JOHN KEATS AS A ROMANTIC POET

Among all the romantics, Keats was the last to be born and the first to die. As a romantic poet, he was greatly inspired by Greek art and culture. He was also inspired by Elizabethans especially Spenser. He is a true romantic poet and makes poetry an instrument for the expression of his personal and emotional expression.Other romantics have some political and social comment in their poetry, but Keats’ poetry is not the vehicle for any propaganda. It has no moral, political or social considerations. He wrote poetry for the sake of poetry.

            A very significant element which is found in Keats’ poetry is more or less a desire for escape. Romantic poetry presents the world of dreams. Therefore, the romantic poets seek an escape from the hard realities of life in the world of imagination. He says:       “Away! Away! For I will fly to thee,”

Keats not only wants to escape into the world of beauty but also into the world of the past which is sacred for him. Most of his poems have been written under the inspiration of the past, Keats’ imagination is inspired by the Greeks and the middle ages.

           Another salient feature of romanticism is the note of melancholy. Keats’ poetry is also colored by melancholy. Most of his poetry is devoted to love, pathos, and disappointment in love, loss of beauty and to the loss of joy. Again his rich and sensuous description, scattered all over his poetry is romantic in tone. Being a sensuous poet, he loves beauty. Beauty for him is synonymous with truth. To him,

                           “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’’

Beauty is his religion and in his pursuit of beauty, he forgets everything around him. Another characteristic of his romantic poetry is his love of nature. All romantic poets love nature but Keats’ love for nature is different from than that of others. Keats loves nature for its beauty and charm and he does not try to find any hidden meanings in nature rather he describes it as he sees it. One of the most striking feature element of his poetry is his use of supernaturalism. His imagination is lured by the remote, shadowy and mysterious world. To conclude, we can say that Keats’ poetry is a fine example of highly romantic poetry. In fact, it touches almost all the aspects of romantic poetry.

Religion in Marlowe’s 'Jew of Malta'

Whilst Marlowe was writing, anti-Semitism was rife across the entirety of Europe. The Renaissance period saw the rise of increasingly xenophobic, anti-Jewish fears somewhat comparable to the prejudice against Islam in the Western world today, fed on and augmented by President Trump. We only have to look at the work of the so-called Old Masters to see how widespread these anti-Semitic sentiments really were. Not only were Jesus and his followers stripped of their Jewish identity and transformed into anachronistically Christian figures, but also, on the rare occasion that Jews were actually depicted in Renaissance art, their portrayal was far from complimentary. Albrecht Durer’s Jesus Among the Doctors is a case in point: the Jew that stands to the right of Jesus is almost caricature-like with his grotesque grin and hooked nose. Given the pervasiveness of this anti-Semitism, it’s no wonder that Marlowe’s Barabas is likewise presented according to the bigoted values of the age. He is, in fact, a complete caricature of the selfish and cruel Jew. And yet, what’s interesting about Marlowe’s play The Jew of Malta is that Jews are not the only group to receive criticism. Indeed, almost every religious group, Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, seem to be at the receiving end of Marlowe’s reproach. This can be said for the majority of Marlowe’s work, much of which is dedicated to the analysis and condemnation of religious doctrine and hypocrisy. So, with reference to Marlowe’s work and in particular The Jew of Malta, I intend to explore Marlowe’s views on religion as presented through his plays.

I must, of course, begin this essay with an analysis of the loathsome and Machiavellian character of Barabas. The prologue of the play, delivered by Niccolò Machiavelli himself, describes how Barabas ‘smiles to see how full his bags are crammed, / Which money was not got without my means.’ Immediately, then, he is presented as a typical machiavelle figure of Renaissance drama, characterised by the same scheming villainy encapsulated by Iago (Othello) and Edmund (King Lear) in Shakespeare’s plays. The words ‘my means’ refers to the philosophy set out by Machiavelli in his famous work Il Principe – a proto-self-help book preaching expediency over morality and the appearance over the reality of virtue. Barabas fills this role perfectly, almost all of his actions recalling Satan’s words in Book 4 of Milton’s Paradise Lost: ‘Evil be thou my Good.’ For example, he distances himself from the man with a conscience who ‘for his conscience lives in beggary.’ It is by acting without a conscience, Barabas implies, that he has acquired his huge fortune. This lack of conscience links directly to his greed and self-interestedness, obvious in the equal weight he gives to his wealth and to his daughter when he exclaims: ‘O girl! O gold!’ This levelling comparison clearly influenced Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice when he had Shylock exclaim “O my ducats, O my daughter…” Barabas’s selfishness is also evident in his asides during the conversation he has with the other Jews in Malta. He says: ‘Assure yourselves I’ll look – unto myself.’ He cares only for himself, even bringing about the murder of his daughter’s lover to get his revenge on Ferneze. But, in the words of Harry Levin, these asides also serve to show Barabas’s Machiavellian emphasis on appearance, distinguishing between ‘deeds and words.’ He hides his true intentions from the other Maltese citizens, but treats the audience as his confidantes and thus implicates us in his crimes.

Though we may have some pity for Barabas in his cruel treatment by the Maltese governor and his similarities to Job, our sympathy quickly dissipates as he develops from a simple miser to a murderous villain. As Levin points out, Barabas ‘is a man with a grievance, but his retaliation outruns the provocation.’ Though he may begin as a revenger, he very quickly turns into the villain himself. This murderousness is clear in the famous speech Barabas gives when purchasing Ithamore as a slave: ‘As for myself, I walk abroad o’ nights, / And kill sick people groaning under walls; / Sometimes I go about and poison wells…’ Whether these claims are true is uncertain. It’s possible that this speech is only made in order to entice Ithamore, whom Barabas seems to have already discerned as a villain who, like him, hates Christians. Perhaps, also, Marlowe was simply playing on and parodying the extreme hatred for Jews in Europe. Whatever the answer, it’s undeniable that Barabas fulfils these murderous claims – by the end of the play, he has poisoned and killed the whole of a nunnery (including his own daughter), caused the death of two friends, slaughtered numerous Turkish soldiers, and much more. As the play progresses, his hands grow more bloody and his heart blacker, becoming exactly what European society expected a Jew to be. So it’s clear that Marlowe is playing on these early modern prejudices to present us with the frightful image of a Jew who really only cares for himself and his revenge.

