British Literature II

January 23, 2024 - May 16, 2024
Tuesday, Thursday
8:30AM - 9:45AM
Arts & Sciences Hall 378

A survey of English literature from the Romantic period to the present.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850), p.174-176

both parents died when he was young, leaving him and his siblings "unsettled"
travelled through France during the French Revolution
"He and my beloved sister are the two beings whom my intellect is most indebted." referring to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth
Lyrical Ballads (1798), The Prelude (1799), Poems (1807), The Excursion (1814), Ecclesiastical Sketches (1822).

Preface to Lyrical Ballads, p.176-177

don't listen to the critics, listen to the poets themselves
the goal: adapt the language of lower classes for the purpose of poetry
no "gaudiness and inane phraseology" like modern writers -- if that's what you want, this is going to be strange
poetry is an acquired taste -- don't be too quick to judge

"An Essay on Man," Alexander Pope (1732-1734)

Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things // To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
Pope is writing a poem to a friend, like a fancy open letter, to point out the flaws in his line of thinking
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; // A might maze! but not without a plan;
Laugh were we must, be candid where we can; // But vindicate the ways of God to man.
The goal of Pope's rebuttal: a defense of God.
Say first, of God above, or man below, // What can we reason, but from what we know?
Pope goes on to explain that we only know what we see from our world, but that our world is just a small part of the universe
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul // Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?
Can we understand God from just observing our small part of the universe?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, // Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!
Pope says yes, but...
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; // 'Tis but a part we see, not a whole.
we will have to be careful: we don't see everything and could easily go astray.
Then say not man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault; // Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought;
Our ability to go astray is not evidence of a faulty design: it may be an important feature.
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, // All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
Pope gives an example: a lamb is raised only ultimately to be killed. Should the lamb revolt at this plan? No...
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, // But gives hope to be they blessing now.
and should man angrily shake his fist at God in the same vein? It would not make sense.
Call imperfection what though fanciest such, // Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Man wants to be God if he is sitting in judgment of God, and thus, is blinded by his own pride.
Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, // Earth for whose use? Pride answers, "'Tis for mine:
Pope goes on to point out how ridiculous this argument is.
If the great end be human happiness, // Then nature deviates; and can man do less?
If you pridefully think this is all for you, then you are forced to believe that earthquakes and storms are also divinely inspired to affect you. This is silly, Pope argues.
The gen'ral order, since the whole began, // Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.
It makes much more sense to understand that as men can go astray, so can nature, and again, this is part of the design.
The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) // Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
Like we don't see the world as a fly does, we also don't see the world as God does, by design.
How instict varies in the grov'lling swine, // Compar'd, half-reas'ning elphant, with thine:
The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone, // Is not they reason all these pow'rs in one?
Pope lists the differences between many creatures: mole, lynx, lion, hound, spider, elephant, and man. Man's obvious difference is the ability to reason, but it shouldn't be viewed any differently than any of the differences the other differences the other creatures possess, each having necessary qualities of their own.
From nature's chain whatever link you strike, // Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
Everything in the world is interconnected, suggesting a perfect design.
All this dread order break--for whom? for thee? // Vile worm!--Oh madness, pride, impiety!
And you are so blinded by your pride that any improvement you offered would break the whole system.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, // Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
God's creation is necessary... and perfect!
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree // Of blindess, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
We are imperfect for a reason.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee: // All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, // One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
The thesis of Pope's letter to his friend: you're prideful arrogance leads you astray: whatever is, is right.

William Wordsworth, "I wondered lonely as a cloud" (p. 210-212)

QUESTION: What does each poem say about man's relationship with the world? Think of the "mirror" and the "lamp."
The world serves as a source of happiness for man:
A poet could not by be gay, // In such a jocund company;
And then my heart with pleasure fills, // And dances with the daffodils.
Man and the world acts as each other:
I wandered loney as a cloud // That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, // Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
Thus, like Pope, Wordsworth sees man and nature as the same.

William Wordsworth, "We Are Seven" p.178-179

The little Maid would have her will, // And said, "Nay, we are seven!"
A man meet a simple child and asks her how many are in her family (only including brothers and sisters). She says there are 7: two are at Conway port, two are at sea, and two are burried in a church yard. The man tries to convince her that because 2 are dead, there are only 5. The man tries to explain it to her:
"You run about, my little maid, // Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid, // Then ye are only five."
The girl offers evidence to the contrary:
"There graves are green, they may be seen," // The little Maid replied.
"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, // And they are side by side.
And there upon the ground I sit-- // I sit and sing to them.
I take my porringer, // And eat my supper there.
The poem ends with the man exasperated and the girl defiant.
QUESTION: Why does the speaker in "We Are Seven" become so frustrated with the "little cottage Girl?" What is at stake in his argument with her?

William Blake (1757-1827) p.74-76

a poet and artist whose works were underappriciated during his lifetime
widely viewed as one of the GOATs of the Romantic era
hated authority, and thanks to his parents similar disdain, pursued self study as opposed to being schooled in an institution
claimed to see God
contemporaries considered him insane for his insistence on imaginative truth

William Blake, Songs of Innocence: "Introduction" p.77

The poet is singing and mystically, gets visited by a child on a cloud. The child asks the poet to sing a song about a lamb, and when the poet acquiesces, the child approves and asks for an encore twice. Then the mystical floating child asks him to record his song in a book so everyone could enjoy his art, before mystically vanishing. The poet once again accepts the mystical child's suggestion and writes his songs.
Seems like a solid introduction for a book of poetry.

William Blake, Songs of Experience: "Introduction" p.81-82

The poet sees past, present, and future, so much so that he has heard the voice of God along with Adam and Eve. It is night time and the poet seems to fully embrace his view of the night sky:
The starry floor // The watry shore // Is giv'n thee till the break of day."
The poet thinks there is something divine about night time, as seeing the stars brings you closer to God. Everyone else is probably missing this experience, so this book may perhaps wake them up.

William Blake, Songs of Innocence: "The Lamb" p.78

The speaker asks a lamb if it knows who made it. He praises the lamb... and thus its creation:
Gave thee clothing of delight, // Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice, // Making all the vales rejoice:
The speaker tells the lamb that he was made by Jesus, who is also called a lamb:
He is called by thy name, // For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & his is mild, // He became a little child:

William Blake, Songs of Experience, "The Tyger" p.84

The speaker marvels, in terror, at the creation of the tiger:
What immortal hand or eye, // Could frame they fearful symmetry?
And when thy heart began to beat? // What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the anvil? what dread grasp // Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
The speaker wonders how Jesus, who created the lamb, could also create the tiger
Did he smile his work to see? // Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

William Blake, Songs of Innocence, "The Chimney Sweeper" p.79

The speaker is a young child who is a chimney sweeper. It's quite loathsome, but he remains optimistic:
"Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare, // You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."
And the Angel told Tom if he'd be a good boy, // He'd have God for his father & never want joy.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm. // So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
The loathsome life of a child laborer is viewed from the most innocent prospective. No reader could plausibly believe this account, so is it intended to be laughable in its portrayal?

William Blake, Songs of Experience, "The Chimney Sweeper" p.83

The speaker is of a witness of a poor child chimney sweeper:
A little black thing among the snow: // Crying "weep, weep," in notes of woe!
When the child is asked where his mother and father are, he responds that they went to church. The child knows his parents commit a great injustice upon him:
They clothed me in the clothes of death, // And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
His parents lie to themselves saying he is happy and sings and dances, but really his song "weep, weep" is one of misery:
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King // Who make up a heaven of our misery."

William Blake, Songs of Innocence, "Holy Thursday" p.80

The speaker watches as all the children of London's charity schools gather for an annual service at St. Paul's Cathedral. The children are described as radiant as flowers and innocent as lambs:
The hum of multitudes was ther but multitudes of lambs, // Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands.
As the children sing, the church pats itself on the back for being their guardians:
Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor, // Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

William Blake, Songs of Experience, "Holy Thursday" p.83

The speaker is highly critical of the guardians of the poor children:
Is this a holy thing to see, // In a rich and fruitfall land, // Babes reduced to misery, // Fed with cold and usurous hand?
When the speaker reconsiders his thoughts: if there are so many poor children, then it must be a land of poverty:
For where-e'er the sun does shine ... Babe can never hunger there,
The poem is a strong critique of the wealth inequality -- and the lack of moral behavior of the church or society as a whole.

William Blake, Songs of Innocence, "The Divine Image" p.80

The speaker argues when you pray for help from god, God will take care of you:
Is goud our father dear: ... Is Man his child and care.
If you accept Jesus, you will be saved?
And all must love the human form, // In heathen, turk or jew. // Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell, // There God is dwelling too.

William Blake, Songs of Experience, "The Human Abstract" p.86

Good and bad circumstances rely on each other:
Pity would be no more, // If we did not make somebody Poor:
And Mercy no more could be, // If all were happy as we;
In addition to pity requiring being poor, and mercy requiring unhappiness, the speaker also argues fear brings peace. Love brings cruelty. Sadness brings humility. Mystery brings deceit.
Men seek virtue, but ultimately man is found lacking?
But their search was all in vain: // There grows one in the Human Brain.

