James Joyce

I felt like James Joyce was a lot different from the other authors that we have read in this course. I am always interested in reading authors that are from Ireland because that is where my mom and dad are from. When I told them that I was reading his work they both knew exactly who he was because they had to also read him in school. He had a very different technique when he was writing especially after reading a story from the “Dubliners”. When he was finished writing these stories he claimed that he had “taken the first step toward the spiritual liberation of my country”. These stories were designed to have Irish people look at their lives whether they were mundane or not and they were pointed to looking in the home, hearts, and minds of the people.

After reading “Clay” which is an excerpt from the “Dubliners” I found it very boring. I do not understand how anyone would enjoy reading stories that really do not have anything happening in them. Maria is a maid at a Protestant Charity house which is for troubled women. This whole story just describes what happens in her day.

It goes through all of her actions through the day such as her maid duties, putting out her Sunday dress, going into town to buy cakes for her dinner party, and finally going to that dinner party. I am finding it very difficult to say anything about this story and it is hard to do interpretations because everything seems pretty clear.

I think that the pivotal moment in this book where there is some sort of story is while Maria is playing the Halloween game with the children. “She moved her hand about here and there in the air and descended on one of the saucers. She felt a soft we substance with her fingers and was surprised that nobody spoke or took off her bandage.” In this quote, she picks the clay which is supposed to be a sign of early death. I am not sure why Joyce put this part in the story because it does not go with the rest of the mundane story.

In the last part of this story, Maria sings to the group but sings the same verse twice but no one would correct her. For some reason, Joe is so moved by this that he begins to cry and to keep his mind off of it, he asks his wife for the corkscrew. For some reason, Joe seems to have deep feelings for Maria. I learned that Maria took care of him and his brother while they were growing up, but while through the story I seemed to take that Joe may have some stronger feelings toward Maria. He would have to in order to cry at a song that she was singing.

I know that this story was to show the true life of an Irish person and I believe it achieved that goal; however, I do not want to read about someone’s everyday life. I read stories for adventure and imagination. I think that James Joyce is one of my least favorite authors that we have read during this class.

Virginia Woolf

Viginia Woolf had a very hard and painful childhood. She continually had emotional breakdowns which ended up in her committing suicide. When she was a child, her mother died then her substitute mother, then her father, and also her brother. I can understand why she was having breakdowns because I could not imagine having to deal with all of this loss. I strongly believe that all of these events in her life had a great deal of impact in her works. One story that I felt was very impacted was "The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection".

While I was reading this story, I did not completely understand the significance of it. It was not until the last couple of lines that I think I was able to come up with an idea of what it was about. In the beginning, Woolf makes it perfectly clear that it is not good to have a looking glass in ones home. I did not understand why a looking glass would be a bad thing because every home has a mirror.

I am still not sure who the speaker of this story is supposed to be. I know it can not be Isabella because she is the one that is being talked about, so maybe someone else is in the house observing all of the events taking place. This speaker talks about the characteristics of this mirror. In the introduction, I learned that Woolf likes to give ordinary objects some kind of subject. It seems like the mirror has two different sides. It can tell the complete truth by imitating common orjects that are placed in front of it such as the letters that are placed on the table. It can also show things that do not seem to be there. "The room that afternoon was full of such shy creatures, lights and shadows, curtains blowing, petals falling".

After introducing the mirror, the speaker introduces the woman that the story is about, Isabella Tyson. She is between the ages of 55 and 60, and she supposedly leads a good life because of all the riches that she has. She has never married but it seems that she has been in love before, "she had never married, and yet, judging from the mask like indifference of her face, she had gone through twenty times more of passion and experience than those whose loves are trumpeted forth for all the world to hear".

This story continues with trying to find the inner truth of Isabella which seems to have never been done before. She is a very quite person who seems like she lives a perfect life. One line that really struck me was "To cut an overgrown branch saddened her because it had once lived, and life was dear to her. Yes, and at the same time the fall of the branch would suggest to her how she must die herself and all the futility and evanescence of things". After reading this, I felt like this was Woolf talking. She had gone through so many deaths in her life and I think this is her talking about the importance of life. This is one of those times that her personal tragedies had an impact on her personal beliefs and writings.

It is not until the end of this story that the truth is revealed. Once Isabella stands in front of the looking glass naked, it can read her truth, "And there was nothing. Isabella was perfectly empty. She had no thoughts". This is a harsh reality, but it is seen that money cannot buy happiness. I think there are times when Woolf feels alone due to her losses and maybe Isabella is a side of her personality. Most people do not like to hear the truths about themselves and it can be a very painful process. I think that is why this story is advocating not have looking-glasses in ones room because of the truth they can bring.

T.S. Eliot

I found T.S. Eliot a little difficult to read due to the way that he phrases his sentences. This is the first American author that we have got to read in this course, and it was very interesting to learn about his amazing American ancestry: president of Harvard University, United States presidents, and the founder of Washington University. I feel that Eliot was born into a family that did not accept less than greatest which was able to achieve. One thing that I also found interesting was that even though he was born in America, his poetry was extremely influenced by the British and French poetry because he chose to study abroad. If he had not have done this, his poetry would not be where it is today.

A poem that I had a little difficulty with but thought was funny when I could understand it was, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock”. This, in fact, was not a love story that I was expecting from reading the title, but about a man who is wrestling with his own psyche. I think that Eliot did a good job of writing about the man’s thoughts, because this is the way that people actually think when in situations like these. Most people, when facing things such as talking to a person whom they are attracted to, only think about their flaws instead of their attributes.

Alfred Prufock seems to have seen a woman that he would like to talk to, “In the room the women come and go”; however, he gets very nervous and is fighting with himself as to whether it is worth it to go and talk to her or not. I think that this poems starts with Prufrock thinking that he is going to be able to talk to this lady and his seems to be filled with confidence. The poem starts by saying, “Let us go then, you and I,/ When the evening is spread out against the sky.” I think this is supposed to show that he plans to take this woman out and it is not until he sees her that he panics. This kind of goes along with the saying “you can talk the talk but can you walk the walk”.

