Virginia Wolf

Virginia Wolf was a women who seemed to try to find herself through her writing. She struggled with refrained from normal society. She was feminist and wrote about her struggle with nonconformity. In "The Lady in the Looking Glass: A Reflection", Ms. Woolf writes,

“One could not help looking, that summer afternoon, in the long glass that hung outside in the hall. Chance had so arranged it. From the depths of the sofa in the drawing-room one could see reflected in the Italian glass not only the marble-topped table opposite, but a stretch of the garden beyond. One could see a long grass path leading between banks of tall flowers until, slicing off an able, the gold rim cut it off. “ (p. 1224-1225)

Wolf is expressing her wish to go beyond the norm of her society and live the life at which she pleases. The cut off of which she speaks is the distant goal to which she seeks to obtain. She understands the law of her nation but wants the masses to see the individuality at which she wishes to obtain.
Many individuals such as MLK have seeked to help others virtually understand the imbalance to which they live their lives. They see beyond the present, and seek to uphold the future. Wolf understands that her gender sets her back in certain social areas and wants the public to embrace the ideals and ambitions she wants the women of her country to be able to obtain.

Robert Browning

Robert Browning was a man who seemed confined to his family until he reached his thirties. I think his thoughts were stored and built up until his release and ability to write was set free by his own individuality. Browning’s style of writing, in particular “Porphyria’s Lover”, seems to be apparent to the reader as erratic thinking.

“In one long yellow string I would
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;" (p. 663)

Browning’s deep writing of this paragraph could be interpreted of his outcry he wished to express from his sheltered life as a young man. I think he felt so suppressed by his earlier childhood that he had to express his feelings through his writing. The yellow string was obviously his parents, and the girl represented the life that he so wished to break away from.
As many kids feel cooped up from overbearing parents during their early childhood,
Browning felt that the only way he could fully express himself was through his explicit writing. The outrageous nature of his writing seems to conform to insanity as people would see it in his day. He writes of murder and even that on a dark nature.

“And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!" (p. 663)

Is Browning questioning his faith to God? I wonder if he is asking where the repercussions of his actions are or if these immoral actions are even of consequence. Browning in his writing, I think, is trying to convey to the reader why or if his adverse thoughts are wrong. He has to think that through his works his readers are going to come to a conclusion of insanity. But why? Does he do it for publicity or thought? His works are deep in his own thought. I think that Browning’s works are meant to portray the mind of youth and their different feelings they feel throughout their growth as adults.

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was a visionary. He saw that women deserved equality and that everyone should be entitled to free speech and their voice be heard. His ideas were very forward thinking for his day and which he was very outspoken about. He writes in Ch. 3 of "On Liberty",

“The majority, being satisfied with the ways of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are), cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for everybody; and what is more, spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of the majority of moral and social reformers, but is rather looked on with jealousy, as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious obstruction to the general acceptance of what these reformers, in their own judgment, think would be best for mankind.” Pg. 517

Another reformist such as Hardy, John Stuart Mill saw that there needed to be changes in the social and political area of this time. He saw that the majority system with which seems like a good idea, has major faults. Just because a majority vote is had doesn’t mean the issues that are to follow is the most important. This is the major fault with this style of government, which usually leads to the election of a lesser of two evils. When one is elected, the important issues that were upheld by the fallen party are thrown out the window.

In his writing “Statement Repudiating the Rights of Husbands”, Mill shows us that he sees women as being equal and that he will acknowledge his wife as having her rights. In his day in age Mill was seen as a reformist and maybe even radical but today we view him as ahead of his time. Mill’s understanding that all people should be created equal was a view that many did not uphold. Through his writings the audience can see exactly what Mills thought. He was one to put his thoughts straight on paper.

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s childhood seemed to greatly affect him in later years. With his father being so absent and the aspirations of being an Aesthete, Wilde was exposed to the aspects that mold himself later in life. He writes with light imagery of leaves and butterflies. Wilde’s lifestyle probably helped with his style of writing while being in the company of other Aesthetes, but it ended his career in turmoil and exile, begging for change to those that might find sympathy for him. He writes in "Symphony in Yellow",

“An omnibus across the bridge

Crawls like a yellow butterfly,

And, here and there, a passer-by

Shown like a little restless midge.” (p. 831)

As Wilde writes these lines I think he is seeing himself across this imaginary bridge where he wants to “crawls like a yellow butterfly.” The bridge he speaks of is the acceptance he wants to have for his lifestyle from the government of Britain. Homosexuality is unlawful in those times and he wishes to able for it to be a forgeable bridge he can cross. The butterfly he speaks of is himself. He wants to be free and live the life he so wants and be accepted for his thought. It was a shame that his writing was affected by this. He is still a man who writes with the same poise and intelligence as before.

