When the novelty wears off

De Quincey splits Confessions of an English Opium Eater into three sections - an introduction, a section titled "Pleasures of Opium" and another titled "Pains of Opium". I found it interesting and revealing that, in the  section dedicated to the pleasures of the drug, De Quincey describes the drug in a flurry of technical jargon and medical terminology. He discusses the medicinal uses of opium and the chemical process by which it numbs pain and alleviates symptoms of stress, but never praises it on a level of personal experience. This reveals that, at the time of writing Confessions, De Quincey held a negative perspective on opium and was unable to reflect positively on the drug due to the years of pain and torment his abuse brought him. When a drug user who has not yet crossed the threshold into destructive abuse writes about the drug in use, that user might describe how much more enjoyable it makes his personal every day experiences or how it improves his ability to work on his craft. De Quincey has moved away from that period of productive indulgence with opium and now sees it as an agent of mental instability. To him, it is no longer fun and enlightening (as we find out in "Pains of Opium") and the only "pleasures" to be derived from the stuff is strictly medicinal.

Drugs and the Gothic

We always talk about the Gothic and way it lets us as readers into the characters head. Well what better way to get inside someones head than to see them on drugs. In the case of Thomas De Quincey we see this through his "confession" or "autobiography." Even though his "confession" is a true story it provides insight into his mind and a narrative into the pain that comes with an opium eater. By placing us in the mind set of someone with an opium addiction, are we not also placed into the mindset of the Gothic? I believe that Thomas De Quincey was first and foremost a writer so when it came to his, time to confess, he wanted even his opium addiction to be written about in a way that shows off his skills as a writer. In this way when we get to the second half of his confession, the pain, we see a narrative that pulls us into his mind and leaves us almost fearful of the drug opium, and yet at the same time sympathetic with Thomas De Quincey.

Random facts about De Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater"

First published anonymously in 1821 in the London magazine.

Served as inspiration to Hector Berlioz's famous piece Symphonie Fantastique.

Thomas De Quincey

Thomas De Quincey's Grave

Insomnia...the worse form of horror

In Confessions of an English Opium Eater, De Quincey goes through the different stages of the effects of Opium. To me it sounded a lot like the arguments today for legalizing marijuana where you have the one side that claims that it's an abomination and that it should not be used for any reason. Then you have the other side which claims that it is a very beneficial herb that can be used to treat serious diseases and help people cope with the pain that these diseases bring. The position that De Quincey takes on opium is similar to this medicinal marijuana viewpoint. He downplays the pleasures that opium can bring by emphasizing the pain that it treats as well as the side effects that he experiences along the way. One of these side effects that he experiences when his body starts going into withdrawals from the drug is not being able to enjoy sleep and almost forcing him into becoming an insomniac. Now I'm not sure how many of you have ever gone long periods without sleep, but it truly can be a terrible thing. I was awake for 3 days straight once and it was the most terrible thing I have ever experienced. When you sleep, your brain is cleansing itself of toxins that it has become subject to throughout the day so when you don't sleep, your brain  is not able to go through this process. Add opium to the mix and you have yourself some pretty intense hallucinations going on, as De Quincey demonstrates. Anyways, the point I am trying to make is that De Quincey has been experiencing the highest form of terror which locks you in your own head and makes you a prisoner of your own imagination in both the conscious and unconscious states. Now I could go into a spiritual take on things, if some want to hear that than let me know and I will go into that but otherwise I will leave that alone for now.

Keats, opening lines and fear of mortality

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As most have mentioned, I read Keat’s “When I Have Fears” as a poem about poet and his fear of death, or mortality. Most of Keat’s work was about death. He was obsessed with it. Compared to most of Keat’s work, this poem paints a more vivid picture of death.

The opening lines: “When I have fears that I may cease to be / Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, / Before high-piled book, in charactery / Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain,” is quite specific. It’s about the poet’s fear of dying before feeling a sense of accomplishment— dying before reaching his full creative potential. This idea could be related to any artist, or anyone— anyone who is displeased with their current state

Keats and Negative Capability

The thing that I love about Keats' poetry is its negative compatibility. Negative compatibility is the ability to contemplate the world without the desire to try and reconcile contradictory aspects or to fit it into closed rational symbols. This is something that Keats' discussed in many of his letters with the second wave of Romantics (usually in regard to Shakespeare). But this theme is also seen in his own poetry. For our purposes, When I Have Fears is the best example of negative compatibility.

The narrator of the poem admits that he has fears of death, and that he will never have the opportunity to fully live. But, he still takes comfort in the "night's starr'd face", beauty within his "fair creature of an hour", and "unreflecting love." It is key, however, that the narrator does not try to rectify his fears; he does not attempt to reconcile contradictory aspects such as love and death and beauty into neat little boxes. He merely accepts his fate, the fate of humanity, which is to die just as surely as you have lived. For if there is one thing that we know, it's that whomever is born must also die. I feel that the couplet is the epitome of being human,
"Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink."

