The Muses
EBB gives an important part to the muses in Aurora Leigh. Indeed, early in Book 1 she refers to the Muse. In her essay, Zonana affirms that Aurora does not need a muse to tell her story because she is speaking about herself that is to say about what she knows. However, Aurora has several muses in her epic. Moreover, Zonana explains that the muses Aurora refers to are important to understand how she completely discovers herself.
Joyce Zonana differentiates different kinds of muses : the "heavenly'' muse, the "earthly muse", the muse as "object" and the muse as "subject". According to her, the "heavenly" muse is "the idealization and objectification of the female" whereas the "earthly" muse is "an imminent, embodied, earthly woman". In other words, the "heavenly" is a muse seen as an "object". She is only the object of men's inspiration. There is a distance between the poet, who is generally a male and his muse who is generally a female. An "earthly'' muse is more considered as a subject in her own right by the poet. To Aurora, a muse must "embody her poetic spirit".
Aurora's self discovery
Zonana explains that there are three main steps in Aurora's self discovery. At the beginning of the novel, she sees herself as a heavenly muse. Indeed, because of the "patriarchal tradition" of her father's book, she sees the muses as the poets of Antiquity such as Homer and Virgil saw them. Zonana wrote : " she envisages inspiration as elevation and transcendence of the sense".
The second steps in Aurora's self discovery is what Zonana calls " the disembodied muse". Aurora sees different aspects of herself in other female characters : her aunt is "a deadening Madonna", Lady Waldemar is "a threatening Lamia" and Marian is "a suffering Madonna". Then, Aurora finds out that she has all these qualities she saw in others in herself.
The last step of her self discovery is the moment when she becomes an "embodied muse". Indeed, throughout her poem, Aurora becomes an embodied muse because she is "a passive Aurora" but then she becomes aware of "the impulses of desire and love". Zonana explains that Aurora is fully a poet and a woman when she admits that she loves Romney. Then, she becomes an embodiment of the "union of heaven and earth", in other words she is the muse and the poet who connects the two worlds.
Feminism
There are many elements of feminism in Aurora Leigh. Zonana argues that Marian partly represents Aurora's feminist mind because she believes that Aurora's identification with Marian is a feminine act. Indeed, Marian is one of Aurora's muses but she is considered as a subject and not as an object as male poets would consider her. Zonana wrote that Marian is "an essential mirror in Aurora's process of self-discovery". This can be confirmed by the fact that Aurora completely discovers herself in Italy just after her "rediscovery" of Marian in Paris.
Other elements of feminism can be found in Aurora Leigh, such as the opposition of Aurora and Romney. Aurora embodies the feminine spirit, in other words the spiritual, whereas Romney embodies the masculine spirit, that is to say the material. Moreover, as a muse and a female poet, Aurora is at the center of her story and she stands out from male "epic singers" such as Homer and Virgil.
Joyce Zonana's essay shows her that Aurora Leigh is a novel about poetry and muses but it is also about feminism and we could make a parallel between Aurora Leigh and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
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