The OED defines "munificence" as: The quality of being munificent; great generosity or liberality in giving.

The word is used for a mysterious Count showing that the Duke is aware that his story may have been off-putting, and he must now save face by praising his new socio-political target. However, to use a word that is antithetical to who the Duke is draws larger parallels between who he associates with, who he pretends to be, and who he really is. The Duke is not giving in the sense that he should be praised, he is giving in the sense that gives people reasons to fear him. By praising this Count's munificence, he can downplay his own lack of it.

The Duke states that he "gave commands" in order for the Duchess to behave--whether this means a death sentence or exile have no difference to the Duke as she is dead to him either way.

However, "Lucrezia suffered from chronic lung-trouble, that her father and her brother Francesco were kept constantly informed with regard to the progress of her last illness" (Friedland 673) which implies Lucrezia succumbed to illness. While the Duke married her as a political advantage, if he were to kill her, he risks a war with her family, the Medicis; once again the Duke must put on a front to exert dominance over his subjects and guests. Whether she died by his hand, or from illness is not the issue the Duke wants attention on, but rather, that he can decide when she dies, and anyone within his court is no different.

Women (and girls) of nobility were meant to show appreciation and be impressed by the immediate men in their lives, such as family, their husbands, and on occasion, men who served them after great acts of duty, such as military feats in war.

The Duke is masking his anger and lack of control over the Duchess--he believes his "nine-hundred-years-old name" should warrant complete control over her, and is offended over the fact that she'd "thank men good," without any explanation over what she would thank them for (not to mention, she is fond of many "trivial" things, not just men, as he lists them before making said statement).

For historical context, the Duchess, Lucrezia is about 13-16 years old depending on when these offenses take place; she has yet to reach emotional, mental, and physical maturity. Without considering the Duchess's age and her lack of experience, he took her behavior as uncouth and as an affront to his dominance. The Duke's reaction lacks emotional maturity as he lets his jealousy be the vessel in how he treats his wife.

The image is a painting of Lucrezia de' Medici, and though this was painted for her brother one year after her passing, this painting could be used as the stand-in for the image the Duke is describing. The Duchess' somber gaze is antithetical to how the Duke describes the Duchess as a person, which makes the reader question how much truth could the Duke be speaking. Is it possible that the Duke is imagining a smile on her face because he feels guilty? Is the Duchess' stoic look a reflection of her feelings, or was it "by design" as the Duke later states?

The Duke's final words being about another artpiece he has demonstrates how little he cared for the Duchess. The need to brag about more art being made for him not only shows his ability to display power, but it also shows a reflection of his true intentions. The bronze cast is of Neptune (a god) taming a seahorse--this reflects how the Duke views himself: a god taming a lesser creature; as he sees himself as a god, he will inevitably treat the new duchess similarly. There was never going to be a dual-respect and understanding between him and the Duchess as she was as useful as a seahorse to him. His calculated shift from a painting of his "beloved" wife, to a bronze cast displaying a feat of dominance demonstrates the Duke's ability for social politics and directs attention away from the gruesome end of the Duchess.

While looking up the Duchess, Lucrezia de' Medici, came a poem called "My Next Duchess" by a priest named Lawrence Jones in which a member of the envoy warns of the Duke as a means to save the next duchess from his grasp. While the poem does not follow all the same writing conventions as Browning's poem such as form and tone, it is effective in the way that provides a secondary perspective on the story within this poem. The break of such conventions lends a sort of response that is more human that the facade that the Duke puts on.

The poem aims to explore how the envoy reacted to the Duke's monologue, and the horror at which is deemed worthy enough to become a cautionary tale to future noblewomen about the Duke of Ferrara.

To build off the previous annotation, the Duke's mask slips for a second as he admits that he would, in fact, "stoop"--but in doing so, it shows he does not have as much control as he fronts to his envoy. However, the Duke regains said control (and re-masks) through the use of others' fear of what he is capable of by stating that he chose "never to stoop" to the Duchess's level of behavior or intellect.

