Angel In The House

According to Patmore’s poem, the Angel possessed these traits:

The "Angel" was the logical byproduct of the Victorian doctrine of "Separate Spheres." As the Industrial Revolution moved work out of the home and into factories and offices, the world was divided in two: angel in the house

Patmore’s poem, now largely unread, is a testament to the power of unexamined ideology. It celebrates his first wife, Emily, as a paragon of wifely virtue: endlessly patient, utterly devoid of personal ambition, and possessed of a “mildness” that borders on the pathological. The angel does not simply serve her husband and children; she is service. Her desires are their desires; her intellect is a gentle flame, never allowed to blaze into the inconvenient fire of independent thought. She is, in the poet’s immortal and chilling phrase, “a muse, a mistress, a desire, / a friend, a sister, and a saint.” Notice what is missing: a mind, a will, a rage, a self. The angel is a collection of roles, a function, not a person. According to Patmore’s poem, the Angel possessed these

You can spot the "Angel" or her absence in many classic texts: Her desires are their desires; her intellect is

The term comes from a narrative poem titled The Angel in the House , published in installments between 1854 and 1862 by Coventry Patmore. Though the poem was not an immediate sensation, it eventually became a massive bestseller in the latter half of the century.