| Keats and Chapman's Homer |
[Dec. 3rd, 2006|11:48 pm] |
On first looking into chapman’s homer
Keats made a bold stand in his poem “On first Looking into Chapman’s Homer.” As we learned in class, reading Homer’s Iliad, until a translation was published, was reserved for the Greek and the wealthy. Chapman’s translation allowed those of less than leisurely status to enjoy the epic as the wealthy. The wealthy of the Romantic era did not share this doctrine, but instead looked at translations as impure versions of the original work, thus looking down upon those who had to result to reading translations.
When Keats wrote this sonnet, he was completely aware of the views of the wealthy and of his peers; this did not stop him from expressing his feelings on a good piece. Keats understood that he would be ridiculed, not to mention he already was stamped as a radical, as uneducated, but he wanted to express that he recognized a brilliant translation that reflected a well-known work. He wanted to convey the feelings he felt, no matter the consequence, and knew that others who had read this version would be able to relate.
The examples Keats uses to express his feeling when reading Chapman’s Homer communicate his same feelings on how a good piece of literary work can transmit him to another place altogether. Keats explains that he had never left the British Isles physically, but had traveled the world through the words of other authors. |
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| Guilt in Frankenstein |
[Nov. 19th, 2006|11:58 pm] |
During the trial, although there were convincing arguments (the photographic evidence and the Venn Diagram), a simple guilty/innocent judgment can’t always be given. There are too many relative victims to assign guilt to any one party, which embodies a well-written conflict.
On the note of Victor being at guilt, there are correct and incorrect assumptions. Yes, Victor did create a monster from stolen human parts. This is both highly illegal and immoral, but that which he is “tried” for is not stealing the parts, it is the downfall of his creation and the subsequent deaths. Victor DID create that which killed, but does this make Victor guilty? The answer is yes……and no. Victor didn’t force the monster into a situation where he had to kill, but also abandoned a super human that would obviously be rejected from society. The fact that Victor chose to have his monster remain a secret was his hammartia.
Society, that which shunned the monster and was the force behind Victor’s decision to keep Steve a secret, does influence the outcome of the conflict. Had Steve been able to leave Victor(as he did) and create a whole new life with a community that would not necessarily support him, but allow him to live as a part of the community, the outcome of the novel would have been worlds different. Possibly Steve would have had animosity toward Victor for his abandonment, but a life changing scenario like that of Steve’s approachment of De Lacey may never have occurred.
The monster is the hardest to blame or find innocent, because of his innocence upon creation. Steve’s first days were that of confusion, abandonment, and hostility. After his two hopes, to be accepted by at least one human or to live with another monster, were destroyed, his only goal was to punish he who created him. Whether or not this is justified is the key to placing blame.
Through such argument, the three parties each add to the fault, and allow the conflict of the story to flow from beginning to end. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 12th, 2006|11:51 pm] |
Foreshadowing in Frankenstein
Mary Shelley, using the ever-popular concept of imagination during the romantic era, tried to use that very human ability to create a great sense of another of the mind’s attributes; fear. Fear often plays on the human ability to mistakenly try to foresee what will happen next. For example, have you ever been in a movie theatre and pull up your legs and cover your eyes simply because you THINK something scary is about to happen. The real fear isn’t the actual scary act, but the suspense before it. This is why Shelley evokes many instances of foreshadowing to create a feeling suspense in the reader, followed by the sensation of fear.
It was purposeful that Mary Shelley started the novel by including letters by Robert Walton. These letters are to create the mysterious atmosphere of the main narrative, and to openly state that Victor Frankenstein fully invests in his creation and travels the earth to pursue the monster. This means that his family, social, and professional lives all collapse, and that the majority of the Victor’s social acquaintances are going to disappear. The letters also give light to the fact that Victor will sooner or later be unable to control his creation.
Shelley illustrates a near-perfect childhood in the beginning chapters. With the fore-knowledge that Victor becomes obsessed with his monster and ends up at the North Pole, Shelley is allowing the reader awareness to the fact that all perfection in his Victor’s early like will soon end. This becomes strikingly apparent once Victor’s mother dies through contracting the same disease that Elizabeth’s parents died from.
Death is often Shelly’s climax that follows her foreshadowing. Victor’s dream, in which Elizabeth looks as if she is dead, is a perfect example of how Shelley allows the reader to be in suspense, almost certain that soon Elizabeth will actually die. This is not the only instance in which death creates a suspenseful sensation in the reader. When Victor’s brother is murdered, it is apparent that the monster has killed him and that Victor now must confess to his mysterious creation. When he remains silent, Justine’s death is inevitable.