After seeing this woman, he thinks that he should turn around. He is then in an argument with himself, talking about all his flaws. On example is, “With a bald spot in the middle of my hair- (They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’”. I can relate to this poem and they way that he is thinking. There are times when I really want to impress someone but it is natural for me as well as anyone else to second guess oneself. Along with fearing what she will think of his physical attributes he also fears what he will actually say to her. When people are nervous, some people become mute, some people ramble, and others may say inappropriate things by mistake. “Then how should I begin/ To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?” Further along in the poem he also claims, “It is impossible to say just what I mean!” This just shows common nerves when being in an awkward situation.

It seems that at the end of this argument with his psyche he convinces himself that he and this woman will never be able to be together. “No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord”. I think that the message that Eliot is trying to relay to his audience is not to distance oneself from the world. If everyone just settled for what they think they deserve, no one would be able to get ahead in life. Eliot is portraying this common psyche of people to try and should them that they should not act this way.

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was a poet who modernized and shaped Irish poetry. His family was part of the Anglo Irish Protestant ascendancy; however, he wanted to be able to reconcile the British and Irish Catholic tradition through his poetry. He lived a poor life in his childhood and his family never was financially stable. His father kept moving the family from England to Ireland trying to make it as an artist. It was though that Yeats would follow in that path till it was apparent that his talents were in poetry. As mentioned earlier, he wanted to unite the different views of British and Catholic tradition so he attended political debates to get a feel for the issues. This sparked a lot of creativity in his mind which influenced his poetry.

Another main influence of his poetry came after meeting Maud Gonne. She quickly became the love of his life and a huge inspiration to his work. He was a victim of unrequited love and she refused to marry him. All of the beauty and love that Yeats refers to in his poetry have some relation to him and I really noticed it in one of his poems called, “The Wild Swans at Coole”.

This poem is about a person who walks down to the water every autumn to admire the beauty of the swans. He takes into account the beauty of the surroundings as well and that of the swans and this is usually what had cheered him up in the past. This had been a ritual for this man for nineteen years now.

After the first two stanzas, it shows that the man’s feeling has changed since the previous eighteen years by saying, “And now my heart is sore./ All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,/ The first time on this shore”. I think that this poem may have been written after his poem, “No Second Troy”. If this is true, then Yeats has finally come to the realization that he will never be with Maude Gonne and maybe his outlook on the world has changed. Maybe he can no longer see the beauty of the world, because this woman was his inspiration for seeing the world’s beauty. It really seems like this woman had had a great impact on him and this is what happens to people who suffer from unrequited love.

The next stanza talks about how the swans have never changed making it apparent that just the man has changed. Even though the swans have the same love for on another he is unable to be happy with this love anymore. While reading this stanza, I felt that the man was feeling jealous and maybe wanted to have the same feelings that these swans have for one another. “Their hearts have not grown old;/ Passion or conquest, wander where they will,/ Attend upon them still.” Even after all this time, the love that these swans is so great that they still feel the same way and this is the greatest passion of the man.

The last stanza left me feeling sad. The poem ends by saying, “Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day/ To find they have flown away?” I think that this is suppose to show that the man is getting increasing depressed and the beauty keeps fading until one day he will not be able to see the beauty of the world at all. I think that Yeats is trying to relay his emotion through this poem by stating that his surroundings are starting to look duller and duller until one day he will not even be able to appreciate things to an extent. It seems to me that Gonne has literally broken Yeats heart and it is going to take a long time for those wounds to heal.

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy seems to be a person who looked at a glass of water and said that it was half empty. During his lifetime, he wrote both poetry and fiction but seemed to add a flavor of darkness in most of these works. Most of his topics were related to how the universe was to have a hostile and terrible fate which is seen in his works.

I enjoyed reading his poem, “The Convergence of the Twain”. This sparked an interest in me after reading the subtitle “Line on the loss of the ‘Titanic’” because this happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time and I was interested to see Hardy’s interpretation of this tragic incident.

When I was reading each of the verses of this poem I noticed a trend. The first two lines seemed to be describing the wonderful features and positive attitudes of the ship while the last line ended with a dark note contradicting the two precious lines. This may not be true for all of the verses, but it defiantly seems to be this way for the first eight.

“In a solitude of the sea/ Deep from human vanity,/ And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.” When I read this first verse, I felt like Hardy was saying that the pride of the people that built this fantastic ship was the cause for the ship to sink. This statement is better supported after the eighth verse. It seemed that the boat had become so big and almighty, even as the iceberg grew bigger, it was still unable to be seen. I think that Hardy tried to have a moral in the story that is bigger than that of just the story of the Titanic. I think he was trying to say that pride gets in the way of judgment. Those people who think that they are better than others may get crushed by someone and not even see it coming.

This poem ends with, “Till the Spinner of the Years/ Said ‘Now!’ And each one hears,/ And consummation comes, and jars to hemispheres”. I think this is yet another lesson that Hardy is trying to convey to his audience. I believe this is suppose to mean that when things come together and meet; they will be forever linked to each other just like the iceberg and the Titanic. This linkage can either be tragic as seen in this example or it can be positive.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

After reading the introduction of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s section of this book, I realized that he was a man continuously looking for meaning in the world. I think that he was trying to do this through faith, but his faith kept wavering when he would go through hard times. In the end, I do not think he ever found what he was looking for a in essence died alone in Ireland.

One poem that I felt showed his two sides of religious faith and search to find God’s work in order to restore his faith was “God’s Grandeur”. This poem is divided into three different verses, which I feel reflect three different viewpoints. Its starts by talking about the beauty of God and nature, then it seems like Hopkins is showing a little wavering in faith, and then it ends with that faith restored.

