‘A fondness for being sad’: some portuguese sources for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetics of Melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Autor(a) principal: | |
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Data de Publicação: | 2017 |
Tipo de documento: | Artigo |
Idioma: | eng |
Título da fonte: | Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
Texto Completo: | https://hdl.handle.net/1822/47643 |
Resumo: | In seeing melancholy as the antithesis of poetic creativity, the Victorians often broke with the traditional Renaissance and Romantic attitudes of equating melancholy moods with artistic or poetic genius. This article proposes to explore how, initially viewed as an emotional and ‘depressed’ woman poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning tried to resist and escape the sickening disempowerment or abandonment which had affected poets as Felicia Hemans and Letitia Landon, and engage in a new poetics of melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). It demonstrates how the poet plays this poetics out in most of her later sonnets, where she indeed attempts to prove that good poetry can be written without melancholy, even if she herself does not always succeed in this deliberate rejection of ‘dejection’. The article thus intends to suggest, through a brief comparative analysis, that her apparently contradictory poetics of melancholy very probably derived from a specifically Portuguese poetic tradition, namely the ‘fondness for being sad’ of Luís de Camões’, as well as the sorrowful love of Mariana Alcoforado’s epistles (1669) and of Soror Maria do Céu’s mannerist poems, an influence that is supported in the great similarity of motives and language that can be found in the respective texts. |
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‘A fondness for being sad’: some portuguese sources for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetics of Melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)‘O gosto de ser triste’: algumas fontes portuguesas para a Poética da Melancolia de Elizabeth Barrett Browning em Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)MelancholyElizabeth Barrett BrowningGenderPortuguese poetic traditionMelancoliaGéneroTradição poética portuguesaHumanidades::Línguas e LiteraturasIn seeing melancholy as the antithesis of poetic creativity, the Victorians often broke with the traditional Renaissance and Romantic attitudes of equating melancholy moods with artistic or poetic genius. This article proposes to explore how, initially viewed as an emotional and ‘depressed’ woman poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning tried to resist and escape the sickening disempowerment or abandonment which had affected poets as Felicia Hemans and Letitia Landon, and engage in a new poetics of melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). It demonstrates how the poet plays this poetics out in most of her later sonnets, where she indeed attempts to prove that good poetry can be written without melancholy, even if she herself does not always succeed in this deliberate rejection of ‘dejection’. The article thus intends to suggest, through a brief comparative analysis, that her apparently contradictory poetics of melancholy very probably derived from a specifically Portuguese poetic tradition, namely the ‘fondness for being sad’ of Luís de Camões’, as well as the sorrowful love of Mariana Alcoforado’s epistles (1669) and of Soror Maria do Céu’s mannerist poems, an influence that is supported in the great similarity of motives and language that can be found in the respective texts.Ao encararem a melancolia como a antítese da criatividade poética, os vitorianos romperam com as atitudes tradicionais, sobretudo renascentistas e românticas, que equiparavam o humor melancólico ao génio artístico ou poético. Este artigo propõe-se explorar a forma como Elizabeth Barrett Browning, inicialmente vista como uma poeta emocional e ‘deprimida’, tentou resistir e até escapar ao desempoderamento e ao abandono doentios que tinham afetado poetisas como Felicia Hemans e Letitia Landon, e empenhar-se na formulação de uma nova poética da melancolia na sua obra Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). Procura ainda analisar a forma como EBB desenvolveu essa poética nos seus sonetos mais tardios, onde demonstra que a boa poesia pode ser escrita sem o recurso à melancolia, mesmo não sendo sempre bemsucedida nessa rejeição deliberada da depressão. O artigo pretende assim sugerir, através de uma breve análise comparativa, que esta sua aparentemente contraditória ‘poética da melancolia’ deriva muito provavelmente de uma tradição especificamente portuguesa; isto é, do ‘gosto de estar triste’ de Luís de Camões, bem como do amor doloroso presente quer nas epístolas de Mariana Alcoforado (1669) quer ainda nos poemas maneiristas de Soror Maria do Céu – influência que se sustenta na grande semelhança de motivos e de linguagem que pode ser encontrada nos respetivos textos.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersionUniversidade do Minho. Centro de Estudos Humanísticos (CEHUM)Universidade do MinhoGuimarães, Paula Alexandra20172017-01-01T00:00:00Zinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttps://hdl.handle.net/1822/47643enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessreponame:Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)instname:Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informaçãoinstacron:RCAAP2023-07-21T12:35:05Zoai:repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt:1822/47643Portal AgregadorONGhttps://www.rcaap.pt/oai/openaireopendoar:71602024-03-19T19:30:53.750447Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) - Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informaçãofalse |
