Wordsworth's The Thorn

When I first read this poem it was difficult to grasp everything that had happened within it. The poem has many suggestions as to what the answers might be but never gives the reader a solid explanation. Was the baby born? What does the thorn symbolize? Did the baby make her go crazy or was it being left at the alter? Or did the baby make her sane? The emphasis put on the hill and it's description caught my attention because it changes from a scene of beauty to one of tragedy with the character of Martha Ray. As I mentioned, the poem left me with questions unanswered and in my first read, made me wonder if I had just missed the underlying message. I think though, that this is what Wordsworth may have intended. He implies rather than coming straight forward with the answers and that creates and even more haunting tone to his poem. It shows the reader that beauty and tragedy (pain) go together like a rose and it's thorn.

Psychological Obsession

The expansion of the British influence on the rest of the world shaped the way literature was written and percieved. After expeditions into the east, the British people were awakened with new art, food, clothing, music and ways of living. This became an enormous influence on how people percieved the outside world. It is a very common thought that people are afraid of the unknown, this is where I believe the darkness of gothic literature comes into play. The theme of madness is one of my personal favorites. The interest in the psychological decline of a human being and the questioning of what is real and what is imagination is extremely important when dealing with the question of whether the supernatural is real or imaginary. Tales of ghosts and spirits and supernatural abilities have been around for centuries, which completely go against the ideals of the enlightenment. The Enlightenment authors, philosophers and teachers would tell you that this is the wrong way to look at reality. The diminishing of the enlightenment period, the rise of the violence of the French Revolution and the growth of British exploration became the major components of the growth of the British gothic literature.

With the dark, violent overtones, and the hinting of some sort of omniscient supernatural power, it is easy to see why madness might have taken over our protagonists' psychological state. As a generation raised by science and reason, for the most part, we automatically look at Gottfried Burger's "Lenora" and see a very elaborate, artfully embellished fantasy. The dead coming back to life to visit you on horseback to take you, and ride off into the afterlife? --Nonesense. Even Lenora's mother, someone who was raise by the enlightenment, tries to not let her greif take over her sound mind, and tells her to let go of the fantasy and chalk it up to prayer. Her mother prayers for her, her enlightenment upbringing be shaken by her daughter's inability to trust in reason, God and what she has been taught. Instead, her daughter is relying on her sensory ability to see, and feel something else around her. From the way her mother way brought up, this is considered blasphemy, but to Lenora, what she is feeling is completely justified.

"Almighty God! O do not judge
My poor unhappy childe;
She knows not what her lips pronounce,
Her anguish makes her wilde."

When Lenora finally does submit to the darkness that her greif is trying to take her to, she is taken on this journey by William on horseback see some incredibly dark imagery. Corpes, ravens, a funeral train and the full moon. All images that leave a darker image in our minds, or malicious foreboding.

"O William, enter first my bowre,
And give me one embrace:
The blasts athwarte the hawthorne hiss;
Awayte a little space."

"Tho’ blasts athwarte the hawthorn hiss,
I may not harboure here;
My spurre is sharpe, my courser pawes,
My houre of flighte is nere."

As we spoke about in class, the repition is used very cleverly. It leaves us with a sense of a psychological imbalance. Like there is something just a little bit off about Lenora. In my mind repetition is a sign of anxiety, stress and that moment when you are starting to lose it a little bit.To me, the moment above is when we really start to see her disappear into her sadness and let go of reality.

The gothic period is so interested in the psychological state, and understanding more than what we can readily see, that this is the beginning of a very difficult time for female protagonists, and for women living in this era. Female sexuality is seem as madness, and many women were "medicated" by barbaric means of hospitalization and were often locked up in asylums for having sexual needs of desires. This is something I will explore more with my presentation.

"It rains on the just and unjust alike"

"The Eve of St. John" by Walter Scott is a ballad about a knight (The Baron) who, upon returning home from battle, discovers that his wife has had an affair with another knight - one who is buried beneath a tree and has long been dead. At the end of the poem, the Baron's wife inquires the ghostly knight about how his presence in the human world is possible in asking, "How, Richard, hast thou sped? And art thou saved, or art thou lost?"
The ghostly/demonic/undead knight replies, chillingly, "Who spilleth life, shall forfeit life; / so bid thy Lord believe: / And lawless love is guilt above; / This awful sign receive." and he goes forth to burn four finger marks on her wrist.

This is an interesting take on the archetype of knights and the glory of battle. Typically, knights are written as being noble and their battles are heroic despite the body count. The Baron is one of these knights - his armor is worn and his weapons are bloody from the battle he just returned from. As the reader, one wishes him to find justice for his wife's infidelity considering the courageous and dangerous circumstances he has endured while away. At the end of the ballad, though, we are told by the undead knight that he cannot be saved from the flames of hell because of the blood he has spilled and must "forfeit life". The final stanza reveals that the Baron is now a monk who does not speak to anyone and lives in solitude.
Similarly, his wife is now a nun who does not speak either. Her infidelity, according to the undead knight, is even worse than her husband's murderous actions and she, too, must forfeit life.

