10 Years After

As I parked my car and started to walk to British Literature I encountered a classmate. We decided to walk together. As we walked we discussed the papers were had written and also the test we took. Both of us were rather surprised by the identification questions on the test. My only grumbling was my mind going blank for "my heart leaps up" and "daffodils and rainbows." We split outside the music building as this fellow had to drop off a guitar in his locker there and take a shower. So, alone I finished the walk to class. Outside the class, while waiting for the previous class to finish, I talked with a couple of other students about the test and paper. Both of them seemed overwhelmed by the identification on the test. (Also, both of them complained that they couldn't find enough material for their papers so both had written papers that were three pages long instead of the assigned four. Strange to me since mine, written on the same topic as one of the other students, was six pages long. As a further aside, the instructor for the class prior to ours, a grad student I believe, was wearing a Jets To Brazil t-shirt!)

In British Literature II we did in fact receive our first test/quiz back. I was dreading this. There was 20 identification terms and I answered all but one, My Hearts Up. I knew it was lines from a poem by Wordsworth but couldn't think of the poem's name ("When I beheld a rainbow in the sky."). There were two lists of discussion questions of which w had to choose one from each list to answer. My first choice was discuss "The World is Too Much With Us."

This poem is representative of Wordsworth's view of nature. While the daffodils dance the waves of the lake are depicted as moving in coordination with them. Wordsworth further shows the unity by comparing himself to another aspect of nature, a cloud. At the same time he speaks of how, while this image of nature before him is powerfully moving, his ability to remember the scene and pull it forth in the future when he sits on his sofa at home causes this scene to be even better. Based on Dorothy Wordsworth's notebooks we know that William Wordsworth altered the scene as he presented it in a poetic form. First, he removed Dorothy from experiencing this scene with him. From his desire to depict the event as one only involving himself w see the importance of communing with nature on an individual level. In 'Tintern Abbey' Wordsworth shares the stage, so to speak, with Dorothy. Hoewver, her appearance there is to depict William Wordworth's first reaction to the abbey. Wordsworth similarly removed Dorothy from the encounter with the leech gatherer in "Resolution and Independence." The other thing we learn if we check Dorothy's notebook is how wordsworth redraws the landscape, neglecting the isolated clumps of daffodils that were there. This revision of events is also seen in "Resolution and Independence" where the old man is depicted as still being a leech gathere as a means of expressing endurance under hardship. In reality, however, the man was a leech gatherer no more. This revision of events seems at odds with Wordsworth's professed view of writing as spontaneous as wel as his statements that the poet is the most truthfull of all philospohers.

My other discussion was question was what is the significance of the albatross in Rime of the Ancient mariner?

The albatross in Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' can be viewed at several levels. The poem and gloss depict that it is by killing the albatross that the Mariner is cursed. While the fellow sailors, at first angered by the murder, are by their eventual seeing this murder as just when the mist is lifted are doomed. Albatrosses were seen as symbols of good luck by sailors. Perhaps this was due to their relation to pelicans, which had long been seen as Christ symbols due to the superstition that they fed their young on their own blood. So , while it is the action of the mariner killing the albatross that dooms him to a wandering life, it is another animal, water snakes, which allow him a salvation. When he is able to bless these sea-serpents his fate begins to change and he gains some redemption (though forced to wander the lands and tell his tale). Perhaps this is suggestive, as are the last few stanzas, that all of nature, not just man, is important to God.

I received a Check Plus and the comment "thoughtfull answer" on the first discussion question and a Check and the comment "Excellent discussions" on the second. There are some checks and underlines, as there were on my paper, and I am not sure what these mean. Maybe good points. I'll add in the underlines next Monday, time permitting. Also about Monday, our syllabus calls for us to turn in the revision of our first paper then. However, when asked about this in class he said he would talk about what he wants in the revisions Monday and we will turn them in Tuesday. (Next Thursday is my test in World Civ.)