Author: livv19

Reading through the poem, Jenny, at first I didn’t catch on to the fact that Jenny’s a prostitute and this is essentially a narrator discussing all of the things Jenny’s pitiable for and talking about how she’s tired but fair. We’ve been talking about prostitution so it makes sense that this would be the topic, but the first time I read the poem I wasn’t paying a lot of attention until these two lines demanded it.

“That I’m not drunk or ruffianly
And let you rest upon my knee.”

It reminded me of that image of the woman on the lap of the man playing piano, The Awakening Conscience. The very next stanza talks about what we’ve talked about in class. The prostitute has fancy clothes, fair skin, looks healthy. Here, Rossetti shows this by talking about the rest this woman needed and the public shame she experiences.

“For sometimes, were the truth confess’d,
You’re thankful for a little rest, —
Glad from the crush to rest within,
From the heart-sickness and the din…
To schoolmate lesser than himself
Pointing you out, what thing you are: —
Yes, from the daily jeer and jar,
From shame and shame’s outbraving too,
Is rest not sometimes sweet to you? —
But most from the hatefulness of man
Who spares not to end what he began,
Whose acts are ill and his speech ill,
Who, having used you at his will,
Thrusts you aside, as when I dine
I serve the dishes and the wine.”

The whole poem seems sort of contradictory throughout. He keeps mentioning her being tired and worn and needing rest, but also mentions her fair skin, and youth often, almost to keep the reader unsure of whether or not we are supposed to really feel for Jenny.

After reading this and looking at the image, I had to find the rest of the accompanying poem for Found. Both discuss the fallen woman, but in two different ways. Jenny is clearly a prostitute, but the woman subject of Found, seems like a woman who just made a mistake .

“THERE is a budding morrow in midnight: ” –
So sang our Keats, our English nightingale.
And here, as lamps across the bridge turn pale
In London’s smokeless resurrection– light,
Dark breaks to dawn. But o’er the deadly blight
Of love deflowered and sorrow of none avail
Which makes this man gasp and this woman quail,
Can day from darkness ever again take flight?
Ah! gave not these two hearts their mutual pledge,
Under one mantle sheltered ‘neath the hedge
In gloaming courtship? And 0 God! to– day
He only knows he holds her; — but what part
Can life now take? She cries in her locked heart, –
“Leave me — I do not know you — go away!”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ballads and Sonnets, Portland, ME, 1903.

This poem is pretty straightforward, and nice and short. This seems like it’s a drunken one night stand. The lights go out, it’s late, and they get together. In the morning they realize they’re in bed together and they shouldn’t be. The woman panics and tells the guy to get out. Back then she would have been considered a fallen woman, but today it would be just a mistake made in youth.

The poem doesn’t really reflect the feeling one might get from the painting. This woman seems almost a slave. The man finds her and she’s already given up. She’s a slave to her own sin. The man’s face seems almost expressionless, but the woman seems genuinely distraught. Perhaps she’s thrown herself into the street after the possible situation I mentioned above.

Rossetti shows the fallen woman in two ways that are commonly thought of: prostitute, and mistaken woman. It poses the question, could the mistake of the woman in Found lead to the life that Jenny had to live? Found was produced in 1853 or 1859, and Jenny was first written in 1848. Could Rossetti have had the intention to show the fallen woman, and then trace back to how she got there?

According to The J. Paul Getty Museum, Hogarth said about his work that he was, “painting and engraving modern moral subjects. . . . to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer; my picture is my stage.” The picture being his stage suggests that Hogarth’s intention was to tell a whole story in one image. But the combination of his paintings, Before and After, tell a better story than either could have on their own.
The Fitz Museum gives a good idea of what the two paintings might be about. Essentially, the Before painting was supposed to capture a sensual moment in a polite manner. There are suggestions of arousal without it being crude. After is supposed to expose the awkward emotions that occur after a couple has just been together.
The basic subjects in the two paintings are the same: a man and a woman, one seeming to whisper to the other; the woman wears a dress, the man wears ruffles; and one looks longingly towards the other whilst they look away. It’s the subtle details that change everything. The transition from Before to After tells the whole story of the in-between. The way the woman’s dress goes from perfect to lifted and disarrayed, the man suggests they move further and when it’s over he seems distant, they’ve changed positions, and there’s extra clothes on the ground—it’s an entirely different mood. The first is soft and suggestive, the second is a bit messy and distant.
The ability of small details to affect the senses is not only limited to paintings, but can be found as a device used in literature and poetry as well. One nineteenth century poet, Lord Alfred Tennyson was also really talented at changing the mood with small details. In his poem, Break, Break, Break, Tennyson subtly changes from being at a loss for words about the beauty of the waves breaking on the rocks to mourning the death of that beautiful day. The original scene seems sublime and beautiful. The second seems to leave that sublime moment in ruins. The following is this poem:
Break, Break, Break
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Both works present the viewer/reader with the idea, that a moment is only that, a moment. It can be captured in perfection, for that single picture, but that does not mean it is how it always is. As seen in the paintings a romantic scene can suddenly became awkward, and as seen in the poem, a beautiful and serene scene can morph into something sad. They both reflect a simple truth of life, that life isn’t always beautiful or perfect, and the feeling of a moment cannot last forever.

Davidson Gallery. http://www.davidsongalleries.com/subjects/satire/heath_16866.jpg
Fitz Museum. http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/pharos/collection_pages/18th_pages/PD11_1964/TXT_SE-PD11_1964.html
J. Paul Getty Museum, The. http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=405&page=1
Poetry Foundation. (Tennyson Poem) http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174585
*Credit also due to Elyssa Reisman for a very helpful contribution of writing.

In a humanities class centered on the nineteenth century, it makes perfect sense that the class would be asked to look at and write about a number of different artworks. But when asked to create artwork on one’s own, the first question is, ‘why?’ Artists have points to their work, just as this assignment has a point. To better understand anything that is being learned about, one can add to their research with first-hand experience.  How each group connects their approach to our class is different. Since our group chose literature, it seems important to pay a great deal of attention to wording.

 

When the word ‘picturesque’ is brought up, the idea that comes to mind is something that’s aesthetically pleasing. Dictionary.com defines it in a number of ways; the second definition seems most applicable to this group since we’ve chosen literature. “2. (of writing, speech, etc.) strikingly graphic or vivid; creating detailed mental images: a picturesque description of the Brazilian jungle.” From this, one can understand that a setting created in writing can be seen mentally and be equally picturesque to a setting that can be seen visually. The application of this definition of ‘picturesque’ means that as this course progresses, every student has a chance to be an artist for whatever work they do. That doesn’t mean that every writing a person does will be equally picturesque to the photographs, paintings, and literature discussed in class, but it does allow for potential.

 

For some people in the class, photography is familiar and easy. For some it’s painting or drawing or writing. The photo essay asks us to bridge the gap between photography and writing, and also to attempt to create or capture something picturesque. The novel, Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, was published in 1985. It has a great number of scenes that could be considered picturesque by the previously mentioned definition from dictionary.com of “…strikingly graphic or vivid…” The following is an excerpt from page 54 of the novel: “Dust stanched the wet and naked heads of the scalped who with the fringe of hair below their wounds and tonsured to the bone now lay like maimed and naked monks in the bloodslaked dust and everywhere the dying groaned and gibbered and horses lay screaming”. This scene is picturesque. It is both graphic and vivid, but not beautiful—which is an important difference.

 

The term ‘picturesque’ is one we will visit often this semester. It’s important to note that it can be in any piece of work we look at, listen to, or read. It is a thing to aim for with this photo essay project. We can try to capture the same types of images as we see in class.