A Christmas Carol

A theme that I noticed in the Charles Dickens’ a Christmas Carol and in real life is that people decide to make changes when they have encountered something terrible. In Christmas Carol, Scrooge decides to be a happier person and change this ways after being scared to death by three ghosts. Each ghost comes with something more frightening than the one before. The Ghost of Christmas Past that showed him what made him this way, the beginning of this greed. Then the second ghost of Christmas Present shows him because of his greed, how that affected his clerk, Bob Cratchit, and his son Tiny Tim.  Scrooge at this point is upset and I would like to think a little mad at himself. He asks the ghost if Tiny Tim, who in the current time is very ill, will live and the ghost tells him no he will not if Scrooge does not change his way. There is a prime example of how Scrooge is guilt tripped into wanting to make a change. If Scrooge could be greedy and still have Tiny Tim live then his greed self would stay the same: GREEDY. However, forces does not work in that way, so that is why Scrooge is faced with a question does he want to help the family by changing his ways or will he remain greedy and let Tiny Tim die. Moving on the final ghost of Christmas to Come, shows a future without Scrooge and this part of the story I can understand how some people would be happy with his death. Not saying it’s ever right to be joyous over anyone’s death. Scrooge at this point fully comes in terms with the fact that he is a horrible person.

I guess the saying is true “it’s better late than never” and for Scrooge, he was able to be saved by the three ghost and Marley. This theme is something that stands true in real life, many people who have survived cancer are more likely to start a foundation than if they have never suffered. We also have those people who like to make deals with God for example a person finds out he has HIV, if he believe in God will strike a deal with God, that if he is cured he will donate to charity. After he is visited by the Ghosts he is filled with love, joy, compassion, and he even spends Christmas day with his nephew. He gives his clerk a turkey and from the end of the story we can assume that he becomes a man that is loved by the people of the town. This I say is great example of change that is bought by fear, guilt, and force. However, I also believe this story is a great story which teaches a great lesson. Which is a person can change if his emotions are evoked and if the person is really moved to. This brings me to another point which is that no one can change a person, maybe that is the reason Dickens used ghosts instead of actually humans. For example a woman will not ever change a man to be who she wants him to be, this is different than having an effect on a man and making him a better person or making him see that he can be a better person. Changes like that start on the inside and work its way out. A person needs to really want to change, and only then will he change. Scrooge was bought to realize certain facts and through those facts he wanted to change his person. However in his case he got a little more help than the typical person would. He had the help of the ghost and the foretelling of a future.

All in all nothing is ever to late, people can change, there is always hope. That is the essence captured in the story as well as in the holiday season!

Evening Solace-Elizabeth Bronte

Charlotte Bronte’s Evening of Solace is a poem that expresses complex human thoughts in words. The title of the poem is the best moment in the day in which a person can come in terms with oneself.  In this specific poem I believe Bronte is trying to reveal to the reader that solitude will bring forth revelations. The poems uses words that draws the idea of loneliness not necessarily in a positive light or a negative .The diction of being solo is spread all over the poem which create a sense of comfort, reflecting the title.

The very beginning of the poem establishes the sense of solitude,

“The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;--
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.”

the heart holds many, many secrets and secrets are something that you keep to yourself if in fact you want it to be a secret because we all know if you tell a single soul it’s no longer a secret no matter how much they swear up and down, right and left to keep their big mouth shut. That through being alone can one really keep the hidden treasures hidden or the thoughts, hopes, idea, pleasure locked up. These truths from the heart are special as the poem says and that through sharing the uniqueness is lost. When I read this it makes me think “Wow, maybe this is what Steve Jobs felt when he first took calligraphy and realized that he wanted to make things that are aesthetic.”  Additionally through solitude things really come together and build meaning.

“But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.”

It’s not enough to have ideas, thoughts, dreams, hopes, and everything else when one cannot connect the thoughts and see the bigger pictures. From the lines above she points out to the reader that being alone help “gather” the feelings, the feelings are able to be imprinted in the heart and be a part of the person. That in a sense goes with the idea that to be able to love another one has to love themselves first. Love that comes from loving oneself first is a great and more powerful type of love. Yet those who are always so hung up on wanting to be a part of a crowd will not come to realize. The person who takes time alone will realize such a truth.

