both are correct. So perhaps the true difference between this exercise and the typical fight is that, in this case, there can be no winner.    

(see poem below):


THE rain set early in to-night,
    The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
    And did its worst to vex the lake:
    I listen'd with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
    She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneel'd and made the cheerless grate
    Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
    Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
    And laid her soil'd gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
    And, last, she sat down by my side
    And call'd me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
    And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
    And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
    And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me—she
    Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
    From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
    And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
    Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
    For love of her, and all in vain:
    So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I look'd up at her eyes
    Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipp'd me; surprise
    Made my heart swell, and still it grew
    While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
    Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
    In one long yellow string I wound
    Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
    I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
    I warily oped her lids: again
    Laugh'd the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untighten'd next the tress
    About her neck; her cheek once more
Blush'd bright beneath my burning kiss:
    I propp'd her head up as before,
    Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
    The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
    That all it scorn'd at once is fled,
    And I, its love, am gain'd instead!
Porphyria's love: she guess'd not how
    Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
    And all night long we have not stirr'd,
    And yet God has not said a word!
       

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Sabbatical Blog 3: Female Writers: Fighting Against Religious Ideology

by Bryony Hart

I have become entrenched in some fascinating books about female rights (or the lack of), written either at the end of the seventeenth century or the beginning of the eighteenth century.  I already knew that women were writing prolifically about and publishing their experiences, mostly about courtship and marriage, in fictional form, but I had no idea that entire non-fiction books were being published, as early as 1673, about the inequalities between men and women.  In fact, men were also writing about it, which shows that it was certainly a topic that was being publically debated  It is amazing how this seems to have been written-out/forgotten through the years.  And my most recent reading has shed light on the fact that by 1700 this challenging and threatening female voice starts a gradual decline into obscurity. 

One of the books that I have been examining is The Female Advocate: or; an Satyr Against the Pride, Lust and Inconstancy, & C. of Woman by ‘A Lady in Vindication of her Sex’ (1), Sarah Fyge, all written rhyming couplets.  It was written in reaction to a satire written by a man (which I am still searching for) about the poor virtues of women, which are inherent in every female as soon as she is born. Obviously, one can not completely trust that it was written by a woman; men were regularly writing under the disguise of women because women’s works were selling so well (another fact that perhaps is not common knowledge to all) and it was often an easier method of instilling patriarchal morality into the female readership.  However, if one trusts that this is a ‘Lady’, and in fact Sarah Fyge, it is impressive and rather dangerous reading. If it is a male writer, even more interesting that he should be conveying such potentially risky ideas about the power imbalance between the genders.

As I have mentioned before, the basis for male superiority was founded on religion, namely Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.  It was part of the gender discourse of the time and is referred to as the main argument in countless texts that I have read thus far from this period.  In The Female Advocate, the writer bravely questions this foundation) and she is not alone in her questioning of the basis of male superiority).  In her Preface, she writes ‘According to my Antagonist’s Preface Fancy […] all Men are good, and fitting for Heaven because they are Men; and Women irreversibly damn’d because they are Women.  But what that Heaven should make a Male and Female, both of the same Species, and both induced with the like Rational Souls, for two such differing Ends, is the most notorious Principle, and the most unlikely of any that even was maintained by any Rational Man.’ This is a daring move to question Religion in this way but Fyge cleverly buffers her response using the Bible as her source to support her argument.  This is a technique that I have noticed being used by a number of writers; using the text that is constraining to actually start the process of liberation and equality. 