The first verse is reflecting on natural beauty, God, and nature. Hopkins shows his desire to find God in nature by reflecting on what he calls God’s “charge”. It is like God has some sort of electrical current that is seen once in a while through the “shining from shook foil”. When I read this statement, I felt like he has maybe seem some sort of lightning, more specifically heat lightning, and believed it was God communicating with the world. He also asks why man does not believe in this power from all of this proof. This seems like not only is he asking this to others but maybe he is relaying this question to himself and the fact that he lets his faith go.

The second verse talks about how the world is getting continuously moving away from God, “Generations have trod, have trod, have trod”. He believes that the world has finally turned itself completely from God and is more focused on business and personal gain. This verse may reflect Hopkins’s viewpoint when he himself has turned from God. Even though he sees the signs, he continuously fights with his faith when he has to deal with the lifestyle of being a priest.

I think that the final verse restores his faith once more in God and the world. Even though the people may be turning from God, God will never turn away from the people. He uses a metaphor to describe this relationship, “And though the last lights off the black West went/ Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward”. Just like every morning comes once again, so will God. He ends this poem by basically saying that God will restore faith in the world by giving birth to a new, more spiritual world. I think by thinking this way, it gives Hopkins hope especially when he in the bad times of his life.

John Stuart Mill

After reading, John Staurt Mill, I feel that he is very different from some of the other authors which we have read so far. Instead of presenting his ideas through a story or poetry, he simply wrote down his personal opinions for others to read. He grew up with very radical views which include avocation of sexual equality, the right to divorce, universal suffrage, free speech, and proportional representation. He had no problem in trying to be a social reformer and chose to publish his personal beliefs. He was fortunate to meet his future wide, Harriet Taylor, who shared his common views and he claims helped him write his great works.

His work, “On Liberty”, is dedicated to defense of an individual’s rights. It is hard to imagine having to do this at a time because I have grown up in a country where these rights are basically just given to us. I feel like we should all be thankful to writers such as Mill because they are the reason that we life in a free country. Individual rights should not be taken for granted because people had to fight hard to get them.

In the second chapter of this work, he is defending people’s rights to express there opinion which I am connecting it with their right to freedom of speech. I could not imagine this being an issue but when I started to read this all I could think about was all of the major revolutions in the world that would not have occurred if people did not have this right. When he says, “Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it” I feel like he is trying to say that there will never be any kind of revolutions or movement toward the truth without this freedom to express ones opinions. For example, we would all still think the world is flat and that all the planets and sun revolve around the earth instead of around the sun.

There was a line that I really liked in the beginning of this chapter, “If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” After reading this statement, I could tell that Mill is very passionate about his argument and sticks with his point of view in all circumstance. When dealing with these issues, I think Mill looks at them in black and white without any grey areas.

I am in full agreement with Mill’s views on the right of people to express there own opinions. He believes that it is morally wrong and that a viewpoint that is popular does not necessarily make it correct. “We have no recognized the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion”. When I read this statement, I felt like it was a very true statement and he had done a good job of expressing all the pros for this topic.

Robert Browning

Robert Browning did not receive the sudden success that his wife Elizabeth had. Unlike most of the writers of that time, he did not want to relay his own personality through his poetry which made it more difficult for readers to feel the same sense of passion while reading his work. He found his personal talent after he starting writing poems where the star in the work had an aberrant personality that the reader could sympathize or identify with. Browning brought new complex levels to dramatic monologue.

Browning had the tendency to make his stars tell their own deep dark secrets, but in order to figure it out the reader needs to pay close attention to the words. One example of this is Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess”. The speaker in this poem is supposed to represent Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. He is in negotiation with a father of a woman who he plans on marrying. They stop to look at a portrait of the old duchess, his last wife, who had recently died, where poison was suspected. By the end of this poem, I felt like he was the one responsible for this young lady’s death.

In the beginning, the father and the duke stop in front of the portrait to discuss the duchess. Even at this point, I knew that the duke did not feel anything for this woman because instead of reflecting on her and her personality, he chose to talk about the artist and when the painting was done. It was as if he was talking about this portrait as he would have talked about any other portrait in the palace.

Continuing in the poem, the duke’s true personality started to come out when he was talking about things that angered him about his duchess. “A heart- how shall I say? – too soon made glad,/ Too easily impressed; she liked whate’ver/ She looked on”. It seems like the duke thought she was a huge flirt and she liked to talk to any type of man. This seemed to make him very jealous and upset because I think he felt like he was being taken for granted. I think he believed that when she was smiling at him, she might have been cheating on him so he had to do something about that, “I gave commands;/ Then all smiles stopped together”.

After reading this, I could feel the duke’s bitterness and his desire to have this woman out of his life. I really believe that he had a hand in her death. This poem ends with the father and duke walking away from the portrait and going to look at another one, “Notice Neptune, though,/ Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,/ Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me”. He spoke about this second portrait in a similar way that he did the first one which shows me the indifference he had for his duchess. I would think that someone who lost their wife and was truly upset about it would have some sort of sad feeling when talking about a portrait of her.

I feel like Browning wrote this poem with an open ending so the reader can make their own interpretation of what happened. He did not talk about the death of the duchess or even how she died, so the reader must decide what the duke meant by what he was saying. My personal feeling was that he did not like this woman and the way she made him feel so he got rid of her. I felt like it was very ironic that he was telling this story to the father of the new woman that he wanted to marry. If my father heard this story, I do not think that he would allow me to marry him.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I have enjoyed reading the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning the most so far. I am a typical girl that loves watching chick flicks and reading corny books, so reading about her love for her husband was really exciting for me. She truly deserved to find someone like Robert after the life that she had lived: she was very sick, her mother died, she was forced to leave her home, and then she had to live in seclusion for many years. When she met Robert, her life completely changed and it also had a very big impact on her writing.

The poem that really struck my eye was the “Sonnets from the Portuguese”. I really felt her love for this man through these sonnets and I felt like she was a lucky woman. All women dream about the time that they are going to meet the man of their dreams and I feel like Elizabeth really did. There were three of these sonnets that I enjoyed the most and they were the first, twenty first, and the thirty eighth.

