Pronouns (3-18-09)

lulz, of course people are things.

Especially women.

(SARCASM, DON'T KILL ME!)
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Close Reading

Passage 4: Book III, 302-12

And, being but poor, I was constrained, for life,
To work with one hand for the booksellers,
While working with the other for myself
And art. You swim with feet as well as hands
Or make small way. I apprehended this,–
In England, no one lives by verse that lives;
And, apprehending, I resolved by prose
To make a space to sphere my living verse.
I wrote for cyclopædias, magazines,
And weekly papers, holding up my name
To keep it from the mud.

1. At this point in the narrative, Aurora is working and writing London. Although she's working toward her goal of being a poet, what does this passage suggest about the journey to becoming a poet?

It's one filled with compromise, doing things other than poetry to get by.

2. This passage seems to posit prose and poetry as unequal forms of writing. How does Aurora present them as different?

Prose is something she does to get by while poetry is clearly her passion as she does it without pay despite the trouble it causes.

3. Also, take note of the fact that Elizabeth Barrett Browning chooses to write this narrative in poetry, as opposed to prose. How does this further suggest that poetry is preferable to prose? (In short, talk about the function of woman-artist writing a poem in which there is a woman-artist.)

"It's layer after layer to stress how important the medium is." ~ Bess

Fairly surface to me, my group was overthinking this question at first thinking it was searching for something deeper.