This point is mentioned by Garratt regarding Browning's writing strategy using "masks" in his poetry, "The envoy is meant to be impressed by this graciousness, this taste, manners, and above all, command of life; the Duke hopes desperately that the envoy will carry that impression back to the count, and to the new duchess” (117). Garratt's point shows that the Duke's intentions in telling this story is so that the next Duchess will not behave the same way as the previous one, and she'll have no excuse as she'd already been warned; he is molding his new duchess through fear.

The Duke's glee at showing off the painting is an example of the facade of dominance he establishes throughout the poem. Robert F. Garratt's article reinforces this stating, “In fact, there is a safety about the duchess' looks now that they are frozen on canvas, and the Duke can truly enjoy them because he controls the strings to the curtain” (117). By being able to show when she is allowed to "smile" at anyone using drawstrings illustrates that above else, the Duke's need to dominate and impress are more important than the life of another person, regardless of how close they are to him. His insistence that Fra Pandolf has created such a masterpiece "by [his] design" alludes to the notion that the portrait does not actually capture the essence of the Duchess, but rather a version he demanded be created, displaying his need for control.

Johnston keeps up a strict rhyme scheme throughout the poem - aabbccbb, etc. However, the speaker's somewhat fourth wall breaking exclamation here tips that rhyme scheme on its head. Blin', in the Scots dialect, is a near rhyme with the word him, though that rhyme is lost some in other accents. Beyond the loose rhyme here, the outburst also changes the otherwise even flow of the rhythm through the poem.

The thought of her child falling to the floor forces the speaker out of her careful patterns, highlighting the mother's love and care for her children.

This line could either be referring to money itself as a curse or, more likely, saying that the amount of wealth that the upper classes hoard is the actual curse. This could also perhaps be the poem's speaker herself placing a curse upon that money.

Puir in modern Scots (from 1700 onward) can mean either a "pauper or beggar", or "someone in considerable need of help". While this definition is also true for older Scots, there was also a secondary definition - one that meant "guiltless" or "free from moral corruption". With this older definition in mind, this line comes to have a similarly twofold meaning; one in which all the poor will die at the careless hands of the rich, but also one where the poor working-class are the class of purity, while the gentry are corrupt.

The refrain throughout this poem works as a sort of a war cry. The rest of the poem reads as a lament between wife and husband, something that could come from almost any middle class or lower house even to this day. However, the use of the refrain takes readers from the world of the poem back out into the wider world of working-class Scotland.

This stanza is repeated twice throughout the poem. The sarcastic tone and the repetition of the stanza emphasizes Cook's message. She gives life to the worker and encourages work while also suggesting the workers stand up for themselves. A "minute gun" is a gun that fires every minute, so Cooke is encouraging the working class not to be silent about the injustices they face.

The "reeking brow" Cook mentions is a reference to the sweat on a worker's brow. This serves as a metaphor comparing sweat to pearls which elevates work to a royal adornment. This bypasses the levels of traditional hierarchy by location national wealth in workers' bodies.

Each stanza follows a specific rhyming pattern. In each stanza, the end words of the first and third lines rhyme and the second and fourth also rhyme. The rhyme scheme of the poem results in an up-beat cadence when the poem is read aloud. The cadence really juxtaposes the serious tone of the content.

The speaker is connecting another kind of joy to the snow through the image of boys having a snowball fight. She speaks to elderly men to bring back the memory of the good times they had in the snow. This brings the two age groups together.

The speaker is connecting another kind of joy to the snow through the image of boys having a snowball fight. She speaks to elderly men to bring back the memory of the good times they had in the snow. This brings the two groups of people together.

The speaker is connecting another kind of joy to the snow through the image of boys having a snowball fight. She speaks to elderly men to bring back the memory of the good times they had in the snow. This brings the two groups of people together.

The word "marching is usually connected to military movement. This presents Winter as an organized and potentially dangerous force that the speaker enjoys seeing. This line may also explain why the first line characterizes Winter as brave. Most Victorians considered fighting and dying for ones country as brave.

This phrase as well as "delicate carpet so richly spread"(line 12) "glittering diadems crown'd" (line 14), and "ermine mantle" (line 30) invoke an image of natural riches that are available to everyone in the area instead of those who are very wealthy. While the speaker does not explicitely state it, the snow allows individuals who, otherwise, would not have access to material riches to have them in the snow.

