Term
Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”
Mock comic epic; makes fun of triviality |
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Definition
Not youthful kings in battle seized alive,
Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,
Not ardent lovers robbed of all their bliss,
Not ancient ladies when refused a kiss,
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
Not Cynthia when her manteau’s pinned awry,
E’er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,
As thou, sad virgin! for thy ravished hair. (ln. 3-10) |
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Term
Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”
- pouring of coffee/tea is a big event in a mock comic epic
- small actions are epic in poem |
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Definition
Fo lo! The board with cups and spoons is crowned,
The berries crackle, and the mill turns round;
On shining altars of Japan they raise
The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze:
From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,
While China’s earth receives the smoking tide. (ln. 105-110) |
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Term
Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”
- importance of objects
o her cross is part of her beauty but is an object of art, not faith
- Belinda has the same regard for everyone
- Superficial; she looks a certain way, her response is supe |
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Definition
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those:
Favors to none, to all she smiles extends;
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. (ln. 7-14) |
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Term
Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”
- toilet scene like Narcissus or Eve looking into the pool
- Belinda interested only in herself, narcissistic
- “cosmetic powers” make he
r a beautiful object
- she loves the flat image of her
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Definition
And now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers;
A heavenly image in the lgass appears;
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears.
The inferior priestess, at her altar’s side,
Trembling begins the sacred rites of Pride. (1.121-128) |
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Term
Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”
- the Baron wants her hair, not the cross
- looking at Belinda stupefies
- the hair is a part of her, not deeply connected
- “the prize” of the lock – what prize? |
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Definition
The adventurous Baron the bright locks admired,
He saw, he wished, and to the prize aspired.
Resolved to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover’s toil attends,
Few ask if fraud or force attained his ends. (2.29-34) |
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Term
Pope, “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot”
- crappy poets like spiders
- madness to keep them company |
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Definition
Who shames a scribbler? Break one cobweb through,
He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew:
Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain;
The creature’s at his dirty work again,
Throned in the center of his thin designs,
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines. (ln. 89-94) |
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Term
Pope, “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot”
- having something burst means there’s something inside you to let out
- Pope’s commitment to truth gets him in trouble
- Sacrifice of the writer for virtue |
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Definition
‘Tis sun, when Midas’ ears began to spring
(Midas, a sacred person and a king),
His very minister who spied them first,
(Some say his queen) was forced to speak, or burst.
And is not mind, my friend, a sorer case,
When every coxcomb perks them in my face? (ln 69-74) |
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Term
Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography
- discussing his “Thirteen Names of Virtues”
- doesn’t cure self of pride but of appearing proud
- trying to be good appears presumptious |
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Definition
| “I cannot boast of much Success in acquiring the Reality of this Virtue; but I had a good deal with regard to the Appearance of it. I made it a Rule to forbear all direct Contradiction to the Sentiments of others, and all positive Assertion of my own. I even forbid myself, agreeable to the old Laws of our Junto, the Use of every Word or Expression in the Language that imported a fix’d Opinion; such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc. and I adopted instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so, or it so appears to me at present” (75). |
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Term
BF’s Autobiography
- while most people dislike vanity, it’s one of the main comforts in his life
- isn’t the writing of an autobiography proof of vanity?
- Yet he likes to stress the egalitarian version of himself, not as a king
- One’s truest interes |
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Definition
| “Most People dislike Vanity in others whatever Share they have of it themselves, but I give it fair Quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of Good to the Possessor and to others that are within his Sphere of Action: And therefore in many Cases it would not be quite absurd if a Man were to thank God for his Vanity among the other Comforts of Life” (2). |
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Term
BF’s Autobiography
- Egotism is like being in the fog
- The way the world works is what keeps you in the fog |
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Definition
| “Like a Man traveling in foggy Weather: Those at some Distance before him on the Road he sees wrapped up in the Fog, ad well as those behind him, and also the People in the Fields on each side; but near him all appears clear. – Tho’ in truth he is as much in the Fog as any of them” (97) |
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Term
BF’s Autobiography
- self-interest at the root of all human actions
- this is real life, not the high class of “The Rape of the Lock” |
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Definition
| “Human Felicity is produc’d not so much by great Pieces of good Fortune that seldom happen, as by little Advantages that occur every Day” (108). |
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Term
Wordsworth, The Prelude
- picks up where Milton left off? Paradise Regained?
