Final Blog- Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf has been another challenging modern poet for me. She was one of the most popular women writers of the 20th century. Born into a very privileged British family, she was given a good education considering her status as a woman. However, she actually had many psychological issues, including depression as well as she suffered from mental breakdowns for much of her life.
One of her most popular works is The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection, which includes many of her signature themes and her unique writing style. In this prose, she writes about the life of a Lady through what of her belongings one can see through a mirror hanging over her mantle. The mirror is something that Woolf enjoyed using in her work; having it illuminate the idea that writing is supposed to mirror reality, but Woolf was very skeptical in that even the best writers cannot utilize language and words to explain something as well as when someone actually experiences something. She was a firm believer that words and language have limits and they simply are no substitute for the subjective experience of something.
She begins the prose with the following comment, “People should not leave looking- glasses hanging in their rooms any more than they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime” (p. 1224). This certainly hints to the fact that Woolf believes that firstly, when looking through a mirror we get a pretty good glimpse of reality and secondly, looking at a person and their belongings through a mirror can give you a good idea of their personal identity. She then describes everything that can be seen in the room through the mirror’s reflection including a sofa, a path outside the window, curtains blowing, and a rug. She describes the images seen through the mirror as, “held there in their reality unescapably… things had ceased to breathe and lay still in the trance of immortality” (p. 1225), which is very true; they are stuck there forever as if in a picture book as opposed to real life.
Woolf begins to describe the young lady who lives in this house. “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 that breathing is to the body, what one calls happiness or unhappiness” (p. 1227). This sentence gives a lot of interesting ideas for the reader to interpret. First, she discusses certain things at the dinner table probably because those are things expected of a young lady. She was not taught to discuss how she was feeling. Woolf may be hinting to some issues she has with gender roles of the time. Secondly, interestingly, Woolf uses the word “profound” to describe the state of being happy. This word seems to be reserved by most people for well versed public speakers and intriguing novels not for a woman’s state of being. Thirdly, Woolf desires to have the woman’s state of being interpreted into words; but, turning a subjective feeling into words for others to comprehend seems like a very difficult task. Lastly, she makes the claim that happiness is to the mind that breathing is to the body, which I’m not sure is scientifically valid, but considering Woolf’s constant state of depression, she is certainly aware of what it is like to live in a state of unhappiness.

T.S. Elliot

T.S Elliot was raised in a very distinguished New England family. He entered into the modern poetry scene with his poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. People link him to Robert Browning who wrote the Last Duchess due to his strange and disturbing imagination. J. Alfred Prufrock is an ironic “love song” which is intended to mirror the European society, which can’t get past custom and habits in order to arrive at anything truly meaningful. Many of his works dealt with issues such as loneliness and isolation, which were issues that Elliot believed resulted from a disconnection from oneself.
In this blog, I am going to attempt to analyze T.S Elliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which begins with an anecdote from Dante’s Inferno in which Dante asks one of the damned souls for its name and it replies, “If I thought my answer were for one who could return to the world, I would not reply, but as none ever did return alive from this depth, without ear of infamy I answer thee”. After reading the poem multiple times, I’m still unsure as to what the connection is between Elliot’s poem and the anecdote. However, the anecdote itself is so harsh; the man that is going to hell and he is still prideful.
This poem seems very strange to me. Firstly, it was written in 1910, which would have made Elliot about 22 at the time. He is constantly talking about old age and possibly about his time to die. First he describes his physical appearance, “With a bald spot in the middle of m hair--” and then “ I have measured out my life in coffee spoons;” (p. 1195), which both give an image of his life being full and complete. I doubt the narrator in this poem is supposed to be symbolic of Elliot himself because he was still young when he wrote this poem, but I do think the aging process must be a metaphor for something.
Secondly, Elliot tends to ramble. He writes through a stream of consciousness and thus it is difficult to tell whether what he says is simply him just rambling or actually symbolic and/or meaningful to the purpose of the poem. For instance, “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers…” (p. 1197). The two phrases before and after that phrase about the peaches, characterizes an elderly person, but “Do I dare eat a peach” seems so random. Does it have anything to do with his poem? Does it further his purpose at all?
Overall, I’m not really sure of Elliot’s intent. There are certainly overarching themes of death and dying; of one’s life being complete and full. I think it is interesting how the first few stanzas are repeating phrases like “And indeed there will be time”, “Time for you and time for me” (p. 1195), and the next few stanzas repeat phrases like, “For I have known them all already”, “ I have known the eyes”, I have known the arms” (p. 1196), but then the last stanzas change to “And would it have been worth it” and “would it have been worth while” (p. 1197). We see a transition throughout the poem from a belief in having more time to figure things out, to gaining knowledge about various things, to finally doubting whether you spent your time right before death.
Like I’ve said, I don’t believe T.S Elliot wrote this to be autobiographical. I wish I knew the metaphor he was trying to establish. As I stated in the first paragraph, our anthology suggests it is supposed to be mirroring the European society at the time; a society that was quickly going to change due to the war in a short amount of time.

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist. Born in Dublin, Yeats was always fascinated with Irish legends and symbols and would eventually become very involved in the Irish Renaissance or Celtic Revival. His interest in symbols shaped much of his career, using allusive imagery and symbolic structures frequently. Another influence on much of his work was his proposal that was turned down by Maud Gonne in 1891. He tragically had a one sided love affair with her his entire life.
In this blog, I will be exploring Yeats’ The Second Coming, which is a perfect example of his writing style in that it is filled with imagery, allusions, and symbols. We see an allusion in the very first line, “Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ The falcon cannot hear the falconer” (p. 1122); one usually associates this description of a falcon circling around with death. This poem was written a year after WWI had ended, which had left Europe in ruin and which Yeats describes as “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” (p. 1122). Given the fact that many Europeans thought that WWI would be the war to end all wars, there was no real resolution brought about by the war, but it simply left the continent in utter devastation. At the end of the first stanza, Yeats states, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity” (p 1122). I think Yeats is trying to describe the effect the war had on individual soldiers. Many soldiers were “shell shocked” and had psychological and emotional issues the rest of their lives. War changes people and you learn how to survive even if it means doing ugly and horrid things. Even people that were good and noble by nature lacked all conviction by the end of the war and those that began the war not good only had their temperament intensified. It was a dirty war that left people and countries in turmoil.
In the second stanza, the title of the poem, The Second Coming, is further explored through various images and allusions. This idea of the second coming is certainly hinting to the Christian belief of the return of Christ to earth on Judgment Day. However, I do not think that Yeats is trying to describe Christ’s return, but using much of the imagery in the book of Revelation to describe the chaos throughout Europe in the early 1900’s. Upon Christ’s return, we don’t know what exactly is going to happen to any of us and I think that the period during and around WWI was very similar in that nothing was really resolved and people were in a lot of distress. Similar to the book of Revelation when John describes four living beings including one looking like a lion, a second like an ox, a third with a human face, and the fourth like an eagle each of which had six wings and eyes covered their entire beings, Yeats describes, “A shape with a lion body and the head of a man” (p. 1122). He ends the stanza with a description that eludes to Christ; “That twenty centuries of stony sleep/ Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,/ And what rough beast, its hour came round at last,/ Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” (p. 1123). The twenty centuries is describing the 2000 years since Jesus was born and placed in a cradle in Bethlehem and since then the nightmare of sin that has been bestowed upon the world. However, in line 21, a beast is described whose hour is come round at last, which eludes to the possibility of a Judgment day. Again, I think most people don’t associate this poem with Yeats’ belief of the actual second coming, but the similarity between the idea of the unknown future for people on that day and the way many people felt unsure of their future after WWI.

