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.