Selections from Dante Gabriel Rossetti

"Jenny"
SUMMARY/STRUCTURE
A first person speaker in dramatic monologue form narrates his thoughts in connection to a young prostitute named Jenny who lies in his lap. The meter is primarily tetrameter, giving the monologue a quick and springy feel. Rhymed couplets also contribute to the poem's clip. The poem begins carelessly, "Lazy laughing languid Jenny / Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea" and breaks into a more reflective mode on what Jenny's thoughts might be. A controlling metaphor in the poem likens Jenny to a book: the speaker muses on how the books in his room have thieved his youth's hours, while Jenny is a much more interesting book: "You know not what a book you seem, / Half read by lightning in a dream!" Later, he imagines her "as a volume seldom read / Being opened halfway shuts again, / So might the pages of her brain / Be parted at such words, and thence / Close back upon the dusty sense." The passage that follows imagines Jenny's "desecrated mind," full of unpleasant, sewage-like images. More positive associations sometime spring into the narrator's mind, as when he draws connections between Jenny's womanhood and his cousin Nell's; both have a certain pride in their beauty. "Of the same lump (as it is said) / For honour and dishonour made," he muses. At the end of the poem, the speaker turns back to reflect on himself, admitting that he has contributed to the downfall of those like Jenny in his own objectification and sexualization of her: "And must I mock you to the last, / Ashamed of my own shame,--aghast / Because some thoughts not born amiss / Rose at a poor fair face like this?" Since there has been no sexual contact, the speaker imagines himself as "striv[ing] to clear" "a dark path" by delivering to her only a kiss.


BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH
When "Jenny" came out in his 1850 collection (the manuscript having been exhumed from his wife Elizabeth Siddal's grave!), it caused quite a sensation and backlash. According to critics, Rossetti's poem was of the "fleshly school of poetry," and much stigma came to be attached to Rossetti's name as a result. Rossetti's "Jenny" was indeed a very different portrayal of a prostitute: nineteenth-century portrayals tended to emphasize the sad condition of working class prostitutes; the literature abounded in "humanitarian" poems which framed prostitutes as victims. Although critics of "Jenny" stress the poem's fleshliness and condemn the speaker's dirty thoughts, Rossetti's ending shows that the speaker is greatly aware of his participation too in the sexualization and objectification of women and the poem concludes with underscoring this problem.  


"The Blessed Damozel"

SUMMARY/STRUCTURE

"The Blessed Damozel" contains three separate voices: the voice of a narrator, the blessed damozel in heaven, and her lover on earth. The form is made up of six-line stanzas which rhyme abcbdb. The meter alternates mostly between tetrameter and trimeter, again giving the poem a rather quick rhythm. The narrator describes the blessed damozel leading against "the terrace of God's house" in erotic terms, emphasizing, for instance, "her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem." The blessed damozel's speech tells of how she wishes that her lover would come to her, that they might pray together and join in conjugal bliss. In heaven, lady Mary and her handmaidens sing and sew together, and the damozel imagines bringing her earthly lover into this sisterly circle. She imagines "the dear Mother will approve / My pride, and let me speak. / Herself shall bring us, hand in hand, / To Him round whom all souls / Kneel." Unfortunately for her, the lover's words reveal that he thinks of her very much in earthly, sexual terms. The final stanza tells of their alienation, the lover's words in parentheticals, and the narrator telling the situation: (I saw her smile.) / But soon their flight / Was vague mid the poised spheres. / And then she cast her arms along / The golden barriers, / And laid her face between her hands, / And wept. (I heard her tears."


BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH

This poem seems to reject the somewhat popular Swedenborgian notion of spiritual, conjugal bliss in Heaven. Heaven instead seems a chaste, virginal, sisterly place which has no place for heterosexual love. This incompatibility and mismatch between earthly, sexual love and the spiritual realm seems to be the primary theme of this poem.


"Sister Helen"

SUMMARY/STRUCTURE:

The poem is organized by stanzas containing a question posed by the brother and followed up by an answer by Sister Helen, and closing with a parenthetical lament for the victims of Sister Helen addressed to “O Mother, Mary Mother”). The poem opens with the brother’s question, “Why did you melt your waxen man / Sister Helen? To-day is the third since you began.” This refers to an old belief that melting the waxen image of an enemy would perpetuate his demise in real life. Eventually, Sister Helen goes to lie down, and her brother goes up to the balcony to play. From the balcony, he watches the approach of Sister Helen’s enemies and relays information to her. “Three horsemen that ride terribly” approach, the first approach being of Keith of Eastholm. Keith of Eastholm pleads with Sister Helen to spare Keith of Ewern, who is “like to die.” Sister Helen’s flippant response is: “And he and thou, and thou and I, / Little brother.” Next in line is Keith of Westholm, which makes the same request, which she again denies. Keith of Keith, Keith of Ewern’s father then approaches, begging that she “save his dear son’s soul alive” but her reply is “Fire cannot slay it, it shall thrive, / Little brother!” suggesting that Keith of Ewern will burn in Hell. The final appeal is from Lady Ewern, whom Helen of course also rejects. At the end, the wax figure has melted, and the “flames are winning up apace!” The closing stanza describes a “white thing at the door,” presumably Keith’s soul, one “that’s lost as mine is lost,” Sister Helen remarks.  

BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH:

This haunting poem again thematizes the strength and tyranny of female power. Though it seems throughout that Helen’s little brother begins to sympathize with the enemies, unable to listen to their cries and pleas without feeling something of their pain, Sister Helen remains firm in her vengeance. The only other appeal, too, is to Mother Mary, another powerful female figure. Sister Helen’s power is absolute and perhaps potentially the most scary when she rejects a “sister,” Lady Ewern. Nothing but her own ends matter, and no one, neither her brother nor a fellow woman can convince her otherwise. 

"Dante at Verona"

SUMMARY/STRUCTURE:

The entire poem is in aab rhymed lines, and mostly tetrameter (as seems to be Rossetti’s most common meter). The poem tells of Dante’s exile in Verona (Florence having banned him) and his presence at the court of  the Can Grande della Scala. Despite the riches offered at the court, Dante remains stalwart in his commitment to Beatrice and higher art. The poet imagines that it is at Verona in this climate that Dante writes his most spiritually inspiring works, The Divine Comedy and Vita Nuova. Neither fame nor women, either, are temptations for the pious Dante: “But Dante recked not of the wine; / Whether the women stayed or went, / His visage held one stern intent.” Neither does he return to Florence when he is offered a safe return if he pays a fine—for Dante there is a higher power that will not allow him to traffic in such ways.

BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH:

This account of Dante’s exile (both literally, in Verona, and figuratively in the sense that he does not enjoy the courtly pleasures which everyone else enjoys) clearly glorifies his stalwart faith and commitment to art. Rossetti’s own identification with Dante and particularly his status as an exiled artist no doubt play in here—as a result of contemporary criticism of his poems as being of the “fleshly school,” Rossetti did not receive much recognition for his poetry during his lifetime.

"My Sister's Sleep"

SUMMARY/STRUCTURE
The poem is in tetrameter and envelope rhyme (like Tennyon's In Memoriam which came out a few years later) and describes the occasion of the poet's sister dying in another room and his mother's denial because it was Christmas Eve. The poem begins, "She fell asleep on Christmas Eve: / At length the long-ungranted shade / Of weary eyelids overweigh'd / The pain nought else might yet relieve. These initial lines, though ambiguous, with "shade" and "the pain nought else might yet relieve" hint that the sister is already dead. Yet throughout the poem, the poet watches his religious, pious, and hopeful mother, who works at her needles through the night until a sound from an upstairs apartment causes her to go to the sister (Margaret)'s room, thereby realizing that she has died. The poet says to her, "God knows I knew that she was dead" and the mother yet insists that they say, as the clock strikes 12, "Christ's blessing on the newly born!"
   

BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH

The poem critiques the mother's irrational religiosity--her insistence on Christmas as a day of birth and blessing prevents her from knowing the rational truth that her daughter has died. The poet aligns God with knowledge and rationality in the lines "God knows I knew that she was dead," preferring to believe in a God which would nor promote delusional religiosity. Thus, "My Sister's Sleep" becomes a deeply ironic description. 
"Troy Town"

SUMMARY/STRUCTURE:

Troy Town is written in quick tetrameter lines with repeated parenthetical interruptions :(O Troy Town!) and (O Troy’s down, / Tall Troy’s on fire!). Each time, fire is rhymed with “desire.” The poem tells of Helen offering a cups moulded after her own breasts to the goddess Venus. Venus directs Cupid to shoot the desire which these cups inspire as an arrow towards Paris, hence beginning the legendary Trojan war and the fall of Troy.

BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH:

As in other of Rossetti’s poem, female (sexual) desire presents a problem because it seems difficult or even impossible to regulate. It is the sexual prowess of Helen and Venus that precipitate the fall of a great civilization. Rossetti seems to use the analogy of the Trojan War, emphasizing the role of female desire and sexuality, to work out some contemporary Victorian fears of rampant, unregulated female desire and sexuality as potentially having dire consequences for a great civilization. 


"Burden of Nineveh"
STRUCTURE/SUMMARY:
Again in tetrameter, “The Burden of Nineveh” rhymes four lines and then includes an unrhymed fifth. The poet visits the British museum, and as he prepares to go out into the London din again, he sees the Assyrian winged bull monument from Nineveh being hoisted in to the museum. This prompts the poet’s long reflection on the effects of historical ravages and imperial plunder on artifacts of old. He imagines too, in Keatsian fashion, from what time and context this monument came and how it may have functioned: "What vows, what rites, what prayers preferr'd, / What songs has the strange image heard?" Though the years intervening, Rossetti also wonders "In what blind vigil stood interr'd / For ages, till an English word / Broke silence first at Nineveh?" Unlike Keats, however, the poet moves later in the poem to reflect on the object's being trapped rather than autonomous from historical circumstance--it shall now be subject to the museum labels of London, and in the years to come, others may discover this ruin amongst the ruins of London. The poet imagines the future misreading the import of this monument: "This form, shall hold for us some race / That walked not in Christ's lowly ways, / But bowed its pride and vowed its praise / Unto the God of Nineveh." 


BACKGROUND/CRITICAL APPROACH:
Rossetti's poem is a departure from romantic investment in the material art object as having an autonomous aesthetic being apart from its history; the monument from Nineveh is very much the object of historical time's ravages and future misinterpretations. This is a critique of museum culture and a disruption of the confidence in the museum's ability to preserve. In a longer view of time, Rossetti observes, "ruins" from civilizations centuries apart might exist together as if from contemporary civilizations. This leveling also links Nineveh, the evil city who comes to Christ through Jonah to London, though there doesn't seem to be any direct suggestion from Rossetti that London is to meet salvation through similar means--in fact, ironically, the poet fears this old symbol from Nineveh's un-Christian import will cause future generations to assume London to be un-Christian.

"Eden Bower"

SUMMARY/STRUCTURE
"Eden Bower" re-tells the story of Lilith, supposedly the first wife of Adam who refused to be ruled by him. The poem is interrupted at regular intervals with the rhymed parentheticals "Sing Eden Bower!" and "Alas the hour!" Rossetti's version of the story tells how Lilith plots with the snake against God, Adam and Eve: Lilith says, "Help, sweet Snake, sweet lover of Lilith! / (Alas the hour!) / And let God learn how I loved and hated / Man in the image of God created." She promises that if the snake helps her with this, she will be his faithful lover forever. Specifically, she asks to borrow the form of the snake, so that it is actually she who seduces Eve. The language is characteristically sensual, with Lilith beckoning the snake to "bring thou close thine head till it glisten / Along my breast, and lip me and listen." Lilith imagines that the moment of hers and the snake's consummation to be caught up with calling out the suffering of Adam and Eve.

BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH
"Eden Bower" depicts Lilith as a strikingly sensual woman, fiery in her resistance to God's will, and command over the snake. She is the force that impels the poem forward--with the exception of the brief narrator at the beginning introducing Lilith's speech to the snake, the rest of the poem is spoken by Lilith.   Like Milton's Satan, we are made to feel her rather charismatic and certainly passionate force. 

Lady Audley's Secret (adaptation) by C.H. Hazlewood

PUBLICATION HISTORY:

This play adaptation of Lady Audley's Secret was first performed at the Victoria Theater on May 25, 1863. Colin Henry Hazlewood was a playwright and comedian who wrote mostly for the Britannia and Pavilion Theaters. Lady Audley's Secret is one of his most popular adaptations.

SUMMARY/COMMENTARY:

The play's plot and affect differ significantly from the novel, owing to the changed or exaggerated characterizations of Lady Audley, George, Alicia, Robert, Sir Michael, and Luke. The result is a play that is essentially comedic--the exaggerated sparring between these characters and not suspense drives the action. The play opens with Phoebe and Luke in conversation on the "lime tree walk." Phoebe reveals she is marrying Luke with hopes of reforming his boorish behavior (also, it is a promise to her mother) while Luke plots to steal jewels from the rich Audleys during the occasion of Sir Michael's birthday. This opening scene already signals the importance of Luke to the drama: cast aside in the novel, Hazlewood's adaptation rescues him from the shadows. Sir Michael is much older, "a gray-headed gentleman of 70," and he is much more of a bumbling old man blind to everything which is going on around him. Alicia and Robert are lovers, and are engaged to be married. 

George Talboys is significantly more of a cad, having subjected Helen Talboys (Lady Audley) to his indolent and impulsive losses of money. He also describes his marriage as "one of impulsive passion." The story is that he left England to secure an appointment abroad, and while abroad, he received news of Helen's death. Though this was a blow for George, he is certainly not devastated like the George of the novel. Robert and George attend Sir Michael's birthday celebrations, and there, they see a likeness of Lady Audley in Alicia's possession. Immediately, George reveals in an aside that he knows Lady Audley is his wife. He confronts her directly, and they spar. Lady Audley is much more unabashedly militant and determined to make her way in society: "Then you will war with a woman?" she asks, challengingly. George too is harsh and belligerent, and in the scene where they spar, Lady Audley directly uses an iron piece from the well to strike George into the well. She exultingly cries out: "Dead men tell no tales! I am free!" Luke, however, is an eyewitness, again underscoring his pivotal role in the drama.

Alicia and Robert's marriage plans are delayed by George's disappearance. It is six months since his disappearance. Luke comes onto the scene again and has the chance to confront Lady Audley while in a drunken state. He threatens her with blackmail, and extorts money from her. Robert too confronts Lady Audley, telling her that he has found Helen Talboys's likeness in George's luggage. Lady Audley is unfazed (throughout, she has been calculating, overbearing, hard, and strong--nothing like the over-feminine, soft Lady Audley of the novel; the only person blind to her calculating nature is the senile Sir Michael): "No; my motto has, hitherto, been death or victory; and to that end I am fixed." Lady Audley thus turns both Sir Michael as well as Alicia against Robert, telling Alicia that he has not been faithful to her in the attentions he has paid his aunt Lady Audley. Robert tries to get Luke to talk, meanwhile, but is unsuccessful even though he buys him many drinks. Lady Audley arrives at Luke and Phoebe's residence, tells Phoebe to go ahead, and deliberately burns down the house in a much stronger action than the desperate act which she commits in the novel. Robert comes back unscathed, and in this final confrontation with Lady Audley, she still says that she will "crush" him with her "wealth, boundless wealth." At this point, Luke makes a grand entrance, "supported by peasants and Phoebe." The ineffectual Robert tries to silence Luke and make the accusation himself, and Luke falls back, saying "Then I will be silent, silent for ever--ever--ever." This dramatic scene enacts the "silencing" of the working class man by the wealthy gentleman much more obviously than the novel, calling to it greater attention. Alicia runs in as Luke falls over, announcing the death of Sir Michael. Luke revives, and tries once again to tell the murder of George Talboys. As the words come out of his mouth, however, George enters--at which point Luke falls back dead (he has again been silenced, this time for good). George, however, points to Luke and tells Lady Audley that she should "thank that man that you have not my death upon your soul." It isn't until the very end here that Lady Audley truly goes mad, vacantly staring ahead of her and imagining Sir Michael's ghost. She ends the play with her mad speech and finally keels over dead.   

 

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Edition: Lady Audley's Secret (Oxford World's Classics)
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
Lady Audley's Secret started as a monthly serial in the Robin Goodfellow magazine in July 1861, but the magazine itself ceased in September of that year. The serial was picked up again in Sixpenny Magazine from January to December 1862. There was also a great demand for the book publication afterwards.


Braddon completed this novel alongside another one, Aurora Floyd, which she began during Audley's hiatus. This was generally a very prolific yet strained time for Braddon, but these two novels would establish her alongside Wilkie Collins as one of the leading figures of sensation fiction, a popular genre of the 1860s and 1870s which often drew its subject matter from everyday crime headlines (bigamy, adultery, and illegitimacy were particularly popular subjects of sensation fiction). Contemporaries characterized sensation fiction as being much more plot-driven rather than character driven, and potentially indicative of declining reader tastes as a mass market for literature continued to grow. Recent scholarship has begun to draw closer ties between sensation fiction and the dominant genre of realism.


