During the Victorian period there were few female poets. But, during this era, many important female poets were born, such as the Bronte sisters, Elizabeth Browning, and Christina Rossetti. Elizabeth Browning was one of the most important poets of the 19th century. She was seen as a typical Victorian poet, who often wrote about love and faith. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's revolutionary tendencies often led her to violate "poetic decorum by speaking." . . on matters about which respectable women are expected to be ignorant or silent.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In her 1862 poem “A Musical Instrument,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning returns to the mythical figure of Pan, one of her favorite subjects as well as a popular and traditional metaphor for poets since classical times. Barrett Browning had already written about Pan and even the myth of Pan and Syrinx in his early poems "The Dead Pan", "A Reed" and "Mountaineer and Poet", but in "A Musical Instrument" he uses the goat-god as a vehicle for a new message. Pan's hybrid nature makes him an ideal character through which to comment on the two-faced face of art and its creation. As a result, there are many dualities found throughout the poem. In “A Musical Instrument,” Barrett Browning uses the figure of Pan and his dual nature as beast and god to question the meaning and virtuosity of art, poetry, and creative method. The classical myth of Pan and Syrinx itself, even before it is filtered through the pen of a modern poet, touches on the idea of ​​the destruction inherent in creation. In the myth the nymph Syringa transforms into a reed. In effect, his humanity is destroyed to create a beautiful element of nature. The reed is then destroyed to create the artificial beauty of a pipe and music. "A Musical Instrument" begins halfway through the story, with Syrinx already transformed into a reed. We can therefore focus on the artistic creation of a musical instrument from a reed rather than the (more disturbing and worrying) transformation of a humanoid into a plant. By starting in the middle of the story, Barrett Browning keeps the distracting themes of the first half from intruding on the ideas raised in the second half. So we can ignore ideas about lust, seeking, and divine intervention. When the poem begins, Pan is ravaging the pristine nature. However, his actions are expressed in the beautiful lyrical poetry of Barrett Browning. The dichotomy between destruction and beauty is already emerging. In the first two stanzas Pan destroys natural splendor and creates nothing. He “[s]spreads ruin and scatters prohibition” (3) and “breaks the golden lilies” (5). However, the poetic and artistic elements of the poem compete with the destruction, almost overshadowing it. The auditor is immediately immersed in Barrett Browning's evocative images, filled with adjectives that describe the scene. The river has a "deep, cool bed" (8), into which the once "clear" water now flows "turbid" (9). In addition to the imagery, the musical elements of the poem and the sounds of the words are also captivating. Barrett Browning sets a classic, idyllic scene. Nature is portrayed as utopian, as existing in a time before modern intrusions (intrusions perhaps symbolized by Pan's arrival on the scene – Morlier suggests that Barrett Browning's Pan "represents a whole group of moral problems...in British culture " [261]). Reinforcing the classical setting is the loose but generally dactylic meter of the poem, a favorite of classical poets, which complements the already classical subject matter. Barrett Browning takes it againmore borrowed from classical poets such as Ovid, who told this myth in his Metamorphoses, in his method of narration. There is no clear or designated speaking audience, but rather a semi-omniscient narrator who tells the story without concern for the specific purpose for telling it. Barrett Browning's diction also adds a classical touch to his poetry as he uses archaic words such as the frequent "sate" for "sat" and constructions often found in translations from Greek and Latin, such as "never again" (41) and the phrase repeated "the great god Pan." The humorous and artistic elements of the poem contrast sharply with its content. Merivale states it well when he says that Barrett Browning's idea and the melodious "simple lyric which conveys the idea... are to some extent at odds, for the cruelty he imputes to Pan is muffled by the honey of his verses." (84) . Barrett Browning carefully creates the musical feeling that subtly veils the destruction inherent in the action of the poem. Repetition and rhyme are important elements in the formation of this melodic quality. Each stanza follows an abaccb rhyme scheme, in which the second and sixth lines always end with the word "river" and the first line always ends with the phrase "the great god Pan". This phrase is emphasized both by its repetition and by the fact that it is composed of two iambs, while much of the rest of the poem is composed of dactyls. The repetition of this phrase and the evolution of its tone from conveying the traditional and straightforward idea of ​​Pan at the beginning to carrying an ironic and troubling message at the end traces and helps communicate the growing question about the purity and virtuosity of art and the method by which it is created. Another dichotomy found in poetry is that between male and female. Many critics read Barrett Browning's depiction of Pan's bestial side as a thinly veiled resentment towards the male poet and the superior position of