Confessions of an English Opium Eater

In class, we discussed the difference between terror and horror. The idea that this kind of "pleasing terror" can be similar yet different from what De Quincey describes, particularly in the section called Pains of Opium, was interesting to me. To me, it seemed that terror is something physical that can be controlled or manipulated- it's the helmet in the garden, or the skeleton in the chest. There is a way away from it, and there is a way to escape it. Horror, on the other hand, is internal.  This section is full of intense imagery that continues to build upon itself, for example, "I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed," (199). This building of imagery shows the decline of mental stability. What De Quincey experiences in Pains of Opium does not go away. It manifests itself within his dreams, within his every waking moment. Because this horror is so internal, there is no way for De Quincey to escape it, and it essentially drives him mad.

Incomplete

Keats' poem, "When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be" is a resonating poem that reflects a moment of contemplation that eventually everyone in their life reaches. The recognition that each person has of their own mortality and that, ultimately, they will leave the world incomplete and with unfinished business. As he laments that he will expire before his "pen has glean'd [his] teeming brain", we come to realize that the point of his poem is that you could live forever and never be finished with everything you have to do because as long as you live, you'll still be doing these things. He is saying that he could never live long enough to say everything he has to say or write everything that he has to write and this poem is acknowledgment that his time is limited and even if he had forever, there would always be something to occupy his attention and he will never succeed at doing everything it is that he wants.

Inner Opiates

Having read and discussed De Quincy's Confessions of an English Opium Eater, we see the effects of opium on someone of a high intelligence and how the processes in his brain became both enlightened and twisted while on the drug. De Quincy talks about his experience of everything becoming vast and infinite, expanding forever outward and making him feel insignificant. I think that this is an interesting effect of the drug considering that in the footnotes of Coleridge's Kubla Khan, Coleridge was under the influence of an anodyne described as opium and fell asleep after reading a few short lines about "The Khan Kubla" and awoke to write an entire poem based around these few lines. The footnote goes on to say how he was detained during the writing of this poem and when he returned back to his desk, had forgotten most of what he was picturing so vividly only an hour before. What is interesting when looking at some of the lines in what came to be his poem Kubla Khan are some of the identical descriptions to De Quincy's Confessions. He writes about "ancestral voices" and a "deep romantic chasm" not unlike what De Quincy experienced in his dream states. It is perhaps the line: "The shadow of the dome of pleasure" that best describes what De Quincy and Coleridge experienced, as they both found an immense pleasure in their "trips" but not without some sort of balanced out darkness, whether it be in Coleridge's case, a visual chasm, or De Quincy's, an emotional panic and overwhelming sensation of horror.

Death = Comfort Food?

At first glance “Sonnet: When I have fears” can be read as someone that has become aware and fearful of their own mortality. John Keats was a little death obsessed too I think, so it would make sense for him to have such an awareness and fear of death. Both his parents were dead by the time he was fourteen years old, and his brother died from tuberculosis (like their mom)a few years after “Sonnet: When I have fears” was written after all.  However, after re-reading “Sonnet: When I have fears”, I felt like the fear of death was both an issue and an illusion of what Keats was really reflecting upon. Keats does share that he is afraid of death more or less because he does not want to die unsuccessful or unloved. Let’s face it, who really does want to die without love or some sort of fame in their life? Death has a tendency to create a sense of anxiety in one. At the same time though, I also felt like Keats made death out to be more of a double agent that frees one from that anxiety. Death makes everything else mentioned meaningless. Both success and love are twisted into something that ultimately means nothing in the end, so why worry or fear? Death appears to be the problematic cure according to Keats, and not something to completely fear.

Paradigm shifting to the head!

I think that Radcliff really does a great job of not going by the status quo. She draws her readers in thinking that they are getting the traditional story and then slaps them upside the head with paradigm shifting literature. It really is a great tactic on her part for the time period that she is living in. If you take into account the fact that women weren't viewed as equals quite yet it's easy to see why she originally published this under a pseudonym and started everything off the way that she did. She wants her readers to start off in their comfort zone. It is a great tactic to draw your reader in before challenging tradition views of society. It isn't until part 3 that she even starts challenging the French government. If someone starts challenging traditional thought process too soon, then people will just put down the book. However, if you draw the reader in, get them attached to the characters, and then start changing the way that they think towards the end it's like shooting fish in a barrel. The reader is already too far down the metaphorical rabbit hole to put the book down and the author gets her point across while the reader is none the wiser.

Evolution

Adeline’s character was the character that intrigued me the most. When she was forced upon LaMotte we were introduced to a scared and helpless individual. When she was first introduced, it was unclear what type of character she would be, but it was made apparent that she would be a major character. The fact that she was placed under LaMotte’s care, caused a bit of confusion. What kind of role would she play, since LaMotte is already married? She seemed like she would be a fragile and troublesome character, although she did cause a few problems, she was the opposite of weak. She stood up for herself and did not give into anything she did not want to. Adeline takes everything learned from LaMotte and applies it to her everyday life, and because of that we see a evolution in character.