And yet, it’s not just Barabas who is presented as a loathsome figure – almost every character in the play, apart from Abigail, is selfish and unsympathetic. And though we may strongly dislike Barabas, we are watching ‘the tragedy of a Jew’ - Barabas is our tragic hero, and to an extent we see the play from his perspective, often taking his side against the play’s other characters. Our sympathy for Barabas is stirred when he has his wealth seized by Ferneze the governor, under threat of Christian conversion. During this scene, Barabas launches a succession of bitter attacks against Christianity, beginning with the words: ‘Will you then steal my goods? / Is theft the ground of your religion?’ Here, Barabas points out the hypocrisy of their actions, going against the commandment ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ When Ferneze attempts to justify the cruelty of the Christians, he explains that Jews are infidels and that they ‘stand accursèd in the sight of heaven.’ This idea, that the Jews are to blame for the death of Christ (the ‘first curse’) and are therefore born sinful, was a typical trope of the period. Though the audience of the time may also have held this belief, it’s clear that Marlowe did not, or else he would not have allowed Barabas to respond in such cogent terms, appealing as he does to our sense of justice: ‘Shall I be tried by their transgressions? / The man that dealeth righteously shall live…’ Though we know that Barabas is far from righteous, we still sympathise with his argument that men should be judged according to their actions, not according to the actions of their ancestors. This can also be read as a Marlovian argument against the Calvinistic doctrine of Original Sin which held that all humans are born sinful due to Adam’s fall. And so, in this episode it is the Christians who are presented as heartless, with ‘policy’ (trickery or duplicity) as their profession, using scripture to confirm their wrongs. Arguably, it is this unjust and hypocritical treatment that leads Barabas to ‘make bar of no policy’ and adopt the same cruel attitude as the Christians have towards him.

So when Barabas says to his daughter that ‘religion / Hides many mischiefs from suspicion’ we can’t help but agree. The Christians of Malta have used their religion to justify their cruelty against the Jew, even though that cruelty goes against the New Testament credo ‘Love thy neighbour.’ Marlowe also takes care to demonstrate the vices of churchmen themselves, with Friar Jacomo and Friar Bernardine fighting over Barabas’s wealth. They care nothing for the cleansing of his soul or for his conversion – they care only for the goods he promises them. Indeed, Jacomo is so covetous of Barabas’s wealth that he stabs Bernardine, a fellow Christian. So Marlowe, here, is mocking and criticising the greed of the church and their hypocrisy. There are numerous other instances of this throughout the play. For example, when Abigail dies, she asks Friar Bernardine to ‘witness that I die a Christian’ and he simply replies: ‘Ay, and a virgin, too, that grieves me most.’ He breaks Church law when he reveals the contents of Abigail’s dying confession, and hopes to use what she has told him as blackmail. Once this scene has taken place, we can’t help but recall Ithamore’s earlier question: ‘have not the nuns fine sport with the friars now and then?’

It’s clear, then, that Christians and the Church also come under attack in this play. Indeed, the play’s conclusion reinforces Abigail’s beautiful lament that ‘there is no love on earth, / Pity in Jews, nor piety in Turks.’ She’s certainly right that Ithamore (the main representative of the Turks in the play) and Barabas are wicked. Abigail’s mistake, though, is to think there is love, pity, or piety in the Maltese Christians, who reveal themselves to be just as sinful and scheming as Barabas himself. Barabas is only killed at the end of the play because he is out-manoeuvred by another schemer, Ferneze, who, despite his religion, shows no mercifulness whatsoever at the play’s conclusion. As Barabas calls out ‘Help, help me, Christians, help!’ and asks ‘Governor, why stand you all so pitiless?’ Ferneze explains that he has no pity for him at all, wishing to see his ‘treachery repaid.’ Again, this demonstrates his religious hypocrisy – as a Christian, he ought not only to forgive and show mercy, but also to see it as God’s role to ensure justice, not his own. Thus, Ferneze abandons his religious morality (which he seems never really to have had) and uses Barabas’s own tactics against him. We might conclude with Levin, then, that ‘Morally, all of them operate on the same level, and that is precisely what Marlowe is pointing out.’ Every religious group is shown to be vicious and hypocritical, and various Christian doctrines come under attack, notably the idea that ‘Faith is not to be held with heretics,’ which Barabas himself uses against the Christians.

What’s most interesting, though, is that, whilst Marlowe was simply following theatrical clichés and contemporary bigotry when he presented Barabas in such a negative light, such an attack on Christians and Christian doctrine was rarely seen on stage. Perhaps this goes some way to reveal Marlowe’s own religious views. Indeed, as Paul H. Kocher suggests, Marlowe was ‘one of the most highly subjective playwrights of his age.’ Thus, the outright criticism of Christianity in The Jew of Malta may be suggestive. Moreover, Christianity is repeatedly questioned in Marlowe’s other works, notably Dr Faustus. Though the play is set within an undoubtedly Christian framework, and though Faustus is inevitably damned for his transgressions, we cannot help sympathising and even admiring his revolt against religion. We too desire to know the answer to eschatological questions like ‘who made the world’ and we too appreciate human beauty. Thus, the beautiful speeches Faustus gives cannot help inspiring our approbation. Indeed, Faustus’s paean to Helen (‘Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?’) is one of Marlowe’s most powerful speeches, urging us to appreciate the strength of Faustus’s emotions when he tells the spirit: ‘thou art fairer than the evening’s air.’ W.W Greg argues that, sharing Faustus’s aesthetic appreciation, we allow ourselves to sympathise with him. Moreover, the fact that Marlowe’s verse reaches its pinnacle during a description of Helen, a symbol of pagan Greece, is surely indicative of his own feelings.

We don’t have to look far to find proof of these doubtful feelings in Marlowe’s biography. As Kocher pointed out, criticism of religion (and Christianity specifically) seems to have been ‘the most absorbing interest of his life.’ The first hint that Marlowe may have had an aversion to Christianity came when, having studied at Cambridge under an Archbishop Parker scholarship, Marlowe did not take holy orders as expected. More convincing are the allegations of atheism that Marlowe received a few years after his death: Baines, Aldrich, Cholmley and others all accused Marlowe of similar crimes, largely revolving around the preaching of atheism and the jesting at religious scripture and doctrine. Marlowe, like Machiavelli of the prologue, seems to have seen religion as no more than a ‘childish toy’.

Hence, when Faustus says that ‘hell’s a fable’ we cannot help recall Baines’s statement that Marlowe ‘perswades men to Atheism willing them not to be afeard of bugbeares and hobgoblins.’ And when Tamburlaine briefly comments ‘The God that sits in heaven, if any god,’ (my italics) it’s hard not to attribute this doubt to Marlowe himself. After all, given that Marlowe never intended to write two parts to Tamburlaine’s story, it’s odd that Tamburlaine is not punished for his crimes and his blasphemous aspirations in Part 1, and it’s doubtful whether his death in Part 2 can be seen as retributive justice rather than the natural result of mortality. Despite killing thousands of innocents, no god punishes Tamburlaine, suggesting Marlowe’s doubts as to whether there is any god at all. Moreover, when Barabas jests at Christian doctrine and blasphemes against Christ (for example, by marking his hidden jewels with a cross), it cannot escape our notice that Marlowe probably made similar jests and blasphemous remarks during his own lifetime, and thus that Marlowe is, to some extent, talking through Barabas. I hope, then, that I have shown how Marlowe’s own doubts and possible atheism are demonstrated in his work. Given the corruption of the Catholic Church in the Early Modern period (Anthony Kenny described Pope Alexander VI as ‘the most villainous man ever to have occupied the Roman See’), and given the oppressive nature of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, it’s no wonder that an intellectual like Marlowe had difficulties in accepting Christianity. Like the characters he created, he struggled to see past the hypocrisy of churchmen, the contradictions in religious doctrine, and the restraints that Christianity (or indeed any religion) placed on its followers. 

