Monthly Archives: November 2015

In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud claims that some children who are attached to their stuffed animals or dolls would at one point, wish that they became alive. Speaking on behalf of my childhood-self, I must say that this holds true and that this theory reminds me greatly of my own experience..which I will now share.

My mother once told me that at night, when the clock strikes past twelve and the children are all sleeping, the dolls in the household would come to life. However, if the dolls sensed that even one child was awake, they would retreat back into their lifeless form. (Sounds like Toy Story, yeah?) As a child hearing this, I wanted to witness this magical event, but I could never keep myself awake long enough. Despite this, there were numerous instances where I had awoken in the middle of the night and could have sworn to hear faint murmurs and laughter. The dolls that I had were outside in the living room, one wall and corridor apart from the bedroom. On one particular night, I had awoken again and could hear from the bedroom wall, the same joyful, tiny, laughter and conversation. At this point, one may reason that it was my parents who were watching television outside, but let me assure you, they were not. At that time, we lived in a one-bedroom complex and my parents were already sound asleep next to me. Taking on the adventurous spirit found in most children, I lurked outside, venturing into the living room. I was convinced I would finally be able to “meet” my dolls in person, yet, the voices began to fade into silence as I slowly entered the room. Perhaps it was simply the lack of logical thinking (especially late at night and the influence of my mother’s tale) or memory that caused me to look at the placement of where I had last left my dolls (sitting in a row, backs against the wall, bums on the couch) and notice that one or two of them were out of place. (I will take any possibility of paranormal activity out of this situation, as I simply hate and fear the paranormal) After fixing their posture, I headed back to the bedroom and pretended to sleep. I had hoped to catch my dolls “in action” once more, however, as the time passed, nothing but silent snoring could be heard and I began to fall asleep. I made several more attempts the following days, all of which had failed miserably. The desire to see my dolls alive had then also moved on.

For many individuals, imagination is at its “peak” during their early years. Why must this ability fade as we get older? Of course, more responsibilities are adopted as we age, but this does not mean that we must altogether abandon imagination and creativity. For myself, I simply enjoyed the freedom to create, whether it be a silly character or situation. This passion has transformed into a hobby which drives me to express my imagination through my artwork and graphic novels (enjoyable to any person of age). Perhaps so many of us have trouble interacting with children and keep up with their mentality as we have long forgotten the process of our own imaginative thinking when we were once their age.

*if the above image is unclear, click into it — that should open an image with higher quality

When we were analyzing Hopkins’ “Gods Grandeur,” I couldn’t stop thinking about the similarities between it and the Wordsworth poem  “The World Is Too Much With Us” (which also happens to be the only Wordsworth poem I’ve read). Both poems deliver a similar message; they describe the worsening disconnect between man and nature and refer back to a time when the beauty and power of the natural world was appreciated. In both poems, a Petrarchan sonnet is the form used to deliver such a message. Petrarchan sonnets are unique in the way which their form is utilized: the octave generally presents an issue or problem, and a response or solution is proposed in the following sestet. Both Hopkins and Wordsworth present the issue of a growing disconnect from nature, which they then later claim needs to be appreciated as the divine form that it is.

It can be seen that both poets have chosen to begin the poem with “The World” (1). Once again, their similar thoughts are evident in that the environmental issues associated with industrialization are described as something global, a problem which encompasses each person who lives in the world. Hopkins and Wordsworth then both claim mankind is responsible for such a disaster: Wordsworth describes mankind as being “out of tune” with nature, and Hopkins similarly says that men have lost all connection with nature.

In the sestet, differences between Wordsworth and Hopkins begin to emerge. Wordsworth  blatantly claims that he would rather “be/ A Pagan” than suffer through an increasingly unnatural world. He then goes on to refer to divinity in nature with ancient Greek figures, specifically naming Proteus and Triton. This clear rejection of established, industrial England is very different from Hopkins’ sestet, which proves to be much more optimistic. He claims that “nature is never spent” despite all it has gone through, and proceeds to describe a beautiful image of “the Holy Ghost” which can be seen as the world recovers. Hopkins’ optimistic, religious conclusion can be contrasted with Wordsworth’s much more pessimistic and cynical conclusion. Despite these overall differences, the two poets show great similarities in the way which they perceive and communicate ideas; it is no wonder that they are now both recognized as great figures in English poetry.

It is undeniable that religion played a crucial role in the poetic imagination of Gerard Manley Hopkins even though his writings occasionally contradicted and challenged certain aspects of accepted Catholic doctrine.