Law and Romantic Language

As we talked about in class, at the time of Revolution and the social agitation in the area, there is a difference in discourse and language that the government and political figures would be trying to prevent from being seen or read by the common citizen. While the discussion of it went many ways, some saying that she had no read strategy behind her political voice, also that in times of turmoil, the government would see anything written as a threat, but in my opinion, I think simply living in this time, being an English citizen and a woman in this time of trouble would naturally sway her voice to a particular point of view.
I find that even when I am writing about something completely unrelated to politcs or feminist problems, my views ultimately creep out simply because of the time I live in and the situations that surround me as a woman in my time. I feel that as an educated, intelligent woman, she has a voice, whether she intentionally meant for it to be heard through this novel or not, we do not know, but it is a voice that is being heard.

Our Leading Lady

As soon as I was introduced to Adeline’s character while reading The Romance of the Forest, I knew that there was a reason the Radcliffe chose to have this woman as our heroine. As the book was starting out, I could tell that many readers (especially female readers) would have a problem with Adeline because she came off as the typical damsel in distress. It seemed that she was constantly being dramatic, fainting, or crying. She is described as being young and beautiful, and these things only add on to the idea that she is also naïve and innocent; almost to a fault. If you take her at face value, she seems like a weak protagonist. However, I also got the feeling that there had to be more to Adeline. There’s no way that this woman is nothing past her crying and gentleness. I argued this in our class discussion, and it was a risky argument to make, considering that at that point we had only read the first part of the novel and we still didn’t know much about her. As I went on to read further in the book, I found that my argument was a pretty solid one. Although Adeline seems like a fragile being, the mysterious things about her that are revealed as the novel goes on make us appreciate her character a little more. She is in fact a strong character, and I’m glad that I gave her the benefit of the doubt from the beginning. I believe the Adeline’s true strength is revealed towards the end of the book (for example when she refuses to marry the Marquis despite all the trouble that it may cause) as the plot begins to shift and we begin to understand who she really is. These things allowed me to view her as a woman with high moral standards and the perfect heroine for a mysterious gothic romance.

Poetry in Romance of the Forest

The poetry Radcliffe interposes into the novel is something I would almost equate to the lack of dialogue in the first half of the novel. Poetry is vague and open to a variety of interpretations, and I believe can be just as vague as actions. The quotes are not the characters' direct thoughts, but rather forewarnings in the beginning of the chapters, or a song being sung. Because the poems are not exactly direct thoughts, the meanings leave room for interpretation and even deception. I believe that in employing the quotations and poetry excerpts, Radcliffe is adding mystery to the novel.

Originally, I considered the lack of dialogue in the beginning of the novel to be a way to allow for future character development and deception. Body language can easily be misinterpreted and if the reader believes Adeline is a meek, frantic girl, they will be surprised to see her later capable of deception. So in my opinion, the poetry is doing a similiar thing: Forcing the reader into profound thought about what the excerpt means in relation to the novel without directly revealing the characters' motives.

“Self-preservation is the great law of nature”

I wanted to look at the character of La Motte and to a lesser extent the character of the Marquis and go into detail about a few of their interactions in volume three.

                What really intrigued me were the conversations between the two characters at the abbey and the way that we can see the internal struggle of La Motte. Up until now La Motte really has been acting out of self –preservation, fleeing Paris to avoid being captured and in general looking out for number one. I really think that up to this point that La Motte has not shown many outward signs of remorse from self- reflection. It seems that Radcliffe has done this just to make La Motte’s epiphany that much greater when he does begin to reflect on what he has done. The catalyst for this reflection is the Marquis, who is a man of greater means both financially and socially and his request that La Motte kill Adeline. This of course causes La Motte to panic since he had grown fond of Adeline and had no desire to kill her.  The perfect summation of the moment of realization is right at the beginning of chapter 15 “He saw himself entangled in the web which his own crimes had woven.” Being in the power of the Marquis, he knew he must either consent to the commission of a deed, from the enormity of which, depraved as he was, he shrunk in horror, or sacrifice fortune, freedom, probably life itself, to the refusal.”

                I do not believe this revelation would have occurred if the request had not come from a socially equal or inferior person. Since it was the Marquis who asked for the death of Adeline, La Motte had to at least consider the consequences of A. what was being asked and B. what the repercussions were for refusing to do so would be. I believe it was because of the Marquis that we are able to see a shift in the character of La Motte from just acting out of self- preservation to looking to the safety of others.