SUMMARY:
The novel opens with a lengthy description of Audley Court, the residence of fifty-six year old baronet Sir Michael Audley and his daughter Alicia. Audley Court is described as a "glorious old place," nestled within a hollow and surrounded by overgrown gardens and broken ruins. Sir Michael has just married the young Lucy Graham, a beautiful governess of mysterious origins, having come to town to teach the surgeon's (Dr. Dawson's) children. Lady Audley wears a black ribbon around her neck in which she has enwrapped a ring. The next chapter skips to on board the Argus, a ship returning from Sydney to Liverpool. One George Talboys, a former dragoon member tells a fellow passenger that he is returning home after three and a half years: not being able to support his young wife and child, he had left to dig for gold in Australia. As they reach the shore, he begins to fear that his wife may be no longer around. Meanwhile, back at Audley's Court, further clues that Lady Audley has a secret are revealed to the reader: Phoebe, Lady Audley's handmaid, finds a baby's shoe with hair in it.


In London, George Talboys seeks out his Eton buddy, Robert Audley, nephew to Sir Michael Audley. Robert Audley is a lazy but good-natured barrister. With the help of Robert, George receives the news that his wife is dead. Crushed, he goes on a trip with Robert to St. Petersburg. A year later, the two men go to visit Audley Court together. Due to some reason or another, Lady Audley seems never present when George is around so he doesn't meet her. George, however, does get to view a portrait of Lady Audley and he seems transfixed. Alicia and Robert also discuss some kind of sinister power in the portrait: "We have never seen her look as she does in that picture; but I think that she could," Alicia remarks. Sir Michael and Lady Audley return, ostensibly having been called away to visit her old principal, Mrs. Vincent, who has been sick. A storm hits Audley Court, and George once again does not meet Lady Audley. The next day, when the storm has cleared, Robert and George go out fishing, and after waking from a nap, Robert realizes that George has disappeared. Back at the house, George notices a strange mark on Lady Audley's wrist which resembles finger marks. She makes up an excuse that these marks were caused by her tying a ribbon too closely. Seeking George, Robert goes to Southampton to visit George's father-in-law and his little son. The father-in-law tells him that George has gone back to Australia, but Robert finds a partially burned mysterious telegraph which reads: "alboys came to ----- last night, and left by the mail for London, on his way for Liverpool, whence he was to sail for Sydney." Robert begins to be afraid that something sinister has happened to George, and starts to write down his observations, becoming a sort of detective-character.


A scene between Lady Audley, Phoebe, and her lover Luke reveal that Phoebe has apparently revealed her lady's "secret" to Luke. Luke tries to extort more money from her in order that he and Phoebe may marry and he may set up a public house. A couple of months after George's disappearance, Robert speaks to Lady Audley about George and becomes more and more suspicious of her connection to his disappearance. Under her influence, Sir Michael turns Robert out of Audley Court, and from there, he goes to visit Phoebe and Luke at their new property, Castle Inn. Lady Audley follows him to Castle Inn, and after hearing him talk about how he has George's letters from his wife, Lady Audley hurries to London, ostensibly because she has distinctive handwriting--by now, the reader is to share in Robert's suspicions that Lady Audley might have been formerly Helen Talboys. Meanwhile, Alicia rejects a marriage proposal from the fox-hunting baronet Sir Harry, being in love with Robert. Back in London, Robert discovers Helen's writing in an annual possessed by George, Robert's shock suggests that he has connected Helen and Lady Audley. The letters are gone, however; it seems that Lady Audley has sent a blacksmith to steal them before Robert arrived. Robert goes again to visit little Georgey and George's father-in-law, offering to take Georgey to school. He presents the evidence before Helen's father and suggests that George might be dead; Helen's father seems genuinely shocked to hear that George might be dead. Robert's next step is to visit Harcourt Talboys, George's stone-hearted and estranged father--Harcourt refuses to offer any help, having written off George for marrying the poor Helen. Clara, George's sister, runs after Robert and pleads with him to investigate George's disappearance and to avenge his death if he were in fact death. Robert falls in love with Clara.


After a time, Alicia writes to Robert to inform him that Sir Michael is ill. Robert goes back to Audley Court, where he has a chance to ask the surgeon, Dawson, for more information concerning Lucy's past. Through information given by Dawson, Robert tracks down Mrs. Vincent, and a box which has some labels on it (later it is revealed that the box had both the labels "Lucy Graham" and "Helen Talboys"). Following Mrs. Vincent's directives, Robert goes to Wildernsea, the place where George and Helen supposedly met. There, he learns that after George's desertion to Australia, Mr. Talboys ran many debts and Helen became quite depressed. Robert also comes across some letters which indicate when Helen departed from Wildernsea--these dates correspond with Lucy Graham's arrival at Mrs. Vincent's. Specifically, Helen had written a distraught letter to her father, telling him that she needed to run away, and to forgive her because he knew her "secret." Back at Audley Court, Robert encounters Lady Audley and pressures her to confess but she instead ups the challenge by telling Sir Michael that she believes Robert to be mad and monomaniacal after his friend's disappearance. Phoebe asks Lady Audley for help regarding hers and Luke's rental payments. It seems that their marriage is not going so well; Luke drinks, and has not been good to Phoebe.


Lady Audley decides to accompany Phoebe back to her home and pay the money in person. Lady Audley, knowing Robert to be there too, sets fire to the house and leaves Robert and Luke sleeping there, taking Phoebe with her. Back at Audley Court, she is surprised to encounter Robert Audley the next evening--he has escaped from the house. He leads her into the library and again tells her to confess, laying before her the evidence. Lady Audley has been cornered and she says that she will confess. She tells Sir Michael about how her mother had been a madwoman, whom she was not acquainted with until the age of ten. She was surprised to find that her mother wasn't "mad" in any sort of lunatic way, and that she was rather beautiful, like herself, though did not recognize her husband and child. As Lady Audley grew older, she received much attention because of her beauty, and she thought that she could perhaps escape the fate of her mother. When George asked her to marry him, she believed that all would be well but it turned out that he too was poor. His desertion, though well-intentioned, was the last straw and it was then that she feared losing her mind, having a few violent episodes even. She left her father's home then to become Lucy Graham. At last, when she thought she had regained her stability through her marriage to Sir Michael, she discovered from the papers that George was coming back. Desperate, she and her father-in-law concocted a plan to advertise that she was dead, bribing a poor old woman whose daughter just died to enter her daughter's name as "Helen Talboys." This woman's daughter was who lay under the grave visited by George upon his return to England.


Sir Audley, in shock, leaves everything in Robert's care and departs from Audley Court with Alicia. Robert arranges for Lady Audley to go live at a French mental institution in Belgium. At first, the doctor which Robert calls does not think Lady Audley to be mad, but merely a poor woman driven to commit bigamy. The doctor comes around, however, when Robert reveals some of her more violent tendencies. Before Robert drops her off, she tells him that in a moment of desperation, because George had threatened to expose her lies, she had caused him to fall down a well. She waited by the well for a short period of time, but didn't hear anything. Robert assumes then, that George is in fact dead.


Back in town, Robert receives a letter from Clara letting him know that Luke, having been pulled out of the fire by Robert, wished to speak with him before he perished from his injuries. Robert has an interview with Luke, who reveals that George is alive: Luke had taken George in the night he had climbed out of the well. Luke has in his possession two letters: one to Helen, which forgave her and promised to leave her alone, and one to Robert, telling him that he was leaving England. Back at Dorsetshire, the home of Harcourt Talboys, Robert proposes to Clara and the two of them decide to go to Australia on their honeymoon to bring back George. It turns out that George was actually at Robert's place. He explains that he had gone for a while to New York, but had then decided on coming home. They all rejoice, and the narrator remarks on how he hopes that "no one will take objection to my story because the end of it leaves the good people all happy and at peace"--Robert marries Clara, and Alicia ends up accepting Sir Harry. Of course, such a statement only seems to make more unsatisfying the conclusion of the title character's life: Lady Audley dies within a year at the mental institution.

CRITICAL APPROACH/ANAYLSIS:
As Braddon's own contemporary audiences have noted, Lady Audley's Secret embodies sensation fiction's plot-driven structure: the delayed revelation of her "secret," her madness, drives both Robert's investigation and the plot. This is particularly suited to serial fiction in that each serial part might end with a new aspect of the mystery, hence holding reader interest until the next installment. Thus, other lesser "delayed revelations" occur throughout: who lies under the grave labeled "Helen Talboys," George actually being alive, for example.  