Adressing with hope

The Devil in “Address to De’il” is conveyed by Burn’s as a evil powerful force that awaits its chance to infect us with wickedness, therefore causing a person to chose a negative path. In many ways the devil in reading has many similarities with the devil in Paradise lost by Milton. This is the devil that has great interest in corrupting man causing suffering in order to get revenge on God. Burns at times seems to think highly of the devil stating “Great is thy pow’r, an great is thyfame; Far ken’d, an’ noticed is thy name”(99). His is recognizing his fame, but in admiring type of way. It seems he is confused about his feelings towards the devil, because he can be thought of as seeing the devil as two beings; the devil as a being and as a religious figure. He also seems to think that the devil can prevail in his revenge even having hope for the devil.

There Are Superstitions...

In Wordsworth's "The Thorn," the narrator retells a story about a woman who lost her baby, though the details vary as the narrator is victim to the gossip mill of the community. Similarly, the narrator goes to great lengths in the description of the thorn and its location on the mountain top, but not where that mountain is. After a lofty account of the thorn ("No leaves it has, no prickly points/ It is a mass of knotted joints") and its surroundings ("Not five yards from the mountain path/ This Thorn you on your left espy/And to the left, three yards beyond/You see a little muddy pond"), the narrator introduces the phrase, "an infant's grave" that begins the supernatural element of the ballad. 

Not just an ancient, gnarled Thorn and scenic pond, the narrator's description turns eerie as he begins to outline the women in a scarlet cloak who cries over her lost child. Her howls of "Oh misery!" and "Oh woe is me!" indiciate a ghoulish presence that infects the natural scene and twists it into a supernatural site. After repeating the gossip surrounding the women's despairing tale, the narrator reveals he does not know much about the place, only watches from a distance "with my telescope/ To view the ocean wide and bright." Thus, the speaker merely builds up a ghostly story from the community rumors and his own distance observation. Despite continually saying, "I cannot tell how this may be," the speaker tells the haunted tale as he believes it to be true. By focusing on detail he can embellish instead of explaining concretely the linear order of events he creates a narrative that is based on myth and superstition rather than reality. 

Address to the De'il

As I was reading “Address to the De’il” by Robert Burns, I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that he immediately starts the poem off with a reference from Paradise Lost. I knew that this poem would be an address to the devil (as the title implies), and it was interesting to me that the devil from Paradise Lost was the one that Burns chose to relate his devil to. I remember reading Paradise Lost and thinking that the devil Milton portrays was one that was completely different than the devil that religion/Christianity portrays. I had found Milton’s devil to be almost like a human. He was an antagonist whose evil schemes were fueled by pain and jealousy. He almost seemed like he had a hint of a heart at times. He would have moments where he would look at the Garden of Eden and almost start to admire its beauty and start to miss it. These little things made readers almost feel sorry for him and maybe even relate to him. So when I noticed that Burns mention him in his poem, it made me think that maybe that is the way that he views the devil as well. The mood of the poem did not come off as dark and creepy as I would expect a poem about the devil to be. I came off as if Burns was almost indifferent towards the devil and it is slightly in a light-hearted and cheery manner. This is what makes me wonder if maybe this poem is Burns way of saying that he may related to the devil, in some weird and twisted way.  

Puck, the Devil!

It is always entertaining when the Devil is depicted as Burns has done so in his Address to the De'il.  In many traditional interpretations of the Lord of Darkness, he generally falls short of such a title.  In the Bible, the Devil personally appears a mere handful of times with his various demons doing most of his bidding throughout the rest.  The few times the Devil does make an appearance, though, he is generally all business.  Such is not the case with Burns's De'il.  

In the very first few lines "Thou, whatever title suit thee!/ Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie," (99) Burns expresses a familiarity with the Devil, as if it had been reoccurring part of his life over the years.  These titles also suggest that Burns's experience with the entity has not been entirely negative as the connotations of such titles as "Aud Hornie" and "Clootie" seem to be rather positive.  From the very first lines, Burns paints the Devil as something who has  fun and finds glee in his mischievousness, rather than simply seeking to bring damnation to humanity.  

From this, it comes as no surprise that Burns even suggests hope for the Devil in the final stanza.  "But fare you weel, ault Nickie-ben!/ O wad ye tak a thought an' men'!/ Ye aiblins might—I dinna ken—/ Still hae a stake/ I'm wae to think upo' yon den,/ Ev'n for your sake." (100)  Burns's depiction of a Devil is one who is just enjoying itself and may or may not damning humanity on purpose.  For his Devil, redemption is still possible, which is a radical belief which contradicts its depiction by Christian theologians at the time.  To Burns, however, the Devil as a character can be entirely separate from the Devil as a religious figure. 

