Emily Brontë NO COWARD SOUL IS MINE poem analysis | Emily Brontë’s Stoicism | 19th century poetry

hello and welcome to close reading classic literature with me dr octavia cox i've had lots of lovely comments on my videos and there have been many that have been asking for more bronte analysis so today i'm going to be doing an analysis of an absolutely marvellous fantastic poem by emily bronte she's imperious she's fierce she's defiant and today i'm going to be looking at her poem no coward soul is mine written in 1846 and in particular i'm going to be analyzing no coward soul is mine as a defense of her philosophical stoicism so today in this video i'm going to outline what stoicism is in the context of a young victorian woman in 19th century england i'm then going to provide some relevant details of the stoic philosopher epicticus give some contemporary criticism of the stoic position and then consider no coward soul as mine the poem as a rebuttal of the skepticism towards stoicism so i'm going to close read the poem and consider uh consider emily bronte's use of litotes anaphora alliteration and particularly i want to consider her use of form which i think is really interesting in this poem especially the rhythm and then at the end i'm going to make a connection that you might be able to see with her with her novel wuthering heights so i'm going to start by reading through the poem no coward soul is mine no trembler in the world storm troubled sphere i see heaven's glory shine and faith shines equal arming me from fear oh god within my breast almighty ever-present deity life that in me hast rest as i undyne life have power in thee vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts unutterably vain worthless as withered weeds or idlist froth amid the boundless name to awaken doubt in one holding so fast by thy infinity so surely anchored on the steadfast rock of immortality with wide embracing love thy spirit animates eternal years pervades and broods above changes sustains dissolves creates and rears though earth and moon were gone and suns and universes ceased to be and thou were left alone every existence would exist in thee there is not room for death nor atom that his might could render void since thou art being and breath and what thou art may never be destroyed so i'm going to start by providing some context some background details to help define and describe emily bronte's philosophical position with regards to stoicism elizabeth carter was the first person to translate the complete works of epicticus into english her translation appeared in 1758 and went on to become the standard english version of the text well into the 19th century elizabeth carter outlines the stoix position in her introduction of which epicticus was a proponent epicticus was a greek stoic philosopher this is elizabeth carter's introduction to her translation of epictetus epictetus is a strict professor of stoicism which argues that the end of man the purpose of man is to live conformably to nature was universally agreed on amongst all the philosophers but in what that conformity to nature consists was the point in dispute the epicureans maintained that it consisted in pleasure of which they constituted sense the judge the stoics on the contrary placed it in an absolute perfection of the soul an almost godlike absolute perfection of the soul neither of them seem to have understood man in his mixed capacity but while the first epicureans debased him to a mere animal the last the stoics exalted him to a pure intelligence and both considered him as independent uncorrupted and sufficient either by hurt of virtue or by well-regulated indulgence to his own happiness the idea here is that there's an inherent kind of selfishness to the stoic position because it relies on an inward looking of the perfect soul the perfected human soul and because the human soul is almost god-like in its absolute perfection it is itself the height of virtue so it's inherently virtuous the stoical excess was more useful to the public as it often produced great and noble efforts towards that perfection to which it was supposed possible for human nature to arrive yet at the same time by flattering man with false and presumptuous ideas of his own power and excellence it tempted even the best to pride and this was one of the main criticisms of the stoic position that it was self-aggrandizing that it was presumptuous that it placed man far too high and too close to god a vice not only dreadfully mischievous in human society but perhaps of all others the most insuperable bar to real inward improvement so the idea there was that you were supposed to focus inward in order to improve yourself but if you already thought of your soul as uh absolute perfection the absolute perfection of the soul but this having this god-like quality to it then that might dissuade you from trying to improve yourself another really important part of emily bronte's poem that i want to focus on is its argument against having a fear of death emily bronte's poem no coward soul is mine is an exploration of courage against the fear of death there is not room for death the narrative voice exhorts in the opening of the final stanza heptatus argues that humans are only free once they have fortified themselves against the fear of death so you can only be free once you no longer fear death and that's a central tenet the third book of epithetus's discourses ends in elizabeth carter's translation from 1758 thus why do not you know then that the origin of all human evils and of mean-spiritedness and cowardice important word obviously when we're looking at the poem we're looking at is not death but rather the