WWI Perspectives!!!

Just as the French and Industrial Revolutions influenced both the Romantic and Victorian writers respectively, similarly, WWI had a profound impact on the Modern writers in the early 20th century. World War I also known as the “Great War” was entered into by many countries not over territorial aims, “but in defense of principles the maintenance of which is vital to the civilization of the world” (p. 1080). What may have began as a heroic idea turned into one of the ugliest and costly endeavors. New technologies including trench warfare, chemical warfare, U-boats, airplanes, and tanks made it the deadliest conflicts ever with over 15 million casualties. As I previously stated, the war began with such high hopes; it was coined “The War to End all Wars!”, but it soon turned into something that many people thought would never end and there would be no progress.
In this blog, I am going to touch on two poems, Rupert Brooke’s The Soldier and Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth, which come from two very different perspectives. Rupert Brooke was one of the first of Britain’s “War Poets”. He wrote The Soldier as he was sailing out to duty for the first time. His war sonnets are a symbol of English pride. There are two reasons why I think his poems are read so optimistically, the first is that he had never actually been to war and was therefore unaware of the true horrors of war; and secondly, he wrote his poems early in the war when people were still optimistic that this would be THE war to defend ideologies and end all other wars. On the other hand, Wilfred Owen enlisted in 1915 and in 1916 left for France with the Artists’ Rifles. It didn’t take long at all for Owen to witness the horrors of war and in 1918 he was sent to a hospital to recover from “shell shock”. It was there where he wrote many of his poems. Unlike Brooke, Owen actually endured battle and was able to convey it’s disillusionment to the world. We see, through their work, a naively optimistic perspective as well as an understanding and apprehensive perspective of war.
Brooke begins The Soldier with, “If I should die, think only this of me:/ That there’s some corner of a foreign field/ That is forever England” (p. 1098). This statement shows the reader that Brooke thought fighting was a very noble thing to do and that even if he died there, he would be leaving a part of himself and thus a part of England where he was, and therefore it was worth it. When he states, “A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,” (p. 1098) and “Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given,” (p. 1099) I think we get a sense that Brooke truly believed he was fighting for certain ideologies and that by fighting he could make the enemy “aware” of those ideologies that Britain stood for. This poem is very naive and ignorant. An optimistic outlook, which many soldiers and wives at home needed to hear; that their sacrifice would be worth it, but they would soon realize that that was a disillusionment.
As seen in the title, Anthem for Doomed Youth, Owen’s perspective of the war was much more realistic. In the very first line, “What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?” (p. 1100) we quickly see the way Owen felt about the “youth” dying in battle. Describing them as “cattle” gives the connotation that there were so many of them that they can’t be thought of as distinct individuals but as a collective group and as unimportant as a heard of cattle lacking emotions, feelings, or desires. In the second stanza, he states, “Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--” (p. 1101). Again, when there is a death in the family there is a funeral service and a great amount of mourning, but Owen describes the devastation being so large that there is no way we can honor each youth the same; he makes their death and even life seem so pointless. The last line of the poem, “And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds” (p. 1101), points to the fact that not a single day went by without producing a death. Every time the sun went down on the battlefield, the blinds were drawn. Owen’s disturbing account of war was extremely pessimistic, but true and he conveyed to the men and women at home the true horrors of war.

Bernard Shaw

Bernard Shaw was a renowned, but controversial novelist, music critic, playwright, political theorist, educator, and essayist. However, his main focus was writing plays, which usually dealt with social issues of the day including: education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and social classes. One thing he felt very strongly about was the divisions of social classes and the abusive power of the upper class over the lower classes. He fully supported equal rights for all, which we see in his play, Pygmalion. His play was eventually turned into the well known and Oscar winning love story, My Fair Lady.  However, unknown to me before reading this original screenplay, is the fact that that was not Shaw’s original intention.

In the preface, Shaw begins, “The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it” (p. 1005). As we read in the Victorian Ladies and Gents section of our Anthology, the Victorian Era was categorized by a shifting in social classes in that one could pull him or herself up from the middle class to the upper class through hard work. However, Shaw understood the fact that even if someone worked hard, if one could not emulate the upper classes mannerisms including their language and rhetoric, one would never be accepted in the upper class society. Shaw fully understood the power of words and thus gives the protagonist of the play, Henry Higgins, the occupation of a phonetician.  At the end of the preface, Shaw states, “ But if the play makes the public aware that there are such people as phoneticians, and that they are among the most important people in England at present, it will serve its turn” (p. 1007). We therefore see that his purpose in writing Pygmalion was not to write an epic love story or romance, but to make a point about language and it’s importance in society.

Starting in the middle of Act 1 there is a comedic dialogue between Higgins and a group of people in a lobby where he is able to place each individual with their hometown simply by their accent.  He figures out that the bystander is from Selsey, the sarcastic bystander is from Hoxton, the gentlemen is from Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India, and the flower girl is from Lisson Grove. The gentlemen, who we later find out is Pickering, asks Higgins how he does it and Higgins replies, “Simply phonetics. The science of speech. That’s my profession: also my hobby… You can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue. I can place any man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two streets” (p. 1012). Higgins then goes on to state, “This is an age of upstarts” meaning that people born into lower classes are working hard and are able to move up into the upper class, “but they give themselves away every time they open their mouths” (p. 1013). He is able to teach them how to pronounce their words properly and get rid of any dialect that could place them in to a certain social class.

Throughout the rest of the play, Higgins and Pickering come together through a project of teaching the flower girl how to speak properly and an attempt to pass her off as a Lady. Although they succeed in their endeavor, the ironic and intriguing issue of the play, is what Mrs. Higgins points out in Act 3, “No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures: the problem of what is to be done with her afterwards” (p. 1041). This points to gender issues in that maybe men can pull themselves up into upper class society, but women are different. In the Victorian Era, lower class women worked, but an upper class Lady was too delicate and precious to get her hands dirty. Mrs. Higgins tries to explain to the men that they took this poor woman and gave her the mannerisms of a Lady and with that, disqualify her from working; however, she comes from a poor background and is thus not marriageable. In an attempt to turn a poor girl into a Lady ironically makes her unable to support herself. It is a strange idea, but an ugly and valid point during the Victorian Era.

Thomas Hardy

Many people claim Thomas Hardy had two great careers, the first being as a Victorian novelist and the second as a poet. His family was unable to afford him a formal education and he spent his early adult years as an architect. Hardy was obviously very aware of society’s class divisions, specifically his social inferiority. His family raised him as a Christian, however they did not attend the Church of England. It seems as though Hardy spent most of his life struggling with the existence of God, but did have a firm belief in a supernatural being that had greater control of his life than himself. As seen in many of his works, Hardy was highly pessimistic; he struggled with certain ideologies including class divisions, women’s inferiority, the corruption of the church, the evils of the industrial revolution, and a belief in a universe ruled by a tragic fate. Even though his works are dominated by these pessimistic themes, in a way, one must admire Hardy’s honesty and awareness of the social corruptions of his day.

