Prosodic Analysis of Charles Martin's "Victoria's Secret"

Introduction: The Poem's Central Dichotomy

Imagine a world where women are definitely not supposed to enjoy sex, where men are presumed to be hairy, horny beasts. Now imagine a world where women crave sex far more than men and must devise ways to entice their mates, who would rather be reading email or playing video games. This is the dichotomy unearthed by Charles Martin in his poem "Victoria's Secret." The larger question he raises—and answers—is: are we sexually liberated? His answer is no. Yet it is the manner in which he juxtaposes Victorian and contemporary bedroom values that makes "Victoria's Secret" timely and witty, simultaneously making readers laugh while prompting them to re-evaluate what sits on their coffee tables and hangs in their closets.

The strength of Martin's narrative is his careful display of the crass nature of sex within the Victorian era, set against a backdrop that he wittily transforms into a vehicle for mocking our own sexual inhibitions.

Charles Martin and the New Formalist Context

The first step to understanding "Victoria's Secret" is to learn something of Charles Martin himself—an idiosyncratic poet who has shaped his style to fit the nuances of both traditional and modern poetry. Martin is not only a noted poet but also a critic and translator. He grew up in New York City, attended Fordham University, and received his doctorate from the University at Buffalo. Although "Victoria's Secret" showcases a witty and affectionate imitation of traditional Victorian poetry, his specialty is in Latin poetry, in which he has published twice.

Considered one of the most prominent New Formalists, Martin has helped shape a transformation in modern form and narrative in poetry. This particular work was included in his collection Starting from Sleep: New and Selected Poems, for which he won the Bess Hokin Award.

Meter, Rhyme Scheme, and Prosodic Structure

A prosodic analysis of "Victoria's Secret" begins with an evaluation of its metric system. Martin writes the poem in twenty-six lines, and although his style is structured, he employs deviations from the established cadence to accent certain messages and themes. He casts the poem in anapestic pentameter, a rhythm that undulates through the narrative and requires him to push the limits of his rhymes. The strict couplet rhyme scheme (AA, BB, CC) is interrupted only during the last quatrain, which follows the scheme LMLM. The strong couplet rhyme scheme carries important overall value: it regulates the dichotomy between Victorian advice and Martin's transition into mocking contemporary values. He breaks the scheme in order to create a clear distinction between his thematic phases—the narrative description of sex within the Victorian era and his subsequent questioning of our condescension toward their sexual inhibitions.

Anapestic pentameter also produces the unique effect of strongly closing each line while simultaneously launching the next. The heavy emphasis on final syllables creates a cadence that ruptures at the end of each line. The importance of this strong masculine ending is that it builds upon the brutish nature of sex and gives the narrative poem a hard edge. Readers sense the abrupt, almost savage quality of the subject matter because of the abrupt and powerful close of each line.

On a first reading, the repeated AA, BB, CC rhyme scheme might suggest an attempt at Shakespearean sonnet form, and there are genuine stylistic similarities. The particular strength of the couplet pattern is that it allows Martin to draw clear separation between messages every two lines. The ending of each rhyming pair commands a pause, enabling him to turn the poem sharply from one direction to another. Using this strategy, Martin is able to employ different literary devices and narrative directions simultaneously. He ends one couplet with "And try to imagine themselves out buying a new hat" (ln. 4)—an obvious use of imagery—and transitions immediately to "So night after night expeditions grimly set off" (ln. 5). The move from imagery to narration is made seamless by the ending of one linked rhyme pair flowing into the next. This becomes extremely important as the poem continues, because Martin employs the two-line rhyme switch often to shift between imagery, allegory, and narration.

Narrative Voice, Tone, and Punctuation

The narrative voice Martin uses is extremely important to the poem's overall structural development. He employs a strong, active third-person narration throughout while consistently interjecting his own opinions. He thus acts as an omniscient narrator of sorts, and the poetic effect is to create his persona as a storyteller. This is established through several literary devices. First, his use of self-imposed pauses and interjections—such as "ahem" within the first line—creates the effect of unrehearsed storytelling rather than a formal tribute to the Victorian era. The almost casual voice in which he narrates the entire poem helps readers develop a rapport not with the Victorian characters but with the narrator himself—the same connection he exploits to twist the narrative in the poem's latter half.