fear of death fortify yourself therefore against this so fight against it arm yourself against it hither let all your discourses readings exercises tend so let everything you do be to fortify yourself against a fear of death and then you will know that thus alone are men made free so the only way to achieve freedom is to get rid of a fear of death unsurprisingly there was contemporary debate about the soundness of these stoic ideas and elizabeth carter in the admirable spirit of a blue stocking exchange of ideas and the promotion of this exchange of ideas included as a preface to her translation of epitus a poem by hester chapon called an irregular ode and in an irregular ode hester chapon argues that stoicism is dangerous in an irregular ode hester chapon which as i've said prefaced carter's translation of epithetus the stoical philosopher rejects stoicism on the grounds that it creates a coldness of heart to one's fellow man she writes of the stoic pride and fancied scorn of human feelings human pain in stanza iv of hester chapon's an irregular ode chapon's narrative voice rejects stoicism because it shows imperious pride and relies on a god-like all-sufficient human mind that the stoic fails to recognize is in fact foul weak ignorant and blind chapon speaker asks incredulously in stanza 4 within myself does virtue dwell and note the italicization of myself in order to suggest the absurdity of um of locating virtue within myself emily bronte's no coward soul is mine resoundingly answers yes virtue does dwell within myself authority virtue is within the narrative voice itself and is never located externally or outside of the self within no coward soul is mine oh god within my breast almighty ever-present deity the narrative voice says in emily bronte's poem god is within so virtue is within the first four lines of chapon's stanza eight read no more repine my coward soul the sorrows of mankind to share which he who could the world control did not disdain to bear chapon's argument is that the soul should not fear to share in the common human experiences of pain and sorrow since god himself jesus endured them too did not disdain to bear the concerns of mankind so in lines 7 and 8 of stanza 8 thy stubborn heart to soften and improve and there we have that word improve again and that softening the heart was part of improvement thy earth clad spirit to refine that's what your focus should be it should be your earth clad spirits and that you should refine and improve and soften your heart in order to do that emily bronte's narrative voice on the other hand refuses to confine itself to the earth to the world's troubles only and the narrative voices spirit has god's power within it in the fifth to eight lines of shapone's stanzanine nor thou with fond chimera's vein with stoic pride and fancied scorn of human feelings human pain my feeble soul sustain so chimera is defined by the oxford english dictionary as a fabled fire-breathing monster of greek mythology with a lion's head and a goat's body and a serpent's tail that has come to mean an unreal creature of the imagination a mere wild fancy or an unfounded conception which is the ordinary modern usage of the term emily bronte converts chapon's claim that stoicism is a vain chimera so a fanciful impossibility back onto humanity and misguided creeds that are concerned with the mere moving of men's hearts the trifling really in comparison vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts unutterably vain chapon's narrative voices feeble soul is sustained by human feelings and human pain but for emily bronte's narrative voice this concern for human emotion is as worthless as withered weeds they are mere idol froth in other words emily bronte's speaker accepts stoic pride and scorn of human feelings so now i'm going to go through the poem no coward soul is mine stanza by stanza to analyze it in a little bit more close detail so stanza one no coward soul is mine and you can see immediately this is a response to hester chapon's phrase coward soul my coward soul no coward soul is mine no trembler in the world storm-troubled sphere i see heaven's glory shine and faith shines equal arming me from fear so the poem starts with a no it starts with defiance it starts with not accepting whatever has gone before of rejecting it of being oppositional of being defiant no coward soul is mine so from the opening line bronte uses lytotes and hyperbaton and they both engage explicitly with hester chapon's my coward soul phrase and expose how emily bronte's poem differs from the anti-stoical position that had gone before so lytotes is an affirmative or a positive that is expressed by its contrary denied by a negative that sounds a bit more complicated than it is but it's instead of saying my courageous soul which would be the affirmative which would be the positive you say no coward soul is mine so instead of saying i am courageous you say i am not a coward so that's lytotes bronte also uses hyperbaton which derives from the greek force stepover is another word for the inversion of ordinary word order especially for effect and bronte does that here so you have my coward soul and then no coward soul is mine so moving the my to the end in the form of the opening line then the speaker stresses at the poem's very opening that it is rejecting cowardice which we remember was an explicit part of epictetus's doctrine at the end of book three so you'll see that there's a focus on rejecting cowardice rather than embracing courage and epictetus had demanded that stoics fortify yourself against cowardice in the second line then we start again with no so we've got anaphora here anaphora is when a word or a