During the Victorian period, there were few women poets. But during this time, many important female poets were born, such as the Brontë sisters, Elizabeth Browning, and Christina Rossetti. Elizabeth Browning was one of the most important female poets of the 19th century. She was considered a typical Victorian poet, who frequently wrote about love and faith. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's revolutionary tendencies often led her to violate "poetic decorum in speaking...". . . on subjects on which respectable women were expected to be ignorant or silent.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIn her 1862 poem “A Musical Instrument,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning returns to the mythical figure of Pan, one of her favorite subjects as well as a popular and traditional metaphor for poets since classical times. Barrett Browning had already written about Pan and even the myth of Pan and Syrinx in her earlier poems "The Dead Pan", "A Reed" and "Mountaineer and Poet", but in "A Musical Instrument" she uses the god- goat as a vehicle for a new message. Pan's hybrid nature makes him an ideal character to comment on the Janus face of art and its creation. As a result, many dualities are found throughout the poem. In “A Musical Instrument”, Barrett Browning uses the figure of Pan and his dual nature of beast and god to question the meaning and virtuosity of art, poetry and the creative method. The classic myth of Pan and Syrinx itself, even before it is filtered through the pen of a modern poet, touches on the idea of ​​destruction inherent in creation. In the myth, the nymph Syrinx transforms into a reed. Indeed, his humanity is destroyed in order to create a beautiful element of nature. Then the reed is destroyed in order to create the artificial beauty of a flute and music. "A Musical Instrument" begins halfway through the story, with Syrinx having already been transformed into a reed. We can therefore focus on the artistic creation of a musical instrument from a reed rather than on the (more worrying and worrying) transformation of a humanoid into a plant. By starting halfway through the story, Barrett Browning prevents the distracting themes of the first part from encroaching on the ideas discussed in the second half. So we can ignore ideas about lust, pursuit, and divine intervention. At the beginning of the poem, Pan wreaks havoc in the virgin nature. However, his actions are described in the beautiful lyric poetry of Barrett Browning. Already the dichotomy between destruction and beauty is taking hold. In the first two stanzas, Pan destroys natural splendor and creates nothing at all. He “spreads ruin and prohibition of dispersion” (3) and “breaks the golden lilies” (5). However, the poetic and artistic elements of the poem compete with the destruction, almost overshadowing it. The listener is immediately immersed in Barrett Browning's evocative images, peppered with adjectives describing the scene. The river has a “deep, cool bed” (8), in which the once “clear” water now flows “turbidly” (9). In addition to the images, the musical elements of the poem and the sounds of the words are also captivating. Barrett Browning sets a classic and idyllic scene. Nature is depicted as a utopia, as existing in a time before modern intrusions (intrusions perhaps symbolized by Pan's arrival on the scene - Morlier suggests that Barrett Browning's Pan "represents a whole set of moral problems.. . in British culture"[261]). The poem's loose but generally dactylic meter, a favorite of classical poets, which complements the already classical subject matter, reinforces the classical setting. Barrett Browning borrows even more from classical poets like Ovid, who recounted this myth in his Metamorphoses, in his method of storytelling. There is no clear audience or designated speaker, but rather a semi-omniscient narrator who tells the story without regard for the specific purpose for which he is telling it. Barrett Browning's diction also adds to the classical feel of her poem as she uses archaic words like the frequent "sate" for "sat" and constructions often found in translations from Greek and Latin, like "never again" ( 41) and the repeated phrase "the great god Pan." The pleasant and artistic elements of the poem stand in stark contrast to its content. Merivale puts it well when she says that Barrett Browning's idea and the melodious "simple lyrics which convey the idea... are to some extent in contradiction, for the cruelty which she imputes to Pan is drowned out by the honey from his worms” (84). . Barrett Browning carefully creates the musical feeling that barely veils the destruction inherent in the action of the poem. Repetition and rhyme are major elements in the formation of this melodic quality. Each stanza follows an abaccb rhyme scheme, in which the second and sixth lines always end with the word "river" and the first line always ends with the phrase "the great god Pan". This phrase is emphasized both by its repetition and by the fact that it is composed of two iambics, whereas much of the rest of the poem is composed of dactyls. The repetition of this phrase and the evolution of its tone from conveying Pan's traditional, direct idea at the beginning to a message of unsettling irony at the end traces and helps communicate the growing question