“In this age of consumption, men and women began to locate themselves within the materials of their society”
The Body in Swift and Defoe, Carol Houlihan Flynn, p, 71
The eighteenth-century English social situation of desire-driven consumption manifested, throughout the era, in poetic forms and functions of the human body. Both materially and sexually, the body assumed an objectified mediatory role in societal disputes over the expectations of civility and the inherent impulses of human nature. Johnathan Swift’s poem “The Lady’s Dressing Room” satirizes the material objectification of the female body by drawing attention to the unreal expectations of its ‘polite’ and ordered display, and revealing, in its place, an impolite, disordered image in light of reality and human nature. Similarly, “The Imperfect Enjoyment” by John Wilmot completely strips the body—both male and female—of all adornment, and reveals it to be, by nature, a sexual object of uncontrollable impulse and desire.
English literary scholar, Eugenia Jenkins, asserts that during this age of consumption, “the well-dressed woman [was] ideally an ambassador of poetic order in the world of objects” (Jenkins 86). Swift exploits this understanding in his poem, “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” along with the “dressing room” metaphor itself, which, Tita Chico, author of Designing Women: The Dressing Room in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Culture, explains “was always associated with the female body, sexuality, and artifice, an association that came to implicate the precious items housed there” (Chico 47). By drawing overt attention to the disorderly aspects of human nature that are present within women, Swift critiques the consumption-based motives behind the materialistic objectification of an adorned female body.
Within the first few lines of the poem, the effects of society’s expectation regarding the ordered appearance of the female body are apparent through the dress and attitude of Celia: “Haughty Celia… / The goddess from her chamber issues, / arrayed in lace, brocades, and tissues” (Swift 2-4). It is evident, through Celia’s “haughty” air, that she has conformed to the structures pressed upon her by the patriarchal culture, that she is skilled in the art of attracting attention and displaying the “goddess”-like image that is expected of her, rendering herself merely an object to be looked upon, judged, and possessed; and completely dependent on her society’s approval of her external and artificial condition. This material process of concealment presents Celia’s body as one of apparent perfection (like a “goddess”), falsely elevating it above the realms of human nature and the notions of any impulse that accompanies that state, such as human excrement or sexual desire. Through this medium, the patriarchal society maintains a sense—although false—of order and control.1 Thus, Celia emerges from her dressing room orderly pieced together in a state that renders her untouched by the chaotic effects of human nature.
Chico further explains in her book that the age of consumption “contributed to the objectification of women, who in turn came to be represented through the objects they collected in their dressing rooms” (Chico 47). As Strephon presents the inventory of Celia’s dressing-room items, he makes an internal connection between the value of her objects and her value as a person—along with the value of her entire sex: “His foul imagination links / Each Dame he sees with all her stinks” (Swift 121-122). This connection is ironic as it parallels the inverse mentality of the culture to judge the female body by the state of its adornment, the beautiful and precious aspects that cover and conceal its true form. Thus, upon the realization of Celia’s equal share in human nature through the vivid depictions of her shocking items, Strephon exclaims, “how damnably the men lie, / In calling Celia sweet and cleanly” (Swift 17-18). Strephon’s exclamation can be applied to the inverse situation as well, as it is an untruth and a completely unattainable expectation to assume women above the reaches of human nature.
As the cultural separation of the female body from natural human impulses is rooted in patriarchal control, displacing Celia from natural bodily functions, in effect, removes her claim to humanity and solidifies the objectivity of her body as something to be inspected and possessed. Celia’s chamber pot symbolizes this objectification. Outwardly, the chest is ordered and beautiful, an object deliberately constructed for artifice, concealing its interior by the impression that it is not a chamber pot: “the workman showed his wit / with rings and hinges counterfeit / to make it seem in this disguise / a cabinet…” (Swift 75-78). Likewise, the female body is concealed and adorned to give an impression that it is not entirely human. Strephon’s action of “lifting up the lid, / To view what in the chest was hid” ultimately parallels Swift’s poetic intention of revealing the female body as an artificial cover for the disordered, state of nature within every human being; as well as an equal possessor and participator in the internal and disordered state of such nature, function, impulse, and desire (Swift 89-90).
With respect to the equality of human nature in both men and women, John Wilmot centers his poem, “The Imperfect Enjoyment” on the sexual impulse and function of both the male and female body. Paralleling Swift’s poetic insights on the disordered state of human nature, “the problem of sexuality” as scholar Carol Houlihan Flynn expresses, “lies in its resistance to order, its irrational assertion of desire over ‘reason’” (Flynn 5). Wilmot’s poem portrays this desire-driven impulse through the representation of bodies as objects, completely controlled by the forces of nature.
While Swift’s poem opens with the description of a finely-clothed female body, Wilmot’s begins with the inverse: “Naked she lay, clasped in my loving arms, / I filled with love and she all over charms” (Wilmot 1-2). Although the female character appears to be the object in this moment, the objectification of solely her body is by no means the central subject of the sexual encounter. Rather, Wilmot unites the bodies as an apparent equal union for the moment, both enraptured in the chaotic impulses of the nature by which they are defined. He illuminates this human nature by portraying her sexual desire at a level equal to that of the masculine character’s: “Both equally inspired with eager fire, / Melting through kindness, flaming in desire” (Wilmot 3-4). Thus, this opening moment serves not only to draw attention to the unavoidable presence of desire in human nature within both sexes, but also to illustrate an animalistic tendency behind that nature—one that is irrational, disordered, and uncontainable.
