Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The Looking Glass, and Literature

Virginia Woolf’s philosophy was that literature does not reflect reality.  She explores this idea in, “The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A reflection”, where the looking glass becomes a metaphor for literature, and it’s inability to adequately grasp reality.  Like literature, the looking glass provides a picture, which is then distorted with subjective interpretation.  
“If she concealed so much and knew so much one must prize her open with the first tool that came to hand - the imagination,” (page 1226). The reflection itself is not enough. It presents a picture, but no meaning, no motivation.  So imagination and fantasy fill in.  Pure speculation takes over, and the narrator begins probing for hidden meanings that may or may not even exist.  “Under the stress of thinking about Isabella, her room became more shadowy and symbolic the corners seemed darker, the legs of chairs and tables more spindly and hieroglyphic,” (line 1226).  It goes to the ridiculous point of personifying the furniture as secret-keepers.  “Sometimes it seemed as if they knew more about her than we, who sat on them, wrote at them, and trod on them so carefully, were allowed to know,” (page 1225).  Yet, such speculations ignore the fact that mere drawers and furnishings are just that.  They are simply drawers and furnishings.  Speculation and imagination romanticizes and builds them up, but in doing so looses sight of their true nature.  
Isabella herself is treated the same way.  The narrator looking into the mirror imagines Isabella to be a worldly woman of mystery. “She had never married, and yet, judging from the mask-like indifference of her face, she had gone through twenty times more of passion and experience than those whose loves are trumpeted forth for all the world to hear,” (page 1226).  Just as her letters and furniture were built up to be great symbols and hints at her glamorous life, every move that Isabella makes is seen as indicative of some greater truth about her.  Out in the garden she picks a convolvulus flower instead of a rose or zinnia which is more typical for a woman her age. This, “showed how very little, after all these years, one knew about her, for it is impossible that any woman of flesh and blood of fifty-five or sixty should be really a wreath or a tendril,” (page 1225).  The looking glass’s reflection presents a picture, but that is all that it can do.  It cannot reveal Isabella’s real motivations in the matter.  So they are open to speculation.  Perhaps they are a symbol of her true self.  Maybe she just likes those flowers better.  The latter option is boring.  Back to the first one, the interesting one.  “But one was tired of the things that she talked about at dinner.  It was her profounder state of being that one wanted to catch and turn to words, the state that is to the mind what breathing is to the body, what one calls happiness or unhappiness,” (page 1227).
Yet all these speculations made by the narrator are completely off base.  “She stood naked in that pitiless light.  And there was nothing.  Isabella was perfectly empty.  She had no thoughts. She had no friends.  She cared for nobody.  As for her letters, they were all bills,” (page 1228).  Fantasy and imagination completely failed.  They revealed no greater truths about Isabella Tyson.  The reflection in the looking glass is very different from the flesh and blood woman because reality is living.  The reflection is stagnant.  “Meanwhile, since all the doors and windows were open in the heat, there was a perpetual sighing and ceasing sound, the voice of the transient and the perishing, it seemed, coming and going like human breath, while in the looking-glass things had ceased to breath and lay still in the trance of immortality,” (page 1225).  Yes, the fantasies are more entertaining.  But they ignore the actual woman they are trying to analyze. 
The reflection in the mirror can only reveal so much about reality.  It is a superficial view that is given more to subjective rather than literal interpretation.  It’s the same way with literature.  It can provide an image, an impression.  But it only scrapes the surface of reality, and leaves the rest to interpretation.  

Monday, June 20, 2011

Yeats and Innisfree

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Yeats describes the speaker’s desire to leave the city and live a simple, peaceful life in the country.  A notable aspect of the poem is it’s liberal use of sensory imagery.  Visually, the speaker contrasts the vibrancy and liveliness of the country, where the, “midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,” (line 7) with his current position in the dull city, where he stands, “on the roadway, or on the pavement grey,” (line 11).  More often however, Yeats appeals to the sense of sound.  The speaker mentions living, “in the bee-loud glade,” (line 4), mornings, “where the cricket sings,” (line 6), and evenings, “full off the linnet’s wings,” (line 8).  To the speaker, peace does not necessarily equal complete silence.  It simply means that it is quiet enough to appreciate the natural world more fully.  He can be completely immersed, in rhythm with the beating wings and the cricket’s songs.  
According to the footnote, Innisfree is a real island in the region that Yeats spent time in during his youth.  Therefore, Innisfree could also represent the peaceful innocence of childhood, and the speaker’s desire to go back to that.  It is also difficult for me to ignore the name itself.  It sounds like, “In is free”.  The speaker describes that he can still, “hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore,” (line 10) even while in the city.  “I hear it in the deep heart’s core,” (line 12).  Despite social constraints, the speaker is free  within his own memories or imagination.  The country that he so loves is a part of him.  

Brooke's Idealism Versus Owen's Realism

Rupert Brooke was among the first to enlist in 1914.  However, he died of blood poisoning before seeing combat.  Wilfred Owen also enlisted early in the war.  He fought in France and was killed in action in 1918.  Each poet had an extremely different view of the war due to these different experiences, and this was reflected in their poetry.  
Brooke’s “The Soldier” is filled with patriotic pride. The speaker, a solider describes his probable death as a victory for England.  “If I should die, think only this of me:/ That there’s some corner of a foreign field/ That is forever England,” (lines 1-3).  His is a worthy and noble sacrifice.  Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, however, has a very different view of death in battle.  “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” reads the first line.  There is nothing noble about dying like an animal.  It is a demeaning and  insignificant death without even the honor of a decent burial.  There is no, “voice of mourning save the choirs -/ The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells; and bugles calling for them from sad shires,” (lines 6-8).    
The second stanza of, “The Soldier” expresses an optimistic hope in life after death.  “And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the Eternal mind, no less/ Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given,”  (lines 9-11).  Death becomes a glorious means of bringing the glory of England to heaven, to create, “an English heaven,” (line 14).  The title of Owen’s play, on the other hand, says it all.  The youth are doomed.  There is no mention of an afterlife, no glory.  There is no great purpose for them.  