about purity and virtuosity of art and method. by which it is created. Another dichotomy found in the poem is that between male and female. Many critics read Barrett Browning's depiction of Pan's bestial side as thinly veiled resentment toward the male poet and the superior position of man over woman in Victorian society. Diehl asserts that "Barrett Browning's resentment of the raw, masculine, destructive force that Pan embodies suggests a hidden resentment of the male poet" (585), and that the poem "demonstrates the fusion in the [Barrett Browning's] spirit of destructive and bestial force. , and the masculine with the muse/poet, an image she describes with antagonistic bitterness” (585). However, too much emphasis is placed on Barrett Browning's gender, and the feminist reading of the poem as primarily expressing resentment toward the male artist undermines the more important idea of ​​the dual nature of artistic creation. Whatever Barrett Browning may say about genre is secondary to his main theme and best seen as another example of alternative natures that reflect the two-sided qualities of art. It is difficult not to dwell on Pan's grotesque and clearly masculine qualities, exemplified by the "hard, dark steel" (16) he uses to conquer the natural reed (a woman). Although the steel can certainly be seen as a phallic symbol of power with which Pan violates the reed, it is important to note that Pan's goal is not only to "defile...feminine reality", as the claims Morlier (272), but rather to create art. Thus, a commentary on masculine versus feminine is not a major concern of Barrett Browning in "A Musical Instrument", and the omitted beginning of the myth allows the reed to simply be a symbol ofbeauty and nature. In fact, at the end of the poem, the "true gods" (40) complain that the reed will never again grow as a beautiful reed in the river - they don't even mention that the nymph will never again be a woman! The language used when Pan digs the reed further understates the gender of the reed. He draws the marrow “like the heart of a man” (21), representing humanity and not woman. Finally, if Barrett Browning had wanted to give power to the feminine, she could have given the female reed the power that she takes away from Pan. On the contrary, ultimately, it gives power to the infinite and androgynous “true gods” (Morlier 272). Pan's masculinity is only important insofar as it creates an ideal character through which BarrettBrowning can express his main idea. What is important to Barrett Browning is not Pan's masculinity, but the combination of creation and destruction in the name of art that he personifies. After Pan destroys the natural beauty of the Arcadian scene in the first two stanzas, he begins the artistic process of transforming the material. His actions are violent, he “hack[s] and carve[s]” (15), but this is necessary for the creation of the musical instrument. Pan himself states that initial destruction is necessary for the creation of music: "This is the way," laughs the great god Pan, / ... "The only way, since the gods began / To make sweet music » » (25 -28). It is important to note that this is Pan's statement, not that of the narrator or Barrett Browning (Diehl 585), and that it is tinged with evil laughter. Because it is Pan's voice, the validity of the statement is called into question, and Pan's sinister laugh is immediately repugnant. Although the process of creating the pipe is violent and distasteful, when finished it is wonderful. Pan animates the pipe by "[blowing] with power" (30), and all the beauty of nature is instantly restored: Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! Sweet piercing by the river! Sweet blinding, oh great god Pan! The sun on the hill forgot to die, and the lilies rose again, and the dragonfly returned to dream on the river. (31-36) If the poem ended here, it would seem that Barrett Browning agreed with Pan's idea that the creation of art is worth all the violence and destruction that precedes it. But Pan doesn't have the last word. The "true gods" lament Pan's actions in the final stanza, closing the poem on a different note. These “true gods”, and not demigods like Pan, and therefore free from any base, cruel and bestial foundation, recognize the price to pay for the creation of Pan. of the musical instrument has arrived. They express the idea that it would perhaps be better if the reed was still “a reed with the reeds of the river” (42). The “true gods” seem to recognize that suffering is necessary for art, but at the same time question whether art justifies suffering (the truth of which Pan takes for granted). Another dichotomy is now established, this time between Pan (it is now the irony of the expression "the great god Pan" which is most apparent) and the true gods. As Merivale notes, "Pan is opposed by the 'true gods' who hold the ethical balance, who judge the 'cost and pain' of artistic creativity to be too great" (84). Barrett Browning herself does not seem to reach a conclusion. conclusion about the virtue or lack thereof of creation. Although she seems to condemn Pan as the “goat-god who came to ravage” nature with his “stunning arrogance” (Diehl 584), she is not clearly discounting the point of view he symbolizes. After all, he is only "half a beast... To laugh sitting by the river, / To make a man :., 1999. 258-74.