The Lady in the Looking Glass

I love the way this piece starts! Woolf immediately starts by telling how the looking glass, like a "open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime," tells all that needs to be said. The looking-glass tells the truth about the mistress of the house, Isabella. It tells all that she does not wish known. She leads a mysterious life as a spinster and in the mirror we see what I sabella projects to the world:

Isabella had known many people, had had many friends; and thus if one had the audacity to open a drawer and read her letters, one would find the traces of many agitations, of appointments to meet, of upbraidings for not having met, long letters of intimacy and affection, violent letters of jealousy and reproach, terrible final words of parting (2384).

However, barring all of that, Isabella life had not turned out as intended, she is an old maid, who lives alone and has very few friends. When Isabella looks intot he mirror she sees the truth within herself that she cannot hide.

Here was the hard wall beneath. Here was the woman herself. She stood naked in the pitiless

light. And, there was nothing. Isabella was perfectly empty. She had no thoughts. She had no friends. She cared for nobody. As for her letters, they were bills (2385).

It's funny how we often make assumptions about other people before we even know them, it takes time to truly no someone and even then you only know what they are willing to show. You never know the thoughts and memories that plague a persons mind when there is no one else around. The true Isabella is trapped in the looking-glass, where only she can see her.

Prufrock

To whom is the speaker addressing his words? He often uses the phrase "you and I." In these words I believe Eliot wants us to step into the shoes of Alfred J. Prufrock. The words are written as though Alfred is inviting us, the readers, to join him as he takes this trip. I believe that Alfred J. Prufrock is looking for a woman. And his words are directed towards that woman. It is she that he invites to "the muttering retreats/ Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels/ And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells" (2347). Prufrock is trying to convince himself to take a chance:

I grow old … I grow old …

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me (2350).

Alfred J. Prufrock is looking to take a chance with a woman; however his insecurities are a hinderance.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—

[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—

[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin”] (2348)!

Prufrock turns back rather than face the woman to which he is referring. His insecurities get the better of him and ultimately he never ventures out to claim this mystery woman.

Araby

I really feel for the young boy in this tale. I think we have all been in a predicament where our doing something we really wanted depended on your parents or older sibling taking you there.

It's the same story every time:

1. You promise you friend or worse your crush that you can or will do something, "If I go, I will bring you something". You ask permission, everything is all set up, all you have to do now is wait.
2. You spend all day thinking about that one thing; you even remind them and they say, "Yes, boy, I know" (2276).
3. Then hours later than scheduled "At nine o'clock I heard my uncle's latchkey in the hall door [...] He had forotten" (2276).

That one thing was so important to you and you parents just

forgot. How frustrating is that?! And now, you have to go back and feel like a disappointment, while no one else seems to understand why it was such a pressing matter to begin with. This among many reasons is why teenagers often say "Parent just don't understand!"

Maud of Troy

Yeats story is the classic tale of unrequited love. "Why should I blame her that she filled my days" (2246). Yeats has proposed to the same woman repeatedly for several years. He even proposes tot he woman's adopted daughter 30 years later... However, he sees nothing wrong with this. He feels that more men would feel his plight if they allowed themselves to desire her as he does (2246). In No Second Troy, he compares her to Helen of Troy whose beauty was enough to set the two nations of Greece and Troy at War for ten years.

While he does not blame Maud for his love her wonders why she is so "high and solitary and most stern". Maud did accept a marriage proposal from another man; however they divorced shortly after. And still she did not accept Yeats advances. Again it is not her fault "what could she have done, being what she is?/ Was there another Tray for her to burn" (2247)? It is not her fault that he loves her. it was inevitable for her to affect him in such away. He is the only Troy for her to burn.

To Francis Collision

Was this really necessary?!

Shaw mentioned that Collison adores, "Pigeons &Persian cats& guinea pigs & rabbits [...] toads & newts." Obviously a man who sees fit to surround himself with such revelries, finds them to be appropriate gifts. I'm sure that Collison was unaware of Shaw's previous experience with a canary. "I once had a canary, a little green brute that flew in through the open window one day & would not go away. I hated it and it hated me. (2152)" Without prior knowledge of Shaw's affliction to canaries, I feel that Collison did not do anything intentionally to agitate Shaw. Collision was showing Shaw his gratitude for his loan and Shaw pretty much stomped all over it.