- Joyous of his escape from the city
- No Eve or guide of Providence, but a cloud
- The breeze as WW’s muse – epic poem
- Epic poems should celebrate hum |
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Definition
The earth is all before me! With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about, and should the guide I choose
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again! (1.15-19) |
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Term
Wordsworth, ‘The Prelude’
- plunders a raven’s nest
- connection with nature, otherworldly
- Nature like his mother, his guardian |
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Definition
Oh, when I have hung
Above the raven’s nest, by knots of grass
And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock
But ill sustained, and almost (as it seemed)
Suspended by the blast which blew amain
Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time
While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind
Blow through my ears! The sky seemed not a sky
Of earth – and with what motion moved the clouds! (1.341-350) |
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Term
Wordsworth, ‘The Prelude’
- scared by the cliff behind the cliff, in his boat
- feels frightened, but awakened to a new life
- mind’s guilt is projected onto Nature
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Definition
It was an act of stealth
And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on,
Leaving behind her still on either side
Small circles glittering idly in the moon
Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light (1.388-394) |
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Term
WW’s ‘The Prelude’
- urge for contact with the heavens, Nature: “cut across the image of a star”
- maternal guardian of Nature; protective but also manipulative powers
- wind moves his world without him needing to move |
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Definition
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the image of a star
That gleamed upon the ice. And oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short – yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round! (1.474-486) |
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Term
WW’s “The Prelude”
- breastfeeding, nursing the whole body and spirit
- unity of the world; all needs met in one person
- natural of the mother’s love to flow through milk
- relationship with nature is one of mother and child |
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Definition
Blest the infant babe
(For with my best conjectures I would trace
The progress of our being), blest the babe
Nursed in his mother’s arms, the babe who sleeps
Upon his mother’s breast, who when his soul
Claims manifest kindred with an earthly soul,
Does gather passion from his mother’s eye!
Such feelings pass into his torpid life
Like an awakening breeze, and hence his mind,
Even in the first trial of its powers,
Is prompt and watchful, eager to combine
In one appearance all the elements
And parts of the same objects, else detached
And loth to coalesce (II.237-250) |
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Term
Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” – the Alps
- here WW sees less than he expected
- if you want more out of life, you’ve got to lift yourself out of the world
- imagination does more than even Nature can |
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Definition
Imagination – lifting up itself
Before the eye and progress of my song
Like an unfathered vapour, here that power,
In all the might of its endowments, came
Athwart me! I was lost as in a cloud,
Halted without a struggle to break through;
And now, recovering, to my soul I say
‘I recognize thy glory’ (VI.525-532) |
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Term
Wordsworth’s “The Prelude”
Residence in London
- reinforces the idea that no one knows each other
- mirrors WW’s sense of alienation
- how meager the image of humanities is |
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Definition
Abruptly to be smitten with the view
Of a blind beggar, who, with upright face,
Stood propped against a wall, upon his chest
Wearing a written paper to explain
The story of the man and who he was.
My mind did at this spectacle turn round
As with the might of waters, and it seemed
To me that in this label was a type
Or emblem of the utmost that we know
Both of ourselves and of the universe;
And, on the shape of this unmoving man,
His fixed face and sightless eyes, I looked
As if admonished from another world (VII.610-622) |
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Term
Wordsworth’s “The Prelude”
Residence in London
- bloodthirsty tyranny like a child forcing a pinwheel to spin
- tyranny: one shape, one mind; can’t have more than one head |
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Definition
Domestic carnage now filled all the year
With feastdays: the old man from the chimney-nook,
The maiden from the bosom of her love,
The mother from the cradle of her babe,
The warrior from the field – all perished, all –
Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks,
Head after head, and never heads enough
For those who bade them fall. They found their joy,
They made it, ever thirsty, as a child
(If light desires of innocent little ones
may with such heinous appetites be matched)
Having a toy, a windmill, though the air
Do of itself blow fresh and makes the vane
Spin in his eyesight, he is not content,
But with the plaything at arm’s length he sets
His front against the blast, and runs amain
To make it whirl the faster (X.329-345) |
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Term
Wordsworth’s “The Prelude”
Imagination chapter
- problem of tyranny: mind is lord and master
- problem of the French Revolution
- to separate the mind and body is to guillotine |
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Definition
There are in our existence spots of time
Which with distinct pre-eminence retain
A vivifying virtue, whence, depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight
In trivial occupations and the round
Of ordinary intercourse, our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired –
A virtue by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to mount
When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.