I think that the first sonnet was expressing how she felt before she had the opportunity to meet this man. She was a woman growing up that desired love; however, she lived a very depressing life even though she was famous. For so many years she lived in seclusion due to her sickness and she said these were the “melancholy years”. She always felt like she was close to death but after meeting Robert she says, “Guess who holds thee? – Death, Not Death, but Love”. At this point of time, her life started to change for the better.

In sonnet 21, she seems to be acting like a giddy little girl in love. I do not think that she had ever really felt that loved and she has certainly never heard it before. “Say thou dost love me, love me, love me – toll/ The silver iterance”. All she wants is for Robert not only to tell her that he loves her but to also feel it.

The last sonnet that really caught my attention was the thirty eighth one. She can remember the exact times that she received her first kisses from him. The first kiss that she received from him was only on her hand, but she felt like it was the best kiss ever and see seemed utterly happy. “A ring amethyst/ I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,/ Than that first kiss”. This kiss actually meant more to her than having a beautiful ring on her finger. Since the second kiss was on her forehead, close to her hair, she compared it to wearing a crown. The last kiss was on her lips and she says “My love, my own”. Even though she felt amazing after the first two kisses, once she received the kiss on the lips, she knew that he was the one. Most people can tell if they are meant for each other from their first kiss, and I think this is an example of this.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson had to overcome a lot of downfalls in her life. His father was disowned by his father and could not inherit the title that he was supposed to. His family was also cursed with problems with addiction. One of his brothers was an alcoholic, one addicted to opium, and he had a serious problem with depression. Then more problems came when his friend and mentor, Arthur Henry Hallam, died. Since he was a very quite man, his emotion had to come out through his poetry.

The poem that intrigued me the most by Tennyson was “The Lady of Shalott.” I could feel the emotion of Tennyson coming through while I was reading this poem. I really felt for the lady when she was pining over Sir Lancelot.

The first part introduces the lady and her circumstances. She watches people walking to Camelot from her tower where she is a weaver. No one really even knows that she is in this tower and I could feel a sense of longing for the outside world through the writing even though the lady did not long to leave yet. It seems like the outside area is being put up on a pedestal like through the lines “Willows whiten, aspens quiver,/ Little breezes dusk and shiver/ Thro’ the wave that runs for ever/ By the island in the river.”

The second part starts with her weaving and hearing “A curse is on her if she stay”. At this point she is unaware of what is about to happen to her because she does not know any better. Since she has never had to feel the emotions of the outside world she does not know what this means. She always sees different types of people, but the first time she is affected is when she sees two lovers that have just been married. This is the first time that she speaks in the poem, “I am half sick of the shadows”. I think this is the first time that she begins to realize that she does not have a good life and wants to be free of this tower.

She sees Sir Lancelot for the first time in the third part. This is when she finally realizes that she really is cursed and she knows exactly what this curse is. This is the first time she experiences some kind of lust. I think she believes that she is in love with him which I do not believe. I think that she has never felt sexually attracted to anyone before and the feeling of lust was overwhelming for her.

The final part of the poem shows the lady’s demise. After seeing Sir Lancelot, she could no longer work and she had to lie down. While she was lying there, I felt like she was dreaming of the way she wanted her life to be and at that moment all she wanted to do was be one of those people who walked to Camelot. This was the only thing she knew because the only thing she would see was people walking there from her tower. The poem ends by Lancelot saying “She has a lovely face;/ God in his mercy lend her grace,/ The Lady of Shalott”. This is very ironic because he is the one trying to save her for eternity but he was also the reason for her death. This poem shows that no one can be saved from love and pain. It is natural for all people to feel lust for others and want to be loved.

Charles Dickens

I felt like this was a very different story than I have ever read. I was not sure if this was just a story or is Charles Dickens really did go to this prison and write about what he saw. It is possible that he could have looked up all of this information but from the way that it was presented, I feel like he had to have gone to this place because I really felt like I was in the prison looking at these poor people.

The main goal of this story is to make all the people on the outside aware of the conditions of this people in this prison. However, Dickens did not want to show people this with statistical information but he wanted the people to feel the way that he did when he walked through.

The first prisoners that he encounters are the women prisoners. I did not know if I felt bad for these women are not because it is their own fault for being there. When he looked at one woman, he described her as being “yellow, haggard, decrepit old woman, in a tattered gown that had once been black” but he also described another young woman as being unmoved and unaffected by the prison. I personally feel like the reason for this is because the old woman may have been there for a lot longer than the old lady and with time a person’s sanity may be lost and they will age much faster. He feels like the young woman had very neglectful parents who did not love them, but I have to assume that most of the people that are found in prison probably came from these kinds of parents. Parents are the people that mold their children in what they are to become, and those parents who did not nurture these children helped them to grow up on the wrong path.

The part that really hit me the most and made me the saddest was when he was walking through the school section. The prisoners were all boys under the age of fourteen and they had been imprisoned for pocket picking. He recalls that these boys all looked dishonest and they seemed pleased to be in there. This made me upset because in essence it is not these boys fault for the way they are. Like I said before, they must have had a very bad life growing up in a family that was very poor and just did not care about them. These young boys are truly hopeless and will probably never change because it seems like they have been sort of brainwashed for their whole lives.

When he walked to the condemned ward, I felt like most of these men were very hypocritical. The ones waiting for their judgment did not seem to be anxious or have any mental suffering because they felt like they still had hope. The only reason I feel like they were hypocritical was because none of these men even opened the Testament that was left for them. If they really wanted to have a sense of hope they needed to turn to another power.

This chapter ended with the reaction of a man that awaited death the following day. It is at this point, the man seemed extremely desperate. He is freaking out with every chime of the clock and he is trying to be forgiven by reading the bible. I feel like this may have been too late to start reading the bible and those men may have had a better fate than this man if they had opened that Testament. When he falls asleep, I feel like he is trying to ease his mind because he tries to apologize to his wife for what has happened. I could not imagine being able to count down the hours till my death and I really do not know how I would react.