The Reader-Speaker Relationship in Robert Browning's Dramatic Monologues

It was the criticism that Robert Browning’s early poems received, particularly Mill’s harsh remarks on Pauline, that encouraged Browning towards the form for which he is most famous, the so-called dramatic monologue. His early poems were largely denounced for being too confessional and revealing, and so he strove towards a form that would distance his personality from his verse – hence the disclaimer that his dramatic monologues were “so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine.” This style that Browning adopted, which stood in opposition to the Romantic lyric so prevalent in the early 19^th Century, shifted the focus of the reader’s interaction with the poem. Because Browning dissociates himself from so many of his speakers, the reader’s relationship with the poet becomes less important than the reader’s relationship with the speaker – the same can be said of Chaucer’s Tales. Though Browning is present in the dramatic monologues as creator, it is not so much his own mind that we interact with or judge – it is that of the ‘imaginary person’ his mind has conjured up. Indeed, our judgement of the speaker is central to the reading of a dramatic monologue, partly because of the repugnance of many of Browning’s speakers, and partly because of Browning’s use of dramatic irony (a central part of the post-Romantic movement). This irony stems not only from the differences between the speaker’s understanding and the reader’s understanding, but also from the recurrence of revelation, ignorance of the self, and casuistry, all of which make the reader-speaker relationship particularly worthy of note.

In Browning’s dramatic monologues, it is often the reader who seems to have the upper-hand in the reader-speaker relationship. To some extent, the reader understands the speaker more than the speaker understands themselves. This is most obvious in “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”, the title of which is in itself ironic – just as we might mistakenly expect a love song from Prufrock, so here we might expect a religious soliloquy of some sort, when really we get neither. Indeed, the supposedly religious speaker of Browning’s poem is so consumed by hatred that he seems to forget himself, cursing Brother Lawrence (“Hell dry you up with its flames!”) and calculating methods of securing his enemy’s damnation: he imagines he could “trip him just a-dying” to “send him flying / Off to hell…” The speaker even considers making a Faustian pact with Satan in order to damn Brother Lawrence. These curses and manipulative plans exemplify the poem’s central irony: that the speaker’s criticism of Brother Lawrence’s supposed flaws does nothing other than reveal the flaws of the speaker himself. He appeals to the minutiae of religious observance, attacking his enemy for drinking his “watered orange pulp… at one gulp” and for not crossing his knife and fork after dinner. But as the poem develops, we realise that though Brother Lawrence might not be as ostensibly formal in his piety, he is probably infinitely more pious than the speaker, who makes use of pagan curses (“Hy, Zy, Hine”) and who mixes up his prayer to Mary (“Plena gratia / Ave, Virgo!”), perhaps suggestive of his twisted mind state. Moreover, the speaker’s anger is in itself ironic, since one of the central tenets of his religion (which he does not seem to care about except on a superficial level) is that of Matthew, “Love your enemies”. Thus, the reader’s understanding of the speaker exceeds the speaker’s own – we see that it is he, not Brother Lawrence, who is worthy of criticism. In attempting to discredit his adversary, the speaker unknowingly damns himself.

“The Bishop Orders His Tomb” is another poem in which the reader sees what the speaker fails to see in himself. The Bishop is blind to his flaws, all of which are obvious to the reader. The Bishop’s most palpable weakness is his materialism (typical of the Renaissance, as Ruskin pointed out), particularly ironic for a religious man, whose focus should be on the spiritual. This materialism is evident in his wish for an elaborate tomb (he wants “nine columns” round him and a lump of lapis lazuli “Big as a jew’s head”), and also in his obsession with the sensual trappings of religion. His description of mass exemplifies this:

 “And hear the blessed murmur of the mass,

And see God made and eaten all day long,

And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste

Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke.”

Almost all of the senses are mentioned in this quotation, demonstrating the sensuality of the Bishop, amplified by the vividness of the final line, the first two spondaic feet reflecting the incense’s thickness. But the overt materialism of the speaker is not the central irony of the poem. Rather, it is the Bishop’s failure to realise his own powerlessness that most illuminates the reader-speaker relationship. As King argues, the irony comes from the juxtaposition of “his pride in the exercise of authority” and “the ineffectualness of his ‘order’.” Just as we know that the monk in the Spanish cloister is inevitably powerless to harm Brother Lawrence, so we know that the Bishop’s orders will never be fulfilled (something he realises in a moment of revelation towards the poem’s end – “Gritstone, a-crumble!”). We know, too, that his sons do not really love him, despite the Bishop’s self-deceptive claims (“Nay, boys, ye love me…”) In fact, it is clear to us that he is incapable of love – he is so egotistical that the words he uses most are “I” and “mine”, and the only reason he prizes his wife is that she made Gandolf envious. He can only exhibit love on a superficial level, by bequeathing wealth to his sons. What he does not realise, though, is that this is not real love, and that their refusal to build his elaborate tomb is not “ingratitude” at all.

In this sense, the reader has an advantage over the Bishop, not only because we recognise his flaws, but also because we can understand his sons’ reactions to their father’s vain request. The final irony, though, is even more poignant. Even though the poem ends with a supposed victory for the Bishop over Gandolf (“As still he envied me, so fair she was!”), the reader knows that Gandolf is now nothing more than dust, as the Bishop will soon become. Elaborate tombs cannot prevent the inevitability of death and, for the religious speaker, the imminence of God’s judgement. So, again, we seem to have the advantage over the speaker in this poem – we understand the meaning of the poem’s first line (“Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!”), the meaning of which the Bishop ironically fails to grasp. It’s interesting to note the frequency of religious hypocrisy in Browning’s speakers – Johannes Agricola is similarly vain. Browning was a Protestant, and he would have witnessed the 1830s Oxford Movement’s gravitation towards the more ritualized and sensuous worship of the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps this is what these poems are criticising by mocking the speakers’ materialism.