Oh Misery!

     Lyrical Ballads sought to channel the voice of the common people. Wordsworth invoked ideas of nature, of simplicity, and of beautiful poetic diction and meter. “The Thorn” illustrates these concepts while telling the story of Martha Ray. The scarlet clad woman, who may or may not be a grief stricken, baby-killing ghost that haunts simple folk. The entire poem reads like a ghost story that the narrator is reluctant to tell. The narrator seems to display the psychology of the superstitious, as he timidly describes the lore of the woman and her illegitimate spawn. He is full of uncertainties about the myth and even his own account of the woman. His superstitious fear did not even allow him to interact with her at all, as he says “Her face!- it was enough for me: I turned about and heard her cry, Oh misery!” The fear of the narrator kept her at a distance and thus she was shroud in mystery. The fear of the unknown drives the imagination to create impossible, perverse and strange things.

Reason and Fantasy

I was struck the contrasting themes of reason and fantasy while reading James Hogg’s “Expedition to Hell” mostly because if you read the story with these two themes in mind I believe that you get an excellent mixture of the major influencing factors the  world that James Hogg lived in. In the story Hogg mixes in some of the popular scientific queries of the day such as the delving into what a dream really is with the more fantasy driven themes like demons and literally driving oneself into hell. The best scene or I suppose dialogue in the story that I can point to is when the doctor and George’s wife are discussing the situation with George himself. The doctor and Chirsty can plainly see that something is troubling her husband yet they approach his quandary with a reason driven approach rather than George, who sees his problem as one that is of a more supernatural one than reason. In the end the wife and doctor can make a logical reason for why George died but lack a means of knowing what it was that drove him into his state in the first place. This piece is to me an excellent representation of the time, reason and fantasy were still accepted but it nears the end of  the peaceful coexistence of the two ideas.

Robert Burns

In Address to the De'il by Robert Burns, the "Devil" that is being addressed is that of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Burns acknowledges it's powerful force, writing, "Whyles, ranging like a roaring lion/ For prey, a'holes an' corners tryin/ Whyles, on the strong-wing'd tempest flyin/ Tirlan the kirks/ Whyles, in the human bosom pryin/ Unseen though lurks". (99) In this stanza, the Devil is conveyed as a force that lies within all people, waiting for any chance to turn people down the wrong path. Burns' devil is a representation of the desire that leads people to suffer emotionally and physically. The imagery that Burns uses through out the poem is vital in addressing this idea of the Devil's physical toll on a person, writing "The cudgel in my nieve did shake/ Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake".  Burns also writes about the Devil's arrival in Eden, saying, "Lang syne in Eden's bonie yard/ When youthful lovers first were pair'd/ An' all the soul of love they shar'd...Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog! Ye cam to Paradise incog...An' gied the infant warld a shog/ 'Maist ruin'd a.'" (100) This seems to be Burns struggling to understand why the Devil would ruin paradise for mankind. Since that ill-fated day in the garden of Eden, evil and delusion have only given man "scabs an' botches...an' lows'd his ill-tongue" (100). Although Burns is bitter towards the Devil's actions, the end of the poem seems to make peace with evil and delusion. Burn writes Devil is likely to find him in some "luckless hour" of drunken thought, but "Faith! he'll turn a corner jinkan/ An' cheat you yet". Burns ultimately chooses faith over the Devil's "black pit", and bids good riddance to the Devil's will.

A Hill of Moss

I have always enjoyed reading Wordsworth’s vivid descriptions of the natural, but the tone of description in his poem, “The Thorn,” surprised me. I was expecting the nostalgic, healing view of nature, as expressed in works such as “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” but I was thrilled by the richness with which Wordsworth depicted the gloomy hill and its secrets. The music of the iambic lines aided in creating an eerie, haunting ballad. There is a brief respite from the gloom in stanza four, with the "fresh and lovely sight" of the hill of moss which is then described in beautiful detail. But the shift is stark in stanza five, when the mound is compared to an infant's grave. It is the mention of that grave that leads into the story element of the poem, which I thought was a great transition into the tale of the mourning woman in scarlet.

When I reached stanza eight, I was uncertain of why the text was in quotes when it was clearly not spoken by the only character mentioned thus far (the woman). At first, I thought it was Wordsworth asking himself the questions, but it became clear to me in stanza ten that the speaker is conversing with another unknown person. I imagine this to be Wordsworth directly addressing the readers and inviting them to join him on a journey through the mysterious history of the hill. But I would be curious to hear if anybody read that differently!