English Advanced Texts in Time Task
(Music plays as host enters stage. Audience stands in applause)
(Host takes a seat on the lounge)
Wilson Paddington: Good evening literary world, and what a splendid morning it is! This morning on Revisiting the
Classics we have a very important guest in our presence, none other than Professor Ted Parker from Michigan State
University, expert in literary analysis. This morning Ted Parker will be answering some of my pre prepared questions on
the exhibition of changing context through ‘The Great Gatsby’ and Elizabeth Barrett Bowning’s ‘Sonnets from the
Portuguese’- two of Mr Parkers favourites. Please make Ted feel welcome.
(Ted Parker enters stage from right)
WP: Good morning Ted, thank you for joining us on the show today! What attracted you to the literary profession?
TP: When I was a lot younger I developed an obsession with time. As a student of philosophy I became fascinated with
the idea that time is omnipresent and inescapable. Texts always reflect the underlying values and attitudes of the context
in which they are composed and this is of course, because as humans we cannot exist outside of this linear progression.
The progression of time is just as sure as death and as inevitable as taxes.
(Audience laughs)
TP: Many famous thinkers have had much to say on this concept, one of my favourite remarks being that of Charles
Dicken, “Old time, that greatest and longest established spinner of all! His work is noiseless and his hands are mute.” No
matter the pursuit of the individual, all efforts to reclaim the past and turn back the clock are idle as time stops for no one;
it works silently and often goes undetected. As my thought progressed I became interested in the social application of this
idea and how context is exhibited through texts, in other words how texts reflect the linear progression of time. In
particular I became interested in how texts exhibit changing societal attitudes towards the enduring themes of love, hope
and mortality.
WP: Yes, I quite agree. Often men believe that they are simply killing time, when in reality it is in fact time who is killing
them. The inevitability of time is quite closely related to the inevitability of death wouldn’t you agree, Ted? EBB’s
‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’, written in 1845, reflects the Victorian epoch in which they were composed. In Victorian
times death was familiar and of common occurrence. Mortality was associated with religion, and death was seen as a
return to the maker. Because of this, mortality became an accepted part of Victorian Society. EBB communicates this
context quite appropriately in her poems, does she not?
TP: EBB’s sonnets most certainly reflect the Victorian times in which they were composed with their depiction of death
as an immutable everyday experience. EBB’s first sonnet reflects on Theocritus who sings about love as she considers her
own unhappy, invalid existence. The poem contains ample references to the dominant role of mortality in Victorian
society. For one, death is personified, a reflection of Victorian domestication of death. The volte brings swift movement
and energy to the sonnet as death comes to life in the form of “a shadow across me”. The “mystic shape did move” as it
draws EBB “backward by the hair”. Death is so prominent in Victorian society that he is even given a voice, a privilege
most women weren’t even allowed. He whispers, “Guess who holds thee” as he exerts “mastery” over the idealised image
of the weak Victorian woman. Through the personification of death EBB expresses the presiding role of mortality in
Victorian society and reflects the attitude towards death that it is simply an awaited expectation.
WP: Its often hard for a 21st century audience to understand how death could be seen as such a welcomed, almost friendly
experience. The inseparability of death and religion meant that to die was seen as an escape from a fallen world. EBB’s
22nd sonnet is vivid with religious imagery reflecting the spirituality of Victorian society. Being firm believers in the
Christian faith meant that Victorians had nothing to fear with the concept of death as they saw it as a return to their
maker.
TP: Yes, sonnet 22 tells the story of two souls, “standing erect and strong” religious imagery in itself. EBB characterises
her lovers as two Pre-Raphaelite angels, standing with “lengthening wings”. Any touch of passion throughout the poem is
instantly tempered with the pure spirituality of words such as “aspire”, “pure spirits”, “angels” and “perfect”. Such
enforcement of religious allusion reminds a 21st century responder that mortality was able to become so accepted and
almost elevated in Victorian society because of the sound Christian doctrines that society itself was founded upon.
