Dorothy Wordsworth

'Dorothy Wordsworth's "Address to a Child" depicts a storm to a child from an adult in his life.  Behind all the storm imagery, there is a message being given to the child.  The speaker informs that if you chase after the wind you will find "Nothing but silence and empty space" (line 17).  The wind is also compared to a buzzard and a creature that growls and has claws.  The wind is shown to be a powerful force that "rings a sharp larum" (line 10) and makes a "great rout" (line 22).  However, the speaker is able to keep the powerful wind at bay with a great fire and, until the wind leaves, the speaker and child have "Books...to read" (line 36).  The books and fire convey a sense of knowledge and light, a sharp contrast to the dark and frightening storm that roars outside.  

The poem conveys a message that there is no reason to fear the dark and unknown world if you are armed with knowledge and light.  If you already have knowledge, then you know the methods to acquire more knowledge and the dark and mysterious will not remain dark and mysterious forever.  One of the most important things to take from the poem is that knowledge can give power, but by seeking power is like searching for the wind: it brings "Nothing but silence and empty space" (line 17).  

William Wordsworth

The "Highland Lass" (line 2) in Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper" is described in great detail with eloquent language and imagery.  What makes her beautiful is not what she looks like, but rather her entrancing singing voice.  The speaker claims that

"No sweeter voice was ever heard/In the spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,/Breaking the silence of the seas/Among the farthest Hebrides" (lines 13-16).

 The reader assumes that the speaker does not speak the language the woman sings in, however, because he asks if "no one will tell [him] what she sings" (line 17).  This makes the woman more mysterious and intriguing and adds to her appeal for both the reader and the speaker.  Not one time is the woman ever physically described, but her voice "sings a melancholy strain" (line 6) and "the Vale profound/Is overflowing with the sound" (lines 7-8).  For the speaker, the ability to create beauty is far more important and valuable than being physically beautiful.  Through this, the speaker shows that what is inside of a person is much more important than how beautiful they are.  Though the speaker never actually sees the woman, the music she created "in [his] heart [he] bore,/Long after it was heard no more" (lines 31-32), signifying that while physical beauty may fade, artistic beauty will last long after it has been exposed.

T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi" is not what you typically expect of a poem written about the three Magi that came to visit Jesus at his birth.  Instead of a journey centered around following a star to see God in the form of a baby, the reader gets a sense of despair and that the journey is pointless.  The speaker tells the audience of "cities hostile and towns unfriendly/And the villages dirty and charging high prices" (lines 14-15).  The journey of the Magi to Bethlehem has been glorified in most cases, but Eliot's interpretation shows the Magi, even in the presence of the baby at the end of their long and difficult journey brings images of death and a birth that was "Hard and bitter agony for [them], like Death, our death" (line 39).  

For the speaker, the birth of Christ meant the death of something else, the death of something more important.  The birth of Christ ultimately ended polytheistic worship for many people and at the end of the poem when the speaker is back home, he notices "an alien people clutching their gods" (line 42), so maybe the journey showed the speaker coming to terms with an ending of something he knew and was familiar with and starting another journey full of mysteries and the unknown.  Rather than face this new unknown, though, the speaker would "be glad of another death" (line 44).    

James Joyce

The character of Maria in Joyce's Dubliners, more specifically "Clay", is, to her core, a people pleaser.  All she wants to do is please people, and she is very good at it because "Everyone is fond of Maria" (Joyce 1134).  However, everyone also does not appreciate Maria; she is not married and is often ridiculed for that.  She is also under-appreciated by a man she formerly cared for as he was growing up.  A small purse that Joe had gotten for her five years previously is one of her most cherished possessions, but for all she did for him in his youth, the purse does not seem to fit or reciprocate the love she showed him.  Maria, being a people pleaser, is very dedicated to every job or task she does, so when she is constantly being let go from jobs as a nanny because the family has no need for her anymore, she feels a need to please people even more, like with the incident of the plum cake that she misplaced.  She was so disappointed she lost it because the plum cake was something she could have been appreciated for, but was not.  