In this line, the imagery suggest that Guenevere is aware of beauty and deliberately employs it to seduce and influence the knights that are present in the room, treating it as a strategic advantage. This action goes against the ideals of Victorian standards of beauty and virtue.

Guenevere's accusation suggest that Sir Gauwaine cannot claim moral superiority, as his own family history is fraught with similar transgression. This highlights the recurring theme of hypocrisy and flawed virtue among Arthurian knights. Furthermore, Guenevere is referring to the affair of Sir Gauwaine's mother, Morgause. She was killed by her son, Gaheris, when he discovered her relationship with Sir Lamorak. https://kingarthursknights.com/arthurian-characters/morgause/

Richard Oastler, a critique of the Victorian factory system wrote: "Poor infants! ye are indeed sacrificed at he shrine of avarice, without even the solace of the negro slave; ye are no more than he is, free agents; yet ye are compelled to work as long as necessity of your needy parents may require, or the cold blooded avarice of your worse than barbarian masters may demand!…ye are doomed to labour from morning to night for one who cares not how soon your weak and tender frames are stretched to breaking!" Indeed, children were often contracted to factories to work until they reach 21 years old for very little money. Even the factory reformers that called for change, for better work hours, conditions and for education, did not ask for the abolition of child labor. Families could not survive without the supplemental wages of the children. Textile factories could not function without the nimble children darting between running machines to reattach broken threads being woven (Nardinelli). The factory owners were like slave owners who invested as little as they can and whip the most work out of the children as they can.

How poignantly EBB describes Alice's grave: "…no room for any work in the close clay." It makes one feel as if Work chases the child to the grave, stands there, looks down at the pit, and ponders if there is room for it to join little Alice-as if death is not escape enough. In reality, Victorian children do suffer many injuries and violent deaths in work related accidents. Take chimney sweepers, for example. Usually little boys 5 to 6 years old were employed to clean out narrow, twisted chimneys. They came out scraped and bleeding from the tight confines and suffer long term breathing problems due to soot and creosotes. If the child got stuck, the master chimney sweeper would light a fire in the fire place to encourage the child to get out faster. This little tale of the chimney sweeper speaks of the Victorians' general attitudes toward child labor (Alexandrova).

The deliberate refrain of "young" nature and the emphasized double "young, young children" point out the irony and tragedy of how life shouldn't be for these children. While nature frolic and play, the human children are weeping bitterly. In fact, some poems in the Victorian period use this juxtaposition of the free natural world versus the state of the oppressive poor. Thomas Hood's "Song of the Shirt" has these lines: "Oh! but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet--- With the sky above my head, And the grass beneath my feet". Gerald Massey wrote in "Cry of the Unemployed": "Heaven droppeth down with manna still in many a golden shower, And feeds the leaves with fragrant breath, with silver dew, the flower; There's honeyed fruit for bee and bird, with bloom laughs out the tree". Nature is plentiful, beautiful, and free while humans suffer from hunger and fetters of their working class.

The phantom that the speaker explicitly states she doesn’t trust is imagination. This ghost that haunts the speaker pushes her to the edges of society where she would feel the effects of loneliness that connect can only be soothed by hope that is birthed from death, as Steven Vine states in his essay about how the ghostly bliss “betrays the self’s desire” and is “born from the death that it is supposed to overcome” (107).

Reason, Nature, and Truth, personified, bring the what the speaker would like to avoid. They bring pain, suffering, and complaining. While imagination brings flowers, associated with happiness, but they are trampled by Truth, bringing our speaker to face their melancholy.

Attached is reading from youtube.com to enhance the experience of the reader. The speaker is quiet and pensive as she moves through the poem and talks with the personified spirit of imagination. https://youtu.be/iIeVTWX3bho?si=_cHytep8B8emESj3

As we begin the poem, we immediately see imagination personified as a dear friend so that our speaker may no longer suffer. The words from the "kind voice" gives the reader and speaker comfort from the initial lines of despair.