Hopkins was born in a deeply religious household belonging to the High Church branch of Anglicanism, which differed from the more evangelical and populist Low Church Anglicanism in its Catholic-like emphasis of ritual, theology, and hierarchical structure. Hopkins also grew up in an artistic family, with his great-uncle, Richard James Lane, being an acclaimed portraitist and of his two of brothers later becoming successful artists. Before realizing his love for poetry, a young Hopkins had ambitions of being a poet. Even as a child, he was highly eccentric, experimenting with asceticism by not trying not to drink water for a week (which was cut short by his tongue turning black and by him passing out) and on another occasion, not eating salt for a week.

When Hopkins first arrived at Oxford to study Classics, he was a generally outgoing and social young man, writing poetry at a prolific pace. However, as time progressed, Hopkins became more shy and withdrawn. During that time, he deeply affected by the writings of the poet Christina Rossetti, medieval mysticism,  the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and the religious arguments concerning the place of ritual and tradition in the High Church versus the more individualist focus of the Low Church. At the age of 21, Hopkins composed his most austere poem to date, “The Habit of Perfection” in which he denounced sensory pleasures and praised poverty. In 1866, Hopkins decided to convert to Catholicism and to dedicate his life to God, alienating himself from many members of his family and friends.

In May, 1868, Hopkins, shortly before entering seminary to become a Jesuit, he made a bonfire of his poems and stopped writing poetry for nearly seven years, believing that it is not possible to dedicate oneself to worldly beauty in addition to God. Eventually, after reading the works of Duns Scotus, Hopkins began to reconcile his love of the natural world with the higher spiritual duties of the priest. In 1875, Hopkins finally resumed writing poetry but only at the insistence of his church superior, who wanted him to write a poem in commemoration of the shipwreck of the SS Deutschland, which had aboard it five nuns fleeing German persecution against Catholics. The resulting “The Wrecking of the S.S. Deutschland” marked a clear departure from Hopkins’ early works by being the first to feature the unusual meter and sprung rhythm common in his later poems. It was not particularly well received, although the Jesuits did not reject it they also did not publish it in their official publications.

In addition to his artistic dilemma, Hopkins might have also conflicted with his chosen faith due to his sexuality. There is strong evidence from his diary and correspondence and poetry that he was in love with fellow poet and cousin of Robert Bridges, Digby Mackworth Dolben. They two regularly wrote letters to each other, after Hopkins’ church superiors forbade them meeting in person, until Dolben drowned in 1867, which had a deep emotional impact on Hopkins.  Two of Hopkins’ poems, “Where art thou friend” and “The Beginning of the End” are explicitly about Dolben, with the second poem containing the line “The sceptic disappointment and the loss/A boy feels when the poet he pores upon/Grows less and less sweet to him, and knows no cause.”

By failing his final theology exam, Hopkins was denied the chance to progress any further in the Jesuit order from his rank of priest He eventually obtained a position of Classics professor at University College Dublin, although by all accounts the shy Hopkins was not a very commanding teacher. Hopkins then entered into an ever-worsening spiral of depression, aggravated by feelings of home-sickness. Hopkins also felt a sense of artistic and religious dilemma, believing on one hand that publishing his poem would expose him to vanity while also feeling that it is crucial for a poet to have an audience. His poems of this era like “I Wake and Feel the Fell of the Dark”, often called the “terrible sonnets”, reflected this growing sense of failure and doom. In 1889, at the age of 44, after suffering long bouts of both physical and mental illness, including chronic diarrhea and severe depression, Hopkins died from typhoid fever. Despite his persistent battles with regret and anguish, his final words were: “I am so happy, I am so happy. I loved my life.”

It is undeniable that Hopkins’s style of poems are distinct. It can be seen as metaphysical and intricate as seen in As Kingfishers Catch Fire where Hopkins jumps from one image to another in order to portray the individuality and uniqueness of one as well as reflecting itself throughout all. Through the concentration of images, it is possible for him to communicate the instress of the poet’s perception of an inscape to the reader. Due to the fact that Hopkins was a supporter of linguistic purism in English, his dedication to learning Old English highly influenced his writing.

His added sophistication comes from regularly using alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia and rhyme as seen for example in the first stanza of As Kingfishers Catch Fire:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

The reliance of same sounding words are fully emphasised when read aloud. It can also be said that Hopkins’s poems are better understood when also read aloud. The idea of inscape is uncertain and typically known to be one of Hopkins own ideas. This idea is expressed through the individual essence and uniqueness of a certain object. Through the inscape as seen in his poem The Windhover, it aims to describe not only the bird in general but the one instance and the relation to the breeze. Without a doubt, The Windhover was one of the most proudly written poems according to Hopkins he has ever wrote.