Although it was not part of our reading, nor do I remember many details, I read Tess of the d’Urbervilles in eleventh grade.  Many of Hardy’s issues with society that our anthology recollects are familiar to me from his novel. For example, there were distinctions made about the dairy where Tess worked and the city, which may have been Hardy’s authorial input on Industrialization. In addition, there is the obvious issue that when Tess is raped she is seen as impure, which points to the double standard for men and women during this time period. Overall, the novel has an overarching theme of injustice—Tess is blamed for the death of prince and for her own rape.

This theme of some god or supernatural being out to fill our existence with injustice is again seen in Hardy’s poem, Hap. Specifically in the very first stanza, “If but some vengeful god would call to me/ From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,/ Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,/ That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”” (p. 1073).  We see right away that Hardy believes in a god, but it is probably not the same God Christians believe in. We also see not only that Hardy thinks this God is serving him an injustice, but that he thoroughly enjoys torturing Hardy. His words are so powerful, “thy sorrow is my ecstasy” and “thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting”.  It’s not as if the god is apathetic to whether Hardy is sad or happy, but that God actually loves when Hardy is in utter sorrow; total polar opposites!

In the second stanza, Hardy stated “steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;/ Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I/ Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.” (p. 1073).  We see again that Hardy thinks that the god is unjust. He doesn’t think he deserves the sorrow that he has been given. His word choice of “half-ease” is interesting in that he is at least half pleased to know that there is someone out there with control; someone more powerful than he has ultimate authority. Yielding control to someone other than oneself can be seen as both scary and freeing at the same time.  I think a theme that dominates almost all of Hardy’s works can be summed up in the question he asks in line 11, “And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?” (p. 1073). This idea that there is a being out there with ultimate control and power who doesn’t always make decisions based upon the worldly view of justice is a challenging and many times incomprehensible thought.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins is known as one of the most modern of the Victorian poets; one could say he marked a transition from the Victorian to the Modern era. He had a talent for words, phrases, rhymes, alliteration, and unusual syntax. In 1866, he converted to Catholicism and went into the priesthood. However, Hopkins battled with his spirituality throughout his life. One can easily read his work and determine whether he was in a period of great praise for God or whether he was struggling in his faith. Hopkins is probably most well known for what he coined, “inscape”, which was an object or an idea’s inner landscape; what made a certain thing distinct. Related to the "inscape" is what he coined “instress”, which both unified the object and brought the "inscape" outward to the observer.

I really enjoyed Hopkins’ Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord. In this poem, he begin with a verse from Jeremiah 12:1, which states “You are always righteous, O LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?” I think this is something that every Christian fights at some point in his or her walk with Christ. Personally, I sympathize with Hopkins in his questioning that if God is sovereign and righteous, why sometimes do the faithful struggle and those that do evil are given happiness? This can be an extremely hard concept for anyone to grasp and I thoroughly enjoyed Hopkins’ account of his honest struggle.

In the first stanza, Hopkins questions God sense of justice. Stating, “Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend/ With thee… and why must/ Disappointment all I endeavor end?” (p. 778). Initially, I wonder what has happened in Hopkins’ life to give him such a pessimistic outlook (I think we are given the reasoning by the end of the poem). But deeper than that is the idea of justice. Hopkins states that the Lord is just. According to a dictionary, Just is the idea of one being “given or rewarded rightly; deserved”. This definition of the word just is not always exemplified in the way God works in our lives. God doesn’t say do “good” and you will thus be given riches. As humans, we cannot justify or comprehend the things that happen to us. Only through an understanding of GRACE can one begin to accept and understand God’s idea of justice.

In the second stanza, we are able to get a better example of Hopkins literary ability. In line 6 we see his use of alliteration, “How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost” and again on line 12, “Them; birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,” (p. 778).  I struggle with his true meaning behind the analogies and imageries in this second stanza, but I think in the first sentence, “Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,/ How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost/ Defeat, thwart me?” Hopkins is trying to say that God and him have a relationship that he thinks of as a friendship, but he wonders what things would be like if God and him were enemies due to the fact that their friendship has already resulted in struggles. In lines 6-9, Hopkins admits that he lusts and does evil things more than he does things for the glory and honor of God, “Oh, the sots and thralls of lust/ Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,/ Sir, life upon they cause” (p. 778).  In the last three lines of the poem, “birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,/ Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain," we see that Hopkins is jealous that the birds are given the ability to build, yet he is left in “poetic sterility” (p. 773).  He is utterly depressed with his lack of poetic ability at the present time and is begging God to be just (the worldly definition) and to give him the ability to bring his poetry to life. 

I think this was an interesting poem because he was able to convey his lack of contentment with his writing by connecting it to the idea of Justice. He basically states that God is not being just through the fact that he is withholding Hopkins' literary ability. Through his skepticism of God, the reader is able to see that Hopkins is thoroughly struggling with his faith. I don’t think Hopkins honestly feels as though God is punishing him for something through his writing, but this poem enables him to express the challenges he faces with God.

 

 

John Stuart Mill-- On Liberty!

John Stuart Mill was one of the most influential intellectuals in the Victorian Era. Mill grew up in a utilitarian household, which definitely shaped his views, however he tends to be more liberal than the average utilitarian. Utilitarianism is the idea that a moral decision is based solely on its contribution to the happiness of all the people in a community; with maximized goodness being the preference. Mills wrote On Liberty in 1859 describing the limits of power that the government can have over an individual. He supports the idea that people can do whatever they want up until that point in which their actions harm another individual.
Mill was a very radical thinker during this era. You have to remember that prior to his ideas, European countries had pretty much always had a form of hierarchical society in which you were born into nobility and/or the upper class or you were born into peasantry. Certain rights were given to the upper class and certain rights or lack thereof were reserved for the middle and lower classes. In On Liberty, Chapter 2: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, Mill proposes that, “If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind” (p. 515). Even in our society today, where “all people have equal rights”, this is an extremely radical statement. For although we do give everyone equal rights, we rule through a majority and Mill’s proposition is certainly no majority. But, during the Victorian Era, where only a select few are given individual rights, this is beyond a radical statement, although an interesting one. For Mill states, “But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion, is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation…” (p. 515). As Mill goes onto explain throughout the rest of the chapter, only through hearing all opinions can we, as a society, gain knowledge. Even when the opinion is wrong, it will only help validate the truth; and if it is right we can exchange it with what he had previously thought the truth to be.
I think Mill makes a great point in that, “The majority of the eminent men of every past generation held many opinions now known to be erroneous, and did or approved numerous things which no one will now justify” (p. 515). The only way a society can advance is through radical and different ideas. If no one can think of something new and different then society will become stagnant. We see examples of this throughout history including Martin Luther King’s belief that black men should have the right to vote, Galileo and heliocentricism, or the idea that a black man could be the President of the United States. All these and many more opinions when first publicized were seen as absurd, ridiculous, outrageous, and probably false to the majority. What if the majority had silenced some of these great individuals with their one opinion? Their individual opinions were able to grow and flourish into accepted truths.
The last thing Mill discusses in the end of Chapter 2 is the idea of discussion and argument. Having opinions and expressing them to one another is essential, but it is not the end. In order for these opinions to be questioned, debated, and ultimately judged valid or false, one must enter into discussion or argument. Mill states, “Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it” (p. 516). As previously stated, any opinion is helpful for society’s growth. If it is a wrong opinion it will only enhance and support the truth. If it is a true opinion, but goes against the preexisting truth, than it will probably result in debated argument, but will eventually produce a truth propelling society forward in a positive direction.