This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks
Among those passages of life in which
We have had deepest feeling that the mind
Is lord and master, and that outward sense
Is but the obedient servant of her will” (XI.257-272) |
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Term
Wordsworth’s “The Prelude”
Imagination chapter
- after seeing the gibbet-mast with the name inscribed
- something more that is unknown exists
- superstition of having contributed to his father’s death
- role of his imagination |
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Definition
Forthwith I left the spot
And reascending the bare common saw
A naked pool that lay beneath the hills,
The beacon on the summit, and more near,
A girl who bore a pitcher on her head
And seemed with difficult steps to force her way
Against the blowing wind. It was in truth
An ordinary sight, but I should need
Colours and words that are unknown to man
To paint the visionary dreariness
Which, while I looked all round for my lost guide,
Did at that time invest the naked pool,
The beacon on the lonely eminence,
The woman and her garments vexed and tossed
By the strong wind (XI.301-314). |
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Term
Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” Conclusion
- the power has to be in you, not outside, “individual state”
- no separation of head and body, no decapitation |
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Definition
Imagination having been our theme,
So also has that intellectual love,
For they are each in each, and cannot stand
Dividually. Here must thou be, o man,
Strength to thyself – no helper hast thou here –
Here keepest thou thy individual state.
No other can divide with thee this work
No secondary hand can intervene
To fashion this ability. ‘Tis thine,
The prime and vital principle is thine
In the recesses of thy nature, far
From any reach of outward fellowship,
Else ‘tis not thine at all (XIII.185-197). |
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Term
Emily Brontë, “Wuthering Heights”
Nelly is telling Lockwood, quoting Heathcliff talking about Edgar Linton
- better to have physical dominance than riches?
- The violence of passion, of misanthropy |
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Definition
| “But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn’t make him less handsome, or me more so. I wish I had light hair and fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!” (44) |
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Term
Brontë, “Wuthering Heights”
Nelly quoting to Lockwood what Cathy said about Heathcliff
- Eve’s question, bound here on earth
- Want Heathcliff, not heaven
- Aren’t in love with normal heroes; Heathcliff is rough, Cathy a ghost |
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Definition
| “I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here?” (64) |
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Term
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- discussing Covey, like Satan in a snake form but also like God because he’s there all the time
- leaving Paradise was believed to be a Satanic thing |
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Definition
| “His work went on in his absence almost as well as in his presence; and he had the faculty of making us feel that he was ever present with us. This he did by surprising us. He seldom approached the spot where we were at work openly, if he could do it secretly. He always aimed at taking us by surprise. Such was his cunning, that we used to call him, among ourselves, ‘the snake’” (72-3). |
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Term
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- describing the singing of the slaves after talking about conditions on the plantation
- idea of the body as a vessel, as an instrument, out of necessity
- together in aloneness – like spots of t |
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Definition
| “I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears…The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave” (47). |
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Term
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Scarlet Letter”
The Custom-House
- description of the Inspector as an animal
- only remembers food, feasts, not friends |
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Definition
| “One point, in which he had vastly the advantage over his four-footed brethren, was his ability to recollect the good dinners which it had made no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat….As he possessed no higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual endowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities to subserve the delight and profit of his maw, it always pleased and satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher’s meat” (15). |
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Term
Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”
The Custom-House, second floor
- no one cares about Hawthorne’s writing in America
- Hawthorne dreams of literary fame
- As a writer, an idler, his ancestors would be ashamed |
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Definition
| “At one end of the room, in a recess, were a number of barrels, piled one upon another, containing bundles of official documents. Large quantities of similar rubbish lay lumbering the floor. It was sorrowful to think how many days, and weeks, and months, and years of toil, had been wasted on these musty papers, which were now only an encumbrance on earth, and were hidden away in this forgotten corner, never more to be glanced at by human eyes” (22). |
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Term
Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”
The Governor’s Hall
Hester hears that officials are discussing what they’ll do with Pearl
- can’t distinguish between major and minor crimes |
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Definition
| “It may appear singular, and, indeed, not a little ludicrous, that an affair of this kind, which, in later days, would have been referred to no higher jurisdiction than that of the selectmen of the town, should then have been a question publicly discussed, and on which statesmen of eminence took sides” (69). |
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Term
Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”
The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter
Chillingworth to Dimmesdale in front of the crowd
- Dimmesdale believes that society is too weak a force to stop him, his conscience must derive from somewhere
- God |
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Definition
| "Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret—no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me—save on this very scaffold!” (171). |
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Term
Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”