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Eliza Doolittle, Changed?

In Bernard Shaw’s, “Pygmalion”, Henry Higgins takes on bet that he can pass off Eliza Doolitle, a lower class girl selling flowers on the street, as a noble lady.  “Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf,” he tells her, “you discrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnat insult to the English language: I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba,” (page 1013).  After six months of education in phonetics, fashion, and manners, Higgins wins his bet.  At a social gathering, an old student of Higgins is thoroughly convinced that Eliza is a Hungarian princess.  The title of the play suggests that Higgins is Pygmalion, and that he creates the new Eliza, his Galatea.  However, it is debatable just how much he created.  
Throughout the play, Eliza does not change.  How others perceive her changes.  In the first Act, Eliza encounters Freddy, Mrs. Eynsford Hill and Clara and tries to sell them flowers.  She is separated by her lowly station and strong, cockney accent.  Clara treats her with disdain.  Freddy is indifferent.  Mrs. Eynsford Hill has only pity and a bit of change.  Yet later, in the third Act, Eliza speaks better and is dressed more fashionably.  Nothing that she says really makes sense.  To cover for her, Higgins says, “Oh, that’s the new small talk.  To do a person in means to kill them,” (page 1037).  Yet, Mrs. Eyensford does not question Eliza’s station.  Clara says that, “I find the new small talk delightful and quite innocent,” (page 1039).  And Freddy is thoroughly enchanted with her, insisting that she does small talk, “awfully well,” and, “going out on the balcony to catch another glimpse of Eliza,” (page 1038) when she leaves.  
Eliza is very much the same before and after her six months with Higgins.  After overhearing Higgins discussing how the whole affair was boring and how he was glad to have it over, Eliza throws his slippers at him.  This is hardly the behavior of the lady Higgins claims to have created.  Additionally, her pride and sense of decency, right, and wrong, are constant throughout the play.  She insists on knowing what exactly belongs to her, “I want to know what I may take away with me.  I dont want to be accused of stealing,” (page 1049).  It’s said in a calmer tone, and with much better grammer, but it echoes her concerns at the beginning of the play when she believes she is in danger of being accused of prostitution.  “I aint done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman.  I’ve a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb.  I’m a respectable girl: so help me.  I never spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower off me,” (page 1010).  A lady in that society is not fit for anything except marriage.  Eliza does not consider herself to be such a lady, however, despite her education.  When discussing her marriage to Freddy with Higgins, she says, “I don’t want him to work: he wasnt brought up to it as I was.  I’ll go and be a teacher,” (page 1062).  Therefore, while her speech and fashion may have been tweaked, Eliza’s character remained constant.  

Thursday, June 16, 2011

A Memory of White

“On the Departure Platform” by Thomas Hardy describes the parting of the speaker and his lover through imagery and impressions.  There is no physical reference to the speaker’s lover, no mention of her beauty.  However, he does mention that as she moved further away, “She was but a spot/ A wee white spot of muslin fluff/ That down the diminishing platform bore,” (lines 4-6).  As her carriage moves further and further away, he speaks of her form as, “that nebulous white,” (line 14).  Later in the poem the speaker says that, “in season she will appear again/ Perhaps in the same soft white array,” (lines 18-19).  White is commonly used to signify purity.  Perhaps the speaker is referencing his lover’s pure nature, which he has come to value.  So when she leaves, that is his lasting impression of her.  White could also be meant as a reference their pure love.  Despite distance, the speaker says that, “We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,” (line 17).  This line also indicates that the white imagery may also be meant to describe the purity of the memory.  Their parting should be a sad memory, yet, he describes it fondly.  It is not tainted with sorrow.  Furthermore, he expresses remorse over the fact that, “nought happens twice thus,” (line 23).  
The speaker also describes the growing difference between himself and his lover as she leaves.  She becomes, “smaller and smaller,” (line 3), as she moves, “down the diminishing platform,” (line 6), until her “nebulous” form vanishes. This imagery could indicate his failing memory.  The details have faded, but he remembers the impressions of her white attire moving further and further and way.  In addition, he remembers the emotion, the passion, and the love that he felt for, “she who was more than my life to me,” (line 15).  And it is these impressions that he treasures and wishes that he could re-experience.  