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle was a strong advocate of social reform. Since he had struggled with poverty, poor health, and insomnia for most of his life, I feel like his opinion truly matters. I think anyone who has lived on the oppressed side has a right to stand up for what he or she believes in. It is very obvious to me that Carlyle is very passionate while writing and it comes through in his stories. This made reading them a lot more interesting and I truly started to feel badly for the poor of that time period.

When he wrote “Midas”, he seemed to be fighting for the poor and describing the harsh conditions that some of the people had to live in. They were not receiving any help from any of the higher class people or the government. It was not until I read “The Irish Widow” that I truly felt for the people of this time. This poor widow went to charitable establishment after charitable establishment with her three children looking for help but none was given to her. In the end she came down with typhus fever and infected seventeen others who all died. I think Carlyle was trying to prove that all humans are linked in some kind of brotherhood or sisterhood no matter their social class in life. I think he was saying his true feelings through the voice of the physician, “Would it not have been economy to help this poor widow?” He was trying to show the people that something like karma will always come back to them when they leave people of their own country to die. Since they all refused to help her, she proved her sisterhood with them and they went down with her. Carlyle says that the problem with the government is that the government for the poor is run by the rich people, and they believe that it is “impossible” to relate to the poor. It is proven that everyone is related, and because of their selfishness, they are dead.

The other excerpt that really stuck out to me was “Know Thy Work”. I think that this came from Carlyle’s personal feelings because he, too, had a journey to discover the kind of work that he wanted to do. He believes that work is a very noble thing and the working man is filled with hope. If someone is not working in a job that they are passionate about or enjoy doing, then they will be “tormented”. When I read the line “the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he sets himself to work” I felt like this is a true statement that many people today can relate to. Most people that are unemployed today lose their feeling of self worth because it is natural for every person to want to feel some sense of accomplishment. Carlyle also believes that each person is destined to do a certain type of job, and when they do not fulfill this destiny they will not have any sort of accomplishment in life. I liked his example of this using the potter and the wheel. If this potter did not have this wheel, he would be forced to do something else like become a baker but he will never be good at it. This excerpt ends with a very powerful line that Carlyle and everyone else can relate to, “Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by Action alone.” The only way to get out of a job that person does not love is by actually getting up and leaving. I think Carlyle felt this way because he had originally gone to the ministry to become a minister; however, he started to feel doubt about religion and he just quite. He then tried to be a school teacher, but he did not love this so he also quite that. If Carlyle did not feel like it was important to follow your destiny and to keep trying until you are on the right path, then he would not have ever become a writer and this would have been a loss to the world. Carlyle became a role model for all of the Victorian writers and he is still a role model today.

John Keats

The career of John Keats was a lot shorter than those of the poets that we have already covered. He wrote and published poems from 1814-1820. It seems apparent through a lot of his sonnets and odes that he greatly feared aging and dieing. I think this had a lot to do with the fact the he had tuberculosis and was continuously sick. He knew that he would not be around for as long as most other poets and he wanted to be able to leave his mark. These fears are obviously shown in his sonnet “When I have fears” but when reading his work I enjoyed reading about this same idea in his odes, his most popular writings.

In the “Ode to a Nightingale” he shows his audience his fear of death. The first moment that I realized that this was going to be a dark poem is when I read the title. The nightingale is a bird that only sings in the night which is a symbol of darkness. This ode starts out by talking about the grief that the reader was going through and he felt like he had just taken some type of drug. This may have been an actual feeling of Keats because drugs were a common medicine for people suffering from sickness back in the 1800s. The speaker hears this nightingale and seems to have a sort of out of body experience. It was in the third stanza that I really felt like I could see Keats thoughts on death. “Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget/ What thou among the leaves hast never known,/ The weariness, the fever, and the fret.” It is hear that the speaker wants to just leave this mortal world because of all the hardships. He continues by sating that it would be best to die listening to this song and it would also be pain free. I think that Keats was afraid of living in a world where he was sick and he had a lot of troubles. Maybe he was afraid that at the actual time of his death, he would also be in a lot of pain. If he was with this nightingale, he figured he could always listen to this beautiful song and forget about the hard ache that the nightingale knows nothing about. He then says “I have been half in love with easeful death.” I think that this line is a true reflection of how Keats was actually feeling. It is a matter of him coming to grips with the reality that he is going to die and maybe that in a way eases the pain of death. After the speaker talks about wanting to die here, he realizes that even in death he would not be treated fairly because his mortal ears would no longer be able to hear the song; therefore, it seems like it would not be worth it. The speaker thinks to himself that this bird is immortal and just goes around singing this song to the “forlorn” world. It is at this point that the speaker seems to remember that he is from the mortal world and comes back to his body where he does not know if what has happened was a vision or a dream. This is a very powerful poem, filled with emotion that I think directly relates to Keats’s life.

In the “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, I did not feel like he was talking about his fear to death as much as his longing for youth. I think Keats was trying to relay the message that he wanted to go back in time to a place where he was not sick and life was just simple and beautiful. In this ode, the speaker is looking at an urn the whole time and examining all the pictures on it. I really enjoyed reading about the speaker’s reaction when looking at the picture of the piper and his lover. He describes the beauty of the piper’s song even though it is unheard and the beauty of the lover which will last forever in this picture as if it is frozen in time. It seems like Keats is making the speaker jealous of the fake world because he compares the forever lasting love of this boy and girl to mortal love which passes. This poem ends with two very strong line, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” I think this is supposed to reflect the fact that the urn only knows about this beauty and does not have a grip on reality. I feel like Keats is jealous of this urn because I think that he wants the ability to be able to look on the world as a beautiful place and not what it actually is, a place of pain and death.

Felicia Hermans

Felicia Hemans is very different from Dorothy Wordsworth, the other female author that we have read. As opposed to Dorothy, she wanted to gain fame and recognition from her poems. She learned to be an independent woman throughout her life due to her father and her husband leaving her. I think that all of these periods in her life made her bitter against the male gender and inspired her to write about the greatness of a woman and what she does for the country. She took the traditional gender roles and how women were seen and turned them into very recognizable and great traits.

