Chelsea Mays's Canonball

Letitia Elizabeth Landon's "The Proud Ladye"
During the Romantic period England was facing many social challenges. One of the largest of these challenges was the issue of Women’s Rights. As with most selections from the canon, when a reader chooses to read selections addressing an issue he is offered a very strongly opinionated piece of literature. For the most part, it is only the extremely progressive or conservative texts that have acquired the staying power to still be popular today. Letitia Elizabeth Landon, however, is an exception. Because she wrote for a popular audience her poems are often of a very moderate nature. Oftentimes, it can be quite difficult to find any progressive tendencies in her work at all. She frequently relies heavily on the idea of love as a governing force of life, and shies away from attacking emotion with reason. In contrast, Landon’s personal life was far from conservative, and upon closer examination, one can see this reflected in her writings. Her poem, “The Proud Ladye,” displays this moderate nature to the fullest extent. While on one hand it seems to show a dejected woman who has been jilted by love, it is also interspersed with veiled feminist suggestions.

Landon begins the poem by describing what was considered a fairly strong female character of the day, Adeline. Her power is found in her beauty, something other women writers like Mary Wollstonecraft would never approve of, and she wields it gladly and often. It is heavily foreshadowed that this is not a favorable trait and that Adeline will no doubt receive a come-uppance. She issues a challenge to all the knights pursuing her: they must ride a horse speedily across a high brick wall. If any man ever accomplished this she would then marry him. Many men had attempted this feat and many had died trying. As generally happens in these circumstances, a knight finally came along whom she fell in love with. He completed her challenge, despite her protests, but then refused her offer of marriage. He explains that his brother had died as a result of her pride attempting to complete her challenge, and that he loved his brother far more than he could possibly love her. After suffering the knight’s rejection, Adeline becomes distraught, loses her beauty in her grief, and joins a nunnery in order to hide from the world.

At first glance, this poem appears to be a very conservative account of a woman being put in her place for thinking too much of herself. Yet, if one studies the exact wording of the poem, one may find that it isn’t quite so. In the third stanza of the poem Landon introduces the Adeline’s suitors. “There were some that woo’d for her land and gold, And some for her noble name, And more that woo’d for her loveliness,-- But her answer was still the same” (9-12). Here Landon brings in her first bout of sarcasm. Yes maybe the reader is meant to look down on Adeline for being proud, but really in this sense, all of the knights pursuing her are just as fickle as she is. As a successful and professional woman, who was respected for her work, Landon most likely believed that the knights were pursuing Adeline for unsubstantial reasons.

Throughout the middle of the poem, Landon takes a more conservative viewpoint, showing how love, albeit different kinds, holds power over men and woman. In this area, Landon claims that Adeline has no control over her actions for “she who had scorned the name of love, Now bow’d before its might (25-26).” The knight’s actions in turn, were brought about by love as well. This provides an interesting aspect since it is love for his brother and not for a woman that drives him into action. A brotherly love is different from the feminized emotion that is often used in poetry and makes Adeline seem weaker. By using this scenario Landon balances out any kind of upper hand that Adeline would have had from the beginning of the poem, making it seem less of an empowering poem. In the conclusion of the poem presents Adeline as a neutral character once again. Yes, because of the rejection of the knight, Adeline goes into a depressive state. “Her eye lost all its starry light, Her cheek grew wan and pale, Till she hid her faded loveliness Beneath the sacred veil” (64-68). However, this can easily be compared to the men in John Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci.” In his poem Keats refers to the rejected lovers as “pale kings, and princes too/ Pale warriors, death-pale were they all,” (Keats 37-38). From this perspective there is no shame in reacting harshly to rejection because it affects both genders equally. In addition, after suffering from rejection, Adeline chooses to turn to God and join a nunnery. From some feminist perspectives, this is the strongest choice that a woman can make. It is true that many poems of this nature end with the woman committing suicide because she is so overcome with despair. By ending the poem with Adeline entering a convent, Landon gives the appearance that she has had a set down, appeasing a conservative public, but doesn’t actually admit that Adeline has reached the lowest possible point. By the end of the poem, Leticia Elizabeth Landon has walked a thin tightrope wavering from progressive to conservative and ending in a completely neutral position. It is this ability to appeal to all audiences that allowed her to be a successful poet of her time, as well as one still highly read today. In a canon so filled with heartfelt opinions and overheated words, she offers a brief respite through a moderate approach. Even though she holds more with emotions, one can infer that this makes her a truly reasonable person.

Word Count: 985