E.B. Browning’s Poems Of Sexual Harmony: An Outline Discourse Made In A Comparative Field

As a life form created by the great nature, humankind had been spontaneously divided into two sexes:male and female.God himself contains both sexes, the heaven and the earth. In the Genesis, we read "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Man and woman are of the same body. In the Isaiah,we read "Thus says the Lord:Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool." The heaven represents the Holy Father, the earth represents the Virgin Mother. In other words, the heaven also stands for Yang, and the earth stands for Yin, here Yang and Yin also represent man and woman, which has a close affinity with the Chinese Classics The Book of Changes. Sexual relationship has the primal and the longest connection with the human society, thus any wish for harmonious society is closely related to the problem of sexual relationship.The sexual harmony might not be identified with marriage, but it is inextricable with love, marriage might not be the panacea for the earthly peace and tranquility, however, the ideal marriage represented by the sexual harmony has been always pursued by humankind. Love makes the emotional connection between man and woman, both sides are the subjective and objective part of ecch other, mutually beneficial and encouragous to each other. Love can be traced upon the first stir of one’s soul, and poetry is the record of the life experience. The love story of E.B.Browning and Robert Browning had been eternalized by their poetry, when we read it, our mind can be purified, and an artistic beauty not only of the form but also of the content can be percieved. The wife and husband had set before us a model of sexual harmony, they were born for poetry, and poetry later became the medium for their mutual knowledge and appreciation, their love and life together had made a beautiful picture for the love of humankind.This dissertation is composed of five chapters.In Chapter One, the importance of sexual harmony has been closely related with the human civilization and the world literature.In Chapter Two, a comparative study has been taken mainly between E.B.Browning’s sonnets and Chinese poetry colletion The Book of Songs. The special contribution Elizabeth Barrett Browning made to modern literature is that it is the first time there was a woman who confessed her love to a man, but from the perspective of world literature, we find that there is also a kind of love poems, which focuses on the description of the yearning for love from woman in the earliest Chinese poetry colletion The Book of Songs. The most beautiful language and the most beautiful emotional world have been unfolded before us either from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnets or from The Book of Songs. Through the comparative study, the love in both Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems and The Book of Songs had been expressed from the following perspectives:firstly, the love consciousness of woman had been exhibited vividly:the heartbeating of young girl’s first love, the song for the love at the first sight, the praising poems of woman in love, the marriage longing of woman, through which both Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnets and The Book of Songs present before us the truthful inner world of woman in love. Secondly, a comparative study has been taken upon the story of presenting each other with gifts, such as locks, ruby, jade, fruits. Different as they may be, the cultural connotation for a promise of being wife and mother is shared by both sides. Thirdly, a comparative study has been also taken upon the scenes of intoxication and revelry in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems and The Book of Songs. Intoxication not only refers to the aesthetic state, but also Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s real state of mind, revelry refers to the poetic language. For example, repetition had been applied in both Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnets and The Book of Songs to express the intensified woman charater’s emotion.In Chapter Three, the author will take a comparative study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems and The Song of Solomon from the Bible. The yearning attitide of the shepherdess for love has a very strong affinity with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s pursuit for sexual harmony in her poems. Many vivid and beautiful images had been applied in shaping the two woman characters who were born for love. Firstly, the kiss image in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems has been studied comparatively with that of The Song of Solomon from the Bible. The tragic love story of Francisca and Paul in Dante’s Divine Comedy, the striking but unfortunate love story of Abealard and Heloise has also been included in the discussion. The saving kiss, the common kiss and the mutual kiss, which had been named by the poetess to recall her intimate contact with Robet Browning, are redeemed as actions taken by persons with noble spirit, meanwhile, they are also embodied with the theme of kiss theology. Secondly, the animal images in both Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems and The Song of Solomon from the Bible have been studied comparatively. The image of the wet wings of thy dove, that of a bee shut in a crystalline, and that of a cuckoo-song occurred not only in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems but also in The Song of Solomon from the Bible and many other classical works. Thirdly, the vegetable images such as rose, myrtle-tree and lily, tree images such as palm-tree, cedar have been studied comparatively. Fourthly, the garden, wall and gate images occur in both Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems and The Song of Solomon from the Bible, represent also some universal sentiments in the humanbeing society.In Chapter Four, I will mainly focus on the Sexual Harmony Poetics in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems. Sexual harmony not only refers to the western idea of androgyny, but also the chinese traditional thoughts of the harmony between Yin and Yang. What the androgyny poetics maitains is that a person who is embodied with both manly and womanly qualities in a harmonious state, so that man and woman under such condition are the most creative and productive in their writings. The English woman writer Virginia Woolf thinks that Milton, Sappho, Shakespeare, Thomas Brown, Andrew Marvell are great writers of androgynous type. I believe that both Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning are great poets of genius, whatsmore, after their meeting with each other, their creativity gives out striking light. To further the study of sexual harmony poetics of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Virginia woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, has been taken into discussion. Woolf was Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s junior by 76 years, they’ve never met each other, however, the androgyny poetics Woolf advacated had been thought thouroughly in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems:To George Sand and the novel poem Aurora Leigh, which have shown the masculine side of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s writing style; while, her Sonnets from the Portuguese shows her feminine side, which has a close affinity with Laozi’s thoughts.In Chapter Five, a brief biorgraphy of E.B.browning and R.Browning has been presented as the clue to the growth of both the poetess and poet.