James Joyce

The character Maria in James Joyce’s “Clay” from Dubliners is a hard-working and good hearted woman in the story despite not living in the best circumstances. She is described as one of those people who everyone was “so fond of.” Maria did not have any real family of her own and worked in a laundry not really making that much money. The closest she has to family are two boys whom she nursed and raised as her own when she was younger named Alphy and Joe. The two boys saw her as family and thought of her like their own mother. Joe would say, “Mamma is mamma but Maria is my proper mother.” The effect that Maria had on these boys was great. In fact, it can be seen throughout the story that she had a warm and loving effect on basically everyone that she encountered. She had grown very close to the boys and it was obvious that she was sad that they no longer talked.

“She could not help thinking what a pity it was Alphy and Joe were not speaking. They were always falling out now but when they were boys together they used to be the best of friends: but such was life.”

Maria is kind hearted and always thinking about others even though she did not have that much money. Before a party she is going to, she stops by a cake shop and gets penny cakes for all of the children and then goes to a special store to get plum cakes for all of the adults. The plum cakes are “two-and-four” which is probably pricey for her. On the way to party on the train, a nice older man makes conversation with her. It makes her feel good to have someone pay attention to her because none of the young men on the train even noticed her. This is a sign that Maria is getting older and no longer attracts people at first glance. When she arrives at the party, she realizes that she has left the plum cake on the train and it deeply frustrated by this.

“At the thought of the failure of her little surprise and of the two and fourpence she had thrown away for nothing she nearly cried outright.”

Maria becomes extremely upset by the loss of the cakes and loss of the money. This lets us know that Maria does not buy stuff like that very often and that money that she spent is hard to come by. Maria’s attachment to both Joey and Alphy can be seen again when she asks Joe about Alphy. It hurts her to see that they are not talking any more since she is like a mother to them.

“Maria thought she would put in a good word for Alphy. But Joe cried that God might strike him stone dead if ever he spoke word to his brother again.”

Maria quickly makes her peace with Joe and drops the subject. She does not want anyone to have a bad time at the party. At the end of the party, she plays a game with the children. She is blind folded and asked to pick an object. At first she feels a “soft wet substance” but that object is thrown out because Mrs. Donnelly thought it was inappropriate. From the title of the story, we can know that this substance was clay from the garden. The next object she felt was a prayer-book. The significance of the game was that the object that was picked would tell your future. Maria picking the clay first probably shows that she will soon be in the clay and death is not far away from her. Maria is getting old and her life described in this story seems to be complete and satisfactory. Maria touched everyone around her even though she did have many possessions or family. She still had a great effect on those around her. The final scene shows the effect she has had on Joe when he is left crying after she sings.

“He said that there was no time like the long ago and no music for him like poor old Balfe.”

I really admire Maria’s good heart and hard working manner. It shows in “Clay” that if you work hard and are good to other people, you do not have to have much in life to still have everything that you will ever need.

T.S. Eliot

“Journey of the Magi” by T.S. Eliot is interesting because it tells the story of the wisemen going to visit the new baby Jesus in a different light than most are used to hearing it. The story comes from the view of one of the wisemen and talks about many of the difficulties and doubts they face along the journey.

Along the way, their journey is “in the worst time of year” and in the “dead of winter.” The camels are “sore-footed” and “galled.” The journey that the wiseman is talking about doesn’t seem to be very pleasant at all. Next, the wiseman seems to be remembering the days before their journey.

“There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.” (ln 8-10)

The journey seems so rough now and he can’t even really see what the real purpose of his journey is. He is tempted by his thoughts to turn back and continue with his life before. He then describes more difficulties that they face along the way causing him to question the reason for this journey. They face fires going out, lack of shelters, hostile cities, unfriendly people, and dirty and overpriced villages. None of it really seems worth it at the time. At the end of the night each night, voices would sing in their ears, “This was all folly.” This stanza portrays the negative tone of the wiseman and how difficult the journey must have been. Each night voices would tell them that all of it was a waste of time. Even through all of this discouragement, they still continued on because something in the back of their heads told them that it was right.

In the next stanza, they have arrived in Bethlehem presumably. They arrived in the “temperate valley, wet below the snow line, smelling of vegetation.” The arrival of warmer weather represents new life and a brighter future from then on. At the end of the stanza, he describes his arrival as “not as moment too soon” and the place as “satisfactory.” This seems to be in a sarcastic tone because the place he probably found the newborn Jesus was not satisfactory in his taste. Once he has finally arrived, he makes the point that he does not regret the journey at all. Once he has seen the birth of Jesus, he knows that it was all worth it. He makes an interesting statement on line 35.