I did find it amusing that he tried to drop hints as to more appropriate gifts. "Now if you had sent me a sea-gull or a nightjar (the nightjar is my favorite bird) I could have let it loose & watched it flying & stalked it with a camera" (2152).

Talking with the moon

Hardy looks up from his writing to find the Moon staring down at him. When he ask the Moon what he is doing, his response it startling:

Oh, I've been scanning the pond and hole

And waterway hereabout

For the body of one with a sunken soul

Who has put his life light out (2162).

This poem was written during World War I, so I believe that when Hardy uses the term "the pond," he is speaking about the men that were fighting and dying in Western Europe. This region has commonly referred to as "the pond". These men who are fighting in the War, many of whom are having their "life light" put out each day. And during a time like this:

I am curious to look

Into the blinkered mind

Of one who wants to write a book

In a world of such kind (2162).

When the world is at war, Hardy is trying to write. Is this his subliminal way of saying maybe his timing is wrong? Maybe he can be of better use in another capacity. Writing seems like such a mundane task in a world at war.

I like how he animates the Moon. It makes me wonder if the Sun, Moon and Stars could sit back and watch us, what would they have to say about what they see?

The Horrors of Governessing

Among the traditional roles of women is being a wife, a mother, and a homemaker. Here, Charlotte Bronte is writing a letter to her sister, Emily, while working as a governess for the Sidgwick family. Duties that consist of "oceans of needlework, yards of cambric to hem, muslin nightcaps to make, and above all things, dolls to dress (1524). Charlotte dislikes her position, the children, and the woman she works for. I like this reading because it tells the story of a woman who dislikes the mediocre position to which women are assigned. Growing up as a tomboy, I have always been an advocate for women who do not find person satisfaction with gender norms. I think her description of the life of a governess gives an accurate depiction of women at the time:

I see now more clearly than I have ever done

before before that a private governess has no existence, is not considered as a living and rational being except as connected with the wearisome duties she has to fulfill (1525).

In Victorian society, a woman is just another worker in the home. She is a maid, mother, and mistress.

Newgate

If Bedlam could be suddenly removed like another Aladdin’s palace, and set down on the space now occupied by Newgate, scarcely one man out of a hundred, whose road to business every morning lies through Newgate-street, or the Old Bailey, would pass the building without bestowing a hasty glance on its small, grated windows, and a transient thought upon the condition of the unhappy beings immured in its dismal cells; and yet these same men, day by day, and hour by hour, pass and repass this gloomy depository of the guilt and misery of London (1).

The response Dickens had at seeing this prison reminds me of the picture Carlyle paints of the work houses of London in his work, Past and Present. Both pieces depict a truly dismal sight. Dickens uses great detail to advocate for better treatment of inmates in London prisons. Dickens describes one of the inmates as "a more poverty-stricken object" and "a creature so borne down in soul and body, by excess of misery and destitution". However, similar to Carlyle, Dickens mentions the different treatment among the classes of prisoners. The higher class prisoners are confined to more suitable quarters (6). However, he does not go into much detail as to the exact differences.

Dickens invokes a more emotional when he tells of the dreams of one of the prisoners:

Worn with watching and excitement, he sleeps, and the same unsettled state of mind pursues him in his dreams. An insupportable load is taken from his breast; he is walking with his wife in a pleasant field, with the bright sky above them, and a fresh and boundless prospect on every side—how different from the stone walls of Newgate (10)!

The Harlot's House

I'm confused by exactly what is going on in this poem.

We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house (1863).

From this i understand that Wilde and his companion are taking a moonlit stroll and come to a stop, momentarily, outside of a brothel? They are attracted by the music and the sounds of people dancing and having a good time.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,

Like black leaves wheeling in the wind (1863).

They continue to watch the shadows of the dancers, until his companion "left [his] side , and entered in" (1864). She is so drawn to the sights and sounds of the brothel that she enters it. However, as soon as she enters the scene changes:

Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl (1864).

This makes me thing of Tennyson's Lady of Shalott, Wilde's lover finally allows curiosity to get the best of her and enters; however, when she does there is no more music, no more dancing. Is Wilde telling us this story as a warning? At the end of the poem, the Sun "crept like a frightened girl" to cast light on the situation; to show the true nature of the brothel.