But there are also instances in Browning’s work where the speaker seems to have the upper hand on the reader. Though it might not be immediately apparent, “My Last Duchess” is a possible example of this. The common critical opinion of this poem is that the Duke accidentally reveals his flaws to the reader, and to some extent this is true – the reader gradually discovers the Duke’s delusional jealousy and his mercilessness to his last duchess. But, as Rader argues, these revelations actually seem calculated. After all, he has drawn back the curtain of the portrait specifically to show it to the envoy. Perhaps the Duke’s description of how his last Duchess was “too soon made glad” is a warning to the new Duchess that she must respect his “gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name”. But in warning the envoy rather than the new Duchess, the proud Duke has not had to “stoop” – it is a subtle warning. The subtlety is accentuated at the end of the poem when the Duke stops to show the envoy “Neptune… / Taming a sea horse”, suggesting that he has simply been exhibiting art rather than making threats. But the image of the strong God taming a sea horse also reinforces this idea of power – another warning, perhaps. Thus, though the elusive and yet threatening words, “I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together,” may seem like an accidental revelation of his evil deeds and of his jealousy, it is more likely that the Duke is in control – he knows exactly what he is doing. Thus, the reader-speaker relationship seems to have been reversed here so that, unlike in the two aforementioned poems, the reader must come to understand the speaker.

The same could be argued for “Porphyria’s Lover”. The words “And strangled her” come as a complete shock to the reader, made even more surprising by the contrastingly jolly rhymes of “wound” and “around”. Once we learn that the speaker has killed Porphyria, we are eager to understand his motive for doing so. Like the Duke, he killed her to overcome his jealousy and to preserve her love not just for “That moment”, but forever. He is clearly delusional: it is unlikely that Porphyria really was “Too weak” to overcome her pride (she went “through wind and rain” to him), and it is doubtful that she really “felt no pain”. And yet, despite this, the speaker’s words carry so much conviction (her “smiling rosy little head” is “So glad it has its utmost will,” he tells us) that we almost believe him. But then again his delusion prevents us from completely adopting his perspective, and so we are caught between understanding and judgement. Still, he knows exactly what his motives were in killing Porphyria, and as Langbaum argues, just as we are intrigued by the Duke’s conviction of superiority, so we are interested in the lover’s logic, even if it is pure casuistry. Thus, “Porphyria’s Lover” introduces the reader to another interesting dynamic of understanding. We know his jealousy is probably unfounded, and we know that he is ‘mad’ to some extent (though he is not mad in the sense of ‘other’, since we have all felt his emotions at some point). And yet, in the moment of the poem, the balance of power seems to be in the lover’s hands – he understands himself, while we do not, at least until he has revealed his motives. Both the lover and the Duke have got what they want, killing their lovers whilst preserving their beauty, and neither of them show any remorse. The difference between the Duke and Porphyria’s lover is that the Duke is probably aware of his sinfulness, whereas the lover is not – he thinks God condones his actions.

Thus, the role of revelation in the poems is always changing. In “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”, the monk only comes to realise his powerlessness at the end of the poem, a realisation perhaps suggested by his final futile outburst, “Gr-r-r – you swine!”. This is something the reader could guess before, but that the speaker gradually acknowledges. Conversely, it is the reader that must gradually acknowledge and understand the motives of the Duke and Porphyria’s lover – the speakers are aware of them all along. Arguably, this is what makes the Duke and Porphyria’s lover more interesting characters, not only because they are more threatening and less comic, but because, as Langbaum argues, we yearn to understand them, despite their flaws. Though we do not quite empathise with them, we enter the poem from their point of view, and so the form necessitates a will to apprehend in the reader. And so, it is clear that these ideas of knowledge and understanding, and indeed the fluctuation of understanding in those moments of revelation, are central to the development of Browning’s dramatic monologues. 

7 Great Poems Every Radical Should Know

This article was originally published on The Radical Tea Towel Company's blog: https://www.radicalteatowel.com/blog/7-poems-every-radical-know/

This selection of poems is by no means exhaustive. There are hundreds and hundreds of radical poems I could’ve included, but these are just a few of my favourites – I hope you’re inspired by them too!

1) Dulce et Decorum Est – Wilfred Owen

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/dulce-et-decorum-est

Though this poem has become an absolute classic over the years, its radical pacifist message shouldn’t be ignored. Indeed, few poems could be more relevant in today’s world. At this very moment, people’s lives are being ravaged and devastated by violence and war. Soldiers are killed and innocent civilians are slaughtered every day.

Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” is one of the few poems that truly encapsulates the real horrors of war. He begins with a description of soldiers marching through sludge until, nine lines in, the men are gassed and fumble about looking for their gas masks.

His carefully chosen words and ingenious use of rhythm bring to life the terror experienced by the men of the First World War. For example, his image of “someone still yelling out and stumbling, / And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…” is frighteningly vivid, testament to Owen’s skill as a writer and to the realism of his verse.

But Owen, having spent time in the trenches, realised that the realities of war are all too often ignored. Rather than focusing on the fearful nature of conflict and violence (evident in Owen’s description of blood “gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” and of “incurable sores on innocent tongues”), we tend to aestheticize and glorify the act of going to war.

We instil patriotic ardour into our people, and we present the death of young men as a sacrificial and heroic act. For Owen, though, war is not heroic, nor is it glorious. Indeed, it is precisely the opposite – a horrifying and terrible waste of young life.

So it is Owen’s own experiences of war that led him to see that Horace’s ode was wrong: it is not “Sweet and right to die for your country.” Rather, Horace’s aphorism is just an “old lie” perpetuated to accentuate the false necessity of war. That’s why this poem is so important for pacifists and radicals today.

2) Jerusalem (And did those feet in ancient time) – William Blake

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jerusalem/

This is yet another classic poem, and you may think it an odd choice. Before I actually began to concentrate on Blake’s words, I imagined this was simply some patriotic and nationalistic call to arms. But the poem is actually far more than that.

True, the poem is certainly a rallying call to the people of England. But when Blake exclaims that ‘his sword will not sleep in his hand’ and that he will not ‘cease from Mental Fight’, rather than advocating war or imperialism, Blake is actually imploring us to devote ourselves to the improvement of our country. He hopes that we might turn England from the land of ‘Dark Satanic Mills’ into the New Jerusalem, a socialist utopia.

This may seem somewhat far-fetched, but if you look at some of Blake’s other poems, his progressive and liberal values become clear. For example, his poem ‘London’  (another great poem for radicals) depicts the bleak and wretched lives of the poor – hence he describes the “chimney-sweeper’s cry” and the “hapless soldier’s sigh”.

It’s clear, then, that Blake had quite radical sympathies for those living in poverty. Thus, it can be inferred that, when he dreamt of the ‘New Jerusalem’, he probably envisioned a land of equality and affluence, not plagued by capitalism or neo-liberalism.

So, to me the poem seems to express the hope that an anti-establishment, socialist movement might be created to bring about real change in England’s “green and pleasant land.” What could possibly be more radical?

3) The Masque of Anarchy – Percy Bysshe Shelley

http://poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Shelley/the_mask_of_anarchy.htm

Shelley wrote this poem in 1819, the year of the Peterloo massacre, when a group of peaceful protesters were charged down by cavalry in St Peter’s Field, Manchester. They were demanding the reform of parliamentary representation – back then, the ‘democratic’ system was fundamentally undemocratic, with only a handful of men being able to vote.

