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.      

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.    

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.    

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.  

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.