                Charlotte Bronte’s poem on the surface basically is trying to tell the reader that being alone is not something that is negative. Upon more readings of the poem I come to realize that loneliness used constructively, such as a time of reflection, will help the person make sense of things. That was my main point using the two quotations above. However, there is more, solitude creates the foundation for human’s thirst for more. More in the sense that it could be anything knowledge, material things, anything there is no limit because the mind is limitless.  The ending of the poem spark that idea

                                “By lonely hour and darkened room,

                                To solemn thoughts that soar to heave

                                Seeking a life and world to come.”

if solitude can help you realize certain things then it will also make a person seek for the answer for things which might have never crossed their mind if they didn’t take a moment to reflect. Solitude sparks the process of thought and once that process starts it can grow exponentially and simple thoughts can be evolved into more complex ideas. That is the picture that I think Bronte is trying to paint that thoughts “seeking a life and a world to come” that it’s in our hearts and soul as human beings to want to know more, see more, taste more, experience more and do so much more.  And perhaps not everyone comes to realize this that thought is a gift, which everyone opens at a different time.

            This poem Evening Solace plays with the idea of solitude and  how it can reveal, help thoughts grow and make the reader seek for more. 

The World is too Much with Us

First time I read the title I thought: awh what did we do now?  After getting though the poem I realized that humans just f everything up generally.  I agree with what Wordsworth is saying because at first I think people are blinded by their own glory that they do not see the truth. The line that hits me hard is

                “we lay waste our powers”

that as intelligent beings we are so ignorant and egotistical. In the sense that we are not able to see the smaller things like nature and its importance but rather we have given our hearts away to things that are obsolete and materialistic. This idea has been something that I have been working on personally and also it was revealed to me that in the end we are all going to die. Those material things cannot be bought to the grave and that is why it is more important and beneficial to focus on emotion and experience. This goes for money as well, and people who feel like they are entitled to hoard and be disgustingly greedy are people that need help and pity.

Anyways Wordsworth is saying that we don’t appreciate nature and all that it has to offer to us such as the beautiful song of the wind, the ever flowing life of the sea, the fact that nature and us are one but those are things we fail to recognize. That is why we are so quick to destroy it. What is interesting is that Wordsworth is ishing on us in his poem poetic way he says

                “I’d rather be A Pagan”

a pagan to him is someone that knows how to cherish nature and understands the deeper meaning and sees the bigger picture. He makes a good argument with the lines following that explains his argument better to the reader. I would have to agree. However, I love God and have full faith in him and that is why I feel that I can accomplish what the Pagan have accomplished while still being true to myself. 

Midterm

The Romantic poets wrote about emotions, the beauty of nature, God, imagination, the human soul, the paradoxes of life and the many horrors that face society as a response to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.  William Wordsworth in his poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is a poem that encompasses some of the Romantic ideals. William Wordsworth in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads gives a detailed explanation of his poems and the reasons for which he writes them. This helps the reader understand Wordsworth’s style and also the values that Romantic poets held as a whole.

Wordsworth poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Tree” on the surface writes about a person who could be Wordsworth or a stranger, who is taking a walk through a hilly meadow of daffodils, alone. The loneliness is a simile

“I WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,”

the words give the reader a picture for the word loneliness and therefore a better understanding. Later he is on his couch and he is thinking of the events of the day and he remembers the crowd of daffodils,

                     “And then my heart with pleasure fills,

                      And dances with the daffodils.”

he also recalls the pleasure and joy that, that moment created for him.

This is the primary analysis which is very simple idea of what is on the surface. According to the Preface the poems that Wordsworth chooses to write the poem in a simple language without fluffing it up with complicated diction or various rhetorical devices.

“The principal object , then, proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far, as was possible in a selection of language really used by men,”

The reason that Wordsworth does this is so that the readers can better relate to his poems and fully understand the messages the poems are trying to convey to them. The reader would not be boggled down by extra baggage.

