I think one of the most interesting aspects of Hemans "The Wife of Asdrubal" is the title of the poem. It seems unfitting that a poem about such a strong and leading women should be named "The Wife of Asdrubal". It seems, to me, insulting to the wife (and not to mention the children who are not even mentioned). Even in this story about her strength and her martyrdom, she is referred to as a piece of property of her husband. She doesn't even have the dignity of a name in the poem. This injustice is even more intensified by the fact that the husband, Asdrubal, is a horrible man and father. He has left his wife and children to die. Without any hesitation, he witnesses their deaths. Perhaps Hemans is making a commentary about society's tendency to disregard or discredit women even when the women performs an honorable task of some sort. We could even apply this to Heman's own writing. Surely, it was hard to be a women writer in her time. Women writers were likely to be overlooked despite their great talents and abilities.
After your drawing attention to this feature, I can't help but notice the interesting contrast that is posed by the title of Hemens's poem, "Properzia Rossi." This is a poem in which the woman is portrayed as being much weaker than the woman we encounter in "The Wife of Asdrubal." The speaker of "Properzia" pours her emotions freely, in a sense begging the object of her affection to take notice of her. She demonstrates nothing near the resilience and courage that her counterpart in "The Wife of Asdrubal" shows with her display of martyrdom. Why does the weaker woman earn a name, and why does this name earn a title? Is it simply because she has no husband to portray his identity upon her? This inverse relationship between emotional strength and identity intrigues me.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting--it seems to deliberately highlight the injustice here. However, it is directly inverse. The wife of asdrubal has what Properzia wants, and Properzia has what the wife of asdrubal deserves.
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