Victorian literature, like almost all literature, inherently speaks to the social, philosophical, and religious issues that shaped the people of the time. Romantic ideals of singling out and celebrating the self are often challenged by Victorian literature, which emphasizes placing the self in a social context and examining the relationship that emerges from it. The statement that “a sense of crisis permeated every aspect of Victorian society as it struggled to reconcile the ideas and beliefs of the past with progress and modernity” describes this new aspect perfectly. Many changes brought about this shift in Victorian society, but one of the most important and controversial was the growing prominence of women in the public sphere and the changing dynamics of relationships between men and women. It is this revelation that will be explored in this essay, taking Elizabeth Barret-Browning's Aurora Leigh as a basis. A book and verse number will be specified after each citation, and due to the length of the poem, this essay will focus primarily on the first two books.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why violent video games should not be banned'? Get an original essayThe Victorian ideal of the angel in the house, a term taken from a poem by Coventry Patmore, described (after analysis) how women were meant to be submissive to men and their goals are seen as sublimated during marriage in favor of helping the husband achieve his goals. Certainly, women were thought to have little beyond raising children. In Aurora Leigh, however, it is a central theme and is examined from the very beginning of the poem. In volume 1, after the death of Aurora's mother, her father must take care of her and this essentially feminine task seems to weigh more heavily on him than on a woman; according to Aurora, women "know/how to bring up children" (Browning, 1864, 1. 47) and her father is described as "inventing such a miserable smile,/as if he knew needs must or I must die » (Browning, 1864, 1.98). Having been thrust into this feminine role, Aurora's father is said to have "for love...suddenly/overthrown the old conventions" (Browning, 1864, 1.176) and thus triggers Aurora's similar rebellion against society. Her mother's death is used to highlight issues with gender constructs of the time; How, she wonders, can a man continue to function in his socially approved place when his wife dies and leaves him with all her duties? In this way, Aurora Leigh pokes holes in society's then-dominant ideal that women take care of children and do nothing other than support their husbands. It is important to note, however, that Aurora's father's experience is not a good one. He is described as being somewhat out of place, being “undone from an ordinary man/but unfinished into an unusual one” (Browning, 1864, 1.183). Consequently, his distancing from social norms has left him in a sort of gender purgatory, being neither. His father's example is one of the ways this poem depicts the struggle between traditional values ​​and progressive values ​​within the individual; his father is reluctantly pushed into a progressive role and ultimately does not fare well. Later in the poem, of course, both Romney and Aurora willfully ignore society's norms and both do well, except for a minor case of total blindness. So, beyond examining tradition versus progression, Aurora Leigh examines how one accesses a progressive role andshows that progression is somewhat of a double-edged sword. Romney eventually finds love with Aurora but is unable to effect the social change he yearns for, his father becomes a sort of half-mother, caring for his child but uncomfortable doing so, and Marian Erle becomes a single mother through a horrible experience. , but fiercely protects this unconventional status once she achieves it. Thus, the poem examines not only the crisis of the relationship between self and society but the internal struggles of progressive change, as well as its pitfalls and the sacrifices that are sometimes necessary. Upon arriving in England, Aurora meets her aunt, who is a perfect example of an angel in the house, having lived a "harmless life, which she called a virtuous life" (Browning, 1864, 1.290). Aurora's view of her aunt is not flattering but nonetheless insightful, as she notes that her aunt's hair is tight, "as if to tame accidental thoughts" (Browning, 1864, 1.275). This could be interpreted as “tame one's evil thoughts,” but an alternative interpretation—“tame all one's thoughts”—reveals more of what the aunt symbolizes in this poem: she is almost entirely without free will. His “icy use of life” (Browning, 1864, 1.277), his “colorless eyes” (Browning, 1864, 1.283) and his mouth which only speaks of “unrequited loves” (Browning, 1864, 1.282) leave her helpless. act on one's own initiative. She is an object in the poem, not a subject, never directly expressed by Aurora, and in its entirety constitutes a satirical blow against the "angel in the house" paradigm. However, this is not to say that Aurora Leigh is necessarily a feminist work; although it espouses the virtues of female agency, it also contains a large number of allusions to a more traditional overall point of view, embodying the Victorian "crisis of faith" in the work itself. One