The secondary analysis is a deeper interpretation of the poem. This is below the surface and there could be many different approaches depending on the reader. The analysis reminds me of Sigmund Freud’s iceberg that there could be huge chunks of ice or knowledge. In Wordsworth’s poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” the deeper analysis from which the poem conveyed to me was that the person in the book is not along but rather surrounded by life. The very existence of nature small like these daffodils or large like mountains, all hold the common essence of life the same essence that is in human beings. The reason for saying this is because Wordsworth compares the man to the cloud and then he personifies the daffodils,

        “I WANDERED lonely as a cloud

                     That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

                     When all at once I saw a crowd,

                    A host, of golden daffodils;…

                     Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

                     Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”

he gives the man character traits of nature and then nature character traits of humans. Therefore this leads me to believe that if that is possible then nature and humans are connected no through physical likeness but rather through a more metaphysical commonality. This idea is also explained in laymen terms in his preface “He considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each other.” Human and nature co-exist and of the same. 

                    Further addressing the secondary analysis is also the theme of pleasure through simple, uncomplicated things

                    “In vacant or in pensive mood,                               

                     They flash upon that inward eye

                     Which is the bliss of solitude;

                     And then my heart with pleasure fills,

                     And dances with the daffodils.”

the last stanza of the poem holds all the meat for the second analysis. When the man is sitting alone and reflecting on the events that happen during the day he realized how much pleasure he received from being alone in nature. I think sayings like “enjoy the small things” were invented for situations described in the poem. The idea of small things or simple things makes sense because like Wordsworth explained in the Preface he wants to bring his language near to the real language of man. That is why complex algorithms helpful in a functional way and do not evoke feelings from humans. Complexity sometimes can become very systematic and mundane. With this thought Wordsworth explains to the reader of his poems that Poets are different from man of science

                    “The Man of science seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude: the Poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion.”

in that men of science enjoy knowledge all for themselves, not saying that they are selfish but rather they enjoy being alone. Poets on the other hand enjoy sharing knowledge with the masses, not because they wants to be credited but rather because the emotions they want to share are real. 

                    Moving onto the third analysis which I like to think of as the ocean the iceberg is floating on because it is vast. These analyses tend to follow a process of inductive reason going from something specific like a nice scenic picture of nature to some deep broad human truths. The human truth that Wordsworth wants us to take away is that emotions are made real by poetry.  Real in the sense that people can relate to it and that in a way hopefully their soul would be touched and moved. Real in the sense that it’s not the tangible real but more of a realness in understanding. An example that comes to my mind personally is always the question of love and how can you tell if you are in love. I have no real answer for that but through poetry and its ability to evoke emotions humans can slowly come to understand the concept of love and associate it those feelings with the word. Now bringing it back to Wordsworth poem and his preface he uses words like emotion and pleasure. I think he is trying to tell the reader that the human heart is one that seeks, and strives for happiness or pure heavy emotions. This line in the Preface has really resonated with me

                    “Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge---it is as immortal as the heart of man.”

this is an eloquent way of saying that through poetry humans kind find the truth, the truth that is forever in their hearts. Wordsworth uses the language very beautifully and he explains it without polluting the water or melting the iceberg. He does not smother his poetry nor does he dilute it. 

                    Like Wordsworth’s Poetry and Preface, humanity growths through simplicity. 

Wordworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads

The Preface to Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth explains to the reader what, why and how he is writing the poems. He asks the reader in a sense not to judge his work with an already predisposed bias. He says that

                “Who should be please with them would read them with more than common pleasure: and , on the other hand, I was well aware, that by those who should dislike them, they would be read with more than common dislike.”

                He understands that not everyone is going to like his poems, some might like a few, some might like all of them. I felt that in this preface Wordsworth is trying to defend in a sense his poetry which in my option I feel that he does not need too. Or I could be reading the tone wrong and that the purpose of the preface is to make sure that the readers have a better understanding so that those who do enjoy his works will enjoy it more and those who do not might dislike it less.

