Beth Rehbehn

On a warm, sunny, February 17th, Professor Foss began class but reminding us of the true sign of spring: Carl’s would be re-opening tomorrow. After filling our thoughts with hopes for soft-serve, we began class by taking an in depth look at Mary Robinson’s biography, continuing on by moving in an exciting small group activity. Throughout the class period the we came to realize how Robinson’s life had a great impact on her work, particularly her messages regarding abandonment and poverty.

Robinson’s history is quit an extraordinary story in itself. Professor Foss even described it as something on par with Lord Byron. Her story begins with her father going broke in a Labrador Eskimo Whale-fishing scheme. After his financial ruin, he abandoned the family, leaving Robinson to be pressured into a marriage that also faced financial difficulty. In fact, it was the financial issues that drove her into writing and acting as a form of income. Through her acting Robinson was exposed to some of the upper class people of the time, leading to her romantic trysts with the Prince of Wales, Charles Fox, and Col. Banastre Tarleton. She ended up becoming pregnant and having a miscarriage, which left her partially paralyzed. After she became paralyzed, Robinson turned her focus mainly to her writing. She became a contemporary poet, akin to Wordsworth. She focused her writing on various causes for man, including abandonment, the poor, and women. Overall, she was a fascinating writer with a rich back-story.

Armed with the knowledge of Robinson’s past, we then began analyzing Robinson’s poems, starting with “Deborah’s Parrot” and critiquing how it fits in with Robinson’s other poems, and also comparing it to Robinson’s other contemporaries, particularly Hannah Moore. “Deborah’s Parrot” critiques themes of morality, including envy, jealousy, money, and selfishness, just as Moore’s poems preach against similar values. While looking at the poem in comparison to Robinson’s other poems, we saw several aspects of the poem that are consistent throughout Robinson’s work: alienation, under-representation, and social commentaries.

The subject of “Deborah’s Parrot” became our main focus in the class discussion as we considered how the poem could be construed as either a social commentary or a lesson in individual vices. Deborah is a wealthy woman on the outside of society looking in. As an outsider, separate from social norms, Deborah judges society shrewdly, leading to her ultimate downfall. While we as an audience do feel a sort of sympathy for Deborah due to her abusive husband and alienation, our sympathy only goes so far as we see the affects her actions have on society. Deborah seems to embody the characteristics Moore preaches against; how hypocrisy can destroy a person. The last stanza of the poem especially mimics Moore, as it concludes with a “moral of the story” feel. Finally we considered in what context we could understand the parrot. It was suggested that the parrot could possibly symbolize the society Deborah had be criticizing. Just as Deborah betrayed her society, the parrot betrays her. Ultimately we are left with the question of who is at fault for Deborah’s problems: the society that placed them on her, or Deborah herself for betraying her neighbors?

We next broke into small groups and participated in a new small group activity we called a “Fire Drill” which involved 4 large small groups. We passed around our group’s notes to the next group, eventually adding on to everyone’s for a full understanding of the poems we were analyzing. Foss broke down Robinson’s poems into pairs: “A London Summer Morning” and “January, 1795”, “The Poor, Singing Dame” and “The Wint’ry Day”, “All Alone” and “The Old Beggar”, and finally “The Haunted Beach” and “The Alien Boy”.

In “A London Summer Morning” and “January, 1795” we were given two different depictions of the city. In small group, we discussed how Robinson portrays the city in each poem. “A London Summer Morning” appears to be a more positive depiction of a scene than “January, 1795”. She includes lots of sound imagery and describes various aspects of the setting in a more generic way. “A London Summer Morning” seemed to focus more on the nature and the artist. When we switched to “January, 1795” we were given a darker critical look at the city. Robinson goes from a snap shot of the city to an in depth look at each aspect of London life. “January, 1795” is more of a social commentary than “A London Summer Morning”. She focuses on the sickness and poverty that is present. The only sense of comfort in the poem comes from the “Lofty mansions, warm and spacious”(5). Robinson comes across as more invested and attached to “January, 1795” as though she were stringing in her own history regarding poverty and her negative views of the upper classes.

While looking at “The Poor, Singing Dame” and “The Wint’ry Day” Robinson continues to express her social criticisms of the upper classes as well as trying to convey moral lessons. Both poems appear to be a comparison of the rich versus the poor, and in each case, the wealthy bypass the poor. However, while “The Poor, Singing Dame” leads the reader to be sympathetic towards the poor dame, placing a good deal of blame on the royalty, “The Wint’ry Day” does not fault the wealthy for social problems. Rather Robinson suggests that it is misery that is the true cause of social injustice. It appears that Robinson’s ultimate message in “The Poor, Singing Dame” could also be construed to be that misery will always win over life, as the dame is heartbroken in her death, and is still overshadowed by the royalty. Ultimately, you cannot escape misery or death.

We next compared the poems “All Alone” and “The Old Beggar”, both of them dealing with issues of abandonment and alienation, as well as the speaker’s dependence on other people. In each poem, the speakers are debilitated by their love for another, neither being able to move on once the love is taken away. In “All Alone” Robinson portrays loyalty as the cause for the boy’s withering away. Even once he was offered help, the boy refuses it because of his useless loyalty to his mother. Similarly, in “The Old Beggar”, the speaker creates a forced alienation on himself as well. Together, Robinson appears to be trying to highlight the dangers of settling for alienation and how it can completely strip an individual of their identity. It is almost as if Robinson is relating these poems back to her own life, and all the various times she had been abandoned herself.

The final comparison poems we looked at were “The Haunted Beach” and “The Alien Boy”. Robinson also appears to be critiquing social isolation in these poems as well, but looking at it in terms of reality versus insanity. She continually uses water imagery in connection with madness. Robinson also creates the idea that a child being too reliant on an adult is dangerous as well. The alien boy loses his identity with the loss of his father. Apart from alienation, Robinson focuses on social classes as well. But unlike some of Robinson’s previous poems where Robinson appears to condemn the wealthy, here, she conveys the rich as the victims.

Overall, Robinson seems to be portraying the message that no matter what, life is going to mess with you, and when you see the hardships she experienced, it is easy to understand why she expressed that.