Shelley disrupts the predictable nature of the novel on Victor’s visit to the Chamounix Valley. Predictable would be Victor’s encounter with the monster and sustained injuries from its attack. Shelley instead introduces a sophisticated humanoid that is able to hold a conversation and remain comfortable around its fire. This disrupts the aforementioned letters by Walton in which Victor is unable to control his monster. These instances of predictability and suspense are Shelley’s tactical literary techniques that allowed her novel to pursue greater success than her competitors. |
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| On poetry and the Poet |
[Nov. 5th, 2006|11:58 pm] |
Romantic poetry, what this class is geared towards illustrating to us and what we’ve been assigned to read in these books does not define poetry, nor does the Romantic poet signify a true poet. This is not to be confused with the notion that romantic poetry is not poetry. When the topic of poetry arises, there are few, if any misconceptions. This means that the term “poetry” is not ambiguous, that the questions written on the board in this class will yield correct or incorrect answers, but instead conceptualized differently in each person. If you were to turn around and look at the other people writing their answers, not one person will write the same exact feelings down on paper, regardless of topic as you are about to write or have been writing.
In the same sense, a whole poem does not have to be the poetry that someone reads. A single line in a poem is as essentially “poetry” as the entire piece itself. Look at John Donne’s From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. The phrase “no man is an island” has yielded entire volumes of reviews, not the entire piece. This line holds a significance to some who read it, a poetic one, that surpasses that of the entire work. Same goes with Robert Frost’s Nothing Gold can Stay. Songs and other poetry have branch from that title and line in the poem. The Floridian graffiti artist “ZEST” has devoted entire pieces, which correlates to hours and days of work, just to express his feelings on that line.
On the question the definition of a poet; a poet is like an oneironaut of the waking world. They can express themselves through their pen and paper, an extension of their mind and in the romantic sense, imagination. They express themselves whenever, how ever, and wherever they want, with no structure. This was seen when English poets started straying from the classical sonnet. A poet can color out of the lines, or even off the paper itself.
*While passing my answer around, much of the feedback was helpful. One of the responses stood out more to me than others. It was a criticism on how a single line of poetry can be “nothing but incomplete and out of context, no more than a collection of words.”
Instead of pressing my ideas, I thought about this person’s experiences with poetry and accepted what he or she was trying to express to me. I think that, to this person, my thesis was wrong, but to me, his thesis wasn’t my thesis. This necessarily doesn’t demand that we decide which person is correct or incorrect, but instead realize what I said before about the inability to misconceive poetry. This critic didn’t misunderstand my writing, but instead focused on my piece as a whole and disagreed. I think this reflects that both intellectual opinion, poetry, and any form of self expression can hold new meaning to anyone who takes the time to read what someone feels. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 29th, 2006|11:48 pm] |
Lord Byron, given an adult’s title at the ripe age of 10, surprisingly made mature decisions in his adolescence. Not only was he competent enough to take a seat in the House of Lords in 1811, but also experienced enough culture to allow his poems to speak about foreign lands, thus becoming successful.
Byron started his career as an enthusiastic, smart, political activist; so why did he ruin it through his new fame and promiscuity? He was vibrant enough to write a poem that attacked his critics, helped liberate Greece from the Turks, and fought for the rights of poor victims of the industrial revolution. During these prime years, however, Lord Byron showed signs of becoming the sell-out that he was in his future.
Although he partook in an unorthodox journey under the visage of becoming cultured, he planned his escapade on two prerequisites; that he would seek homosexual experience and avoid any danger from the Napoleonic Wars at any cost.
After his respectable career in political activism and poems that dwelled on true emotion, like English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, he sold out to fantastical, superficially structured poems like Don Juan, meant to simply be entertaining, and speeches on the positive aspects of Roman Catholicism, which was the foremost corrupt and wealthy organization of his era. This is not to mention his love affairs due to his new-found fame.
Although Byron had his faults and falling outs, many critics today often regard him as one of the greatest Romantics of his time. He is often described as highly talented, but acting in a self-destructive manner that often created a tabloid effect concerning his affairs. Many critics believe that his poetic popularity and sales were attributed mainly to his scandals than his talent. |
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| Simon Lee |
[Oct. 22nd, 2006|11:34 pm] |
One of the poems we weren't required to read from Coleridge or Wordsworth is Simon Lee. Wordsworth included this in Lyrical Ballads not for its value in the imaginary or for the wealthy leisure class to enjoy, but to express a story of a common elderly man that relates to more people than a more specified genre of poem.
The poem Simon Lee, basically outlining the situation of an old farmer, is more than its superficial presentation. Wordsworth, as we all learned, was highly passionate about the industrial revolution’s impact on the common man. The fact of the matter is that Simon Lee is not a creation of the I.E., but instead a vision of those who weren’t affected in any way whatsoever. Crippled and weak, Simon Lee was able to live for eighty or more years in a hidden ranch with no master and an equally old wife.