I think that her poem, "The Wife of Asdrubal" reflects her theory that women have the opportunity to be powerful and heroic. Asdrubal surrendered his city to the Romans in order to save his own life and his wife was very ashamed of his actions. His wife shows her loyalty towards her city and refuses to go under any other rule. She decides to stay back in the burning city, kill her children, and then kill herself. This ending is open to interpretation; however, I believe that she was taking the heroic route as opposed to the barbaric route. When it says "the arms that cannot save/ Have been their cradle, and shall be the grave" I think she is trying to show the cowardly nature of the man and that consequences of the cowardly actions. It was Asdrubal's fault that the city in flames, and I think that his wife did not want to take the risk of her and her children to live a horrible life under the rule of a foreign country. This poem shows Hemans dislike for men and their actions. Asdrubal gave up his city, Hemans husband gave up her.

In Hemans poem, "The Homes of England", she greatly shows her attitude that women should be put up on a pedestal. This poem discusses the different classes of people that live throughout England including aristocrats, middle class, lower class, and then the poor. In all of these homes, the roles of the women tend to remain the same. They have a very domestic role, and are responsible for the tasks in the home and the raising of the children. Most people may believe that women are the inferior gender because of these roles; however, Hemans believes that these women should be applauded and awarded for the jobs that they do on a daily basis. It is the mother's duty to show the children love and how to love and without these qualities, these children will not be able to love their country or their God. She clearly states this in the last two lines of this poem by stating, "Where first the child's glad spirit loves/ Its country and its God!" These are two very powerful and very true lines. If these children do not come from a good family or one that teaches these values they do not grow up to be strong and there will be no great rulers.

I like the way the Hemans wants to reward women for the everyday duties that they perform. A lot of these actions are taken for granted but they are very important. Hemans needed to become a strong and independent woman because she was responsible for raising her own family. I admire that she wrote about her feelings and ideas and she was able to support her family with these ideas. "Her work is a reflection of many of the key social, psychological, and emotional concerns for women in her day."

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley grew up as a rebel who wanted to have people listen to his ideas and theories on various topics. I read that he was an atheist which really confused while I was reading his poems. I noticed that he like to give higher power to natural things and state that they are spirits. I felt like he was a man looking everywhere for love and passion when I was finished reading his section in our literature book.

In his poem, "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" he talks about the spirit of beauty. This spirit brings a feeling of love and hope to the people it chooses; however, it comes and goes as it pleases. This poem also reflects his atheism through the spirit. He claims that the demons, ghosts, and the heavens are just an attempt for people to explain the effect that the spirit has and them; therefore, he has forgotten about looking for the dead and devoted himself to the spirit. I think that this spirit is supposed to represent human emotion. There are times when people feel happy and loving and those are the times when there seems to be an extra spirit in them; however, all people grow sad sometimes and this is when the so called spirit is gone.

Shelley also refers to a spirit in his poem, "To a Sky-Lark." In this poem, the speaker sees this bird that does not seem like a bird but that of higher power from the heavens. I think this is another attempt for Shelley to reflect his desire for love. He knows that this bird loves all and has never felt any sadness so he wants to learn from it. "Teach us, Sprite or Bird,/ What sweet thoughts are thine." This shows Shelley wanting to learn to love more. He may have had trouble with this love while he was growing up because he was unable to love just one woman and moved from a wife to another to a girlfriend from an open relationship. The speaker of this poem had to learn to accept that fact that no matter what, a mortal will always feel sadness.

In the "Ode to the West Wind", Shelley seems to be not only to feel love as in the other poems but also life and inspiration which is the metaphor for wind. Even though this wind can destroy it can also preserve. The wind is what originally kills the leaves and nature but the spring wind is what returns the life. This wind reflects the way he wants to feel so by saying he wants this wind to take him he is in essence saying that he always wants to be filled with life and inspiration. "As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need./ Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!" After the speaker talks about be taken by the wind, it seems like this speaker comes back to reality. No matter how full of life and inspiration a person may be, it will always be taken at some point. In nature, it is like the winter coming and killing all of life. This poem ends on a good note. "If winter comes, can Spring be far behind." I think this is saying that even when times are bad and a person is not longer filled with the inspiration then spring will always come again.

These were the three poems that stood out to me when I was reading Shelley's work because I felt like they had similar themes. It is easily seen that he does not believe in religion; however, it seems like he believes that every person has a higher power within them. These poems seem to reflect the ideal state that a person can feel but it then shows the reality. A person can not always completely love and feel happiness but some spirit within them will sometimes allow them to feel these emotions.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge may be one of the most well-rounded and intellectual writers that we are reading. He was a poet, theologian, good talker, and an idea man. I belive that he had strong Christian values that he tried to incorporate in most of his poems. This idea seems to be a constant theme of his.

After listening to the podcast for "The Eolian Harp", I realized that I did not interpret it the same way at all. Dr. Glance discusses how it talks about how Coleridge is receiving new ideas which he must share to the world. His new wife, Sara, is the person that must ground him for this and he despises her for it. I did not think that is what this poem was about at all. I read that he wrote this during the honeymoon after the wedding. I thought he was talking about the new feeling of being married and how is made him feel excited and happy. When it says, "O the one life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul" (325), I thought it was talking about his excitement of sharing his life with someone till their two souls felt like one. I also thought he was relating the beautiful music of the eolian harp to the beauty of his new wife. At the end of this poem it says, "I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels; Who with saving mercies healed me, A sinful and miserable man" (326). I thought he was praising God for giving him this wife because he was a miserable man. I guess this is a perfect example of how easily I can misinterpret these kinds of poems.