Images of Tintern Abbey
William Wordworth, "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" p.183-185

The speaker (Will Wordsworth) returns to a spot that he holds dear:
The day is come when I again repose // Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
It has been five years, but it's like he has never left:
Though absent long, // These forms of beauty have not been to me
Even away in the city, the beauty of nature provides him tranquility:
With tranquil restoration--feelings too // Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps, // As may have had no trivial influence // On the best portion of a good man's life;
The gift of nature is like the gift of kindness and love.
When he is feeling down, he turns to his thoughts of this place to lift himself up:
O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer throught the woods, // How often has my spirit thruned to thee!
sylvan = wooded, Wye = name of the river
It's been five years, and while he says it has never left him, he nonetheless admits seeing this place again refills his emptying reservior of great feelings:
That in this moment there is life and food // For future years. And so I dare to hope
He also recognizes he came to this place before with thoughtless youthfulness:
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first // I came among these hills; when like a roe
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul // Of all my moral being.
He is visiting again with his beloved sister Dorothy, but he doesn't think she sees it like him yet. Eventually she will, but she has not gained his level of consciousness yet:
May I behold in thee what I was once, // My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,
Will makes a prayer that she will see it like him:
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me // More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake.
QUESTION: What, if anything, is significant about the site of "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"? Because of the Protestant Reformation in England, Abbeys there generally were ruins. How might the ruined Abbey frame the source(s) of consolation Wordsworth describes in this poem?

William Wordsworth, "The Solitary Reaper" p.209

The speaker is passing through a field and he encounters a lone woman who sings as she cuts the grain with her sickle.
Reaping and singing by herself; // Stop here, or gently pass!<
Alone she cuts, and binds the grain, // And signs a melancholy strain;<
The speaker is taken aback by her sweet sound, and wonders whether she sings an epic tale or about some trivial matter
Or is it some more humble lay, // Familiar matter of today?<
The speaker listened, and even after departing, would carry her music in his heart for the future (like Wordsworth at Tinturn Abbey)
The music in my heart I bore, // Long after it was heard no more.<

William Wordworth, "Lines Written in Early Spring" p.178

Wordsworth looks upon the world and sees happiness everywhere except in man. He views everything in nature enjoying its simple state, and man somehow is the only part of this world that does not enjoy his place in it.
In that sweet mood with pleasant thoughts // Bring sad thoungs to the mind.
And much it griev'd my heart to think // What mad has made of man.
And 'tis my faitht hat every flower // Enjoys the air it breathes.
Even the tree:
And I must think, do all I can, // That there was pleasure there.
But man seems like a lost cause:
Have I not reasont to lament // What man has made of man?

William Wordsworth, "There was a Boy" p.194

The speaker is talking about when he was a boy. He would go out at night and hoot at the owls and listen to the hoot back. When the speaker returns to this spot in Windamere, he does not hoot like he did when he was a child, so he claims the boy died when he was ten years old.
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, // Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls
At evening, I believe, that near his grave, // A full half-hour together I have stood, // Mute--for he died when he was ten years old.
Wordsworth is lamenting how fun and silly he was as a child: the simple happiness that man lacks if we go back to his "Lines Written in Early Spring."

William Wordsworth, "The world is too much with us" p.208

Little we see in nature that is ours; // We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
Will is bemoaning that we are no longer "moved" by nature.
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be // A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

William Wordsworth, "London, 1802" p.208-209

Will longly calls out for John Milton... who had died 130 years ago.
England hath need of thee: she is fen // Of stagnant waters: alter, sword, and pen
alter = the church, sword = the military, pen = the literary community?
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, // Have forfeited their ancient English dower
What came before them, for example, Milton, were giants, but this generation has squandered it.
Equal parts euligizing Milton and critiquing present-day London:
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. // Thou soul was like a Star dwelt apart:
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart // The lowliest duties on itself did lay.

William Wordsworth, "Strange fits of passion I have known" p.194-195

The speaker tells a story about him on his way to his lover's cottage. His mind drifts, and he is beside himself at the thought of losing her. He tells her the story when he gets there, and it is romantic.
But in the Lover's ear alone, // What once to me befell.
"Oh mercy!" to myself I cried, // "If Lucy should be dead!"
The critics believe that Will writes this poem about Dorothy...

William Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" p.214-217

Turn wheresoe'er I may, // By night or day, // The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
And while the young Lambs bound // As to the tabor's sounds, // To me alone there came a thought of grief:
My heart is at your festival, // My head hath it's coronal, // The fullness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were sullen // While Earth herself is adorning,
The speaker has a great fear of losing his love for nature
Whither is fled the visionary gleam? // Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
At length the Man perceives it die away, // And fade into the light of common day.
Then, sing ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! // And let the young Lambs bound // As to the tabor's sound!
What though the radiance which was once so bright // Be now for ever taken from my sight,
We will grieve not, rather find // Strength in what remains behind,
Although the speaker laments losing what he once had, he is still grateful for what little bit he still has.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) p.311-313

voracious reader, father died when he was young, sent to a good school for the poor, resented it
racked up debts in college, but was saved financially by his brother
liberal political radical who wanted to start an egalitarian commune in Pennsylvania, but would grow more conservative when he got older
accompanied William and Dorothy to Germany

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Eolian Harp" p.313-314

While seemingly addressed to his fiance Sara Fricker, the poem is nonetheless thanking God for providing man with nature.
My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Methinks, it should have been impossible // Not to love all things in a world so fill'd;
And what if all of animated nature // Be but organic Harps diversely fram'd,
Who with His saving mercies healed me, // A sinful and most miserable man, // Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess // Peae, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honour'd Maid!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" p.329-330

STC is visited by three friends: Charles Lamb, and William and Dorothy, but when they visit, STC becomes injured so he is not able to go on a walk with them. As he is left alone, he daydreams about what they must be experiencing on their walk. In his mind, he sees them enjoying their walk, and he is most happy for Charles Lamb, as Charles does not get to experience nature like they do and has dealt with personal struggles. As he is thinking about all the great things his friend is getting to experience, he realizes that even dreaming this happiness provides himself with happiness, even though he is stuck at home injured.
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, // This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance // To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
Now my friends emerge // Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad, // My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain // And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes // Spirits perceive his presence.
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes // 'Tis well to be befeft of promis'd good, // That we may lift the soul, and contemplate // With lively joy the joys we cannot share.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan; Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment" p.342-343

STC had an opium-induced dream while reading a history of Kubla Khan. He awoke, remembering 200-300 lines from his dream, and immediately set out to put them on paper. As he started this, he was interrupted for an hour by someone, and after the interruption, could no longer remember the lines. If we are to believe STC's preface.
The setting:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan // A stately pleasure-dome decree:
The speaker has a vision of a woman singing in a canvern, when an underground spring burst into the cavern:
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Mysteriously as this spring burst open, Kubla Khan hears a prophecy of war:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far // Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The speaker, now reminiscing his vision, thinks if he could sing the woman's song, he could revive Kubla Khan's palace.
And on her dulcimer she played, // Singing of Mount Abora. // COuld I revive within me // Her symphony and song, // To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
I would build that dome in air, // An all who heard should see them there, // And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 1, p.318

An old mariner detains a man who is on his way to a wedding and starts to tell him a crazy story:
"There was a ship," quoth he. // "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
The ship is pushed toward the south pole by a storm and they become trapped by ice until an albatross flies through the fog, and the crew rejoices:
At length did cross an Albatross, // Through the fog it came; // As if it had been a Christian soul, // We hailed it in God's name.
The albatross proves to be a good omen and along with a southwind, guides them north out of the ice. Unfortunately, the ancient mariner shoots the albatross down:
"God save thee, ancient Mariner! // From the fiends, that plague thee thus!-- // Why look'st thou so?"--With my cross-bow // I shot the ALBATROSS.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 2, p.319

At first, the crew blames the mariner for killing the bird that brought the wind, but when the fog lifts, the crew decides that the bird had brought the fog, so the mariner did a good thing by killing the bird:
The all averred, I had killed the bird // That brought the fog and mist. // 'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, // That bring the fod and mist.
The good fortune turns to bad, as the wind stops blowing and they are stuck:
Day after day, day after day, // We stuck, nor breath nor motion; // As idle as a painted ship // Upon a painted ocean.
The crew blames all their struggles on the mariner, so they hang the dead albatross around his neck:
Instead of the cross, the Albatross // About my neck was hung.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 3, p.320

They are dying from thirst, but they see a ship, and it gives them hope:
We could not laugh nor wail; // Through utter drought all dumb we stood! // I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, // And cried, A sail! a sail!
They realize it is some sort of ghost ship, sailing with no wind, and crewed by two women spectres, DEATH and DEATH-IN-LIFE. They play a game of chance, and DEATH-IN-LIFE wins:
The naked hulk alongside came, // And the twain were casting dice; // 'The game is done! I've won! I've won! // Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
Every one of the mariner's crewmates die besides him:
Four times fifty living men, // (And I heard nor sigh nor groan) // With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, // They dropped down one by one.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 4, p.321

Return to the present, the wedding guest is horrified at the mariner's tale, thinking the mariner is some evil ghost:
"I fear thee, ancient Mariner! // I fear they skinny hand! // And thou art long, and lank, and brown, // As is the ribbed sea sand.
The mariner reassures him, and continues his tale, as he bemoans the living things in the sea and his dead crewmates on the ship:
The many men, so beautiful! // And they all dead die lie: // And a thousand thousand slimy things // Loved on; and so did I.
In his misery at night, however, he sees the creatures of the sea differently, and finds them beautiful. While praying for these sea creatures, the evil spell that has ensnared him begins to lift, and the albatross falls off his neck:
The selfsame moment I could pray; // And from my neck so free // The Albatross fell off, and sank // Like lead into the sea.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 5, p.322

The mariner is blessed by the virgin Mary in his sleep and he awakes to find rain filling his buckets.
To Mary Queen the praise be given! // She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
The dead crew becomes possessed by angels, and the zombie crew mans the ship:
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools-- // We were a ghastly crew.
The wedding guest is once again horrified--this time by the zombie crew. But the mariner reassures him, explaining when morning comes, the angels depart the dead men, leaving the mariner alone again:
For when it dawned--they dropped their arms, // And clustered round the mast; // Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, // And from their bodies passed.
Without a breeze or the possessed crew, the ship nonetheless continues on, carried by a spirit from the south:
Under the keel nine fathom deep, // From the land of mist and snow, // The spirit slid: and it was he // That made the ship to go.
But the ship stops, and the mariner hears some demons conversing that spirit still demands more penance from the man who shot down the bird:
Quoth he, "The man hath penance done, // And penance more will do."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 6, p.324

