Victorian Poetry of the Prime

Scientific ‘Otherness’ in May Kendall’s Ballad of the Ichthyosaurus

Abstract

This contribution explores how Victorian poet May Kendall found in contemporary natural history discoveries new poetic material with which to problematise the discursive practices and dominant ethos of her society. Starting from the analysis of her satire Ballad of the Ichthyosaurus (1885), this paper aims to examine how scientific developments furnished a woman poet with new imagery to playfully discuss the self-centred, hypocritical and hierarchical sides of Victorian society. Using the voice of an unexpected non-human actor, i.e. an Ichthyosaurus, she discussed Victorian social systems of oppression and the discourse of pseudosciences, both devices aimed at restricting the agency of those considered as the “unfit”. Like other Victorian poetesses, her poems, especially the science-inspired ones, are centred on the concept of the “Otherness”:  by using a voice belonging to a past natural world removed from the human one, she discussed how her society was excluding “others” – i.e. women and other minorities – from the privileged status destined to the “fittest”. First, I will present some biographical information about Kendall, necessary to understand her beliefs and her poetic work. Second, I will discuss two relevant elements of the context in which her satire was written, i.e. Victorian anthropocentrism and the condition of Victorian women, both traceable in her Ballad. Finally, I will analyse Kendall’s satire and the way issues of anthropocentrism, exclusion and de-humanisation emerge in it.