Poetry in The Romance of the Forest

In volume one of The Romance of the Forest, Ann Radcliffe's use of poetry serves to express the restrained emotions and sentiments of her characters. Adeline, for example, constantly holds her tongue in front of La Motte and Madame La Motte when ever she feels she's suffered an indignation, mostly because she doesn't want to seem ungrateful towards them. It is only through her poetry that she can express her true feelings about her circumstances. Even when Madame La Motte is in the midst of her jealous fits, Radcliffe quotes Shakespeare's Othello and says, "Trifles, light as air, Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong as proof of Holy Writ". Through this quote the affects of Madame La Motte's jealously are better understood than they would have been using her own constrained perspective. Had Radcliffe decided to omit the passages of poetry, the novel would have been fully anxiety driven, not unlike The Castle of Otranto. It is because of the poetry that the reader can step out of the anxiety of the character's situation and get clear insights to how the characters really feel, not just how they feel at the moment.

Where are my helmets?

   I'm fining I love the way elements of the Gothic are present in everything we read and that those elements are evolving slowly. To that end there are two things I find distinctly striking about Romance of the Forest. The first is the obviously Gothic supernatural crux, or rather, in this case, the lack thereof. There is nothing nearly as obtrusive and distinct as Castle of Otranto and it's recurring helmet. Instead Romance has the ever present issue of the sublime that we discussed with these beautifully eerie and poetic descriptions of the world and people. The world itself, especially in reference to the abbey, is filthy creepy and strange, yet I am entranced and pleased by what I hear about it's state of decay. For me that's what the poetry really accentuates, the depth and fluidity of the way we see the world and events of Romance.
   Secondly, the lack of a prophecy caught my attention, and by association, the division of the book in terms of perspective. Instead there is a form of prophecy that occurs every time some one tries to warn Adeline, especially once the book moves to be dominated by her perspective. This of course is in close relation to my first point, being as there are no "divine" prophecies handed down across generations, yet there is something odd to me about the way everyone seeks to warn Adeline in specific, and almost exclusively after we begin seeing things from her perspective.

Indirect Discourse

I believe the use of Indirect Discourse really adds to a Gothic novel. Maybe i failed to see the point of our little experiment on Monday, however, I felt that our group had a hard time coming up with dialogue for a character that was talking using Indirect Discourse. This made me think that perhaps the use of this narrative mode was to create a sense of mystery  if the character just flat our said everything they were going to see, and we as the reader saw that, I feel we would lose a lot of the darkness that come into a Gothic novel. In a sense I think the Indirect Discourse is a major factor into what make this Gothic without it would lose an entire sense of darkness that we miss. So I am going to put forth the theory that the ambiguity that comes along with this novel is what provides, at least for me, a sense of enigmatic foreboding that the novel needs to be complete. 

Also I made this meme which describes my feelings of this book.

Feminist Problems

Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest isn't necessarily my cup of tea. But that's probably due to the lack of a "strong" heroine. Adeline is described as small in comparison to her surroundings, taken in by the La Motte's, and doesn't appear to have a whole lot to say. I suppose my dislike of her is slightly my fault, because as a reader I know that I tend to sympathize with characters who have a strong backbone and gumption. I just feel that Adeline really doesn't have a whole lot to offer and is simply a vehicle to get things to happen.

Which, in  a sense I'm glad that there is a female protagonist here. We're experiencing the actions in the story through a feminine scope, as opposed to the predominant male scope. That shows some sort of progress, not Jane Austen's kind of progress; but, I'll take it. (Which is the statement of any woman, ever. Even with the advent of one Elizabeth Bennet.)

Romance of the Forest

Throughout Romance of the Forest, it is apparent that every character is wearing a "mask" of sorts. Adeline at first appears weak, but it becomes clear, especially through her soliloquy about her family, that she is one of the strongest characters within the story. Madame de la Motte appears hospitable and warm at first, but quickly turns cold and jealous without reason. However, I think the most interesting “mask” is that of Pierre de la Motte. When we are first introduced to him, he seems to be somewhat protective of his family. He alone walks to the house where he finds Adeline and becomes a "hero" of sorts to her. However, as the story continues, we realize that he is hiding from the French government. In a way, he becomes somewhat of an anti-hero. We are inclined to sympathize with him, despite the fact that he has obviously done something to get himself into the situation.  His one concern is his own safety, and even jeopardizes the safety of others until he knows that he will be safe, such as when the Marquis enters the story.  La Motte seems to hide until he feels that it is okay to re-enter the room, then again puts on a “mask” of hospitality, acting as though he were the owner of the abbey. La Motte is either fleeing and frightened, or dominating and confident. He covers his fears by overcompensating for his position within his family.

Hero? Or just selfish?

In the beginning, when we are first introduced to La Motte he is seen as a scoundrel, as he is running away from Paris leaving behind debts and a warrant for his arrest. He journeys with his faithful wife who he seems rather impatient with, as she is rather reluctant to leave behind the comforts of their Parisian life. At first, I thought La Motte was going to be a detestable character, but then we reached the part where he saves Adeline. Adeline acts as if La Motte was her hero, but was he really all that heroic? My impression of him simply changed from scoundrel to selfish. The only reason he takes Adeline with him is to save his own skin. For La Motte saving his own skin seems to be a driving force behind most of his actions, in the beginning and through some of the other chapters. Adeline may think he's her savior, but in the end he just wants to be his own personal savior. I was sure my impression would eventually change as the novel went on and he would have some moment of revelation and do something good for someone else, a common formula for this type of character, but I like the selfish La Motte. La Motte's selfishness is literally a driving force behind the plot. Without La Motte being selfish the La Mottes would still be in Paris and Adeline would be in who knows what situation and there would be no book. So, therefore I completely agree with Radcliffe's decisions for the character. Or, at least the decisions reflecting the first impression I got.