The spirit puts the mariner in a trance so it can guide the ship north at a mystically fast pace:
"The air is cut away before, // And closes from behind. // Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high! // Or we shall be belated: // For slow and slow that ship will go, // When the Mariner's trance is abated."
When the mariner awakes from his trance, he finds the dead crew staring at him, but the curse finally ends:
And now this spell was snapt: once more // I viewed the ocean green, // And looked far forth, yet little saw // Of what had else been seen--
A wind picks up, and sails the ship to within sight of the mariner's native country:
Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed // The light-house top I see? // Is this the hill? is this the kirk? // Is this mine own countree?
The mariner sees the spirits of his dead crewmates, and a boat comes out to meet him:
But soon I head the dash of oars, // I heard the Pilot's cheer; // My head was turned perforce away // And I saw a boat appear.
On the boat: the pilot, the pilot's boy, and a hermit. The mariner rejoices at the hermit, who with his godly hymns will absolve the mariner:
He singeth loud his godly hymns // That he makes in the wood. // He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away // The Albatross's blood.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 7, p.326

As the boat approaches, the mariner's ship sinks:
Under the water it rumbled on, // Still louder and more dread: // It reached the ship, it split the bay; // The ship went down like lead.
The mariner is pulled into the boat that went out to meet him:
Like one that hath been seven days drowned // My body lay afloat; // But swift as dreams, myself I found // Within the Pilot's boat.
The pilot, the pilot's boy, and the hermit thought the mariner was dead, so he shocks them when he speaks:
I moved my lips--the Pilot shrieked // And fell down in a fit; // The holy Hermit raised his eyes, // And prayed where he did sit.
When seeking the hermit's absolution, the hermit asks him what kind of man he is, so the mariner recounts his tale:
"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say-- // What manner of man art thou?"
Wherever the mariner goes now, he is blessed with a strange power to recount his tale, and he mystically finds each person he must recount it to:
I pass, like night, from land to land: // I have strange power of speech; // That moment that his face I see, // I know the man that must hear me: // To him my tale I teach.
The mariner's final message to the wedding guest:
He prayeth best, who loveth best // All things both great and small; // For the dear God who loveth us, // He made and loveth all.

Lord Byron (George Gordon) (1788-1824) p.440-442

born near poverty, lame in one leg, regularly molested by a nursemaid
inherited uncle's title and debts
got degree from Cambridge, published, was reviewed negatively, published again attacking his critics, partied
attachment to Greece, allowing him to fulfill same-sex desires
his work Childe Harold's Pilgrammage made him a celebrity
with his celebrity came affairs, including possibly his half-sister Augusta
relations with over 200 hundred women in Venice over 3 years
began his masterpiece Don Juan in 1818
organized an expedition to help Greek independence, stationed at Missolongi, died April 19 from fever

Lord Byron, "She walks in beauty" p.443

The speaker is describing a woman he witnesses. Her eyes are like the starry night sky:
She walks in beauty, like the night // Of cloudless climes and starry skies; // And all that's best of dark and bright // Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Her perfect dark hair shows her grace:
One shade the more, one ray the less, // Had half impair'd the nameless grace // Which waves in ever raven tress, // Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Her smile dispays her goodness and innocence:
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, // But tell of days in goodness spent, // A mind at peave with all below, // A heart whose love is innocent!

Lord Byron, "When we two parted" p.443-444

Two secret lovers part ways, but not as lovers would, because their relations are secret, so they part ways, out of necessity, as non-lovers:
When we two parted // In silence and tears, // Half broken-hearted // To sever for years, // Pale grew they cheek and cold, // Colder thy kiss; // Truly that hour foretold // Sorrow to this.
The reason, of course, they are secret lovers is because the woman is married, so the relation brings quiet shame to the speaker:
Thy vows are all broken, // And light is thy fame; // I hear they name spoken, // And share in its shame.
They know not I knew thee, // Who knew thee too well:-- // Long, long shall I rue thee, // Too deeply to tell.
The speaker fears when they meet again, they will once again pretend they are not lovers:
If I should meet thee // After long years, // How should I greet thee!-- // With silence and tears.

Lord Byron, "So, we'll go no more a roving" p.447

The speaker is lamenting going from partying during Carnival to living in a more hallowed manner during Lent:
So, we'll go no more a roving, // So late into the night, // Though the heart be still as loving, // And the moon be still as bright.
Though the night was made for loving, // And the day returns too soon, // Yet we'll go no more a roving // By the light of the moon.

Lord Byron, "On this day I complete my thirty sixth year" p.447-448

Summary: Byron is lamenting that he is not loved back. He is quite in love, in fact. No torch is kindled at its blaze. But his passions are not reciprocated. But he tries to shake himself from his self-pity. Love is not what should be on his mind, when he can seek the glory of an ancient Greek warrior. Awake my spirit. The thoughts of love are unworthy of those seeking this Greek glory, as the Spartans before them. Indifferent should they smile or frown / Of Beauty be. Thus, to prove his manhood, Byron seeks to die in battle instead of wallow in self-pity.

Mary Shelley (1797-1851)

only child of radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and political journalist William Godwin
her mother died right after her birth, but she knew her through her writings
was taught by a group of regular visitors, including Coleridge
met Percy in 1814 who was an admirorer of her father; Percy was married at the time, but they declared their love for each other within two months, and married two years later after Percy's first wife committed suicide
toured Europe, settled with Lord Byron in Italy
lost three children and had a miscarriage, became depressed and was estranged from Percy, who died by drowning in 1822, and then felt guilty for their estrangement
published Frankenstein in 1818, which was conceived in 1816 when, in a group, Lord Byron suggested they compose ghost stories for each other
felt exiled from society after the death of Percy (1822) and Byron (1824)
was finally allowed by Percy's father to publish Percy's work in 1839
when Percy's father died in 1844, his title and inheritence passed on to her son

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, Volume 1, Chapter 3, p.563

While studying a decomposing body, Victor is enlightened with the ability to animate life:
After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.
While hesitant, Victor is too enthuastic not to create his own version of man, despite how much work and effort it would entail:
Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable difficulty and labour. I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself or one of simpler organization; but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man.
Obsessed with his work, Victor finds himself neglecting the beauty of nature and the affection of his friends:
About the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them; and I well remembered the words of my father: "I know that while you are pleased with yourself, you will think of us with affection, and we shall hear regularly from you. You must pardon me, if I regard any interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties areq equally neglected."
In hindsight, Victor realizes how wrong he was to pursue his work at the expense of these connections:
If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possbily mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, Volume 1, Chapter 4, p.565

At 1am at night, Victor infuses life into his creation; it awakens, and Victor is horrified by his creation. Everything was supposed to be perfect, but he is horrified:
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!--Great God!
After seeing his creation brought to life, Victor rushes to his bedroom and begins to pace. Eventually he succumbs to sleep, and he dreams of his cousin, but when he embraces her, she turns into the corpse of his dead mother, who is rotting as the bodies he studied had rotted. He awakes when his monster has entered his room and drawn back the curtains to reveal the moonlight. When the monster reaches out for him, Victor escapes and runs out of the house:
I took refuge in the court-yard belonging to the house which I inhabited; where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demonical corpse to which I had so miserably given life.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, Volume 2, Chapter 2, p.566

Victor is hiking in the mountains when he sees a figure approach with superhuman size and speed. Confronted by his creation, Victor responds in this fight-or-flight situation by lashing out at his creation rhetorically:
"Devil!" I exclaimed, "do you dare approach me? and do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! or rather stay, that I may trample you to dust!
His creation is not scared. He finds it crazy he would give him life and then attack him. He returns Victor's empty threats his own less empty threats, if Victor is unwilling to treat him right:
You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your durty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends."
Victor continues his verbal anger and then lunges at his creation. The monster easily evades him and urges Victor to end his silly attacks, as he can easily overpower him. The monster continues to parlay with him:
I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king, if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other, and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due.
Victor is unrelenting:
"Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies.
The monster begs Victor to listen to his story:
Listen to my tale: when you have heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve. But hear me. ... Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. ... Yet I ask you not to spare me: listen to me, and then, if you can, or if you will, destroy the work of your hands."
Victor tells the monster to get out of his sight, so the monster covers Victor's eyes with his hand. Victor pushes his arms away, but finally relents, and follows the monster to a hut on the mountain to hear his story. Victor realizes he wants to hear the monster's story, and he begins to agree that he at least owes him that:
For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness. ... But I consented to listen; and, seating myself by the fire which my odious companion had lighted, he thus began his tale.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, Volume 2, Chapter 3, p.568

Recounting his story to Victor, the monster explains where he went after leaving Victor's home. He went to a forrest and found berries to eat. He sees the sun for the first time, which he enjoyed:
"Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens, and gave me a sensation of pleasure.
When he first discovers fire, he burns his hands in his joy. He needed the warmth, but finds the fire very useful in a number of ways:
In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain.
Searching for food, he finds a hut, and when he enters, the old man residing in the hut is terrified and runs out. He eats the man's food, before proceeding on:
He turned on hearing a noise; and, perceiving me, shrieked loudly, and quitting the hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debilitated from hardly appeared capable.
When he finds a village, he enters a hut as before, but this time he is attacked by the villagers:
The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missle weapons, I escaped to the open country, and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel, quite bare, and making a wretched appearance after the places I had beheld in the village.
The hovel the monster has found for shelter is attached to a cottage, and the monster discovers the cottage is inhabitted by a man and his two children. He takes a great interest in his neighbors:
In the evening, the young girl and her companion were employed in various occupations which I did not understand; and the old man again took up the instrument, which produced the divine sounds that had enchanted me in the morning. So soon as he had finished, the youth began, not to play, but to utter sounds that were monotonous, and neither resembling the harmony of the old man's instrument or the songs of the birds; I since found that he read aloud, but at that time, I knew nothing of the science of words or letters.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, Volume 2, Chapter 4, p.572