Wilde’s fight against conformity is the same as youths today. He was not accepted for certain aspects of his personality and punished for it. Today with so many different stereotypes and classification for the many different groups of people, who is to say that their fellow citizen is “weird” for being nonconformist? Every norm started with a movement and the liberalization of individuals is what brings about change. I am neither applauding these changes or against them, just pointing out that inconsistencies in individuals are what shapes the many different views and cultures that we live in.

T.S. Eliot

Upon reading Eliot I am not sure what he was trying to convey to his audience. He is a smart and well educated man than wrote very will, but what was his underlying meaning? Where did his inspiration come from? He writes in "The Waste Land",

"Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you" (p. 1213)

Eliot being a smart man has to be conveying to his audience some meaning by the since of this unknown person. Could it have been the loneliness he felt from his first marriage that made this shadow like it was always following him. It could have been the person he was always looking for but never had a face to recognize the beauty. Or it could have been the people with which Eliot felt compelled to help. The Jews and his support for modern Islam in particular. (Letters written to Kallen)

Also, when he is writing about this person being ahead of him I think it means that he is foreseeing himself walking with someone else. Maybe his sense of spirituality is sensed in this verse. The one walking beside him may be the religious figure that will accompany him in his future. Throughout life we all seem to wonder what we can not see or what we might be missing. Eliot is trying to put an identity on the “shadow” that is following him.

His writing seems to be more about the experiences he has been through and seen that about himself. He writes about his change to religion and “The Waste Land” that was written during his failing marriage with his first wife. He writes with conviction and really puts himself on paper. Eliot did not really have early childhood experiences or the tragic circumstances that we have seen. He had to write about certain situations more than feelings.

His criticism of others seemed to get him just as much back. He was criticized for being anti-Semitic throughout his career and even stealing the works of earlier poets. Whether this is true or not, Eliot is highly regarded and we all take something from what we learn.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins was a man that tried in his attempts but always seemed to have some obstacle; at least in his priesthood. He seemed to try his best at priesthood but never felt he could obtain the serenity he needed to fulfill his position. His bouts with erotic notions and poetry did not help in his pursuit of becoming a Jesuit priest.

“Oh morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings." (p. 775)

As the reader can see, Hopkins writes with noticeable polarity between ideas. He speaks of God and the hints of erotic thought in the same sentence. His fight with these issues seems to guide him in many different directions. But it is the sad fact that certain thoughts and his love of poetry kept him from fulfilling the position in society that he wanted to have. While reading him you can see the imagery that he puts into his writing.

“It will flame out, like shining from shook foil:” (p. 774)

The words and the way he chooses to put them into sentences gives detailed images of his writing to the readers. Everyone has seen the lines and reflections that foil puts off if even only slightly crinkled. It is this simple imagery that brings the reader into his poems and makes us feel as if we could have written it. Sometimes writers try to make their poetry so hard to understand or write in such obscure ways that the reader may never know what they are trying to say. This may be for certain purposes, but to not allow your audience to understand what you are writing about and how it should be applied to the greater good doesn’t seem very effective.

Hopkins style of poetry is very exciting to me. It is unconventional and far away the norm at which I seem to hop from one line to the other without much thought. He incorporates a lot of techniques that keep the reader “in” his poetry and help to understand his meanings.

Thomas Carlyle

I enjoyed Carlyle’s view of the changing society. In “Past and Present”, he describes the conditions that the people were living in. How through this revolution the society that once prided itself in the reflections of nature and intuitive thinking, are now being overrun by the hope of monetary prosperity. Carlyle since his loss of faith, questions God on why the people are being treated this way.

“This successful industry of England, with its plethoric wealth, has yet made nobody rich; it is an enchanted wealth, and belongs yet to nobody. We might as, which of us has it enriched?? We can spend thousands where we once spend hundreds; but can purchase nothing good with them.”

Carlyle is pointing out that even though industrialism is providing monetary wealth for individuals, it is not providing “wealth” for the prosperity of the country. In societies and even families where great wealth is just being born, self-discipline seems to unravel. It’s like when parents tell their children that they can get a few new toys and they come back with 10. The imagination takes over and discipline is forgotten. Even though some of these people do now have thousands to spend their lessons of common prosperity are overlooked.

Compare old age living with the Industrialization and the frugalness at which people spent their money is lost with the change in history. Industrialization brings great change to nations that are sometimes overwhelmed with the power it takes over. The wealthy are spending more money than ever with their higher incomes and the gap between social classes is becoming ever greater. Industrialization may lift up a few to the heights of prosperity but it does not help the less fortunate. When a reform in society comes to lift these less educated and unfilled labors from the state at which they live that will be the true reform that should be printed on the pages of history books.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

While reading Tennyson I thought about his past and how it might have affected him. With all that he has gone through, I don’t think that some of his poems are as literal as they can seem.