The next poem that I would like to talk about is "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." I like the wedding guest was curious of what happened to this mariner. As soon as the mariner killed the albatross, he was cursed. All of the things that happened to him were very interesting to read. I felt like I was reading a children's tale since the events were very unlikely. I personally think that his characters were created out of hallucinations that he may have had. Since he did have an addiction to opium, he may have had reoccurring hallucinations. At the end of this tale, I was interested in the moral of the story. I think the ultimate purpose of this story was again a type of Christian value. It seems like he valued the idea of love, and everyone should have love for all things even animals such as birds. I, as well as the wedding guest, may have gained a little perspective from this tale. It is not understood how much something is loved until it is gone such as the bird and his crew.

After I read the poem, "Epitaph", I could also see Coleridge's Christian values once again. I think that he was trying to show that everyone should look towards God because God is in everyone. In order to live like a Christian and not a Christian Passer-by, a person needs to live with the following values, "Mercy for praise-to be given for fame" (350).

It was interesting to read about how close William Wordsworth and Coleridge actually were. They traveled together and planned out how they wanted to combine poems for a book. They each agreed to write in a specific format which they seemed to stick to. Coleridge agreed to that his "endeavors should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic" (353). Wordsworth wanted "to give the charm of novelty to things of every day" (354). I think there were two reasons why Wordsworth ended up being more successful than Coleridge. First, Coleridge did have that addiction to opium. This caused him to struggle with some of the works he started and he was not able to finish them. The second reason is the type of writings each agreed to do. I think that more people can relate to every day things and most people may think that the supernatural is more of a childish thing. Either way, Coleridge works today are interesting to read especially because the supernatural is a part of the types of movies and television shows that people enjoy to watching.

Dorothy Wordsworth

Dorothy Wordsworth never considered herself a poet and did not want to receive any fame from her writings. She only chose to write her poems and journal to make her brother, William, happy. I think there were a number of reasons that she did not believe that she had a talent for poetry. The first reason is the fact that she was a female. Women at that time were not as respected as males did. The second reason is that fact that her brother was such a well known and famous poet. I think she revered him and always felt like she was in his shadow. She lived with her brother most of her life and watched him at work. I think through the years she learned from him and was able to elaborate on his ideas through an alternate view. The influence of her brother is shown because she writes about similar topics such as nature and her appreciate of it.

In her poem, "Address to a Child", I thought that she was showing her love for children and her need to console them. Even though she was afraid of the wind because of all the destruction it had done, such as kill her brother John in a boating accident, she wanted to hide her fear for the child. She explains that even though the wind is a dangerous thing, the house will protect against it. As long as they are inside there is nothing the wind could do. This may also have a deeper meaning. It may also be a poem that focuses on the importance of love and family and that family can always keep a person safe.

In the poem, "Thoughts on My Sick-bed", she reflects on her life when she was younger and not sick. She shows her appreciation for the bigger things in life such as the beauty of nature. Even though she can no longer go out into nature, the memories of it suffice and she feels like she is there. This poem made me feel mixed emotions. I was very sad to hear about her sickness, which through the writing, I could really feel. It also made me happy that someone that sick can still think of the good things in life such as reflecting on her happiest moments. No matter how sick she got, her happiness could not be taken from her.


Her journal reflected her life day by day. Throughout that journal, I noticed that she seems to mention all of the vulnerable and poor people that she encounters. She seems to truly care about everyone and tries to help as many people as she can. An example of this is when she bought the gingerbread from the poor family even though she was making it herself. She saw how grateful the family was for the money so she gave it to them. Because of this goodness shown by her, Dorothy's writings have been my favorite to read.

William Wordsworth

I found some of William Wordsworth's poems very difficult to interpret and others more easily interpretable. By the end of his life, he was greatly admired for his poetry and the change in the type of writing. My first impression when I was reading his workds was that he was really in touch with nature. He came from a town that was not very industrialized therefore he grew up in the heart of nature.

He lived a good life until his mother and father passed away. Even then, he had very generous relatives which put him through Canbridge, where he received a good education. I think this is the time that he may have realized the importance of family. He seems to get a lot of imspiration from family love of each other over material things. This is shown in the poem "We Are Seven". When the little girl was asked how many children were in her family she always responded by saying seven even though one of her brothers and one of her sisters had passed away. This child still plays are their graves and considers them still alive in her heart. I think it is important to think like this because a person can always remain with another forever.

A major theme for a lot of Wordsworth's poems is reestablishing the connection between human beings. This can be done in a number of ways, but he seems to be a firms believer that when humans are away from society and in nature they can become one easier. In his peom, "Simon Lee", he talks about a man who has become old and helpless over the years even though he was known for his strength. This poem shows how the narrator helped Simon Lee with an easy task, however it was not for Simon. This poem makes Wordsworth sad but it is not entirely sure why it does. I believe that the man made him sad because no matter how great and strong one is during one's life, they will one day lose this strength.

I believe that Wordsworth believes in a higher power in nature. I think the best definition of this power is he believes in Mother Nature. I have known Mother Nature to be the ruler of all nature and gives all things life and purpose. The importance of nature to Wordsworth is shown in his poem "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey". He revisits a scene along with his sister and recalls the feeling this river and nature brings to him. The exposure to nature puts him at calm and allows him to appreciate the world better. In his heart he believes that all of the things there will make him a better person because everthing in nature has a higher significance.

One of Wordworth's main puposes it seems, is his desire to transform poetry to use more simplistic language. He wanted to use the everyday language because he felt that poetry was the same as writing prose. In the poem "Strange fits of passion have I known" I felt like it was talking about Wordsworth's actual lover. I think that he uses simple answers but there is still some things that need to be interpreted. I feel like as the narrator was riding to the cottage because he got word that his lover was sick. The moon represents the life of Lucy and when the moon disappeared before he reached his destination, she could have died. That is what I got from the poem.

William Wordsworth is considered the poet of nature. By the end of his life he won his fight and his poetic theories became the norm. His type of poetry has influenced all of the writing since that time.

William Blake

When William Blake writes a poem, it seems very simple but looking at each poem, I realized that he always had a deeper meaning. I found it very difficult to understand completely what message Blake was trying to convey in each poem. Blake desired to be an artist as a child, but his father could not afford to send him to school. Instead he became an apprentice at the age of 14 for an engraver. He ended up using this talent to accompany his poems with arts and creativity. He liked to combine images and words together when publishing his works. During his apprenticeship, Blake wrote many poems for his first publication.