The Role of a Victorian Lady!!!

As discussed in my blog about Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Browning, a woman's role in society was a very hot topic in the mid 1800’s. Due to the economic prosperity of the Victorian era, many middle class men and women found themselves able to enter the ranks of the upper class. However, certain social distinctions like manners, birth, occupation, and leisure time were indicators of which social rank one belonged to. Ladies and gentlemen aspired to “conform” to their respective spheres of society. For women, this was a domestic sphere including responsibility over one’s family and home where as for men, this meant a very public sphere. As Tennyson stated in The Princess,

“Man for the field and woman for the hearth:
Man for the sword and for the needle she:
Man with the head and woman with the heart:
Man to command and woman to obey:
All else confusion” (p. 555).

The woman’s job at this time was to take care of the household, in free time she would be expected to excel in sewing, music, or art, she should be a comforter and moral compass for her husband at home, and always be submissive.
The Victorian era was a time of change in England and with that came ideas contrary to the norm, ideas like women having rights of their own and the will to do what pleases them. I will use this blog to look at two women authors with two very different points of views; the first, Sarah Stickney Ellis, who was content with the traditional view of the domesticated woman and then Caroline Norton, who helped to publicize the injustice of womanhood. I would like to point out that there were women during this period who sided with Ellis in that they liked the role they played and had no interest pursuing more and there were many women like Norton who felt women were capable of much more and deserved to have their own rights.
Sarah Stickney Ellis wrote many guides for females including The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits, which advised women to simply accept their inferiority to men and embrace their duty to support the men in their lives. Although Ellis discourages women from having intellectual ambitions, she does give women credit for having a greater moral ability than men. “…Be of essential service in aiding the judgments of their husbands, brothers, or sons in those intricate affairs in which it is sometimes difficult to dissever worldly wisdom from religious duty” (p. 557). Ellis states that men have so many things to think about that being moral and Christ-like in their decisions may be the last thing on their mind, but it is something that women can aspire to help them with. Ellis later states that when men are tempted by the world around them, “he has thought of the humble monitress… and the remembrance of her character, clothed in moral beauty, has scattered the clouds before his mental vision, and sent him back to that beloved home, a wiser and better man” (p. 557). Although this description makes the woman seem needed and useful, I think it is a bit naive on Ellis’ part. I’m not sure most men at that time truly did think back to their wives at home to give them guidance on moral righteousness. Another point that Ellis makes is the type of education that is most effective in making a woman-- one that produces qualities and character traits that are most admired and beloved like “disinterested kindness” and “moral greatness”.
Caroline Norton wrote A Letter to the Queen in 1855 with a slightly different opinion on the role of women in society. Norton blatantly states, “A married woman in England has no legal existence: her being is absorbed in that of her husband” (p. 565). Basically, during the 19th century, it was not only custom, but actual law for a woman’s person and property to belong to her husband. “She has no possessions… cannot make a will…cannot legally claim her own earnings… not leave her husband’s house… take proceedings for a divorce… allowed to defend herself” (p. 566). As a child, a young girl’s parents have control over her and then once she is married her rights are simply transferred from her parents to her husband. Women in Europe never had rights or control of their own being. One point that Norton makes that I find interesting and possibly in rebuttal to Ellis, “Her being, on the other hand, of spotless character, and without reproach, gives her no advantage in law” (p. 566). I think this is a very good point for if women are to be held to such a high moral standards, then they should certainly be trusted to make their own decisions and do not need to be controlled by the men in their lives.

Robert Browning--> My Last Duchess

Robert Browning, like his wife, came from a wealthy family and was self- educated. He was not as popular as Elizabeth and actually wrote a fan letter declaring his love for her and her poetry. She overshadowed him throughout their marriage, but after her death, his work became more popular. While Elizabeth tended to write poetry dealing with gender issues, Robert wrote much harsher prose about historical situations. One of the things that makes Robert’s work so unique is the way it leaves the reader with multiple conclusions and it is near impossible to tell what side he is on; his intentions or purpose for writing the work are rarely revealed. He liked the characters themselves to be the narrators and tends to catch them in a moment of emotional intensity in which they reveal their character though imagery, language, rhythm, and unintended ironies.
One of his more disturbing works, My Last Duchess, takes place during a meeting between a duke and the envoy of his future wife’s father. The envoy is meeting with the duke to make a decision for the father as to whether the two should be allowed to marry. As the footnote points out, the narrator and main character is modeled after Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara, who married Lucrezia de Medici in 1558. His wife died three years later with suspicions of poisoning and in 1565 the duke married the daughter of Ferdinand I. Browning begins the poem by pointing out to the envoy, “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall” (p. 663); “Sir, ‘twas not/ Her husband’s presence only, called that spot/ Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek…” (p. 664). At this point the reader probably begins to wonder what is going on. First, it seems as though the Duke is by no means sad that his last duchess has died. Secondly, the quote about her becoming joyful at other’s presence and the duke’s disdain about it, may imply his skepticism about her faithfulness to him. It is easy to wonder then whether he murdered her.
The first time I read the poem I sympathized with the duchess because she seemed to be such a kind and happy woman and the duke, a ruthless, jealous, easily angered man. However, upon the second and third readings, the following lines struck me differently, “She had/ A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,/ Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er/ She looked on, and her looks went everywhere” (p. 664). This time around the last two lines gave me a feeling that the woman may have been unfaithful to her husband. But then a few lines down, “… as if she ranked/ My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/ With anybody’s gift…” (p. 664), the duke is characterized as arrogant and jealous; he apparently doesn’t feel very appreciated. Could this possibly be reason enough to murder her or have her murdered? “This grew; I gave commands;/ Then all smiles stopped together” (p. 664). This quote certainly leads the reader to the conclusion that the duke murdered his duchess out of jealousy and suspicions of unfaithfulness.
As we brought up in our chat session, one of the things that makes Robert Browning so intriguing is the multiple interpretations left available for the reader. Did the Duke think that the woman was unfaithful or simply overly happily? Was she unfaithful? Did he murder her? Did he have her murdered? Why was he going on and on to the envoy in that manner? Was it a slip? Was it a warning for his future duchess? Was he boasting? What does the envoy think? Not once do we get a peek at what the envoy is thinking through this time with the duke. Will he suggest the marriage to his employer? No matter the answers to any of these questions, My Last Duchess, is a very disturbing and thought provoking poem.