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” is a piece written by Tennyson about the Crimean War taking place during 1854. Although this may have been a poem depicting the events of that war, I think that the struggle he wrote about represents some of his own.

"Cannon to the right of them,

Cannon to the left of them,

Cannon in front of them,

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred." (p.615)

Through Tennyson’s life he was faced with many hardships. Suicide, the family curse, and the death of Hallam all were factors that helped shape his poetry and overall demeanor. The threats that Tennyson himself wrote about, I think, were to be interpreted as his own hardships. His life seemed to be one great war with many battles. His imagery of being bombarded with resistance all around him and the dark thoughts of hell, really portray to the reader how much of himself he put into his writing.

"Back from the Mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred." (p.616)

Although Tennyson’s life had been hard for him personally, he did not let the “battle” deteriorate his sense of self. Through his struggles and his first bit of success, Tennyson found that he could make something of himself. With his success in later years with works such as “Maud” and “Idylls of the King” he was finely content with his efforts.

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy seemed to live a life of undecisivness and uncertainty. His writing focus switched from fiction to poetry which seemed to overlap, and the agnostic vs. spiritism battle he also dealt with.

Even though Hardy writes about real situations, I think that he is comparing these to his own life. If someone such as Hardy puts so much thought and detail into his work his life or at least parts are going to end up on paper. In “The Convergence of the Twain” Hardy writes:

"In a solitude of the sea

Deep from human vanity,

And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she." (p.1076)

Hardy, I think, is writing about the comparison of the Titanic to the way of life he sees around him. The Titanic at the time was claimed to be unsinkable and more extravagant than anything ever built. The irony to this claim is that the ship sank on its first voyage. Looking past history and the events that took place, the comparison between the ship and the iceberg is what I think relates to Hardy’s life.

I think that when he wrote about the “deep from human vanity” he was writing with sarcasm. The ship was full of vanity. From the claims of it being unsinkable to the extravegent ball room on board. It was a time where he saw the change in society moving toward materialism and the cliché “Victorian” way of life. Industrialism was taking over the great countryside he once enjoyed and did not agree with the way the country was progressing.

Also, when Hardy writes of the ship and the iceberg I think he is comparing the two objects just as he struggles with his faith. He seems to doubt his faith by referring to other antagonist, but at the same time he uses spiritual words in his writing.

"Well: while was fashioning

This creature of cleaving wing,

The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything" (p.1076)

Through his writing we can see that he has not lost all since of spirituality. Even though he is not saying that God is responsible, he is aware, or believes that something intangible resides over us. Thomas Hardy’s life and writing have witnessed his struggle with certain ideals and beliefs, but he has never lost touch with the carefulness with which he writes.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

While reading this poem I felt like a kid being read to. It seems like it would be a favorite story of little boys because of the “pirate” theme throughout. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” prevails with themes of mistake and forgiveness. Upon shooting the Albatross, the skies became still and foggy and the Mariner’s crew were dying. He seemed to kill the good omen that was sent to him as noted in the scholarly side notes. (pg. 328). Just as men have rejected God throughout history and had to pay by going to Hell, the Mariner paid for his mistake with foul conditions and spirits. Coleridge relates spirits and nature and suggests that we should act in the favor of all, even the spirits we can not see. The Mariner is forgiven and told to tell his story to different lands. This is much like Jesus preaching to the people God’s lessons.

“He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.”

In this paragraph, Coleridge is showing how everyone should be treated equally. Mistakes are human nature and they will happen. Even though the Mariner has made re wrong decisions, he will be treated fair in the end by God.

“Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold:

Her skin was as white as leprosy,

The Night-Mair LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,

Who thicks man’s blood with cold.

The theme of beautiful evil is seen through this passage. In society today, the most intriguing availabilities are exciting but consequential. Coleridge picks out the ironic situation of temptations.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I had a really hard time trying to understand what Shelley was trying to say in Mont Blanc, and I really still do not. There are many ways to interpret his reading, but to actually understand what he thought takes a lot. I think he is contrasting the mountain of Mont Blanc with society or human nature.

“Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,

If to the human mind’s imaginings

Silence and solitude were vacancy?

He seems to contrast the mountain with many aspects of social behavior. He describes society as “Now dark-now glittering-now reflecting gloom”(pg. 393) . He was at the forefront of radicalism and was appreciated by Karl Marx. I think his growing up pushed him away from normality. As noted on page 391 he was the grandson of a wealth land owner and his father was a member of Parliament.