Our speaker is "othered" in these lines. She indicates how she is treated unfairly, but imagination allows her to live her life in peace. We can see how Brontë is reflected in this, a she is often referred to as "reclusive" and "solitary," contributing to the idea that she is more than likely part of the queer community. As Claire O'Callaghan states in her essay about Brontë, "Emily's reserve- ... does not correspond with typical gender norms and implies subversion."

Bronte continues contrast the reality with the one speaker brings to life with the spirit of imagination with light and dark imagery. As the world around her is filled with "danger, and guilt, and darkness" she is able to keep in her "bosom" or heart a "bright, untroubled sky," where the readers can feel warmth versus the coldness that reality holds.

The capitalization of "life" and "death" draws attention to how important the ideas are to the speaker. The very idea that life springs from death indicates how the world is viewed, and that the spirit of imagination gives more to our speaker, as she can imagine a better life. Steve Vine broadens this idea with imagination, "as if it would recover life's trophies from the tomb." https://www.jstor.org/stable/40003651

This line continues to draw attention to the juxtaposition of hope and despair. Women are often forced to look inward or use their imagination so that they will no longer have to struggle in the situation in which they are put. This line evokes empathy, and as women read her poem, they are called to embrace their hope rather than despair. Beth Sutton-Ramspeck eloquently wrote about how feminist readings help us find empathy for our speaker and poet. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3828430

A modern connection: This is Taylor Swift's song “Mad Woman”, which debuted as the twelfth track on her seventh studio album, Folklore, released on August 18, 2020. Written during the COVID-19 pandemic, the song addresses the criticism and societal backlash that women often face when expressing anger. I include this song as an annotation because it resonates strongly with Xantippe. Centuries of being villainized, described as “shrewd” or “crazy,” mirror the way society punished women for emotions that were deemed inappropriate. Swift’s lyrics capture this societal double standard: "And there's nothin' like a mad woman What a shame she went mad No one likes a mad woman You made her like that" These lines directly reflect the way Xantippe’s anger is treated, not as a natural or justified response, but as evidence of moral or personal failing. Swift continues: "And you'll poke that bear 'til her claws come out And you find something to wrap your noose around" This imagery parallels the way Xantippe is provoked and restricted by the expectations of her husband and society, until she finally lashes out, a physical and emotional release mirrored in Levy’s poem. Later lines, such as: "The master of spin has a couple of well-placed friends They'll tell you you're insane" highlight how women’s reputations and emotions are manipulated and controlled by societal judgment, reinforcing the same marginalization that Levy talks about. By including “Mad Woman”, we can see a direct line from Xantippe’s historical and literary treatment to modern discussions about women, anger, and the consequences of breaking imposed emotional boundaries.[]https://youtu.be/6DP4q_1EgQQ?si=e7ol3EKrAAWfHwSR

At this point in the poem, Xantippe has lost the mask she worked so hard to hold on to. Socrates has angered her, and in a sudden fit of rage, her body responds with a faster heartbeat as she flings the wine onto the floor. Xantippe seems to rarely allow herself to feel or express anger; she might often feel slighted or sad, but these emotions are usually restrained, like a quietly glowing ember. Here, however, a “sudden flame” erupts: the heat rises, and she finally releases it. The description of the red wine spilling onto the white marble serves as a powerful metaphor for the loss of innocence or purity. What was once clean and controlled is now marked and transformed. Xantippe crosses the threshold changed, “hair unbound, white garment stained to redness," no longer the restrained, composed figure she once was. Levy’s depiction of this moment reflects her interest in women’s emotional and intellectual repression. Just as Xantippe’s fury has been contained by societal expectations in ancient Athens, Victorian women like Levy faced pressures to restrain their feelings and intellect. By giving Xantippe a dramatic, physical release of her anger, Levy depicts the costs of suppression and illuminates the intense, hidden emotional lives of women. The poem becomes not only a historical reflection on Xantippe’s experience but also a nuanced critique of the constraints placed on women in Levy’s world by showing how powerful and transformative the acknowledgment of one’s own emotions can be.