“This: were we led all that way for
Birth of Death? There was Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought thy were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.” (ln 35-39)

This can be confusing because here Eliot feels Death as he sees Jesus being born, but most would think he should feel life. He probably feels death because with the birth of Jesus, he has thrown out all of his old beliefs and he is no longer the person he once was. The old him has died and he must leave all of that behind. He feels this inside of him. When the wisemen return home, the wiseman describes that he is no longer at ease.

“But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.” (ln 41-43)

He is no longer satisfied with his old life and would rather experience death than go back to his old life.

William Butler Yeats

Yeat’s “The Wild Swans at Coole” is a very nostalgic stroll down memory lane for a man who is coming to terms with his age. The poem opens up as a nice autumn evening stroll near a pond. The speaker tells us that it is a clear, dry night; the water is so calm that the mirror image of the sky reflects off of it. This description paints quite the picture for the reader’s mind. The speaker counts “nine-and-fifty” swans on the pond.

“The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.”

After counting the swans, he thinks back nineteen years ago to when he first attempted to count them. He did not get a count back then, because they abruptly took off “upon their clamorous wings.” He is thinking to himself, “Wow, has it really been nineteen years?” and he begins to think about the swans.

“Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;”

He looks at these swans as if they too are aging with him, but when he looks closer, they haven’t changed. They are still the same swans that were here nineteen years ago when he first attempted to count them. He thinks to himself, “How can this be? I have grown so much older, but the swans, with their love for one another, stay forever young. The speaker then imagines what the future holds for him and his beloved swans. Will he see them the next year or will they leave to grace another lake and nest and produce more swans? He wonders if he will come back the following year “To find that they have flown away?” The poem leaves us on a question to ponder.

The poem reminds me a lot of a persons mid-life crisis. Here we have this guy, who can’t accept the fact that his relationship with these swans is nineteen years old and he stands in shock. He doesn’t know what lay ahead in his journey, and to many people that becomes a haunting thought.

Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke’s “The Soldier” embodies everything that it means to be a soldier of one’s country. The poem describes the last wishes of a soldier who is either going off to war or is in war. The soldier wants to be remembered as a loyal patriot of his country, he does not want anyone to mourn his death.

"If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;"

He wants everyone to know that where ever he may die, he died as an Englishman, a loyal soldier to the motherland. He has such high regard for England that where ever he may die, not only will that spot be forever England, but the soil will be made richer because it was nourished with an Englishman.

I think this poem must have been a very emotional poem to have been read by English families of soldiers at war in World War I. The first war where so many families lost loved ones and so many families were without the men for so long. Brooke goes on to explain about the things that make this soldier who he is

"A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home."

This describes the pleasures that England has given the soldier, the fresh countryside full of flowers and streams and crisp air; but it also reminds the readers of the letter what the soldier’s cause for fighting is, he wants to preserve these great things for the next generation. He was able to take his England for granted, but now it is time to fight for what he has come to take for granted so that others may enjoy it as well.

The poem ends with a set of emotionally charged lines.

"Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given,
Her sights and sound; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven."

He is pouring out all the experiences that English has so kindly given him, and now rests at peace under an English heaven. This poem immortalizes what it is to be a true English soldier.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hopkin’s “Pied Beauty” is a colorful sonnet containing the beautiful imagery of God’s creation. The sonnet starts out by paying tribute to God for forming such things for us to enjoy.

“For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut falls; finches wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced---fold, fallow, and plough;”

He pays tribute for the sky “of coupled-colour” which I would think means white and blue. He pairs on the same line with the sky, the brinded cow, which is a cow with dark patches. This is similar to the sky with light patches of clouds. He mentions the colorful speckles of a trout. The “rose-moles all in stipple” I thought was a perfect way to describe the markings of a trout, very colorful and dotted all over. The “firecoal chesnut” also gives a great image of a bright orange chesnut falling through the air. When I read finches wings I had to look them up on google to see what he meant, and I must say, the golden finch has some of the prettiest wings I have seen on a bird, absolutely gorgeous. The image that was most clear for me though is the “Landscape plotted and pieced”, this was very easy to imagine because that is all I look at when I am in an airplane, I always choose the window seat and love to watch the terrain change from farm to farm. When you look down you see deep greens for a ripe harvest or a brown for freshly plowed it makes quite the quilt pattern.

Hopkin’s then goes on to praise all the things that are beautiful that he left out, “counter, original, spare, strange” he names them all. If you notice the word grouping in the previous selection, his word grouping is very nice in the sonnet, when read aloud you will notice that the sharp sounding words are in a line and then you have smooth sounds grouped together, its as pleasing to the ears as it is to the mind.

