In Horace’s The Art of Poetry, he gave statement about the necessity of poetry, and about how poetry works related to the spectators. He delivered his argument in rhetorical form that seems like it is the idea not people cannot argue with. He delivered it rhetorically just like it has validity. Here is one of the statements:
“It is not enough for poems to be beautiful; they must be affecting and must lead the heart of the hearer as they will. As many people’s face smile on those who smile, in a similar the similar way they emphasize with those who weep. If you wish me to weep, you must first feel grief yourself. Only then O Telephus or Teleus,will your misfortune affect me. If your words are not appropriate to a sorrowful face, furious words are fitting to the angry, gay jets to the merry, serious words to the solemn.” (P.80)
It shows that poetry has role to make people understand about the idea or certain meaning behind it. Not only about the understanding, but also about the feeling that also obsessed them related to the poems. Meanwhile, in the other side, the poet also cannot be separated with the poems. In The Art of Poetry is written about it that
“You may say,” Painters and Poets always had equal privilege of daring to do anything they wish.” This is true; as poets, we claim this license for our self and grant it to others. But we do not carry it so far as to allow that the savage animal should be united with tame, serpents with birds, lambs with tigers.” (P.79)
In the other hand, Horace also admitted that poets and painter have privilege that they can pour their idea freely into their works, but they also have to underline the urbanity point. There are such rules that automatically formed that in the making of the works must consider about the suitability like in what he uttered that they cannot allow the savage animal be united with tame, etc.. Indirectly, Horace showed this point on urbanity lead him and the other poets to place poetry in high culture. It is shown in
“The humblest craftsman near over the Aemilian school will be model fingernail and imitate waving hair in bronze; but the total work will be unhappy because he does not how t represent it as unified whole. I should no more like him, if I desired to compose something, than to be praised for my dark hair and eyes and yet go through life with my nose turned awry. You who write, take a subject equal to your powers, and consider how length, how much your shoulders can bear. Neither proper words nor lucid order will be lacking to the writer who chooses the subject within his powers.” (P.79)
From that statement, it shows that Horace in some way distance himself (as poets) with others. He claimed that the others just imitate in something that finally make the unsatisfied with their own works. In the other way, Horace placed poetry in higher culture because he claimed that poets realize that they have power and if they used it well they would come with such a great work. Horace also indirectly separated between “good” and “bad” poetry. It shows in the argument below.
“Avoiding a fault (in this case attempting to avoid monotony), only may fall into a worse unless there be real artistic skill.” (P.79)
The argument above shows that poets often try to impress the readers with their work. They can come up with the idea to make their works be different with the other (attempting to avoid monotony). Meanwhile, the more try to be different or to break the natural rules, they just make their works worse and far from their expectation to be a great work. It concludes that when poets push their self to deep to impress the readers, they just can produce bad poems.
In Ion’s Plato, it agues about poetry in different way with The Art of Poetry, mostly it tells about the sources of the idea of the poetry itself.
“For in this way the God would seems to indicate to us and not to allow us to doubt that these beautiful poems are not human, on the work of man, but divine and the work God; and the poets are the only interpreters of the God by whom they are severally possessed. “ (P.12)
From the statement above, it gives argument that actually what rhapsode called art is not an art but it is inspiration that come from God. Poets are just doing the imitation mimesis the inspiration from God. In other word, there is an exact form of all the kinds of inspiration or works. The role of the poets or rhapsodes is just interpreting the form, while there are not works that really come from their own idea. Socrates argued that it is inspiration, not an art because he said that if it is art, Ion can speak well about all poets, not only Homer. Meanwhile, Ion said that he is only speak the best about Homer that Socrates concluded that as inspired from God. When the conversation between Sorcates and Ion came up with the place of literature in social discourse, it became such questioned about the place of literature itself. It is because Socrates argued that every subject in discourse than has its own authority to can understand it more that the rhapsode. For example, if the work was about the medicine, the doctor would know more about it, if it was about the rule of sea tossed vessel, the pilot would understand more about it. Then it becomes unclear about the role or authority of rhapsode.
Besides the matter about the form or the inspiration of literary works, there is also representation existing in literary works.