The writer’s main thrust of argument challenges the way in which the Bible has been interpreted as a way of repressing women and empowering man.  She turns the conventional reading of Eve being created from a ‘spare part’ to keep Adam company on its head; being made after him Eve has always been perceived as inherently inferior and therefore the ultimate after-thought. However, rather amusingly, and a little bit perilously, the writer states that:

Heaven survey's the Works that it had done,
Saw Male and Female, but found Man alone,
A barren Sex and insignificant;
So Heaven made Woman to supply the want,
And to make perfect what before was scant:
The surely she a Noble Creature is,
Woman Heaven thus made to consummate all Bliss (p. 2)

                                
Here she argues that without Woman, Man is ‘a barren Sex’ and therefore useless in terms of procreation.  It takes the power of a Woman to ‘consummate all Bliss’ to enable the human race to multiply.  She takes her argument even further by suggesting that ‘Man was form’d out of dull senseless Earth/ But Woman she had a far nobler Birth’ [p. 2]. Clearly, there are problems with this argument that can not be ignored.  The writer completely subverts the gender-imbalance discourse so that it favours women over men rather than striving for equality – one could argue that her theory is no better than the patriarchal ideology that was using the Bible as a force of female repression.  The crux of modern feminist discourse is the battle for equality and fairness in all aspects of life, and this particular view does not sit particularly happily with the arguments being made in The Female Advocate because it is suggesting that women are superior to men.  But, in light of the female position at this point in history, one can see that this is an early form of feminism in that it questions the validity and authority of male dominance using the very narrative that has been used to repress and restrict women.  For feminists of this era, they ‘denied both Eve’s natural inferiority and her sole responsibility for the fall.  Eve was created ‘a wife and friend, but not as a slave’ for Man (2).

Nonetheless, there is a moment of balance reached in Fyge’s argument. She poses the question, ‘for both one Maker had/ Which made all good; then how could Eve be bad?’ [p. 2] If God has created both Adam and Eve, and all that God creates is good, how can Eve be demonised in the way that she has?  This language of demonization is later referenced when she says, ‘You do describe a woman so that one/ Would almost think she has the Fiends outdone’ [p. 14].  It is a valid question that undermines the main thrust of argument that keeps women apologetic (and therefore submissive) for their original sin.  She pushes this idea even further by saying, ‘But you’d persuade us, this ‘tis we alone/ Are guilty of all crimes and you have none,/ Unless some few, which you call fools, (who be/ Espous’d to Wives, and live in chastity)’ [p. 10].  As a female writer, Fyge would have experienced directly this demonization and persecution for being a published writer (interestingly, she does not put her name to The Female Advocate – another example of the persecution these women felt).  It was generally believed that ‘a woman prepared to make her writing public would be prepared to expose herself in other ways: that a woman writer was almost by definition sexually immoral.’(3)

What I love most about this text is the way in which the writer questions why all women should be wed – surely rocking the foundations of the religious ideology that ensured female subservience to husbands. Her argument about the interpretation of the Bible is a start in the fight against gender inequality but is ultimately flawed by our modern standards – nonetheless, it does make sense that the discourse that is being used to control women is challenged and questioned in the first instance.  However, what is more fascinating, and perhaps more provoking, is the following:

            For I love Liberty,

            Nor do I think there a necessity,

            For all to enter Beds, like Noah’s beast

            Into his Ark; I would have some releast

            From the dear cares of that lawful state:

            Hold I’ll not dictate, I’ll leave all Fate.’ [p. 11]

It is clearly a dangerous reflection; she quickly concludes this brief reference to ‘Liberty’ and a life not defined as ‘wife’ with ‘Hold I’ll not dictate’.  She is eager to not to appear too forceful on this point, which is unusual because of the sheer gusto that is apparent in her other arguments, and puts a self-imposed stop to her point.  What is most interesting here is that she acknowledges that from liberty of marriage comes freedom and time to think and observe the world (‘Only I do think it best/ For those who love to contemplate at rest,/ for to live single too, and then they may/ Uninterrupted, Natures Work survey’ [p. 11]).  For some women, it would be better for them to be contemplative, to use their brains and be educated (another one of the major arguments in the feminist discourse of the ear), rather than be shackled by marriage.  As mentioned before, marriage removed all legal power from the woman and, in contrast, a single woman remained more powerful in legal terms (clearly she was demonized by society for being an aging spinster).  Perhaps the reason for this tentative and brief comment about liberty is that this is her ultimate goal – freedom from marriage and from the control of man.  It is a dangerous goal and she appears to be testing to water. 