The monster wants to join his neighbors, but he is too frightened from his previous experience with the villagers.
What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people; and I longed to join them, but dared not.
The monster learns the old man is blind, and after observing them over a period of time, discovers they are poor:
"A considerable period elapsed before I discovered one of the causes of the uneasiness of this amiable family; it was poverty: and they suffered that evil in a very distressing degree.
The monster is moved by the fact the young kids go hungry at times so the old man is able to eat. At this point, the monster realizes he should steal from them, as he has been doing, and instead sets out to help them with their chores where he can, unbeknownst to them:
"I discovered also another menas through which I was enabled to assist their labors.
As he observes the family, he discovers language:
I found that these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds.
He starts to learn the language:
The youth and his companion had each of them several names, but the old man had only one, which was father.
While he is only observing this family, he still develops a deep emotional connection to them:
The gentle manners and beauty of the cottagers greatly endeared them to me: when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathized in their joys.
The monster discovers that the spoken language he has been studying is related to the written language when he sees the boy reading to the man. He resolves to learn to read as well, which he thinks will be important when he reveals himself to the family:
I improved, however, sensibly in this science, but not sufficiently to follow up any kind of conversation, although I applied my whole mind to the endeavor: for I easily perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover myself to the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had first become the master of their language; which knowledge might enable me to make them overlook the deformity of my figure; for with this also the contrast perpetually presented to my eyes had made me acquainted.
The monster's daily habit is to watch the cottagers. When they were out, he would sleep. At night, he would collect his food and do the tasks that he thought would help them. The cottagers thought they were being blessed by God:
I afterwards found that these labours, performed by an invisible and, greatly astonished them; and once or twice I heard them, on these occasions, utter the words good spirit, wonderful; but I did not then understand the significance of these terms.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, Volume 2, Chapter 5, p.574

The boy Felix is teaching a young Arabian girl, Safie, their language, French. The monster is learning the language quicker than the Safie, and he is also learning to read as Felix is also teaching Safie to read:
"The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's Ruins of Empires.
The history they are reading gives the monster an unflattering view of man:
Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?
As the monster is understanding the social structure of man, this leads him to question his own place in society:
A man might be respected with only one of these acquisitions; but without either he was considered, except in vaery rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profit of the chosen few. And what was I?
The monster begins to view himself as a monster:
Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?
Now viewing himself as a monster, he wishes he never learned anything beyond suffering from hunger, thirst, and heat, almost prefering death at this point:
I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling; but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death--a state which I feared yet did not understand.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, Volume 2, Chapter 7, p.575

The monster finds a bag with books: Paradise Lost, Plutarch's Lives, Sorrows of Werter:
I now continually studied and exercised me mind on these histories, whilst my friends were employed in their ordinary occupations.
The monster explains how each of these works influences his thoughts and feelings:
Like Adam, I was created apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with, and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature; but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.
The monster realizes he has had Victor's journal with him -- journals which share Victor's negative thoughts about his creation:
Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin;
While he dispises Victor, he does not think his neighbors could be so cruel. He resolves to introduce himself to them. He plans:
My attention, at this time, was solely directed towards my plan of introducing myself into the cottage of my protectors. I resolved many projects; but that on which I finally fixed was, to enter the dwelling when the blind old man should be alone.
The plan commences, and he explains to the old man that he is seeking friends who have never met him, not yet revealing that he is talking about the old man and his family:
These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me, and know little of me. I am full of fears; for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world for ever.'
The old man comforts the monster, and tells him he would help him if he could:
I am poor, and an exile; but it will afford me true pleasure to be in any way serviceable to a human creature.'
When the monster finally confesses that he is seeking the old man's family, Felix, Safie, and Agatha return at that very instance, and seeing the monster with his blind father, Felix attacks him. The monster is hopeless. He could easily repel Felix's attacks, but he is heartbroken:
But my heart sunk within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained. I saw him on the point of repeating his blow, when, overcome by pain and anguish, I quitteed the cottage, and in the general tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, Volume 2, Chapter 8, p.579

Having recounted his story, the monster explains it was that night he declared everlasting war:
There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindess towards my enemies? No: from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me, and sent me forth to this insupportable misery.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) p.464-465

ideas were an inspiration for socialists Marx and Engels
antagonist of kings, priests, judges, the conservative press, and aristocracy
collaborated on The Necessity of Atheism
known as "Mad Shelly" at Oxford
grew up affluent, father was a member of Parliament
was bullied at a boys' academy, where he developed an allegiance to the outcasts
married Harriet Westbrook in 1811, had a daughter, fell in love with Mary Godwin, left Harriet in 1814 and travelled with Mary and her half sister Claire Clairmont, had a son with Harriet in 1814, wanted Harriet to live with him and Mary when he returned, Harriet refused and committed suicide, married Mary
denied custody of his two children, Percy and Mary fled to Italy to join Byron
published his masterpiece Prometheus Unbound, an utopian fantasy, in 1820
died drowning while sailing with his friend Edward Williams
was cremated when his body washed on shore, but William Trelawney snatched his heart from the funeral pyre, which Mary kept and is buried with her in St. Peter's Churchyard in Bournemouth

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "To Wordsworth" p.466

Shelley describes Wordsworth's works:
Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know // That things depart which never my return: // Childhood and yout, friendship and love's first glow, // Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
Shelley finds it ironic, Wordsworth writing about losing what he once had, as Shelley has lost what he once had, Wordworth's poetry:
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine // Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave // Songs consecrate to truth and liberty-- // Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, // Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.
Wordsworth is not the same man he was. Wordworth is lame now.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "England in 1819" p.485

A stinging rebuke of the British monarchy:
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, // Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow // Through public scorn--mud from a muddy spring--
The rulers are a leech on society:
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, // But leech-like to their fainting country cling, // Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow-- // A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field--
Those who support the crown are killing freedom and are corrupt:
An army, which liberticide and prey // Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield-- // Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Ultimately, the oppression of Catholics and Dissenters will lead to revolution:
A Senate, Time's worst statute, unrepealed, // Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may // Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias" p.470

The speaker meets a traveller from a distant land who tells him a story. The story -- that he saw the remains of a statute, the legs still stood but nothing else. The face of the statue still remains, but it is half buried in the sand. From the half buried face, you can tell the sculpter was careful to craft the cold face of this ancient ruler:
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, // And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, // Tell that its sculptor well those passions read // Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, // The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
Along with the disembodied legs and the buried head, there is a pedestal with an inscription:
"My name is Ozumandias, king of kings: // Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
But if not yet convinced of how wrong this king was, Shelley makes clear the reader understands that this king could not be more mistaken about his own importance and the lasting nature of his rule:
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay // Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare // The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind" p.470-471

The ode has five stanzas. In the first stanza, the speaker compares and contrasts the autumn and spring winds. The autumn winds blow the dead leaves, where the lie dead until the spring winds signal life. The first three stanzas each end with a call to listen (Destroyer=autumn winds, Perserver=spring winds):
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; // Destroyer and Perserver; hear, oh, hear!
The second stanza concerns clouds. They signal rain and lightning and storms:
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere // Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!
The third stanza concerns the Mediterranian Sea, where you can also witness the change of seasons
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, // And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!
The start of the fourth stanza references all three before:
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; // If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; // A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The speaker compares himself to the aformentioned elements of nature that signal change:
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! // I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! // A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed // One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
In the final stanza, the speaker wishes to become the voice of change (through his poetry):
Make me thy lyre, even as the forrest is:
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth // Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! // Be through my lips to unawakened Earth // The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind, // If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

John Keats (1795-1821) p.513-515

parents died by age 14
became a surgeon's apprentice in 1815, but in 1817 devoted himself fully to poetry
aligned himself with Wordsworth's naturalism
published Endymion in 1818, which was critiqued by Wordsworth as "a very pretty piece of paganism"
admired Shakespear as a "chameleon poet" - one who is able to escape his personality and enter the being of his characters
in 1819, composed all six of his great Odes
declined to join Shelley in 1820 due to his health

John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" p.515

Keats stays up all night reading Chapman's translation of Homer with his friend Charles, and he's really fealing himself. He feels like he just dicovered Uranus or stared over the Pacific Ocean for the first time:
Oft on one wide expanse had I been told // That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as gus demesne; // Yet never did I breathe its pure serene, // Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then I felt like some watcher of the skies // When a new planet swims into his ken; // Or like stout Cortez when his eagle eyes // He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men // Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--

John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale" p.534-535

Keats sits under a tree for hours as a nightingale in a nest above sings:
That thou, light-winged Dryad // of the trees, // In some melodious plot // Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, // Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
As he listens, Keats wishes to drink in the song as one might do in medievel Provence (known for its troubadours) or from the mythical fountain of Hippocrene which grants poetic inspiration:
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, // And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Keats seemingly wants to escape "the still, sad music of humanity" (Tintern Abbey, p185):
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget // What thou among the leaves has never known, // The weariness, the fever, and the fret // Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Keats is going to escape through the nightengale:
Away! away! for I will fly to thee, // Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, // But on the viewless wings of Pesy,
Hearing the nightingale, Keats wishes to die, as the nightingale would provide a great requiem:
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, // To cease upon the midnight with no pain, // While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad // In such ecstasy! // Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain-- // To thy high requiem become a sod.
Unlike man, the nightingale song is immortal. Ruth from the Bible heard the same nightingale song as he hears now:
Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird! // No hungry generations tread thee down;
The nightingale leaves, and as the song goes away, Keats asks if he wakes -- was he dreaming -- or if he now sleeps -- and his imagination that he possessed as the bird sang was him actually being awake:
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Was it a vision, or a waking dream? // Fled is that music--Do I wake or sleep?