Deceiving Beauty

Going off of what we spoke about in class on monday, my group decided to view the story in the perspective of Adeline. We did not like the idea that she is a feeble and weak female lead character in the storyline. We though of her more as someone who is playing the innocent victim. When we are first introduced to her through La Motte, he raves of her sheer beauty. She is on the floor crying in the hands of the man who wants to get rid of her. Yet what if all of it was simply an act of her own doing to get what she has intended. I am not saying that she purposely wanted the man to drag her, but she may be playing along so she can leave the hellhole in which she is in. There is a section that states "there was a penetrating sweetness in her blue eyes, which indicated an intelligent and amicable mind." This helps back up the fact that she could be playing everyone in her game. She uses her beauty to somewhat seduce La Motte and befriends Madame La Motte in her gain. Whenever Madame La Motte questions her of her past and how she came to be of where they discovered her, Adeline tears up and states she cannot talk about it. It is only later that she reveals the truth but for awhile her character can seem deceiving and tricky. As fun as it may seem that Adeline is like this, it may be that she is simply as the story portrays her. I find Romance of the Forest to be a much more fascinating read, as I keep reading on I find it harder to stop. The story seemed odd at the beginning and the direction of where it was going but now it flows and brings curiosity. The gothic aspects come through in the description of the abbey and the fear the characters have of the forest and the dark inside. The noises and thoughts of the characters add to the imagery that helps set the tone for the gothic aspects.

The Love in the Woods

Gothic romance novels is not really my forte but I found The Romance in the Forest as well as The Castle of Otranto interesting and amusing. However, I found Walpole's novel to be quite bizarre. The Romance of the Forest moves along rather quickly. The heroine of the novel, who is a bold character nonetheless, is so "scared of her shadow." She nearly faints in e-v-e-r-y chapter. The hero, well... for a strong and brave soul, he cries a lot, especially when his father was upset, when he was about to be executed and when his beloved was imprisoned. Marquis, the bad guy, was a bad guy is the purest form; lustful would be a good way of describing his character. If I had read this novel before taking this class - when I had little to no knowledge of Gothic novels - I might have found it to be a tad sentimental. However, the novel is interesting as it is enjoyable.

Romance of the Forest

 I actually have been enjoying reading The Romance of the Forest. I was not too thrilled to begin with because for one I am not a fast reader (Dyslexia mixed with ADHD plus due date reading equals FOREVER), and two I was not sure if it would be another headache inducer like The Castle of Otranto was. I have been pleasantly surprised though. I find The Romance of the Forest a lot easier to understand and dissect; I like the pace of the novel too. Just goes to show what can happen when you jump into something with low expectations. I have to say though, I really did not like Adeline at first. She just seemed really weak, secretive, and fake. But once I got her know her better, and the story perspective started to change into what she saw/how she thought I felt differently. She seems to spark curiosity, and turned into someone that I find very interesting to read about. I noticed that a lot of the characters have that kind of change too; each starts to become more friendly and familiar with the reader as the book comes along, at least so far. I really like the style of writing too; I find that the words almost seem to flow into one another (Unlike The Castle of Otranto), which made it easier to read for me personally. I also really like the mix of Gothic and Romantic influence that is twisted together. It kind of adds to the flow and keeps the book moving. I am looking forward to what happens next in The Romance of the Forest.    

Taking a Stand.

In class on Monday, we were given the assignment to select a paragraph about LaMotte and Adeline and analyze why there was no dialog between them and then script our own dialog for them according to how our group thought they should speak in the situation -- I'm sure everyone remembers this. My group, however, chose not to participate in the second-half of the assignment, not because we were lazy or disinterested, but because we felt that writing dialog for the characters, particularly in the writing style of the novel, would not satisfy our earlier analysis of why there isn't dialog in the first place. We came up with this reason...

We didn't want to provide dialog because any time we tried to craft what we imagined the characters were saying, it came out impossibly cheesy and caused us to laugh and immediately take the characters and their situations less seriously. We judged the characters more harshly when there was speech because they were more ridiculous. They were frivolous; melodramatic, almost.  Adeline's plight became less sympathetic, suddenly she wasn't a weeping angel but an unnecessarily and annoyingly hysterical girl that no one really wanted to deal with. LaMotte's chivalry decayed into awkward reassurances and his voiced confusion made him seem clumsy and incapable or if he was too quick to help, his confidence was almost suspicious in intent. This frustrated us and turned a graceful scene into a mockery.