In the poem, Shelley describes the rule of Murder, Fraud, Hypocrisy, Destruction, and finally, Anarchy – all of these represent the false authorities of “God, and King, and Law”. Shelley, seeing this injustice, beseeches the people of England to recognise the wrongs in their society and to act upon them:

“Rise, like lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number!

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you:

Ye are many—they are few!"

He lists the inequalities of life, the struggles of hunger, low pay, and slavery, and calls all the people of England together from their “daily strife” and their “woes untold”. Spurred on by a vision of Hope, they must refuse to succumb to the injustice of these authorities. But Shelley urges against vengefulness and violence. Rather, the people of England must form a “great assembly… of the fearless, of the free” and engage in non-violent protest, despite the bloodthirsty actions of their oppressors.

Once they have united, they must “Declare with measured words” that they are free. And even if some are killed by tyrannous authorities (as in the Peterloo Massacre), they will act as a source of inspiration to all who came after. They must demand their freedom, and they must demand change, says Shelley, but without becoming violent tyrants themselves.

This poem was one of the first ever arguments in favour of non-violent action, and it was often quoted by Gandhi during his campaign for a free India. This alone shows what a great radical poem it is, one that inspires us to change the world we live in for the better.  

4) The New Colossus – Emma Lazarus

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46550

This poem, part of which is etched onto the base of the Statue of Liberty, has a beautiful message of love, compassion, and warmth.

Emma Lazarus describes how the statue shall stand as a “Mother of Exiles” with a beacon glowing “world-wide welcome,” and shall cry with silent lips the poignant and moving words:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

This message of sympathy and hospitality is one that all progressives can share. Indeed, the poem is particularly pertinent today in light of the current refugee crisis and the huge swathes of people currently travelling across land and sea to escape war. If anyone, it is those people that should be welcomed with open arms.

5) Still I Rise – Maya Angelou

http://poemhunter.com/poem/still-i-rise/

This poem, like no other, seems to encapsulate the opposing forces of struggle and perseverance, suffering and hope. This dichotomy is clear from the very start of the poem with the lines: “You may trod me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I’ll rise”.

Angelou, as a black woman living in the USA, has suffered from persecution and mockery (“You may shoot me with your words, / You may cut me with your eyes, / You may kill me with your hatefulness”), but she refuses to let that hold her back: still, she will rise. She refuses to give up her supposed “haughtiness” and “sexiness” – in fact, she revels in it, acting as if she had a gold mine in her back yard and diamonds between her thighs. She rejects stereotyping, and she refuses to be restrained.

She refuses, too, to be held back by the suffering of her ancestors and their pasts. Thus, “Out of the huts of history’s shame” and “Up from the past that’s rooted in pain” she rises. She turns that struggle into ambition and optimism, a resolution expressed in one of the poem’s most inspiring lines: “I am the dream of the hope of the slave.” In these words, she conveys the determination and hopefulness of all those who have been tormented and anguished, and this is what makes her message into such a great radical, hopeful poem.

6) Mushrooms – Sylvia Plath

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/sylviaplath/1415

This poem is slightly less well known, but likewise inspiring and encouraging in its hopefulness. What Plath is actually talking about is hard to define, but its clear that the poem is about a movement of some sort, perhaps feminism, that is fighting against persecution and tyranny.

Like the mushrooms, those who partake in this movement fight for freedom, quietly acquiring the air, heaving the needles and the pavement above them, a metaphor for their oppressors. The freedom-fighters have struggled (they “Diet on water, / On crumbs of shadow, / Bland-mannered, asking / Little or nothing”) but still there are so many of them, and their struggling will not have been in vain.

Indeed, one day they will succeed: they are “nudgers and shovers” who will multiply and, one day, “Inherit the earth”. If this poem is about the plight of women and their struggle for emancipation, then Plath is attempting to incite a silent revolution amongst the women of the world. She hopes that one day, women will no longer be seen as “meek” and even “edible” but will in fact be equal to their male counterparts. In this sense, the poem is yet another radical and inspiring call to arms.

7) The Man With the Hoe – Edwin Markham

http://www.poetry-archive.com/m/the_man_with_the_hoe.html

This poem was originally inspired by Millet’s famous painting, “L’Homme a la houe”, but the poem is now just as famous as Millet’s work. Socialist and compassionate in its themes, the poem depicts a haggard man working in the fields with the “burden of the world” on his shoulders. He suffers despair and he never has any source of hope, working as he does all day in the fields.

Markham questions and laments the injustice of this way of life, and argues that this image demonstrates “the world’s blind greed” that has led to such inequalities and inhumanity. Humanity itself, he says, has been betrayed.

In the final two stanzas, Markham questions the “masters, lords and rulers in all lands” and asks them how they will “Make right the immemorial infamies, / Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes” that have led to this man’s suffering and poverty. He asks, too, how the human race will be judged in light of these inequities.

Though this poem seems bleak, it can also be read as another source of inspiration. We, the people of the world, can change things. We can end the inequality that blights so many lives. We can bring about the “whirlwinds of rebellion” of which Markham speaks!

"The Garden of Love" - A Brief Analysis of Blake's Poem

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And Thou shalt not, writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore. 

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

I can’t quite put my finger on what makes this poem so wonderful. My grandmother, a rebelling ex-Catholic, used to read it to my mother when she was a child, and my mother subsequently read it to me as I was growing up. I suppose that’s why this poem has stuck with me for such a long time – I have a personal connection to it. Hopefully, though, I can try to explain my affection for it in more objective terms.

Clearly, the poem is about Blake’s struggles with religion, particularly the stringent rules of the orthodox Anglican Church. But it’s also about the change he himself has gone through in his movement from “innocence” to “experience” as expressed in the titles of his books (Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience).

Hence, with experience, he sees what he “never had seen” – the harsh rigidity of church authority. Where previously he could “play on the green” (recalling the themes of innocent freedom in his earlier poem “The Echoing Green”), there is now a threatening Chapel with shut gates and with “Thou shalt not, writ over the door…”

Likewise, graves and tombstones now stand “where flowers should be.” In Blake’s mind, the church has destroyed everything good in the world – the freedom of childhood, the freshness of the natural world, and, inevitably, the beauty of love. These are things he could enjoy in his childhood innocence, but now that he has matured, his freedom has been torn from him.

There’s a strong sense of nostalgia that lingers throughout the poem, mostly because of the contrasts between the present and the past – the chapel contrasted with green grass, and graves contrasted with flowers. But this nostalgia is also created, perhaps, by the buoyant anapestic trimiter (“A Chapel was built in the midst,” – “Du-dum du-du-dum du-du-dum”). This metre shares the rapid and somewhat cheerful sound of the dactyl, perhaps signifying Blake’s attempts to recall his past innocence and exuberance.