This text is not alone in its fight for equality and liberation – many of these arguments were made well before the 1700s, and from what I have read thus far the increasing legal control over drama, one of the major outlets for female writers, deterred women from writing.  If you were a popular and well-published female writer you were undoubtedly a whore, and this argument is one that seems to become stronger as the 18^th century continues.  As Pearson succinctly reminds us, ‘The pun on ‘pen’ and ‘penis’ was one which the age took seriously: ‘a pen in the hand of a woman is … an instrument of propagation.(4)

(1)The Female Advocate: or; an Satyr Against the Pride, Lust and Inconstancy, & C. of Woman (London: H.C. for John Taylor, at the Globe in St Paul’s Church Year, 1686).

[2] Jacqueline Pearson, The Prostituted Muse: Images of Women and Women Dramatists 1642-1737 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1988), p. 2.

[3] Pearson, p. 9.

[4]Pearson, p. 10.

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Pongwiffy: A Social and Political Study

by Nathaniel Charles

Published in 1988, Pongwiffy: A Witch of Dirty Habits details a witch (Pongwiffy) and her familiar, Hugo the hamster (hailing from Amsterdam), and her misadventures with a variety of creatures. Although a children’s book, when looked into it is a relevant and cutting social narrative, dealing with ‘youths’, friendships and workplace scenarios.

Surprisingly for a children’s book Pongwiffy deals with adult themes such as promotion and trying to understand teenagers while Pongwiffy’s search for Hugo the hamster is reminiscent of American law firms and their associate system.

In the book, the goblins represent teenagers in the most stereotypical (and unfortunately accurate) way possible; they listen to loud music, rebel against authority and their penchant for impractical clothing is taken to the extreme. When Pongwiffy first meets them, both are unwilling to back down and a loud argument quickly ensues over their slovenly housekeeping and appalling noise, ending with Pongwiffy threatening to banish the goblins to another cave. This is strongly similar to my own experiences, at times, with my parents; unfortunately, Kaye Umansky can’t seem to find a peaceful or reasonable solution either….

It is Umansky’s portrayal of people in workplace scenarios that gives the most entertaining passages in the book; in the bid for the title of Grandwitch, friendships are tested and there are despicable displays of sycophancy. During the incumbent Grandwitch Sourmuddle’s party, everybody throws down the gauntlet (and their friendships) in attempts to be named Sourmuddle’s successor. Although the antics of the witches are exaggerated to make a more entertaining story, the search for the perfect cake is spot on and the time honoured ‘laugh at the boss’ jokes’ are taken to the extreme during the party.

An alternative interpretation of the book is from a political perspective, however; it was written while Margaret Thatcher was in power and the constant arguing between the dynamic and bossy witches and the old wizards (grey bearded and deeply conservative) harks back firmly to the issues besetting Thatcher in her own party.

Pongwiffy is a witty and entertaining read containing many revelations throughout. I would thoroughly recommend it to all, from 5 year olds to English A-level students.

Here is a link should you wish to purchase it.

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PGS in Bloom: "Where the bee sucks . . ."

by Emma Bell

From the English department's PGS in Bloom entry:

"Where the bee sucks, there suck I:

In a cowslip’s bell I lie;

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat’s back I do fly

After summer merrily.   

Merrily, merrily shall I live now

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough."

                                                                                           William Shakespeare, The Tempest



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A Nice Cup Of Tea- George Orwell's 110th Birthday

by Daniel Rollins

Today, 25^th June 2013, is the 110^thbirthday of Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name, George Orwell. Unfortunately he is unable to celebrate this great occasion with us since he died of Tuberculosis in 1950.

Well known as a novelist George Orwell wrote some of the 20^thcentury’s most thought provoking books. From his great dystopian novel Nineteen Eight-Four and his sharp political allegory Animal Farm to his gritty non-fiction works such as Down and Out in Paris and London (documenting his experience of poverty in those two cities) and Homage to Catalonia(recording his experience as a mercenary in the Spanish civil war).