A Matter of Comfort

The character of Adeline in Romance of the Forest is one of the first to give a long winded speech about her past, but she starts off in the beginning of the novel giving sort of indifferent and "artless" answers to everyone's questions. She also tends to be quite dramatic with no background information as to why, constantly bursting into tears and falling prey to hysteria at the slightest intimidation. As we said in class, the first chunk of the text is mostly indirect dialogue with the narrator dictating what is happening at a pretty fast pace. Within the first ten pages or so, La Motte has already escaped his home to flee debtors, gone to a strange house and been captured and then been forced out with a young girl and told he would be killed if he decided to return within the hour. This leaves the reader in a sort of bewildered state in the sense that we know generally what the characters are doing and what it happening, but we have no insight into what they are thinking or how they interact with each other. So much is compacted into a short number of pages that the pace of the story seems to quicken. This is due to the lack of direct dialogue. As the story progresses, we see the characters, especially Adeline, opening up to each other and giving a history of how they came to be in their current predicament. I think this has to do with character development and how they must build a sense of trust among them before they interact verbally. This in turn makes the characters seem a little more real and relatable. They start to form disfunctional family of outcasts and once they have established bonds, they tend to speak more openly. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure if any one of us were forced into this strange grouping scenario, we'd a ll be a little skeptical at first, too.

Lighten up, yo

"A slumber did my spirit steal"
Those opening words get me every time. This is one of my favorite poems, and its simplicity, beauty and meaning mesh together to make a morbid peace that leaves you feeling at complete ease with our mortality. Wordsworth's use of alliteration in the first line create this soft, peaceful state in your mind that lulls you into a sort of softness, as if you were being sung to sleep by a guardian. This is what he is trying to make you understand what he feels death feels like. It isn't a violent ripping of the soul from the body, but a gentle, quiet taking of it in the night, while you don't even notice it, you are changed. The imagery of the soul being lifted from the body and the idea of the body being left behind with the rocks and trees and the dirt lends itself to the naturalists that were emerging at this time and changing the views of the gothic forms of literature. We were no longer in the time of the obsession with the dark and when death was viewed as a coming of the soul into a blackness of the unknown. Wordsworth is vocalizing the peacefulness of death's coming that should put our minds at each, we are all mortal, we are all made to live and die, and whether you believe in an afterlife or not, or whether your soul lives on without you or not, this is what we should all accept our lives to be. Wordsworth leads us into the time of the World Wars very well, when pretty much all of British poetry was about our mortality and the idea of our mortality being for a cause: the victory of good over evil. This poetry was beautiful and strong and perspective changing in the strongest sense.

So again, I tell myself, lighten up yo.

Where is Lucy?

In William Wordsworth's poem "Lucy Gray," he creates the story of a young girl who disappears in a snowstorm, causing her family to go searching for her with little hope. The ballad is bleak and heart-wrenching as the mother follows her young daughter's footprints but fails to bring her home, and yet the final stanzas give a trace of hope with the words "Yet some maintain that to this day She is a living Child." This verse could have easily have been more haunting, saying something along the lines of "To this day, her spirit dwells in the midsts forever searching for her family..." (which would certainly give it more of a Gothic influence) but instead it claims that she could be alive. Could this futile optimism be to spare the reader the idea of the death of a child? Is it even optimism at all? The idea of Lucy being alive or at the very least having her spirit still lost in the wild could either be interpreted as her being apart of nature now and being preserved as an innocent child, or it could be seen as her being forever lost and ignorant much like in Purgatory. Innocence and ignorance seem to hand-in-hand when it comes to the bliss of naivete but Wordsworth is well aware that there is nothing blissful about a child being lost in the height of a snowstorm. He based the poem on a real story of a girl who got lost in a snowstorm and was later found drowned in a canal. Rather than tell that story and give Lucy a conclusive and finite ending, he gives the story a certain vagueness that is looming. Should we feel hopeful or haunted?

Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children!

William Blake critiques the status of children through the symbolic use of animals in his collection. In Song of Innocence he often refers to children as lambs, and the poem itself describes a soft and gentle creature being “meek and mild.” This is a classic Christian symbol that is meant to invoke a sense of innocence and helplessness. However, Blake meant to make a more sinister connection with the addition of Songs of Experience. The lamb is also used in the Old Testament as a sacrifice; during Passover a Paschal Lamb was killed in order to atone for sins, basically washing away sin in blood. Blake saw children as being abused by religious leaders who supported an economic environment that allowed children to be the victim of cruel work conditions. This is most evident in “Holy Thursday” were he speaks about children being reduced to misery and poverty, most likely working instead of attending Thursday night services. These children sacrificed their innocence in order to serve a system that did not support them economically or spiritually. The companion piece to “The Lamb” is “The Tyger.” The tiger in Christianity represents martyrdom. There are many stories of Christian being thrown to lions and tigers in huge arenas for all to see. This is much like the children being thrown into a life of labor with “good Christians” as the spectators simply watching as the children get devoured by a life of poverty and hardship.