The plot driven on by revelations in sensation fiction, as with the related genre of detective fiction, ends with all of the links connected and circumstances fully explained. The "neatness" of this kind of ending which ties together all of these loose ends is undermined by the much less convincing "neatness" which the narrator tries to forge out what happens to each of the characters. The characters are, as it turns out, much too complicated to fit into the tidy moral universe which the narrator wishes to consign everyone to. The narrator's hope that the reader won't object to the "good people" being "happy and at peace" seems to come out of an anxiety that the reader would object; indeed, because of Braddon developing her characters as much more complicated than just good versus bad, the narrator's hope sounds pretty naive. 


Lady Audley herself is the most obviously complicated character. Though the narrative works hard to convince readers that she gets what she deserves, there are many moments that tend to work against this. When she tells Robert the story of loosening the iron piece so that George would fall down the well, it sounds hardly like cold-blooded murder or an insane move--George grabbed her wrist and threatened to expose her, and it could easily be imagined that he was rather harsh with her. Robert's account of Lady Audley as mad is questioned too, at first, by the Doctor with whom Robert speaks near the end of the novel: he points out that it sounds like she was just a poor woman rationally committing bigamy in order to win a better place in life. Despite the doctor's eventual agreement with Robert, in the moment where he disagrees with him, the reader accesses another perspective. 


Other characters who don't end up quite as well at the end of the novel are Luke, and to a lesser extent Alicia. The narrator (and Robert too) desires them to fit into a tidy scheme in which Luke, an unsavory, lower-class character exits after committing a final, repentant act, and in which Alicia, the good, respectable cousin, ends up realizing that she loves Sir Harry after all. The scene where Luke tells Robert of his taking George in, of course, is no such act of repentance: Luke makes a point to tell Robert that he doesn't like him, and Braddon even gives Luke the space to critique the way that the upper classes treat the lower classes: in brief, as scum easily dispatched with a coin thrown their way. Luke is one such "loose end" which glaringly remains untied at the end of the novel. Alicia is another, because she has loved Robert practically for her whole life; her many snarky remarks undermining Robert signal no small degree of psychological distress. Because the narrator follows Robert's thoughts most closely, the reader is forced, however, to hardly pay much attention to understanding Alicia's internal distress. Other characters notice, however--Sir Michael calls her his "poor girl." In the end, her sudden acceptance of Sir Harry can hardly be satisfying. Lady Audley's, Luke's, and Alicia's respective fates rather disturbingly suggest that individuals must either be banished from the neat moral universe constructed by upper class patriarchal Victorian society, or be subject to forced incorporation. 

Selections from John Ruskin

Edition: Modern Painters

PUBLICATION HISTORY:
Of Ideas of Beauty is part of Ruskin's prodigious book on art, Modern Painters. It can be found in the second volume of the book, added in 1846. (The original volume was published in 1843).
On the Pathetic Fallacy is also part of Modern Painters, added as part of volume 3 in 1856.
Of Kings' Treasuries and Of Queens' Gardens are two lectures part of a series called Sesame and Lilies delivered in Manchester in 1865.

SUMMARY/MAJOR THEMES:
Of Ideas of Beauty:
For Ruskin, understanding the ideas of beauty was part of a larger religious and moral quest necessary for bettering the health of the modern English nation. The essay begins with a condemnation of present-day concerns with "utility" in determining what is most beautiful. He goes on to clarify that all pursuits of science and art may either be "subservient to life" or the "object of life"--this division respectively characterizes that which is "useful" and that which is the pursuit of the "beautiful." The proper appreciation of the beautiful is the "object of life" and Ruskin complains that his contemporaries tended to degrade the importance of this kind of pursuit. This pursuit, "the moral perception and appreciation of ideas of beauty," can be achieved through the "theoretic" and "imaginative" faculties.

The "theoretic" faculty allows us to uncover the moral impressions of beauty, since for Ruskin, beauty is not sensual but moral first before all. How might man be accurate in his exercise of the "theoretic" faculty? Ruskin's answer is that the theoretic faculty is accurate the more universal and constant the impression is. In contrast, "false taste" may be known by its "fastidiousness," the opposite of universal. Methodologically, the "temper" of the accurate use of the theoretic faculty is patient.

There are two types of beauty: typical beauty and vital beauty. Typical beauty is the "external quality of bodies already so often spoken of, and which, whether it occur in a stone, flower, beast, or in man, is absolutely identical, which, as I have already asserted, may be shown to be in some sort typical of the Divine attributes," and "vital beauty" is "the appearance of felicitous fulfilment of function in living things, more especially of the joyful and right exertion of perfect life in man." These definitions in place, Ruskin rejects common errors concerning beauty, of which there are four: that the beautiful is true, that the beautiful is useful, that it is dependent on custom, and that it is dependent on the association of ideas.

The characteristics of "typical beauty" form the bulk of his discussion. First, typical beauty may be found in physical manifestations of infinity, which signals "divine incomprehensibility." His examples include a child's instinctive appreciation of space, and the greater beauty of curvature over hard lines since "a curve divides itself infinitely by its changes of direction," and the beauty of gradation. A second characteristic of typical beauty is unity, which signals "divine comprehensiveness." There are several kinds of unity--subjectional (things subjected to one force), original (things from a common origin), unity of sequence (things that link according to steps or chains), and unity of membership, the most important one, an "essential unity, which is the unity of things separately imperfect into a perfect whole." This essential unity of imperfect parts necessitates variety in the parts. This kind of variety for the sake of unity should not, however, be confused with novelty, which is love of change in itself and not love of change for the sake of unity. Another characteristic of typical beauty is "repose" which signals "divine permanence." It is even more beautiful when associated with an "implied energy," therefore it is a kind of calm restraint. Typical beauty also has "symmetry" which signals "divine justice." This is different from proportion in that symmetry is the "opposition of equal quantities to each other" and proportion is the "connection of unequal quantities with each other." Finally, "purity" in typical beauty signals "divine energy." Somewhat unexpectedly, Ruskin rejects the notion of purity as "sinlessness" but defines it more as a condition of "health" and "proper operation." Purity is thus a kind of "vital energy" opposed to death, decay. and degeneration.

Ruskin then moves on to talk about "vital beauty." The perception of it requires "charity" which perfects the theoretic faculty. All creatures should be viewed as brothers, and one must also cultivate a sympathy with plant life. Ruskin explains that the "ideal of the species" can be produced in art by the imagination but cannot actually occur in the real. The ideal of the species is "the noble generic form which indicates the full perfection of the creature in all its functions." For plants, this depends on the environment--cultivated plants are not "ideal" at all because their divine "function" has likely been tampered with. For example, perhaps the ideal for a plant relates to its divinely given function to survive in the desert. In sum, this is the artist's task in coming up with an ideal form: "The task of the painter in his pursuit of the ideal form is to attain accurate knowledge, so far as may be in his power, of the character, habits, and peculiar virtues and duties of every species of being."

As far as "vital beauty" in man goes, Ruskin gives some brief observations on a bodily ideal, but focuses more on the mind, which ought to be free from sensuality and sloth but full of energy and intensity. In art which seeks to imagine the ideal form of man, there should be a "banishment of the immediate signs of sin upon the countenance and the body." What this should look like is only knowable through taking a moral and loving view of humanity. Nevertheless, Ruskin describes some "practical" notions of what shouldn't be in ideal portraiture: signs of pride, unrestrained sensuality, ferocity and fear (though holy fear is different), and unrestrained passion. Again, however, it is "not the knowledge of them [signs of sin[, but the dread and hatred of them, which will effectually aid the painter." Ultimately, although the ideal form of man (or anything else) can't be realized on earth, the imagination can imagine them.

Finally, Ruskin makes a few answers to potential objections, qualifying that some evil men might achieve aesthetic beauty without morality, but this ultimately means that they can't reach true beauty--something will always be "missing." Ruskin also admits that sometimes God might "speak" through evil men. Ruskin critiques, finally, the Christian men who are cold, hard, and Spartan in their living and worship, essentially accusing them of not being truly Christian in their ignoring the evidence of God's morality in the colorful, visible world.

On the Pathetic Fallacy: 

Ruskin's famous section on what he terms "the pathetic fallacy" begins with a clearing away of the terms "objective" and "subjective." These terms have no utility philosophically, Ruskin argues, because of the nihilistic logical extreme of a philosopher easily saying that nothing exists except the fact of perception. Instead, Ruskin argues instead to replace these terms with the idea that the "power" of an object to produce a perception or sensation is always there, whether or not someone actually perceives or senses. This frees up the individual to say that things either are or they seem to be. 