                In his preface he made some really good points that popped out at me such as the idea that his poems are written to expand the nature of thought, to evoke deep feelings in the reader, he explains how poets are different from other professionals, how raw poetry can be and how all of that can transform someone.

                From all those different discussion within his preface what really resonated with me is how much knowledge poetry can really instill upon the reader. That is if the reader gives the poems the time of day. I agree with what he is saying and with a personal anecdote poetry has really forced me to open up my mind and think differently. Poetry is not at all black and white and there are limitless possibilities. Wordsworth describes what poets are very well here:

                “What then does the Poet? He considers man and the objects that surround him as acting and re-acting upon each other, so as to produce an infinite complexity of pain and pleasure; he considers man in his own nature and in his ordinary life as contemplating this with a certain quantity of immediate knowledge, with certain convictions, intuitions, and deductions, which from habit acquire the quality of intuitions; he considers him as looking upon this complex scene of ideas and sensations, and finding everywhere objects that immediately excite in him sympathies which, from the necessities of his nature, are accompanied by an overbalance of enjoyment.”

                Poets are knowledgeable of science, art, religion, emotion, nature, and anything else they allude to in their poetry. It strikes me with amazement every time there is an allusion, symbolism or an analogy that is made in poetry. First it makes me feel a little dumb especially when I do not know what they are hinting at and second this shows that poets are open and aware of their surroundings especially the romantics. Like Wordsworth said earlier everything is interconnected that we act and re-act with each other which creates pain and pleasure which is exactly what the romantics were about! But Wordsworth explains it in a metaphysical/ science way.  Poetry helps bring out what humans already has. Humanity’s inquisitive ways and the passion from within and this cause humans to be able to reach levels of enjoyment.  This is something that I agree with. 

                Wordsworth also talks about truth which usually go hand in hand with knowledge

                “The Man of science seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude: the Poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion.”

                Poets are different from other professionals, in this case a scientist, in that Poets are able to seek truth that will bring people to him. Poetry is something that can be enjoyed alone or with a group of people like poetry jams! Poetry is timeless and very similar to art which he also mentions in the Preface. Poetry and art are alike in that there are many different levels of interpretations, there is never a right interpretation and both forms of art are timeless, priceless and limitless. The two both hold truths that will bring people together like the Mona Lisa. Both are very powerful and evoke the imagination and like Wordsworth says both are “as immortal as the heart of man.” I guess these poets and artist back in the day had it a little bit easier because people were not distracted by technology but that’s another topic all together. 

to want or to have?

After class discussion I wanted to add this to the Keats post. 

To have something I feel keeps a person grounded and at peace. What I mean is that when one can obtain something tangible or intangible the person can finally "relax" and find the inner peace that they wouldnt be able to have if they could not have it. A person can  become more grounded when they have something because they can come to appreciate and enjoy what they have. the person could come in terms with certain truths. 

Wanting I feel motivates the person to grow and reach another level. Wanting holds onto the excitement and maybe could be more fun. Human nature wants what they cant have or wanting more then they have. 

Both actions proves that human nature is greedy. Wanting says humans want more then what they have and having says humans need to obtain something and make it theirs (mine, mine, mine). This in a sense makes the two go hand in hand like pain and suffering. 

However for the two there are different situations that one might outweight the other. that is why there is not black and white and lots of grey areas. But life is full of grey areas. What I mean is for example lets take that quesiton and ask someone from a third world country. Personally I think if you ask someone from a developing country which they would rather. I think they would tell you that they would like to have things because they have been wanting things all their life. For example people from these countries barely have enough to eat and they are constantly in a mindset of wanting more food wanting a roof, water, clothes and other primary things. Therefore personally I think these people would say that to be able to have all those things is so much more important to them then to want to have more or even wanting to obtain them because wanting to obtain is a greater pain. How can someone even know the idea of wanting more when they do not even have the foundations or basic ideas of what it is like to have!! 

Its also quiet different when you think about having versus wanting when it comes to something tangible like an object or intangible like emotions or feelings. This leads me to believe that the one that is better depends on the situation and also depends on the level of pain or joy that comes with it. Example, in the case with the third world country to have is a greater joy and to want is a greater pain. In a relationship to chase is a greater fun/joy then to settle which is a great pain. 