Aurora Leigh- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Browning, raised in an upper class family, was well-educated and by the age of 35 was one of the most popular poets in England. She was much more popular than her husband, Robert Browning, however the two wrote about very different subjects. She focused a lot on gender issues, which was a very hot topic during the mid 1800’s. One of her longest and most ambitious poems as well as one of her most successful was Aurora Leigh, a blank-verse narrative. It centers around a young girl who has been orphaned and raised by her aunt. She is very independent and an aspiring writer; like Elizabeth, she finds herself struggling to balance work and love. These social norms Aurora Leigh fights to break mirror those which Elizabeth fought throughout her own life.
I will focus this blog on one section from Browning’s Aurora Leigh, Book 1 [AURORA'S EDUCATION]. As previously stated, Aurora’s mother dies and her father sends her to live with her aunt so she can be properly educated in womanly things. It doesn’t take very long for the reader to see how Aurora Leigh, as the narrator, feels about her aunt. “She had lived, we’ll say,/ A harmless life, she called a virtuous life,/ A quiet life, which was not life at all/ (But that, she had not lived enough to know)” and then later on line 304, “She had lived/ A sort of cage-bird life” (p. 536). I think it is fairly easy to understand that the aunt has probably lived the life of a typical woman in the mid 1800’s; doing what was expected without complaint. It is also pretty easy to see that Aurora Leigh does not agree that this is a good or right way to live life nor does she plan on living like her aunt. In line 309, Aurora Leigh describes herself as a “wild bird” as opposed to the cage bird that she described her aunt as earlier. Her father has brought her to become educated by her aunt, but Aurora Leigh quickly sees it as stifling and is not optimistic about it as seen in the following line, she was “brought to her [the aunt] cage” (p. 536). I am going to assume that Aurora feels as though she, being brought to her aunt’s cage, is going to be “tamed” so to speak, which she sees as a negative thing.
The next stanza goes on to describe the liberal education her aunt deemed necessary which included collects, catechisms, literature, French, German, a little algebra, some of the sciences, music, art, and dancing. To her aunt, this education was not necessary in order to expand Aurora’s intellect or further her literary gifts, but that she “may teach thinking (to a maiden aunt/ Or else the author)” or so that she can “comprehend husband’s talk/ When not too deep, and even of answering/ With pretty “may it please you,” or “so it is,”--” (p. 538). With these quotes, we can see that a woman during this era was not expected to have the education of a man nor was it desirable. Her education was simply to make her more “marriageable” meaning that she can carry on minimal conversation with her husband, but by no means should she be more knowledgeable than him in any of the fields besides perhaps music, art, and dancing. Additionally, in line 437, “And never say “no” when the world says “ay,”/ For that is fatal...” (p. 538). Basically, a woman should follow tradition and there is no reason for her to ever think outside the box or come up with an original thought.
Towards the end of this section, Aurora, or the narrator, becomes slightly sarcastic showing her disdain for the work women are expected to do in society.

“The works of women are symbolical.
We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight,
Producing what? A pair of slippers…
a stool…
a cushion, where you lean
And sleep, and dream of something we are not
But would be for your sake…
This hurts most, this--that, after all, we are paid
the worth of our work, perhaps” (p. 538).

As previously stated, we see the way Aurora and probably, ultimately, how Elizabeth feels about the jobs of women in society. She feels the things that are expected of them like sewing are monotonous, boring, and worthless. Sarcastically, she says there is a reason why they’re not paid for their work, which is because it is worthless. I think her words are a bit harsh in that women of her time probably were very talented sewers and cross-stichers. However, she has a point in that women are capable of much more than society was allowing of them and in comparison to their ability, the majority of women were not living up to their full worth.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson--> The Lady of Shalott

Alfred, Lord Tennyson grew up in a very large family and was well educated. He was a known for writing short lyrics and blank verses. In 1833 he published The Lady of Shalott, which was criticized immensely. That same year, a close friend and advisor to Tennyson, Aurthur Hallam, died suddenly. Hallam was as a huge support system for Tennyson and his death was devastating, putting him into a deep depression where Tennyson did not publish for ten years. However, he spent that time writing several of his most renowned works as well he was able to improve upon some of his previous published works including Lady of Shalott, which was re- published in 1842. In 1850 he was named Poet Laureate. Tennyson was best known for his musical ear and his ability to put words together to give them a lyrical quality.
The Lady of a Shalott is about a woman who has been “cursed”. She is forced to stay in a tower and is only able to look down from her tower to the world by looking through a mirror. She weaves different images of what she sees down below her. As previously stated, Tennyson published two versions of The Lady of Shalott. Two distinct differences between the versions that Dr. Glance points out in his pod cast are the rhyming schemes and the alternative ending. In his first version, in the first stanza, Tennyson writes, “ They yellowleav’d water lily,/ The greensheath’d daffodilly,/ Tremble in the water chilly” verses the second version, “And up and down the people go,/ Gazing where the lilies blow/ Round an island there below”. I don’t think the change makes a difference in the meaning or interpretation of the poem, but because Tennyson had such a creative and lyrical ear, he probably reworked it so that the words would resonant verses constrict your throat when read aloud; therefore, the second publication had a more impressive rhyming scheme. The second major difference is the ending; in the first publication, the Lady of Shalott has the last word, but in the second publication, Lancelot ends the poem. We discussed Tennyson’s reasoning and the reader’s interpretations of the alternative endings in our chat session, so I do not plan on going into detail about that.
However, I am going to go out on a limb and point out a connection to Plato's Allegory of the Cave that I noticed while reading the poem. I am assuming that this was not Tennyson’s intention, however I think it is interesting and will spend my remaining blog on this topic. As Tennyson states, “Four gray walls, and four gray towers,/ Overlook a space of flowers,/ And the silent isle embowers/ The Lady of Shalott” (p. 589). So, we know that the Lady of Shalott lives in a tower overlooking the people of Camelot. Tennyson continues explaining the Lady’s situation, “A curse is on her if she stay/ To look down to Camelot./ She knows not what the curse may be,/ And so she weaveth steadily… And moving thro’ a mirror clear/ That hangs before her all the year,/ Shadows of the world appear” (p. 590). In Part 2, the reader is able to see that the Lady of Shalott is held prisoner up in a tower and forced to weave images or “shadows” of things that she sees down below her. If you remember is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, there are a group of prisoners who have been chained and held captive in a cave since childhood, forced to stare at the wall of the cave. The wall has shadows cast onto it from free people outside the cave behind the prisoners. Plato’s Allegory has two main ideas about intellectual enlightenment including questioning one’s truth and reality as well as Plato explains the path to enlightenment for an individual. Although these are not directly things that Tennyson is probably pointing out, I do see an interesting comparison. The Lady of Shalott and the prisoners are both forced to stay in a place, the prisoners must "experience" life through the shadows of people who really are experiencing the world and the Lady of Shalott wakes up every day to see the world below her through a mirror and must live through the images she weaves.
In line 70, “Came two young lovers lately wed;/ “I am half sick of shadows,” said/ The Lady of Shalott” (p. 590). I think this shows that The Lady of Shalott realized that human’s were designed for love and she would never experience that from in her tower. Later in the poem, upon setting her eyes on Lancelot, “She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro’ the room/…She look’d down to Camelot/… “The curse is come upon me” (p. 591). I think what makes this poem so intriguing is the question, was it worth it? The Lady of Shalott dies and she isn’t even able to spend time with her “lover”. But, even for a moment she was able to experience freedom and life. The prisoners were ignorant to the truth, but the fact that they experienced the shadows, they were better able to appreciate the true reality. I think its easy to look at what happens to the Lady of Shalott as a tragedy, but I choose to look at it differently. Due to the fact that she was forced into the darkness of her tower and withheld from true life with human interaction, even if just for a moment, once out of the tower, she was finally able to experience true life and that makes it completely worth it.

Industrialization Part II: evils!