Margaret and Faith

“Spring and Fall: To A Young Child” by Gerard Manley Hopkins describes a scene in which the speaker approaches a young girl named Margaret. 
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving? 
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? (lines 1-4)
Here the audience is presented with a vision of golden leaves falling from the trees, The speaker compares these with worldly goods, an image that is enhanced by the golden color of the leaves.  The speaker is referencing the riches that society prizes.  Yet, he says that they do not hold any real value, and will eventually fall to ruin.  They are pretty for now, but their autumn, their season of decay, will come.  Over time, the speaker says that Margaret will realize how meaningless worldly wealth is.  As, “the heart [of Margaret] grows older/ It will come to such sights colder,” (lines 5-6).  
“Sorrow’s springs are the same,” (line 11).  Though Margaret knows that the world is shallow and meaningless, she will still mourn the autumn of society.  Though in truth, “It is Margaret you mourn for,” (line 15).  The decay of autumn reminds her of her own mortality.  Usually, spring is a symbol for rebirth and new life.  Here, it is not so.  I interpret this as a demonstration of Margaret’s lack of belief in God.  She has no faith, no belief in life after death.  Therefore, spring is a source of sorrow instead of an optimistic hope for new life.  
This poem is, perhaps, a social critique.  As society clings to it’s wealth, it forgets it’s faith.  The focus on this world, which is corrupt with base pleasures is only temporary, yet it takes priority over the next world which is pure and eternal.  

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The Importance of Being Earnest

In his brilliant masterpiece, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, Oscar Wilde offers a hilarious satirical critique of the society around him.  A running theme is the preoccupation with ideals and appearance instead of reality.  Appearance is so important, in fact, that the characters have to lie extensively and compartmentalize their lives in order to do things that they want to do.  Algernon says to Jack, “You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose,” (page 852).  While telling his ward, Cecily, that he is taking care of his mischevious brother Ernest, Jack actually becomes Ernest and behaves as he wishes.  Ernest is more than a lie, he is an alter ego.  Thus, the discrepancy between truth and appearance is established.  Similarly, Algernon wishes to escape social obligations, but can only do so by pretending to have more pressing social obligations.  His pretense is extremely successful, as Aunt Augusta later argues for the marriage of Algernon and Cecily stating that, “Algernon is an extremely, I may say, an almost ostentatiously eligible young man.  He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?” (page 882).  
Cecily and Gwendolen both fall in love with “Ernest”. However, they are more interested in the idea of Ernest more than they are of the people they become engaged to.  Gwendolen states that the name, “has a music of its own.  It produces vibrations,” (page 855).  Therefore, “The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend named Ernest, I [Gwendolen] knew I was destined to love you,” (page 855).  Cecily echoes these sentiments later in the second act when she tells Algernon, who is masquerading as her uncle Jack’s scandalous brother, that, “it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love some one whose name was Ernest.  There is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence.”  (page 871)   Their preoccupation with the name Ernest and the ideals that they have attached to it is so strong that both Algernon and Jack are compelled to be re-baptized and change their names!  Thus, Wilde describes the shallowness of society.  It cares nothing for individuality, for human beings as they really are.  It is merely concerned with reputation. The characters of Algernon and Jack, who have both lied extensively, are not called into question at all.  This is also a critique of social relationships, which are based more on social pretense than a genuine appreciation of individual persons. Furthermore, Baptism and Marriage are sacred sacraments.  However, Marriage is treated as shallow and ideal.  Baptism is thrown about flippantly, without reference to the real meaning of the sacrament.  So it appears that Wilde is also critiquing society’s treatment of religion.  It is merely a social convention, a means to appear more acceptable.  

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Awesomeness of Individuality, and Non-conventions turned Convention in America

“In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.  Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric,” (page 520).  In the excerpt entitled,“Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being,” John Stuart Mill discusses the importance of individuality to both the individual and to society as a whole.
‎"He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties,” (page 518).  Here, Mill states that blind conformity is sub-human.  The human capacity for logic and reason is too great to never be used.  “But it is the privilege and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way,” (page 518).  Everyone interprets  life differently because of gender, socio-economic status, race, and religion.  Perspectives are further diversified by factors like personality, upbringing, friends, enemies, mentors, and so on and so on.  Every perspective is valid, but limited.  John Godfrey Saxe (this wasn’t in the reading, but I was reminded of it) wrote a poem called, “The Blind Men and the Elephant”.  In the poem, each of the blind men makes a valid observation about the elephant, but each one only experiences one part.  Separately, their observations are incomplete.  Together, they can put together the whole picture.  Mill echoes this sentiment when he writes that, “It is individuality that we war against: we should think we had done wonders if we had made ourselves all alike; forgetting that the unlikeness of one person to another is generally the first thing which draws the attention of either to the imperfection of his own type, and the superiority of another, or the possibility, by combining the advantages of both, of producing something better than either,” (page 520). 

“Persons of genius, it is true, are, and always are likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.  Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom,” (page 519).  Living in the Land of the Free, I had to ask myself a question.  Does this atmosphere exist in modern America?  Arguably, it does.  With the internet, anyone can start a blog, post a video.  Everyone is their own publisher.  Any opinion or idea can be expressed at anytime.  Freedom of expression is something Americans are extremely proud of, and this is reflected all over the culture.  Burger King advertises food made YOUR way.  TV ads tell viewers to express themselves through how they dress.  But all the clothes look the same.  How much selection does Burger King really have?  With a special place in the heart for the Greenwich Village artist, being unconventional has become a convention.  And what good is a blog if nobody reads it?  This atmosphere of freedom doesn’t just entail allowing people to express themselves.  It also involves people with open minds who are willing to listen to each other, learn from each other.  So it seems to me that America has come half way.  When politicians can come out from behind their political parties and discuss policy instead of politics, when discrimination against the, “weird kid” on the playground stops, when people learn to dialogue instead of debate, then the atmosphere of freedom is achieved.  