Having cleared away these troublesome terms, Ruskin says that the "pathetic fallacy" results from when emotions "produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things." This concept is important in understanding what makes an effective poet. Ruskin lists four classes of men: men who are not poets, second order poets, first order poets, and finally, men who are prophetic. The first class "perceives rightly, because he does not feel." The second class "perceives wrongly, because he feels," and the third class "perceives rightly in spite of his feelings." This classification gives away Ruskin's preference for a kind of restrained emotion: a poet is stronger certainly if he has emotions and passions, but even stronger if he can see beyond his own emotions. The fourth and final class of men are "strong as human creatures can be, are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and see in a sort untruly, because what they see is inconceivably above them." In other words, prophetic men see something (divine?) beyond what is readily apparent in the material world.

The rest of the essay gives examples of these different classes. For Ruskin, Keats and Tennyson are second order poets; Wordsworth is greater. The greatness of a poet, he argues finally, "depends upon two faculties, acuteness of feeling, and command of it." This is just another way of arguing again the importance of emotion but also the restraint of it in great poetry. In the end, after all, the "pathetic fallacy" is "always the sign of a morbid state of mind, and comparatively of a weak one," and the degree to which one can restrain and work with these fallacies produces lesser or greater poetic effects.

Of Kings' Treasuries: 
The "treasures" which Ruskin refers to in this lecture are those that may be hidden in books, and "kings" are those who are rich in the knowledge and wisdom of books. The lecture begins with Ruskin's rejection of utilitarian arguments for education in his day, lamenting how parents send their children to school in order that they might get a "position in life." Next, Ruskin asks his audience to accept the premise that the "love of praise" is the root of effort, especially "modern effort." Here, Ruskin makes a bit of a jump to talk about the importance of the company one keeps, and suggests that individuals surround themselves with the good company of truly good books. There are four kinds of books: "good books for the hour," "good books for all time," "bad books for the hour," and "bad books for all time." For his purposes, Ruskin defines the first two only: "good books for the hour" are basically newspapers and magazines in that they are for all intents and purposes "useful and pleasant talk" aimed at mass audiences which a speaker can't possibly reach other than by print. "Good books for all time," however, are written not to "multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it." In other words, this kind of book consists of the best that a man knows from his life, his choicest wisdom, which should therefore be "perpetuated" for all time. Ruskin imagines that this kind of wisdom is in a way democratically accessible in that "it is open to labor and merit, but to nothing else."

To surround oneself by the company of these latter kinds of "good books" is the goal. To achieve this, the individual must have a "true desire to be taught" by these books, and humble before the wisdom of the ages. He should also read closely--"letter by letter." Ruskin's definition of "literature" is the close-reading of books with such an attention that understands the power of words. Here, he also warns against the great danger of words in their power to distort ideas--especially in the translation of texts. Therefore, Ruskin suggests learning Greek, Latin, French, and German in order to know the origins of English words. Ruskin supports this idea of close-reading through an example reading of a passage from "Lycidas," in which he closely parses Milton's diction to draw out what he believes to be Milton's intent. Ruskin's approach advocates "putting ourselves always in the author's place, annihilating our own personality, and seeking to enter into his, so as to be able assuredly to say, "Thus Milton thought."

In the next section of his lecture, Ruskin defends the importance of passion and "sensation." He notes that the present age often condemned "sensation," but only because "sensation" was applied too narrowly. To "feel with [the wise writers of books] what is just" is not a base but an essential human capacity: the problem with his contemporaries, Ruskin thought, was that they applied the power of feeling to pursuits which were too narrow. The lecture becomes more polemical at the end; in second-person, Ruskin accuses the England of his day of despising literature, despising science, despising art, despising nature, despising compassion, and concentrating its soul on Pence. He goes on to prove each of these points; hatred of literature, science, and art can be seen in how the public now treats these things in terms of their utilitarian "shop" value in a capitalist economy. According to Ruskin, men today "despise nature" because of he runs railways ("race courses") through the most beautiful landscapes. An excerpt from the Daily Telegraph on a poor man who died (having refused to go into the workhouse) serves to prove his point about how the men of today "despise compassion."

Ruskin concludes that the national purpose of his day to be chiefly "amusement." To reform this attitudes, individuals must try to recognize that the true kings are those who treasure wisdom. To perpetuate this wisdom in society more broadly, money should be spent on libraries which "will be accessible to all clean and orderly persons at all times of the day and evening; strict law being enforced for this cleanliness and quietness." "This book plan," Ruskin believes, will "prove a considerable tonic to what we call our British constitution, which has fallen dropsical of late, and has an evil thirst, and evil hunger, and wants healthier feeding."

Of Queens' Gardens: 
The "gardens" Ruskin refers to contain the flowers of female wisdom, which ought to be tended and nourished by their "queens," figures that represent the height of true feminine achievement. This lecture contains Ruskin's views on what constitutes "womanly mind and virtue." First, he firmly counters notions of separate spheres, emphasizing that though women may have different talents than men, they share a mission: "We hear of the 'mission' and of the 'rights' of Woman, as if these could ever be separate from the mission and the rights of Man." He goes on then to list instances of strong, virtuous women in great literature to build his answer as to the question of womanly mind and virtue. Shakespeare's literature has more heroines than heroes; "the catastrophe of every play is caused always by the folly or fault of a man; the redemption, if there be any, is by the wisdom and virtue of a woman, and failing that, there is none." In Walter Scott's works, female characters are once again possess a "quite infallible and inevitable sense of dignity and justice." Ruskin also mentions Dante's Beatrice in passing, Chaucer's "Legend of Good Women," and Spenser's strong women like Britomart. Women, therefore, have an important "guiding" function, Ruskin concludes, which has to do with her sense of love and justice. In sum: "Man's power is active, progressive defensive...woman's power is for rule, not for battle, and her intellect is...for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision."

In the next part of his lecture, Ruskin tells what he believes to be the right type of education for women. First, her education needs to attend to her physical health and beauty, citing Wordsworth's Lucy as an example of the kind of allowances necessary for physical health and beauty. In a word, she must be free to delight in natural surroundings. Second, the knowledge which a woman ought to receive should not be so different from that which a man receives, only that the end of such knowledge should always be recognized as necessary for true feeling and judging. Knowledge is not an end in itself for women. Relatedly, she must be taught to "extend the limits of her sympathy with respect to...history" so that she might judge correctly. The one kind of knowledge which Ruskin restricts from women is theology, (though he doesn't quite develop why?)

"Dangerous" literature for women include novels, romances, and religious exciting literature. There are, of course, good novels, Ruskin admits, but even so, novels dangerously err in their "picturesqueness of statement," such that "our views are rendered so violent and one-sided that their vitality is rather a harm than good."

Importantly, a girl cannot be "forced" by her education. Ruskin repeatedly emphasizes a connection between the female sex and nature/the natural; this connection would be destroyed with education which was too coercive. Ruskin writes: "Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in a field," trusting the natural instincts of female-kind to pick what is good for her. In order to learn that her station is noble and important, girls also need noble teachers. Ruskin critiques contemporary attitudes which degrade the position of instructors. Like his lecture on "kings' treasuries," Ruskin becomes more polemical near the end, challenging women through the second-person address to not abdicate this grand role of guidance. At the end, he also breaks apart the notion of public versus private spheres: man and woman both have roles inside the home--men to defend, women to order applies to both the home and to the state.

The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson

Edition: The City of Dreadful Night (Dodo Press)
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
The City of Dreadful Night is a long poem by Scottish poet James Thomson. It was first published in four parts by The National Reformer in 1874. The National Reformer was a radical, secular periodical; under editor Charles Bradlaugh, also the president and co-founder of the atheistic National Secular Society, the publication was prosecuted for blasphemy and sedition.