Although he is among my favourite authors I believe his greatest gift to the world is not his literary work but an article he wrote for the Evening Standard, published on 12^thJanuary 1946. This article titled “A Nice Cup of Tea” set forth his 11 “golden” rules of tea making (see it reproduced below). In it he makes many of his most controversial statements such as, “one should pour tea into the cup first” and “tea… should be drunk without sugar.”

Considering the polemic nature of these statements one may ask what qualifications this mere journalist has to justify these divisive remarks. In fact he may be one of the best qualified people to give judgment on the correct way to make tea to ever live as he was certainly one of the 20^thcentury’s most dedicated tea drinkers. The best example of his enthusiasm for good tea was while he was fighting on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War. During this time he had Fortnum and Mason’s tea brought all the way from London to Catalonia so he could experience the “stimulation” of a good strong cup of tea while recovering from injury.  

Therefore to celebrate his birthday I endeavored to make a cup of tea which obeyed as many of his rules as possible so I got out a teapot, found some loose tea and made a "Nice Cup of Tea"!

See some pictures of my attempt to produce the perfect cup of tea bellow along with his 1946 article. Although it uses quite a lot of tea and time it is well worth trying to emulate his recipe as it produces a fine cup of tea.

If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.

This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilisation in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.

When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:

• First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea. 

• Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn
  
  is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad. 

• Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water. 

• Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realised on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognised in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners. 

• Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly. 

• Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.

• Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle. 

• Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it. 

• Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste. 

• Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round. 

• Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water. Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.

These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilised the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.

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Portsmouth Festivities 2013: "The Hidden Connections of the English Language": Etymologicon

by Joanna Godfree

Mark Forsyth

I am extremely gruntled to announce that Mark Forsyth, author of The Etymologicon and The Horologicon, will be our guest in the Memorial Library at 6 pm next Wednesday (26th June), as part of the Portsmouth Festivities 2013. This man is a walking lexicon, a self-confessed pedant, with a sharp sense of humour.

He can be seen taking "an unruly look at the English language" here and on his blog The Inky Fool. In addition, he can be seen giving TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks, fascinating, bite-sized lectures from experts in every conceivable field, presented in an engagingly passionate and stimulating way. I would totally recommend getting the (free) app --- ideal for a train journey or a tedious wait at the dentist's. Armed with this and with the signed copy of his book The Etymologicon that comes free with every ticket for next Wednesday's event, you will be able to experience his sideways, erudite and always-amusing reflections on words and language whenever you choose.

The Etymologicon takes "a circular stroll through the hidden connections of the English language", exploring one word or phrase with each chapter: such as antanaclassis, gorm, umbles and spam. The book is a "papery child of the Inky Fool blog, which was started in 2009". In the preface, Mr Forsyth relates the cerebral inauguration of The Etymologicon, a long (too long, some would say) moment when he pinned down a friend who had innocently asked about the origins of the word "biscuit" and belaboured him with a verbal train of thought which threatened never to end. There was always something more to say. "There always is, you know."

If, like me, you agree that there is always more to say, and you long to hear Mark Forsyth saying it, please join us in the Memorial Library on Wednesday, 26th at 6 pm. Tea --- and biscuits --- from 5.30 pm onwards.

P.S. I have barely mentioned The Horologicon, about which . ..  but more of that another time.

See George Hope's review of The Etymologicon here.

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Sabbatical Blog 2: Finding a Voice for Women in the Eighteenth-Century

by Bryony Hart

Eliza Haywood

I am into my 6th day of study at Chawton House Library and I feel like I have always been here.  I know that, to a certain extent, Chawton has always lurked behind most of my studies since 2001 and that this is why I feel so at home, but the main reason for me feeling so at one with this place is that it celebrates and supports academic enquiry – exactly what we try to promote in our teaching at PGS. 

My day is simple:

8.30 am – drop my daughter off at nursery and drive through the scenic roads (admittedly via the busy M3) of Hampshire into a seemingly forgotten village that has ‘chocolate box’ written all over it.  I take a left turn and drive towards the impressive Jacobean Manor House, getting excited at the day ahead that awaits to be unfolded … what little gem will I find today? ….