Tell me what message you got from this piece. I feel that the poem ended the way it did for a reason, but I am not quite sure if I understand why.

The Rights of the Husband

In John Stuart Mills' Statement Repudiating the Right of Husbands, it is obvious that Mills is an advocate of equal rights among men and women. During the time at which this was written, when a woman married, she became her husband’s possession. This custom, coverture, meant a woman could not own property. When she entered into a marriage, any asset became a part of her husbands estate. Mills intended to dispel this custom from his own marriage:

And in the event of marriage between Mrs. Taylor and me 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 anytime belong to her, as if no such marriage had taken place; and I absolutely disclaim and repudiate all pretence to have acquired any rights whatever by virtue of any such marriage (1095).

Although I have never seen one, the portion reads like a prenuptial agreement. Mills is publicly renouncing any ties to Mrs. Taylor's property, however, I wonder if such a document would be legally acceptable in the event of a divorce. If the woman cannot legally enter into any agreement, would said contract then be null and void? I hope so, otherwise, there would be no respite for women at all. Marriage literally meant signing your life away! However, at that time women were property of their father's until they were given to another man in marriage. There really was no hope!

Porphyria's Lover

Psychosis is defined as a loss of contact with reality, usually including false beliefs about what is taking place or who one is (delusions) and seeing or hearing things that aren't there (hallucinations). So, by that definition, I cannot really classify this guy as crazy. I might say that he is obsessed, to say the least. The evening starts of with Poryphia expressing her love:

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 (1308).

Porphyria paints a picture of an uneven love match. It seems that she is in love with a man that her "vainer" sect does not approve of. Maybe her family is rich and already has he promised to another. This would explain the her lover's desperate desire to come up with a way to keep the two of them together:

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

Perfectly pure and good: I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string I wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her (1308).

In a desperate attempt to keep Porphyria with him forever, her lover kills her. Why? To keep her in that moment with him forever. I understand why he did it, not that I would have used the same means, but I can see why he did it. However, I do have one question...why didn't they just elope?

The Lady of Shalott

She dies?! If you have not read this piece yet, I apologize for the spoiler. I read both the 1833 edition and the 1832 edition and with each piece I am still shocked by the notion that she dies at the end. All she wanted, all she dreamed of was Camelot:

Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot,

Though the squally eastwind keenly

Blew, with folded arms serenely

By the water stood the queenly

Lady of Shalott (1145).

She is so focused on Camelot; so intent on reaching it. She leaves her whole life behind her and finally musters up the courage to go to Camelot and she dies.

For ere she reach’d upon the tide

The first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

The Lady of Shalott (1145).

I just don’t understand why Tennyson needed her to die. I don’t think it is appropriate to say that Lady Shalott broke the boundaries set for her and went to Camelot; and therefore as a consequence or repercussion she dies. I feel like that is just completely uneccesary.

I would prefer to think that Lady Shalott reached her heart’s desire and she just could not take it. The thought and sight of finally reaching Camelot were so overwhelming that her heart just gave out. To me this conveys the message that you should be careful what you wish for, because you may not be able to handle it once you get it?

I would really like to hear some thoughts on this. What do you think was the message of the poem and with that message, was death necessary for Lady Shalott?

When I Have Fears

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,

Before high piled books in charact’ry (865).

Keats wrote this poem around the same time that he was nursing his dying brother, so, it speaks on his fears of dying to soon. This is ironic, because, Keats actually dies three years later. This poem seems like the perfect example of leaving with unfinished business.

Keats worries that he may pass on before he has time to see his own success. He also worries about the things he may never be able to do again:

When I behold upon the night’s starred face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows with the magic hand of chance (865).

It’s funny how you never think about the little things until their gone, or in this case when they can be gone. Something as simple as counting the stars in the sky, can be gone in a second. We never do realize the small luxuries we have in life. And the things we spend the most time striving for mean nothing at all in the end.

Fame

And, no I'm not referring to the movie! In reading, Hemans' poem Woman and Fame, I think about celebriries. What is it about being famous, that makes people so....crazy?! I think that question can be answered in the second stanza:

Thou hast a charmed cup, O Fame!