Simon Lee isn’t just an object of entertainment of Wordsworth, but instead a taste of the Sublime. Knowing nothing of the problems of the world and, in a worldly perspective, living an insignificant life that helped no one but his small family, Simon Lee lives in blissful ignorance.
To Wordsworth, Lee has the happiest life he has ever observed. Simon Lee never has to worry about war or education, only that he needs to eat, sleep, and stay alive. The knowledge that everyone’s life is insignificant and that Wordsworth is essentially no better than Lee allows the reader to understand the Sublime and how the BIG PICTURE is the same for every living being. The fact is that everyone is alive and will die, no matter their wealth or social status. Simon Lee is better for the simple reason of living his life without worry, able to be ignorant because of his previous life choices. |
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| Why Coleridge wrote RIME |
[Oct. 22nd, 2006|11:33 pm] |
With imagination at a high point as a societal topic of interest, Wordsworth and Coleridge were aiming to focus a large portion of Lyrical Ballads towards the human ability to imagine. As an opium addict and natural eccentric, Coleridge was given the opportunity to invest his skill in this field, while Wordsworth stuck to nature. Rime of the Ancient Mariner is Coleridge’s imagination at work.
Coleridge’s reasons for choosing such a topic are many, but one of them was style. Samuel Coleridge didn’t want to write a fantastical story, but a fantastical epic. ROAM is a story with mysticism, heroism, and horror that Coleridge employs to avoid a straight-edged Ballads filled with only nature and realism. Wordsworth and Coleridge wanted a revolutionary volume that would show the reader aspects and feelings of poetry that hadn’t been tried, and that is why they collaborated in the first place, since no poet alone would have been able to.
Coleridge is quoted in stating,
“my endeavors should be directed to persons and characters
supernatural, or at least romantic.”
Coleridge was able to do both; creating a supernatural romantic that bounds through a man and his choices and consequences, while all the while relating to several groups of people. Coleridge was able to convey a biblical story to Christians, an epic to the common man, and an imaginary experience to his fellow poet.
Wordsworth’s job in Ballads was not only to deal with the feelings of the common man, but to also relay his feelings of the industrial revolution and how the sublime can been seen through people’s lives. Coleridge took Rime and strayed far from Wordsworth, which upset the poet community with the stretch from reality in the same volume as Wordsworth and his realism. Coleridge purposefully did this for that reason, and that is why ROAM is the epic that it is. |
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| Romanticism meets Indian Arranged marriage(Bride and Prejudice) |
[Oct. 1st, 2006|11:23 pm] |
While doing some research, there are many similarities between the concepts of courtship and marriage seen in Bride and Prejudice and those of the romantic era. This is an accurate proposal to convert the terms of marriage from a book that is centuries old to modern day film. The terms for which the Bakshi daughters are wed are not just coincidentally similar to those is Austen’s novel, but are the actual conditions under which Indian families give their daughters away.
One of these congruent aspects in both the film and the text is the inexcusability of divorce. Both modern Indian couples and Romantics alike were unable to divorce from their partners due to the shame brought to each partners’ family. This is due to two factors. One is the fact that the parents are heavily involved in the process of marrying their children to a respectable partner. This means that if the marriage is a bust, not only is it a reflection on bad parenting, thus creating an disagreeable daughter/ son who is unable to cope with their partner, but also the inability of the parents to detect flaws in the courtier.
This concept is reflected in both Mrs. Bakshi’s opposite attitudes towards Wickham and BalRaj, and Mrs. Bennet’s opposite attitude toward Wickham and Bingley. Both mothers want their daughter to marry wealthy and to a respectable family. This would ensure that the parents on both sides of the marriage are concerned for their respect in the community.
Not only would marriage to a respectable family prosper families in the Romantic era and modern day India, as reflected in Bride and Prejudice and Pride and Prejudice, but the dowry system is also a concern in both communities. A wealthy daughter would yield a hefty dowry in today’s India and Austen’s Romantic era. This is seen in Balraj’s and Bingley’s ability to be swayed by Darcy, since he is truthful in his assumption of a weak dowry upon marriage.
These common aspects made the transition from Austen’s romantic novel to Bride and Prejudice as believable as possible. Only by these comparisons could such a transition be achievable.
Here is a link to a site containing some concepts of Indian Marriage:
http://www.pardesiservices.com/tradition/arrangedmarg.asp |
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| Satire in P&P |
[Sep. 24th, 2006|08:35 pm] |
Austen employ’s levels of ignorance in all her characters of the novel. Each is oblivious to their respective flaws and continues to characterize his or her self by these flaws without changing their ways. Through this technique Austen turns her Romantic story into one of satire.