Blake had two different publications which went together with one another. His first publication was the Songs of Innocence and the second was the Songs of Experience. Even though it is hard to come up with a constant theme between these works, my first thought was that he wrote the Songs of Innocence when he was happier and more naive himself. Most of these poems were written when he was working as an apprentice and he was a younger child. He did not write the Songs of Experience until he was older and maybe more experienced with the cruelties of the world. I think Blake was trying to show that there are two sides to every story and that each side needs the other in turn. It was said that some of the poems were switched around so this theory is not entirely correct.

When I first read "The Lamb" in the Songs of Innocence, I thought that he was trying to show that all things on this Earth should be equal because everything was made by the same God, therefore everything is blessed. The opposition of this theory is shown in the other poem "The Tyger". Blake is trying to say that if everything was made by the one God then everything should in fact be blessed, but there are evil things on this Earth. This is very contradictory to his previous statement.

As with "The Lamb" and "The Tyger", the other poems called "The Chimney Sweeper" deals with the contradictory issues. The first one shows these children looking at the bright side of the world and they know that God will reward them in the end and the second deals with a more pessimistic child. This child it bitter and wants to blame everyone for his horrible and unfair life.

All of this contradiction by Blake makes it difficult to decipher what his personal opinions and theories actually are. I think that his poems show the emotions of true life where every person has good times and negative times. When I am happy with my life, everything seems to go right and I look at the bright side of everything. I think when he was writing most of his poems for the Songs of Innocence, he must of been in a good time in his life. Then when things are not going well, it is easy to be pessimistic and blame others for everything and it seems like nothing can go right. I think that Blake must have faced a lot of personal hardships in his life because in order to write such negative things, a person needs to have had experienced these emotions.

I had a lot of trouble when I was trying to understand what was happening in "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell". This poem is from the view point of the devil. I personally think that it is not talking about the devil that we all know as Satan, but the devilish side of the human being. No matter how good a person can be, they will always show a side of them that resembles this devil such as with their individuality, sexuality, and imagination. Since each person displays these kinds of characteristics, there really is a marriage between heaven and hell: good and bad. In order for the world to keep going to survive, they need one another.

The Rights of Man and the Revolutionary Controversy

This reading turned out to be very educational for me, and I learned a little bit about the British and French history. On July 14, 1789, there was the French Revolution. Prior to this time, the monarchy had started to become corrupt and taxed the lower class people more and more due to the gradual move of the government towards bankruptcy. The French Revolution was a very radical movement which was suppose to bring equality to all of the French people. The French king, Louis XVI was executed out of fear by the people in case he would gain a following and ascend the throne once again. Throughout this time, the English people had very different view points of the happenings occurring in France. Some were opposed to the events and others supported them.

This type of writing style was difficult for me to understand. Some of the paragaphs were worded in ways that I had no idea what was going on. After listening to the podcast, the readings became more clear and I was able to understand the material. Our readings covered two different view points of the English people. One excerpt by Edmond Burke showed his clear opposition to the French Revolution while others such as Helen Maria Williams, Mary Wollstonecrest, and Thomas Paine agreed with the end of the French Monarchy.

Helen Maria Williams went over to France to look at the effects of the revolution first hand. Her first section in her letters written from France described the Federation. Even though she said throughout this section that she could not describe it , I felt like I got a good idea of how the people felt during that time. Williams was obviously very moved and touched by the events and how millions of people were rejoicing in the streets. She was delighted to report that even members of noble families were willing to give up their titles in an act towards patriotism. She went into great detail of all the activities leading up to the actual execution of the king. She did not believe that he needed to be murdered however in all she believes that the French Revolution will bring only prosperity to the country.

In contrast to Williams, Edmond Burke took the opposition side of the French Revolution. He states, "Everything seems out of nature in this strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all sorts of crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies." He believes that it is unnatural because it does not go along with tradition. He firmly thinks that all people have a right to their property and that includes property inherited by parents. It goes against basic rights if people are forced to redistribute their weath among the poor. Even though there is a contract between society and the people, he thinks that it will not be improved upon by getting rid of the current society but there needs to be improvements on the existing one.

When Edmond Burke released his opinion in the Reflections on the Revolution in France, there were numerous rebuttles from radicals such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine. Wollstonecraft does not believe that men have the right to nobility because of the family they have been born into because it will create monsters. She has two major points that she continuously addresses: (1) property should be equally distributed among all people and (2) the history only brought about oppression and hardship among the lower class of people and things needed to be changed. She claims that Burke only is writing for effect and fame and does not truely believe in what he is writing. She supports this claim by showing Burke's conflicting beliefs, because he supported the American Revolution. Thomas Paine continued with the criticism of Burke. He claims that a country should not be ruled from the grave, and all living people have the right to chose the type of government in their country. He agrees that their is a contract between people and society, however the people have the right to get out of that contract.

I can see where both of these views come from. In the case of Edmund Burke, I understand why he was so hesitant to agree with the French Revolution. Sometimes change can be very difficult, especially if it makes the future unclear. This can be very scary and being a member of the more elite class, I would not like to give up my title and wealth. However, I am more in agreement with the other side of the argument. Just because a group of people are born into a lower class does not give anyone, especially a king, a right to continously tax them and keep them from moving up in the ranks. Every person has the right to gain as long as they are willing to put in the work to gain wealth.

About Me

My name is Nichole Roche and I am going to be a senior next year. I am a pre-med, MAP major concentrating in Medical Administration. I am a member of Mercer University's women's golf team and have been since my freshman year.

I am taking this class to meet a General Education requirement. I am very nervous to take this course because English has always been my weakest subject. I am more inclined to excel in math and science classes. Hopefully, I will become a better writer and a better interpreter of literature through this class. I am also nervous because I have never taken an online class before. I am hoping that I am able to figure out how to use all of the web resources for this class.