Barrett Browning

1. ELIT 46C: Class 2
Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
Sonnets From The Portuguese #43
“How Do I love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD9ycWMiTkw
Portrait of
Elizabeth Barrett
Browning English
poet Painting by
Michele Gordigiani
oil on canvas

3. Agenda
 More nuts and bolts
 Class Policies
 Turnitin
 Lecture:
 Poverty, Labor, and the Children.
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “The Cry of
the Children”
 Discussion:
 Questions
 Author Presentation:
 Charles Dickens
 The QHQ
 To Watch Out For
 Homework

5.  It is your responsibility to talk to me your absences or
other conflicts. Work done in class cannot be made
up. Also, please arrive on time, as you will not be able
to make up work completed before you arrive,
including quizzes.
Attendance:
Success in this course depends on regular attendance and
active participation. Participation points will be part of our daily
activities. If you are not in class, you cannot earn these points.
You should save absences for emergencies, work conflicts,
weddings, jury duty, or any other issues that might arise in your
life.

6. • Late Work:
I do not accept late work. I do, however,
extend an opportunity to revise your first
essay for a better grade. If you miss the
first essay due date, you may submit that
essay when the revision is due. If you
miss an in-class exam, you may take it
and count it as your revision submission.
Tests:
We will have a midterm and final exam. The first is on the
Victorian section of the course. The second will be
comprehensive, with 60% of the exam being focused on
modernism and postmodernism

7. Conduct, Courtesy, and Electronic Devices:
In this class, we may engage in the discussion of topics that stir passionate
debates. Please speak freely and candidly; however, while your thoughts
and ideas are important to me and to the dynamics of the class, you must
also respect others and their opinions. Courtesy will allow each person to
have the opportunity to express his or her ideas in a comfortable
environment.
 Courtesy includes but is not limited to politely listening to others when
they contribute to class discussions, not slamming the classroom door,
and maintaining a positive learning environment for your fellow
classmates. To help maintain a positive learning environment, please
focus on the work assigned, and do not text-message in class.

8. Academic Dishonesty:
Plagiarism includes quoting or paraphrasing
material without documentation and copying
from other students or professionals. Intentional
plagiarism is a grave offense; the resulting
response will be distasteful. Depending upon
the severity, instances of plagiarism may result
in a failing grade for the paper or the course
and possible administrative action. All
assignments will be scanned and scrutinized for
academic dishonesty. Please refer to your
handbook for more information regarding
plagiarism.

9. Submit your essays through
Turnitin via Canvas
• Submit your essay as a
Microsoft Word doc or docx
format
• If you use Google Drive, simply
download your document as a
Word doc
1. Go to Canvas
2. Click on “Assignments”
3. Go the the Essay Group of assignments
4. Click on the appropriate essay: “essay 1 or 2”
5. Scroll to the bottom of the assignment and you will see the picture
below

10. Questions?

11. 2. The teams will change on or near essay due dates.
3. You must change at least 50% of your team after
each project is completed.
4. You may never be on a team with the same person
more than twice.
5. You may never have a new team composed of more
than 50% of any prior team.
1. We will often use teams to
earn participation points.
Your teams can be made
up of 3 or 4 people.

12. • Points will be earned for
correct answers to questions,
meaningful contributions to
the discussion, QHQs that
are included in the power
point, and the willingness to
share your work.
• Each team will track their
own points, but cheating
leads to death (or loss of 25
participation points).
• Answers, comments, and
questions must be posed in
a manner that promotes
learning. Those who speak
out of turn or with
maliciousness will not
receive points for their
teams.
• Points are lost for speaking
while others have the floor
or any other distractions
created by a team member.