When I read this sonnet I can just envision a beautiful day in the country, no city for miles, just immersing myself in the colors of nature. This poem just makes you want to go outside and enjoy a bright summer day in the countryside.

Thomas Hardy

“The Darkling Thrush” seems to be another gloomy work of art from Hardy, where the main character seems to have lost all hope in this world and then, like a light house, a beam of hope comes toward him through the dark.

“I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.”

The beginning of this poem makes you feel tired and worn out to be honest. We open with the man in the poem leaning on a gate observing how bleak his surroundings have become and it seems as though he has given up and is just depressed at what he has been given. “When Frost was spectre-gray” makes the mood even more drab, he couldn’t just say gray it had to be a ghostly gray, a deathly gray. “The weakening eye of day” seems to be the sun making less and less of an impact on the earth the deeper into winter it gets. Studies show that depression is more common in the winter time due to lack of sunlight. So maybe as it is growing colder and dimmer, he is becoming more and more depressed.

“And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.”

The plants are all dead or in hibernation, the bushes look like “strings of broken lyres” and all the sane people are inside getting warm by the fire, why does this guy sit outside and wallow in his own misery? The entire poem gives me a dull and sorrowful mood, until we get to line 17, oh line 17, you couldn’t have come at a better time.

“At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of Joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.”

The first line above takes the reader from a monotonous sad poem to shouting out and proclaiming “At once a voice arose”, finally something upbeat. We come to find that a thrush has began to sing and bring hope to such a dreary day. Like a wave of light to break the dark plane. The man is confused, he doesn’t understand what the cause for all of this happy song is, doesn’t the thrush see how horrible the weather is? Can he just let it be?

“So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
…
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.”

The man questions the thresh’s jubilant song. He looks at his surroundings again and then asks himself if maybe the thresh knows something that he doesn’t know that might be cause for jubilation. I think Hardy is trying to end the poem with some irony, here is this horrible day and then enters the thrush to sing a joyful song and brighten it all up. For this man, the thrush could be too late, or it could be just what he needed to turn his frown upside down.

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill did not follow the norm of his time. Men were thought to be over their wives and own them in a sense. Mill had very different views from this and his views were even considered radical at this time.

“Mill advocated sexual equality, the right to divorce, universal suffrage, free speech, and proportional representation.”

All this sounds familiar to what we know today, but back then, many of these ideas were unheard of and people did not dare speak of them.

On March 6^th, 1851, after his marriage to Harriet Taylor, he wrote “Statement Repudiating the Rights of Husbands.” During that time, when a woman married, she entered into a state called coverture meaning that she was added into the legal personhood of her husband. She could not sign legal contracts or own her property. She was her husband’s property. Mill did not agree with this law. He wanted his wife to have the same privileges that he have and be his equal. He wanted more of a partnership and commitment with her rather than he basically own the rights to her.

“Statement Repudiating the Rights of Husbands” is a document which he wrote renouncing his rights as a husband under British law. He did not believe in them and therefore did not want them to have to apply to him. In this document, he states,

“the whole character of the marriage relation as constituted by law being such as both she and I entirely and conscientiously disapprove.”

In other words, both he and Harriet disapproved of the law giving the husband power so it was his duty to fix that and make his wife happy. The reason he gives for disapproving the law is that it gives one of the parties in the contract “legal power and control” over the other. The writing is simply a protest to the existing law of marriage because he feels people should know his feelings about it. In the last part of the document, he says that Harriet should have exactly the same rights that she had before she was even married at all.

“I declare it to be my will and intention, and the condition of the engagement between us, that she retains in all respects whatever the same absolute freedom of action, and freedom of disposal of herself and of all that does or may at any time belong to her, as if not such marriage had taken place.”

He wants her to act as if they had never gotten married. He does not want her to have to owe anything to him or feel like she is now owned by him. In his eyes, he loves her just how she is and he wants her to remain that way. The marriage did not gain him anymore rights, it just showed his love for her. I admire Mill for sticking up for what he believed in and not just going along with the rest of society. Sometimes that can be hard in life, but I have learned it is best to do what makes you happy and not just do what everyone thinks is the right thing to do.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

I think that Newman’s “A Definition of a Gentleman” should be a must read for ever man. The definition may date back to the Victorian age, but the principles and concepts carry on through the present.

A modern day gentleman is hard to find in its purist form, but that doesn’t mean that we as men cannot strive to be modern day gentlemen. Newman says

Hence it is that it is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself.

This selection almost sums up the entire definition. A gentleman is one who makes it his goal to make life easier for the people that surround him. He need not be the one to start a new idea, but he can be the one to agree with his friends and encourage and help them in their endeavors. A gentleman does not need to be loud and garner attention in a social setting, he should be the one who is sitting back out of the spotlight, seeing what needs to be done, and how he can help to make it so. I also enjoyed the following selection from the definition.