Through Socrates’ choice of words in this passage, he comes across as arrogantly dismissive. Using sarcasm, he comments, what on the surface sounds like a compliment: “I thank thee for the wisdom which thy lips / Have thus let fall among us,” as actually belittling. The phrase “have thus let fall among us” portrays her input as something not freely given or valued; it was blurted out and unsolicited. His snide questions: “From what high source, from what philosophies / Didst cull the sapient notion of thy words?” imply that even if her words were worthy, they could not possibly have come from her own mind. Socrates shows no genuine respect for Xantippe, acknowledging her only in the limited capacity allowed to women in domestic spaces. Amy Levy’s choice of including this passage reflects her broader interest in exposing the ways women’s intelligence and emotional lives were devalued. By featuring Socrates’ dismissive tone, Levy demonstrates the societal conditions of Victorian women like herself, who were often denied intellectual recognition and confined to narrowly defined roles. Just as Xantippe is belittled despite her perception, Victorian women faced systemic obstacles to being taken seriously. This makes Levy’s dramatic monologue a commentary on the ongoing marginalization of women’s minds.

While looks and beauty were very important in the ancient Grecian times, Socrates broke the mold when it came to the beauty standards of his day. As noted to his appearance in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Socrates "had wide-set, bulging eyes that darted sideways and enabled him, like a crab, to see not only what was straight ahead, but what was beside him as well; a flat, upturned nose with flaring nostrils; and large fleshy lips like an ass." Despite the hair trends of his area, he grew his hair out and refused to stay clean or change his clothes. Amy Levy includes these details to accentuate the contrast between societal expectations and individual worth. Men like Socrates could be physically unconventional or even “ugly” and still admired for their intellect, yet there was no equivalent space for women to be recognized for their minds. A woman’s value was tied to her beauty and social conformity. By presenting Socrates’ unconventionality alongside the phrase “half with awe,” Levy highlights the tension between superficial judgment and true merit, a tension mirrored in "Xantippe: A Fragment", where women’s intellectual and emotional lives were historically ignored or dismissed.

Critics have long debated the meaning of Roland’s final gesture, which many read as a transformation of the quest’s traditional moment of triumph. Brandon Moen compares Roland’s horn-blast to The Road, where the father and son’s survival takes the place of moral salvation. Ronald Primeau compares the poem to “Man Against the Sky” calling the moment “triumphant futility” (Primeau 223). Roland gains neither glory nor salvation, yet he refuses despair. Together, these readings suggest that Browning reshapes the romance ending into a model of existential commitment that resonates across literary periods, making Roland a prototype for later heroes who persist without hope.

When heard aloud, like in this reading of "Childe Roland" the irregularity of this stanza becomes more noticeable. For instance, heavy stresses pile up in “Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight,” and the abrupt pauses throughout break the poem’s forward rhythm. The rhyme sequence (once/right/fight/Dunce/nonce/sight) echoes unevenly, giving the language a tense, unstable energy. Essentially, at the precise moment of Roland’s recognition of “the place,” where there should be triumph, the poem loses composure, creating dissonance between narrative climax and emotional collapse. Heard this way, Browning’s form enacts the poem’s theme of meaning arriving through struggle, a quality that has made its strangeness continually compelling to later readers.

This 1859 painting by Thomas Moran, inspired directly by Browning’s “Childe Roland,” visualizes the poem’s barren and hostile terrain. Turbulent clouds, jagged rocks, and desolate expanses dramatize the emotional weight of the quest. Additionally, the fiery, ominous sky evokes Romantic and Sublime traditions, but instead of ennobling Roland’s journey, the natural grandeur seems to overwhelm him. Rather than a knight striding toward a glorious destiny, the lone figure of Roland, dwarfed by the vast landscape, gazes toward the distant, looming tower. By pairing the poem with such imagery, anthology audiences can more fully experience the poem’s tension between heroic aspiration and environmental hostility. This artistic reimagining also shows how the Tower’s imagery quickly began to shape visual as well as literary culture.

The disappearance of the road marks the poem’s decisive break from the traditional quest narrative. Roland suddenly lacks guidance, landmarks, or even a visible destination. In romance tradition, a path implies providence or fate, but here, it abruptly dissolves into nothingness, leaving Roland with no direction except forward. Roland continues not out of hope but necessity; after all, as he says, “nought else remained to do". This reveals that his journey is no longer about heroic purpose, but a chosen persistence. In a way, I can see how this moment anticipates modern existential thought: meaning is no longer inherited but made through action. Roland walks on not in faith, but in defiance, setting the tone for the poem’s long afterlife as a myth of endurance in a purposeless world.