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Of Gentlemen and Ladies, Stereotypes, and Cages

“There are many humble-minded women, not remarkable for any particular intellectual endowment, who yet possess so clear a sense of right and wrong of individual actions, as to be of essential service in aiding the judgements of their husbands, brothers, or sons in whose intricate affairs in which it is sometimes difficult to dissever worldly wisdom from religious duty,” (page 557, Sarah Stickney Ellis)  It is pleasant to hear lovely things about my gender.  It’s flattering to think that, as a woman, I am naturally of higher moral character than men.  With this kind of intuition, I don’t need a formal education.  It’s superfluous.  My time is much better spent letting my natural sweetness shine out on the poor, virtueless males that cross my path.   These poor souls are rather unfortunately disposed towards, “inborn selfishness, or his worldly pride,” (Sarah Stickney Ellis, page 557). 
This kind of philosophy strikes a bad chord with me (in case you hadn’t noticed), for a variety of reasons.  First, it is an insult to men.  I’ve personally met several male persons who were more morally inclined than myself.  A sense of right and wrong doesn’t come from being a man or a woman.  It can come from religion, or perhaps philosophy, or a simple, conscience, or maybe a natural inclination towards virtue.  I would also argue that it comes from experience, from trial and error in the issues of everyday life.  In this light, it is awfully difficult for a woman to be moral when she is locked up in an ivory tower, simply sitting, “in her drawing room like a doll-Madonna in her shrine,” (page 571, “George Elliot”).  
Descriptions of women as saintly beings is also unbearable flattery.  Implied in it is a pressure to be always good, always sweet, and never questioning, and to be anything else is to fail as a woman.  In fact, that’s probably why the opinion was passed down from generation to generation.  What better way to keep someone in an inferior position than to build a cage with invisible bars.  Young girls, raised with this kind of flattery, strive to meet those expectations without seeing the prison it creates.  Mary Wollstonecraft, in previous readings, wrote that those in power, “would rather justify oppression that correct abuses,” (page 62).  (I know that I’ve used this quote in other blogs, but gosh darn it, it’s a good quote!)  So it is that society justified the treatment of women with shameless flattery.  
Readings like these make me feel lucky that I live when I do, that I can attend college and pursue a career in the field that I choose.  Times have truly changed.  Well, at least I think they have.  I still encounter the old female stereotype every now and then.  “Women are supposed to possess more sensibility, and even humanity, than men, and their strong attachments and instantaneous emotions of compassion are given as proofs,” (page 571, “George Elliot” quoting Mary Wollstonecraft).  Are women really more emotional, more compassionate than men?  Or is it just how they have been raised?  Boys and girls are still brought up with different expectations.  Girls get dolls, boys get action figures.  It is socially acceptable, expected even, for a woman to cry at the movies, but it is thing of comedy for a man to do so.  Women are raised to be more comfortable with public displays or expressions of emotion.  Men, not so much.  Therefore, this kind of thinking and stereotyping, I would argue is just as limiting to men as it is to women.  

Friday, June 10, 2011

Of God, Religion, and Aurora Leigh (and a Little Bit of Me)


Through the first book of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Aurora Leigh”, the title character and speaker critiques organized religion and promotes her own unique interpretation of it.  Aurora writes that the poets are, “the only truth-tellers now left to God,/ the only speakers of essential truth,/ Opposed to relative, comparative,/ And temporal truths,” (lines 559-662).  Society’s interpretation of religion has become too dependent on what it wants to hear.  It’s merely a way to maintain social order.  Faith and morality are not priorities.  Aurora’s aunt becomes a symbol of organized relgion, and all that Aurora finds wrong with it.  Her aunt teaches her to make, “Christian gifts/ Of knitting stockings, stitching petticoats,/ Because we are all of one flesh, after all,/ And need one flannel (with proper sense/ of difference in the quality),” (lines 297-300).  Here, Aurora scorns her aunt’s view of charity.  The goal with these gifts is more to appear pious than to actually aid anyone.  Organized religion has reduced charity to mere social convention.  Additionally, the parenthetical phrase highlights a certain hypocritical approval for the class system.  Though God made all men equal, they don’t all deserve equal shares in life.  Aurora critiques hypocrisy again later when describing her religious education.  In addition to official prayers and doctrines, Aurora’s aunt also taught her, “various popular synopses of/ Inhuman doctrines never taught by John,/ Because she liked instructed piety,” (396-398).  It is easy to justify injustices such as those created by the class system if one claims that it is all God’s will, that they are living as God wants them too, etc.  Yet, Aurora calls their bluff, writing that they are putting words into the Bible’s mouth so to speak.  
Aurora does not respond to her aunt’s instruction.  Yet, she has a very strong faith in God.  This comes from her personal spiritual ventures.  “I had relations in the Unseen, and drew/ The elemental nutriment and heat/ From nature, as earth feels as the sun at nights,/ Or as a babe sucks surely in the dark,” (lines 473-477).  Aurora finds real, fulfilling life in nature.  “God,” she writes, “I thank thee for that grace of thine!” (lines 480-481).  So it is implied that she has a sort of spiritual connection with God through her experiences in nature.  It is a pure, undefiled manifestation of His creation, and it is there that she feels closest to him.  This joyful, passionate exclamation contrasts heavily with her aunt’s gratitude.  Aurora writes, “Some people always sigh in thanking God,” (line 445).  This is yet another critique of organized religion.  Faith is not treasured.  There is no joy in it.  And how grateful does a sigh really sound?  Yet Aurora’s personal faith does have joy, it is treasured.  And she actually sounds legitimately and genuinely grateful for God in her life.  I have nothing against organized religion.  I was born and raised Catholic.  For a long time I didn’t question it.  Then I realized that I was just going through the motions.  Church wasn’t a place where you were suddenly struck with overwhelming faith.  It was a place to bring faith to worship.  And that faith was something I had to discover for myself.  It wasn’t something that confirmation classes or a good homily could teach me, any more than Aurora’s aunt could teach her.  So I relate to Aurora’s personal journey of faith.  We find both find God in the beauty and wonder of nature, and there are times I feel closer to God when alone than in the middle of a congregation. 

