A comparative reading of ‘On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because it was Frequented by a Lunatic’ by Charlotte Smith and ‘The Haunted Beach’ by Mary Robinson, with a focus on nature
Both ‘On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because it was Frequented by a Lunatic’ and ‘The Haunted Beach’ are written by female poets around the end of the eighteenth century. They use a lot of gothic imagery in order to show the landscape in the poems, draw attention to nature and show how this has an impact upon people. Both Smith and Robinson deal with the theme of isolation and conclude with the subject of the poem becoming one with nature, but with vastly different effects. This essay will compare and contrast the two works with these issues in mind.
Both poems are talking in third person about their respective subjects, the ‘Lunatic’ in Smith’s and the ‘fisherman’ in Robinson’s, and both give a sense of extreme isolation from general society right from the start. Robinson opens with ‘upon a lonely desart beach’[1], suggesting that the ‘little shed’ is the only sign of any life, creating a very barren and bleak setting for her poem to take place.[2] The word ‘lonely’ implies not only a sense of complete seclusion, but also a deep sense of unhappiness because of this, suggesting that the fisherman knows what he’s missing by being trapped upon that beach, immediately creating a very sombre tone for the rest of the poem. The setting of a ‘beach’ furthers this sense of barrenness as sand is such an inhospitable environment for growth so could imply an absence of life on the beach and may explain why it is only haunted by ghosts. The first line of Smith’s poem describes the ‘solitary wretch’ as being seen by an onlooker who remains a part of society and has been advised to avoid the man on the cliff.[3] The word ‘wretch’ means someone unfortunate, and to some extent, despicable therefore highlights how ostracised this man has become from society and how little he is respected as a human being as this word choice seems almost to declare him lower than human and associates him more with the wildness of nature and animalistic qualities. Right from the opening lines, both poets succinctly create a sense of utter and irreversible segregation from the general population and set out the subjects as being non-human through the way they initially set the scene.
To complement this idea, Robinson and Smith make great use of Gothic imagery in describing the natural world. Smith draws great attention to the harshness of the landscape, mentioning ‘tall cliffs’[4] and ‘waves that chide’.[5] The use of the word ‘tall’ gives a sense of the imposing landscape and also one of isolation and remoteness, using nature to show how the Lunatic is living. As cliffs are already tall, this gives a sense of the immense magnitude and to some extent, power of nature. Smith’s use of the word ‘chide’ is interesting as she is personifying nature and giving it an almost parental role towards the Lunatic. However, this could also be taken to show the sea rebuking him, instead becoming a reflection of what others think of him and how society has pushed him away to eventually disappear and be forgotten, much the like the sea will eventually erode the cliff and erase it from the world. To further this point, the huge distance being created between the Lunatic on the top of the ‘tall cliff’ and the ‘waves…below’ could also be Smith using natural imagery to represent the divide between the Lunatic and society. Reading more into this, it could be argued that Smith is subtly trying to show how through his unity with nature, the Lunatic has elevated himself above general society and is physically and spiritually closer to heaven and therefore God. Robinson also references a ‘jutting cliff…[with] craggs’, the hard ‘g’ sound here gives a phonetic reflection of the harsh and inhospitable version of nature that is working against an unfortunate individual.[6] She too, personifies nature ‘a cavern wide / Its shadowy jaws display’d’, making nature itself seem like a predator lurking in the darkness and waiting for the opportune moment to attack.[7] This could be showing how nature has the power to both give and remove life at any given moment.