But in the end there is room to argue. 

The Odes of Keats

In Keats’ poem Bards of Passion and Mirth he talks about how happiness is a thing that is of the Heavens because of how he describes Heaven from lines 10 to 20. Yet happiness is not only limited to Heaven, happiness is also on earth because the Bards, the poets have made that possible. The poets whom have past have their souls in Heaven and on earth.

                “Ye have left you, soul on earth.

Have ye souls in heaven too,

Doubled-lived in regions new?”

The souls of the poets live on in the poetry that was published or found that was exposed for the world to read and to appreciate. The romantic poets like many of them believe were able to appreciate and reveal to the reader deep truths about happiness, life, God, nature, imagination, beauty and the supernatural. Poets in fact could be consider teachers which the poem also address,

                “Thus ye teach us, every day,

                Wisdom, though fled far away.”

Even when the poets have died, the literature that is left behind still teaches us and that is how their wisdom reaches the readers from far away.

Pain and beauty are linked with one another because they not the same, they aren’t completely opposites either.  To appreciate the beauty and to really see it sometime you have to suffer. It is true that sometimes if we do not suffer and fight for something it would not have the same worth, than if we did. In Keat’s Ode on Melancholy it is about someone who is suffering and in pain, but no pain is worth suicide,

                “Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist

                By nightshade, ruby grade of Prosperine;”

this is because there are other joys of life that is much more powerful and is more meaningful. Therefore if the person chose to die he/she would miss out on the many wondrous experiences of life.  Keat expresses this

                “And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,”

Joy is right there and if the person chose to dead the suffering and not see it through, Joy will not feel guilty letting the person go. The reason why pain and beauty are link is because humanity needs to have balance. A rose is consider beautiful yet when it pricks you it hurts as well. Eating something delicious in express will also become painful and lead to health disease like high blood pressure and cholesterol. Everything good or bad has its part. In Chinese we called that Feng.

The transformation out of pain into beauty is in every one of his odes. The person in the poem seems to start in a suffering state but is able to come out of it and see the essence of beauty. The state of happiness, and beauty is revealed to the person and ultimately there is a battle which happens within the person. From the odes it seems that the person is able to come to recognize and appreciate the pain he/she has suffer and the beauty and happiness that awaits them. The reader also realizes the important link that exists between the two opposing themes.

Keats and all the romantic poets are right to say that life is full of pain. That is a universal truth and something that we cannot escape unless we chose not to exist. But who can guarantee that there will be an end to suffering after one stop existing.  Also back to the idea of balance if there is good there is evil, so if there is happiness there is pain. I think that also ties into the freedom to choice.  By the decisions we make we end up experiencing a certain type of feeling. However everything ends that’s the honest truth. So if there is pain to be suffered then there is happiness to be enjoyed. It is possible to let go of pain yet it is so hard not to dwell on happiness. Personally pain can easily disappear with the help of distractions, mediation, prayer and in this case for the romantics through beauty of nature. When doing these things certain things are revealed to the person such as the importance of not wasting time and energy on negative vibes.

When I used to run track in high school I would suffer everyday at practice and I always told myself to think of a happy place. Using my imagination I pretended I was laying out on the beaches of Hawaii getting some sun. So though imagination I was able to escape temporarily from the pain and suffering that I was experiencing while I was at practice.

Longing is inevitable and sets humans apart from other animals. All of the Odes also express a state of longing. In Ode to autumn there is a longing for the season to stay by the way Keats describes the season

                “Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness,

                Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;”

That even though it is a sign of winter and its comings it is still beautiful and has its own melodious song. In Ode to Nightingale the speaker wants to be like the bird who experience the ability to be immortal. But it’s also probably easier to be a bird. Finally in the Ode to a Grecian Urn there is the desire for youth

“ When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe”

However becoming old is as inevitable as death. From all these Odes and the other works of the romantics they have revealed to me that life is short and pain and suffering is inevitable so the best solution is to live life in happiness with good people and the appreciation of nature and little things.