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv |
‘A fondness for being sad’: some portuguese sources for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetics of Melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) ‘O gosto de ser triste’: algumas fontes portuguesas para a Poética da Melancolia de Elizabeth Barrett Browning em Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) |
title |
‘A fondness for being sad’: some portuguese sources for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetics of Melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) |
spellingShingle |
‘A fondness for being sad’: some portuguese sources for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetics of Melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) Guimarães, Paula Alexandra Melancholy Elizabeth Barrett Browning Gender Portuguese poetic tradition Melancolia Género Tradição poética portuguesa Humanidades::Línguas e Literaturas |
title_short |
‘A fondness for being sad’: some portuguese sources for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetics of Melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) |
title_full |
‘A fondness for being sad’: some portuguese sources for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetics of Melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) |
title_fullStr |
‘A fondness for being sad’: some portuguese sources for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetics of Melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) |
title_full_unstemmed |
‘A fondness for being sad’: some portuguese sources for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetics of Melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) |
title_sort |
‘A fondness for being sad’: some portuguese sources for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetics of Melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) |
author |
Guimarães, Paula Alexandra |
author_facet |
Guimarães, Paula Alexandra |
author_role |
author |
dc.contributor.none.fl_str_mv |
Universidade do Minho |
dc.contributor.author.fl_str_mv |
Guimarães, Paula Alexandra |
dc.subject.por.fl_str_mv |
Melancholy Elizabeth Barrett Browning Gender Portuguese poetic tradition Melancolia Género Tradição poética portuguesa Humanidades::Línguas e Literaturas |
topic |
Melancholy Elizabeth Barrett Browning Gender Portuguese poetic tradition Melancolia Género Tradição poética portuguesa Humanidades::Línguas e Literaturas |
description |
In seeing melancholy as the antithesis of poetic creativity, the Victorians often broke with the traditional Renaissance and Romantic attitudes of equating melancholy moods with artistic or poetic genius. This article proposes to explore how, initially viewed as an emotional and ‘depressed’ woman poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning tried to resist and escape the sickening disempowerment or abandonment which had affected poets as Felicia Hemans and Letitia Landon, and engage in a new poetics of melancholy in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). It demonstrates how the poet plays this poetics out in most of her later sonnets, where she indeed attempts to prove that good poetry can be written without melancholy, even if she herself does not always succeed in this deliberate rejection of ‘dejection’. The article thus intends to suggest, through a brief comparative analysis, that her apparently contradictory poetics of melancholy very probably derived from a specifically Portuguese poetic tradition, namely the ‘fondness for being sad’ of Luís de Camões’, as well as the sorrowful love of Mariana Alcoforado’s epistles (1669) and of Soror Maria do Céu’s mannerist poems, an influence that is supported in the great similarity of motives and language that can be found in the respective texts. |
publishDate |
2017 |
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv |
2017 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z |
dc.type.status.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion |
dc.type.driver.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/article |
format |
article |
status_str |
publishedVersion |
dc.identifier.uri.fl_str_mv |
https://hdl.handle.net/1822/47643 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/1822/47643 |
dc.language.iso.fl_str_mv |
eng |
language |
eng |
dc.rights.driver.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
eu_rights_str_mv |
openAccess |
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv |
application/pdf |
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv |
Universidade do Minho. Centro de Estudos Humanísticos (CEHUM) |
publisher.none.fl_str_mv |
Universidade do Minho. Centro de Estudos Humanísticos (CEHUM) |
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv |
reponame:Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) instname:Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informação instacron:RCAAP |
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Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informação |
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RCAAP |
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RCAAP |
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Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
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Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
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Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) - Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informação |
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