John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" p.536

Keats writes his ode to the artwork on a Greek urn. He contrasts the poet's loud story-telling to the art's quiet story-telling:
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, // Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, // Sylvian historian, who canst thus express // A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
While the art expresses the tale more sweetly, he is left to wonder whether it depicts gods or men and what they are pursuing:
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? // What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? // What pipes and timbrels? What // wild ecstasy?
Poetry is great, but quiet art still plays a sweeter music:
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard // Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on:
Keats begins to tell the story of the artwork on the urn. It depicts a love story of a fair woman and her bold lover:
Fair yout, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave // Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; // Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, // Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve;
The art remains frozen in time. It has a timeless quality:
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, // For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
The art is like a poem that sings forever:
And, happy melodist, unwearied, // For ever piping songs for ever new;
Keats begins describing a different scene in the artwork. The second scene is a priest performing a sacrifice:
Who are these coming to the sacrifice? // To what green alter, O mysterious priest, // Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, // And all her silken flanks with garland drest?
The people in the artwork are long gone, but the artwork lasts for eternity:
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought // As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
In the end, we don't need to know the story depicted in the artwork, the artwork is the story:
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"--that is all // Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

John Keats, "Ode on Melancholy" p.537

In the first stanza, the speaker urges the reader not to seek out death for themselves, listing 8 dramatic ways one might die:
No, No, go not to Lethe, neither twist // Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; // Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd // By nightshade, rube grape of Proserpine;
In the second stanza, the speaker gives advice on how to deal with a sudden bout of melacholy. You should almost welcome HER:
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, // Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, // And feed deep, deep upon her pearless eyes.
In the third and final stanza, the speaker explains why you should welcome her. Melocholy does not last forever, and is necessary for Joy, Pleasure, and Delight:
She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; // And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips // Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, // Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) p.822-823

born to a privileged family, composed blank verse at age 8, studied at Cambridge
met close friend Arthur Henry Hallam at Cambridge, who reviewed his first important volume, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, Hallam reviewed Tennyson as a sensation
left Cambridge without a degree in 1831 after the death of his father, his brother lost his sanity, and Hallam died in 1833
became poet laureate and married Emily Sellwood in 1850, after a 13 year engagement
in 1850, published In Memoriam, a hit that sold three edition in its first year
in 1883, took a seat in the House of Lords, and when he died in 1892, 11,000 people applied for tickets to his funeral with only 1000 permitted to attend

"Mariana," Lord Tennyson p.824

A lonely woman in a farmhouse is dejected from being spurned by some man. She launches into her refrain at the end of each stanza, that because he does not come, she wishes she were dead:
Upon the lonely moated grange. // She only said, "My life is dreary, // He cometh not," she said; // She said, "I am aweary, aweary, // I would that I were dead!"
Each stanza tells her woes with a detailed description of her lonely standing in the world, as she hears every part of the world around her, all alone:
After the flitting of the bats, // When thickest dark did trance the sky, // She drew her casement-curtain by, // And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
First bats, then a crow, followed by the wind, a mouse, and then a sparrow:
Upon the middle of the night, // Waking she heard the night-fowl crow: // The cock sung out an hour ere light: // ... // She only said, "That day is dreary, // He cometh not," she said; // She said, "I am aweary, aweary, // I would that I were dead!"
The seventh and final refrain switches from she said to she wept, and includes an exclamation to god:
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary, // Oh God, that I were dead!"

"The Lady of Shalott," Lord Tennyson p.825

Divided into four parts, the first part describes the island (in the river) of Shalott which is up the river from Camelot. The reapers reaping the wheat hear a song from the island -- it is well known to them, in a sense. They have never seen this woman who sings, so they name her the fairy woman of Shalott:
And by the moon the reaper weary, // Piling sheaves in uplands airy, // Listening, whispers "Tis the fairy // Lady of Shalott."
In part two, we meet this fairy lady. Why do the people know her only her as this mystical woman no one has ever met? Because she is cursed... to never look upon Camelot. So she weaves all day and night long. It makes sense she can't go out and she sings as she weaves...
There she weaves by night and day // A magic web with colours gay. // She has heard a whisper say, // A curse is on her if she stay // To look down to Camelot.
So since she is cursed to never look at Camelot, she uses a mirror to see a reflection of the world:
And moving through a mirror clear // That hangs before her all the year, // Shadows of the world appear.
But she grows jealous of not being able to see the world herself:
Or when the moon was overheard, // Came two young lovers lately wed; // "I am half sick of shadows," said // The Lady of Shalott.
Part 3, enter Sir Lancelot. She sees him in the mirror, and succumbs:
He flashed into the crystal mirror, // "Tirra lirra," by the river // Sang Sir Lancelot.
She looked down to Camelot. // Out flew the web and floated wide; // The mirror cracked from side to side; // "The curse is come upon me," cried // The Lady of Shalott.
Part 4, she labels her boat and floats down the river to Camelot:
Down she came and found a boat // Beneath a willow left afloat, // And round about the prow she wrote // The Lady of Shalott.
She sings as she floats down the river. It's her last song, as she dies as she reaches Camelot:
They heard her singing her lost song, // The Lady of Shalott.
The knights of Camelot do not know who she is, but wait, they do, for she labeled her boat. Lancelot, who caused her downfall, gets the last line:
But Lancelot mused a little space; // He said, "She has a lovely face; // God in his mercy lend her grace, // The Lady of Shalott."

"Ulysses," Alfred, Lord Tennyson, p.830

Being a king at home is no life for Ulysses:
It little profits that an idle king, // By this still hearth, among these barren crags, // Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole // Unequal laws unto a savage race,
Instead, Ulysses only lives when he is travelling, no matter how arduous the journey, it's the only way he can feel alive:
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink // Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed // Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those // That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
He talks about all the places he has been, but whenever he gets to a new place, it's the place just on the horizon that calls him:
I am a part of all that I have met; // Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough // Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades // For ever and for ever when I move. // How dull it is to pause, to make an end, // To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
To hell with it, Ulysses decides -- his son can sit the thrown and he can travel one last time:
This is my son, mine own Telemachus, // To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle-- // ... // When O am gone. He works his work, I mine.
LFG:
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: // There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, // Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me--
Ulysses is old, and so are his men, but they have one last journey to conquer:
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; // Death closes all: but somethere ere the end, // Some work of noble note, may yet be done, // Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
A final call to action, rousing the troops, knowing that this will be their last journey... but let us journey until we die:
Push off, and sitting well in order smite // The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds // To sail beyond the sunset, until I die.
We are heros, and we will not yield:
One equal temper of heroic hearts, // Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will // To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

"Locksley Hall," Alfred, Lord Tennyson, p.837

The speaker, part of some military, starts by asking to be left at Locksley Hall, "hmu when you need me":
Comrades, leave me here a little, while yet 'tis early morn: // Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.
This is where the speaker is from:
Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a youth sublime // With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;
Past, present, and future were all visible:
When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed: // when I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed: // When I dipped into the future far as human eye could see; // Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that could be.--
The speaker remembers his pale, thin, young cousin, and imagines talking to her:
And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, // Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."
In his imagination, his cousin seems to come to life, and expresses her love for him:
Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong;" // Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long."
But this love is gone now, and he's a little bitter:
O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more! // O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the berren, barren shore!
The reason the love did not work out -- her disapproving father:
Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung, // Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!
You could have had me...
As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, // And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.
Continuing his rant against this woman, until he concludes he's the best and she's the worst:
Well-- 'tis well that I should bluster!-- Hadst though less unworthy proved-- // Would to God-- for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

In Memoriam, Prologue, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The prologue sets the tone -- encouraging scientific pursuit while remaining reverant to Christ:
Strong Son of God, immortal Love, // Whom we, that have not seen thy face, // By faith, and faith alone, embrace, // Believing where we cannot prove;
Scientific discovery and religious faith can make a beautiful harmony:
Let knowledge grow from more to more, // But more of reverence in us dwell; // That mind and soul , according well, // May make one music as before,

In Memoriam, Section 1, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson rejects the idea of gaining from painful experiences and moving on with life:
Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, // Let darkness keep her raven gloss: // Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, // To dance with death, to beat the ground,
Suffering is worth it... it's the loss of a loved one... don't just move on -- that's silly:
Than that the victor Hours should scorn // The long result of love, and boast, // 'Behold the man that loved and lost, // But all he was is overworn.'

In Memoriam, Section 7, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson returns to Arthur Henry Hallam's house, but now he is never able to clasp his dear friend's hand again, and life goes on drearily:
A hand that can be clasp'd no more-- // Behold me, for I cannot sleep, // And like a guilty thing I creep // At earliest morning to the door.

In Memoriam, Section 27, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson is unregretful of attaining such a true friendship with AHH... he doesn't want to be someone who is always angry (and so no love), or who has no cares (and so no loss), or who is at peace in not doing anything (and so no love or loss). Instead, he has no regret in his love and loss of AHH:
I hold it true, what'er befall; // I feel it, when I sorrow most; // 'Tis better to have loved and lost // Than never to have loved at all.

In Memoriam, Section 50, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson is asking for help (presumably from AHH) when he is in bad places:
Be near me when my light is low, // When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick // And tingle; and the heart is sick, // And all the wheels of Being slow.