of these allusions comes from the mention of "lady's Greek, / without the accents" (Browning, 1864, 2.83), an infantilization of Aurora's intellect that she does not dispute. She describes Romney's nature as "divine" (Browning, 1864, 1.565), then saying that she is "a worm" (Browning, 1864, 1.568) in comparison. Another clue lies in the fact that her aunt does not have a direct voice, but others do, perpetuating the idea that only "modern" women, who have voluntarily entered a sphere dominated by men like that of Victorian literature, deserve to have a voice. This non-feminist interpretation is explored by critic Deirdre David, who says in Art's A Service: Social Wound, Sexual Politics and Aurora Leigh that "the novel-poem is an integrated expression of essentialist and ultimately non-feminist views on sex and gender , despite strong attacks on sexual hypocrisy” (David, 1985). It could be said that Aurora's desire to become a poet is either an attempt to imitate men or to beat them at their own game; nor particularly evocative of the feminist ideology of abolishing conventional gender roles. Certainly, Aurora's desire to write an epic poem (like Aurora Leigh herself), which is an area of ​​poetry entirely dominated by men, shows that she wants to prove that she is as good as men ; not necessarily an ignoble objective, but nevertheless an objective framed within traditional values. Another point made by David, which could be considered a logical certainty, is that "to speak of a male intellect obviously presupposes a female intellect" (David, 1985) and this is exactly what Aurora does when she says that Romney “misunderstands the question as a man” (Browning, 1864, 2.468). To be able to generalize aboutmen, one must also be able to generalize about women, and Aurora's assumption that there is a male way of thinking that always functions in a certain way implies that there must be a female way of thinking with the same stipulations. Such generalizations are contrary to progressive values ​​and, indeed, to Aurora's ability to accomplish the task it has set itself. Ultimately, the ideas of feminism and progressive gender values ​​were, in the Victorian era, mixed and unclear because they required of the believer such a widespread upheaval in the way they defined gender. This “crisis of faith” is entirely focused on how people viewed gender and was a huge force in the Victorian era and, in particular, on Aurora Leigh. There are also stark contrasts in the text between the meaning and form of the poem. The first example is the use of classical mythological references that would be unknown to most women of the time, such as Aurora's description of her mother as "a fearless muse" (Browning, 1864, 1.155) and "an immobile Medusa » (Browning, 1864, 1.157). This is another device that shows the evolution of the social ideals of the time; the poem having a female protagonist and yet peppered with such references. It is also almost a subterfuge for Aurora Leigh to be an epic poem; Traditionally associated with heroic acts of national significance and dating back to the very birth of poetry, the epic poem is generally not interested in subjects like the failure of Romney's social reform and the decision of a young girl to become a poet. In a way, it presupposes its own importance, which gives it significant self-referential weight, when examined in context. The use of the epic poem in particular has additional interpretative relevance; according to critic Herbert F. Tucker, in his book Epic, “the splendor of the epic, so the lesson goes, is a glory that was” (Tucker, 2008). Even if Aurora Leigh could be viewed in this way, it would ignore her social relevance; writing an epic poem about social reform implies that reform has already occurred, and one might conclude that the combination of these ideas leads the reader to think the same thing. What would complicate this hypothesis is that there is evidence that the epic was falling out of favor by the mid-19th century. Alfred Lord Tennyson himself, in a letter to his publisher Ticknor and Fields, said: “I would be mad to attempt [an epic] in the heart of the 19th century” (Tennyson, 1858). To revive an archaic genre in this way, and in some sense corrupt it to act as both a Bildungsroman and a vehicle for socially progressive views, is to increase its impact on the reader. The juxtaposition of "female" content (i.e. having a female protagonist) and "male" form, combined with all the elements mentioned so far, induces confusion about the gender gap ; Why is the story of a girl achieving her dream less important than an epic battle? Barrett-Browning's poem, however, is in many ways identical to the classical epics; the use of classical and biblical references. Perhaps the most significant of these is found in the ending: “'Jasper first,' I said,/'And then the sapphire; thirdly, chalcedony;/The rest in order, . . finally, an amethyst” (Browning, 1864, 9.988). This ending, with the synergy of Aurora and Romney and a description of the walls of the holy city, creates a powerfully positive image. In itself, it is the marriage of the progressive (Aurora blossoming as a poet) with the traditional (Christian theology), and a very fitting ending to the poem because seeing the city