To establish the narrator's character and position, Martin uses both tone and punctuation as his primary vehicles. The tone is at once active and casual, produced through off-beat phrases such as "getting it off on them" in line 2, which jars so sharply against the topic being discussed that it generates condescension and taunting mockery. In his choices of imagery—"hate" and "ogre"—he creates mockery, as though the audience is invited to share in laughter at the idiosyncrasies of the Victorian relationship. By juxtaposing playful phrases like "getting it off" with commanding ones like "expeditions grimly set off," Martin makes clear that he is mocking the characters within his story. The importance of tone in developing the narrative voice is that it creates a rapport with the audience by drawing them into the "joke" of the Victorian relationship, which in turn makes the lesson in the second half feel more intimate and immediate. This relationship, enforced by the narrator's tone, is revealed through his eventual shift to "we" and "us"—his tone allows him to move from inside the narrative to outside it with equal ease, facilitating the poem's crucial "turn."

Punctuation is another major device Martin uses to establish narrative voice. Rather than setting a uniform rhythm as his rhyme scheme does, he uses punctuation to mark the end of a particular episode within the poem, helping the audience track when and where his narration changes direction. The first period falls after "Over her, thrashing and thrusting until he was spent" (ln. 8), importantly closing the Victorian sex narrative. Subsequent full stops each signal the ending of one thought and the beginning of another. The effect on narrative voice is clear: in his first address the narrator is informative; in the second he is reflective; in the third he trains his mockery on contemporary standards. Punctuation thus serves to delineate the specific theme and audience he is addressing at each stage.

The use of commas is equally important to Martin's narrative style. In the first instance, commas create rhythmic breaks within the poem—most notably before and after "ahem" in line 1. Commas also separate distinct metaphors and images: after each comparison, whether "getting it off on them," "expeditions grimly set off," or "the lecherous ogre bent over her," a comma allows the image to register with the audience. These punctuation breaks establish a secondary cadence beyond the end rhyme, creating a second layer of emphasis upon key imagery and controlling the overall tone of the piece.

Martin also uses enjambment as a key literary device to emphasize power words within the narrative. Enjambment appears throughout the poem, though because the overall end rhyme follows an AA, BB, CC pattern, it is at times less pronounced than in other poems. Martin employs enjambment to ensure that certain words and phrases receive emphasis within their sentences. Two notable examples from the first half appear with the images "lie perfectly flat" and "the lecherous ogre bent." The natural rhythm of the poem through the ending rhyme forces the reader to pause despite the enjambment, which calls attention to these powerful images. By using enjambment, Martin directs the reader toward the importance of particular phrases. Similarly, he uses it to emphasize contextually significant words—"forebears," "repression," "fashion," and "curious eyes"—each of which carries important meaning within its line and ties into the poem's primary theme. Enjambment thus ensures these words are not lost in the reading and helps Martin shape his tone and narrative style throughout.

Conclusion: The Circular Critique

Martin carefully uses his witty banter to show that contemporary feminism has learned little from the faults of the past. We might think that our current sexual liberation makes us more comfortable with ourselves and far better off than the women of the Victorian era. Instead, the sexual intensity and emphasis of our society forces women into an even greater subjugated role than they occupied during the Victorian period. Through a litany of prosodic devices, Martin carefully shapes the poem around a world of strong imagery. His special ability in the context of this poem is to create a connection with the audience while never failing to provoke them.

The delicate balance of diction, in conjunction with his metric scheme, breaks the poem into three distinct parts, and he transitions between them smoothly to both confuse and distinguish his voice from those of other poets. Using a combination of arresting meter and deft diction, he has crafted an unpleasant portrait of the modern world. At the same time, his wit blunts the moral behind his story—as if he wants to cleverly explain a problem that cannot be solved. The strength of "Victoria's Secret" lies in both its form and in the abstract method by which it communicates to the audience.

It is curious that a poem so dripping with heavy social commentary should appear, on first reading, so lighthearted in nature. It is almost as if Martin intended everything as a joke, however little humor his ultimate message may carry. In the final analysis, his ability to tie the Victorian social nuances of idolatry and sexual inhibition to our current world of blatant sexuality is funny in a perverse and sad sort of way. His narration creates a connection with the reader, and he uses this rapport to wrap us around the problem of modern sexuality. That the Victoria's Secret catalog could be so deftly deployed to illuminate the deeper social problems of our day is a testament to Martin's ability to provide entertaining social commentary concealed beneath a dripping layer of mockery and wit.

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