In Memoriam, Section 51, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The previous section has four stanzas asking, "be near me," but this section ends with a request to "be near us":
Be near us when we climb or fall: // Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours // With larger other eyes than ours, // To make allowance for us all.

In Memoriam, Section 52, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

People want to live up to Christ and still fall short and sin, so Tennyson takes comfort in that although he won't live up to AHH, what he has taken from him will carry him forth regardless of not possibly living up to him:
'So fret not, like an idle girl, // That life is dash'd with flecks of sin. // Abide: thy wealth is gather'd in, // When Time has sunder'd shell from pearl.'

In Memoriam, Section 53, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Bad things in your youth might turn out fine, it's not what we should prescribe:
Or, if we held the doctrine sound // For life outliving heats of youth, // Yet who would preach it as a truth // To those that eddy round and round?
Instead:
Hold thou the good: define it well:

In Memoriam, Section 54, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A continuation from the previous section:
Oh yet we trust that somehow good // Will be the final goal of ill, // To pangs of nature, sins of will, // Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

In Memoriam, Section 55, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

God cares about a single life, but nature only cares about life as a whole system:
Are God and Nature then at strife, // That nature lends such evil dreams? // So careful of the type she seems, // So careless of the single life;
Tennyson thus struggles... grasps... with his faith:
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, // And gather dust and chaff, and call // To what I feel is Lord of all, // And faintly trust the larger hope.

In Memoriam, Section 56, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

From fossils found in stone, we know thousands of species have gone extinct on this planet. Nature is speaking, and nature created these creatures that she let die:
'So careful of the type?' But no, // From scarped cliff and quarried stone // She cries, 'A thousand types are gone: // I care for nothing, all shall go.
Is it possible to reconcile our faith in a loving God with the destruction of life in nature?
Who trusted God was love indeed // And love Creation's final law--
O life as futile, then, as frail! // O for thy voice to soothe and bless! // What hope of answer, or redress? // Behind the veil, behind the veil.

In Memoriam, Section 95, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson and friends are spending a "marvelous" night together on a lawn at Somersby, but as it grows later and his friends slowly depart, Tennyson finds himself alone:
But when those others, one by one, // Withdrew themselves from me and night, // And in the house light after light // Went out, and I was all alone,
So alone, Tennyson has a sudden urge to read Hallam's letters:
A hunger seized my heart; I read // Of that glad year of which once had been, // In those fall'n leaves which kept their green, // The noble letters of the dead:
As he reads the letters, Hallam's soul becomes imprinted on Tennyson's:
So word by word, and line by line, // The dead man touch'd me from the past, // And all at once it seemed at last // The living soul was flash'd on mine,
As Hallam's soul is being imprinted on Tennyson, he becomes caught up in a weird trance where Tennyson is slightly confused:
And mine in this was wound, and whirl'd // About the empyreal heights of thought, // And came on that which is, and caught // the deep pulsations of the world, // Aeonian music measuring out // The steps of Time--the shocks of Chance-- // The blows of Death. At length my trance // Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt.
Confused and not sure what to make of it, Tennyson is saved by dawn, and all the opportunity that presents:
'The dawn, the dawn,' and died away; // And East and West, without a breath, // Mixt their dim lights, like life and death, // To broaden into boundless day.

Robert Browning (1809-1892) p.908

until the 1860s, better known as the husband of Elizabeth Barrett
credited for showing how useful the dramatic monologue could be
started a correspondence with Elizabeth Barrett in 1845, eloped in 1846 against her father's wishes

"Porphyria's Lover," Robert Browning p.910

A woman (Porphyria) comes in from a stormy evening, and despite her lover's coldness, is affection with her lover:
When glided in Porphyria; straight // She shut the cold out and the storm, // ... // And, last, she sat down by my side // And called me. When no voice replied, // She put my arm about her waist, // And made her smooth white shoulder bare, // And all her yellow hair displaced,
Porphyria tells him(?) that she wants to give herself to him forever, but can't:
Murmuring how she loved me--she // Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour, // To set its struggling passion free // From pride, and vainer ties dissever, // And give herself to me forever.
The speaker strangles her with her hair:
That moment she was mine, mine, fair, // Perfectly pure and good: I found // A thing to do, and all her hair // In one long yellow string I wound // Three times her little throat around, // And strangled her. No pain felt she;
The speaker adjusts her dead body, kisses her dead body, and is content that now Porphyria's wish to love him would now be achieved:
And I, its love, am gained instead! // Porphyria's love: she guessed now how // Her darling one wish would be heard.
Finally, the speaker thinks he did the right thing, for even God does not admonish him:
And yet God has not said a word!

"My Last Duchess," Robert Browning p.912

The Duke of Ferrera is bragging about the artwork of his late wife:
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, // Looking as if she were alive. I call // That peice a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands // Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
The Duke shields the artwork from view with a curtain that only he draws back:
But to myself they turned (since none puts by // The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
The Duke thinks the duchess was too loose with her favor, when really she should have only been grateful to him, for marrying her and giving her a good name:
She had // A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,
The Duke implies he had her killed...
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; // Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands // As if alive.
The point of all of this? The Duke is trying to line up his next wife:
The Count your master's known munificence // Is ample warrant that no just pretense // Of mine for dowry will be disallowed:

"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church," Robert Browning p.913

The bishop is dying, he says life is short and lost on material things... the irony is palpable:
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
He gathers round his nephews...err... illegitimate sons... for he has been hooking up with their mother, a fact he is very proud of and that he believes Gandolf is very jealous about:
Nephews--sons mine...ah God, I know not! Well-- // She, men would have to be your mother once, // Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
His rival Gandolf tricked him out of the best burial spot:
--Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; // Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South // He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
The Bishop has hidden gems that went missing after a church fire. He gives them instructions to find them:
Drop water gently till the surface sink, // And if ye find...Ah God, I know not, I! ... // Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, // And corded up in a tight olive-frail, // Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
The bishop bequeaths his villas to his sons, and now he feels they owe him, lest he takes away their inheritance and donates it to the church instead. In between, he gives detailed instructions for the materials of his tomb:
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all // ... // All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope // My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
The bishop concludes that his sons are ungrateful and will leave him in a shoddy tomb:
To death--ye wish it--God, ye wish it! Stone-- // Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat // As if the coruse they keep were oozing through--
But at least Gandolf will still envy him for the woman he was with:
As still he envied me, so fair she was!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) p.783
Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sonnet 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning p.793

Liz could sweep me off my feet:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose // With my lost saints--I love thee with the breath, // Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose, // I shall but love thee better after death.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) p.1007

"only an edication in ... Marcus Aurelius, Tolstoy, Homer, and Wordworth... could cure the malaise of modern life."
poetry was powerless to heal modern industrial life
family friend Wordsworth was an influence on his poetry
upon Wordsworth death, asked, "Who will teach us how to feel?"
became a poet of nature
in 1847, gained employment as secretary to liberal politician Lord Lansdowne, during which he produced most of his poetry
poem "Dover Beach" is a profound expression of modernity's disaffection with itself
became a public school inspector in 1851, a job he would retain for three decades, furthering his belief that a classical humanist education was essential to civilize the lower classes
in 1857, became a professor at Oxford, and despite his preference for the classics, became the first to lecture in English, turning many of his lectures into essays and books
argued democratic societies would disintegrate into anarchic disorder unless they were tethered to the higher ideals of the humanist tradition
in the 1870s, attacked organized religion
travelled to America in 1883, for money and to visit his daughter, and met with Emerson
argued in America where society glorified the average man, that education must safeguard Western tradition
died suddenly in 1888 of a heart attack/li>

"The Buried Life," Matthew Arnold p.1010

Is this a love poem?
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile, // And turn those limpid eyes on mine, // And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.
People don't really express their feelings...
I knew the mass of men concealed // Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed // They would by other men be met // With blank indifference or with blame reproved;
But finally to his point... we are really trying to find ourselves... trying to find our place in this confusing world:
But often, in the world's most crowded streets, // But often, in the din of strife, // There rises an unspeakable desire // After the knowledge of our buried life; // A thirst to spend our fire and restless force // In tracking out our true, original course; // A longing to inquire // Into the mystery of this heart which beats // So wild, so deep in us--to know .. When our lives come and where they go.
We don't share our feelings with others because we don't even know ourselves:
But hardly have we, for one little hour, // Been on our own line, have we been ourselves-- // Hardly had skill to utter one of all // The nameless feelings that course through our breast, // But they course on for ever unexpressed.
We lack this emotion, and when we realize others in the past possessed it, we say, wow, isn't that depressing for us:
Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn, // From the soul's subterranean depth upborne // As from an infitely distant land, // Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey // A melancholy into our day.
The solution to escape this melancholy? Human interaction:
Only--but this is rare-- // When a beloved hand is laid in ours, // When, jaded with rush and glare // Of interminable hours, // Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, // When our world-deafened ear // Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed-- // A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, // And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
It's not a love poem. It's just telling us how to find ourselves, with human interaction:
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, // And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

"Dover Beach," Matthew Arnold p.1019

The first stanza is a description of the sea at Dover Beach. Arnold hears it as the "eternal note of sadness":
Begin, and cease, and then again begin, // With tremulous cadence slow, and bring // The eternal note of sadness in.
In the second stanza, he compares the sounds he hears to the sounds Sophocles heard on the Aegean:
Sophocles long ago // Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought // Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow // Of human misery; we // Find also in the sound a thought, // Hearing it by this distant nortern sea.
In the third stanza, we learn why Arnold has this despair... a loss of faith... of the human spirt:
The Sea of Faith // Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore // Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. // But now I only hear // Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.
In the fourth and final stanza, Arnold tells his love that they must love each other, as the world does not love or offer any other hope:
Ah, love, let us be true // To one another! for the world, which seems // To lie before us like a land of dreams, // So various, so beautiful, so new, // Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, // Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

