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.