From the above passage Shelley is saying that without imagination there is no future. For a society to move forward there has to be a vision or plan to do so. Shelley writes with dark language but only to describe the stagnant thoughts of society. I think he is talking about how it takes great change to move mountain and not by only one hand. He was a radicalist who upheld atheism. He was trying to understand himself why others were filled with “silence and solitude” and not questioning their beliefs or ideals.

In “Ozymandias” the traveler meets a man who tells him the story of a statue lying in the desert which is in pieces. On the statue it reads,

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

This is ironic because the statue is laying in the middle of the desert with nothing around it. There is nothing to be king of for the landscape the statue is in. Shelley uses this situation to explain the lonliness of man. No matter how powerful or the amount of possessions owned, one can not buy happiness or love.

John Keats

John Keats seems to be a sorrowed man from his writings. He writes with his feelings it almost seems. Some writers can mask their feelings, but John can not. From the death of his mother and the broken relationship to his fiancée Fanny, Keats has a guarded heart towards women. In La Belle Dame sans Mercy, he writes of a man “On the cold hill side”. I think this is to express the loneliness in his life. As quick as this lady came into his life she was gone. He awoke again to the same felling of being alone.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (pg.441)

After reading this passage, I read the footnote. It explained that Keats had compared these two words throughout his career. To relate beauty and truth unfolds to an unanswered argument. Beauty can be in many forms. God told Adam and Even not to eat the apple of a certain tree. Along with curiosity comes a form of beauty. The only apple they were forbidden to eat was the apple that looked most beautiful to them. The truth of eating the apple was human sin for forever. Things that are remarkably beautiful sometimes contain truth of consequence and lesson.

William Blake

Right away one can tell that William Blake is going to be an eccentric writer. Along with being warned that his writing is very deep and hard to understand, his visions of “God’s face pressing against his window, seeing angels among the haystacks, and being visited by the Old Testament prophet Ezekial,” show some of his influences. His family life had a lot to do with the way he wrote, including the major part of religion his mother put on him. Also, since he was very artistic, his imagination played a crucial role in his writing. In “The Chimney Sweeper”, Blake tells the saddening story of little boys being thrown out on the streets, trying to survive. I think that the story of these kids trying to survive and the communal bond they shared was Blake’s way of contrasting them to the French Revolution. The lower class was trying to survive and revolution was the only was to do so.

“And by came an Angel who had a bright key

And he open’d the coffins & set them all free.”

This is Burke’s way of contrasting the Angel with the Revolution. With this Angel would come equality and individual rights.

Upon reading a “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” I really didn’t know what to think. Maybe it had to do with his struggle with religion or maybe his marriage. I think that it combines all of these themes and some we are not supposed to decipher.

“An Angel came to me and said, O pitiable foolish young man! O horrible! O dreadful state! Consider the hot burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself to all eternity, to which thou art going in such career.”

Blake’s background of religion make be catching up to him in his later life. I think maybe he is not fulfilled with being a writer and these visions are talking to him. He tries in making it comical but maybe pride is getting in the way.

Edmund Burke

William Burke was a man of conservatism with a strong word. Since he was an Irish Member of Parliament and political writer for many years, he had no reason to support the French Revolution. Just as members of highly profitable corporations do not want taxes to increase in their bracket or compensation packages to be subject to consideration, Burke does not want to government he dearly loves to be forever changed.

“We have 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” (49)

Burke argues here that there is no reason to mess with a system that allows the children of their father’s inheritance by their name. The commonwealth inherit the labor of their parents, and usually their children the same. But why should one allow this lower class of people power when they have not inherited it? Justice and the fairness that every human deserves a voice I think. But yet Burke suggests that we should not doubt our government and their rule but we should agree so to be loyal.

Through reading Burke’s work, I have gained an understanding of his reasons. He, in the position in society he holds, has good reason to not agree with the French Revolution. If I was him I probably would not either. He who has all the money does not want to give it up to commoners who have not earned it. In his passages we get a since of his greediness because of his power. “But he has not a right to an equal dividend in the product of the joint stock…” Everyman should have a voice no matter the amount of change in his pocket. His right as a man is the same as the man who lives in the estate from which he can see from his own window.

William Burke was a man blinded by the power he held. There are plenty of people in our day that do the same. All we can hope is for society to see the inequalities of individuals it surrounds.

1st blog ever

My name is Jason Heaton. I am from North Georgia. I am currently interning here over the summer and taking this class at home. This is my first on-line class and blog ever. I am interested in taking this class because it will help me become more associated with communicating over the internet instead of face to-face. My only anxieties for the class are that it is my first on-line class and becoming oriented with the setup.