George Gordon, Lord Byron

Initially, this poem looked appealing to me, and was, because I’m a bit of a romantic and I really enjoy reading things that involve someone’s affection for another or a description of beauty. The poem is given several dark themes and symbols. His very first line reads, “She walks in beauty, like the night,” giving the reader an image of darkness surrounding this beautiful woman (358). “One shade the more, one ray the less,” also makes us think of darkness, adding shades to the scene, and removing rays of light (358). But there is a certain dualism involved, Byron describes her beauty in the first stanza saying, “ And all that’s best of dark and bright/ Meet in her aspect and her eyes:” which shows that all things good and all things bad can be seen from her character and her eyes (358). And in the last stanza, there is virtually no sign of darkness at all as Byron says that she has “The smiles that win, the tints that glow… A heart whose love is innocent!” (358). The entire stanza is illuminating her good and beautiful features, winning and glowing are not words someone would use to describe darkness, and especially not love.

So when I read in the caption that the poem was written with Byron’s cousin’s wife in mind, I was somewhat taken aback. The dark symbols: night time, the raven, shade, etc. could all be Byron’s acceptance and knowledge that the way he was feeling about this woman was wrong, dark. But by the end of the poem it no loonger matters because he’s become so intrigued by her beauty, all he can see is the good things about her, as opposed to the bad setting that he has found her in. Dr. Glance in his podcast, as well as the Introduction on George Gordon, Lord Byron, indicate that he was subjected to rumors of “insanity, incest, and sodomy” causing his wife to leave him (357). And even later in Venice his “ceaseless round of sexual activity” helped him in created his literature (357).

Perhaps my mind has been tainted with the image of a man who didn’t value the respects of marriage and love. I instead think of a man who was known for having affairs and didn’t mind being with different women constantly. If I thought he was a good man (at least in relationships), I would probably analyze his poem in a completely different way.

Writings on World War I

Before reading this selection, I would expect the writings to be very against war, especially coming from England, and that's what I tended to find especially from writers like Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. It is there use of an imagery that shows the horrors of war that makes them stick out so much to me. But there were also others who actually served in the war, or ended up serving like Rupert Brooke whose "The Great Lover" and "The Soldier" ended up being almost like his dying wish: written a year before his death in the war.

Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon both felt that sending men off to die in battle was a horrible thing to do. Upon looking at Sassoon's "Glory of Women," you would expect the poem to praise the virtues that women uphold for their families even in the absence of their husbands. Unfortunately, we see the negative side, one of a mother knitting for a son whose "face is trodden deeper in the mud" (1099). This kind of brutal and unforgiving reality is hard to imagine, because no one, I'm sure, wants to imagine their son being killed at war. Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth" has less of this brutality- at least in his imagery. But we still see a deep dislike for the concept of war. "What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?" says Owen, opening up the poem with a rhetorical question (1100). But he does go on to say guns and rifles will determine their fate now.

Although Owen and Sassoon are not the only Modernists to comment against the war, they are the most vivid writers about it from our anthology. Whether the writings of the Moderns had anything to do with the overall perception of World War I, I do not know. But seeing our status in the war right now, I feel more and more so that it is an unnecessary involvement.

Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion

Somewhat of a Greek mythology buff, I had heard of the story of Pygmalion before and how his love and adoration for his statue caused him to ask the goddess Venus to bring him a woman like her. He had detested women before hand, but longed for the touch of someone just like his statue. Impressed and touched by his show of live, Venus granted the wish.

So I wasn't surprised that in this play, Bernard Shaw wanted to remake this myth in a 1900 England setting. Although not nearly as fantastic as the original story, the Pygmalion here is Professor Higgins who takes it upon himself, with the help of Pickering, to improve the flower girl also known as Eliza. In Act 2, we see a snippet of her lessons with them as they teach her the "correct" way of reciting the alphabet. Taking away her personal dialect, they improve her speech and, although doing it in tears, she eventually starts to get it right (1032).

One of the best parts of the play is in Act 4 when Eliza expresses to Higgins that she is not able to do anything else, now that she has been turned into a lady. Higgins tells her, "I daresay my mother could find some chap or other who would do very well," in an attempt to tell her that she can get married and be a good wife for someone to take care of, she responds saying that her family is above that kind of thinking (1048). She doesn't want her purpose in life to be based on a man, she sold flowers before and was able to do for herself, and now in hindsight, realizes that that's exactly what she wanted.

The take home message I got from this rendition, as well as the actual myth for that matter, is that what makes any man think that he can mold a woman in his own fashion? Should it have been Higgins' and Pickering's responsibility to transform this woman into a lady? No, women are completely capable of deciding their own fate, whether they are statues or flower girls. Perhaps Shaw was attempting to say that it isn't right for women to be so subjected to what men want as they were in those times.

William Butler Yeats

After reading "The Second Coming" I was very interested in writing about it. Even though it is somewhat difficult to understand and analyze, there is a lot that can be left to the reader for interpretation, which I like. There is a lot of imagery, really making the poem come alive for you in a way that most of the other writings we've read haven't been able to do. I'm sure there is a lot of symbolize and ideas that I am not capable of identifying but I really enjoyed this piece.