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Of Men and Women: Together They Stand, Divided They Fall

“The Woman’s Cause is Man’s” is the final monologue of Prince Florian in Tennyson’s poem, “The Princess”.  According to the footnote, in masquerading as a woman, Prince Florian attended Princess Ida's school for women and won her love.  She turned her school into a hospital and married him.  This kind of ending seems to make feminism seem like a youthful fancy, which maturity disposes of.  Princess Ida has had her fun, but now it is time to grow up, to rejoin the real world.  That, however, is just the surface.  In this speech, Prince Florian demonstrates that his experience with feminism has been enlightening, and he expresses hope for a better future.  “Blame not thyself too much,” I said.  “nor blame/ Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws;/ These were the rough ways of the world till now,” (lines 1-3).  Princess Ida is too far ahead of her time.  Her ideology cannot function in the real world, not because it is wrong, but because society hasn’t caught up yet.  With Princess Ida, Prince Florian hopes to set an example and pave the way for future generations.  “We two will serve them both in aiding her -/ Will clear away the parasitic forms/ That seem to keep her up but drag her down-/ Will leave her space to burgeon out of all/ Within her - let her make herself her own/ To give or keep, to live and learn and be/ all that not harms distinctive womanhood,” (lines 252-258).  
The idea of partnership between the sexes is an important theme.  Florian’s view of feminism does not pitt women against men, but rather, it encourages them to learn from each other. “Not like to like, but like in difference./ Yet in the long years liker must they grow;/ The man be more of woman, she of man,” (lines 262-264).  Men are better for knowing women, and women are better for knowing men.  Both sexes have unique perspectives, strengths, and weaknesses due to both biological and sociological factors.  However, their strengths and weaknesses complement each other, so together, men and women balance, learn from, and improve each other.  Though both the female and male perspectives are equally valid, they are, individually, only half the story.  Together, they see a more complete picture.  They are stronger together than they are apart.  “Seeing either sex alone/ Is half itself, and in true marriage lies/ Nor equal, or unequal: each fulfills/ Defect in each, and always thought in thought,/ Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow,/ The single pure and perfect animal,” (lines 283- 288).  Working in harmony, men and women pursue a common goal: a more perfect life on earth.  Thus, “The woman’s cause is man’s,” (line 243).  In doing so, “a statelier Eden”, (line 277) is created on Earth.  Princess Ida and Prince Florian embody this idea.  She has come back from seclusion to rejoin society because of him.  He has been enlightened because of her influence.  In the last few lines, Princess Ida teases him for his speech. “A dream/ That was once mine!  What woman taught you this?” (lines 291-292). 

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Work Work Work

“For there is perennial nobleness, and even sacredness in Work,” (page 481), wrote Thomas Carlyle in, “Labor,”.  Yet, Carlyle is not referring to a mere job, a simple means of making money.  Rather, this is activity done for the sake of more valuable things.  This kind of work brings about self-knowledge, and gives life direction.  “Properly thou has no other knowledge but what thou hast got by working: the rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge; a thing to be argued of in schools, a thing floating in the clouds in endless logic-vortices, till we try and fix it,” (page 482)  It is through work that one comes to to truly understand the self and the world.  “I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand,” goes the Chinese proverb.  Through action, things go from abstract to concrete, from theory to reality, from uncertain to certain.  It’s why science classes have lab components.  It’s also how, through work, human beings can better know themselves.  “Think it not thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou art an unknowable individual: know what thou canst work at; and work at it, like a Hercules! That will be thy better plan,” (page 481).  The human self is too complex to simply “know”.  People that go off and try to “find themselves” are really just dissatisfied with what they are doing, and want to do something else more fulfilling.  It is a quest that revolves around activity and work because humans judge and are judged by their actions.  So identity has a direct connection with work.  Additionally, through work, one learns his or her individual strengths and talents.  One can perfect and enhance them.  Furthermore, work also reveals one’s weaknesses.  So the individual must confront and learn to overcome them.  “A man perfects himself by working.  Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seedfields rise instead, and stately cities; and withal the man himself first ceases to be a jungle and foul unwholesome desert nearby,” (page 481).  So it is through work that human beings improve themselves.  
          
“The man is now a man. The blessed glow of Labour in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made bright blessed flame!” (page 481).  Work gives peace.  It takes the focus off of things that one cannot do anything about, and turns it to things that one can do something about.  In other words, it refocuses negative energy into positive energy.  It increases security in oneself.  Furthermore, it gives life direction, meaning, and purpose.  “Destiny, on the whole, has no other way of cultivating us.  A formless Chaos, once set it revolving, grows round and ever rounder: ranges itself, by mere force of gravity, into strata, spherical courses; is no longer a Chaos, but a round compacted World,” (page 482).  This idea is further promoted by the metaphor of Destiny as a potter.  If the clay will not spin, there is only so much that the potter can do for it.  It is base and crude.  But if it does spin, then the potter can make it into something beautiful, give it greater purpose.  It can be a vase for flowers instead of a small pinch pot that isn’t really good for anything at all.  If human beings spin, if they work, than they are moving forward towards being something significant.      