WP: I can see how the prospect of death would seem less daunting in a religious society such as the Victorian era but we
all know that over time, societal values and attitudes change. With that in mind, I can imagine the great pain the prospect
of mortality would have brought to an early 20th century society, such as Jazz Age America, which had no religious
structures in place to soften the blow of death. To further worsen the blow, the American Jazz Age was built on the very
foundations of death. Society as it was once known had been destroyed by the violent event of World War 1. An entire
generation of women were left without men as death so remarkably left its scar on American society. F. Scott Fitzgerald
being an American citizen of the Jazz Age felt this same disillusionment with the prospect of death. A prevalent loss of
faith across America meant that death was no longer the friendly experience it was presented as in EBB’s sonnets. Yet the
tragic irony of it all was that death in the Jazz Age, in the wake of industrial and economic victories such as the invention
of the motor vehicle, remained the immutable, all encompassing, inescapable commodity it was in the Victorian era. The
Great Gatsby is composed in that era, how then does his text reflects this change in attitudes towards death.
TP: When I was young my mother used to read me a story called, “Tell me a Riddle” in which the protagonist remarked,
“The clock talked loud. I threw it away. It scared me what it talked”. To this day I have not found a quote, which better
sums up the Gatsby’s obsession with time. As Tony Tanner states, “Gatsby’s concern with time; its arrestability,
recuperability, repeatability is obsessive”. Gatsby is obsessed with time throughout the novel because he is attempting to
regain the false promise of the past. He pours all his energies and time into the relentless pursuit of his one true love,
Daisy Buchannan. When asked “whose house” the party was being held at today (a reflection of Jazz age indulgence in
itself), a bystander replies that it is being held at “Trimalchio’s, a very rich man, who has a clock and a uniformed
trumpeter in his dining room to keep telling him how much of his life is lost and gone”. Gatsby tries to beat time and
cheat death, but ultimately it is time which kills Gatsby. Gatsby has but one physically clumsy moment throughout the
novel, and it is ironic that this clumsy moment involves a clock, almost causing the destruction of time. As he lent his
face against the “defunct mantelpiece clock it tilt(ed) dangerously at the pressure of his head”. Only for Gatsby then to
“catch it with trembling fingers”. In many ways Gatsby would have been euphoric with the prospect of breaking the clock
and ‘stopping time’, but through his conscious choice to catch the clock and prevent its destruction, Gatsby causes his
own downfall. This seemingly small occurrence foreshadows Gatsby’s later decision to protect Daisy from blame for the
vehicle accident, by doing so inviting his own downfall and ultimate death. The Intertextual reference to the well-known
figure of medieval indulgence reinforces the idea that Gatsby is pre occupied with the Trimalchian fear of transience and
the inevitability of death.
WP: Kevin Rayburn once remarked that Jazz Age America, for better of worse, created the model of society the whole
world follows today. With that in mind, Ted, consider the underlying fear of death still alive and well in our very own
society. Mortality and time are inseparably. So furthermore, if, as Delmore Schwartz expresses, “Time is the fire in which
we burn” individuals must strategically choose what they are to spend their remaining time pursuing. Both Jay Gatsby
and EBB choose love. However, EBB is successful in this pursuit whereas Gatsby runs out of time and reaches death
before his love is accomplished. EBB’s 27th sonnet reflects the idealism and purity of Victorian love. The spirituality that
was very much apart of Victorian society is again evident throughout this sonnet, elevating EBB’s love to a celestial
level.
TP: Yes, this is one of EBB’s most well known Sonnet’s as it epitomises they idyllic expression of love in Victorian
society. In the opening lines, EBB speaks of counting the ways she loves Robert Browning, however, employment of
hyperbolic metaphors suggests that her love is inexpressible, “I love thee to the depth, breadth and height/ My soul can
reach”. This hyperbole reflects the celebration of immeasurable love in Victorian society. The religious imagery
throughout the petrarchan sonnet again expresses the purity of Victorian love, she speaks of purity, “Grace”, “soul(s)”,
“faith”, “saints” and even refers to God’s blessing over her relationship with Robert Browning when she exerts, “If God
choose”. All this religion imagery and allusion is very much a reflection of a society rooted in Christian ideology.
