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5. Marvell's "Nymph": A Study of Feminine Consciousness
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Marvell's "Nymph": A Study of Feminine Consciousness CONSIDERING the querelle des femmes (debates on the nature of women) that took place in the Renaissance (in a sense they haven't died yet) and the probing quality of Andrew Marvell's mind, it is not likely that the seventeenth-century poet would have passed up the opportunity to examine his age's assumptions and conventions pertaining to women. It is from this perspective that I would like to look at one of his most enigmatic poems, "The Nymph complaining for the death of her Faun," and its striking female narrator, who is obsessed with courtly and Petrarchan love and suffers as a result. In spite of or perhaps because of all the allegorical weight that Marvell's nymph has had to bear upon her slender shoulders, there is one way, ironically enough, that she has not been looked at at length, namely as a female creature.1 The type of femininity that the nymph represents is of particular interest for our own time in its réévaluation of sexual norms of behavior and temperament , for she embodies a type that has been especially attractive to Western consciousness. Yet despite his empathy with her, it does not seem that Marvell shared the general view. Indeed, to some readers the poet has seemed anti-feminine in his Petrarchan parody. The nymph says of the fawn, And oft I blusht to see its feet more soft, And white, shall I say then my hand Nay any Ladies of the Land.2 69 5 c yO WOMEN, LOVE, AND POWER But as the present generation recognizes, one may be anti-Petrarchan without being anti-feminine. What Marvell mocks is not femininity but rather the traditional feminine stereotypes (Shakespeare does something similar in sonnet 130)— sweet breath, soft skin, white skin—by attributing them in superior measure to the fawn. If we are going to worship softness and whiteness, implies the poet,we might more justifiably worship a white fawn than a white woman. However, the nymph's attitude does not seem to be the same as the poet's, and this contrast provides one of the fascinations of the poem. The nymph blushes upon seeing the soft white feet of the fawn. Modesty in the face of strong feeling was the usual seventeenth-century explanation for blushing. Current psychoanalytic theory suggests sexual repression or exhibitionism. But the nymph doesn't blush out of anger—she has totally denied this emotion, not even admitting any toward the murderous troopers —nor can I accept any theories of her sexual attraction to the fawn. Rather she blushes because of embarrassment that her physical beauty is inferior to the fawn's in those aspects exalted by Renaissance (and modern) image makers. Lines 82-84 make the nymph's feeling of inferiority particularly clear. Since white and red were the prime requisites for the beauty of the feminine complexion, how could the nymph hope to compare with the fawn, who "like a bank of lillies laid"? Upon the Roses it would feed, Until the Lips, ev'n seem'd to bleed. That her supposed physical limitations (there is no doubt some affected modesty in her self-portrayal) should be a source of pain to her is not surprising when one considers the nymph's value system. All the qualities she admires in the fawn, not just physical attributes but character traits as well, are those traditionally associated with femininity, namely tameness, flirtatiousness, submissiveness . It is the passive, docile qualities of the fawn that the nymph adores. They cohere with one major view of femininity in the Renaissance. As Ruth Kelso points out, sweetness, peaceableness, [54.167.199.134] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:47 GMT) MARVELL S NYMPH 71 and obedience are constantly recurring virtues in the sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries.3 To be sure, there was another side to the coin that we should not forget, for it was no doubt known to Marvell. Jacob Burckhardt speaks of the equality of noble Italian Renaissance women with men in both education and morality .4 However, it is the former constellation of virtues that the nymph seeks to emulate. What is more provocative in her view of gender is that she would like men as well as women to exhibit the Stereotypie virtues of femininity. The fawn is not only a speculum nymphae (Berger 293), it is also a surrogate lover (Allen 165). Unlike Sylvio, who moves on...