William Yeats makes several references to the Bible, particularly ones in relation to the occurrences that we believe took place in Egypt. "The blood-dimmed tide is loose and everywhere, The ceremony of innocence is drowned;" probably symbolize the display of the Nile River turning to blood by Moses' staff and the sending of the Death Angel in order to convince Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go free (1122). So because the "shape with lion body and the head of a man" is presumably the Sphinx of ancient Egypt, are we to assume that the beast of Yeats' Second Coming is related to the forces that were against Moses and his followers (1122)?

I don't think he meant to say that there was literally a Second Coming involving a Sphinx or any other man-made creature. I think it is a reflection of the times in the sense that things were falling apart as he says in the first stanza of the piece. Different people were beginning to think differently and explode in controversies with one another, prime example World War I had taken place before the poem was published. He ends the poem with a question, "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/ Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" ultimately asking what will come of the many varied and opposing view points at the time (1123).

Oscar Wilde: Importance of Being Earnest

I really enjoyed Oscar Wilde's satire, particularly in his play The Importance of Being Earnest. I want to explore a few of the main characters (Jack Worthing and Gwendolen) and try to relate how those characters symbolized the general Victorian image of men and women.

Jack is used to symbolize the men of the time because he has a front, a facade of sorts, and has a completely different personality that he is very conscious of. When Jack says to Algernon, "Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country" he is identifying an escape route, a separate self that he knows about, but uses as he needs to (851). Ernest is his scape goat, his reason for being able to leave his countryside on weekends and go to London. But more importantly, Ernest serves as an escape, something to balance out his dutiful and dependent side that others know as Jack. He escapes and he lies, even to the woman he hopes to marry, Gwendolen. It is Gwendolen, however, who forces him to own up to the fact that not only does he not know who he is, but also that he must choose only one person to be.

Gwendolen, on the other hand, is a reflection of women during the age and attends lectures and does things to improve herself but is also superficial. She only knows Jack as Ernest initially and loves him, mainly, it seems, because of his name. The importance of her emphasis on his name is important as it relates to how women (or their families) were likely to choose their husbands based on the stature of their name, who they descended from. So it is in this way that she is made up as the majority of Victorian women. In the end, she is able to forgive Ernest's behaviors and lies and of course the story ends happily ever after.

I think Wilde wanted to be sure that it wasn't until the very end, when Ernest learned to be true to himself that things naturally fell into place for him and the people around him. "I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest" (886). He discovers that the life he made up really wasn't fiction, but a reflection of his true self, his sincere self, his earnest self.

Thomas Hardy

I want to talk about, and kind of compare"Hap" and "Epitaph" because I think, to an extent, they are somewhat related in Thomas Hardy's views on religion, one of which is earlier in his life, and the other written 6 years before his death.

In "Hap," Hardy expresses concerns that a sadistic "Vengeful god" would tell him that his entire life, all of his existence, is nothing more than entertainment for said god- and even further that the god finds happiness and profit in Hardy's pain and losses (1073). I think people often del with this issue when considering what will really happen when they die, raising questions of whether or not there is an afterlife worth living for. For Hardy to think this and to proclaim that he would easily end his life for such an instance may lead one to think that Hardy may have had a somewhat agnostic view on life. It would also lead me to think that his view was also somewhat against structured religion, in order to question the morality of a god, Hardy could not have been an active Church-goer, or at the very least wasn't writing for them.

In "Epitaph," Hardy expresses that he's never cared for Life, but Life- who has cared for him, has forsaken him. Life now says, " thou didst ask no ill-advised reward,/ Nor sought in me much more than thou couldst find" (1079). This says that Hardy sought more out of life than it had to offer, and possibly got bored with it, explaining why he never really cared for it. But also, Hardy did not ask for anything more out of Life: an "ill-advised reward." He expected to gain nothing from Life, quite possibly even the promise of something after life. It is interesting that his description of their relationship is like a romantic one, and although Hardy has been faithful- never attempting to kill himself or anything- Life is no longer willing to stay with him.

Could this be Hardy foreshadowing his own death, 6 years later? Is it maybe a thought that death was coming soon for him? Or maybe it was him feeling that the rewards of Life were no longer available to him- perhaps the ripe old age of somewhere around 82 made him feel this way? I cannot answer any of these questions but I do think it continues his somewhat agnostic or even atheist view that there is no afterlife, nothing to search for in life because nothing will come after it.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

A man, as the introduction reads, whose "quest to find proof of God's work in nature" made his writings very Victorian in theme (773). And we can see this in several, if not all of his selections in the anthology. "The Windhover" is addressed to Christ our Lord in which he describes something from nature, a Falcon, in a beautiful fashion, making the falcon out to be an almost heavenly and divine creature talking of its achievements and mastery of flight (775). There are several other poems we see in which he refers to God or Jesus or writes the poem to or for either of them including "God's Grandeur," "The Windhover," "Pied Beauty," "Felix Randal," "As Kingfishers Catch Fire," and several others.

What is the significance of him being sure that people understood that God can be found in nature? According to his apparent beliefs, and considering the times, and that Hopkins was the most Victorian and the most modern of the Victorian writers, there is an important need to emphasize the simpler things in life, as opposed to the importance of hierarchies, and structure, and Industrialism that was taking place during the Victorian Age.

We especially see the purpose of his writings in "Pied Beauty." In the first stanza, he gives thanks for the multitude of beautiful and colorful things in our word that God has given us. The second stanza is saying that everything, no matter how traditional or strange, is made by Him. "With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;/ He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:/ Praise him" (776). What does it mean for beauty to be past change? God created us all as we are meant to be, rejoice in that and praise Him for it.