Maria's character also seems to accept her fate as if it is set in stone.  When playing the game, she picks the clay first, which symbolizes death, and secondly she picks the prayer book, informing her that she will enter a convent in the next year.  Because she is considered a spinster, she has come to accept that she will never be properly appreciated and she will never be married.  Maria's fate is a tragic one, but not because she is elderly, under-appreciated, and unmarried, but because she is so set on making others happy that she fails to give herself the same kind of happiness.

Wyndham Lewis

The art magazine, Blast, included the Vorticist Manifesto in its first issue.  The Vorticist Manifesto calls for a complete makeover of literature and art with very strong language including a call to "Blast First (from politeness) England" (Lewis 1083) and to "Blast France" (Lewis 1085)  Wyndham Lewis used Blast to cry out against England's authors and artists, whom he believed to be stuck in the nineteenth century.  His idea of Vorticism celebrates breaking free from what other people think, especially the idea of the individual.

In looking into Lewis' personal life, it is easy to see that he appreciated the idea of the individual more than the masses.  He did not write what people of his time wanted to hear.  He attacked the modern society of the time and wrote pro-fascist literature as well.  Though his work was never appreciated during his lifetime, Lewis and especially Blast "were remarkably important in clearing the way for the new art of modernism" (Damrosch 1082).

William Butler Yeats

Two of William Butler Yeats' poems are written about his muse Maud Gonne, and use references to the Trojan War.  His "No Second Troy" celebrates her beauty and at the same time shows how her beauty has "taught to ignorant men the most violent of ways" (line 3).  The other poem "Leda and the Swan" depicts the rape of Leda by Zeus which gave birth to Helen in Greek mythology.  Both poems use eloquent imagery, the first poem uses it to show the beauty of Helen and the horrors her beauty causes; the second poem uses the rape of her mother to foreshadow the destruction Helen's birth and beauty would eventually cause.  

Yeats' relationship with Maud Gonne was not what Yeats yearned for it to be.  Though he proposed to her several times, he was always turned down.  Gonne is the inspiration of most, if not all, of Yeats' poems that describe a woman of beauty.  Yeats' poem "No Second Troy" could also refer to the war he constantly fought with himself over Gonne and his everlasting, unrequited love for her.  The speaker in the poem struggles with not blaming the woman for the war being fought; it is not her fault she is so beautiful, yet the question at the end, "Was there another Troy for her to burn?" (line 12) indicates that maybe the first war she caused, the first city she caused to be burned is not enough for her.

Thomas Hardy

"The Convergence of the Twain" is almost like a eulogy for the Titanic.  The unsinkable ship lies, in the poem, on the bottom of the ocean where "The sea-worm crawls" (line 9) and "Dim moon-eyed fishes near" (line 13).  The poem takes a sinister turn near the end as the "Immanent Will" (line 18) grows a "sinister mate" (line 19) for the ship, "And as the smart ship grew/In stature, grace, and hue,/In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too" (lines 22-24).  

Hardy's interpretation of the tragedy of the Titanic is different from many as he does not focus on the loss of many lives, but on the loss of the ship itself.  Instead of recreating the death of a passenger, Hardy grieves "Over the mirrors meant/To glass the opulent" (lines 7-8) and "Jewels in joy designed/To ravish the sensuous mind/Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind" (lines 10-12)  Hardy may focus on the material losses of the Titanic because the Titanic was designed to be for the extremely wealthy who might not have cared about those less fortunate, so their deaths were not as tragic.  

However, Hardy's inclusion of the Immanent Will may indicate that the entire event was inescapable and inevitable as soon as the ship grew more and more extravagant; the Immanent Will wants to shift our focus from material things to the things in our lives that are not lost in shipwrecks.

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill's radical opinions and views are very clear and evident in the excerpt of Chapter Two from his On Liberty.  An idea of his that I strongly agree with and feel is a universal truth is that 

"the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind" (Mill 516).

It is ridiculous to be in a mindset that allows you to think you know everything pertaining to a single subject.  It is also dangerous because not listening to someone else who has a lot knowledge can allow you to miss something new, which could potentially give you even more information on this subject.  