As promised in my last blog, this one will be dedicated to exploring the negative aspects of the Industrial Revolution. As I stated in the last blog, the Industrial Revolution was a time of economic prosperity, technological advancements, and a period which gave the people great optimism for the future. However, as previously stated, there were many negative consequences to the industrialization occurring in England. Many writers of the Victorian Era including Dickenson, Engels, and Carlyle were very much against the evils of industrialization. In this blog, I will be focusing on Friedrich Engels’ position on the Industrial Revolution as seen in his work The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.
Friedrich Engels was a German social scientist and philosopher. He came to England to study the cotton trade and textile mills, but while there he discovered the overcrowding in the major cities of London and Manchester. He was appalled by the horrible working and insufficient living conditions of the English factory workers. This disgust prompted the writing of his first book, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. He would eventually become the father of the communist theory alongside of Karl Marx
Engels begins by admitting the fact that London has “multiplied a hundred- fold the economic strength of the two and half million inhabitants concentrated there… the commercial capital of the world (p. 500)”. He briefly describes England from an onlookers perspective as quite prosperous and great, but upon a closer inspection, one can see “the human suffering which has made all this possible (p. 500)”. Due to urbanization and the institution of the factory, many rural workers found themselves without a job and thus had to move into the cities. The major cities of London and Manchester found themselves overcrowded causing sanitation problems and probably discomfort to many families.
This overcrowding also led to an intense competition among the people of England for housing, jobs, and even food. I think Engels is pointing to that in the following statement, “Are they not all equally interested in the pursuit of happiness? And do they not all aim at happiness by following similar methods? The more Londoners are packed into a tiny space, the more repulsive and disgraceful becomes the brutal indifference with which they ignore their neighbors and selfishly concentrate upon their private affairs (p. 502)”. I think on one hand, this shows that the culture was changing in London during this era in that for the first time the middle class had the chance to rise up and make something for themselves. However, it also shows the brutal coldness that humans are capable of. I think our society today, as ugly as it seems, supports the competitive drive in people to be better than their neighbor because it promotes progress.
I think Engels would agree that generally this social struggle does promote progress, but “the strongest of all, a tiny group of capitalists, monopolise everything, while the weakest, who are in the vast majority, succumb to the most abject poverty (p. 502)”. It seems that what Engels detests most about this situation is the fact that those with wealth and power have no respect for those who are poor; they simply close their eyes to the way in which the poor are forced to live describing it as the “filth and dilapidation of a district which is quite unfit for human habitation (p. 507)” and that “It is only modern industry which permits these owners to take advantage of the poverty of the workers, to undermine the health of thousands to enrich themselves (p. 508)”.
The Industrial Age was such a bipolar time in that there were obvious positive enrichments that arose, but this progress came at the cost of suffering, hardship, and exploitation of an entire social class. Engels concludes his essay explaining the horrible cycle England found herself in in the middle of the 19th century, “Industry alone has been responsible for all this and yet this same industry could not flourish except by degrading and exploiting the workers (p. 508)”.

Industrialization and the Victorian Era!

Our next set of readings fall under the “Victorian Era”, which as Dr. Glance pointed out in pod cast #9, was the period during the reign of Queen Victoria in England from 1837-1901. The Victorian Era coincided with what is known as the “Industrial Revolution”, which was a period of tremendous technological and economic progress in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Industrial Revolution resulted in major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transportation that drastically effected the economic, social, and cultural conditions in England. All the technological improvements propelled Britain’s wealth and prosperity and gave people, especially the middle class, so many new opportunities. This progress induced so much excitement in the people of England and gave them a sense of pride and optimism.
Although the Industrial revolution was a time of progress and excitement, there were people who saw the many negative aspects of it. Due to the factory, many people in rural areas were out of jobs and had to move into the major cities. This created serious overcrowding and with that came sanitation problems and increased chances of devastating epidemics. The institution of the factory came with many injustices including harsh working conditions, ruthless child labor, as well as smog and pollution.
The poets and writers of the Victorian Era were mixed in their views on the Industrial Revolution. Some supported the progress it would enable, but many longed for the aesthetically pleasing nature of the Romantic age and frequently wrote about the evils of the Industrial Revolution. In this blog I will be focusing on two accounts including one from Kemble and another from Macaulay who both saw the progress as positive and were thus in support of industrialization. I plan on spending the next blog on two writers, Engels and Carlyle, who outwardly opposed industrialization.
Fanny Kemble was a popular actress in the 1800’s and we see her account of being the first woman to ride a steam locomotive. In Record of a Girlhood, she states,

“You can’t imagine how strange it seemed to be journeying on thus, without any visible cause of progress other than the magical machine, with its flying white breath and rhythmical unvarying pace… I felt as if no fairy tale was ever half so wonderful as what I saw (p. 491)”.

We get a sense of how amazingly smooth the ride seemed to her when she says there were no “causes of progress” and how she describes the movement as “rhythmical unvarying”, which was probably a drastic change to the horse and carriage she was used to. I have a hard time imagining a train being so amazing, but the change for these people from bouncing up and down for hours to riding on a track must have felt so smooth as if riding on a cloud. Again she writes, “…the motion is as smooth as possible, too. I could either have read or written… this sensation of flying was quite delightful, and strange… I had a perfect sense of security (p. 491)”. This vast improvement in transportation must have created such a fervor in England. She talks about a sense of “security” probably due to the fact that the train rode so smoothly it probably seemed safer than the rough ride of a horse and buggy, however as Dr. Glance pointed out, was this sense of security misplaced? So many abrupt changes, is it possible for them all to be 100% good? As I’ll point out in the next blog, many writers would not agree with Kemble.
Another author who also felt an increased sense of security was Thomas Macaulay who attributes these improvements to the economical benefits of industrialization. In Review of Southey’s Colloquies, he writes, “History is full of the signs of this natural progress of society…We see the wealth of nations increasing, and all the arts of life approaching nearer and nearer to perfection (p. 492)”. Although I do not agree with this idea that as the economy does better, society moves closer to perfection, I do understand Macaulay’s point. He has seen the corruption and debt Britain has endured, but through industrialization he finally has hope “that in the year 1930 a population of fifty millions, better fed, clad, and lodged than the English of our time (p. 492)”. Although it had its downfalls, Industrialization gave the people of Britain a sense of hope and an optimistic future. This can be seen as he ends his review, “it is to the same prudence and the same energy that we now look with comfort and good hope (p. 493)”. No matter the negative consequences of Industrialization, no one can argue that the progress in technology was exciting. I can only imagine what it must have been like for these people to get their hands on some of the new inventions that made life easier. To an extent, this excitement must have brought the people of England together through a sense of pride and optimism.