In The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, there is a passage claimed that
“Their argument in this selection is that even the positive images of woman in literature express negative energies and desires on the part of male writers” (p.812)
It shows the impossibility for woman to genuinely be portrayed as positive images because there must be man’s importance behind it. It also seems that women can do nothing because women see is also not genuine from their “glasses”, but it is from men’s “glasses”. The assumption also spread that women cannot write because they have no story to write. Their duty is just to please their men. Gilbert and Gubar also wrote
“For us feminism critic, however, the act of “killing” both angles and monsters must here begin with an understanding of the nature and origin of these image” (p.812)
In the other words, from the language style of the sentence above shows optimism that there is a way for woman for their own voice. Woman writers first must wipe out many ideas that man has planted on them that makes what they see is based on male’s construct. In Gilbert and Gubar’s writing, The Madwoman in the Attic, also presents one of the works that women become men’s tool for their own prosperity. As verse in Patmore’s The Angel in the House:
“Dedicated to “the memory of her by whom and for whom I became poet,” Patmore’s The Angel in the House is verse-sequence which hymns the praises and narrates the courtship and marriage of Honoria, one of the three daughters of a country Dean, a girl whose unselfish grace, gentleness, simplicity, and nobility reveal that she is not only pattern Victorian lady but almost literally an angel on earth". (p.815)
It shows that women’s fate is to please man. Argue with that, Gilbert and Gubar give many elaborations that support the idea of woman must please man. Women will please man with their passiveness. In other word, women cannot emphasize of their own interest or willing, but they have to make men’s interest or willing become their priority. From the passage above also shown that to be the pattern of Victorian lady and angel on earth, man must be proud of her because she perpetuates the patriarchal idea. Like what Sandra and Susan wrote that
“In short, like Goethe’s Makarie, Honoria has no story except a sort of anti-story of selflessness innocence based on the notion that “Man must be pleased; but him to please/Is woman’s pleasure.” (p.816)
In Gilbert and Gubar’s writing, The Madwoman in the Attic also shows the irony about the representation of woman. In the writing is written that
“Finally, the act that angel-woman manipulates her domestic/mystical sphere in order to ensure the well being of those entrusted to her care reveals that she can manipulate; she can scheme; she can plot-stories as well as strategies.” (p.818)
The irony in the representation of women is that previously woman portrayed as a human with no willing or power to human that actually can play the strategies well. The arguments about the representation that seems like preserve patriarchal that finally come up with argument that woman play strategies that means break the patriarchal idea show how what seems to be apolitical, sentimental fiction engage in such a highly politically charged discursive context as patriarchy
Meanwhile, in Edward Said’s Jane Austen and Empire, it analyzes Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. There is a sentence in Jane Austen and Empire stated that
“Almost all colonial schemes begin with assumption on native backwardness and general inadequacy to be independent. “equal”, and fit” (p.1112)
It shows that non-colonial cannot be as successful as the colonial because they did not have enough power to be independent. This case also appeared when Said argued about Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.
“To earn life to Mansfield Park you must first leave home as a kind of indentured servant or, to put the case in extreme terms, as a kind of transported commodity-this clearly, is the fate of Fanny and her brother William-but then you have the promise of future wealth. I think Austen sees what Fanny does as a domestic or small-scale movement in space that corresponds to the larger, more openly colonial movements of Sir Thomas, her mentor, the man whose estate she inherits.“ (p.1118)
In other words, the writing shows that Fanny just did the movement from her hometown to Mansfield Park because she did not feel comfortable in her “home”. She felt distance in her home that make it was not such a home. Fanny could leave it and went to Mansfield only if she could leave her old life. She wanted to move from indentured servant to get future wealth in Mansfield Park. It shows that Mansfield Park is a place that is much better than Fanny’s home. We can say that Fanny’s home is backwardness because she cannot get future wealth there. The issues of gender also shown that Fanny can only get better life if she follow Sir Thomas that play as colonial, the man who have power. Meanwhile, in Jane Austen and Empire the portrait of the Fanny’s hometown do not show in cruel ways, but with explanation such as “home as a kind of indentured servant”, and the portrait of Mansfield Park do not use exaggerate description but “the promise of future wealth”. From the explanation before, it can conclude that the role of Mansfield Park or Fanny’s hometown in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park is not only about a places but it shows how what seems to be apolitical, sentimental fiction engage in such a highly politically charged discursive context as British imperialism.
Gayartri Spivak in Three Woman’s Text and a Critique of Imperialism gives analysis of woman’s character in Jane Eyre. Spivak wrote that
“It is unquestioned ideology of imperialist axiomatics, then, that condition’s Jane move from the counter-family set to the set of family-in-law. Marxist critic such as Terry Eagleton, have seen this only in terms of the ambiguous class position of governess. Sandra Gilbert and Susah Gubar, on the other hand, have seen Bertha Mason only in psychological terms, as Jane’s dark double.” (p.842)
It shows the uncertainty that with Jane’s movement from counter family to family-in-law, then she can totally enjoy her new role. From the writing above, we could see that critical analyses psychoanalytical, economical and literary spheres intersect. In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, it is not just a narrative with certain plot but in psychoanalytical, Sandra and Gubar see the exchange of Jane from counter-family to family-in-law caused confusedness in Jane that create herself as Bertha Mason. In Three Woman’s Text and a Critique of Imperialism also written that the movement is a form of active ideology of imperialism that provides the discursive fields. The text seems like agree that Jane cannot easily enjoy her new role that is shown in assumption that Bertha Mason is a figure produced by the axiomatic of imperialism. In short, the figure of Bertha Mason is needed in order to clarify that Jane has done the movement into family-in-law. She needs to realize that she is now different from the old her, that finally appear unclear figure, Bertha Mason, that makes her shock and curious about what is that creature actually because what she saw is unclear between human or animal. What Terry Eagleton had seen is related to Sandra and Gilbert. Because Terry Eagleton assumed there is the ambiguous class position of governess, it can make Bertha Mason only as Jane’s dark double, just like what Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar had seen.
Work Cited
Plato. (n.d.). Ion.
Horace. (n.d.). Art of Poetry.
Said, E. (n.d.). Jane Austen and Empire.
Gilbert, S., & Gubar, S. (n.d.). The Madwomen in the Attic.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism.” 1986.