WP: Ted, you and I both know that whilst the celebration of love in Victorian society is quite admirable, the suppression
of women cannot be ignored. Women were often seen as the objects within the relationship with the ruling male patriarch
presiding over them. Sonnet 32 cannot be overlook in any discussion of love as it reflects the suppression of the female in
traditional western societies. EBB refers to herself as an instrument, I believe, in this sonnet. Ted is this true? Feminist
critics argue that women are often identified as passive “Objects” while men are defined as dominating “Subjects.”
EBB translates this idea into her sonnet by characterising herself as an instrument to be played by Robert Browning. Can
you cast any light onto the matter for our 21st century audience here with us in the studio today?
TP: Certainly. EBB employs an extended metaphor to compare her relationship with Robert Browning in Sonnet 32 to
that of a musician with his instrument. As the female, EBB of course takes on the countenance of the instrument in this
relationship. Through an extended metaphor she describes herself as an “Out-of-tune worn viol” that any “good singer
would be wroth to spoil his song with”. A 21st century audience such as those of you in the studio here today would
probably take this as EBB has low self esteem, which she does but that is not the point of this particular sonnet. This
sonnet is implying the dominant rule of the patriarch in relationships between men and women in the Victorian era. She
speaks of her musicians, “master hands’, therefore humbling herself before her Robert Browning. He is her musician and
he is in control. EBB presents herself as an instrument to be used, to be played, an instrument does not think for itself, its
sole purpose in life is to please and bring pleasure to its musician just as EBB and Victorian women saw it as their duty to
please and whole heartedly serve their husbands.
WP: I’m sure many feminists in the room here today are in agreement with your rejection of the Victorian ideals of
womanhood and they too see the extended metaphor of EBB as a “worn out old viol” quite demeaning and oppressive.
Over time society’s values and attitudes change though and that is why we have women here in the audience who would
object to such treatment of women. How about in the Jazz age? Had women gained more rights and recognition by then?
TP: Women were still very much the property of their husbands in the 1920’s. Love in the Jazz age was fleeting and
elusive. It’s all really just a façade of appearance verses reality. Gatsby seems to be loved, as he has hundreds of guests
come to his parties, yet when he dies Nick struggles to find one single person to attend his funeral. Love in the Great
Gatsby is elusive and synthetic. Early in the novel Myrtle remarks about Wilson that she “Married him because she
thought he was a gentleman, and that he knew something about breeding”. Myrtle did not marry for love, it was all a
simulacra. Later, Nick remarks in first person that he “felt a haunting loneliness sometimes.” Through use of first person
narrative the responder understands Nicks loneliness and lack of true friends, which symbolises the greater loss of true,
genuine love in the Jazz Age.
WP: So love was elusive in the Jazz age, what a difference from the ideal love of the Victorian era. What about women
though? They were still very suppressed weren’t they? Although 1920’s America seemed to have progressed on from
Victorian times, women in the Jazz age were still suppressed and consequentially dissatisfied with their role in society, is
that so Ted?
TP: Yes, women in the Jazz Age had few more rights than their Victorian counterparts. Although they were granted
increased freedom in relation to dress and style they were still fundamentally denied equal rights. Early in the novel Daisy
remarks that when she found out she had given birth to a girl, she wept and then said “I hope she’ll grow up to be a fool,
because that’s the only thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”. The word fool resonates with connotations
such as narrow minded, halfwit, laughable, worthless, unintelligible all reinforcing the idea that women were not valued
in the Jazz age anymore than they were in the Victorian era, it was all a façade, just like the allusion of love it was a
simulacra.