And yet, the rhyme scheme may imply that Blake’s yearning for his past will never be fulfilled, just as the rhyme scheme is never fully fulfilled: only two lines per stanza rhyme, and the rhyme scheme collapses completely in the final stanza. Likewise, the metre changes in the last two lines, moving to an anapestic tetrameter. This symbolizes two things: the failure to recall past innocence (reflected in the return to a slower, less lighthearted metre), and the change that has taken place in the Garden itself. It’s this metrical variation in the poem that I find so exciting.

Thus, the green of the garden has been replaced by the “black gowns” of the priests. Here we recall Blake’s words in his poem “London” where he says that “Every blackening church appals” (my italics). In his mind, the Church brings decay and sadness to all that we should champion. Therefore, the priests are seen “binding with briars” Blake’s “joys and desires”.

So, in his experience, Blake realizes the austere control placed on people by the Church and, as a non-conformist, he rallies against this. Blake may also be attacking a new chapel that was built in Lambeth near his home at the time. It was built by subscription, meaning that parishioners paid for their pews, and Blake was appalled by this. Like Chaucer, he hated the idea that those who could not pay would be excluded from eternal life with God – “the gates of this Chapel were shut”.

Blake takes arms against the authoritarian nature of the Church and the fact that it consumes all goodness in the world. Although he was technically a Christian, he hated the Church for its attempts to suppress sexuality and desire, both of which he saw as central to the human condition. So, in “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” he writes: “Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. / He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.”

“The Garden of Love” is, in many ways, representative of Blake’s rebellious spirit, evident in both his mythological artwork and his more avant-garde poetry. I suppose that is really what I love about this poem, and I guess that’s why it was adored by my mother and my grandmother before her. Blake, as a Romantic poet, was ahead of his time, forever a champion of equality and freedom. For that, at least, he should be remembered.

"When I heard the learn'd astronomer" - A Brief Analysis of Whitman's Poem

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

“When I heard the learn’d astronomer” is one of Walt Whitman’s most famous works, not least because it featured in an episode of the hit TV show Breaking Bad. In my mind, the poem is a yet another lyrical representation of Wordsworth’s famous aphorism, “We murder to dissect” (The Tables Turned). Just as Wordsworth calls us to close the “barren leaves” of scientific study, so Whitman urges us to appreciate the natural world for what it is.

But what is it that makes this such a powerful poem? How does Whitman reinforce the potency of his plea? Well, the answer is: contrast. The entire premise of the poem is built upon the distinction between science and the natural world. Hence, the poem begins in a lecture-hall with a “learn’d astronomer” presumably talking about constellations and planetary systems. Notice how jarring the first five lines are: there’s no constant metre, and line four goes on for so long we almost have to pause for breathe. There’s a certain irony in this first section in that the “charts and diagrams” which aim to give order to nature end up as a jumbled, jolting selection of words.

It is these “proofs” and “figures” that make Whitman “tired and sick” because they try to represent nature falsely and because they fail to clarify its many complexities. They ignore nature's wholesome beauty, and focus too much on its details. Whitman, having left, can escape this false representation of the natural world to enjoy nature’s reality, “the mystical moist night-air” and “the perfect silence of the stars”. These descriptions undeniably recall the lyrical beauty of Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” or Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight”.

This is where the contrast comes in. Rather like a sonnet, this poem has a volta (or turn) after the fifth line. The mood of the poem changes dramatically with Whitman’s rhyming echoes “rising and gliding out”, banishing the previous jarring tone and beckoning in a new, more elegant and graceful mood. This is suggested also by the ballerina-esque movements of "rising and gliding" - the words, like Whitman, rise and glide gracefully. These ideas are reinforced in the echoes of “m” and “st” sounds in the two words “mystical moist,” and then finally by the almost perfect iambic pentameter of the poem’s last line: “Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.” This fluency of rhythm, when contrasted with the previous jolting pulse, reflects Whitman’s belief in the incomparable beauty of the natural world.

There are other contrasts, too, in the ideas of noise and solitude. Whereas before he sits amongst academics in a busy lecture-hall, he later goes outside by himself to judge the magnificence of the stars for himself – he, unlike most people, finds no beauty in facts and figures. And whilst previously his ears rung with “much applause in the lecture-hall,” outside he can stand “in perfect silence.” These contrasts exemplify the peacefulness of the natural world, uncorrupted and undissected by scientists and their calculations. This is what the Romantic poets adored: the freedom, solitude and tranquility of nature, unperturbed by the cruelties of human nature. This, in essence, is what Whitman illustrates, and thus glorifies.

Is Emma Woodhouse a likeable heroine?

Austen once famously remarked that Emma is “a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like,” and her rationale for saying this is obvious: unlike Fanny Price or Anne Elliot, Emma is not a particularly admirable character. Indeed, many of the novel’s greatest disasters (Box Hill, for instance) or near-disasters (Harriet’s near damnation to the fate of being “an old maid at last, like Miss Bates”) are caused by Emma and her famous lack of judgement. Emma, despite being clever, is, in the words of Claire Tomalin, “consistently wrong”. Moreover, she is an arrogant heroine, particularly when it comes to her obsession with class and hierarchy. And yet, despite her flaws, there is a certain appeal and allure in Emma that is perhaps lacking in the somewhat bland Fanny Price. We are attracted to Emma’s desire for excitement and her undeniable charm, and thus, though Emma is not a particularly admirable character, she is certainly a likeable protagonist.

One of Emma’s least attractive traits is her obsession with class, which comes across on a number of occasions in the novel but particularly in her attitudes to Miss Bates and the Coles. Austen emphasises the extreme differences in Emma and Miss Bates’s situation: Emma is “handsome, clever, and rich with a comfortable home,” whilst Miss Bates is “neither young, handsome, rich,” with “no intellectual superiority” and living “in a very small way.” Indeed, it is worth noting that Austen herself was very much like Miss Bates: a relatively poor spinster living on the benevolence of her brother Edward Knight with her mother (as Miss Bates does) and sister Cassandra. Austen’s arguable similarity to Miss Bates perhaps explains Austen’s pity for Miss Bates in Emma’s arrogance (Emma “seldom went near them” because she was afraid of “falling in with the second rate and third rate of Highbury”) and lack of concern (she does not contribute “what she ought” to their comfort), despite the fact that, when Emma does visit, she is “most cordially and even gratefully welcomed.” Emma’s attitude to Miss Bates, the novel’s moral compass, determines our opinion of her, and can be contrasted to Mr Knightley’s benevolence and care towards the Bateses (giving the rest of his apples and lending his carriage). Emma’s attitude towards the Coles is similarly unattractive (and also rather comic): she at first refuses to go to their party because they are “only moderately genteel” (not a “superior family”), preferring to remain in “solitary grandeur”. Again, this is another unattractive perspective on Emma.