Both poems show the subject communicating and interacting with nature, but in different respects. In Robinson’s poem the wind is ‘moaning’, suggesting that nature is in pain due to the atrocity of the act the fisherman has committed, showing murder to be going against the natural order and giving some justification to the torture nature is inflicting upon the fisherman as a form of penance.[8] The ‘weeds-for ever waving’ add to this idea of penance as there is no respite and no end in sight.[9] Robinson’s use of the word ‘waving’ suggests to some extent a taunting action, nature’s way of destroying the fisherman’s life much like he destroyed the mariner’s. Robinson uses animated beings in nature to further this, with reference to ‘the curlews screaming hover’d’.[10] The use of the ‘curlews’ is interesting as it is symbolically associated with death; Xavier Herbert writes that they scream when ‘they spied a Spirit baby wandering from its Dreaming Place, impatient to be reborn’.[11] This would then show how nature is working against the fisherman and potentially explain why he cannot leave, as the curlews and the weight of his crime are constantly ‘hover’d’ over him. Robinson’s description of the sea as ‘yawning’[12] also has interesting connotations; Walusinski claims that yawning is how ‘Satan enters’ the body[13], which gives a sense of gravity to the poem once it becomes apparent that the murdered mariner is laid to rest in his ‘deeply yawning tomb’ in the seabed.[14] In this way, Robinson may almost be trying to suggest that the fisherman is a human incarnation of Satan and has acted upon nature in order to try and sully its purity. The line ‘flashing fires the sands illume’ increases this link to Satanic behaviour as the ’flashing fires’ are reminiscent of those claimed to be in hell.[15] Fire is also symbolic of transformation and of passion, so Robinson may be using it to suggest the strength of the atrocity against nature and how committing that act has transformed the fisherman. The reference to ‘sand’ here highlights the intransience of nature and could be reflecting how mentally unstable the fisherman feels. This links to Smith’s poem, as she too uses nature to reflect the mental state of her lunatic. The ‘giddy brink’ that she references could be alluding to not only the literal brink of the cliff, but also to the mental brink of sanity which the lunatic is seen to be on, as well as the brink of mortality between the human and spiritual world, as mountains are often seen to be the point of contact between the two realms.[16] The lines ‘With hoarse, half-uttered lamentation, lies / Murmuring responses to the dashing surf’ shows this looming sense of insanity in the eyes of the world.[17] His response echoes the ‘frequent sighs’ of the gale and as such, shows him to be at one with nature and a true part of it.[18] It becomes clear that the weather and the landscape described is an allusion to how the lunatic feels content in nature’s chaos, and is physically and spiritually shown to be elevated above others because of this. The enjambment in these lines could also be representative of the waves relentlessly crashing against the cliffs and may be inferring that nature and time will continue to pass humanity by no matter what happens.
In conclusion, both poets link nature to the mental state of the subject through their use of Gothic elements and pathetic fallacy, seemingly to create an entire universe just focussed around them. Robinson’s nature is harsh, unrelenting and punitive towards the murderous fisherman and keeps him captive in a bubble of torture so that he can truly never be freed of the crime he committed. He becomes a slave to the immense power of nature ‘bound by a strong and mystic chain’ and destined to ‘waste[ ], in solitude and pain, / A loathsome life away’.[19] Here nature is an isolating force and the power and incessancy of it acts against the fisherman to ensure he is atoning for the carnal sin he committed for the rest of his life. Whilst Smith also shows a unity with nature, this becomes a comfort to the ‘Lunatic’ that has been ostracised by society and offers a kind of solace for him. By embracing the chaos of nature he lets go of the restraints of the human world and is ‘uncursed with reason’[20], suggesting that he has found complete peace within himself and leading the viewer to ‘see him more with envy’ as he is not concerned with the issue of dying as he has found inner peace.[21] In this way, Smith could be suggesting that by becoming one with nature you get closer to God and become more spiritual and therefore have no reason to fear death and decay, unaware of ‘the depth or duration of [your] woe’.[22]
Bibliography
Herbert, Xavier, Poor Fellow My Country (Australia: Collins, 1975)
Robinson, Mary, ‘The Haunted Beach’, in The Longman Anthology of British Literature, ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J.H. Dettmar (New York: Longman, 2012)
Smith, Charlotte, ‘On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland’, in The Poems of Charlotte Smith, ed. by Stuart Curran (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 1993)
Walusinski, Olivier, ‘The Mystery of Yawning in Physiology and Disease’, Frontiers of Neurology and Neuroscience, 28, (2010)
References
[1] Mary Robinson, ‘The Haunted Beach’, in The Longman Anthology of British Literature, ed. David Damrosch & Kevin J.H. Dettmar (New York: Longman, 2012), pp. 297-298, l1.
[2] Ibid., l3.
[3] Charlotte Smith, ‘On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland’, in The Poems of Charlotte Smith, ed. by Stuart Curran (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 1993), p.61, l1.
[4] Ibid., l2.
[5] Ibid., l4.
[6] Robinson, pp. 297-298, l10-13.
[7] Ibid., l14-15.
[8] Ibid., l19.
[9] Ibid., l13.
[10] Ibid., l38.
[11] Xavier Herbert, Poor Fellow My Country (Australia: Collins, 1975), ch 3.
[12] Robinson, pp. 297-298, l56.
[13] Olivier Walusinski, ‘The Mystery of Yawning in Physiology and Disease’, Frontiers of Neurology and Neuroscience, 28, (2010), p.23.
[14] Robinson, pp. 297-298, l70.
[15] Ibid., l71.
[16] Smith, p.61, l9.
[17] Ibid., l7-8.
[18] Ibid., l5.
[19] Robinson, pp. 297-298, l77-81.
[20] Smith, p.61, l13.
[21] Ibid., l10.
[22] Ibid., l14.