Lord Byron: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto The Third

George Gordon, Lord Byron was a well-educated member of the House of Lords. However, he was very controversial in that he was very radical in his ideals. He traveled the world and even fought for Greece's independence against the Ottoman Empire becoming one of their national heroes. He wrote Child Harold’s Pilgrimage after his travels to Greece. He was part of what is known as the second generation romantic poets who were much more radical than the first generation. He didn't have the best reputation with women; for instance in 1812 he participated in a very public affair with Lady Caroline Lamb.
Many of the first generation romantics were very radical when they were young and as they aged became more conservative. The second generation romantics, however, stayed radical their entire lives. They were not as profoundly influenced by the French Revolution as the first generation romantics were, but during their time many of the monarchs were re-established and with that once again came the ugly hierarchical oppression. Byron's work frequently attacked the first generation romantics for becoming soft in their old age instead of continuing to fight for the radical changes that he felt needed to occur in Europe.
The Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto The Third is a personal narrative beginning with a thunderstorm in the alps, which Byron depicts similarly to a woman, “And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman (p. 359)”. I think much of Byron’s descriptions in the second stanza of nature having life are popular of the romantic poetry. For instance “And the big rain comes dancing to the earth” and “Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth (p. 359)”.
In the next stanza, Byron states “Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between Heights which appear as lovers who have parted In hate.. (p. 360)”. As the footnote states, the lovers parting ways coincides with the separation from his wife that occurred the exact time he was writing this poem. According to the footnote, Byron tends to self-project nature into things about himself in much of his work.
In stanza 97, Byron expresses his discontentment for spoken and written language and its inability to truly transform his thoughts into a message for others. We see this in the line “But as it is, I live and die unheard, with a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword (p. 360)”. At this point in his life, Byron has published many works, yet he still believes that he has been “unheard” and left with a “voiceless thought”. Pointing to the fact that he has things he thinks about and wishes to convey to his readers, but has felt inept to do so. On line 1045, Byron states

“Fame is the thirst of youth, -- but I am not
so young as to regard men’s frown or smile,
As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot;
I stood and stand alone,-- remember’d or forgot (p. 361)”.

The beginning of the line depicts a desire of young writers to be famous, but Byron states that's of no interest to him. Maybe he has grown out of that yearning or maybe he knows he has already achieved fame and so now he doesn’t care whether people like his work or not. Maybe he still feels unable to convey his thoughts to his readers and thus feels as though it doesn’t matter whether he is remembered or forgot because to him, he hasn’t done that great of a job--he is hard on himself. In stanzas 112 and 113, I think Byron is confessing that he has not told the world what they may have wanted to hear, but has been true to himself and he won't apologize for that.

Felicia Hemans- The Wife of Asdrubal

Felicia Hemans, a best- selling poet in England and America during the early 1800’s, became much more popular in the late 1900’s with the rise of feminist movement. However, during her day, she was frequently criticized for the fact that she was a woman in a “man’s profession” and was not performing society’s stereotypical domestic roles. Much of her works involved the themes of gender roles as well as her criticisms of men and women in society. This may have been influenced by the fact that her father and husband deserted their families, which prompted themes of men’s unreliability. Her work reflects the struggles many women still feel today with the mixing and combining of the roles of mother, housekeeper, and loving wife yet a yearning for one’s own independence. Much of her work centered around women who became famous in non- traditional feminine roles at the cost of happiness.
Hemans’ poem entitled Tales, and Historic Scenes, in Verse: The Wife of Asdrubal, begins with an epigraph of the Third Punic War in 149-146 B.C where a city- state in Africa was destroyed by the Roman Empire. Asdrubal, the general of the African army, pathetically surrendered so that he could escape slavery. After convicting him of being a coward, his wife murders his two children and then commits suicide as she would rather do that than be a slave to her enemy.
Her poem then begins with a description of the African people in “Roman chains, Gaze in mute horror on their burning fanes; And shouts of triumph, echoing far around, Swell from the victor’s tents with ivy crown’d (p. 407)”. Hemans than describes the wife as “A being more than earthly, in whose eye There dwells a strange and fierce ascendancy… But a wild courage sits triumphant there, The stormy grandeur of a proud despair (p. 407)”. I think in a way Hemans admires what the wife is about to do. Even though it is a horrible crime, she has the courage and the will to stand up for herself and against her husband. I like the words “proud despair”. It is a sort of ironic contradiction, but the wife is proud that she is able to stand up for her country and her people even when her husband, the general, could not.
Just as Dr. Glance questions in his pod casts; was the wife a hero? A homicidal mother? Was it an act of bravery? A murder? Was she avenging her spouse? I think considering her past with men and them leaving when times get hard instead of standing up for what is just, Hemans sees the wife as a hero. Yes, she did murder her children, but her husband left his family behind and surrendered cowardly to the enemy. Hemans sees what the wife did as an act of heroism and bravery.

John Keats: The Eve of St. Agnes

John Keats was an English poet who unfortunately died at the young age of 24. His poetry was constantly being attacked. He was known for his elaborate word choice and sensual imagery, which his publishers constantly had to ask him to edit.
In his lengthy poem, The Eve of St. Agnes, Keats describes a young woman who is taking part in St. Agnes’ day, which as legend has it, a young virgin who takes part in certain rituals may dream of her future husband. Agnes is the patron saint of virgins. I love the way Keats describes the legend in stanza 6,

“…Young virgins might have visions of delight,
And soft adorings from their loves receive,
Upon the honey’d middle of the night,
If ceremonies due they did aright…
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire (p. 427)”.

The idea of having a dream of your future husband and it being a ritualistic thing that one partakes in seems rather strange to me, but the words that Keats chooses to describe the scene makes it seem like such a romantic and elegant experience. Keats goes on to describe Madeline as she “sigh’d for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year (p. 427)”. The reader easily sees that Madeline is thoroughly looking forward to this experience and it means a lot to her to know who her future husband may be.
Then in Stanza 9, Keats writes

“...Meantime, across the moors,
Had come young Porphyro,with heart on fire
For Madeline.
All saints to give him sight of Madeline…
That he might gaze and worship all unseen:
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss-- in sooth such things have been (p. 428)”.

According to the footnote, “porphyra” signifies royalty and nobility and was also an antagonist of Christianity a few decades before the martyrdom of St. Agnes. We can already see a sort of Romeo and Juliet story possibly coming forth; a story of a young boy and girl from different families, but deeply in love. For the next few stanzas, Keats describes a situation very similar to Romeo and Juliet where the maid helps Porphyno get into Madeliene’s chambers without the rest of the family knowing. Madeline awakes and Keats writes in stanza 34 -35,

“the vision of her sleep:
There was a painful change, that night expell'd
The blisses of her dream so pure and deep
at which fair Madeline began to weep,
And moan forth witless words with many a sigh;
While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;
Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye,
Fearing to move or speak, she look’d so dreamingly
… Oh leave me not in this eternal woe,
For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go (p. 433)”.

In Dr. Glance’s pod cast he hints that this story may not be as simple as a love story, but there is some sort of irony about their love. In this stanza, I have a hard time pointing out anything that shows that what they feel for each other is anything but true love. Was anyone else able to find something that would point to anything? One thing I did struggle with is figuring out which parts was Madeline dreaming and which parts were reality.

The Wordsworths!

