The Search for a Voice
What has man done here? How atone,
Great God for this which man has done?
Rossetti, “Jenny”, ll. 241-242, (www.practa.com)
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!
Browning, “Porphyria’s Lover”, ll. 59-60, (Longman, p.1413)
The Victorian Age was the age of Progress, an age in which Industry and its leaders prevailed, and efficiency, whether fuelled by steam or people, was the common goal. The State profited, the heads of Industry profited, but at a cost. To fuel this profit, working-class people suffered - driven into cities the working-class of England lived in incredible poverty to drive the Progress of their age. And while hundreds of thousands suffered to fuel the profit of a few, what did God have to say? This question is asked in a small passage of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s narrative poem, “Jenny”, and echoed in Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue, “Porphyria’s Lover”.
Rossetti’s speaker muses about the life of a prostitute, “Jenny”, while she rests on his lap. He imagines a girl who grew up in country fields, “wonder[ing] where the city was” (l. 32). Now a part of the city’s “market” (l. 140), Jenny represents class of women fallen into prostitution for need of work, and used by those well-off enough to pay them. In the passage that runs from line 230 to line 249, the speaker comments on Jenny’s beauty, her “pure wide curve from ear to chin” (l. 246), and calls her features “preachings of what God can do.” (l. 240). This statement is followed directly by the question, “What has man done here?” (l.241); God has created Jenny as a beautiful creature and man, with his Industry and his cities, has pushed her into a shameful role. Beyond pushing women into prostitution, the actions or negligence of men in pursuit of money and power left the majority of England’s Victorian population struggling to survive, “comply[ing] with lifelong hell” (ll. 244-45). Rossetti goes on to ask if these struggling people have anything to look forward to, and answers that there is “no sign on earth” (l. 247) “Of sweet forgetful second birth” (l. 246). To Rossetti’s speaker, God is silent, and for those people suffering for the benefit of their State, “All [is] dark.” (l. 248), both life and what comes afterwards.
This perception of God as a silent figure in the Victorian age is echoed in the last line of Browning’s, “Porphyria’s Lover”. This text, which describes the murder of a young woman, states that God is silent not only toward the victim of suffering, but also toward the murder. In Victorian times, while a few people profited off others’ suffering, no natural disasters descended to convey God’s wrath, but, as Browning asks in his poem, does God’s silence justify the act? The tone of his poem, which mixes idealism with insanity, implies that there are elements of insanity in the need to ask this question, and that there are elements of insanity in the structure of a society that cannot regulate its own sense of humanity.
Due in part to religious doubt and in part to the gaining strength of Industry, which challenged the strength of the Monarchy and the Church in Victorian England, the voice of the Church was no longer the only voice that guided people’s moral judgments, now sharing the stage with voices of the Principles of Economics. Both Rossetti’s and Browning’s poems ask the question “where is the voice of God?” in small, shadowed passages within their texts, touching on a question that lay in the shadows of the focus of Victorian society, but nonetheless troubled both poets, and likely many other artists in their society enough to need to ask.
Works Cited
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. "Jenny."
Resources For Students www.practa.com
24 Sept. 2006 http://www.shlensky.com/assigned_readings/D.G.Rossetti-Jenny.pdf
Browning, Robert. "Porphyria's Lover." The Longman Anthology
of British Literature, Volume 2B. Ed.David Damrosh.
USA: Pearson Education, Inc, 2006. 1411-1413
Great God for this which man has done?
Rossetti, “Jenny”, ll. 241-242, (www.practa.com)
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!
Browning, “Porphyria’s Lover”, ll. 59-60, (Longman, p.1413)
The Victorian Age was the age of Progress, an age in which Industry and its leaders prevailed, and efficiency, whether fuelled by steam or people, was the common goal. The State profited, the heads of Industry profited, but at a cost. To fuel this profit, working-class people suffered - driven into cities the working-class of England lived in incredible poverty to drive the Progress of their age. And while hundreds of thousands suffered to fuel the profit of a few, what did God have to say? This question is asked in a small passage of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s narrative poem, “Jenny”, and echoed in Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue, “Porphyria’s Lover”.
Rossetti’s speaker muses about the life of a prostitute, “Jenny”, while she rests on his lap. He imagines a girl who grew up in country fields, “wonder[ing] where the city was” (l. 32). Now a part of the city’s “market” (l. 140), Jenny represents class of women fallen into prostitution for need of work, and used by those well-off enough to pay them. In the passage that runs from line 230 to line 249, the speaker comments on Jenny’s beauty, her “pure wide curve from ear to chin” (l. 246), and calls her features “preachings of what God can do.” (l. 240). This statement is followed directly by the question, “What has man done here?” (l.241); God has created Jenny as a beautiful creature and man, with his Industry and his cities, has pushed her into a shameful role. Beyond pushing women into prostitution, the actions or negligence of men in pursuit of money and power left the majority of England’s Victorian population struggling to survive, “comply[ing] with lifelong hell” (ll. 244-45). Rossetti goes on to ask if these struggling people have anything to look forward to, and answers that there is “no sign on earth” (l. 247) “Of sweet forgetful second birth” (l. 246). To Rossetti’s speaker, God is silent, and for those people suffering for the benefit of their State, “All [is] dark.” (l. 248), both life and what comes afterwards.
This perception of God as a silent figure in the Victorian age is echoed in the last line of Browning’s, “Porphyria’s Lover”. This text, which describes the murder of a young woman, states that God is silent not only toward the victim of suffering, but also toward the murder. In Victorian times, while a few people profited off others’ suffering, no natural disasters descended to convey God’s wrath, but, as Browning asks in his poem, does God’s silence justify the act? The tone of his poem, which mixes idealism with insanity, implies that there are elements of insanity in the need to ask this question, and that there are elements of insanity in the structure of a society that cannot regulate its own sense of humanity.
Due in part to religious doubt and in part to the gaining strength of Industry, which challenged the strength of the Monarchy and the Church in Victorian England, the voice of the Church was no longer the only voice that guided people’s moral judgments, now sharing the stage with voices of the Principles of Economics. Both Rossetti’s and Browning’s poems ask the question “where is the voice of God?” in small, shadowed passages within their texts, touching on a question that lay in the shadows of the focus of Victorian society, but nonetheless troubled both poets, and likely many other artists in their society enough to need to ask.
Works Cited
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. "Jenny."
Resources For Students www.practa.com
24 Sept. 2006 http://www.shlensky.com/assigned_readings/D.G.Rossetti-Jenny.pdf
Browning, Robert. "Porphyria's Lover." The Longman Anthology
of British Literature, Volume 2B. Ed.David Damrosh.
USA: Pearson Education, Inc, 2006. 1411-1413
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