Mill also argues that every person is entitled to their opinion, even if it is wrong.  To rob a person of their opinion or punish them because of their opinion is the ultimate crime against their personal liberty.  Mill points out that to silence an opinion is to "assume our own infallibility" (Mill 517).  To assume you own infallibility simply marks as arrogant.  Mill also points out that forming your own opinions from "reason or personal experience" (Mill 517) is vital.  Being able to form your own opinions from your own personal experiences is part of your individuality, something Mill believes is very important for everyone.

Sarah Stickney Ellis

Sarah Sticckney Ellis' ideas about a woman's duty are terribly outdated, even for many women of her time period.  The idea that it should always be a woman's goal to have a "conversation which is best adapted to [her husband's] tastes and habits, yet at the same tome capable of observation, and subjects he may never have derived amusement from before" (Ellis 559) is absolutely ridiculous.  It is not a woman's purpose to make a man a better person.  Just because she will not be called upon to use her Latin skills daily does not mean that she should not learn Latin, especially if she wants to.  It is also not a woman's duty to mold and constrict herself to be what only one man wants her to be, she should be able to be herself and be around people who love and appreciate her for who she is.

Ellis' thoughts that a woman's existence should revolve around making the men in her life "happier and better men" (Ellis 558) should be the duty of those men.  Her thoughts are also an insult to men.  Men are perfectly capable of bringing about their own happiness themselves.  In the end, no one can make you happy except for yourself and working for things that you want. Your life especially should not center around trying to become someone you are not so you can please others because your individuality and uniqueness is lost.

Robert Browning

The twist at the end of Robert Bowning's poem "My Last Duchess" is very ironic.  The speaker is speaking of his late wife, whom the reader assumes he has murdered, to his bride-to-be's father.  It does not seem like something anyone of a sound mind would even consider doing.  The speaker, though, does think highly of himself and his "nine-hundred-years-old name" (line 33) so he probably does not see himself as really having done anything wrong.  Similarly, the speaker in Browning's "Porphyria's Lover" also feels no remorse for murdering his lover.  The speakers of both poems also treat their actions as something of little importance.  While the speaker in "My Last Duchess" moves right on to the next piece in his art collection after explaining his late wife's portrait without missing a single beat, the speaker in "Porphyria's Lover" merely props "her head up as before,/Only this time my shoulder bore/Her head, which droops upon it still" (lines 49-51).  

Perhaps neither speaker feels they have wronged their victims because they believe they have been betrayed by the victims.  In "Porphyria's Lover" Porphyria only comes during the storm; it appears that for some reason their relationship must be kept secret.  But as soon as Porphyria reveals that she worships the speaker and he feels that in "That moment she was [his], [his], fair,/Perfectly pure and good" (lines 36-37), he exercises his power over her in order to ensure that "all night long [they will] not [stir]" (line 59).  The duchess, however, has given her husband reason to believe that "she ranked/[the speaker's] gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/With anybody's gift" (lines 32-34), thus highly insulting him.  

This common thread of love and cold-blooded murder in these Browning poems make them both extremely intriguing and has given them both a timeless quality which has allowed them to be read for hundreds of years so far and conceivably an even longer time on into the future.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese are a very passionate collection of poems.  I feel the most passionate one, though, is Sonnet 43.  The language is very flowing and appears to be effortless, especially with the simple rhyme scheme.  The comparisons used also contribute to the simplicity of the poem "I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;/I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise" (lines 7-8).  This may also be seen as a very pure collection of sonnets, as Browning only wrote them for herself and ultimately her husband.  When writing them, she had no intentions of publishing them.  Even when they were eventually published, it was with a deceiving title indicating that they are only translations.  

The sonnet is very honest and innocent as a result of the very small intended audience and this adds to the appeal of it.  It also seems so honest because the poet and the speaker are the same person, so these sonnets allow the reader to catch a glimpse of Browning's innermost thoughts and feelings, especially that she loves "with the breath,/Smiles, tears of all [her] life" (lines 12-13).