He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd;

He is constantly watching and taking in information, he treats the bashful with tenderness, the absurd with mercy, he does not make emotionally based decisions, he thinks about the situation and then returns with a response.

If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated minds; who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they find it.

It is most common for a gentleman to avoid an argument at all costs, but when forced to engage in an argument, he does so with the utmost tact. A true gentleman will not waste another’s time with pointless side arguments, he gets to the point and makes his case, he does not argue around the point and leave the issue unresolved. Everything that a gentleman does is done with an purpose and a reason.

I love this selection by Newman, it really reminds me of my upbringing. Raised in the catholic church, attending catholic all-boys high school, where we were taught to be southern gentlemen. And now even in college, I attend a smaller university and I am part of a fraternity that stresses the importance of being men of class. The definition of a gentleman is always evolving, but the concepts and ideas that provide the scaffolding to that definition remain the same throughout time.

Robert Browning

“Porphyria’s Lover” by Robert Browning was a very dark read for me, the mental state of the man in the poem is quite disturbing.

“The poem starts out by giving us a backdrop of the scene.

The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:” (ln 1-4)

These lines set the tone for the rest of the poem. I get a mental image of a rain beginning and shaking the tops of trees, and slowly it builds up to a violent storm that “tore the elm-tops down for spite.” The man at this time is waiting for his lover to come to him. When she arrives she brings warmth and security to the man.

“When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;”

The emotion from the black storm raging outside is eased by a soothing wamth and sense of safety when Porphyria arrives. But there is a problem still that looms,

“And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,”

He has this thought in his head that he always has to come last, and he doesn’t like it, he wants to be first. This is why he is upset when she calls him and he does not respond. Porphyria knows something is wrong so she tries to console him and make him feel better, because although he cannot believe it, she does care for him. Then on line 21 a change in his feelings toward her begins. She begins to tell him how she cannot fight the love she has for him anymore, and wants to give herself fully to him.

“Murmuring how she loved me---she
Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.”

He finally realizes that she wants to be with him and him only, but he isn’t sure he can trust her words, so he looks to something he can trust, her eyes.

“Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise”

To his surprise she was telling the truth, he had finally gained her full love. At this moment so many things are racing through his head, “she really loves me”, “how do I keep this love for ever?”, “Is she just playing with my heart again?”, “Is this a love that will last one night?” After thinking about all of these possibilities he decides the only way to ease his mind is to kill her in this moment of true love and freeze this emotion he is experiencing, forever.

“A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.”

The man is trying to give himself some validation that he is doing the right thing by telling himself that she felt no pain, meanwhile she is being strangled to death. And to cap it all off, the final image we are given here is the man sitting with the woman’s head on his shoulder with her eyes open. They are both not moving, he is just enjoying the moment as long as he can.

“And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!”

He again gives him self validation for his job well done by saying that God has not said a word, so I must have done well.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote personal poems while she was in her courtship with Robert Browning. In these sonnets, her pure love for Robert can be seen. It is evident that she did not write these sonnets with the intention of publishing them. She wrote them with her whole heart solely for Robert.

Sonnet 21 was an emotional poem about her love but still filled with sadness. The beginning starts off with her pleading to Robert.

“Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me” (ln 1-2)

Throughout the poem she is pleading with Robert to tell her over and over again that he loves her so that she can be reassured that his feelings are as strong for her as hers are for him. She says that repeated over and over again, it seems like a cuckoo-song. He treats it unimportant but she reminds him

“Remember, never to the hill or plain,
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed” (ln 4-5)

She is saying that even though the cuckoo song seems repetitive and unnecessary at times, there is nowhere that spring will ever come to without first the sound of the “cuckoo-strain.” Her doubt in his love begins to show in the next lines.

“Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain
Cry, “Speak once more – thou lovest!” (ln 7-10)

She seems to doubt his love for her and feels that she is in the dark in their love. She wants him to reassure her and make her feel that she should not have to doubt. He must do it with more than his words though because even though she is hearing him tell her that he loves her over and over again she still has doubt inside of her. She questions whether there he can tell her too many times that he loves her and uses examples such as the stars and flowers saying that there never can be too many.

“Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?” (ln 9-11)

She finally exclaims using repetition to get her point across to him, “Say thou dost love me, love me, love me.” She yearns to feel his love and is pleading with him to give it to her. The last line of the poem is key to her feelings and how she is really feeling. She says

“ – only minding, Dear, to love me also in silence with thy soul” (ln 14)

He can tell her that he loves her over and over again, but until he really means it, she will be able to tell that he does not mean it with his soul.