"The Dover Bitch"

This parody pokes fun of the whole situation, Arnold being with this girl and telling her how sad the world is, basically sweeping her off her feet:
But all the time he was talking she had in mind // The notion of what his whiskers would feel like // On the back of her neck.
The parody concludes the girl scolds him mournful soliloquy:
And then she said one or two unprintable things.
She just wanted some love, which the speaker is more than happy to provide instead:
And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year // Before I see her agaoin, but there she is, // Running to fat, but dependable as they come. // And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d'Amour.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) p.1336

gained reputation as a poet who protested war after World War I
born into wealthy merchant family
at first his poetry was patriotic, but after surviving the Battle of Somme (1916) and earning a Military Cross for valor, where 19,000 British were killed and 38,000 wounded, lost all romantic feelings about war
was wounded by a sniper in 1917, and when he returned home to recover, drafted a public protest of the war, which could have sentenced him to prison, but saved on the account of his war injury
back on the front lines in 1918, he was once again wounded and sent home for good
shifted from poetry to prose autobiography
married in 1933, child in 1936, dissolution of married in 1941, was either gay or bisexual
became a religious poet and converted to Catholicism in 1957

"They," Siegfriend Sassoon p.1337

Sassoon says the church tells the soldiers that they will be changed by their just cause. The soldiers respond that they are changed, but it's because all the ills of war. The bishop responds that the ways of god are a mystery:
And the Bishop said: "The ways of God are strange!"

"Glory of Women," Siegfriend Sassoon p.1337

Sassoon says the women love their soldiers, and it seems like a great thing, until he turns it on his head and makes you think about the German women who now have dead sons at the hands of these British war heros:
O German mother dreaming by the fire, // While you are knitting socks to send your son // His face is trodden deeper in the mud.

"Everyone Sang," Siegfriend Sassoon p.1338

Sassoon is at a pub or enveloped some similar reverie when he has some sort of PTSD about the war:
Everyone's voice was sudenly lifted; // And beauty came like the setting sun: // My heart was shaken with tears; and horror // Drifted away ... O, but Everyone // Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) p.1345

a war poet with compassionate depictions of those suffering and critiques of nationalism and imperialism
mother's favorite, wanted him to become a member of the clergy
left school in 1911 to pursue parish work in Frace, but became disillusioned with the church for its treatment of the poor and became more focused on poetry
returned to England in 1915 to enlist
after 4 months on the front lines, almost died, and met Sassoon back in the hospital
returned to the front line in 1918, and died 1 week before the end of the war
Sassoon published many of Owen's works posthumously, but Owen's mother and brother concealed much of his work, trying to conceal his religous doubt and sexuality (he was gay)

"A Terre," Wilfred Owen p.1346

The speaker changes his view on life after being injured in war:
A short life and a merry one, my brick! // We used to say we'd hate to live dead old-- // Yet now ... I'd willingly be puffy, bald, // And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys // At least the jokes hurled at them. I suppose
He pleads for more time:
One Spring! Is one too good to spare, too long?
He laughs at Shelly's desire to be one with nature, as dumb soldiers share the same view, though more literally:
"I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone," // Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned; // The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now. // "Pushing up daisies," is their creed you know./

"Disabled," Wilfred Owen p.1347

The speaker lost his legs in war. He enlisted because he wanted to impress the girls, but now with no legs, the girls will never give him the attention he wanted. He only hopes to get cared for:
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim, // --In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
He thought he'd better join. He wonders why... // Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.
To-night he noticed how the women's eyes // Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

"Arms and the Boy," Wilfred Owen p.1349

War is unnatural. God did not give us things that could cut, like talons or antlers or fangs. The bayonet is unnatural:
Let the bow try along this bayonet-blade // How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
And God will grow no talons at his heels, // Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.

"Anthem for Doomed Youth," Wilfred Owen p.1349

In war, you don't get a choir to sing at your death, you get the anthem of war -- the sound of rifles and artillery shells:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? // Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

"Dulce et Decorum Est," Wilfred Owen p.1350

The speaker watches his fellow soldier die in a gas attack and says it's a lie to say "Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country":
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest // To children ardent for some desperate glory, // The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est // Pro patria mori.

"Futility," Wilfred Owen p.1351

A war patient appears to be dead:
Move him into the sun-- // Gently its touch awoke him once, // ... // If anything might rouse him now // The kind old sun will know.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) p.1367

developed an interest in occultism, folklore, and theosophism (direct experience with the divine)
after publishing his first collection in 1889 he met Maud Gonne, "the troubling of [his] life"
gained prominence in the 1890s, helped found the Irish National Theatre in 1899
The Abbey Theatre opened in 1904 with Yeat's play On Baile's Strand
in 1910, his poetry became more a direct analysis of events and attitudes of the period
turned down by Maud Gonne and her daughter Iseult, Yeats married Georgie Hyde-Lees in 1917
in 1923 became the first Irish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
died in 1939 from chronic heart troubles, was burried in France byt reinterred in 1948 in Ireland

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree," William Butler Yeats p.1369

The speaker explains his desire to build a small cabin on the lake, thinking it will be quite a peaceful life:
And I shall have some peae there, for peace comes dropping slow, // Dropping from the veisl fo the morning to where the cricket sings; // There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, // And evening full of the linnet's wings.

"Easter 1916," William Butler Yeats p.1371

In this poem that glorifies the Irish nationalists, Yeats concludes with an argument that it was senseless to execute the rebellion leaders because England had promised them self rule anyway:
What is it but nightfall? // No, no, not night but death; // Was it needless death after all? // For England may keep faith // For all that is done and said.

"The Second Coming," William Butler Yeats p.1378

Christ is reborn, and... the Spynx in Egypt comes to life:
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out // When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi // Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert // A shape with lion body and the head of a man, // A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, // Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it // Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

"Leda and the Swan," William Butler Yeats p.1378

The speaker wonders if Leda, as she is being raped, understands the consequences that this will lead to:
Being so caught up, // So mastered by the brute blood of the air, // Did she put on his knowledge with his power // Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

"Sailing to Byzantium," William Butler Yeats p.1380

The speaker, an old man, wants to travel to the holy city of Byzantium, where the sages will set him free from his old body:
Consume my heart away; sick with desire // And fastened to a dying animal // It knows not what it is; and gather me // Into the artifice of eternity.

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) p.1513

voiced the bleakness and despair of the twentieth century
born in St. Louis, Missouri
studied at Harvard in 1906, meeting Conrad Aiken
met Ezra Pound in Londin in 1914, and Aiken showed Pound "Prufrock" which started an alliance between Pound and Eliot
inspired by the mind of Europe, chose England as his permanent home
married an Englishwoman in 1915, and separated from her in 1933 because of her mental illness, which she was institutionalized for in 1938 -- she died in 1947
awarded Nobel Prize for Literature and Britsh Order of Merit in 1948
married Valerie Fletcher in 1957
posthumously has been criticized for his misogyny and anti-Semetism in is writing

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," T.S. Eliot p.1516

The poem starts with the speaker addressing us, the reader:
Let us go then, you and I, // When the evening is spread out against the sky // Like a patient etherized upon a table;
The big mystery of the poem: what is this overwhelming question...
Streets that follow like a tedious argument // Of insidious intent // To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
The speaker tells the reader:
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" // Let us go and make our visit.
The speaker is concerned with the women and their discussions, repeating again later:
In the room the women come and go // Talking of Michelangelo.
There are times for different things (see Ecclesaistes), and you put on a fake face when you are out:
There will be time, there will be time // To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet // There will be time to murder and create, // And time for all the works and days of hands // That lift and drop a question on your plate;
And with all this time comes indecision:
Time for you and time for me, // And time yet for a hundred indecisions, // And for a hundred visions and revisions, // Before the taking of a toast and tea.
Indecision, more like hesitation:
And indeed there will be time // To wonder "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Instead of engaging with the women, you could always turn back, because you're old:
Time to turn back and descend the stair, // With a blad spot in the middle of my hair--
The speaker is very concerned about how he is perceived:
(They will sayL "How his hair is growing thin!") // ... // (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
He seems really anxious about asking this overwhelming question:
Do I dare // Disturb the unverse? // In a minute there is time // For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
Since he knows how life goes, why bother? Since he knows how everyone behaves, is it worth it to even ask:
For I have known them all already, known them all-- // ... // So how should I presume? // And I have known the eyes already, known them all-- // ... // Then how should I begin // To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? // And how should I presume?
He knows women, who he thinks are suggestive, so should he pursue them?
And I have know the arms already, known them all-- // Arms that are braceleted and white and bare // ... // And should I then presume? // And how should I begin?
He knows all these things from his experience:
Shall I say, I have goen at dusk through narrow streets // And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes // Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...
Even after resting, he wonders if he has the courage:
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, // Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
He still fails:
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, // And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, // And in short, I was afraid.
He wonders if he does ask, would it be worth it, for he might back down once he starts:
Would it have been worth while, // To have bitten off the matter with a smile, // To have squeezed the universe into a ball // To roll it toward some overwhelming question, // To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, // Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"-- // If one, settling a pillow by her head, // Should say: "That is not what I meant at all; // That is not it, at all."
He wants to say what he means, but is afraid he will back down:
It is impossible to say just what I mean! // But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: // Would it have been worth while // If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, // Amd turning toward the window, should say: // "That is not it at all, // That is not what I meant, at all."
QUESTION: Why is this called a love song?
ANSWER: It's a modern day love song. J. Alfred Prufrock is stuck in this modern quandary of how to ask a woman a question.