SUMMARY:
The poem is made up of 21 Cantos and a proem; these sections vary widely in form.
Proem: Verse form: ababccb in iambic pentameter. The proem begins with the speaker quoting Titus Andronicus: "Lo, thus, as prostrate, 'In the dust I write / My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears.'" The speaker asks why it matters to write in such a hopeless position, and answers, "Because it gives some sense of power and passion / In helpless innocence to try to fashion / Our woe in living words howe'er uncouth." The speaker makes clear that he is not writing for the "hopeful young," those who find happiness valuable, those who find material pleasures on earth, or the pious who believe in God. This is a poem for those whose faith and hope are dead. Yet, there is value in this: a "fellowship" or a "sad [f]raternity" in this faithless, hopeless condition.
Canto I: Verse form: ababccb in iambic pentameter. Canto I describes the landscape surrounding the city, which is bleak, black, and wild. The city is compared to a necropolis, where occasionally there are mourners wandering. These people are characterized by their immense solitude and isolation: "They often murmur to themselves, they speak / To one another seldom, for their woe / Broods maddening inwardly and scorns to wreak / Itself abroad..." Their only anodyne is the "certitude of Death."
Canto II: Verse form: ababcc in iambic pentameter. Here the speaker follows someone in the city, though they do not speak with each other. The speaker describes the man stopping before a tomb where his faith died, a villa where his love died, and a house where his hope died. He asks the man, "Where Faith and Love and Hope are dead indeed, / Can life still live? By what doth it proceed?" The answer is cryptic, telling the speaker to take a watch and erase its face, suggesting that despite this action time will continue, bereft of purpose. In the end, the speaker stops following him, and realizes that this figure was circling this same path forever.
Canto III: Verse form: ababccb in iambic pentameter. This canto describes sights and sounds the dark: shades, shadows, spectres, breathings, muffled throbs, murmurs--all indefinite, amorphous things.
Canto IV: Verse form: with the exception of the first stanza, abbccddee with repeating lines at the beginning and end of each stanza. The first stanza describes a man (John the Baptist?) standing alone in a "spacious square" gesturing but this stanza is truncated with a dash. What comes after are a series of stanzas with the man repeatedly beginning, "As I came through the desert thus it was, / As I came through the desert: [varying words here]" and ending with the certainty of "But [or Yet] I strode on austere; / No hope could have no fear." The experiences between these repeating lines are terrifying images: enormous things, clanking wings, jaws of death, sharp claws, swift talons, serpents, thunderbolts, and so on. Near the end of the canto, he sees a female figure with a red lamp that seems beautiful: this stanza ends differently with "I fell as on my bier, / Hope travailed with such fear." The cantos continue to break form as far as the last lines go, narrating the story of how the speaker divides into two selves, one "corpse-like" who encounters the woman, and one "vile," watching the scene. The woman's red lamp turns out to be her bleeding heart, which drops blood onto the narrator's "white brow." She carries the corpse away as the other "vile" self watches. 
Canto V: Verse form: ababccb in iambic pentameter. The speaker asks how an unnamed "he" arrives into the city and doesn't have an answer. This canto abstractedly tells how "he" might have "sweet babes and loving wife," :home of peace by loyal friendships cheered," yet has to "dree his weird" (surrender to his fate), suggesting ultimately that even these are meaningless?
Canto VI: Verse form: first two stanzas in ababcc in iambic pentameter, breaks into aaa, bbb, ccc...for the rest of the canto. The speaker watches the bridge lamps by the river side, hearing voices without bodies talking. At this point the verse breaks and he begins to tell a story of reaching the gates of hell, where he finds that he needs to pay the toll of hope. He doesn't have any hope to pay and watches other spirits "casting off hope" and entering. He can't even gain the certainty of hell, so he resolves: "With care through all this Limbo's dreary scope, / We yet may pick up some minute lost hope; / And sharing it between us, entrance win."
Canto VII: Verse form: ababcccb in iambic pentameter. This canto briefly and abstractly expresses uncertain and strange images of phantoms, mad men, and "unsexed skeletons."
Canto VIII:  Verse form: varying, ababcc--> shortening to 4 and 3 line stanzas. The speaker witnesses two people conversing about the indifference of fate and whether it was better to be their "miserable selves" or "He, / Who formed such creatures to His own disgrace." One of the people concludes: "The world rolls round for ever like a mill; / It grinds out death and life and good and ill; / It has no purpose, heart or mind or will."
Canto IX: Verse form: ababccb in iambic pentameter. Three short stanzas give the image of a "Fate-appointed hearse," which bears away "the joy, the peace, the life-hope, the abortions / Of all things good which should have been our portions / But have been strangled by that City's curse."
Canto X: Verse form: ababcc in iambic pentameter, switches to 3 line unrhymed stanzas when speaker switches. The speaker describes a mansion which he enters, pacing "from room to room, from hall to hall." He discovers pictures, statues, and busts of "A woman very young and very fair," and then reaches an oratory where a young man is kneeling before the "lady of the images" who is herself "supine, / Deathstill, lifesweet." The youth murmurs a prayer of eternal grief.
Canto XI: Verse form: ababccb in iambic pentamter. This short canto describes the type of men (a group to which the speaker belongs), who have give up hope and their strange fraternity. "They are most rational and yet insane," they know no faith or hope but in this shared melancholy there is a kind of brotherhood. The speaker says, radically, that this kind of brotherhood has no basis "in rank and wealth and power." There are poor men who have given up hope and faith as well as rich men.  
Canto XII: Verse form: varying. Here, the speaker continues on the same themes from the last canto. He begins with the question: "Our isolated units could be brought / To act together for some common end?" In trying to forge a kind of community out of these pessimistic, isolated individuals, all walking towards a cathedral together, the speaker repeatedly affirms the "reality" of their beliefs: the stanzas repeatedly reject various earthly pursuits from hedonism to writing poetry and political revolutions, and conclude instead, "I wake from daydreams to this real night."
Canto XIII: Verse form: ababccb in iambic pentameter. Continuing with the same theme, the speaker further consolidates this brotherhood of those who have given up on life and embraced its meaninglessness. He argues against those who complain that life is too short; instead, his brotherhood affirms: "WE do not ask for a longer term of strife...We yearn for speedy death in full fruition, / Dateless oblivion and divine repose."
Canto XIV: Verse form: ababcc in iambic pentameter. The speaker describes the brotherhood assembled within the cathedral to hear a sermon, negating traditional forms of worship: "And all was hush: no swelling organ-strain / No chant, no voice or murmuring of prayer; / No priests came forth, no tinkling censers fumed, / And the high altar space was unillumed." The sermon begins, and though the orator's message is bleak, he is described positively as "steadfast" and passionate. His words, furthermore, are real: "And now at last authentic word I bring," he says, "This little life is all we must endure." There is a comforting definitiveness to the "countless interactions interknit," that "Not all the world could change or hinder..." The sermon ends with the assertion that it would be okay to commit suicide.
Canto XV: Verse form ababccb in iambic pentameter. This short canto observes how the city is dense with thoughts, even if unspoken.
Canto XVI: Verse form: Varying, between ababcc and four line abab. In the congregation, a man speaks out, lamenting how they are offered only one chance of life. The sermon-giver replies: "My Brother, my poor Brothers, it is thus; / This life itself holds nothing good for us, / But ends soon and nevermore can be; / And we knew nothing of it ere our birth / And shall know nothing when consigned to earth: / I ponder these thoughts and they comfort me."
Canto XVII: Verse form: ababccb in iambic pentameter. This canto basically affirms "The empyrean is a void abyss," though men would like to read in the heavens pity or divinity.
Canto XVIII: Verse form ababcc in iambic pentameter. The speaker comes upon a prostrate, grotesque figure on a path that he ventures down. The figure is a man who tells him how, in vain, he looks for a "lost thread of gold" "which unites my present with my past." The description of this figure corresponds closely with Blake's pictorial representation of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian King whose pride led to his degeneration into animal behavior, and whom Blake associated with apocalyptic times.
Canto XIV: Verse form: ababccb in iambic pentameter. These stanzas describe the River of Suicides that flows through the city. The speaker ponders why people remain "actors and spectators" in this life.
Canto XX: Verse form: ababcc in iambic pentameter. The speaker beholds a stone sphinx and a stone angel. A warrior strikes down the angel but is prostrate and impotent before the sphinx. The warrior actually shatters himself before the vision of the sphinx, which seems "of infinite void space."
Canto XXI: Verse form: ababccb in iambic pentameter. There really aren't women in Thomson's text, though the final two cantos end with mysterious female figures that he seems to align with the blankness of eternity. The final stanza describes Durer's "Melencolia." The figure of melancholy is "the City's sombre Patroness and Queen," who gazes forth much like the sphinx.

CRITICAL APPROACHES/ANALYSIS: 
James Thomson, the son of a Scottish sailor crippled by a stroke, was from humble origins but won significant literary recognition later in his life. Earlier in his career, Thomson's writings criticized middle-class, bourgeois values; his essays for The National Reformer in the 1860s earned him a place amongst other politically radical figures like Bradlaugh and literary figures like Swinburne. The City of Dreadful Night is often considered in conjunction with his all-consuming melancholy and depression later in life but nevertheless the political undertones are apparent. For one, numerous references to Milton and Blake overtly suggest a genealogy of political radicalism. Thomson, however, goes farther than any other political radical has before, in his vision of a "fraternity" based on pessimism, atheism, and looking forward to nothing but the certainty of death. Nonetheless, this radical community responds actively to other Victorian imaginings of community. Thomson's community, of course, is overtly not political; rather it transcends any sort of community which engages in life on earth. Yet, Thomson's fraternity can't help but to share some vocabularies from other Victorian imaginings of community. In a way, Thomson seems to embody Arnoldian Victorian liberalism taken to its logical extreme: Arnold thought that "culture" was a way of transcending social class--rich or poor doesn't matter as long as the individual tried to cultivate his "best self." Thomson rejects "culture," consigning it to the same status as any another unreal social imagining. Like Arnold's cultural community, though, Thomson's nihilistic fraternity finds a kind of triumph in its ability to transcend social status and achieve a kind of radical leveling: mental suffering is something that anyone, rich or poor, might engage in.

