‘Nesne’ olmaktan ‘özne’ olmaya: Elizabeth Barrett Browning ve Christina Rossetti’nin sonelerinde Petrarca sone geleneğinin kadın bakış açısıyla yeniden yazımı

Öz

Viktorya Dönemi İngiltere’de toplumsal cinsiyet rollerinin en baskın olduğu dönemlerin başında gelir. Katı ahlak kurallarının egemen olduğu bu dönemde, kadın toplum tarafından belirlenmiş basmakalıp rollere sıkıştırılmıştır. Öyle ki, kendini ailesine adamış iyi bir eş, anne ve ev hanımı olması beklenen kadın yalnızca duygularıyla var olurken akıl, mantık ve entelektüellik yalnızca erkeklere atfedilen özelliklerdir. Dolayısıyla, şair olmak kadınların yapabileceği bir iş değildir, kadınlar ancak şiirin ‘nesne’si olabilir çünkü ataerkil toplumda erkekten her açıdan aşağı görülen kadın, erkeğe karşı yalnızca güzelliği ile üstünlük sağlayabilir. Bu bağlamda, “saray aşkı” geleneği çerçevesinde âşık olduğu kadının güzelliğini, sadakatini, erdemini, ahlakını yücelten, mükemmelliğini idealize eden bir aşığın saplantılı ama karşılıksız aşkını konu edinen Petrarca’nın sone geleneği, yalnızca erkeklere atfedilen ve kadını arzu edilen bir nesne olarak ele alan en bilinen şiir türlerinden biridir. Bu çalışma, Viktorya Dönemi İngilteresi’nin önde gelen iki kadın sone yazarı Elizabeth Barrett Browning ve Christina Rossetti’nin “Sonnets from the Portuguese” ve “Monna Innominata” adlı sone dizilerinde erkek egemen Petrarca sone geleneğinin kadın bakış açısıyla yeniden yazılmasını ele almaktadır. Bu çerçevede, çalışma Browning ve Rossetti'nin yazdıkları soneler ile kadınları şiire yalnızca güzellikleriyle ilham veren birer ‘nesne’ olmaktan çıkarıp, şiirin hisseden ve düşünen “öznesi” yaparak hem toplumda hem de edebi eserlerde nesneleştirilen, edilgenleştirilen ve sessiz kılınan kadınların sesi olduklarını ileri sürmektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Petrarca sone geleneği
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• Christina Rossetti
• “Sonnets from the Portuguese”
• “Monna Innominata”

From being ‘object’ to being ‘subject’: the rewriting of Petrarch's sonnet tradition from a female perspective in the sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti

Abstract

The Victorian Age is one of the primary periods predominated by gender roles in England. In this period of strict moral rules, women are confined to stereotypical roles determined by society. That is, a woman, who is expected to be a good wife, mother and housewife devoted to her family, exists only with her emotions, while reason, logic and intellectuality are the characteristics attributed only to men. In this sense, being a poet is not a women’s occupation, women can only be the 'object' of poetry because they are regarded as inferior to men in every respect in patriarchal society, and they can gain superiority over men only with their beauty. In this context, dealing with the obsessive but unrequited love of a lover who idealizes the beauty, loyalty, virtue and morality of his beloved with a “courtly love tradition", the Petrarch sonnet tradition is one the most popular poetic genre, which is attributed only to men and regards women as objects of desire. This study elaborates on the rewriting of the male-dominated Petrarch sonnet tradition from a female perspective in the sonnets sequence "Sonnets from the Portuguese" and "Monna Innominata" composed by two leading poetesses of Victorian England, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti. In this context, the study argues that in their sonnet sequences, Browning and Rossetti give voice to objectified, passivated and silenced women in society as well as in literary works by transforming them from ‘objects’ into the "subjects" who have feelings and thoughts.

Keywords

• Petrarchan sonnet tradition
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• Christina Rossetti
• “Sonnets from the Portuguese”
• “Monna Innominata”

Kaynakça

1. Browning, B. E. (2009). “Sonnets from the Portuguese”. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Selected Poems.
2. Ed. Stone, M. & Taylor, B. Canada: Broadview Editions. s.204-232.
3. -----. (1872). Aurora Leigh and Other Poems. New York: James Miller Publisher.
4. Byrd, D. (1987). Combating an Alien Tyranny: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Evolution as a Feminist Poet. Browning Institute Studies, 15, 23-41. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25057802.
5. Chapman, A. (2007). “Sonnet and Sonnet Sequence”. A Companion to Victorian Poetry. Ed. Richard Cranin, Alison Chapman and Antony H. Harrison. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
6. Deirdre, D. (1987). Intellectual Women and Victorian Patriarchy: Harriet Martineau, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot. London: MacMillan Press.
7. Distiller, N. (2008). Desire and Gender in the Sonnet Tradition. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
8. Garrett, M. (ed.) (2000). Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning: Interviews and recollections. London: Macmillan.

9. Gilbert, S. & Susan G. (1996). “The Aesthetics of Renunciation” Victorian Women Poets. Ed. Tess Cosslet. London and New York: Longman.
10. Knecht, R. (2011). "Invaded by the World": Passion, Passivity, and the Object of Desire in Petrarch's "Rime sparse". Comparative Literature, 63(3), 235-252. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41238524.
11. Lysack, K. (1998). The Economics of Ecstasy in Christina Rossetti's "Monna Innominata". Victorian Poetry, 36(4), 399-416. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40002233
12. Moore, B. M. (1945). Desiring Voices Women Sonneteers and Petrarchism. Carbondale ve Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.
13. Paul, S. (1989). Strategic Self-Centering and the Female Narrator: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese". Browning Institute Studies, 17, 75-91. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25057847.
14. Petrarca, F. & Musa, M. (1996). Petrarch: The Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Press.
15. Remoortel, V. M. (Fall 2006). “(Re)gendering Petrarch: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘Sonnet from the Portuguese”. Tulse Studies in Women Literature. 25(2), 247-266.
16. Rossetti, C. (2008). Poetry and Prose. Ed. Simon Humphries. Oxford ve NewYork: Oxford University Press.
17. Scofield, L. (Spring 1997). “Displaced and Absent Texts as Contexts for Christina Rossetti's Monna Innominata”. Journal of Pre-Raphalite Studies. s.38-52.
18. Spiller, M. R. G. (1992). The Development of the Sonnet An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge.
19. Smarr, J. L. (2001). “Substituting for Laura: Objects of Desire for Renaissance Women Poets”, Comparative Literature Studies, 38(1), 1-30. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40247277. Stone, M. & Taylor, B. (2009). Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Selected Poems. Canada: Broadview Editions. s.204.
20. Trapp, J. (2001). Petrarch's Laura: The Portraiture of an Imaginary Beloved. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 64, 55-192. doi:10.2307/751561.
21. Triggs, J. A. (1989). Christina Rossetti’s Sonnet of Sonnets: Monna Innominata. s. 15. https://doi.org/10.7282/T3J969HW
22. Whitla, W. (1987). Questioning the Convention: Christina Rossetti’s Sonnet Sequence “Manna Innominata”. In Kent D. (Ed.), The Achievement of Christina Rossetti (s. 82-131). Ithaca;
23. London: Cornell University Press. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctvr7f9vz.8