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

In Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Mariana" the recurring lines "She only said, 'The night is dreary,/He cometh not,' she said;/She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,/I would that I were dead" (lines 9-12) signify how pained Mariana is that he has not come back yet.  She would rather die than wait for him and risk the possibility that "He will not come" (line 82) at all.  Her realization near the end of the poem comes after Mariana has waited through has waited through a very long storm and as the storm progresses and gets worse, she comes to realize that the unnamed "he" is not coming home.

The character of Mariana is fascinating because she was first developed by Shakespeare in his play Measure for Measure, and from that, Mariana's character inspired Tennyson's poem, and from Tennyson's poem the artist John Everett Millais painted "Mariana".  Mariana's character is one example of how artists of all kinds can inspire one another to create new pieces.  The painting "Mariana" depicts her grief and exhausted state from waiting through her posture.  The way she stands with her hands on her back indicates that she has been sitting and waiting for a long time, especially since her stool is facing an outside window.  I think that what Tennyson and Millais are trying to convey is that waiting only results is hopelessness and disappointment.  If you spend your entire life waiting, there will be no meaning in your life; if there is something you want, you have to fight for it because no one else is going to fight for it for you.

Parliamentary Papers ("Blue Books")

The conditions of the textile mills and mines during the industrialization of England, as described in the Parliamentary Papers or "Blue Books" are horrible.  They are made worse by the fact that mostly women and children were the people working the long hours in filthy conditions for very little money.  

In the child textile worker's testimony, Hannah Goode talks about William Crookes, the overlooker, beating "the little children if they do not do their work right" (Parliamentary Papers 494).  Hannah Goode is sixteen years old and can barely read, let alone write.  It seems unacceptable that these workers are not even given an opportunity for education.  Elizabeth Eggley and her sister Ann were never able to get a traditional education from a school or a spiritual education from Sunday School.  

These testimonies and the harsh conditions they depict are a classic example of the lower-class being looked over and being used to elevate the statuses of the middle and upper class.  It is fascinating to me how people tend to only care about themselves and their own well-being.  It seems to me that if we ever took the time to care for someone less fortunate than ourselves, the problems that existed for these three working-class girls would never have even been an issue.  One of the most important lessons I have learned so far in my life is that you cannot wait for other people to change the world, you have to do what you can yourself.  If someone had helped these girls, maybe they would have been able to get an education and would not have lost their childhood to a workplace that is not conducive for a child to learn and grow. 

 

Felicia Hemans

Something that has always been important to me is the suffrage movement for women's rights in the United States, so when I read Felicia Hemans' "Corinne at the Capitol" I immediately had an affinity for the poem.  The poem itself was very lyrical and, for the most part, was peaceful in tone.  This was interesting to me because it seems to contrast severely with the movement for women's rights in both England and America which were hard fought battles that took years and years to achieve.  

The scene seems almost regal with the presence of chaplets and "Music whose rich notes might stir/Ashes of the sepulchre" (lines 19-20).  These seem to work together to portray the great achievement of the women's rights movement, especially as the "Daughter of th' Italian heaven" (line 1) walks up "th' ascending road,/Freedom's foot so proudly trode" (lines 9-10).  

The link between De Stael's novel Corinne, ou l'Italie and Heman's poem "Corinne at the Capitol" illustrates how even with rights, women still have issues with what kind of wife and mother to be, or if they should even be either at all.  This is seen in DeStael's novel when Corine dies of a broken heart when the man she loves marries her half-sister because Corinne could not imagine being a proper English wife (footnote 1).  This idea of being a good wife and mother is seen in the last stanza of "Corinne at the Capitol".  Though the poem's subject is still the "Radiant daughter of the sun" (line 41), another is "Happier, happier far than [her]" (line 45).  This other person ends up being "She that makes the humblest hearth/Lovely but to one on earth" (lines 47-48) which appears to be a housewife or mother, someone who has a family.  Even though the poem's subject may not be the happiest on Earth, she is still important because her actions will lay the path for other women who wish to find happiness outside of motherhood.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