The Waste Land, 1. The Burial of the Dead, p.1523

Spring = rebirth = life = BAD!
April is the cruellest month, breeding // Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing // Memory and desire, stirring // Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter = dead = unchanging = BETTER!
Winter kept us warm, covering // Earth in forgetful snow, feeding // A little life with dried tubers.
Speaking of Summer... here's a story about summer... proud Germans drinking coffee in a park in Munich...
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee // With a show of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, // And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, // And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
A quick flashback to riding sleds as a child:
And down we went. // In the mountains, there you feel free. // I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
A question now:
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow // Out of this stony rubbish?
What grows? We'll answer that through a heap of broken images:
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only // A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, // And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, // And the dry stone no sound of water.
A girl gives someone a flower...
"You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; // They called me the hyacinth girl."
And now, our fortune will be told by a fortune teller:
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Our fortune, revealed through Tarot cards:
Here, said she, // Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, // (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) // Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, // The lady of situations. // Here is the mane with the three staves, and here the Wheel, // And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, // Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, // Which I am forbidden to see. I do ot find // The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. // I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
We thank the fortune teller:
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, // Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: // One must be so careful these days.
A change over to the crowded London fininacial district:
A crowd flowed over Londong Bridge, so many, // I had not thought death had undone so many.
Here we meet someone we know and react like a crazy person:
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying "Stetson! // You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! // That corpse you panted last year in your garden, // Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? // Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? // Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men, // Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
An exclamation to the reader now: You! Hypocrite reader! my double, my brother:
You! hypocrite lecteur!--mon semblable,--mon frere!"

The Waste Land, 2. A Game of Chess, p.1523

Describing the room where a chair is where, among other things, there is a painting of Philomela being raped by her brother-in-law king, and who cut out her tongue and turned her into a nightingale:
Above the antique mantel was displayed // As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene // The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king // So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale // Filled all the desert with inviolable voice // And still she cried, and still the world pursues, // "Jug Jug" to dirty ears.
A speaker is annoyed that (Philomela?) does not talk back:
"My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. // Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. // What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? // I never know what you are thinking. Think."
I remember // Those are pearls that were his eyes. // "Are you alive, or not? Is nothing in your head?" // But // O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag-- // It's so elegant // So intelligent // "What shall I do now? What shall I do? // I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street // With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow? // What shall we ever do?"
The hot water at ten. // And if it rains a closed car at four. // And we shall play a game of chess, // Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
Two women at a pub discuss the woman's husband getting discharged from the army:
When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said-- // I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself, // HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME // Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
Supposedly Lil's husband Albert gave her money to get teeth. If she doesn't look good for him, her friend warns, he'll find another woman:
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you // To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there. // You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, // He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you. // And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert, // He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time, // And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said. // Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said. // Then I'll know who to tahnk, she said, and give me a straight look. // HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
They leave the pub:
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon, // And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot-- // HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME // HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME // Goodnight Bill. Goodnight Lou. Goodnight May. Goodnight. // Ta ta. Goodnight. Goodnight. // Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

The Waste Land, 3. The Fire Sermon, p.1526

Tirasias, this non-binary ghost of a narrator watches a scene play out:
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back // Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits // Like a taxi throbbing waiting, // I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives, // Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see // At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives // Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
Happening this evening, a woman waits for a man:
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights // Her stove, and lays out food in tins. // .. // I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs // Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest-- // I too awaited the expected guest.
The expected guess is the woman's lover... a fat man who doesn't really interest her:
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, // A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, // One of the low on whom assurance sits // As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
She is bored with him, but he makes his move and she does not resist:
The time is now propotious, as he guesses, // The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, // Endeavors to engage her in caresses // Which still are unreproved, if undesired. // Flushed and decidedm he assaults at once; // Exploring hands encounter no defence; // His vanity requires no response, // And makes a welcome of indifference. // .. // Bestows one final patronising kiss, // And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit ...
Once her lover leaves, she is happy it's over:
She turns and looks a moment in the galss, // Hardly aware of her departed lover; // Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: // "Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
Pleased that he is gone, she plays some music:
When lovely woman stoops to folly and // Paces about her room again, alone, // She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, // And puts a record on the gramophone.

The Waste Land, 4. Death By Water, p.1530

Phlebas, whose dead body has been under the sea for two weeks, provides the narrator an opportunity to warn the reader:
Gentile or Jew // O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, // Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

The Waste Land, 5. What The Thunder Said, p.1530

The Waste Land = Western Europe
What is that sound high in the air // Murmur of maternal lamentation // Who are those hooded hordes swarming // Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth // Ringed by the flat horizon only // What is the city over the mountains // Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air // Falling towers // Jerusalem Athens Alexandria // Vienna London // Unreal
The journey continues to an empty church in the mountains, where "the cock signals the coming of the morning and the departure of ghosts and evil spirits, as in Hamlet":
In this decayed hole among the moutains // In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing // Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel // There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home. // It has no windoes, and the door swings, // Dry bones can harm no one. // Only a cock stood on the rooftree // Co co rico co co rico // In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust // Bringing rain
The rain at the church switches to a scene in India, where the thunder speaks: "Datta, dayadhvam, damyata (Give, sympathise, control)":
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves // Waited for rain, while the black clouds // Gathered far distant, over Himavant. // The jungle crouched, humped in silence. // Then spoke the thunder
The last two lines... "The Peace which passeth understanding":
Datta, Dayadhvam. Damyata. // Shantih shantih shantih

"The Unknown Citizen," W.H. Auden (1907-1973)

The modern citizen is judged on how well they conform to society's expectations:
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be // One against whom there was no official complaint, // And All the reports n his conduct agree // That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint, // For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
He had all the material possessions that made him conform to society:
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare // He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan // And Had everything necessary to the Modern Man, // A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
His opinions conformed with society:
Our researchers into Public Opinion were conent // That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; // When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He conformed by having children:
He was married and added five children to the population, // Which our Eugenist say was the right number for a parent of his generation.
But the real question (which the poem says is absurd):
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: // Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

Intro Lecture; Readings and questions

Preface to Lyrical Ballads, p.176
Essay on Man
We Are Seven, p.178
I wandered lonely as a cloud, p.210

William Blake (1757-1827) and William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Songs of Innocence: Introduction, The Lamb, The Chimney Sweeper, Holy Thursday, The Divine Image, p.77
Songs of Experience: Introduction, The Tyger, The Chimney Sweeper, Holy Thursday, A Human Abstract, p.81
The Solitary Reaper, p.209
Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, p.183

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Lines Written in Early Spring, p.178
There was a Boy, p.194
The world is too much with us, p.208
London, 1802, p.208
Strange fits of passion I have known, p.194
Ode: Intimations of Immortality froM Recollections of Early Childhood, p.214
The Eolian Harp, p.313
This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, p.329
Kubla Khan; Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment, p.342

Coleridge and George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788- 1824)

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, p.318
She Walks in Beauty, p.443
When we two parted, p.443
So, we'll go no more a roving, p.447
On this day I complete my thirty-sixth year, p.447

The Shelleys: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) and Mary Shelley (1797-1851)

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, p.563
To Wordsworth, p.466
England in 1819, p.485
Ozymandias, p.470
Ode to the West Wind, p.470

John Keats (1795-1821)

On First Looking in Chapman's Homer, p.515
Ode to a Nightingale, p.534
Ode to Melancholy, p.537
Ode on a Grecian Urn, p.536

Week of March 5 and 7
Dickensian humor
Victorian society and Dickens
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Brownings
Matthew Arnold and Assignment 2.
The Twentieth Century--Poets of WWI
James Joyce and William Butler Yeats
T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden
Final Exam May 14, 9:30-11:30

FINAL REVIEW: The final exam will be on Tuesday, May 14 @ 9:30.
It will consist of passage identifications (author, title) and then a discussion of the context of the passage. This discussion should begin with a brief description of what the work is about and then focus in on the importance and meaning of the passage provided. Here is a list of the works that can be on the test:

Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens, Passage

"Mariana," Alfred, Lord Tennyson, p.824, Passage

"The Lady of Shallot," Alfred, Lord Tennyson, p.825, Passage

"Ulysses," Alfred, Lord Tennyson, p.830, Passage

In Memoriam Prelude, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, link, Passage

In Memoriam 1, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, p.846, Passage

In Memoriam 27, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, p. 846 Passage

In Memoriam 56, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, p.847 Passage

"Porphyria's Lover," Robert Browning, p.910, Passage

"My Last Duchess," Robert Browning, p.912, Passage

"The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxed's Church," Robert Browning, p.913, Passage

"The Cry of Children," Elizabeth Barrett Browning, p.786, Passage

"To George Sand, A Desire," Elizabeth Barrett Browning, p.789, Passage

Sonnets from the Portuguese 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, p.795, Passage

"The Buried Life," Matthew Arnold, p.1010, Passage

"Dover Beach," Matthew Arnold, p.1019, Passage

"Glory of Women," Siegfried Sassoon, p.1337, Passage

"The General," Siegfried Sassoon, link, Passage

"To Any Dead Officer," Siegfried Sassoon, link, Passage

"Anthem for Doomed Youth," Wilfred Owen, p.1349, Passage

"Dulce et Decorum Est," Wilfred Owen, p.1350, Passage

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree," William Butler Yeats, p.1369, Passage

"Easter 1916," William Butler Yeats, p.1371, Passage

"The Second Coming," William Butler Yeats, p.1378, Passage

"Sailing to Byzantium," William Butler Yeats, p.1380, Passage

The Dead, James Joyce, p.1440, Passage

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," T.S. Eliot, p.1516, Passage

The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot, p.1522, Passage

"The Unknown Citizen," W.H. Auden, link, Passage