WP: Ted, your insight is invaluable to us here in the studio today. Just a few more questions before we finish up. How
about you tell us a bit about the role of hope in EBB’s sonnets.
TP: EBB writes from a context rich with hope. The success of industrialisation and the stability of the monarchy are to
contributing factors to this high level of hope. In sonnet 22 is avid with hopeful references. EBB poses the hopeful
rhetorical question, “What bitter wrong can the earth do to us?” Such confidence in her love with Robert Browning
expresses the Victorian cultivation of hope. EBB also employs colour symbolism when she expresses her hope for her
bright future with Robert Browning in the lines, “The angels would press on us and aspire to drop some golden orb of
perfect song”. References to angels, aspiration and perfection elevate the poem into a realm of not only pure spirituality
but also positivity and hope. The assumption of perfection of course being hopeful in itself but also the use of colour
symbolism in the world “golden”, she is suggesting that her love has reached perfection and the future looks bright and
positive. EBB has yielded to gradual conviction of Robert Bowning’s love in this poem and she is instilled with hope for
a happy future.
WP: I find it interesting how responders just assume that EBB is being completely honest with her sonnets and they give
an accurate portrayal of her relationships with Robert Browning and the orle of love, hope and mortality on her life. Can
you comment on this, Ted?
TP: Yes, a similarity between The Great Gatsby and EBB is that they both project simulacra through their work. As
responders, sometimes we need to take a postmodern stance and critique what we read. We should never just simply
assume a piece to be a true and accurate representation of a story, because most of the time it won’t be. A postmodernist
would argue that it is impossible to achieve a recount, which is completely free from subjectivity, and bias, this is to
suggest that EBB’s portrayal of her love with Robert Browning is simply an emotional reconstruction of what really
happened. This is a very emotional subject for EBB to write about so it’s a huge assumption to suggest that what she
writes is fact. It is suggested that there is some disparity between EBB’s sonnet number 28 and what happened in reality.
EBB writes of herself in truncated sentences that as she handed over the letters to Robert Browning with “trembling
hands” she “said, Dear, I love thee; and (then) sank and quailed”. The truncated sentences employed throughout this
sonnet emphasis the reluctance EBB feels to acting so boldly in her love toward her husband. However, this projection of
EBB as the meek, angelic, submissive Victorian women is dubious. It has been written in a secondary source that EBB in
fact passed the letters over to Robert Browning over the breakfast table with phlegmatic manner. This disparity between
representation and reality reinforces the idea that the sonnets simply present a simulacrum of what really happened.
WP: Since the events in The Great Gatsby are narrated through Nick Caraway wouldn’t this too mean that Fitzgerald’s
novel is likewise simply a simulacra, just a representation of what really happened?
TP: Yes, this is very much the case, particularly in its reference of hope. In the jazz age hope had rock bottomed as world
war one and post war disillusionment had stifled the American dream. Yet, it is interesting that although the novel starts
with disillusionment and centralises around destruction of life and loss of hope it ends with the return of hope. The novel
ends with affirming the American dream and encourages Americans to find their moral compass. In the words of Roland
Barthes, “who speaks this?” Is it F. S Fitzgerald the author, or Nick Caraway the narrator? Or perhaps it is Fitzgerald, the
author through Nick Caraway the narrator. I tend to think it is that latter and when the Nick remarks with notably
employment of colour symbolism that, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes
before us. It eluded us then but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms out further” hope is
instilled in the reader as they are encouraged to realign the American dream. The very fact that the author/narrator found
it necessary to end on such a positive note so to encourage his readers is a reflection of the prevalence of Jazz age
disillusionment and loss of hope.
WP: Well thank you very much for coming on the show for us today. I am certain the audience here in the studio feels
very enriched by your valuable insight.
TP: Thank you for having me; it’s been my pleasure
(Audience claps as Ted Parker exits stage right)
(Credits roll)