A Flood of Sunshine, in the woods with Dimmesdale and Pearl
Alone with Dimmesdale now
- Romantic theme of returning back to nature, way of the natives, in the woods
- H and D violated a superstitious la |
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Definition
| She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness, as vast, as intricate, and shadowy as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide their fate. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. For years past she had looked from this estranged point of view at human institutions, and whatever priests or legislators had established; criticising all with hardly more reverence than the Indian would feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the pillory, the gallows, the fireside, or the church" (136). |
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Term
Thoreau’s “Walden”
Economy
- philanthropy works to perpetuate the system
- can’t count on society but the self, like it’s up to the imagination
- self-emancipation from society |
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Definition
| A man is not a good man to me because he will feed me if I should be starving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that will do as much (118). |
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Term
Thoreau’s “Walden”
Economy, discussing the need for man to emancipate himself
- self-emancipation from slavery to society
- worse slavery is that of the self, limiting self according to other people’s dictates |
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Definition
| I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both north and south. It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is wore to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself (49). |
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Term
Thoreau’s “Walden”
Economy, after talking about self-emancipation
- got to take life into your own hands
- can’t blame society if you submit to its wishes |
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Definition
| As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation...it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things (50). |
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Term
Thoreau’s “Walden”
Economy
- there has been no Fall, no punishment necessary
- we’re not here as a punishment, but as a past time
- can’t blame God forever, need to take on responsibility for self |
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Definition
| Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring him forever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memorable praise of God (122). |
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Term
Thoreau’s “Walden”
Where I Lived, discussing the cabin he’s made for himself, location
- Walden Pond was up to his imagination, up to the mind
- Earth is insular, a mirage
- Water and nature’s virtue, away from industrialism
- Wat |
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Definition
| It is well to have some water in your neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and float the earth. One value even of the smallest well is, that when you look into it you see that earth is not continent but insular (131). |
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Term
Thoreau’s “Walden”
Economy
- need to figure out essentials
- need to live abnormally, not according to social rules
- unlearn what you’ve been taught
- the beauty of the natural mind, free from social tainting
o like Wordswor |
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Definition
| How many a poor immortal soul have I met well nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and wood-lot! (47) |
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Term
Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”
Solitude in the woods; writer to reader
- even when you’re alone, you’ve still got nature
- Wordsworthian; solitude is not the same as loneliness |
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Definition
| I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, has diseased imagination surrounding him, and which he believed to be real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we are never alone (182). |
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Term
Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”
Where I Lived, discussing the lake to reader
- heaven is under our feet, tangible
- our world is a heaven already
- nature’s ability to represent what might be missing |
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Definition
| A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air above it being shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself so much the more important (130). |
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Term
Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”
Solitude, to reader
- favorite mode of detachment
- reorganizing nature by imaging it other than what it is
- we cannot fathom the magnificence of nature
o opposite of Wordsworth’s view of the Alps |
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Definition
| With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature (180). |
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Term
Thoreau’s “Walden”
The Ponds, to reader
- keep thoughts awake, anticipating Aurora
- but is Thoreau spring-like? Isn’t he tedious in his writing? Refreshing or monotonous? |
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Definition
| In such transparent and seemingly bottomless water, reflecting the clouds, I seemed to be floating through the air as a balloon, and their swimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering, as if they were a compact flock of birds passing just beneath my level on the right or left, their fins, like sails, set all around them (237). |
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Term
Thoreau’s “Walden”
Describing ‘Where I Lived’ to reader
- collapses 2 years in 1, each the same
- can’t live in the present; as soon as one is aware, it’s the past
- no end, always the beginning of the next process |
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Definition
| If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we never need read of another. One is enough (138). |
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Term
Thoreau’s “Walden”
- truth of words is their volatility
- can’t just have one idea or belief, transforms
- doctrinal statements are exclusive, oppressive
- can only feel heaven on earth without religion |
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Definition
| The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement. Their truth is instantly translated; its literal monument alone remains (373). |
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Term
Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations”
- born just to give trouble
- told to be grateful for being raised ‘by hand’
- all of society, except for Joe, makes him feel like a bad guy |