Monday, June 6, 2011

Industrialism, Perspectives on the Past and Present

The from Benjamin Disraeli’s “Sybil” describes a conversation between two strangers.  The younger one states that the new queen reigns over two nations, the lower and upper classes.  The two classes are,“are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.” (page 499).  Yet, they are from different worlds.  The poor and the rich live in very different neighborhoods and circumstances.  They do not intermarry, or even associate really, with members of the other class.  It is no surprise that prejudice arises between the two classes and that between them, “there is no intercourse, and no sympathy,” (page 499).
  
Charles Dickens presents the issue on a smaller scale in his description of Coketown in the excerpt from, “Hard Times”.  In Coketown, there are eighteen different churches, all for the upper class.  “It was very strange to walk through the streets on a Sunday morning and note how few of them the barbarous jangling of bells that was driving the sick and nervous mad, called away from their own quarter, from their own close rooms, from the corners of their own streets,” (page 498).  Thus, there is a cultural divide between the upper and lower class.  One is pious, one is not.  It is easy to judge one as moral and religious, and the other as base and sinful.  Yet, the testimonies of the Eggley sisters give another reason.  Ann stated that, “I thought it too bad to be confined on both Sundays and week-days.  I walk about and get fresh air on Sundays,” (page 466).  Elizabeth said, “I have often been obliged to stop in bed all Sunday to rest myself,” (page 466).  Should these two girls, their peers, their parents, or their neighbors, be begrudged one day of real rest?  
In this kind of society, religion becomes reduced to a luxury, just another symbol of status.  Piety becomes an excuse to feel, “holier than thou”.  Dickens describes how there was a move to force the lower class to attend church.  How the Teetotal Society, “complained that these same people would get drunk, and showed in tabular statements that they did get drunk, and proved at tea parties that no inducement human or Divine (except a medal), would induce their custom of getting drunk,” (page 498).  Similarly, the lower class came to embody other vices like opium, singing, and dancing.  Because, of course, the upper class was far too pure and holy to ever touch alcohol or opium, and they would never ever stoop to (shudder) singing and dancing.  The prejudice of the upper class grew to such an extent, that one gentleman could blame his crimes on engaging in such activities.  
These issues and perspectives are hardly unique to this time period.  Ann and Elizabeth Eggley could very well be William Blake’s chimney sweepers.  Mary Wollstonecraft wrote that the upper classes, “would rather justify oppression that correct abuses,” (page 62).  The sharp class division is not something that has gone away over time.  The state of a neighborhood here in Macon, for instance, changes from one street to the next.  Take Mercer, a lovely patch of brick buildings and trees.  Then cross the bridge over the highway.  And I’m sure I’m not the only one to have been approached by a starving homeless man or woman after buying a week’s supply of groceries.  And there are still prejudices.  They’re probably just on drugs, or alcoholics.  It’s their own fault they couldn’t hold down a job.  They got themselves into this mess.  And those people living in the run down houses, yeah, they should really start taking care of their property somewhere between those two minimum-wage jobs.  So when does it end?  Is poverty and a class system inevitable?  Do they all deserve help?  All questions that our generation has to answer if we don’t want our children to have to.    

Sunday, June 5, 2011

The Wife of Asdrubal, Martyr or Murderer?

Asdrubal, a military commander of Carthage, surrendered to the Romans to save his own life.  “The wife of Asdrubal” by Felicia Hemans describes the scene of Carthage in flames and his wife’s own desperate acts.  It is interesting to note that Carthage is described as female. “Her walls have sunk, and pyramids of fire/ In lurid splendor from her domes aspire,” (lines 4-5).  Asdrubal betrayed not one, but two women that he had sworn to love and protect.  While Carthage burns, Asdrubal’s wife appears.  Amid the chaos and the flames, the speaker gives this woman a glorious description.  “All regal in magnificent attire,/ And sternly beauteous in terrific ire,” (lines 17-18). She is even likened to a priestess.  Though her husband fled the battle, she remains loyal to her city.  She carries herself with honor and dignity, and glares at her husband, who is, “ignobaly safe” (line 40).  While her husband surrendered in fear, this woman stands firm.  “A daring spirit, in its woes elate,/ Mightier than death, untamable by fate./ The dark profusion of her locks unbound,/ waves like a warrior’s floating plumage round,” (lines 27-30).  Asdrubal’s wife refuses to follow her husband’s example and surrender.   The wife is the “good captain” who goes down with her “ship”.  
It is difficult to defend a woman who kills her own children.  It is possible that she did this to keep them from suffering either life in Roman chains or death in flames.  However, the public manner in which she did this suggests that she is trying to convey a much larger idea.  “She seems th’ avenging goddess of the scene,” (line 32).  His wife is ensuring that he looses everything that ever mattered to him, that in putting aside his duties and loyalties, he also sacrificed his children.  Additionally, children are their parents’ legacy.  In killing her children, Asdrubal’s wife ensures that  doing so Asdrubel’s legacy will end and never be redeemed by his sons.  His name will always be shamed.  In killing her children, she also allows them to die as loyal citizens of Carthage and keeps them free from the taint of her husband’s betrayal.  Instead, they become martyrs, remembered for their innocence, and symbols of their fathers terrible betrayal. 