phrase is repeated in successive clauses no coward no trembler and this again explicitly sets the narrative voice in opposition to hester chapon and thinkers like hester chapon because it begins no coward soul is mine so i am not a coward soul like you no trembler in the worlds i'm going to get the phrase wrong no trembler in the world storm troubled sphere no trembler in the world storm troubled sphere is also linking that no back to hester chapon essentially saying you are a trembler a mere trembler in the world sphere and that's that word trembler is is diminishing it it's sort of small in scale it's little it's not a kind of seismic uh shift of geography of of large scale geography or anything it's quite small and quite local and quite contained and in a way it sort of reminds me of hester chapon calling her own soul feeble it's a feeble soul that might tremble in the world not a courageous soul not a soul that is not a coward so the poem continues i see heaven's glories shine and faith shines equal arming me from fear so the i there obviously it's individual it's the focused on the the one soul rather than the collective which is tying into or at least accepting the idea perhaps of the individualistic uh criticism that was put by hester chapon and the narrative voice in bronte's poem is essentially saying yes i see heaven's glories you can tremble in the world sphere if you want to but i see heaven's glories i'm my focus is on much more interesting much more important uh things like glory heaven's glories rather than the mere troubles of the world and faith shines equal arming me from fear so again going back to the end of book three of epitous fortify yourselves against the fear of death stoics had been told to do and here the language is being picked up fortify to arm yourself arming me from fear you know this is a fight and the speaker is is willing to fight to arm to fight against fear the word equal i think is also important so i see heaven's glory shine and faith shines equal in me and that's what arms me from the fear of death so heaven's glory shine and that shines out of me equally which again is uh accepting you might say hester chapon's criticism of stoicism which is that it is self-aggrandizing that it brings the human up too much to the god-like i also really want to look at the form of the poem because i think it's really interesting and bronte does something quite unusual in the way that she lays out the rhythm so it's in quat trains which is not itself unusual with a very standard a b a b c d c d rhyme scheme but the meter the rhythm is what's unusual so when you have a quat train common meter as it's called is to have a tetrameter tetrameter and a tri-meter you have uh uh four metrical feet per line or eight beats and trimeter is uh three feet three metrical feet per line so six beats and this is a very typical form for ballads and for hymns our ear is quite used to it it's quite a comforting rhythm a familiar poem hymn that you might have heard of which is in common meter is amazing grace so amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved the wretch like me i once was lost but now and found was blind but now i see obviously we never we never really sing it like that but that you can see the kind of comforting rhythm that you have four uh feet and then you have three feet and then you have a kind of comforting pause at the end like a sort of full stop and then you go again but in no coward soul is mine emily bronte inverts that expected rhythm so we have the shorter line first and the longer line second so inverts those rhythmical expectations those rhythmical familiarities she also extends out the longer line to pentameter so five metrical feet per line or ten beats per line so it's even more extended so the rhythm then instead of having that kind of comforting hymn-like ballad rhythm instead becomes almost like a statement and then an explanation of the statement so no coward soul is mine it opens like a statement and then it's elaborated on by no trembler in the world's troubled sphere so i'm now going to read the opening stanza inverting the length of the line so you can just see what i mean about it creating a totally different feeling in having the shorter line first and the longer line second so it would feel very different i think if the poem was constructed like this no trembler in the world storm troubled sphere no coward soul is mine and faith shines equal arming me from fear i see heaven's glories shine i think that's a more comforting rhythm whereas the one that is actually how the poem is formed is much starker i think is more self-assertive because if i say as i've said you have that feeling of having a statement first followed by an explanation of the statement so the form then through the rhythm creates a bold assertive declarative tone and the second stanza o god within my breast almighty ever-present deity life that in me has to rest as i undying life have power in thee so at the end of the first answer we had that idea of sort of reciprocity of being equal of heaven shining and the faith shining out of the speaker and you have that kind of reciprocity here too life and you can see that in the form in the way that it's constructed life that in me has to rest as i undying life have power in be so i the speaker has power in god and we can see that there's a focus on within that god within my breast and then at the end of the stanza that i have power in the so it's kind of inhabiting in some sense the other being stanza three vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts unutterably vain worthless as withered weeds or idlist froth amid the boundless mane such a