20/2/07 - English Literature - Topographical Poetry: Ben Jonson and Amelia Lanyer

A new genre of 'country-house' poetry arose. Jonson's To Penshurst and Lanyer's Description of Cookham were written around the same time, but it is much disputed which was written first.

To Penshurst: Plenitude in Paradise?

33-8: Fish sacrifice themselves for food. Not realism.

Williams criticised Jonson's poem.

"What is really happening, in Jonson’s … celebrations of a rural order, is an extraction of [the fact of labour], by the power of art: a magical recreation of what can be seen as a natural bounty and then a willing charity: both serving to ratify and bless the country landowner, or, by a characteristic reification, his house. Yet this magical extraction of the curse of labour is in fact achieved by a simple extraction of the existence of labourers. The actual men and women who rear the animals and drive them to the house and kill them and prepare them for meat; who trap the pheasants and partridges and catch the fish; who plant and manure and prune and harvest the fruit trees: these are not present; their work is all done for them by a natural order. When they do at last appear, it is merely as the ‘rout of rural folk’, … and what we are then shown is the charity and lack of condescension with which they are given what, now and somehow, not they but the natural order has given for food, into the lord’s hands. It is this condition, this set of relationships, that is finally ratified by the consummation of the feast."
[Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (London 1973), 32]

So why does Jonson obscure the fact of labour?

The inhabitants of Penshurst were Sir Philip Sidney, Lady Mary Sidney (Countess of Pembroke), Sir Robert Sidney and Lady Mary Wroth.

Lines 1-8: Architecture, beginning with negation. Is that strange? The description reinforces the buildings differences from other family seats. 'Ancient pile': history which is 'reverenced'. Fair due is given to soil, air, wood and water.
9-44: Reinforces this natural environment.
45-88: The building. Focus is on the occupants and visitor and their social relations. It is a paradise for all, 'farmer to clown.'
61-64: In contrast to general practise, at Penshurst the poet and peasant eat as well as the lord/king; the poet imagines himself as king.
89-102: Epilogue. Praise of family. Religion over nature. 95-99

Perhaps not much is said about females. There is mention of "housewifery" 85, "Lady's Oak" (childbirth) 18, daughters and "gifts" 54-6, fruitfulness and chastity and lineage.

Perhaps it is a celebration of patriarchy. The place is preserved by its lord who dwells permanently in it. It is an ideal.

The Description of Cookham: Paradise Lost?

The differences between this poem and the former could be put down to the difference in sex between the two poets, and the social political condition relating males and females to their duties.

Lanyer's poem is not a celebration or an ode, but an elegy. It focuses on loss and bereavement. Jonson's poem was constant, but Lanyer's begins and ends with departure. It is a valediction on the loss of an idyllic pastoral place. It draws on classical idylls, but also challenges them. It resists Virgilian state politics by relating them to marriage politics.

Lines 1-6: Farewell. Introduction and position of poet in relation to the place.
7-52: Nature protects Margaret Clifford. She is identified with Diana, but she is also masculine.
53-96: Focuses on trees, especially one identified with the Tree of Knowledge.
97-126: Focuses on Anne Clifford, differences in degree.
127-204: Desolation of the landscape. Female aspects of the landscape and departure of the ladies.
205-10: 'The Last Farewell', return to the relation of the poet.

There are two perspectives: the poet's 'place' is explored in Jonson's poem. It relates the way other people see the place. The place is continual in time. In Lanyer's poem, other people are related to the place: it is a first person past tense narrative. The people described no longer exist and cannot be seen again in the future. The place is subject to change; the emphasis is on mutability not stability. For Lanyer, the natural world protects the women. For Jonson, manmade walls house the lord. Lanyer's poem is more religious in its imagery. The "grace" of God and of the countess is mentioned. There is a kind of spiritual meditation going on in the garden. It seems like a bower of bliss. There is a trinity between the mother, daughter and poet. But it is not a totally egalitarian paradise. Lanyer calls for a reorder of women's place in society; she questions the validity of sexual inequality. The poem ends by reminding the countess of her obligation to the poet. Both poets use Sidney's Defense of Poesy as part of their argument. The kiss in Lanyer's poem could represent the betrayal of the countess to the poet, like Judas's betrayal of Jesus.