The term “childe” denotes “a young man of noble or gentle birth,” often used in medieval romances to mark a youth on the threshold of knighthood (“Childe”). Browning’s choice to invoke this archaic title primes readers to expect an epic of honor and questing, with Roland acting as a figure of destiny. However, the poem immediately undermines that expectation as heroic promise collapses into moral exhaustion, distrust, and futility. By invoking a marker of chivalric quest and then denying its fulfillment, Browning recasts the “childe” as a weary survivor meaninglessly stumbling through desolation. The ironic reframing of quest-romance conventions contributes to the poem’s long tradition of reinterpretation, as later writers and artists seized on Roland as a model of perseverance in a broken world.

Words have power, but they should be backed the power of truth, not by lies and deceit. That singular truth being that each of us is just as human as the next, if not for the "walls" dividing us in the prior line. He is also specifically utilizing the language, and thus words, of the Empire that oppresses his people as a tool to appeal to them.

Tagore understood that the primary audience of an English translation would be Christian, and thus utilized an explicit reference to Christianity with a capitalized Father referring to the Christian God. He is utilizing both the language and religion of another people in support of his own. This would strengthen his call among that audience and helps turn this entire poem into a prayer and call to the divine.

This implies a sense of pride and confidence in what one was doing, which reinforces that the mind is without fear, because the body is visibly showing that. This also serves to highlight that the body and mind are acting in unison.

The clear stream represents progress as sustaining life, while holding fast to detrimental traditions, like the caste system, turns things into a desert devoid of life.

Free here can mean multiple things.

Free as in the monetary sense and free as in it is available to everyone without restriction. Both definitions feed into the next line by opening up knowledge outside of those it is typically restricted to, which is an exceptionally notable statement from Tagore, due to his standing at the very top of the traditional Hindu caste system. In his arguments here, he is explicitly calling for the dissemination of knowledge to everyone.

Tagore defines the mind in What is Art? very specifically as the logical and reasoning half of what might generally be considered the whole mind by a reader. Emotions, like fear, are found within the personal man, or personality, instead of the physical man. Thus, if the mind is without fear, then this inner personality has been sated and exists in harmony with the physical mind.

Beautiful and bright used here to describe the young man, but they also tell us how the writer felt about the qualities this boy possessed. The qualities are “born to rule the storm”, “heroic blood”, “proud”, “brave despair”, “gallant child”, “noblest”, and “faithful”.

Here, the author is foreshadowing what will follow later on in the poem. She subtly emphasized “dead” by rhyming it with the second stanza’s “fled”. Of course, the poem did ended with the stanzas, “But the noblest thing which perished there, Was that young faithful heart.”, confirming that indeed the boy eventually lost his life along with the ship.

The data of the past is congruent with the current psychological trends that face the education system of today. Developmentalists have charted how children construct and revise intuitive theories. In turn, a variety of theories have developed because of the greater use of statistical information that supports probabilistic contingencies that help to better inform us of causal models and their distinctive cognitive functions. These studies investigate the physical, psychological, and social domains. In the case of intuitive psychology, or "theory of mind," developmentalism has traced a progression from an early understanding of emotion and action to an understanding of intentions and simple aspects of perception, to an understanding of knowledge vs. ignorance, and finally to a representational and then an interpretive theory of mind.

The mechanisms by which life evolved—from chemical beginnings to cognizing human beings—are central to understanding the psychological basis of learning. We are the product of an evolutionary process and it is the mechanisms inherent in this process that offer the most probable explanations to how we think and learn.

Bada, & Olusegun, S. (2015). Constructivism Learning Theory : A Paradigm for Teaching and Learning.