Byron, the Martyr

In Byron’s, “Canto The Third”, there is a segment which the text titled, “Byron’s strained idealism. Apostrophe to His Daughter.”  Here there is a noted tone and theme shift.  Byron stops employing natural imagry and begins speaking more plainly.  The speaker begins to make himself into a martyr, into more of a tragic hero in a flawed society.  The speaker also strives to separate himself from society, to stand apart from its corruption as a more pure individual.  “We are not what we have been, and to deem/ we are not what we should be,” (lines 1034-1035).  Society teaches that emotion is, “the tyrant spirit of our thought,” (line 1038).  This repression of basic human emotion stunts human growth.  It is oppressive, and should be glorified where it is condemned.  However, the speaker would take his emotions and treasure them, and “seize, in passing, to beguile/ My breast or that of others, for a while,” (lines 1043-1044).  “I have not loved the world, nor the world me;/ I have not flatter’d its rang breath, nor bow’d/ To it’s idolatries a patient knee,” (lines 1049-1050).  The speaker is above the corrupt values of society, and therefore beyond reproach.  “I stood and stand alone, remember’d or forgot,” (line 1048).  The speaker notes that with age he has grown wiser, and that he knows that fame is nothing.  The speaker’s personal worth does not depend on the judgement of society.  At the end of his “Strained Idealism”, the speaker seeks to further elevate himself above society by portraying himself as the better man.  Though society may condemn him, the speaker, wishes society the best and hopes that it overcomes it’s faults.  He hopes for, “virtues which are merciful,” (1062), that is, virtues that are good in themselves and ensure justice and peace, rather than just a distinction for “good” and “bad” people.  Though he and society never quite got along, the speaker writes, “let us part as fair foes,” (line 1059).
I think that Byron makes several good obervations about society.  Emotions are natural, and it is not healthy to repress them.  One has to have a sense of morality apart from society’s.  At the end of it all, you can’t say that it was okay to do something just because someone else said it was fine.  In this life, you have to live with your actions, and you better than any law or social convention will hold yourself accountable.  Additionally, the “holier-than-thou” attitude the Byron writes of is intolerable, and hypocritical.  However, overall, Byron is morbidly melodramatic as he paints the speaker as a tragic hero.  And every hero needs an enemy.  So society becomes personified as this horrible entity that denies and corrupts human nature.  There is no direct quote for this, it’s just my general impression.  Because of the intended contrast, the more the speaker promotes himself as a hero, the more he also condemns society.  

Samuel Coleridge: "Work without Hope"

In his poem, “Work without Hope,” Samuel Coleridge contrasts a busy, joyful nature with  a desolate speaker.  “All Nature seems at work,” (line 1) he begins.  The speaker, however, describes himself as, “the sole unbusy thing,” (line 5).  This is a stark contrast to much of the Romantic selection that I’ve read so far.  The speaker doesn’t have the same, what I would call, “oneness with nature”.  He is out of sync with nature.  While, “The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing,” (line 2), the speaker states that, “Nor honey make, nor pair nor build, nor sing.” (lines 6).  Even the, “Slugs leave their lair,” (line 1).  Slugs do not exactly have a reputation for being industrious or productive, but even they are out and about.  This disconnect with nature is further emphasized in the second stanza.  Though the speaker knows where the amaranths grow and the streams of nectar flow, he takes no pleasure in them.  “Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,/ For me ye bloom not!  Glide! rich streams, away!” (lines 7-8).  Simple knowledge of nature is not enough.  It’s kind of like a certain genre of music.  One may be able to recognize it, but that doesn’t mean that he or she, “gets” it.  There’s a certain understanding, perhaps a certain commonality missing here that prevents the speaker from working  in harmonious industry with nature.  
This contrast between nature and the speaker is further promoted by the personification of winter.  “And Winter slumbering in the open air,/ Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring,” (lines 3-4).  In my experience, there is a lot of symbolism in the seasons.  Spring tends to symbolize birth and rebirth.  Summer is analogous to the prime of life, and autumn corresponds to decline.  Winter is often used to symbolize death.  Yet here, Winter is optimistic, hopeful, and looking forward to spring and rebirth.  The speaker, however, describes himself as without such hope.  He feels lifeless, “with lips unbrightened,” (line 11), and speaks of spells that drowse my soul,” (line 12).  The speaker’s despair is most apparent in the last two lines. “Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,/ And Hope without an object cannot live,” (lines 13-14).  The speaker, because he has no hope, gets no nectar, no sweetness or joy, from it.  This lack of hope and joy is perhaps the missing connection between himself and nature.  Furthermore, it appears that he does not even consider himself whole, as functioning.  As he cannot hold hope, he is not an object, a being.    

