Poetry 2

Such a beutifully constructed, moving poem, Maria.  It's pleasing to see that the art of poetry is not something to be scoffed at.  There is no other medium which can so thoroughly express one's inner feelings.  You have achieved this with tenderness.

Harry

Thomas Hardy  ( 1840~1928 )

"It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in a language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs."

From ~ Symbolism in Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles'

Maria...When looking for the Corfu poem...I found the above quote among my notes...the rest of it~

"Hardy's women struggle ~ winning and losing~ not tame objects to be manipulated. Their resistance emerges in their sexuality, a quality that Hardy was often forced to cloak or disguise. Rosemary Morgan restores them to the physical and sexual reality which Hardy sees as their birthright, but in a male-dominated world they inhabit seeks to deny them, both within and beyond the novel..."

So, I think women do not have adequate language..at least in English...to express fully, the range of our emotional life.... and Hardy is correct.....however, perhaps antique Greek...where sensuality, ( as a cultural river )emotional ownership was expressed in everyday erotic language, dress, art, music and lyricism of living. Refer to my thread...Restore Pagan Britain..a similiarly sourced discussion. Allow the feminine voice!

If you read Ovid perhaps there you will find his observances resonating with female sensibility..

What is your opinion...is Hardy correct? If you think so, how may woman write now of their inner life. Not as separate dialect... more a confluence of ideas and feelings..

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/victorian_poetry/v040/40.3morgan.html

I raise here several points of view ... first, during which timeline did women lose their ability to express themselves in literary form?  I believe the advent of extravagant expression became prominent with the rhetoric of Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)  For instance, take her cynical poem, 'One Perfect Rose' -A single flow'r he sent me, since we met,= All tenderly his messenger he chose; = Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet - = One perfect rose.// I knew the language of the floweret; = "My fragile leaves," it said, his heart enclose. = Love-long has taken for his amulket = One perfect rose.// Why is it no one ever sent me yet = One perfect limousine, do you suppose? = Ah no, its always just my luck to get = One perfect rose.

(I chose to space this as not always do the lines fall in place!)

My own poem on the rose would, I believe, be appropriate here, since it is Mother's Day on Sunday:

 A Rose for Mother (Acrostic)





A gift from God

Radiant and delicate
Of all things
So often given
Evoking joy

Flower of remembrance
Object of elegance
Radiant and exquisite

Mystical promises
Of things of beauty.
To let you know
How much we owe
Ever eternal. You are the
Rose

Then there is Margaret Artwood... (1939-) Who (I believe) said, and I quote, "All Literature, Like Music, is Oral Nature". See also her, 'Rape Fantasies' as an example of modern feminine expression.  A subject no male, I would suggest, would consider.

As for your Pagan Britain, Ceridwyn, I shall be checking out your Link.  Meanwhile may I suggest two books which will interest you, namely, 'The Real Middle Earth - Magic and Mystery in the Dark Ages', by Professor Brian Bates, and 'Montaillou - Cathars and Catholics in a French Village' - the world famous. portrait of life in a medieval village. 

Harry, the English language 'timeline' to which Hardy refers to as the limited vocabulary span, was designed by men and we ( both men and women )remain confined, constrained ~ as Hardy states...Exceptions being, Michael Ondaatje and David Herbert Lawrence..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Lindsay_Gallery_and_Museum

The Australian painter, Norman Lindsay, in his liberation of female 'voice' in art....had some difficulty with the 'church' when he exhibited his crucified Venus. (model was Rose, a feminist~ married to Lindsay )  What was he saying, actually? A richly sensual and inspiring film titled 'Sirens' illustrates Lindsay's effort by references to the Odyssey, free will and faeries.

Restoring Pagan Britain offers a place to discuss reclamation ceremony ( stories, songs, dance) revering nature.... 'Dancing at Lughnasa' is an example of such tradition~ the lighting of fires to the god Lugh in Ireland. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_at_Lughnasa

"There is a tension between the strict and proper behaviour demanded by the Catholic Church, voiced most stridently by the upright Kate and the unbridled emotional paganism of the local people in the "back hills" of Donegal and in the tribal people of Uganda."

Anna- I'm not sure that's a shortcoming of the language itself or rather a matter of culture, as usual. I think the words are the same to anyone, it's just what you make or are allowed to make with them.

If you think of it, the issue occurs with the language of math as well. Women basically have not been allowed to do math until the last century. Even nowadays female university teachers of math are a rarity and at high levels of research, math is still universally considered to be a man's language.  

If you can't or are not allowed to use a sense or a talent for thousands of years, that capacity just tends to atrophy and such atrophying goes from one generation to the other and over the centuries until your talent becomes the lack of that talent.  

I don't know if that happened with literature as well at some point but I believe that wasn't for the language but rather for what men and women were allowed to talk about with it.