Vanity Fair by W.M. Thackeray

PUBLICATION HISTORY:

Vanity Fair was published in twenty monthly parts from January 1847 to July 1848 by the editors of Punch Magazine and then subsequently bound for single-volume publication. A new edition was issued in 1853. The original subtitle for the piece was "Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society." Thackeray himself provided sketches for the installments.  The frontispiece also advertises Thackeray as author of "The Irish Sketch Book," "Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo," "Jeames's Diary," and the "Snob Papers" in Punch, underscoring his reputation as a an author of shorter serial pieces in the periodical press.

SUMMARY:

The novel begins with the departure of two young women from Miss Pinkerton's school for young ladies: Amelia Sedley, a well-off, popular, and charming young woman, and her friend, Rebecca Sharp, an Anglo-French orphan who is used to doing what was necessary to take care of herself. Becky has been mistreated by the snobby Miss Pinkerton, who has only taken her on because Becky can speak French to the other charges. Becky openly tells Miss Pinkerton that since they do not get along, she ought to help her find work elsewhere. Thus, Miss Pinkerton finds a governess position for her. Because Amelia has become friends with Becky at Miss Pinkerton's, she invites Becky to her family home in Russell Square for a week. The Sedley's of Russell Square are generous (Mr. Sedley made his fortune as a stock-broker), and Rebecca schemes to get Joseph Sedley, Amelia's stout older brother who was making a fortune in India and back for a time. Joseph Sedley indeed falls for Rebecca, but things end up going south when George Osborne arrives, a childhood friend of Sedley's and Amelia's suitor. The narrative strand is interrupted briefly with a sketch-history of one Dobbins, a classmate of Osborne's who was bullied at school, and who stood up for Osborne one day against a bully; hence they became close friends. Osborne has invited Dobbins to go along with the two couples to Vauxhall for a night of revelry. At Vauxhall, Joseph gets ridiculously drunk and inappropriate with Rebecca. Although everyone has expected it, Joseph doesn't end up proposing to Rebecca because he is too hung over the next day. It turns out that Osborne has been opposing the marriage, thinking Rebecca too far beneath Joseph's station. Amelia has sympathy for Rebecca as she departs, showering her with gifts and money, and getting her family to do the same for her.

At Queen's Crawley, Sir Pitt's country estate, Rebecca contemptuously finds Sir Pitt to be crass and no match for her intellectually despite his great wealth. Lady Crawley, Sir Pitt's (second) wife, is submissive to his whims and having lost her youthful beauty, is generally disregarded by Sir Pitt. Rebecca is to be governess to Lady Crawley and Sir Pitt's two young daughters, Rose and Violet. Soon, Rebecca also makes the acquaintance of Sir Pitt's sons from his first marriage: the elder Mr. Pitt, a self-righteous preacher, and the younger son, Rawdon, a spoiled, bold Captain who takes a liking to Miss Sharp. As time passes, Rebecca manages to ingratiate herself with pretty much everyone in the Crawley circle. Sir Pitt finds her a much more able and interesting companion than his wife, Mr. Pitt finds her apt at understanding some of his scholarly pursuits, the rich Miss Crawley (Sir Pitt's sister) finds her clever, and Mrs. Bute Crawley, wife to the Rector Crawley (another brother of Sir Pitt's) extends an invitation to Rebecca to visit. As a result, Rebecca becomes party to many of the factors causing family tensions, including how Miss Crawley's preference for Rawdon alienates the Rector, who feels more entitled to her money than the young, irresponsible Captain. All of this section is narrated through a mixture of letters (primarily from Rebecca to Amelia) and narrative.

This takes us to the fourth installment, which goes back to tell what has become of Amelia. As it turns out, not much has happened to her: she spends most of her time at home, pining away with love and sentiment for Osborne. Unfortunately for her, George spends most of his time with the boys of his Regiment, drinking and spending money. In his past, he has been used to being allowed to "sow his wild oats" and so Amelia's attachment feels constraining. Dobbin, feeling badly for Amelia, suggests to his friend that he pay more attention to Amelia. Meanwhile, George's father is having second thoughts about engaging his son to Amelia, as he fears Mr. Sedley's fortunes to be taking a turn for the worse.

The narrative switches back to Becky Sharp, who is attending to Miss Crawley. Miss Crawley has fallen "ill" from overindulging herself on food and drink. Miss Crawley's usual attendants, one Miss Briggs and one Mrs. Firkin, are jealous of Rebecca's ascendancy. While Miss Crawley keeps Rebecca, Sir Pitt's affairs have gone into disarray; he has been so dependent on her to do secretarial work. He demands that she return home, but Miss Crawley continues to keep her. Lady Crawley's sudden death brings Sir Pitt to Park Lane (Miss Crawley's residence) with a marriage proposal to Rebecca. Rebecca doesn't accept because she says she is already married. It gradually comes out that she has secretly married Rawdon. When Miss Crawley and Sir Pitt find out, she has already left to go live with him. The couple remains hopeful that Miss Crawley will come around to their marriage. The opportunistic Mrs. Bute Crawley takes advantage of Rawdon and Rebecca's fall from favor to take charge of caring for Miss Crawley's "illness." Mrs. Bute is extremely imperious, however, and it is clear that Miss Crawley, Miss Briggs, and Mrs. Firkin begin to resent her control. 

It turns out that Mr. Sedley has meanwhile met with financial ruin as a result speculations that depended on Napoleon's continual exile--instead, he has returned to power. The older Mr. Osborne tries to push George to marry one Miss Rhoda Swartz, a mulatto heiress who was also at Miss Pinkerton's school. Dobbin, however, looking out for Amelia's interests and afraid that she will die of a broken heart, manages to convince George to keep his engagement. George marries Amelia without his father's consent, and though Dobbin manages to win over his sisters, he fails to win over Mr. Osborne, resulting in George being disowned. George and Amelia spend some time in Brighton after they get married, where they meet up with Rebecca and Rawdon. Amelia inevitably feels some jealousy for Rebecca, and their friendship is perhaps just a tad less sweet. The men of Dobbins and George's regiment are soon set to depart for Belgium in order to fight Napoleon. Rawdon will also go, though he is not set to fight on the front lines. Rebecca and Amelia prepare to go with the men. Jos also goes to Brussels, in order to accompany the women. Amelia has a hard time at Brussels, because she is snubbed by the society there while Rebecca and George flirt heavily. George even leaves Rebecca a note in her corsage. Amelia accuses Rebecca of her flirtation, as is disconsolate as the men leave for battle. Rebecca does well for herself after the men leave; Rawdon has left behind his horses and other property so that she will be financially secure should he die. During the course of battle, the cowardly Jos offers Rebecca a large sum for her horses, in order that he might flee. Rawdon does not die, however, but George does, in the famous battle of Waterloo.

At the beginning of the tenth number, the narrative returns to those who remain behind in England. Sir Pitt, distraught over Becky's departure, has taken up with Miss Horrocks, the butler's daughter. His older son, however, has decided to court Lady Jane (formerly Rawdon's intended) and both Jane and he have been making steady progress in gaining Miss Crawley's favor. Mrs. Bute Crawley makes one last effort, sending her son James to visit Miss Crawley. At first, Miss Crawley receives the handsome boy with some favor, but when a mistake leads to Miss Crawley thinking he had been drinking extravagantly at a tavern and when he smokes a pipe in her house, he is thrown out. Lady Jane and the younger Pitt are soon married, and Miss Crawley becomes affectionate with Lady Jane. Upon her death, she leaves her wealth to the younger Pitt and his wife.

Meanwhile, Mr. Osborne refuses to help out Amelia and her son, Georgy. In Paris, Rebecca and Rawdon do pretty well for themselves, living on Rawdon's winnings from gambling. The narrator suggests that Rawdon's dealings may be shady, and pretty soon they can't live in Paris anymore and go to London. Rebecca skillfully settles Rawdon's London debts, and they rent a house on Curzon Street from Raggles, a former servant who has worked hard to move up the social ladder. Becky and Rawdon can't pay the rent, however, and Raggles ends up going to debtor's prison. As all of this is happening, the narrative reveals that Rebecca isn't very much interested in her own son and treats him neglectfully. She manages to ingratiate herself with Pitt Crawley and Lady Jane, and also wins the favor of one influential and wealthy Lord Steyne. Sir Pitt the elder also soon dies, and Pitt the younger inherits his estate at Queens Crawley; the Horrocks's are thrown out. Rebecca tactfully ingratiates herself with Lady Southdown, Lady Jane's mother, and also Pitt.