good stanza maine here means sea or ocean or body of water generally so again in the form we've got the the vanity kind of book ending the fir the first line and the second line it's almost as if man is circumscribed by his own vanity or encompassed by his own vanity vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts unutterably vain the all of man and all of man's tremblings of the heart are vanity it's sort of throwing back the idea that hester chapon had leveled at the stoic that the stoic was vain and self-aggrandizing by make by thinking of themselves as god-like and the speaker here is throwing it back on to humans and saying no that's that's mere vanity and i love bronte's use of unutterably here it's so contemptuous it's almost beneath speaking about humans who are concerned only with having their own hearts moved are unutterably vain they are beneath speaking about and the fact that it's a thousand creeds that move men's hearts you know there are multiple different troubles in the world sphere that might move man's heart there's a real sense of triviality i think in that move men's hearts compared to what we're going to come across later which is the certainty of being surely anchored on a steadfast rock to the idea of heaven's glory shining from within the speaker of the poem and this is a beautifully constructed line worthless as withered weeds because you've got three and then two and then one beet so worthless as withered weeds and that rhythm that kind of slowing down worthless as withered weeds is enhanced by the alliteration worthless withered weeds and you can see perhaps that those worthless withered weeds tie back to the idea of the world through the use of alliteration there and you can see the use of enjambment here idlist froth amid the boundless mane to awaken doubt in one holding so fast by thy infinity so surely anchored on the steadfast rock of immortality awakening doubt in the speaker is just like idle froth on the sea so that white kind of foam that you get on on the top of the sea and it's that frothy irrelevant part compared to you know the elemental um steadfastness of the sea or of the rock or of uh nature kind of grand sublime epic nature and we've got the use of sibilance here too so sibilance is alliteration but with an s sound so so so surely steadfast so so surely steadfast and we've got the boundless main the elemental sea or ocean or water at the end of the previous stanza and now we've got the rock so these these foundational kind of elements of the earth rather than the mere kind of moving men's hearts troubles you know that that humans tremble about this is this is the earth that matters the stands are five with wide embracing love thy spirit animates eternal years pervades and broods above changes sustains dissolves creates rears so the the wide embracing love at the beginning of this stanza i think contrasts with the sweet fraternal love human love that chapon claimed was the kind of human sphere so god's spirit thou thy spirit animates it makes life it creates eternal years and that's a almost tautologist because eternity you don't really count eternity in years but um but still eternal years and plural again we're sort of extending extending it out the plurals there's a kind of plethora of plurals throughout this stanza we've got years pervades broods changes sustains dissolves creates rears these are all plurals this is all creating a sense of fullness and that it's a continual ongoing kind of a process that it's cyclical that things dissolve in order to to create which is why i think dissolves is next to creates because stuff dissolves in order for new creation to come to be and that's another way to arm yourself from the fear of death by saying that it's cyclical that what dissolves you might see is dying but it's just dissolving in order to be recreated and in fact that juxtaposition of dissolves and creates echoes um simultaneous kind of famous articulation of the secondary imagination which is that's from biographia literaria from 1817 that it dissolves diffuses and dissipates in order to recreate that that's what the imagination the poetic imagination does dissolves diffuses and dissipates in order to recreate in order to make sense of the world again that you need that dissolving dissipation that diffusion in order to make it new again to use a modernist term i think what's also interesting in this stanza is you've got a real sense of kind of nurturing imagery so broods is quite an interesting world of course it means sort of meditate if you brood on something you contemplate it with a strong sense of feeling but it also means to nurse or to foster and when that's coupled with rears because rears means to lift up but it also means you know if you rear your child you're bringing it up you're educating it you're bringing it to maturity you're caring for it you're nourishing it you're helping it grow stanza six though earth and moon were gone and suns and universes ceased to be we've still got that idea of plurality so hanging over from dissolves creates and rears suns and universes so more than one universe that thou wert left alone every existence would exist in thee and there seems to be a paradox here and the paradox seems to be that god would be left alone and yet at the same time every existence would exist in thee so you might have noticed here that there's a famous section of wuthering heights where kathy describes her love her feelings for heathcliff i am heathcliff she says and i think it's worth pointing out that no coward soul is mine is dated as being written on the 2nd of january 1846 during the period of the composition of wuthering heights which was