Blake's case

In Songs of Innocence/Experience, William Blake likens the transition from childhood into adulthood as one of almost spiritual importance. In Innocence, Blake portrays the unbridled joy of childhood innocence in its most pure form. This, to Blake, is the period in which we are our greatest and even likens children to angels. As children, we are pure because innocence is all we know - we know not of the struggles and sacrifices necessary to maintain a stable life. Given the time period in which he was raised - one of industrialization in Britain - Blake was given the luxury of being able to live as a child for far longer than most lower-middle income children. He only attended school until he was 9 and was pulled out by his parents and home schooled by his mother for the rest of his adolescent years. During this time, Blake was prone to visions and had a very active imagination, which often alienated him from his peers and caused his neighbors and extended family to think him mildly insane. At the age of ten, he claims to have seen God and a gathering of angels in a tree outside of his window. I believe much of the idealism and holiness that Blake writes about in Innocence is a view of childhood reminiscent of his own experience growing up.

To see what isn't seen.

Upon first reading Song [She dwelt among th’untrodden ways], it seems like Wordsworth is simply describing a woman (Lucy) he sees and fancies, but after reading it a few times, my initial thought changed. I think Wordsworth is describing Lucy to some extent, but at the same time, I can’t help but think that he’s also describing some part of himself; he’s projecting the loneliness within himself - to an extent - onto this woman. Aside from his projection of his suspected loneliness, Wordsworth seems to also explain how he sees this woman when no one else does or can, as described in the line:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half-hidden from the Eye!

- Fair, as a star when only one

Is shining in the sky.

I can't tell how he feels about possibly being the only one that notices this woman. Does he want others to see her too? Yet at the same time, does that also mean that he wants others to see the loneliness he has, if he really is projecting any sort of emotion onto this woman. 

One with Nature

In William Wordsworth's lyrical poem "Lucy Gray," a young girl ventures out into a stormy night and is never seen again. Rife with eerie imagery of nature, the poem links Lucy's presumed death with the idea that she lives on through nature. A similar event happened to Wordsworth's sister, so the poem holds even greater meaning as a possible coping mechanism Wordsworth wrote to indirectly immortalize his sister not only through words, but imply that life does not completely end in death, but rather continues on through  nature.

In the poem, Lucy originally goes out into the storm to light the way for her mother when she returns home. When the search party goes looking for Lucy, "the Mother spied/ The print of Lucy's feet." Lucy ends up leading her mother after all as the search party tracks her footprints "downward from the steep hill's edge," "through the broken hawthorn-hedge," "by the long stone-wall," and "(across) an open field." Lucy goes through all the aspects of nature but is barred by the manmade stone wall that she does not cross but only walks beside. She is essentially already one with nature and when her footsteps disappear in the middle of the bridge, she is disappearing on a man made item. The bridge, of course, can symbolize a variety of things, the most obvious being the bridge between life and death; or man's interruption of nature. Lucy presumably doesn't die from the weather, but rather the bridge is what causes her death, probably from slipping off.

The fact that Lucy's footsteps are still visible in the snow, the comparison of Lucy to "the Fawn at play" and "The Hare upon the Green," and Wordsworth's final stanzas depicting Lucy as "sweet Lucy Gray/ Upon the lonesome Wild," all indicates that she has a strong relationship with nature that transcends and even extends life. She lives on in the woods, not hauntingly as the Gothics would prefer, but instead happily, singing, whistling, and never looking back. Lucy is essentially just as alive at the end of the poem as she was in the beginning.

Man vs. Nature

Wordsworth’s poem, “Lucy Gray,” to me, caught the essence of not only the harsh battle between humankind and nature, but how human interference with nature can backfire and lead to tragedy. Lucy’s father sends her with a lantern to show a path to town for her mother, but because of the harsh winter blizzard, she never makes it. She becomes lost in her trek, and when her parents see that her footsteps have stopped on a bridge, they know that their child has died during the cold night.

                This poem, by showing both Lucy and her parents’ struggle and helplessness in the storm and darkness, presents that nature has a sort of authority over man. Lucy goes out on a mission – fully prepared by leaving early enough and carrying a lantern with her – to find a path but nature, in a sense, wins over and prevents her from completing her task. In the end, it is man’s creation that ultimately leads to Lucy’s demise. She comes to a bridge (manmade) and there her footprints, which her family has been following, cease. Lucy finds this bridge after she has “wandered up and down” though the snowy hills, believing that this will help her in her journey. Maybe if she had come to the river below instead, she could’ve have turned around and gone back home. Man’s interference in nature is what causes Lucy’s death.