The first example is probably the most blatant: Mr. Collins. Not only unaware that his ravings of Lady De Bourgh are unwanted, but also that his self-image of great importance in completely misplaced. Collin’s character is dependant on these unmindful mannerisms, making him the contemptible clergyman that defines his role as the rejected courtier of Elizabeth.
Also blatantly satirized by Austen is Mrs. Bennet. Bred to be married and a mentor to her marriageable daughters, Mrs. Bennet is far too overzealous in her attempts to wed her daughters to ever be taken seriously. Only through such a crazed mother figure could her counterpart Mr. Bennet be as sarcastically lovable a character. Living 23 years with a woman who unknowingly and obnoxiously loudly praises her daughters around even the lowliest of marriageable men, such as Mr. Collins, breeds a man like Mr. Bennet. Her decision to threaten Elizabeth with disownment if she doesn’t marry the ridiculous Mr. Collins proves how illogical and desperate she is to have at least one daughter not of “old maid” status.
Elizabeth may be the most subtly satirized character in the novel. Her accentuated fault is in the title; Prejudice. Elizabeth is so steady in her distrust of the “high status” that she is willing to believe lies such as Wickham’s based solely on the fact that he is less wealthy than Darcy. Another example is Elizabeth’s dismissal of Miss Bingley’s advice on the lack of trustworthiness of Wickham. She completely disregards good advice due to Miss Bingley’s high status and wealth. The extreme is that she was willing to disregard Jane’s notion that Darcy may not be so bad of a man.
Through such satire, Austen is able to transform her novel to one of humor. During the Romantic era, Austen noticed these traits in such living people and displayed extreme measures of these same traits to make Pride and Prejudice unique. |
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| Charlotte Smith |
[Sep. 17th, 2006|09:33 pm] |
On the Sonnet To Melancholy
Having been sixteen when she married to an heir, someone who never worked for money and frequently had temper tantrums, Charlotte Church and her husband birthed 14 children, 3 of which died. This kind of resembles the life story of a broke divorcé who write elegiac sonnets about her sadness.
In her poem To Melancholy she expresses the hope, along with all other sad humans, to one day have a happy life. I think that, even though she was a respected writer in her time and arguably “brought back the sonnet”, she was still a mother of eleven. Being a mother of eleven children and, in Wollstonecraft’s opinion, the education of a leasure-classed woman, she still had a life that is completely built on responsibility. I think that the expression Smith is trying to illustrate in this sonnet is not that she hopes one day to be in an equilibrium of childcare, work, and personal enjoyment; but instead that she wants a completely different life.
“And oft I think….That the sufferers may go, released by death.”
By dying, Smith would be able to never have to worry about children or money or any earthly responsibility ever again. This hints of the mindset of the individual above the family. I think that this sonnet supports Wollstonecraft’s doctrine that a woman of that era is just a large child. Just like a teenager, all Smith cares about is personal freedom of mind; she would rather die and leave her children to fend for themselves than to take responsibility for her own family. I also agree with the notion that her life up to the writing of To Melancholy, having been educated in trivial “artsy” activities, which undoubtedly were supported by all motherly figures in her childhood due to the fact that the same education filled their childhood, was a mold to develop a horrible parent. |
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| Analysis of "The Romantics and Their Contemporaries" |
[Sep. 3rd, 2006|08:40 pm] |
The Romantic Era, as described in the section of our textbook “The Romantics and Their Contemporaries” is written in a straight-forward manner that should be easily understood by the college student who reads it. I’m sure everyone in the class was able to conceptualize the overall literary trends of the era and how each author was able to use a blend of imagination and reason to define their own “romance”, but can any of us actually relate to such a structured age?
The Romantic era and the years prior had seen an overabundance of governmental and societal episodes as quoted by Lord Byron in his Don Juan, “Talk not of seventy years of age; in seven I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to the humblest individuals under heaven(1820).” With us, new millennium Americans, who have all experienced essentially nothing in terms of domestic violence or social uprisings that even come close to rearranging the government or go-for-bid having such figures decapitated, thus threatening our personal lives, trying to understand the needs of a region in constant troubles seems far-fetched. Without personally being in a similar situation we can only empathize with Europe’s need to come together in some variety of organized pastime, one that would allow the educated to speak their minds and for the populations to indulge in something that doesn’t remind them of the times around them.
My point is that our society can only imagine such a defined trend in anything since the only trend in essentially any genre of entertainment could, as of recent, be only defined as the “eclecticism era.” The Romantics, even though all focused around the basis that imagination, something that, before the Romantic era, only provided for the individual who does the imagining, brought an abstract concept and allowed people around a region in political turbulence to share it, thus defining the era itself. Such an organized accomplishment is, to me, impressive due to the inability of a sustained free society to agree on anything at all, let alone have the ability to regionally argue over human imagination for decades. |
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