Angel in the House

by Coventry Patmore, Henry Morley (Introduction)

Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (1823-1896) was an English poet and critic. He is one of the best-regarded Victorian poets. In 1854 appeared the first part of his best known poem, The Angel in the House, which was continued in The Espousals (1856), Faithful for Ever (1860), and The Victories of Love (1862). In 1862 he lost his wife, after a long and lingering illness, and shortly afterwards joined the Roman Catholic church. In 1865 he married again, and a year later purchased an estate in East Grinstead, the history of which he wrote in How I Managed My Estate (1886). In 1877 appeared The Unknown Eros, which unquestionably contains his finest work in poetry, and in the following year Amelia, his own favourite among his poems, together with an interesting essay on English Metrical Law. This departure into criticism continued in 1879 with a volume of papers entitled Principle in Art, and again in 1893 with Religio Poetae. His second wife died in 1880, and in the next year he remarried. In later years he lived at Lymington, where he died.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, 19th Century

138 pages, Paperback

Published September 14, 2007

About the author

Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore

Poet, critic, essayist. A convert to Catholicism, his faith played a large role in much of his poetry.

Reviews

[Deborah Markus · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Well, why not just take one quick look?"
The foolish reader asks herself,
And plucks another ghastly book
Into her lap from off the shelf.

"What is this rhyming scheme I see?
Annoying, and a bit singsong.
First A, then B, then A, then B –
Good heavens, where did I go wrong?"

"Where are the books of fun and joy,
The books that would bring me delight?
Why do I read this sexist goy
As soon as I conclude Twilight?"

"Research," I murmur with a sigh.
"This book will help my novel work.
That's why I read this sexist guy,
Although he is a total jerk."

"He makes me want to pound my head,
Or hang myself with my own scarf;
His writing fills my soul with dread;
Let's face it: this book makes me barf."

"'Her daisy eyes had learn'd to droop' –
Dear sir, please tell me what this means.
I think that you are full of poop.
Your poem makes me want to screams."

"This poet's full of mule manure!
How does he know how women tick?
He can't say what we're like, I'm sure –
For heaven's sake, he has a dick."

"He likes his girls dumb and demure
Religious, mild, and gently bred;
He likes us sweet and simple, pure,
Without a thought inside our head."

"Well, sir, I cannot help but think
That you and I should never meet.
Your thoughts on women frankly stink
More than a mar'thon runner's feet."

"I'm so glad that you bought the farm
So long ago and far away;
For I would surely do you harm
If you mansplained this shit today."

(I was going to do something all educational and classy and talk about Virginia Woolf and stuff, but this was more fun. Plus now you know what the book sounds like without all the trouble of reading it.)

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

First published in 1854, Coventry Patmore's narrative poem, The Angel in the House, hit a Victorian nerve and the woman he described became, as supermodels in fashion magazines are for some of us today, the ideal woman, the woman men wanted for their own.

The Angel was based on Patmore's wife, Emily, who apparently was a very smart and possibly manipulative woman. She had him convinced she lived only for him and was almost abjectly self-sacrificing. Many Victorians, men especially, found this figure of the beautiful, serene, chaste wife irresistible.

Popular as The Angel was in the late 19th century, by the turn of the 20th century this ideal woman was no longer in favor with the literary world. Virginia Woolf: "She [the perfect wife] was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed daily. If there was a chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it ... Above all, she was pure."

It is only because Our Leader at the otherlit online reading group (off-shoot of the Trollope group) asked me to read it and comment that I ever bothered with the poem. Another member of the group knows the poem well and likes it very much, but nonetheless I didn't expect much. So I was surprised at how appealing the narrator is, how much I liked his chosen Angel, and how effective the poem was in making its point that a 19th century woman could be terrifically appealing by being passive. (And of course, knowingly or not, passive-aggressive.)

There is even some humor in Patmore's work. And since it is in the Tennyson manner, it's easy to read, the rhyme and rhythm making it much more approachable than modern poetry. It tells the story of the narrator re-visiting an old friend and falling in love with one of the man's daughters. He courts her and wins her and marries her and lives happily ever after. I actually toyed with giving it four stars, for its combination of enjoyable reading and importance to literary history.

[Margaret Carpenter · Rating 1 out of 5]

i hope i never come across this poem again as long as i live so help me God

[Andrijana Prodanić · Rating 1 out of 5]

Coventry Patmore, the Victorian Andrew Tate.

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uh-- what does one say? CS Lewis liked this work. Woolf hated it. It's a pretty smarmy and arrogant (unerringly male-centered) treatise on domestic love which yet gets close to profound and charming at points if one is willing to allow for smarminess and arrogance. It's probably best read as a historical kind of document. The poetry (100 pages of at times clunky long-meter style ballad stanza) certainly won't strike anyone as worthy of writing home about.

[Sofia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not sure what is more tragic: the fact that nineteenth century society was championing this repressive ideal of women, or the fact that Patmore's poem is not satirical.

Either way, I am beyond grateful for the modern period that blessed us all with the brilliant mind of Virginia Woolf to fight off the spectre of Victorian respectability and kill the Angel in the House.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic early Victorian work, prior to suffrage and socialist movements.

[Fran]

tbh it's hard for me to feel super invested in this and hear me out...but it WAS more popular in america than in britain and it didn't really influence culture until the latter 19th century. and also honestly i find it less insightful reading about gender separation from men's perspectives during this time because reality is more obscured somehow. it's way easier for me to pick up on and understand what's going on between the lines when it's a woman writing prose but when it's a man writing poetry it's just not as evident or helpful

also scholars literally say this is less important as a poem than it is as a historical document and it's like. you know you can just read women's writing instead right? idk are we all that averse to just hearing women talk about their lives in their own words? there are so many domestic novels written by conservative women that can teach you everything you need to know if you approach them with a shred of feminist consciousness. but alas most academics don't have that.

[Adam Patmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written by my
Late grate grate grandfather
Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
I am delighted to find to have a read
I got a signed copy by Coventry Patmore the book he gave to his wife.

[Sasu 宁 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Plodding and twee, and that's before getting to the actual content of the poem. It reads like a parody of a bad Victorian love poem, but alas, it's the real deal.

[Prisoner 071053 · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't like this book, it's probably because your Marxist professor told you not to.

[isabell ☮︎︎ · Rating 1 out of 5]

soundcloud rapper vibes

[emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

words cannot explain how much i despise this guy and it’s not because of the writing: the writing itself is beautiful and the use of metaphor is sublime but GODDDDD THE MISOGYNY I CAN’T STAND IT

[Perla Delgado · Rating 1 out of 5]

Me parece increíble lo simplón y extenso del poema...

[finja · Rating 2 out of 5]

danke dafür englisch lk

[Prisoner 071053 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Embarrassingly backwards in some of its assumptions, yes, but Patmore's vision of love is nevertheless worth experiencing for what he does get right. More than passable verse, with only a forgivable metrical misstep here and there. This piece is demonized today by those who haven't read it, but who really cares about that sort of critic?

[Lucy · Rating 1 out of 5]

What do I think, asks the Goodreads review page. I think Patmore was a self-deluding creep, that's what, and not a very good poet either.