Lord Alfred Tennyson

Lord Alfred Tennyson’s last poem of every collection of his work is “Crossing the Bar.” He requested it to be this way even though it is not the last poem that he wrote. It fits that it is his last poem though because the poem is a metaphor for the crossing over into death.

The poem can be read and interpreted in two ways. It can be read literally as someone sailing out to see, or it can be like Tennyson preparing for and accepting his death. The poem takes place at sunset so it can symbolize the end of someone’s life. He accepts that he is headed towards sunset and only asks one thing.

“May there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea” (ln 3-4)

Here the moaning of the bar comes from waves crashing against the sand bar. When the water is rougher, the waves can be heard crashing against it. Someone sailing through it would not want to hear “moaning of the bar.” Also, here he means that he does not want anyone crying for him when he dies. He wishes for a painless death and no sadness coming from his loved ones. He mentions that the tide is “too full for sound and foam.” He expects a peaceful crossing of the bar because he does not hear anything.

“Such a tide as moving seems asleep” (ln 5)

The third stanza repeats the fact that he does not want any sadness when he dies. Right now he is in “twilight and evening bell” and after this he will be in the dark. He is not sad or frightened by what is to come because he uses peaceful words to describe his fate. Twilight and evening are peaceful times of the day and he is at peace even though it will be dark soon. He asks for no sadness more directly this time.

“And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;” (ln 11-12)

The last stanza made it clear to me that he was talking about his own death. He tells us that the flood may take him far away “from out our bourne of Time and Place” meaning he will be taken far away from the boundary that they now know. He is excited about his fate and what he will see “crossing the bar.” He hopes to see his “Pilot face to face.” Pilot is capitalized in the poem showing that it is something important. Here he means that he hopes to see God face to face, who has piloted his life thus far.

I found this poem moving and I like the way that it compares death to something peaceful as riding out to sea. It is evident that Tennyson is prepared for what will happen to him and has accepted death as his next step in life.

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle’s “Know Thy Work” is a very inspiring and motivational writing. The passage taken from “Labour” is about the power and good that comes from a working man. In the opening lines of the writing Carlyle writes the following.

“For there is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in Work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works:” (ln 1-3)

I like how Carlyle empowers the act of working with nobleness and sacredness. It really expresses the weight that is contained within a self-motivated, industrious man. Throughout the selection Carlyle talks about how it is vitally important to be motivated to work. “In Idleness alone is there perpetual despair.”, this quote embodies a very true fact, idle hands accomplish nothing, idle hands are a waste of time and energy. In the reading Carlyle preaches that one must find work that he truly enjoys or he will not work as vigorously at his work. This is very true, if you don’t enjoy what you do, you won’t look forward to doing it, and therefore, put it off.

This passage reminds me a lot of my own life. When I was younger I was always taught to be a hard worker and to finish the task at hand so that I could move on to the next task in line. My dad would wake me up early on the weekends to get stuff done around the house, because he would say “You are wasting the day away in bed.” When I was younger I just didn’t care as much, but looking back on this, he was right, as long as you get enough sleep, there is no point to sleeping in and “wasting away the daylight” as he put it. I think that is now why when I do a project I do it all at once until completion. It is very hard for me to start a project and come back to it later and finish it, I just want to finish it and get it done.

In the last paragraph of the selection Carlyle says

“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.”

The key word here is his, he found his work, not just work. This reminds me of what my mother is always telling me, “You need to find a job that you will enjoy or you won’t have a hapy life.” She speaks from experience and speaks truth, she knows that if you are not happy at your job, then you will not be happy outside of your job; after all, isn’t quality of life better than quantity of work completed? I think that is what Carlyle is getting at here, he wants everyone to find their calling and their “life’s work” and pursue it, pursue it will one hundred percent of their energy. Carlyle wants us to live for our work, not work to live. We need to live everyday to the fullest, and as my high school principal would say at every school assembly “Carpe Diem.”

Charles Dickens

Industrialism was a time filled with great change that most were not ready for. Society had experienced little change for the last thousand years and all of a sudden industrialism began. One aspect of industrialism that was rejected at first was the moving in of the railways. People saw these as disrupting their community and did not want to see them. In Charles Dickens, “The Coming of the Railway” from Dombey and Son, the railway coming is described in a negative manner and the negative tone of the community is displayed as well.

The passage opens up comparing the railroad coming in like the aftermath of an earthquake.