13. At the end of each class, you will turn in a
point sheet with the names of everyone in
your group (first name, last initial) and your
accumulated points for the day.
It is your responsibility to make the sheet,
track the points, and turn it in.
Sit near your team
members in class to
facilitate ease of group
discussions
Billy R III
Lan N IIII
Jose S III
Christine L II
13 points

14. Get into your
First Groups!
• Get into groups of
four. (1-2 minutes)
• If you can’t find a
group, please raise
your hand.
• Once your group is
established, choose
one person to be the
keeper of the points.
• Write down
members’ names
• Keep track of
points
• Turn in your sheet
at the end of the
class period.

15. Romantic and political influences
1. Barrett Browning inherited her ideas about what poetry could do
principally from the poets of the Romantic period – in particular
William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley (who said, in “A
Defence of Poetry,” that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators
of the world”), and her great love, George Gordon, Lord Byron, a
Poet and Playwright (1788–1824).
2. Barrett Browning declared herself a “great admirer” Mary
Wollstonecraft, whose work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(1792) influenced her views on the position of women in society.
3. Her father and brother were politically active in the Whig party – the
party which fought for the legal, civil and religious rights of the
individual.
4. Barrett Browning saw her role as tackling social and political
injustices and arguing for tolerance and liberty.

16. Key political and social themes
1. Barrett Browning’s first published poems were written about
the ongoing Greek War of Independence (1821-32)
2. Her long poem published in 1826, An Essay on Mind, also
emphasized the idea of the poet being able to bring about
political change.
3. Her volumes of the 1830s – Prometheus Bound, and
Miscellaneous Poems (1833) and The Seraphim, and Other
Poems (1838) – saw her starting to explore other socio-
political issues: tyranny and freedom, theology, and power in
sexual relationships, marriage, and the family.
4. In Poems (1844), Barrett Browning proved her position as a
formidable commentator on socio-political issues.

17. “The Cry of the Children”
This poem is a strong
attack on industrialization
Barrett Browning had
read about these
conditions in a
parliamentary report
entitled Report of the
Royal Commission on
the Employment of
Children and Very Young
People in Mines and
Factories
https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-
victorians/articles/elizabeth-barrett-browning-social-
and-political-issues

18. The sense of the claustrophobia experienced by the children is
then powerfully caught in the repetitions of the verse itself:
For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning,—
Their wind comes in our faces,—
Till our hearts turn,—our head, with pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places. Turns the sky in the high
window blank and reeling,
Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black
flies that crawl along the ceiling,
All are turning, all the day, and we with all. (77-84)
Here Barrett Browning effectively emphasizes how the
industrial system reduces children to elements in a machine.

21. “The Cry of the Children”
The "Cry of the Children" is representative not only of Barrett Browning’s
political poetry but also of her work in general:
themes and images
The use of language, meter, and rhyme
Barrett Browning wrote "The Cry of the Children" after reading a report on
the employment of children in mines and manufactories:
The poem is intentionally didactic, political in purpose as well as
subject matter.
It is an expression of her own alienation and abhorrence of industrial
society
The poem is full of images
Factory Hell are contrasted with the Heaven of the English
countryside,
the inferno of industrialism is contrasted with the bliss of a land-based
society.
She ends her poem with an indictment of industrial society.

22. Discussion Questions
“The Cry of the Children”
1. What social and political context prompted
Barrett-Browning to write on this topic?
Who is its audience?
2. Who are the poem's speakers? Are there
shifts in the emphasis given to each voice?
What may have been the advantages of
Barrett-Browning's use of more than one
point of view?
3. What is the poem's stanza form and
rhythm? Are there variations? Do you think
this is a good stanza form and choice of
rhythm for the author’s purposes?
4. In particular, are there ways in which the
rhythms reinforce the theme of noisy, dirty
and unpleasant factory conditions?

23. Discussion Questions
5. What metaphors or recurrent
themes does the author use to
make her points? (nature; death;
youth and age; whirring of
machinery)
6. In what ways is the children’s
viewpoint different from that of
adults? What is their view of death,
and how does this reinforce the
poem's themes? How do they
respond to the death of little Alice?
7. What view of religion does the
author seem to espouse? Who is
responsible for the fact that the
children are unable to conceive of a
beneficent divine being?