Dorothy Wordsworth and her elder brother, William Wordsworth, made up a very talented family and were both influential writers of the Romantic era. Their mother and father both died at young ages leaving the children in the hands of extended family. This probably fostered the close relationship that Dorothy and William maintained throughout their entire lives. Dorothy and William had similar styles in that they were influenced by nature and its impact on the human soul. However, William was a famous author who published much of his work where as his sister Dorothy had no intentions of being published. Although many of Dorothy’s letters and diary entries were published after her death, she was most happy entertaining William and her family through writing short stories. Dorothy wrote about nature, domestic life, and simple observations of people. William on the other hand along with Taylor Coleridge, had intentions of breaking down the barrier between prose and poetry. He didn’t like the formality of poetry and wanted his poems to be understood by all people.
One thing that I find interesting is the fact that much of Dorothy and William’s work reflect one another. This could simply be because they both wrote during the same time and were influenced by the same scenery and nature around their home in the Lake District. However, part of me wonders if being a female poet during the early 1800’s was too challenging a life and therefore Dorothy found it more enjoyable to write for or help William publish his work. One particular entry found in Dorothy’s Grasmere Journal written in 1802 describes a field of daffodils William and her were walking through. Two years later William published a poem entitled I wandered lonely as a cloud, which is interestingly similar to Dorothy’s account of the daffodils. Did he just happen to write about the same scene a few years later? Did he read her journal years later and felt inspired after remembering the scene? Either way, both of their accounts are intriguing and create a wondrous image in the reader’s mind.
In her Grasmere Journal, Dorothy states “we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side”. I would assume that “we” pertains to Dorothy as well as her brother. This gives further evidence of the amount of time the two of them spent together and how they frequently saw similar scenes. I love the way Dorothy gives the daffodils life when stating “some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them (p. 296)”. It gives the reader an image of a bunch of children frolicking and resting in the grass.
Two years later William wrote a poem entitled I wandered lonely as a cloud. It is fairly easy to tell that William is describing the same scene in which Dorothy describes in her Journal, but even in the first stanza we see some obvious differences. Firstly, William describes the daffodils in a poem verses how Dorothy simply writes a narrative or diary entry. Secondly, William uses the pronoun “I” where as Dorothy uses “we”. Thirdly, Dorothy simply describes what was going on as her and William were on their walk and how she viewed it; however, he turns the basic images into fantastical descriptions which more easily create images in the reader's mind like how he wandered lonely “as a cloud (p. 282)”. Additionally, in the last stanza, William states

“For oft when on my couch I lie, In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye, Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils (p. 283)”.

This points to the idea that even when not physically looking at nature, William can reminisce of a past time when surrounded by beautiful scenery, which creates thoughts of happiness. This idea of nature making one happy even if it is just the recalling of a past scene is a recurrent theme throughout William Wordsworth’s work.

William Blake: Songs Of Innocence and Experience

William Blake grew up with little to no formal education. His family was known as “dissenters”, opposing the corruption of the Church of England. However, Blake’s education primarily came through studying the Bible. As a young man, he found he was able to support himself through illustrations and engravings, but in actuality he enjoyed combining written poetry and illustrations. Blake’s sense of irony was frequently found in the way he brought word and images together. Sometimes the illustrations would add another perspective to the text, sometimes they would support the written word, and other times it would add a contradiction to the words and thus create a sense of irony.
In 1789, Blake published Songs of Innocence, but five years later he added more poems and changed the title to Songs of Innocence and Experience. This work expressed two states of the human soul. At a first glance, one may think that the poems found in Songs of Innocence pertain to childhood and a time of protection and security from the harshness of the world. Where as the poems found in Songs of Experience acknowledge the fact that adults have a complete awareness of the social and political injustices of the world. However, upon a deeper investigation of both sets of poems, one can see that the poems do not completely separate the two states, but intertwine the two.
For instance, Blake wrote The Chimney Sweeper, which can be found in the Innocence and Experience poems and are both accompanied by engravings:
Innocence:
In this poem, we see a young child whose father sold him into chimney sweeping, which was essentially child labor. The young boy has a dream one night while sleeping

“that thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack
Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black,
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open’d the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run (p. 81)”.
This image of young boys set free by an angel and now able to happily dance in a meadow is seen in Blake’s engravings. When reading verses 11- 18, Blake leaves the readers with such optimism and hope for these young boys, but then the boy awakes and we remember that all of the happiness was only a dream. The last line of the poem, “So if all do their duty they need not fear harm (p. 81)”, leaves the reader disgusted with the fact that these little children have had their childhoods ripped from them and they are promised hope and happiness only through death. It is a pretty disturbing poem and definitely forces the reader to question the injustice of child labor in England.
Experience:
In this poem, the young boy’s parents have sold him into being a chimney sweeper. This poem is full of irony in the sense that his parents think that he is a typical child ignorant of the situation. However, not only does he know exactly what is going on, but he also puts on a happy face and is able to trick his parents into thinking that he is happy and ignorant of the situation when in fact they are the ignorant ones. The reader is left with a sense of sadness for the injustice occurring in the child's life, but there is a slight sense of pride in his ability to understand the situation.
When read together, the poems provide different images, but both leave the reader with a disgusted outlook on the social injustices of England towards children during this time. These children have had their childhood innocence taken from them and are no longer immune to their corrupt and oppressed world.

French Revolution: Burke, Wollstonecraft, and Paine

Prior to 1800, power in France was concentrated in the monarchy. Society tended to be based around hierarchical classes founded on inheritance and feudalism. After 1800, however, power throughout Europe became more democratic and a shift from agriculture to industrialization was seen in many nations. Much of these changes arose from the ideas of the enlightenment, which included that of equality and justice. These principles drove many radicals to question the oppression of the absolute monarchy and the feudal system, which eventually would lead to the French Revolution in the late 1700’s.
Many of the Romantic writers of the time included Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Thomas Paine. These writers could not help but to be influenced by the French Revolution, which was a controversial and important topic. In 1790, Edmund Burke published Reflections on the Revolution in France, which he felt compelled to write after the royal family including King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were arrested. In this essay, Burke adamantly opposes the revolution on the foundation of tradition and conservatism. Not soon after, Mary Wollstonecraft writes A Vindication of the Rights of Men addressed in a letter to Burke countering many of his arguments in support of the cause. Thomas Paine, another advocate of the revolution, also wrote a rebuttal to Burke’s reflection titled The Rights of Man. Many arguments were addressed on either side from each of these three Romantics, however I plan to explore the idea of inheritance and its role in the French Revolution based on the ideas of Burke, Wollstonecraft, and Paine.
Burke points out that France had “an inheritable crown; an inheritable peerage; and a House of Commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises and liberties, from a long line of ancestors” and he believes that this system came about as a “result of profound reflection; or rather the happy effect of following nature, which is wisdom without reflection (p. 49)”. Essentially, Burke believed that the system of inheritance that France has developed is inherently right and he supports it for no other reason than it is advantageous to retain tradition. Burke goes on to state that “we procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which nature teaches us to revere individual men; on account of their age (p. 50)”. Again, we respect our elders because of the fact that they have lived and been through things that we haven’t and thus have earned our respect. He equates respecting one's elders to respecting the established system of inheritance and government in France.
Wollstonecraft, supporter of the revolution and the ending of the system of inheritance, counters many of Burke’s arguments. For instance, she believes that civilization in Europe has stopped progressing due to “hereditary property--hereditary honors (p. 58)”. Wollstonecraft describes how girls are sacrificed for one’s family through marriage and how second and third sons are cast aside in light of the eldest son. She believes that people like Burke find it easier to “justify oppression than correct abuses (p. 62)” and that true justice comes from the basis of equality. Paine, like Wollstonecraft, supported the French Revolution, but instead of giving alternatives to the system of inheritance, Paine simply attacks Burke’s outright support of tradition. Alternatively, Paine states that “Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it (p. 65)”. Just because monarchy worked for a prior generation is not reason enough to continue with the system in a new generation. He doesn’t like the idea of past laws being able to control the present and future.