A portrait of Dealing with Death

I find that in his poem “We Are Seven” Wordsworth really does something unique with his writing and that is give a glimpse into how a poor young girl sees the world. In the conversation between the man and the young girl we learn that there are seven children total, it becomes very quickly understood that not all is as it seems. She says there are seven but two dead and four are gone away. This strikes me on a number of levels. The first is because it was not uncommon for non- aristocratic families to have large numbers of kids and depending on their social status or income may not have been able to care for all of them on their own and for Wordsworth to make a reference to this seems a bit odd. The second reason is even though her two siblings are gone she still counts them as among us as if nothing had happened. I cannot pretend to know what Wordsworth vision for the cultural sentiment towards the dead in this poem would be. Reading this made me more curious as to what his views on the place of the dead in his own society were and was this poem based on some of his own life experiences or was he taking in descriptions and looking at how certain groups viewed their deceased?

Peace That Transcends Understanding

 Wordsworth’s poem, “We Are Seven”, is a short and simple ballad that packs a heavier punch than it appears to have. I really enjoyed reading the dialogue between the man (the narrator) and the little cottage girl with thick curly hair. As I was reading, I found myself wondering why this name was interrogating the little girl about her siblings so much. He insisted upon bursting her innocence and having her accept the fact that she no longer had seven siblings, but five. He seems to get frustrated halfway through the poem when the little girl won’t abandon the idea that all of her siblings are still there. At the end of the poem, the narrator realizes that there is no changing her mind and he describes trying to sway her was a waste of his breath, saying “’twas throwing words away; for still the little maid would have her will.” The little girl’s persistence had me rooting for her. I wanted her to keep her innocence. I couldn't help but feel that the man was evil for even trying to shake this little girl’s innocent and pure faith. Why was he even talking to her in the first place? For this reason, I was very satisfied with the last line of the poem, “Nay, we are seven!” She got the last word. She won. This symbolizes that if there is a will to keep one’s innocence and pure mindset and there is a strong faith to back it, it is possible to fight off and defeat this world’s dark and cruel ideologies.

  I couldn't help but be captivated by this little girl. She describes her sister’s death by saying “In bed she moaning lay; Till God released her of her pain, and then she went away.” This is a very peaceful understanding of death, and it was surprising to me that it came from an 8 year old girl. It often takes adults many years to view death as a resting place for their loved ones rather than a dark gloomy end. She knew something about death that the man didn't. His words didn't matter to her. She had an understanding and peace the surpassed his understanding, and that was something that could not be shaken. 

Innocence vs. Experience

Through out William Blake's "Songs of Innocence", there is an uplifting sense of possibility and jovial spirit, where as in "Song's of Experience" there is tension, distress and struggle. This contrast is most clearly evident in the poems "Infant Joy" and "Infant Sorrow". In "Infant Joy", Blake writes "I have no name/ I am but two days old/ What shall I call thee?". These lines portray a certain confidence in the face of uncertainty. Blake is in no anxious distress to give this infant a name, he knows the possibilities are endless. Patiently, Blake names the infant "joy", and takes his time to bask in the sound of joy's name for 5 lines. By the end of the poem, Blake convey's innocence as a period of confidence and patience with no regard for time. In "Infant Sorrow" however, Blake begins with, "My mother groand! my father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt". Experience's environment is a midst groans and cries before the infant has even had a chance to leap into the world. Blake writes the infant is "Helpless, naked", suggesting no possibilities for the future and no chance of the world getting better. The infant ultimately ends up "Bound and weary", left to sulk upon his mother's breast. Blake's idea of experience seems to be associated with an uphill battle or sorts that makes one tired and jaded. Still, despite the differences in the portrayals of Innocence and Experience, there is an undeniable similarity in the brevity of the poems. Whether in a state of innocence or experience, each state is ultimately cut short.

The Spectrum of Human Nature

                When I read Songs of Innocence and Experience, I immediately identify the common themes occurring in both books.  However, the two books broach these subjects from two completely different perspectives.  It is for that reason that The Lamb and The Tyger stand out the most. 

                These two poems seem to break the tradition of  common poems detailing a similar, if not the same, situation or thing.  It is difficult to imagine a Tiger and a Lamb being on in the same unless we are prepared to throw biology completely out of the window.  In a sense, though, they are one in the same.  It's just that the poems aren't about the animals at all.

                The poems themselves invoke a religious reading considering how they both observe and question God's creation of the "animals."  That much is obvious, but I feel like the poems are deeper than that.  If we consider the teachings of Christianity, we see that Jesus often preached a message of love, tolerance, and acceptance.  In that sense, a true Christian would be like a lamb in that they should be a fairly peaceful person.  Moreover, that is how Christianity believes humans should be.

                People, however, are inherently flawed.  We oftentimes fall short of our goals or compromise on our morals.  We have the capacity for love and tolerance, but oftentimes excel at hate and destruction.  We hunt, kill, and wage war on our fellow man.  In that sense, humans share common ground with bestial predators like the tiger. 

                Thus, I believe the common themes of Songs of Innocence and Experience hold true for The Lamb and The Tyger, and that the common theme is the nature of humanity itself.