24. The reader is made to experience the dreariness of the factory inferno by Barrett Browning’s use
of language, as she describes the harrowing reality of the “droning, turning” factory wheels,
relentlessly grinding the children’s spirit and life as it molds its goods. The factory is depicted as
a perversion of nature, a literal Hell seen as the absence and corruption of the natural world.
Instead of the world revolving around the sun, the sky turns—as the wheels, similarly, turn.
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years ?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ;
The young birds are chirping in the nest ;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows ;
The young flowers are blowing toward the west—
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly !
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.
The First Stanza

25. The repetition of the phrase, “say the children” makes it a key element in the
very structure of the poem. Words of speech and silence are used
throughout—“hear,” “ask,” “listen,” “sing,” “answer,” “quiet,” “silent,” “still,”
“words,” “speechless,” “preach,” “stifle.” The hopelessness of the children’s
plight is partially caused by their inability to be heard or to express themselves.
In the end, even God is unable to hear their feeble attempts at prayer.
They answer, " Who is God that He should hear us,
While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word !
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
Strangers speaking at the door :
Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,
Hears our weeping any more ?
Second part of stanza
9

26. Thinking about writing

27. How do I know what I think until I see what I say?
--E.M. Forster
Each text we study will provide material for response writing
called a QHQ (Question-Hypothesis-Question). The QHQ
requires students to have second thoughts, that is, to think
again about questions that arise during their reading and to
write about questions that are meaningful to them.
Begin your QHQ by formulating some question you have about
some aspect of the reading. The first question in the QHQ may
be one sentence or longer, but its function is to frame your QHQ
writing. A student might start with a question like, “Why is the
house in this story haunted? Or, “Why are goblins a recurring
theme?” A student might even write, “Why am I having so much
trouble understanding this story?”

28. After you pose your initial question, focus on a close reading of the text in
search of a hypothesis. Generally, a student will quote a specific part of the
text to interrogate. This hypothesis section comprises the body of your text.
The student who asked about the haunted house might refer to multiple
passages about haunting in the text, comparing and contrasting them to
other instances of haunting with which he or she is familiar. The student who
asked about the goblins might connect passages associated with the goblins
to other texts featuring goblins, or the student might do some outside
research on goblins. The student who struggled to understand the text might
explore those passages whose meanings were obscure or difficult to
understand, connecting them to other novels and/or cultural (con)texts. The
hypothesis should include quoted textual evidence (including citations)
After carefully exploring your initial question (200-300
words), put forward another question, one that has
sprung from your hypothesis. This will be the final
sentence of your QHQ and will provide a base for
further reflection into the text.

29. Remember, a QHQ is not a summary or a
report—it is an original, thoughtful response to
what you have read. All QHQs should be posted
on the website the evening before the class for
which they are due. This will give both me and
other students time to ponder your ideas and think
about appropriate responses. Moreover, this
sharing of material should provide plenty of fodder
for essays. Even though you have posted your
QHQ, you should bring a copy of it to class in
order to share your thoughts and insights and to
stimulate class discussion.
The QHQ is designed to help you formulate your response to the
texts we study into clearly defined questions and hypotheses that
can be used as a basis for both class discussion and longer papers.
The QHQ can be relatively informal but should demonstrate a
thoughtful approach to the material. While the papers need to be
organized and coherent, because you will sharing them in class, the
ideas they present may be preliminary and exploratory.

30. Author Presentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AB9poWDeDs

32. Homework
Assigned Reading:
The Chimes, a Goblin Story of
Some Bells That Rang an Old
Year Out and a New Year In
Suggested Reading
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens: Hard Times
1599
[Coketown] 1599
Anonymous: Poverty Knock 1600
HW: Discussion Question #2
*Continue reading Wuthering
Heights