9.20 am – sign-in, give the resident dog a tummy tickle and then make my way through the dark wood-panelled corridors to the secondary reading room – this is where all the action takes place.  For those who have been here before, academic visitors are usually first introduced to the ground floor reading room that houses a lot of the rare books.  However, for research fellows and those lucky enough to be on sabbatical, the vast majority of ‘real’ research takes place in the secondary book room, which is full of criticism and a smaller collection of rare books.  I am currently sharing this space with some visiting research fellows from the US.

9.30 am – Jacqui Granger, the librarian, unlocks that door and I am free to read, request books, ask questions up until 12.30pm when the library is closed for lunch. 

In these three hours I have been reading the most fascinating material.  My aim when I came here was to keep my options open, to ensure that I did not close doors to research, and pursue avenues that were perhaps less well-trodden than others.  By the end of day one, Eliza Haywood, marriage law and female rights have dominated my time … I feel like I have slightly closed some of my doors.  But this, as the week has unfolded, turns out to be unfounded.  In fact, I think that this narrowing of topic has enabled me to focus my attention, to explore around this fascinating writer and look into specific laws relating to marriage at the time in which she was writing.  It turns out that despite being one of the most published female writers of the time, Haywood is barely written about by critics and theorists partly because there is little biographical information about her.  I think I have found my niche and now my aim is simple: finding a topic of a potential PhD project, one that I have been planning on doing ever since I completed my Masters all those years ago. 

12.30 pm – I am politely asked to leave the library …

For the first few days, I sat in the vast acreage of the Chawton estate over-looking the landscaped gardens, which I feel I know so much about (it being the main focus of my MA dissertation).  I ate my lunch, watched the wildlife, the livestock and listened to the birds whilst I read Austen (I plan to re-read all of Austen whilst I am here … it makes sense, surely?)  However, a few days of this and I am itching to be active.  So, I make an odd request to the Head Gardener and ask if I can volunteer in the walled kitchen garden.  He bites my hand off at this offer and off I go, trowel in hand, to attack the weeds that are taking over in the shallot-bed … I am officially in heaven.  This place relies on volunteers so I feel like I am doing my bit and love the fact that I am regularly mistaken by visitors for being one of the resident gardeners.

1.30 pm – return to the library.

So why Haywood?  I studied Love in Excess at university and I think I wrote a paper on it.  I can’t for the life of me remember why I did not pursue her work further.  King Lear has a lot to answer for. 

I finished reading ‘A Wife to Be Lett: A Comedy’ (1724) and it turns out that Mrs Graspell (our main character who was actually played by Haywood in the Drury Lane production) is married to an ungrateful and spiteful man.  She is a virtuous and honourable woman, all that the eighteenth-century society asks for, and therefore a main target for lecherous men who want to prove that no-such woman can possibly resist their charms.  Toywell, a fop and a flirt and engaged to Marilla, is the first to pursue her but Mrs Graspell (imaginatively referred to as ‘Wife’ in the play script) puts a stop to this.  She is then pursued by Beaumont, who seems more honourable and sincere, and she likes him but maintains her honour and virtue by asking him to desist in ‘making love to her’ (not literally – this was a phrase used to describe wooing).  Beaumont is adamant that he is in love with her and send a letter (billet-doux) to her, which is intercepted by Mr Graspell.  Instead of being incensed at the outright cheek of this man and quite rightly suggesting a duel at sunrise, what does he do?  He proposes to ‘lett’ his wife for £2000 to Beaumont.  And to my modern sensibilities, this sounds outrageous and not at all funny in the slightest.  How is this funny? 