“The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period, rent the whole neighborhood to its centre. Traces of its course were visible on every side. Houses were knocked down; streets broken through and stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground; enormous heaps of earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were undermined and shaking, propped by great beams of wood”

The railway is splitting the community and damaging everything in its path just as an earthquake would do if it were to tear through a city. It is not something the community asked for, it is just something that came all of a sudden without warning. The people’s reactions to the earthquake are described as “hotsprings and fiery eruptions.” He then says, “the usual attendants upon earthquakes lent their contributions of confusion to the scene.” The people of the community not accepting the railway did not help the situation. The anger and fury with the situation only further confused everything and made it worse. The city seemed to be heating up as the railway made its way through. “Boiling water hissed and heaved within dilapidated walls” and “the glare and roar of flames came issuing forth.”

The previous paragraph is then summarized in the next paragraph briefly.

“In Short, the yet unfinished and unopened Railroad was in progress, and, from the very core of all this dire disorder, trailed smoothly away, upon its mighty course of civilization and improvement.”

The railroad is not described as something here as something that tears a community, but more something that takes over and is “mighty.” Even as the railroad was coming in inevitably, people were still nervous to own the railroad. A tavern that took its sign to be “Railway Arms” is described as being “rash enterprise.” Societies rarely accept change and harshly rejected this change.

“nothing was the better for it, or thought of being so. If the miserable waster ground lying near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it to scorn, like many of the miserable neighbours.”

No one gave the railroad a chance and allowed themselves be open to a new possibility of change. Change can be very good, but it is rarely openly accepted with open arms at first. As seen with the railway, people rejected it, but they could not stop it. Society quickly changed after the railroads came in and so did the views of the people.

John Keats

“Bright Star” by John Keats is a great work that expresses his love for someone by describing his jealousy for the steadfastness of a star.

“Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thow art” (ln 1)

He describes the star as watching “with eternal lids apart, like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite.” In his description, the star is watching the world, always awake, always shining brightly. It is patient and unchanging, something that the speaker can always count on to watch over. Keats then describes all that the star is watching.

“The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen masque
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors” (ln 5-8)

The star is watching the waters moving with a religious purpose. The water is purifying the ground underneath it as it rushes over the ground washing its surface. In addition, the snow can also be seen as purifying the ground beneath it as it masks the mountains and moors.

In the next lines, the scene changes to the speaker and his love.

“pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, to feel for ever its soft swell and fall” (ln 10-11)

He wishes to be like the star, steadfast in its ways, so that he may be able to stay as he is now forever. The rise and fall of her breast seems peaceful and everlasting to him in that moment.

In the last two lines, he gives two possibilities for himself.

“Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever – or else swoon to death” (ln 14-15)

In his eyes he has two options. Either he can either be in love forever with this woman, or what seems like forever, or he can die when he is at his utmost happiness from swooning to death. Either way, his eternal bliss of loving this woman will be everlasting and “steadfast.”

It is interesting that Keats compares the steadfastness of the “bright star” in the sky to the feeling he has when he is with his love. He wants to have the same steadfastness that the star has, with its lids always open, always watching the Earth beneath it. In this same sense, he wishes for the feelings for his love and the happiness that he feels to be unchanging and everlasting.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” is a sonnet about a king who had hoped that his name would become timeless, and his greatness immortalized.

The work starts off with Shelley taking the form of a traveler from “an antique land” he is the story teller in this case.

"Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. . . . Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,"(ln 1-3)

The wording of the statue is key in this instance. “Two vast and trunkless legs” makes you think that this thing was huge. Trunks gives you the image of these giant tree size legs just shooting out of the ground. The word vast makes you think they are endless, you can’t even see around them. The key word here though is trunkless, the trunks are gone, just like the king. The second part of the passage talks about a sunken face in the sand. The face’s “frown”, “wrinkled lip”, and “sneer of cold command” all tell you that this king was not well liked by his people, or at least not by the sculptor he chose to make this statue. Those features show that this king was power hungry and was driven by the fact that he was the almighty king and no one ruled above him.

"Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed." (ln 6-8)

Shelley tells us of how Ozymandias’ kingly personality has lived on in the statues features longer than the King’s name and reputation. The king was trying to immortalize his name and greatness, but just like his own mortality, everything is worn away in time.

Shelley ends the sonnet with what is inscribed on the statue’s base.

[“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,]

This quote is extremely ironic, because if you were to walk by it in its current state you would look at it and laugh. I’m looking at your works, they are ruins, a head of a statue and half of some legs. It gives an image of the king yelling out the inscription while his head is half buried into the endless sands where no one can hear him. It reminds me a lot of the black knight in Monty Python, even after he is a stump with no legs or arms he still thinks he is the better. It gives a rather humorous end to a sonnet about a great king who failed in his goal to be immortalized. In the end, time swallows everything, including the great king Ozymandias.