Back home with her ruined parents, Amelia Sedley still gets attention from men who help her out with little gifts to Georgy. She even gets a marriage proposal from a Reverend Binny, but she decides to remain faithful to George. Dobbin continues to send her money, having gone to India, though saying that the money is left to her from George. She soon hears news that Dobbin is to be married to a woman named Glorvina who is a relation of Major O'Dowd, the commander of the regiment that Dobbin and George Osborne fought in. At the Osborne house, Maria gets married, and her older sister Jane is confined to being a spinster and taking care of the elder Osborne for the rest of her life. Dobbins receives a letter from his sister letting him know a rumor that Amelia is about to marry the Reverend. At long last, Mr. Osborne changes his mind and offers an inheritance to little Georgy and Amelia an allowance. She at first refuses, but in the end is forced to accept when her parents come to even greater financial ruin and she is unable to support her son's schooling and upbringing as a "gentleman." The terms are that he must go and live at the Osbornes. It is a tearful farewell for Amelia, but for Georgy, he is excited to begin life.

Rebecca continues to evince little interest in her son, too busy with the tasks of social climbing. Rawdon, however, is quite affectionate with his son. Rebecca encourages Pitt in his career as an M.P., and he warms to her, preferring her to his wife. A meeting with the king marks the culmination of Rebecca's social climbing. Lord Steyne gives her money and invites her to dinner, where she is still snubbed, however, by some ladies of high backgrounds. Lord Steyne also gives money for little Rawdon to go to school. The Colonel Rawdon, meanwhile, gets into some trouble, going to jail for a debt. Becky doesn't really help him out and instead, his brother and Lady Jane help him out. When Rawdon returns home, he sees Becky with Lord Steyne and attacks him. He discovers that Becky has a stash of money and jewels. Both Steyne and Rawdon abandon Becky and plan a duel; the duel is called off thanks to the diplomacy of Wenham, Lord Steyne's man. Left alone, Becky asks Sir Pitt for help to reconcile her to her husband, but he fails. Rawdon goes to Coventry Island for a post, sending money back to Becky and little Rawdon.

When Dobbin and Jos come back to England from India, Dobbin tells Jos that he should stay and set up a home for Amelia and her father to move into. Mr. Sedley and Mr. Osborne both die; Osborne leaves half his money to Georgy and also some for Amelia. Amelia's position having been improved, she is able to reunite with her son. On a trip to Pumpernickel with Dobbin and Jos, Dobbin declares that Amelia has never appreciated his love. They run into the deserted Becky, who has been gambling and associating with unsavory characters. Amelia kind-heartedly takes Becky in. Dobbin, having heard of Becky's dealings on the Continent, warns Jos against Becky, who will likely try to get into his good graces again. After Dobbin departs again, Becky decides to give Amelia the letter that George Osborne had once slipped her--it asked Becky to run away with him. Disabused of her romantic notion of George, Amelia accepts Dobbin and he returns. Here the narrative stops, and moves to a kind of epilogue like section, in which Amelia and Dobbin live happily ever after, little Rawdon and Georgy become great friends in college and are both in love with Lady Jane's daughter, Becky pursues Jos in his travels and receives money from his life insurance after his mysterious death, Colonel Rawdon perishes of yellow fever in Coventry Island, his brother Pitt dies soon afterwards, and the estate of Queens Crawley goes to little Rawdon, who sends money to his mother but refuses to see her. Becky Sharp spends her life mostly around Bath and Cheltenham, giving liberally to Charity.

The novel closes: "Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? Or, having it, is satisfied?--Come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out."

CRITICAL ANALYSIS/APPROACH:
The significance of Vanity Fair's original serial publication in monthly installments has been thoroughly explored in Edgar F. Harden's famous essay on "The Discipline and Significance of Form in Vanity Fair." Harden lays out in great detail the ways in which Thackeray sets up parallel structures in the his monthly numbers. The first two numbers offer a lesson in parallel structure useful for reading the rest of the novel--here are Harden's observations copied below:

• No. 1 begins with the girls' education at Miss Pinkerton's; No. 2 begins with the boys' education at Dr. Swishtail's
• No. 1 elaborates on Amelia's popularity versus Becky's unpopularity; No. 2 elaborates on Cuff the bully's popularity and Dobbin's unpopularity
• No. 1 shows a battle between Miss Pinkerton and Becky; No. 2 shows a battle between Cuff and Dobbin 
• In No.1 Becky receives a dictionary from Jemima (which she throws back); in No. 2 Dobbin receives a prize-book after becoming recognized at school for his work
• Becky and Amelia ride to Russell square in No.1; Becky, Amelia, Jos, Dobbin, and George ride to Vauxhall in No. 2
• No. 1 has a retrospective account of Becky's past; No. 2 has a retrospective account of favorable views of Becky and Jos's future together
• In No. 1, Amelia and Becky tour the house at Russell Square and Becky vows to catch Jos; in No. 2 Jos and Becky tour Vauxhall and Jos fails to propose
• In No. 1 Mr Sedley mocks Jos; In No. 2 George mocks Jos, drunk at Vauxhall
• Becky is overcome by chili in No. 1; Jos is overcome by punch in No. 2
• No. 1 has Becky waiting for Jos as he leaves Russell Square; No. 2 has her waiting for Jos who sends a note saying he's leaving London
• No. 1 has Jos arriving in Russell Square; No. 2 has Becky arriving at Great Gaunt Street (Pitt's house)  
• In No. 1 Mr. Sedley offers champagne at Russell Square; In No. 2, Sir Pitt offers beer upon Becky's arrival
• Jos prepares for Vauxhall in No. 1 and plans to propose to Becky; Becky prepares for Queen's Crawley in No. 2 and dreams about Rawdon

The effects, of course, are varied depending on the parallels--in the above examples, contrasts in character might be drawn, for instance between Becky and Dobbin, who are both "underdogs" but Becky is a lot more opportunistic, or between Becky and Jos, in that Becky recovers much more quickly from the chili than Jos from the punch. Later in the novel, parallels might provide shocking contrasts, such as No. 8's ending with dawn and Amelia's embrace of George as he is about to leave, and No. 9's ending with "darkness" and George's corpse on the battlefield.

The elaborateness of Thackeray's organization is borne out in a more macro-view as well: Harden summarizes that there are nine blocks of material (sometimes the blocks are of 3 numbers, but mostly they are of 2), which might be further demarcated into two groups: four of the blocks and five of the blocks. The two groups are involved in a kind of "counterrhythm." The first group climaxes in the middle with successful marriages (Becky's and Amelia's) and concludes with George and Amelia's separation because of his death; the second group climaxes with Rawdon leaving Becky and ends with Amelia's marriage to Dobbin.  

What, ultimately, is the larger significance of these detailed and disciplined parallels? I feel that Harden's speculation (especially after his impressive explication of structure) that Thackeray needed a way to discipline his writing so that it would fit the requirements of the 32-page numbered part (something that his writing for periodicals hadn't required) seems a bit of a letdown. I think it's interesting that both Thackeray's original subtitle for Vanity Fair, "Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society" and the volume's subtitle, "A Novel Without a Hero," kind of registers a sense of plurality in unity which the elaborate structure also bears out. "Pen and Pencil Sketches" signals plurality unified under the larger category of "Society"; "Without a Hero" prevents the unifying effects of a central character while the genre designation,"novel" unifies. Parallels in the narrative structure unify, while two major plot lines (one following Becky, the other Amelia) threaten to unravel the narrative structure. Thus, it seems that Vanity Fair continually points to the tension between plurality/dissolution and singularity/unity. Thackeray's own comment about how he wished to "make a set of people living without God in the world" in July 1847 suggests that without God, there needed to be some other organizational principle. Unlike exemplars of high realism like Eliot's Middlemarch, no omniscient narrator steps in place of God to provide an organizational principle--Thackeray's first-person narrator, though fairly knowledgeable, hints that he is one of the members who partook in the "society" in which his characters circulated--he heard unfavorable stories about Becky at the same dinner tables where Dobbin hears about her. It is not, then, the narrator that provides unity in Vanity Fair, but the novelist, who, for all intents and purposes, has usurped God in creating the parallel structures in the numbered parts.