A draught that mantles high,

Heman equates Fame with alcohol in these lines. In the media today, all we see are celebrities going crazy. Is it the intoxication of fame that drives the crazy behavior we witness celebrities commit on a daily basis? The poem goes on to say:

And seems to lift the earthly frame

Above mortality (836).

Mortality. I understand how this can mean that fame makes one immortal. In fame, one's name can be remembered forever. For example, if I ask a six years-old who Michael Jackson is, they will most likely be able to answer that. Michael Jackson has been dead two years now and 50 years from now, people will still remember his name and DJs will still be playing his music. Not only musicians are susceptible to this.

For that resplendent gift of thine,

Heroes have smiled in death (836).

To sidetrack, just a little. This line reminds me of the role of Achilles in Troy. Achilles was a great soldier who won many battles, but he went to Troy so that his name would be remembered forever. He was told that if he did not go to war he would have married a good woman, had children, lived a good long life and ultimately be happy. But, after his wife, children, grandchildren had died his name would be forgotten. And so, he goes to war.

I want to equate this with popularity. Although growing up popularity was never a concern to me, I have always feared being forgotten. I can understand how just that simple thought can drive people to do some crazy things. Fame is like a drug, it’s intoxicating. And years later, one can look back and remember the Fame that was theirs; even if only for a short time.

The painted veil

The painted veil, the mask of emotion people carry around on a daily basis. The mask that covers true feeling, true thought; the mask that covers truth.

Behind [the veil] lurk Fear

And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave

Their shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear (760).

I am confused here as to what exactly Shelley is referring to as the “chasm”. Is he implying that face below the veil is a filled with a gap? Like a black hole that sucks in and hides all true sentiment. If we were to remove these veils, what would we see? Based on Shelley’s wording, I would expect to see nothing beneath the veil. As if we have been wearing these veils for so long we no longer have faces of our own.

I knew one who had lifted it—he sought,

[…] things to love,

But found them not alas! […]

Through the unheeding many he did move,

A splendor among shadows, a bright blot (761).

If the whole world walks around with covered faces, how are we to find someone to love. You cannot love someone until you truly know or believe to know them. No wonder so many people are alone these days. We are all looking for something or someone that is presumable unobtainable. Why do we put up these fronts? Is it just the thing to do? Are we born with them or do they develop over time? If so, when?

Ultimately, I wonder what it would take to get someone, anyone to take off their veil?

Thoughts on my Sick Bed

The name of this piece drew me to it. I have often wondered what people think about as they die. (I would like to clarify that I do not always think about death, only what dying people think about.) You always hear tell that you see your entire life flash before your eyes, but which parts of your life do you see. Do you see the good? The bad? Everything? How short is a life if it can pass before your eyes in an instant?

The first lines of the poem pose a question:

Has the remnant of my life

Been pilfered of this sunny Spring (474)?

I am accustomed to the word pilfer meaning to steal. My thesaurus used the phrase “make off with” as a synonym of pilfer. I liked this phrasing because it presents the idea that life can be taken away. Is this how it feels when you’re dying? That the rest of the live you could have or should have had was taken from you. And if so, who took it?

Wordsworth goes on to speak of the “hidden life” laying dormant within herself. I have often heard terminally ill people say that they are not finished yet, that they still have more life left to live. Is this the hidden life of which she speaks? The life that was unable to be taken away. The flame that still burns within the vessel.

She uses this remaining life to leave. To go away from this place, to no longer be a “prisoner in this lonely room (475).

Lucy Gray

Who is Lucy? I wondered this as I read Wordsworth’s work. The name appears in Strange fits of Passion Have I Known, Song, and again in Three years she grew in sun and shower. In each of these pieces Lucy is presumed dead. In Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known, we are given the story of a man returning home to find his lover:

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide

Into a Lover’s head—

“O mercy!” to myself I cried,

“If Lucy should be dead” (364)!

It doesn’t say how long the young man has been gone, we just know he is returning to find his love. It makes me think of someone who has moved away. Whenever you return to your old neighborhood or town to visit, you always wonder if the ones we left behind still remain

. And depending on where you live, we might wonder whether these people are still living. We come to find out that Lucy is, in fact, dead.