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Lord Byron’s “She walks in beauty” is a great piece of work that sets us as the reader in a third person perspective gazing in on the world of this perfect woman. The poem has a repetitive theme of darkness and light contained within the woman.

"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:" (ln 1-4)

Here we are given the image of a dark night which would be a very overpowering black, but it is balanced out by the stars within it. Just as he has taken the natural balance of dark and light, Byron compares the woman to one of the most beautiful things in all of nature, a clear star lit sky.

Perfection is a very delicate thing, and in line seven when Byron tells us “One shade more, one ray less” we know that the woman he speaks of is in his eyes the embodiment of that fine balance.

Once again in lines nine and ten, the complimenting characteristics of dark and light come into play.

"Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o’er her face;"

Here we get the image of the flowing raven black hair slowly melting into the light captured on her face. The attention in the third stanza moves onto the individual aspects of the face.

"And on that cheek, and o’ver that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent," (ln 13-14)

Here the dark and light are not even mentioned, it is the mental image that the reader gets from the words cheek and brow that complete the circle. When you think of cheek, you think of a very light word, you say it fast and high pitched, and everyone knows that cheeks are known for being rosy and full of light. You then move onto brow, a very low, deep sounding word that commands presence. When you get the mental image of a brow you see a shade for the eyes.

In the last two lines of the poem he finally talks of her inner beauty.

"A mind at peace with all below
A heart whose love is innocent!" (ln 17-18)

He views her from the outside in and finally when he reaches her heart he realizes the greatest thing of all, an innocent heart. This innocence is what draws him to her in the first place, when you are a dark person, you drawn to the light, you want to bring down the light, bring it into the darkness and corrupt it, and I think that is where the infatuation with this woman makes its roots.

Samuel Coleridge

In “Work Without Hope,” by Samuel Coleridge, the speaker contrasts himself with the busy and lively nature around him. He is full of despair as he watches all that is going on around him and knows that he is not contributing to it. In the first six lines, he describes nature at work:

“Slugs leave their lair –
The bees are stirring – birds are on the wing –
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!” (ln 1-4).

In the next line, he contrasts the first four lines with a description of himself. He states, “And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.” He describes himself as being out of place in this scene. Everything seems to be busy and productive except for him. It is this feeling that gives him his feeling of despair. He feels like an outsider looking in, rather than a part of nature. He is simply an observer watching everything going on around him.

In the next stanza the speaker speaks to nature directly.

“Bloom, O ye amaranths! Bloom for whom ye may, for me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!” (ln 9-10)

He realizes that the beauty of nature and all of its wonderment was not created for him. He does not feel worthy enough to have the blooms be for him. After all, he is merely an observer. He strolls along miserably “lips unbrightened, wreathless brow.” A lifeless and dreary image of him is given that certainly contrasts the lively nature surrounding him.

Coleridge’s overall theme and message in the sonnet are in the last two lines.

“Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, and Hope without an object cannot live” (ln 13-14)

Hope is capitalized and mentioned twice in these lines because it is the thing that he needs to be able to be productive in his world. Drawing nectar through a sieve is an impossible task and so is work without hope. To want to do some sort of work, there must be some sort of hope of making things better. This is why Hope must have an object also. Hope does not exist by itself. There must be an object, something to hope for, or it will eventually die. The speaker in the poem perhaps is missing this object, something for which to hope. Without hope, he is unable to work and contribute to nature causing him to only be the observer in this poem.

Dorothy Wordsworth

After reading William Wordsworth, I liked reading Dorothy Wordsworth, his sister’s works. Even though she wrote never expecting to be published, her poetry was still good and competitive to the other romantics writing during her time. Her journals seemed to be her most personal works and in my opinion, her best. In the introduction it says that in her Grasmere journal, she was writing to give William “pleasure.” She seems to be writing more from her heart in this case and is able to really show who she is as a writer.

I enjoyed reading “A Vision of the Moon” from The Grasmere Journals. It is obvious from her writings that Dorothy Wordsworth has some of the same feelings towards nature as her brother William. As nature stirred him to write, it did the same for her as well.

“there was something in the air that compelled me to serious thought – the hills were large, closed in by the sky.”

She feels the presence of the beautiful moon and it causes her to take in all that is around her in serious thought. She also gives nature life in her writing just as her brother does. She describes the sky closing in around the hills. Everything seems to have a purpose and its own spirit. She does not merely see the mountains and sky wholly as nature. Separately they are their own beings.

Her descriptions in the passage really help the reader to be able to imagine her vision of the moon in the dark sky.

“O the unutterable darkness of the sky & the Earth below the Moon! & the glorious brightness of the moon itself! There was a vivid sparkling streak of light at this end of Rydale water but the rest was very dark & Loughrigg fell and Silver How were white & bright as if they were covered with hoar frost.”