Emma also shows her arrogance when it comes to her confidence in her own flawed judgement, which leads her to persuade Harriet to reject Robert Martin and to fall in love with Elton, who “never thought of Miss Smith” in the whole course of his existence. Emma mistakes Elton’s false and excessive gallantry regarding the painting and his charade to be directed at Harriet, when really it was directed at her (despite John’s warning her that Elton has “a great deal of good will” towards her). Emma mocks Martin’s proposal of marriage, despite the fact that he “expressed good sense” and rented “a very large farm” (with espalier apple-trees, indicating wealth), because he is a farmer and “must be coarse and unpolished”. This generalisation is also seen in her attitude to the poor family she visits, who must have no “extraordinary virtue” because of their poverty. Again, we see here Emma’s obsession with class, in this instance exacerbated by her lack of judgement.

However, there are a number of reasons that the reader cannot help liking Emma. Firstly, Austen’s use of free indirect discourse forces us to see the happenings of the novel largely from Emma’s own perspective, encouraging us to sympathise with her. As Gard argues, it is free indirect discourse that makes us pity Emma after Box Hill when Austen writes: “How could she have been so brutal, so cruel to Miss Bates?” Thus, the reader forms a connection with Emma, making it almost impossible to dislike her, though we are still more than aware of her faults. Moreover, this free indirect discourse means that, on first reading the novel, very many readers suffer the same ignorance and lack of judgment that Emma does: we may not notice that Mr Elton’s gallantry is in fact directed towards Emma, and we may not realise that Jane and Frank are engaged, although Mr Knightley does suspect Frank of “some indication to trifle with Jane.” Thus, we cannot help pitying Emma and sympathising with her mistakes.

We also pity Emma because she does, in fact, change throughout the novel, and thus the novel can be read as a so-called Bildungsroman. With the help of Mr Knightley, Emma learns to treat others less as objects and generalizations (she begins wanting to befriend Harriet because she will find her “useful”) and more as people (at the end “She wanted to be of use” to Jane, offering her carriage). This development breaks down the reader’s moral distance from Emma, allowing us to warm to her and pity her in her lamentations: “I seem to have been doomed to blindness.” Indeed, she changes her bigoted opinion of Mr Martin completely, telling Knightley “at that time I was a fool” and the narrator says: “It would be a great pleasure to know Robert Martin.” And though it is possible to argue that Emma’s acceptance that her and Harriet’s “intimacy must sink” shows how she is still obsessed with hierarchy, this is perhaps more because Emma and Harriet never were good friends for one another: Knightley was right when he noted that Harriet’s “ignorance is hourly flattery.” Emma also makes amends with Miss Bates, and Austen uses the words “repentance” and “contrition” to emphasise Emma’s moral change. Thus, Emma’s change makes her a more likeable character.

Emma is also not, in fact, an ill-natured person: her mistakes are not caused by malice or cruelty, but by boredom. Her sense of the superiority of her own judgement can in a large sense be put down to the fact that she was, from a young age, “directed chiefly by her own” and was mistress of her house in a town that “afforded her no equals” (though this is not exactly true). Thus, Emma is not entirely to blame, just as Lydia is not entirely to blame for Mr and Mrs Bennett’s bad parenting that leads to her moral transgressions. It is the dullness of Emma’s society and life (she has never been to the sea or to Box Hill, despite its proximity, and her father “was unfit for any acquaintance”) that causes her greatest mistakes, particularly her venturing into match-making and her role as an imaginist.

Moreover, Emma is inherently a good person, as the narrator observes: “There were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her.” For every section devoted to her mischief, Booth argues, “there is a section devoted to her self-reproach,” and it is this that makes Emma such a relatable figure. Despite her relapse (when she considers, after her resolve not to matchmake, whether Harriet could marry one of the Coxes or later Frank Churchill), she eventually learns the dangers of her meddling through her constant cycles of mistake and repentance. Thus, Emma’s unattractive qualities and actions, Box Hill for example, can be put down to her boredom rather than a purposeful cruelty. Unlike Mr and Mrs Elton at the ball, Emma does not purposefully harm anybody, and she always repents her mistakes.

Thus, it is clear that though Emma is a flawed heroine, she is still a likeable one. Austen is often seen as an anti-Jacobin, neo-Classical or Augustan writer, rejecting the obsession with the imagination and fancy that became prominent in the Romantic period. This is most evident in her two novels “Northanger Abbey” and “Sense and Sensibility”, and it is also evident in “Emma” as the heroine gradually realises she must submit to a “subjection of the fancy to the understanding.” Nonetheless, the reality is that Emma’s great attraction lies in her imagination and her “desire to make life vivid” (Morgan). As Gard argues, “she is the victim of her marvellous ideas,” marvellous because of their attempts to enliven a rather dull life. It is Emma’s emphasis on the imagination that, though it leads her astray, we so admire and love. Indeed, we applaud Knightley when he allows for “the momentary conquest of eagerness over judgment,” showing that Emma’s exciting attributes and charm have influenced Knightley (he remarks that he, too, has changed). This exciting charm and obsession with the imagination leads Knightley, and indeed the reader, to view Emma as “the sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults.” Emma’s sin is, as Lionel Trilling observes, the poet’s sin, and it is this that makes her such a likeable heroine.

Is Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls” a feminist, socialist drama?

What differentiates Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls” from many other feminist dramas is that, not only does it criticise the cruelties of patriarchy, it also points out the flaws of feminism and the dangers of what is known as intra-sexual oppression. “Top Girls” is a feminist play – Churchill once wrote that “what I feel is quite strongly a feminist position, and that inevitably comes into what I write.” However, it is not unequivocally so, since the play also dwells on the unattractive aspects of modern, radical, and capitalist feminism. “Top Girls” was influenced by Thatcher’s coming to power (a figure who embodies this capitalist feminism) and by Churchill’s trip to America touring her play “Vinegar Tom”. In America, she came across a type of feminism much more associated with business and success within capitalist structures, rather than the more traditional, socialist feminism she was used to. It is this capitalist approach to female emancipation that Churchill criticises, and in this sense it is a feminist, socialist drama.

The first act of the play begins as a celebration of female success and of Marlene’s recent appointment as Managing Director. However, this celebration swiftly transmogrifies into a chaotic scene of female suffering. Although we applaud the feminist attitudes held by these women, seen in Nijo’s questioning of male power (“Priests were often vagrants, so why not a nun?”) and Joan’s expression of female achievement (“I never obeyed anyone. They all obeyed me…”), these attitudes are soon proven to be somewhat ironic. These women, though they have achieved success, are all undeniably conditioned by society. This explains Isabella’s feelings of guilt (“Whenever I came back to England I felt I had so much to atone for,”) and Nijo’s blaming of herself for the flaws and cruelties of society: “The first half of my life was all sin and the second all repentance.” These feelings of guilt demonstrate the fact that these women still believe that male power is a part of the order of nature, thus making their success somewhat sardonic.