Thus nature spake—The work was done—

How soon my Lucy’s race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet scene,

The memory of what has been,

And never more will be (365).

This tells us Lucy is dead and it tells us that she was young when she died, but it does not tell us how she died or why. In Lucy Gray, we finally hear the story of poor Lucy’s demise.

They follow’d from the snowy bank

Those [Lucy’s] footmarks, one by one,

Into the middle of the plank,

And further there were none (367).

Lucy was caught in a snow storm and never seen again. Her family searched for her and found her footsteps ended in the river. The poem goes further to say that she may not really be dead, but still wanders the moor. What if Lucy is not dead? Will her lover return to find her waiting?

In truth there is no way of knowing if these pieces speak of the same Lucy, or if they are even connected.

I like to think they all speak of the same Lucy. And that although they speak of Lucy as being lonely, she had many people who loved her and could possibly still be looking for her. Well, obviously not now, but when she went missing.

Car-lyle

“The man is now a man. The blessed glow of Labour in him, is it not a purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made bright blessed flame!”

~Thomas Carlyle, Labour

I think it is really interesting that we read Carlyle after reading about the French Revolution. Thomas Carlyle was obviously a fan of the working class! I feel that this quote is the perfect example of Carlyle’s feelings and beliefs. Work can help a person become themselves:

It has been written, “An endless significance lies in Work”; a man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seedfields rise instead, and stately cities; and withal the man himself first ceases to be a jungle and foul unwholesome desert thereby (1039).

Carlyle believes that through work, all imperfections can be diminished, if not abolished. Finding work can lead you to become the person you were intended to be. It can lead us to our true purpose, “Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life purpose; he has found it, and will follow it” (1040)!

Blake

Obviously the most prevalent theme is religion. Frequent allusions to Adam and Eve, Heaven and Hell, and God are evident of this. Blake refers to God or the Poetic Genius in All Religions Are One. He also reflects on the similarities between other religions.

As all men are alike

(tho’ infinitely vari

ous) So all Religions:

& as all similar have

one source,

The true Man is the

source, he being the

Poetic Genius.”

I take this to mean that if all men come from the one (Adam), who is made in the image of “the true Man,” therefore they are all the same. I could also so someone take it to mean that all religion leads back to the Poetic Genius (God).

More predominant, I believe, is the theme of innocence or innocence lost.

Obviously we see this in the Songs of Innocence and Experience. Blake contrasts the innocence of the lamb and the tiger. In The Lamb, Blake questions “Little Lamb who made thee/ Dost thou know who made me.” Then, in The Tyger, Blake asks “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” This raises an interesting question. Is God also responsible for the “bad things” in the world? Is it God who makes the things that cause us joy as well as the things that cause us pain?

This brings to mind another question, what/who is responsible for the loss of innocence? Is it man or the Man?

"Romantic"

I have always had trouble really understanding what is meant by the term “Romantics”. Hearing the term, I believed the term to mean the works centered on the topic of love or something of that nature. So, I was even more confused when in previous literature classes, we discussed reading of a “Romantic” style. In the reading, Definition of Romantic, Romantic is defined in a variety of ways. Four of these definitions helped me to formulate a better definition.

1. “Of the nature of, having the qualities of, romance in respect of form or content (1)”. However, I’m not sure what constitutes the qualities of a romantic form. So, that definition didn’t really help me gain a better understanding. What are the elements of the romantic form?
2. “Romances and Novels are often writ in this mixt Language, between Poetry and Prose: and hence it is sometimes called the Romantick Stile (1)”. So, in form, the “Romantic” style is a mixture between text and verse.
3. “Characterized by the subordination of form to theme, and by imagination and passion (1)”. I take it that this definition means that imagination and passion are characteristic of romantic literature. However, I am not sure if we are referring to the passion in the writing or the passion displayed in the actions of the characters in the work. And is imaginative a reference to the fictional nature of the piece.
4. “Having no real existence; imaginary; purely ideal (1)”. This definition would serve to answer my previous question.

These definitions lead me to believe that “Romantic” literature is fictional, passionate, and of or relating to love in a mixture between poetry and prose. This is what I gained from reading Definition of Romantic; correct me if I am wrong.