In his poem "Ozymandias" Percy Bysshe Shelley appears to be crying out against slavery.  The traveller speaks of a formerly extraordinary monument of Ozymandias, or Ramses II, the same king of Egypt during the exile of the Israelite slaves.  Of all the hard work put into his monument by the Hebrew slaves, the ultimate result of the mighty monument are "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone [that]/Stand in the desart....Near them on the sand,/Half sunk, a shattered visage lies" (lines 2-4).  The irony in the poem is also relevant to the meaning.  The words on the pedestal of the monument depict a "King of Kings" (line 10), yet the monument is now broken and in disrepair, much like the king's reputation.  At least in the Christian and Jewish worlds, Ozymandias is remembered as a cruel and selfish king who absolutely refused to give the Israelites their freedom.  In using Ozymandias, Shelley is able to show a slave master that no good Christian or Jew respects and an event in history that shows slavery as something that, in the end, does not really bring glory, just "lone and level sands [that] stretch far away" (line 14).

In changing the time period of slavery and by using irony, Shelley is able to depict a slavery as an institution that ultimately serves no useful purpose; it only manifests hate, something of which this world does not need anymore.

John Keats

John Keats' poem "La Belle Dame sans Mercy" uses a large amount of imagery to stimulate the reader's imagination.  A lot of his imagery is visual, but there is imagery pertaining to smell and hearing as well.  His use of imagery works very well to create a drastic change in tone after lines 12 and 36.  The poem goes from pleasant images like "fragrant zone" (line 22) and "elfin grot" (line 29) to those of "death-pale" (line 38) and "starv'd lips" (line 41).  This contrast in the imagery and the tone allow the reader to be able to understand the speaker's horror in his dream that starts on line 37.  

The differences and shifts in the imagery and the tone in the poem also portray how something can seem so good and so perfect on the outside, but in reality is not really beneficial at all.  This comparison can be made to many aspects of life today, which makes this poem timeless.  

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Colridge's works are intriguing to read and nearly impossible to interpret and understand.  

His poem "Kubla Khan" is no exception, but I enjoy mystery and intrigue, so I wanted to attempt it.  In this poem, Coleridge is trying to convey how important it is not to develop land for your own "pleasure-dome" (line 2).  Even though Kubla Khan develops the land in Xanadu with "gardens bright with sinuous rills" (line 8) and the land had "folding sunny spots of greenery" (line 11), the caverns underground are filled with chasms and a "woman wailing for her demon-lover" (line 16).  When Kubla Khan disturbs the land, a 

"mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted Burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river." (lines 19-24).

This poem can relate to a lot of things in life including not developing or disturbing land for frivolous reasons.  It also can relate to a more general idea of not fixing something that is not broken.  These are both important to remember as we go through our lives and interact with the world around us and all the living things in it.  

William Blake

William Blake's poems titled "The Chimney Sweeper" share a title, but are very different poems with very different content and meaning.  The poem from Blake's Songs of Innocence shows the loss of innocence of a small chimney sweep.  This poem depicts Blake's views of the English society during the eighteenth century because the poem is told in first-person from the perspective of a small chimney sweep who recounts his friend's dream of an Angel that "open'd the coffins & set them all free".  All of the boys have lost their childhood and with it, their innocence.  Instead of being able to "rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind" the children instead must sweep chimneys and sleep in soot.  This poem shows how Blake spoke out against the society and goes along well with his views on social justice which included a strong belief in both  liberty and equality.  

The other poem also entitled "The Chimney Sweep" was published in Blake's Songs of Experience in 1794.  This poem is also told in the first-person, but is told not by a child, but apparently an adult, probably male.  This poem also speaks of the injustices in England at the time.  However, this time the child's parents are both still living and, assumedly, attend church regularly while their son is "Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!"  The boy also says how he pretends to be happy so his parents do not feel guilty.  He has also, like the boy in the other poem, lost his innocence and childhood prematurely and unfairly.  

William Blake's feelings of social injustices are very prevalent in both the poems entitled "The Chimney Sweeper" and he uses the first-person perspective to strengthen his views on those injustices.