the male over the female in Victorian society. Diehl argues that Barrett Browning's "resentment toward the brute, masculine, destructive force that Pan embodies suggests a hidden resentment toward the male poet" (585), and that the poem "demonstrates the fusion in [Barrett Browning's] mind of the destructive, the bestial, and the masculine with the muse/poet, an image she describes with antagonistic bitterness" (585). However, too much importance is given to Barrett Browning's gender, and the feminist reading of the poem as a primary expression of resentment towards the male artist undermines the most important idea about the dual nature of artistic creation. Whatever Barrett Browning may say about the genre, it is secondary to its primary theme and better seen as another example of an alternative nature reflecting the dual qualities of art. It is difficult not to dwell on Pan's grotesque and clearly masculine qualities, exemplified by the "hard and squalid steel" (16) he uses to conquer the natural reed (a woman). While the steel can certainly be seen as a phallic symbol of the power with which Pan rapes the cane, it is important to note that Pan's purpose is not solely to "contaminate...feminine reality," as Morlier argues (272) , but rather to create art. Therefore a commentary on the masculine versus the feminine is not one of Barrett Browning's primary concerns in "A Musical Instrument", and the omission of the beginning of the myth allows the reed to simply be a symbol of beauty and nature. Indeed, at the end of the poem the "true gods" (40) lament that the reed will never again grow like a beautiful reed in the river - they don't even mention that the nymph will never be a woman again! Further de-emphasizing the gender of the reed is the language in which Pan hollows out the reed. He extracts the marrow"like the heart of a man" (21), representing humanity, not woman. Finally, if Barrett Browning had wanted to empower the feminine, he could have given the female cane the power it takes away from Pan. Rather, in the end, she gives power to the infinite and androgynous “true gods” (Morlier 272). Pan's masculinity is only important insofar as it creates an ideal character through which BarrettBrowning can express his main idea. What is important to Barrett Browning is not Pan's masculinity, but the combination of creation and destruction in the name of art that he personifies. After Pan destroys the natural beauty of the Arcadian scene in the first two stanzas, the artistic process of transforming the material begins. His actions are violent, “hack[s] and hew[s]” (15), but this is necessary for the creation of the musical instrument. Pan himself states that initial destruction is necessary for the creation of music, "'This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan, / ...'The only way, since the gods began / To make sweet music '" (25 -28). It is important to note that this is Pan's statement, not the narrator's or Barrett Browning's (Diehl 585), and that it is tinged with evil laughter. Since it is Pan's voice, the validity of the statement is called into question, and Pan's sinister laughter is immediately repulsive. Although the process of making the pipe is violent and disgusting, once completed it is wonderful. Pan animates the pipe by "[blowing] with power" (30), and all the beauty of nature is immediately restored: Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! Sweet piercing by the river! Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! The sun on the hill forgot to die, and the lilies were reborn, and the dragonfly dreamed again on the river. (31-36) If the poem ended here, it would seem that Barrett Browning agreed with Pan's idea that the creation of art is well worth whatever violence and destruction precedes it. However, Pan does not have the final say. The "true gods" lament Pan's actions in the final stanza, ending the poem on a different note. These "true gods", not demigods like Pan, and therefore free from vile, cruel, and bestial underpinnings, recognize the cost to which Pan's creation of the musical instrument has come. They express the idea that it would be better if the reed were still "a reed with reeds in the river" (42). The "true gods" seem to recognize that suffering is necessary for art, but at the same time question whether art justifies suffering (the veracity of which Pan takes for granted). Another dichotomy is now established, this time between Pan (now the irony in the phrase "the great god Pan" is more apparent) and the true gods. As Merivale notes, "Pan is opposed by the 'true gods' who hold the ethical balance, who judge that the 'cost and pain' of artistic creativity are too great" (84). Barrett Browning herself does not seem to come to a firm conclusion about the virtue or lack thereof of creation. Although he seems to condemn Pan as the “goat-god who has come to ravage” nature with his “surprising arrogance” (Diehl 584), he is clearly not ignorant of the vision he symbolizes. After all, he is only "half a beast... Laughing as he sits by the river, / Making a man a poet" (37-39) as he revels in his artistic creation born of destruction. Perhaps the beastly side is necessary and creation is not possible without a cruel, dark and destructive underbelly. In the final stanza the gods sigh and remember the reed as it was, acknowledging the human sacrifice (Diehl 585), but do not explicitly wish that it were still a reed (or, metaphorically, a person). Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay At the end of “A Musical Instrument,” the nature of art and:., 1999. 258-74.