The Swimming Lady Poem

Tiffany Fisher

Professor McAbee

ENG 3331

10 April, 2016

Desire as Power, and Stripping it through sexual means in The Swimming Lady and The Disappointment.

In anonymous’ The Swimming Lady and Bhen’s The Disappointment the power of desire, and the stripping of it through sexual situations are both common themes. The role of desire is used as a source of power that can be given as in The Disappointment and taken away as in The Swimming Lady. In both texts the females have their power taken from them. In The Swimming Lady it is taken by force and not returned. The female is stripped of the desire the author gives her with in the first 9 stanzas. In The Disappointment first Cloris takes it, empowering herself. It is then taken by Lysander assuming

the role of the conquer, and it is regained through the loss of masculinity on Lysander’s part. Behn reveals the complex comparisons between personal desire and the expectation of women to adhere to a specific social code and the social forces that lie behind the conventions and make such acts of negotiation essential for women.
There is a power shift in The Disappointment, long before Lysander loses his erection. In fact, Cloris has the power throughout most of the poem. In the first stanza, as Cloris represents Apollo, and foreshadows the reversal of power depicted therein. Cloris, the alleged victim, is endowed with the power of design, to get what she wants. Lysander, is the pursuer. He emasculated, and therefore stripped of his power. Cloris's capacity to realize there is a distinction between who she identifies herself as, and how she acts within social parameters, grants her, paradoxically, an allowance of flexibility in her actions, and therefore puts the power in her favor. Cloris is conforming to socially limited gender roles, but not in a way that would deny her the pleasures of Lysander's body. Her performance in stanza 2 is premeditated or, as Behn's says, "design'd" to entice Lysander (line 16). While Cloris is breaking socially acceptable gender roles of the time, Lysander’s role is also skewed. Several stanzas before his impotency Lysander appears weak and confused about his masculinity, as "he lay trembling at her Feet" (line 18). While Lysander attempts to take the power back in stanzas 4 and 5, due to Cloris’ convoluted choices in her own role, Lysander is never given the opportunity.
In The Swimming Lady the female of the poem begins with the power.

She is in fact so powerful, that the author writes “Each Fish did wish himself a Man / About her all were drawn / And at the Sight of her began / To spread abroad their Spawn” (lines 57-60). Though the masculinity is defined in animals at this point in the poem, it is still a testament to her power, because of their desire for her. Anonymous goes on to further the depiction of her being desirable in lines 63 and 64 by saying: “If Jove had then in Heaven been / He would have dropt upon her.” This is clear foreshadowing of the violation to come, which hints at the stripping of her

power.
In stanza 9 a male enters who the female had “been repulsed when he / Did often come to woo her” (line 77-78).

This line illustrates her dislike for the boy, negating the argument that she might have been willing. The following stanza paints a vivid and violent picture. The lad pulling her onto the shore, and then “As Adam did old Eve enjoy” (line 85). It glosses over the actual violation, but the lines leading up to it are clearly against her will. “She shrieks, she strives, and down she dives / He brings her up again” (lines 81-82). It is here the power she embodied earlier is stripped from her against her will. The proof comes from line 90 when the female quotes “I am utterly undone.” She insists that her rapist marry her. He effectively strips her of the power of marrying anyone else with the rape and thus strips her of her power to be desired by anyone else but him.

Unlike The Swimming Lady, where the woman is stripped of her power, in The Disappointment, Lysander is the one who is divested of his desire. In the beginning Lysander has the power. In the first stanza it is unclear whether Cloris is violated by Lysander based on lines 1 through 4:

ONE Day the Amarous

Lisander,
By an impatient Passion sway'd,
Surpris'd fair Cloris, that lov'd Maid,
Who cou'd defend her self no longer ;
The lines are ambiguous. Was she over powered by Lysander? Had her own desires overpowered her need to be virtuous? In stanza 2 we receive clarification. Cloris “Permits his force, yet gently strove” (line 14). The fact that she has a choice in the matter shifts the power in Cloris’ favor. Lysander, admittedly takes the power back in stanza 4. He has adopted the role of the conqueror. The militaristic representation of stanzas 4 and 5 reflect how the sexual encounter is construed from a purely male point of view. However, the narrative, which Lysander attempts to create, deteriorates rapidly, and Behn does not allow another power switch in the text. This is where once again Lysander is stripped of the power. Lysander has suffered from being over impassioned and subsequently has been unable to maintain the discipline required of his role as the conquering lover. Thus his power to be desired by Cloris is stripped from him, so much so that she leaves him at the end of stanza 12 “Leaving him fainting on the gloomy Bed” (line 120). Even though Cloris “flees” from him, and leaves behind "No Print" to "instruct pursuing Eyes" (lines 123-4), Behn herself begins her own commentary. The poem ends up as her own impression on the scene of this frustrated encounter.
He Curst his Birth, his Fate, his Stars,
But more the Shepherdesses Charms ;
Whose soft bewitching influence,
Had Damn'd him to the Hell of Impotence
By siding with Cloris in the final stanza, Behn annuls Lysander’s power once again. Lysander by blaming Cloris attempts to reestablish his power and therefore his desire, but Behn has the final say, and it is never returned to him.

Conclusion tie it up in a pretty bow yaddah.