Unfurling the Idyllic Social Scenarios: A Comparative Study of the Selected Works of Elizabeth Barret Browing and Nimah Nawwab

Abstract

This paper analyzes the different social scenarios envisioned and portrayed in the works of two great poets, Elizabeth Barret Browning, and Nimah Nawwab. Significantly, the main aim is to determine how both poets proved to be the pioneers who unfurled the idyllic scenarios in their spectacular eras. Consequently, not only were they recognized as trailblazers in each of their respective historical times. Further, also dynamically participated, witnessed, and reinvigorated the various facets of women’s empowerment, the development of the youth, and the shifting dynamics of gender roles. Moreover, the paper employs the new historical approach to demonstrate how their poems built bridges to connect history with their vision of a progressive society. Furthermore, selected excerpts from Aurora Leigh (1856), Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s epic novel, and selected poems from The Unfurling (2004) by Nimah Nawwab are analyzed by applying this approach. Incidentally, the paper emerged from the primary research question of comparing the prevalent themes and perspectives in these works in tandem with the biographical, societal, historical, political, and cultural backdrops. Therefore, the paper concludes by unveiling the objectives and outlooks of the two poets, which are embedded in history, making their poems alive with those tenets, principles, and dreams that are acknowledged as the hallmarks so intrinsic for fostering the values of the societies in the Victorian era and postmodern Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the paper thus attempts the comparison of two poets separated by chronology, circumstances, and social norms to come together in envisioning a highly progressive society as displayed in their works.