“I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day” is a poem that describes the wait for the second coming of Christ. In the first line, Hopkins illustrates the heaviness of the darkness with the use of alliteration in “feel the fell” (1). The weight of the metaphorical shadows is repressive and constrictive. The darkness is the manifestation of a world without God. In the dark, the speaker is unable to see clearly as one is blind without the guidance of God. The “black hours” (2) that the speaker has wasted, denotes to the hours on Earth one spent stumbling. In the third line, the poet mentions the heart. Hopkins believes that the heart is the organ that can truly see. The heart saw where “you” went, referring to where the disappearance of the God in one’s life. The “light’s delay” (4) is an allusion to the second coming that has yet to come, mentioned in the book of Revelation. The light is a metaphor for both God and the second coming of Jesus, as the world is to be consumed by flames. The hours, years and life span mentioned in the sixth line expresses the unknown amount of time that one is waiting for their death to reunite with their God. The uncertainty of time also refers to the indefinite wait for all believers, until the second coming. Those who are “dearest [to] him”(8) will live in the heavens for eternity.

In the second stanza, the speaker expresses the pain of one who was not saved from the depths of Hell after the second coming. The “heartburn” (9) describes the pain and brokenness of one who was rejected at the Gates of Heaven. Had the speaker been subjected to the unfortunate fate, the bitterness would be defined by the speaker’s sadness (10). The “bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse” (11) is a line that is another example of alliteration. Line eleven illustrates the reason for the speaker’s fate in Hell, is not in his control as it is a curse. The curse also implies the negativity and doom one would be subjected to in Hell. The spirit of “a dull dough [is] sour” (12) and the mention of “selfyeast” refers to the lack of change made possible by oneself. “The lost” (13) are a reference to the souls that are trapped in Hell as their “scourge” (13) was cursed upon them. The speaker relates to the pain of the lost souls as the fear of one’s own fate approaches.

In the 21st century, the recognition of the failure of categorization is a prominent subject is any field of study. Interdisciplinary studies are increasingly popular because one category simply is not enough to fully understand and analyze any given topic. Manley Hopkins is the same in this sense. He is a religious poet and yet he communicates this through nature. He resists categorization because he is not a religious poet or a naturalist; he is both. This is what makes him so undeniable unique. This poems are examples of the beauty of tension. The tension between his two passions is prevalent in his work, but this is what makes it so important. When Hopkins uses a bird to describe the beauty of God in his famed poem The Windhover, he is not just describing the splendour of God, he is describing that of the bird as well. This beauty is unique and singular but is present in all parts of the world. This way of looking at the world, through not just one lens but multiple ones, creates a deeper meaning. This meaning is more complex and in the world we live in today it is increasingly necessary. Hopkins serves as an example to proto-interdiscplinary thinking that everyone can benefit from.

When we were looking at the poem London, and Professor Mota pointed out the emphasis on hearing in that poem, I began to think about how Romanticism affected music.

What do mind-forg’d manacles sound like? Metallic, probably. And the Romantic era of music introduced just that to the orchestra- a wider spread use of brass instruments and woodwind instruments that utilized metal valves and keys. The technology of the Industrial Revolution allowed these instruments to become more widespread and incorporated by musicians.

There were many stylistic changes as well. Beethoven is well known as a composer, and also as the bridge between classical and romantic music. His earlier, little known works are similar to those of classical composers, but in the middle stages of his life, he begins to experiment with his music.

Beethoven began putting personal emotions in his music. It does not seem like a radical move today, but much of classical music was god praising or nature praising something of that sort, and rarely introspective. His pieces were original, and he was a genius in manipulating tone and motif to reflect himself and his thoughts. The first symphony he wrote that reflected this change was Eroica. It transitions from a classical piece to a funeral march, then to a lively scherzo and ending in variations of the theme.

Personal emotion was not present in classical music, and the romantic movement changed that.

The most striking thing about William Blake’s ‘The Shepherd’ from Songs of Innocence and Experience is how strong the religious undertones are upon reflection. At first, the poem appears to simply be about the joys that a shepherd takes in his daily duties but there is a lot more going on here than just that. The capitalization of the “S” in “Shepherd” suggests that the shepherd himself is quite important, as Jesus Christ and God are frequently referred to as playing this role – except they shepherd mankind as opposed to sheep. The sheep are happy and content under their watchful gaze, feeling the sort of security that people should feel knowing that God is watching over and protecting them. It is strange that the poem seems imply that the Shepherd is following the flock as opposed to leading them (“He shall follow his sheep all the day”) as this is not traditionally the way shepherds operate, but this is another example of how the relationship here is an allegory for the one between humans and God. It is a very simple poem, both in terms of language and its overall message. Humans are presented as innocent and peaceful, but only when they know the protection of a higher power is nearby. God is seen as a paternal figure who takes great joy in his daily work. It is a symbiotic connection that benefits both parties.