After some legal research into William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765), it actually turns out that Mr Graspell has the legal right to do this – she is, after all, his legal property.  As a Elizabeth Bergen Brophy so succinctly concludes, ‘woman is a secondary creation and after-thought, produced expressly for man, made from man (who is primary material) and given her identity, named by him [….] the husband was master by God-given command’.[1]  Beaumont only agrees to this if Mrs Graspell is in similar agreement, which seems relatively fair.  Whilst this has all been unfolding, it turns out, rather tenuously, that Beaumont was intended for another, Amadea.  She has travelled unaccompanied to London to find him wearing her brother’s clothes so as to avoid being attacked (were 18^th century men really this uncontrollable?), let a room at Mr Graspell’s (how convenient), and overheard the conversations between Mrs Graspell and Beaumont.  She reveals her true identity to them both, Beaumont is flabbergasted and realises that he does, in fact, love Amadea (caught-out?  I think so), and Mrs Graspell asks her to foil her husband by continuing the pretence of being a man.  A dinner party is organised, all of the couple’s friends and neighbours are called to attend, and Mrs Graspell is purposefully found in the arms of another man (aka Amadea).  The group are shocked and appalled; poor cuckolded Mr Graspell married to an uncontrollable and sexually promiscuous woman!  This pretence is not kept up for long; Amadea reveals her true identity and Mrs Graspell reveals to the on-lookers that her husband has in fact sold her to the highest bidder.  The guests are appalled, Mr Graspell is now enlightened by this event and realises the errors of his ways, he begs forgiveness and Mrs Graspell replies ‘if I may believe your Pertinence sincere, I can return to your Embrace a true, a faithful, and a Virtuous Wife’.[2]

A first I am slightly perplexed by this ending but see Haywood’s intention.  One of her main aims, more so in her earlier work than the later work, is to strive for relative equality for both men and women in marriage.  It might seem that Mrs Graspell has been pacified and has to tolerate this wretch of a husband, which was expected of all wives of this period, but she has been given a voice – and a very public one at that.  As Backsheider says, ‘women writers were struggling to bring into public discussion subjects and experiences previously excluded.  They were exposing, even ridiculing the contradictions, public discourses and social codes that defined courtship rituals, the ideal man, and the good marriage.’[3]  Here, Haywood is bring attention to the inequality of power and authority between husband and wife in marriage, that a virtuous woman can be ruined by her own husband, and asks that women should be treated as equal human beings rather than objectified and sold to the highest bidder.  The fee of £2000 is a metaphor for the dowry system and the fact that a wife was a financial commodity, which is being criticised and mocked.  Marriage should be founded on respect and love rather than money and status.  The fact that Mr Graspell is publically humiliated, that the guests are shocked at his actions and that he is forced to publically apologise for his behaviour, reinforce that Haywood is bringing public attention to the inequality suffered by women in marriage at this moment in history.  Yes, Mrs Graspell goes back to her husband – divorce was unheard of.  However, this would never have been her intention – what she is striving for is to be treated as a human, an equal and to be respected by her partner in life … in 1792 Mary Wollestonecraft writes A Vindication of the Rights of Women echoing these exact same sentiments. 

3.30pm – it is time for me to head back.  My drive home allows me to digest the day’s readings and to start making links between primary and secondary sources.  I have ordered a few extra first edition Haywood texts and might have to take a trip to the British Library to access some very rare material that Chawton does not have … yet.

---

[1] Elizabeth Bergen Brophy, Women’s Lives and the 18^th Century English Novel (The University of Florida, 1991), pp. 26-7. 

[2] Eliza Haywood, A Wife to Lett: A Comedy (London: W. Feales, 1735), p. 81.

[3] Paula R. Backscheider, ‘The Rise of Gender as Political Category’ from Revising Women: Eighteenth-Century “Women’s Fiction” and Social Engagement, ed., Paula R. Backscheider, (Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), p. 46.

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Cosmic Jesting: Sharpe and Banks

by Mark Richardson

 

In the space of three days, two British novelists have had their Wikipedia entries amended by adding a death date to their existing entry: Tom Sharpe and Iain Banks. In many ways they are very different writers, with radically different backgrounds, but there is also a curious symmetry involved here, a sort of comic, cosmic jest that is oddly in keeping with central aspects of their art.

 

I am writing this in part because both writers have been favourites of mine. Neither writer is necessarily very fashionable: many of Iain Banks's novels are unread by the majority of his readers, while Tom Sharpe's novels are not to everyone's taste, often regarded as juvenile and rather overly popular, always a sure sign of being a critical lightweight. But I have devoured Iain Banks's work over the years, and the 70s for me meant being able to read pretty much a book a year that was guaranteed to make me ill with laughter.