Friday, June 3, 2011

Dorothy Wordsworth: Hidden Life and Flowers

Dorothy Wordsworth first fell sick in 1829.  In 1832, she wrote, “Thoughts on My Sick-Bed”, in which the speaker described the joy she found in the flowers brought to her by friends.  The poem is set in spring, and the speaker, like Dorothy (arguably Dorothy) insists that sickness has not kept her from enjoying spring.  Actually, the flowers brought to the speaker invoke memories that reveal a far greater joy than what she had previously known in her youth. “No! Then I never felt a bliss/ That might with that compare/ Which, piercing to my couch of rest,/ Came on the vernal air,” (lines 29-32).    In the beginning, speaks of “The hidden life/ Couchant within my feeble frame,” (lines 5-6).  At first, this is easily interpreted as a sort of revival of the spirit brought about in response to the flowers.  However, this idea is echoed again later in the poem, when the speaker describes how memory has, “brought joy to my hidden life,/ To consciousness no longer hidden,” (lines 39-40).  So the speaker’s hidden life becomes more of an increased capacity to appreciate nature, to understand it.  The hidden life grants the speaker a deeper connection to nature.  In the speaker’s youth, though she was a, “Companion of Nature” (line 22), she never found the “splendid flower”.  In sickness, however, with the speaker’s hidden life awakened, “No need of motion or of strength,/ Or even the breathing air:/ - I thought of Nature’s loveliest scenes;/ And with Memory I was there,” (lines 49-52).  
Due to the circumstances in which the poem was written, it seems natural to assume that the speaker is Dorothy Wordsworth, or at least a representation of her.  That was, at least, my impression.  The podcast mentioned that Dorothy never meant to publish her work, so this work was primarily meant for her, and perhaps close family or friends.  This point is supported by the numerous allusions to her brother’s work, which only those close to the siblings would be familiar enough with to fully comprehend the poem.  In an attempt to better understand the poem, I looked up the works alluded to.  Specifically, I focussed on the four flowers directly mentioned.  The power of memory is an important theme, I thought that there may be some significance to the specific flowers.

The Celandine references the poem, “The Small Celandine”, in which, the footnote states, it becomes an emblem of inevitable old age.  Though the young flower can shelter itself and escape harm in it’s youth, weakness and stiffness prevent it from doing so at old age.  So the celandine must face the wind and the rain head on.  Dorothy relates to this flower.  In her youth, she too was lively, but now must suffer and face disease.  So her own resiliance is modeled off of the Celandine.  The Primrose is a reference to, “The Primrose of the Rock”, in which the speaker discusses the seasonal birth, death, and rebirth of nature in spring and winter.  Though the storms and cold tear the primroses down, they are rooted to the rock (a biblical allusion perhaps), and God’s love renews them year after year.  So the primrose becomes a symbol of rebirth, a reflection of Dorothy’s religious beliefs and hope for new life after her death.  The violet is a reference to, “She dwelt among th’ untrodden ways”.  The violet is personified as a young girl, who though fair, is mostly unknown.  However, because the speaker knew the flower, he has been influenced by it.  Dorothy could relate to the violet as someone fair, but mostly unknown.  It could also reflect her wish to influence the world around her.  The Daffodil is a reference to, “I wandered lonely as a cloud”.  The speaker describes a “never-ending” host of daffodils that dance in the wind, and “outdid the sparkling waves in glee,” (line14).  So the daffodil becomes a symbol of eternal joy that lives on in the speaker’s memory.  It is possible that this is a reflection of how Dorothy wants to be remembered after her death.  

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The Passions of "Michael"

In, “Michael”, Wordsworth paints an emotional portrait of a complicated man.  Though he the title character lives the simple life of a shepherd, he is a man of great passion.  Michael is what Wordsworth calls a, “natural heart” (line 36).  Though the speaker never refers to Michael as this directly, he implies it.  Michael has, “learn’d the meaning of all winds”, (line 48) travelled, “Up to the mountains: he had been alone/ Amid the heart of many thousand mists”, (lines 58-59).  The valleys, streams, rocks, fields, the animals, the air, “Which were his living Being, even more/ Than his own Blood,” (75-76).  Michael has a very deep connection with for nature.  He has great passion for the land and the animals he cares for.  It is this connection that drives Michael’s actions during his life.  
Michael’s passion for nature is rivaled only by his love for his son, Luke.  “Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms,/ had done him female service, not alone/ for dalliance and delight, as is the use/ of Fathers, but with patient mind enforc’d/ To acts of tenderness,” (lines 163-167). He raises his son to be a shepherd, like him.  When Luke turns five, Michael carves a shepherd’s staff for him and begins teaching him the ways of the land.  At the age of ten, Michael is going out with his father daily.  “He [Luke] was his [Michael’s] comfort and his daily hope,” (line 216).  
It makes sense then, that Michael would try to bind his two greatest loves.  He sends Luke into town to work for the money to keep the land so that it can become his inheritance.  Before Luke leaves, Michael makes a covenant with him.  “Luke stoop’d down,/ And as his Father had requested, laid/ The first stone of the Sheep-fold;”, (lines 428-430).  The cornerstone was intended to anchor Luke to the land, to the life of his father.  Michael wanted to ensure that all the joy, all the love he had experienced could be passed on to Luke.  So when Luke, “gave himself/ To evil courses,” (lines 452-453) and fled, one can only imagine Michael’s grief.  Yet, Michael keeps going.  He continues go out and care for his land, to tend to his sheep.  “There is a comfort in the strength of love;/ ‘Twill make a thing endurable, which else/ Would break the heart,” (lines 457-459).  Michael’s passion for the land is so strong that it keeps him going, despite his grief.  
It is my interpretation that part of him never gives up hope that his son will someday return.  Michael never finishes the Sheep-fold.  The arrangement still stands, and Luke can come and pick up where he left off.  This small pile of stones, “Of the unfinished Sheep-fold may be seen,” (line 490) long after everything else is gone.  It becomes a symbol of Michael’s undying love for his son.  Furthermore, it almost seems like an invitation to other “natural hearts”.  If they come and finish the sheep-fold, if the love and care for the land as Michael did, it is theirs.