Furthering the notion of disorder and the transcendence of nature over society’s facades of civility, Wilmot presents the female as the dominant character to whom all the action verbs of the moment belong. She “clips,” “sucks,” “play[s],” and “orders,” while he passively receives the action and strives to obey (Wilmot 6-9). Her dominance overtly implies artifice in society’s conceptions of order and civility, like the dress and cosmetics that deceitfully cover the nature of the female body in Swift’s poetry. Here, the polite, ‘goddess’-like female, when stripped of her adornment and the structures of the society that seeks to cover her, embodies the inverse of societal order, suggesting that order in society does not actually exist as all mankind is subservient to human nature and the animalistic drives that direct it. Similarly, the masculine character’s impotence, the subject which ultimately overpowers the majority of the poem, supports the revelation of an inverse social order ruled by nature where the male body is equally as weak, and prone to failure and disappointment as are the female bodies.
Not only does the impotence demonstrate internal weakness which society seeks to cover, but it demonstrates a complete lack of control over all the impulses of human nature. He cannot control the feeling of desire, nor can he control his ability to satisfy it, although he tries with all his power to command the situation: “To show my wished obedience [I] vainly strive: / I sigh alas and kiss, but cannot swive” (Wilmot 26-27). He is, in reality, completely under the rule of a nature to which there appears no order or reason at all. Thus, as the scholar Carol Fabricant confirms, “in a frightening extension of Descartes’ view that animals are simply machines, Rochester…posits the vision of man himself as the ultimate machine. In this connection…he specifically draws a parallel between human and animal behavior” (Fabricant 345). With this characterization of the nature of the human body—uncontrollable and animal-like—Wilmot challenges the notions of societal order, intimating that they are mere constructions, and attempts to create meaning where it does not exist.
The poet heightens the sense of confusion and chaos further in the text as it becomes evident that the male character’s desire turns into frustration and hatred—more intense impulses of human nature. The speaker objectifies the male sexual organ by separating it from the rest of the body and centering the hateful diction upon it, as if it were the sole object of contempt and blame for the uncontrollable situation; “worst part of me and henceforth hated most” (Wilmot 62). This derogatory opinion of the organ reveals inconstancy in the mind and nature of the speaker, as earlier in the poem, before the organ’s impotence was discovered, it was an object of laudation and wonder, to which he referred as an “all-dissolving thunderbolt below” (Wilmot 10). The image of a “thunderbolt” implies a natural wonder and the uncontrollable power of nature, while the idea of its “all-dissolving” state suggests the brevity of its influence, as well as an innate intangibility of its makeup. This double-mindedness reflects the state of society, striving to maintain order and control over the impulses of human nature, which ultimately leads to more frustration and disorder, as evident in the social conversations that characterized the era.2
For both of the poems presented in this essay, even the poetic structure of the works support this argument of societal artifice, as the lines possess beautiful meter and rhyme, yet the diction shows the internal content vulgar and repulsive, like the “chest” in Celia’s dressing room.3 This is a symbolic reflection of the state of society during this era of desire-driven consumption—ordered and decorated externally, but chaotic, ravenous, and uncontrollable internally by the influence of human nature. Given this natural disorderly state of mankind, Swift’s insight at the end of “The Lady’s Dressing Room” appears a hopeful resolution for the arguments of civility and nature. It is a remarkable accomplishment that through the forces and impulses of their natural state at work against them, that female and male bodies are able to achieve, produce, and enjoy any form of order or beauty within life. Thus, the encouragement to “bless [one’s] ravished sight to see / Such order from confusion sprung, / Such gaudy tulips raised from dung” inspires a humble gratitude for such accomplishment, particularly within this era, as it pertains to the beauty of the female body, and the potency of the male’s (Swift 141-144).
30 October 2019
Endnotes:
- See “Works Cited” for Tita Chico’s article, “Privacy and Speculation in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain.” On page 45 she states “women’s public beauty is produced as an effect of order, control, and abstraction.”
- See “Works Cited” for Flynn’s book, The Body in Swift and Defoe. On page 7, she writes “A sense of frustration informs many of the attempts to rationalize, utilize, and eventually get rid of the bodies that bind.”
- See “Works Cited” for Eugenia Zuroski Jenkin’s article, ““Nature to Advantage Drest…”” She states on pages 89-90 “Poetic order manages paradoxically to yield the experience of disorder, exposing the “counterfeit” quality of its own metrical beauty with every nauseating line.” While this statement was aimed solely at Swift’s dressing room poetry, the same is evident in Wilmot’s poem as well.
Works Cited:
Fabricant, Carol. “Rochester’s World of Imperfect Enjoyment.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Jul., 1974), pp. 338-350.
Flynn, Carol Houlihan. The Body in Swift and Defoe. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990.
Jenkins, Eugenia Zuroski. ““Nature to Advantage Drest”: Chinoiserie, Aesthetic Form, and the Poetry of Subjectivity in Pope and Swift.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1, 2019, pp. 75-94.
Tita, Chico. Designing Women: The Dressing Room in the Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Culture. Bucknell University Press, 2005.
Tita, Chico. “Privacy and Speculation in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain.” Cultural Critique, No. 52, Everyday Life, 2002, pp. 40-60.