Although technically their writing careers overlapped, Sharpe's writing was at its best just before Iain Banks's first novel, The Wasp Factory, was published in 1984. By that time, Sharpe's Riotous Assembly (1971), Indecent Exposure (1973), Porterhouse Blue (1974), Blott on the Landscape (1975) and Wilt (1976) had already established Sharpe as the premier comic writer of the seventies, his books wildly successful and seemingly appearing at a breakneck speed. Banks's first novel was neither wildly popular nor seen as being comic, and appeared to come from a very different sensibility.

Sharpe's novels were hugely successful, and I have never before or since found the experience of reading a book so hugely funny as the time I first read Riotous Assembly, although Sharpe's later novel Wilt was a strong contender. Sharpe had the ability to create absurdly surreal events that were both strongly rooted in contemporary and credible (and definitely humourless) situations such as apartheid South Africa or a police interrogation room, while at the same time being irrepressibly funny. Long before I considered the possibility of teaching as a career, the idea that a lecturer at a local college could, for a variety of complex and interrelated reasons, enjoy and actively prolong being interrogated by police as a murder suspect was amusing in itself. The way that Sharpe managed to sustain the joke was masterful: he had the ability to develop a situation from one comic event to another so quickly that the cumulative effect was devastatingly funny, leaving this reader at least physically tired from reading a chapter because of the humour. His two early novels based in South Africa were set in a more exotic environment, and the seriousness of the situation in South Africa was well known by the mid 70s: protest marches, boycotts of Barcalys and sporting events kept the pressure up on the regime in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, and the news from there had been relentlessly grim for years. So, to read comic novels that mercilessly pilloried the regime while at the same time being achingly funny was a new experience in itself. As new novels appeared from Sharpe, focusing on further and higher education as well as the aristocracy, his reputation quickly grew, to the point that it was hard to avoid his novels on book stands and in bookshops in both this country and abroad.

Banks's work has been even more diverse: each novel has been unexpected. Several feature unconventional narratives, either being from an unusual narrator or being a combination of different viewpoints or even different stories. Romance, gothic, murder mystery: they are all part of the Banks world, which is vast, and take in personal hells and public crises such as 9/11. But alongside this body of work is a parallel one, featuring a much vaster universe and spanning eons of time: under his 'other' name of Iain M Banks, he has produced a string of science fiction novels (the unread part of his work for many). These are monstrous and detailed and funny and alien: they manage to combine realism with fantasy and explore a myriad of themes while at the same time being, for the most part, "hard" science fiction, full of massive spacecraft and unpronounceable names. He is unique as a writer: his 'literary' novels have impressed critics, while all his many prizes and nominations for prizes have come from the science fiction world (even The Wasp Factory, which won an esteemed award from Germany for the Best Foreign SF novel for the year, despite it not being recognisably SF at all).

Both writers are funny: all of Banks's work is laced with humour, often of the blackest kind, while Sharpe's work has been likened to Wodehouse and Waugh (indeed, it might be said that his best work combined the situations that have a Wodehousian air about them, but written with an acerbic and dark Waugh-like sensibility). The irony is that both their lives were subject to that divine comedy brought both their lives to an end: Sharpe suffered for the longest, with an absence from writing for a couple of decades, possibly as a result of his illness but perhaps also mixed with an inability to compete with the reputation of his earlier work. He became increasingly reclusive, apparently creating several of his own personas in order to brush off enquirers interested in his work. His final death came late, as he was beginning to write an autobiography: perhaps just at that very moment the comic cosmic gods decided to cut him short.

Banks, on the other hand, was cruising in top gear: he had been named among the top 50 British writers since 1945, his novels were eagerly anticipated and all was perfect. He complained to his doctor about tiredness towards the beginning of the year, which was then diagnosed as cancer, and within two months of announcing this, he was dead. Cruel jesting for both.

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