had anybody came across the follwoing error

The '<' character, hexadecimal value 0x3C, cannot be included in a
name.System.Xml at System.Xml.XmlDocument.CheckName(String name) at
System.Xml.XmlElement..ctor(XmlName name, Boolean empty, XmlDocument doc) at
System.Xml.XmlDocument.CreateElement(String prefix, String localName, String
namespaceURI) at System.Xml.XmlDocument.CreateElement(String name)

here is the code

string xnUpdate = "<Method ID='1' Cmd='New'>"+
"<Field Name='Topic'> SomeTopic </Field>"+
"<Field Name='Body'> Description123</Field>"+
"</Method>";
XmlElement elBatch = xmlDoc.CreateElement(xnUpdate); ---->getting the error on
this line only

elBatch.SetAttribute("OnError", "Continue");
elBatch.SetAttribute("ListVersion", "0");
elBatch.SetAttribute("ViewName", list.DefaultView.ToString());
XmlNode xn = lst.UpdateListItems(list.Title.ToString(), elBatch);


My aim is to update the Custom list with a new list item