Keats posts

Hello Romanticists,

Our poems for Thursday all focus on one of the great themes of Keats’ poetry: crossing between different states of being.  In “Ode on Indolence,” the speaker occupies some indeterminate space between dreaming and waking, a “drowsy hour” (15) in which he encounters what he variously describes as “shadows” or “visions” or “phantoms” (11, 57, 59).  Similarly, “To Autumn” examines that season as a threshold between life and death aptly symbolized by a drowsing reaper whose momentary pause dilates the space between the ripe life of summer and the inevitable death of winter. 

“The Eve of St. Agnes” features both of these in-between realms.  Characters shift continually between dreams (waking or sleeping) and full consciousness, and while young lovers and revelry are at the center of the narrative, death hovers close in various forms (elderly characters are nearing death, Porphyro will be killed if he is discovered).  In addition, “St. Agnes” toys with the line between the real or ordinary world and an ideal, otherworldly realm.  The tradition that on St. Agnes Eve one may dream of one’s future, as well as the lovers’ strange, almost magical flight, suggest the fantastical world of fairy tales.

For your posts, consider one scene of crossing borders: of dreaming or waking, passing between life and death, or of shifting from realistic to fantastic.  Be attentive, as always, to poetic form, word choice, and figurative language.

Happy reading,

Prof. M.

"The Eve of St. Agnes" generated intense interest among visual artists of the nineteenth century.  Enjoy three famous depictions of the poem below: 

The Flight of Madeline and Porphyro, William Holman Hunt

Madeline Undressing, John Everett Millais

Madeline After Prayer, Daniel Maclise

Frankenstein posts II

Hello Romanticists,

In today’s discussion we briefly examined the concept of family in Frankenstein, and specifically the relationships between children and parents.  The novel is filled with models of insufficient or inadequate parenting.  Nearly all of the characters lost at least one parent when young and many were left dangerously unprovided for (Caroline Beaufort, Elizabeth Lavenza, Justine Moritz).  Even when parents do live long enough to raise their children they often appear irresponsible (Caroline’s father lost the family fortune and retired from the world out of wounded pride), repressive (Clerval’s father resists sending him to university), or outright cruel (Justine’s mother, Safie’s father).  

However, while children are vulnerable to parental abuse and abandonment, parents are also damaged by the acts of their children.  Felix De Lacey’s pursuit of Safie puts his family in political danger.  Frankenstein’s ill-considered experiment leads to the deaths of several family members including the premature and painful death of his father, just as the creature’s murders lead to the premature and painful death of Frankenstein himself.

In your post for this week, examine a passage from Volume III that relates to families—to the responsibilities of those who create new lives, to the perils of creating an independent being, etc. 

You may choose to compare a familial scene in Volume II to earlier depictions of families. 

As you read, enjoy an array of images from the numerous films that have imaged the creature or Frankenstein engaging with children or even having offspring of their own.

Happy reading,

Prof. M.

Universal's 1931 Frankenstein 

Son of Frankenstein (1939) starring Boris Karloff

Mel Brooks' 1974 Young Frankenstein

Frankenstein posts I

Hello Romanticists,

On Thursday we will be discussing the first volume of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and even if you have not read it before, much of the novel will feel eerily familiar.  The opening lines are written by a man about to set sail to an isolated polar region.  Remind you of anything we read?  It will.  Specifically, our initial narrator writes:

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.  I arrived here yesterday; and my first task it to assure my dear sister of my welfare, and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.

A male author imposes an interpretation (“You will rejoice to hear…”) on an absent, silent female whose presence is nonetheless felt by reference to her disagreement with the author: that could easily be a summary of one of Coleridge’s conversation poems.  The “dear sister” may also remind us of Dorothy Wordsworth, beloved but silenced companion of so many of William’s poems.  Margaret’s “forebodings” might even remind us of Rebecca’s concerns about another kind of dangerous adventuring: chivalric quests.  Shelley’s novel will provide a much more strident critique of male ego than any of her predecessors, though.

For your response, close read a passage that relates to one of the authors we have previously read.  You might choose a passage in which Shelley directly quotes on of our friends (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, and Percy Shelley will all make appearances).  Or you might focus on a theme or image that other authors have addressed (Mont Blanc and Chamonix, dreams and disillusionment, the supernatural, etc.).

Happy reading,
Prof. M.

Lynd Ward's illustration of the creature

Bernie Wrightson's illustration of the creature and Frankenstein

Percy Shelley Posts

Hello Romanticists,

Excellent work analyzing Shelley’s sonnets in class today.  As we discussed, the sonnet form allows Shelley to exercise his powers of renovation, his ability to produce new meaning from something tired, conventional, or familiar.

You will find the same ideology of renovation in Shelley’s great work of poetic theory, “A Defence [sic] of Poetry.”  A poet’s language, he argues, “marks the before unapprehended relations of things,” often by revitalizing images and words that have become meaningless through overuse.  This is why he claims that poetic language is “vitally metaphorical”: poetic language is “vital” in the etymological sense of being alive with meaning rather than deadened by custom, and it is metaphorical because metaphor is the central tool for revealing connections or “relations” between seemingly diverse things.

We’ll talk through this concept further in class.  For your posts, investigate one or more of the many metaphors Shelley employs in one of the poems.  You might choose the wind or the dead leaves in “Ode to the West Wind,” the glow-worm or rose of “To a Skylark,” or the string of metaphors used to describe Intellectual Beauty.  Or indeed any other metaphor that strikes your fancy.

Happy reading,

Prof. M.

To get you thinking about birds and wind and other fleeting, incorporeal things, enjoy some of Romantic painter John Constable's famous cloud studies: 

Hemans posts

Hello Romanticists,

Though Felicia Hemans and George Gordon, Lord Byron are both members of the second generation of Romantics, they might strike us as bewilderingly different from or even diametrically opposed to each other.  Byron was deeply skeptical of Christian faith; Hemans was deeply devout.  Byron was a political radical who embraced a life of exile from his homeland; Hemans was much more conservative and valorized patriotism.  Byron famously had a string of affairs and separated from his wife when their daughter was a child; Hemans was abandoned by her husband and supported their six children on her own.  

And yet, despite vast differences of experience and ideology, the two poets share some profound similarities.  Both, for example, are invested in constructing heroes.  Records of Woman presents a host of figures who embody ideals Hemans felt to be important for women throughout history.  Even when they embody gender norms, Hemans’ women are passionate, courageous, and undaunted in the face or threat or trauma.  They are often wronged or rejected by those around them, and often seek means to defy those who seek to control them.

In your post, pick one of Hemans’ women to consider.  In what ways does she embody conventional (female) virtues?  In what ways does she defy these conventions?  How is she like and unlike Childe Harold or the general Byronic hero?

Happy reading,
Prof. M.

Hemans, from her Collected Works

Illustration of Hemans' poem "Effigies"