between 1845 and 86. the poem was published posthumously in the 1850 edition of wuthering heights and agnes gray edited by charlotte bronte so the poem first appeared alongside charlotte bronte's edition of wuthering heights catherine earnshaw says to nelly i cannot express it but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you and for the speaker of the poem no coward soul is mine that existence of yours beyond you is god what were the use of my creation if i were entirely contained here that's the same question that's the the speaker of the poem might ask but as i've said locates the purpose of creation differently from how kathy locates it my miseries in this world have been heathcliff's miseries again you might say perhaps that that is too much of a focus uh by catherine earnshaw on the miseries in this world in the world's storm-troubled sphere and i watched and felt each from the beginning my great thought in living is himself if all else perished and he remained i should still continue to be and if all else remained and he were annihilated the universe would turn into a mighty stranger and this i think fundamentally is the kind of difference between what the speaker in the poem is saying and catherine earnshaw is saying so yes we've got this idea of existing in another being in another body if all else perished and he remained i should still continue to be and that's the same in the poem if thou were left alone if everything ceased to be the earth and the moon and the suns and the universes cease to be and thou art left alone every existence would exist in thee and the difference there is that it's every existence it's universal so the narrative voice in the poem has generally used the eye and now is saying every existence would exist in thee so every existence exists within god whereas catherine earnshaw in bothering heights is saying i i would continue to exist in heathcliff and the universe would turn into a mighty stranger that's very different because the speaker in the poem is saying every existence would come together in god so nothing would be a stranger to everything because everything would still exist in god so everything would be united even if earth and moon and suns and universes cease to be in their previous form if they dissolve they would still be created they would be animated indeed they would still continue to be in god i should not seem a part of it says catherine earnshaw as i've said that's the opposite to the poem where everything is part of it my love for linton is like the foliage in the woods time will change it i'm well aware as winter changes the trees again this is just the troubles of the world sphere they're basically irrelevant my love for heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath and you can see that there's a link with the idea of holding so fast by thy infinity so surely anchored on the steadfast rock of immortality the idea of the eternal rock nelly i am heathcliff but this is existing beyond yourself in another human rather than in god so the speaker of the poem no coward soul is mine might instead say nelly i am god obviously that's a bit facetious but the idea of existing in god when everything else ceases to be he's always always in my mind not as a pleasure any more than i'm always a pleasure to myself but as my own being and i think that is the same feeling that the speaker in the poem has for god as my own being it's really not about pleasure it's about always always in my mind as my own being so moving on then to the final stanza to stanza 7 there is not room for death nor atom that his might could render void so there's no room for death and no not even an atom that death could render void could make meaningless could could kill essentially since thou art being and breath since god is life and what thou art may never be destroyed so because everything exists in god and god can't be destroyed nothing can die so that's the argument that the speaker the narrative voice of the poem has to arm herself himself against the fear of death if everything exists in god and god cannot be destroyed i cannot be destroyed i have no fear of death i have no reason to be a coward returning to the end of book three of epitous's discourses and thus is the narrative voice made free and the speaker in the poem doesn't deny chapon's attacks instead it embraces them and kind of adopts the stoic pride uh as chapon calls it an indifference to the pain and suffering of mankind in the biographical notice of ellison acton bell written by charlotte bronte and attached as a preface to the addition of wuthering heights that the poem no coward soul is mine was first published in bronte described charlotte bronte describes emily bronte like this in emily's nature the extremes of vigor and simplicity seem to meet under an unsophisticated culture in artificial tastes and an unpretending outside lay a secret power and fire that might have informed the brain and kindled the veins of a hero and the poem no coward soul is mine i think demonstrates these qualities of emily's beautifully her vigor and simplicity her power and fire that informed her brain and kindled her veins thank you very much indeed for listening remember if you like what i do here on my channel where i analyze classic literature then do please subscribe and if you've liked the video if you found it interesting to learn a bit hopefully about stoicism and about hester chapon and epictetus then do give the video a big thumbs up it does help me out in youtube's algorithm and i'd love to know your thoughts on emily bronte and this wonderful wonderful poem what are your thoughts on no coward soul is mine i'd love to know