Infanticide as Self-de-facement: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"

Based on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point (1847), and trusting, at the same time, existential phenomenology and deconstruction, this paper aims at investigating a guilty individual's impulse for self-authorization (and self-narration). It discusses inf...

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Main Author: Yana Rowland
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: New Bulgarian University 2024-12-01
Series:English Studies at NBU
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Online Access:https://esnbu.org/data/files/2024/esnbu.24.2.1.pdf
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author Yana Rowland
author_facet Yana Rowland
author_sort Yana Rowland
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description Based on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point (1847), and trusting, at the same time, existential phenomenology and deconstruction, this paper aims at investigating a guilty individual's impulse for self-authorization (and self-narration). It discusses infant mortality, motherhood, and suffering, in which Elizabeth Barrett Browning's oeuvre abounds. Despite the unceasing critical interest in the poet's abolitionist leanings, the ontological uniqueness of The Runaway Slave is yet to be explored, having been dominated so far by militantly politicized researches on women's rights, the religious incongruities of Victorian culture, and the wavering solidarity that nineteenth-century England demonstrated for nations struggling under foreign despotism and illiterate self-government. Infanticide could be perceived as an act of self-de-facement, rather than of self-declaration. Considering muteness against the voicedness of the Face, this paper reveals the travail of a Self's inevitable sacrificial exposure to an Other, and by extension, the foundational role of alterity in authorial intentionality.
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spelling doaj-art-e721362674114d17a35433b6d8366ad72025-08-20T01:56:20ZengNew Bulgarian UniversityEnglish Studies at NBU2367-57052367-87042024-12-0110222524610.33919/esnbu.24.2.1Infanticide as Self-de-facement: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"Yana Rowland0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0906-1454Plovdiv University Paisii Hilendarski, Plovdiv, BulgariaBased on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point (1847), and trusting, at the same time, existential phenomenology and deconstruction, this paper aims at investigating a guilty individual's impulse for self-authorization (and self-narration). It discusses infant mortality, motherhood, and suffering, in which Elizabeth Barrett Browning's oeuvre abounds. Despite the unceasing critical interest in the poet's abolitionist leanings, the ontological uniqueness of The Runaway Slave is yet to be explored, having been dominated so far by militantly politicized researches on women's rights, the religious incongruities of Victorian culture, and the wavering solidarity that nineteenth-century England demonstrated for nations struggling under foreign despotism and illiterate self-government. Infanticide could be perceived as an act of self-de-facement, rather than of self-declaration. Considering muteness against the voicedness of the Face, this paper reveals the travail of a Self's inevitable sacrificial exposure to an Other, and by extension, the foundational role of alterity in authorial intentionality.https://esnbu.org/data/files/2024/esnbu.24.2.1.pdfelizabeth barrett browninginfanticideself-de-facementnarrativeresponsibility
spellingShingle Yana Rowland
Infanticide as Self-de-facement: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
English Studies at NBU
elizabeth barrett browning
infanticide
self-de-facement
narrative
responsibility
title Infanticide as Self-de-facement: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
title_full Infanticide as Self-de-facement: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
title_fullStr Infanticide as Self-de-facement: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
title_full_unstemmed Infanticide as Self-de-facement: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
title_short Infanticide as Self-de-facement: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
title_sort infanticide as self de facement elizabeth barrett browning s the runaway slave at pilgrim s point
topic elizabeth barrett browning
infanticide
self-de-facement
narrative
responsibility
url https://esnbu.org/data/files/2024/esnbu.24.2.1.pdf
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