This is not to trivialise the success of these women: Joan became Pope and Isabella was asked to join the National Geographical Society. What it does show, however, is how these women have been conditioned. This is also seen in their responses to their own suffering: Joan describes her death with particularly bland language (“They took me by the feet and dragged me out of town and stoned me to death”), perhaps suggesting that she feels she deserved to die. After all, Joan does refer to herself as a “heresy”, reinforcing this idea of self-blame. It is these feelings that make these women ignorant of their own incredible suffering, epitomised by Nijo’s response to Marlene’s questioning her experience of rape: “I belonged to him. It was what I was brought up for from a baby.” It is not until they hear of Griselda’s immense ordeals and they are spurred on by Marlene that they really comprehend the extent to which they suffered, epitomised in Marlene’s words: “O God, why are we all so miserable?”

The chaos of the scene’s end, as all the women describe their singular acts of triumph (even Griselda begins to challenge patriarchy), undercuts the previous sense of celebration In the act, with Joan crying and being sick in the corner. Thus, it is clear that Act 1, rather than simply focusing on the success of these women, demonstrates the ways in which women have been conditioned by society (as seen in Nijo’s obsession with clothes) and the ways in which they have suffered, epitomised by Griselda’s stoic submissiveness. Thus, Act 1 is the act that introduces and develops the theme of feminism through encouraging pity for the plight of women throughout history.

Act 2, on the other hand, presents us with a very different image, emphasising the brutality of modern feminism and so-called “yuppie” culture. It seems that the women of Act 2, particularly Nell and Marlene, have adopted typically negative male stereotypes of drinking and promiscuity in order to gain power. For example, Nell celebrates the fact that she has slept with two men over the weekend (“One Friday, one Saturday”), a story to which Win, in a typically macho-man style, responds, “Aye Aye.” This belligerence is also seen in the women’s reaction to the news about Howard: Marlene calls him a “Poor sod” and Nell brutally remarks: “Lucky he didn’t get the job if that’s what his health’s like.” These ideas of cruelty are also seen in the way in which Nell and Marlene seem to oppress other women. Marlene is brutal in her interview with Jeanine (she tells her that advertisement agencies are “looking for something glossier”), who ends the interview as a feeble wreck with the unconvincing words, “Yes, all right.”

Nell’s interview with Shona is similarly telling. Nell and Win both celebrate “Tough birds” like them, and Nell warms to Shona because she sees her as driven and successful, particularly when she says: “I never consider people’s feelings.” However, when Nell realises that Shona is lying about her identity and qualifications, she at once holds back any assistance she might be able to give her. This demonstrates the biggest problems with modern feminism and intra-sexual oppression: these women are prepared to help other “Tough birds”, but they will not lend a helping hand to those who need it most, those who, as Marlene says, have not “got what it takes.” This is perhaps most clear in Marlene’s cruel (though somewhat understandable) reaction to Mrs Kidd: rather than helping Mrs Kidd and comforting her in her realisation that her own life relies on the success of her husband, Marlene simply tells her to “Piss off”. Though Win is not quite as cruel as the others (she shows sympathy for Angie and Louise), the overwhelming sense of Act 2 is one of a lack of concern for the plight of other women, and thus Churchill criticises capitalist feminism. This is an idea also glimpsed at in Act 1 in the overlapping dialogue (showing a disinterest, perhaps, in the problems of others) and in the silence of the waitress. This implies that, throughout history, many women have been reluctant to help their female counterparts. Though there are moments of collective triumph in Act 1 (in Nijo and Gret’s stories), the self-obsession of these women demonstrates the need for a more socialist approach to feminism.

By placing the Angie and Kit scene before the office scene, Churchill ensures that Act 2 does not appear to celebrate the structures of capitalism. Moreover, the placement of the scene creates an ironic juxtaposition between Angie’s dismal circumstances (her garden has “a shelter made of junk”) and the cold glamour of the office scenes. This juxtaposition lingers until Marlene’s final words of the Act: “She’s not going to make it.” The futile and dreary depiction of Angie’s life (she is forced to invent tales of ghosts and vampires in order to add excitement to her life), along with the hopeless desire of Angie to escape (“If I don’t get away from here I’m going to die”) makes Marlene’s condemnation of Angie as a “Packer in Tesco” even more poignant and harsh. The inability of Marlene to recognise her daughter (“Have you an appointment?” she asks), along with Angie’s struggle to communicate with Mrs Kidd (Angie answers the wrong question) emphasise the brutality of Marlene’s abandoning of her child. Indeed, Marlene’s decision to abandon her daughter has created an irreversible rift between the two, a rift that is obvious through an analysis of vocabulary in particular. Marlene has had to reject a family life in order to succeed, and the image presented of Angie in Act 2 encourages us to dislike Marlene’s decision. In fact, Churchill commented that she “did want people to feel that Marlene was wrong… in rejecting Angie,” and thus Churchill criticizes the lack of humanity in capitalist feminism, since it necessitates the abandonment of an inherent maternal instinct.

It is in Act 3 that Churchill really drives home this feminist, socialist message. In the denouement, Churchill confronts two completely polarized political beliefs through the two sisters: Marlene believes “in the individual” and Thatcherism, whereas Joyce is a socialist who spits when she sees a Rolls Royce. The dismal circumstances of Angie and Joyce’s lifestyle (Joyce can only offer Marlene an egg) demonstrate once again the cruelty of Marlene’s attitude, an attitude summarized in her rejection of the working class as “lazy and stupid”. Marlene then goes on to defend Angie, telling Joyce “You run her down too much”, even though a year later she tells Win that Angie is “not going to make it”. The overwhelming sense of Act 3 is that it highlights the cruelty of Marlene: she has rejected her sister and her daughter for six years, and she tells Joyce she should not bother visiting her elderly mother. And although Joyce is not a perfect role model (Churchill herself said she was “limited and bad-tempered” as seen in her calling Angie a “fucking rotten little cunt”) she is certainly more humane than Marlene, as when she says: “Or what? Have her put in a home? Have some stranger take her would you rather?” Thus, though Joyce is not perfect, what Act 3 demonstrates is that the loss of humanity necessitated by success in a capitalist world is crippling and uncaring for other women.

What Churchill seems to advocate in this play is a collective, socialist form of feminism: she celebrates Marlene’s ambition, whilst also celebrating Joyce’s humanity and kindness. Likewise, she condemns the cruelties of Nell and Marlene, whilst also condemning Joyce’s inertia (though Joyce does at least go to evening classes and works four jobs). The real sadness of the play is that Marlene is prepared to subject her own daughter to the very life she herself desired to escape. It is this self-centred approach that Churchill condemns. Indeed, Roberts noted: ““Top Girls” states unequivocally that success within a system that ignores humanity must necessitate an analysis of motive and achievement.” If feminism, and indeed society itself, does not change its approach to female emancipation and the female predicament, then the future really will be “Frightening…” A collective, socialist feminism is, for Churchill, the way forward to a brighter, more equal future.