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Definition
| I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends (23). |
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Term
Dickens’s “Great Expectations”
- consciousness of a child, new from previous literature
- not good to dwell on injustices, makes morally timid |
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Definition
| My sister’s bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice (63). |
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Term
Dickens’s “Great Expectations”
To reader, after Mrs. Joe is found struck
-delusion of his own guilt, is almost convinced
-self-detachment, thinks of self according to others
- worried that he provided the weapon – iron file |
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Definition
| With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to believe that I must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister, or at all events that as her near relation, popularly known to be under obligations to her, I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than any one else (120). |
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Term
Charles Dickens, “Great Expectations”
Joe comes to visit him in London at Barnard’s Inn
- money is what Pip employs to fix things
- employing others to do the work for you |
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Definition
| Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money (218). |
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Term
Charles Dickens, “Great Expectations”
Pip on being glad that Joe won’t encounter Drummle
- true, too, with Estella
- Pip is ashamed of the one good friend in his life
- Does not appreciate the good but the abusive, as his childhood tea |
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Definition
| So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise (218). |
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Term
Robert Browning, “Porphyria’s Lover”
Speaker to reader, recounting his murdering
- speaker has more passion than the girl
- lovers become one when the agency of one overcomes the others
- abusing a loved one is selfless?
- Lovers |
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Definition
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead! (ln 52-55) |
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Term
Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”
Speaker to reader about his late Duchess
- she failed to see his worthiness
- everything’s the same for her, democratic, egalitarian |
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Definition
She had
A heart – how shall I say? – too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ‘twas all one! (ln. 21-25) |
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Term
Robert Browning, “Caliban Upon Setebos”
Caliban to Setebos, talking about industry
- theologizing as an art
- art for art’s sake, just as work’s for work’s sake?
- Democratic thought, that his creative power of imagination is available |
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Definition
No use at all I’ the work, for works’ sole sake;
‘Shall some day knock it down again: so He (ln. 198-199). |
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Term
Walt Whitman, ‘Song of Myself’
Speaker to reader, talking of himself and his religion
- preaches natural theology
- power of nature, of the body, of self, of people |
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Definition
I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from;
The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,
This head is more than churches or bibles or creeds.
If I worship any particular thing it shall be some of the spread of my body;
Translucent mould of me it shall be you (ln 524-530) |
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Term
Whitman, “Song of Myself”
- nature and body intermixed
- nature felt through the body, the importance of both
- not self-alienating for Whitman because they’re unified
- sexual intersection, fulfilling |
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Definition
The smoke of my own breath,
Echos, ripples, and buzzed whispers….loveroot, silkthread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration….the beating of my heart….the passing of blood and air through my lungs, (ln 13-15) |
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Term
Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
- need to find pleasure in this world
- bodily desire to connect with the world; not consume but connect |
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Definition
Is this then a touch?….quivering me to a new identity,
Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,
My flesh and blood playing out lightning, to strike what is hardly different from myself,
On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs,
Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,
Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,
Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,
Unbuttoning my clothes and holding me by the bare waist,
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Term
Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”
Speaker to reader, searching for the Dark Tower
- dead man is the opposite of a transcendent man |
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Definition
Which, while I forded – good saints, how I feared
To set my foot upon a dead man’s cheek,
Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek
For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!
It may have been a water rat I speared,
But, ugh! It sounded like a baby’s shriek. |
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Term
Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”
Speaker to reader, the mountains and the Dark Tower just appeared before him
- set apart from the rest of the world “without a counterpart”
- words are reproducible, but not the Dark T |
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Definition
What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
The round squat turret, blind as the fool’s heart,
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart
In the whole world. The tempest’s mocking elf
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
He strikes on, only when the timbers start. |
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Term
Robert Browning, “The Lost Leader”
Speaker to reader, beginning of poem, introducing Wordsworth as a sellout
- leaders lost after the revolution, point of a revolution is to abolish the leader system
- realization that “we” matter, not Word |
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Definition
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to do!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us – they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen
- He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! |
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