She uses contrasting images to show how magnificent the moon is. A bright moon is depicted against a dark sky and earth. It is the center of Dorothy’s attention in her vision and in the image she creates for the reader. The only other light in the sky is the reflection of the moon in the water looking back at itself. As she travels home, she creates another beautiful image from the moon.

“Once there was no moonlight to be seen but upon the Island house & the promontory of the Island where it stands.” She continues to say, “That needs to be a holy place.”

The image of the moon only shining on the house and no where else makes the house seem out of the ordinary and special. In fact, the moon shining on it makes it holy in her eyes. Her deep connection with nature in a spiritual sense is seen here. Her vision of the moon becomes much like a religious and spiritual experience for her. Her writing caused me to see the moon in a different way. It is the one light against total darkness in the sky each night. Seems pretty incredible.

William Wordsworth

In “The world is too much with us” by William Wordsworth, I can really see Wordsworth’s passion for nature. In the sonnet, he is frustrated with the world and the way people now view nature. The world has fallen away from nature and moved more towards materialism and getting and spending. In the first 8 lines of the sonnet, Wordsworth explains and gives reasons why he thinks that humanity has fallen away from nature. He explains that people are “getting and spending” and says,

Little we see in nature that is ours; we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” (ln 4-5).

Wordsworth is deeply frustrated and throughout the poem his emotions and frustrations with the subject grows. He then describes beautiful things in nature which one would expect to initiate a response from people, yet he says, “we are out of tune.” He describes the sea baring her bosom to the moon, the howling winds, and sleeping flowers. Still, society remains unmoved.

In line 9, Wordsworth’s frustration seems to have peaked when he exclaims,

“Great God! I’d rather be a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn” (ln 9-10).

Here he gives his solution and resolution to his problem. Wordsworth is so upset with humanity and their fall away from his passion, that he would rather become a Pagan than fall into what the rest of society is falling into. He would rather worship nature and have sight of “Proteus rising from the sea” or hear “old Triton blow his wreathed horn.” Wordsworth’s resolution to his problem seems sort of dramatic and overreacting to the problem. It just displays how great his feelings are of nature. He worships nature and to see everyone else around him not valuing nature in the same way he does deeply bothers and troubles him.

This poem made me think about how much the world has fallen out of touch with nature since the poem was written. It even makes me see just how much many people fall out of touch with nature as they grow older. I remember when I was little I use to go hiking with my brothers and play outside to get in as much sunlight and fresh air as I could each day. It’s amazing how you can look at a vast river with such amazement and years later see it in a completely different way. Today it seems like everyone around me is always so busy. Maybe it would be good for all of us to just stop and take a deep breath and really appreciate all that God made for us.

William Blake

In William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and of Experience”, the Songs of Experience are written as a dim contrast to the bright and upbeat emotions encapsulated in the Songs of Innocence. In “The Lamb”, the author presents a very naïve character to the reader in a poem with very simple structure.

“Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed” (ln 1-3)

The voice in the poem speaks to the lamb as if speaking to a child. The voice bombards the lamb with questions as if he were seeking some sort of response from the lamb to show maybe that the lamb is aware of its surroundings. But in the second stanza it seems that all of this bombardment was rhetorical; because he goes on to answer the questions for the lamb, as if he is saying “I know you don’t know the answers, you are just a child, I’ll tell you.” Then at the end of the poem the voice goes on to praise the Lord for making such a beautiful creature.

The Lamb’s counterpart is “The Tyger.” All of the good and white light put into the lamb is evened out by the evil and darkness that is in the Tyger. The voice in “The Tyger” is not one of a gleeful teacher, but one of a confused admirer.

“When the stars threw down their spears And water’d heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb mak e thee?”(ln 17-20)

The voice is amazed that such a foul creature could possibly be crafted by the same hands that made the lamb. When I read “The Tyger” I visualize this black smoking tiger with burning eyes, it is a very satanic image. And when I imagine the lamb, it is this fluffy pure white lamb just frolicking in the green grass. The voice in both “The Tyger” and “The Lamb” is the same person, and now later in his days he has come to find that God has made both Lamb and Tyger and he is confused, because he has been under the impression that God was a loving, merciful God, not a cruel God that would craft such things as the Tyger.

I think that the voice in both “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” is upset because everything that he learned in his innocence has now come to be questioned as he has gained experience. I would say to this voice, would the Lamb be so great if there were not a Tyger to contrast it? If we did not have the bad, we would not have the good, the good would just be normal, expected. In order to enjoy the good, one must have experienced the bad aswell.