Erotic literature -- History and criticism; Psychoanalysis and literature; Sex in literature
Two other poems of Browning where sexual symbolism may be present
though there is nothing of love in the poems are the famous "How They
Brought the Good News from Aix to Ghent" and "Through the Metidja to
Abd-El-Kadr." The sexual significance can be seen in the rhythmic
swing, for both poems suggest the motion of the horse rider. The effect
in the latter poem is produced by the use of the words "I ride" twice
in the first, third and eighth lines of each of the five stanzas,
thirty times, and by having each of the forty lines end with "ride" or
a rhyme to "ride."
"As I ride, as I ride,
With a full heart for my guide,
So its tide rocks my side, as I ride,
As I ride, as I ride,
That, as I were double-eyed,
He, in whom our tribes confide,
Is descried, ways untried
As I ride, as I ride."
IV
I do not believe that nature worship idea in literature has been yet
fully analysed. Critics have refused to see the exact meaning of the
expression "love of nature." The poets themselves have told us that
they saw in nature lessons of moral improvement and inspirations for
humanitarianism. Granting that this is so, the fact still remains that
there is much left unsaid by the poets. Some of them recognised the
real significance of their love for nature when they told us how they
were inspired by her to love, or were reminded of their lack of love.
Wordsworth, who is one of the greatest nature poets the world has ever
had, appears singularly free from the voicing of the love passion in
his work. Except for the Lucy poems and a few others, he has given us
little love poetry. Hazlitt complained that he found no marriages or
giving in marriage in Wordsworth's poetry. But nevertheless the sex
element is there though never directly expressed. There is nothing,
it is well known, calculated to make a man long for the love of
woman or to miss her more than when he is in the presence of nature.
Anthropology teaches us the close connection between love and nature.
When Wordsworth sang of the beauties of nature he was voicing a cry
for satisfied love which he did not have up to his thirtieth year, when
he married. He was also pining for love of the girl he met in France
in his twenty-third year, the mother of his illegitimate daughter. The
poet was using symbols, such as trees and daisies, whose glory he sang
when he meant he wished he had love. Some things can be enjoyed alone,
though not altogether, such as food, plays, pictures, reading, music,
lectures, etc. It is the great distinction of nature that she inspires
human love and also provokes sadness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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