// in other words, - interpretive shift is unconscious and brought about through practice. It is a shift in ontology, habitus and many things happening at once and is also Polyani's tacit learning

• Key Observation
• The interpretive shift occurs when:
  • perception of the world (what they notice and experience is altered
  • how they interpret their perceptions is also altered

// - new cognitive patterns imposed upon the same sensory information - bring about attentional shift - resulting in the noticing of new patterns

//

• Key Definition
  • Interpretative Shift (Luhrmann)
  • can be initiated through ritual practice // We can build interventions based upon encouraging ritual practice that causes interpretative shifts

While capital punishment in Britain did not cease until the 20th century, the last woman hanged was Frances Kidder in 1868. The same year saw the last public hanging in Britain.

Published in 1880, this story likely takes place decades prior, given the indication of the narrative format, making it possible that Priscilla could have indeed been subject to hanging.

From The Law and the Lady to The Woman in White, Collins’s career-long engagements with British law in his fiction conveys a complex ethical code. Heroes commit crimes as often as the villains. For more discussion on British law in Collins and its social and biographical context, see Pykett.

This story hints as Collins’s contemporary liberal views of sexuality and marriage. Suggestive of an illicit liaison (at least in terms of an officer engaging with a investigative subject), Collins reifies Victorian morality by engaging the two to be married but then disrupts that again by the revelation that Priscilla murdered Zebedee. The narrator’s love for the criminal Priscilla, however, may suggest a movement beyond Victorian social conventions. Collins’s work, as always, is morally complex. For more information on Collins’s own affairs, see the Peters biography in the further reading tab.

Collins’s innovations in detective fiction, a mode of literature to which he contributed significantly, crucially includes his use of the amateur female sleuth. While Marian Halcombe of The Woman in White is credited as the prototypical female detective, characters like Priscilla and Anne Rodway (“The Diary of Anne Rodway”) illustrate Collins’s interest in these figures. Given more agency than their traditional female counterparts, Collins’s sleuths straddle the line between criminality and justice. See Kestner in the further reading tab for more discussion of Collins and female detectives in the nineteenth century.

Gothic and sensational literature presents gendered abuse variety of manners, but Collins’s work often frames unwanted sexual advances and sexual assault as villainous. There is a myriad of scholarship on Collins’s engagement with gender and sexuality, including works by Haefele-Thomas, Heller, O’Neill, and Pykett. See citations in the further reading tab.

Medicine and its abuse features in several of Collins’ works, as well as throughout sensational and Gothic literature. As in the case here, it often carries a gendered connotation. See Talairach for more discussion on medicine in Collins in the further reading tab.

A yellow complexion, while certainly a racialization, does not denote a specific race. Collins also uses yellow to describe the Italian Count Fosco in The Woman in White. More likely, it is a signifier of foreignness, perhaps from a warm climate.

Anxieties and interest in mesmerism (also known as animal magnetism) and hypnotism compounded in the nineteenth century, featuring in sensational novels and occult media. Here, as in many cultural instances, a woman is (or believes she is) subject to its influence. While Mrs. Zebedee has a history of sleepwalking, her book “The World of Sleep” suggests an ambiguous influence suspiciously similar to mesmerism. For further discussion of Collins and gender and mesmerism, see Pearl in the further reading tab.

Linguistic. Creole: 1. (n.) a descendant of white European settlers (esp. Spanish or French) who is born in a colonized country 2. (n.) Any person of mixed ancestry born in a country previously colonized by white Europeans.

Interpretive Deluc could be a white Creole or mixed race, according to 19th century racial conventions.

Madness (or the lack thereof) is a crucial component to many of Collins’s sensational works both as characterization and plot device, perhaps most prominently in The Woman in White. For further discussion on mental illness and gender in Collins, see Heller in the further reading tab.

Sleepwalking also features heavily in The Moonstone (1868) during the climatic revelation of the moonstone’s thief. For further discussion on somnambulism in Collins, see Ayoub in the further reading tab.

Though Priscilla is deemed sober, the influence of drugs and alcohol are prevalent throughout Collins’s oeuvre. Collins himself suffered from opium addiction. Addiction is showcased in Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). See Peters for biographical information on Collins’s addiction.

Should be credited to Stanley Fish.

Should be credited to Stanley Fish

Should be credited to Stanley Fish.

And this is the point.