William Blake’s poem “Little Black Boy” is fairly controversial for its time. Written during the 1700s when slavery was still legal, this poem states incredibly progressive views. The poem insinuates that in the eyes of God, all are equal no matter the race. Blake writes, “Look on the rising sun: there God does live”, and later refers to “black bodies and sun-burnt face” implying that blacks are closer to God, and writes that the English have pale and white skin (“I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear”) making them further from God. Not only is this a criticism of slavery, but a direct call-out to the Christian church for largely excluding blacks. Historically, the Church has not taken kindly to minorities, and Blake makes a different assumption that perhaps whites are not the “elite” and chosen few that earn God’s love. A bold move for the time, I applaud Blake for his efforts, considering the time period that he wrote this in. Blake’s opinions were not widely-spread at that time, since the movement for abolition was barely starting. “Little Black Boy” has a melancholy tone that recognizes the harsh life that slaves endured, a progressive opinion that I am sure did not win Blake much favor. As a lover of politically-correct and social-justice related things, this poem warmed my heart to read.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience was not popular when it was first printed. Well technically it wasn’t mass produced due to difficulty with reproducing the images. But from the limited attention Blake’s other works received, it seems that not many people in Blake’s time viewed him as the great English poet he is today. So here is the question, why was Blake not considered great then but is now? The obvious answer would be to say that Blake was “ahead of his time”, his ideas were so advanced that the future generation found it more relevant than the generation he was with. But what if this is not true? What I am about to say is purely conjecture, and not to be taken seriously, however, I just want to point out the possibility that maybe we all misunderstood Blake.

It is impossible to know what the author of any work of art really meant by producing it. Unless we ask them of course, but even then we don’t really know the exact thoughts and feelings the author felt when he/she made a work of art. This creates a problem, because there is no way to correctly interpret the meaning of a work of art, therefore the standard of measuring the artistic value of works of art become purely subjective. What is great art to one could be a vulgar piece to another. And a piece of art one generation find boring could be extremely compelling to another. Here we can see the problem with Blake, what if the reason he is valued in the present generation is because we gave his poems unintended interpretations based on our society? And because his poems seems to express the feelings of the people in the present generation, we assume that it was intended by him?

One of the greatest abilities humans have is drawing connections between unrelated things. Words have connotations, colours have meanings, and pretty much everything could be a symbol for something else. The ability of humans to draw connection between pretty much everything is fantastic. I read a joke about an English teacher once, the English teacher is analyzing a novel, and he/she starts to talk about the meaning behind a certain blue curtain in a book. Apparently, blue symbolizes the deep depression the character feels. But upon asking the author, the author simply said that “well, the curtain is blue…” Humans love to add meanings to meaningless things, so what if Blake doesn’t really have any particular meanings when he wrote Songs of Innocence and of Experience? What if we are just interpreting his poetry from a modern perspective and forcing upon it modern meanings?

Blake is a member of the Romantic Movement. Romanticism seems to favour emotion over reason. Romantic writers like Rousseau have said that they have sudden violent bursts of emotions that give them ideas and help them write things. Could it be that Blake was in a similar situation? He felt a violent emotion overcoming him and had to let it out by writing poems. Perhaps he didn’t even knew or thought about what he was writing, he simply wrote his poems and felt that they were good enough to be published.

It seems that great works often have a lot of ambiguity in their comprehension. Perhaps that is the reason they are great, not because their literary value or theme, it’s the ambiguity in their comprehension that makes them great. They can be interpreted by countless generations each with an interpretation that fits their time. And the interpretation doesn’t seem to be complete for all the generation that tries to interpret it. People love to obsess themselves with things they don’t understand. So the more ambiguous something is, the harder they are to understand, the more artistic value they seem to have. This is especially true with paintings, I feel some of the paintings that are considered great are just the artist doing random things. Like seriously, what is a piece of paper being splashed with paint supposed to mean anything?

Overall, I just want to say that maybe, maybe, we all misunderstood Blake, maybe he didn’t really have the meanings we interpreted in his poems, perhaps we just think too much as humans. Of course I won’t say that I just have no idea what he or Hopkins is talking about…