Week 8

Since this is the last blog post of the last week, I think it is time for some reflection on the course as a whole. I had a blast... I got to do a lot of new things, such as create a website, create an audio file, start a blog, and just take an online class in general. The scope of the class, both technologically and literarily, was amazing. In terms of what we read, my favorites were probably Frankenstein and the Romantic poets. I really enjoyed Christina Rossetti as well.

I also thought it was a great idea to make 8 discussion posts a week mandatory, especially when we had less than 8 questions. It forced us to not only read our classmates' posts, but to really think about them in order to craft a response. Overall, it was just a great class.

Week 7 - Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

My favorite character from Mrs. Dalloway is definitely Septimus. His "illness" and its effects certainly confront a major issue of the modern period: war. It was ultimately a very popular topic for writers of literature during this time. Consider another form of literature that deals with war... poetry. The following poem is Wilfred Owen's "Dulce Et Decorum Est," and it provides a unique glimpse into why Septimus was the way he was after the war.

"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

"GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

"In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
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."

Week Six - T.S. Eliot

One of my favorite things about Eliot's poetry is its blatant confrontation of the meaninglessness and fragmentation that often permeate our lives. The above image communicates how and why Eliot came to these conclusions about modern culture and its deteriorating effects on the human mind and soul. It's interesting to ponder who or what is more to blame for us measuring out our lives with coffee spoons... ourselves or how culture preconditions and shapes us.

Week Five - "Christina Rossetti's 'In An Artist's Studio'"

I really liked this poem because of its acute commentary on the nature of love, romance, sensuality, and beauty in terms of idealization. It's something that seems often fed to us subliminally through media of all different kinds, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Here's a link to a great short story by Edgar Allan Poe called "Ligeia." It explores multiple themes, but I think that one interpretation could also involve the dangers of idealization.

Week Four - The Brownings

I think it's interesting that we've covered two sets of writers who were couples.

First, Percy and Mary Shelley...




And now Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning...



Here's one of the most famous and loved poems of all time, written by Elizabeth for Robert:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
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.

(1845)

Week Three - Frankenstein

Why is it that when nearly every single person hears the word "Frankenstein," they automatically think of the monster? I mean, if I were to ask most people who is in the picture above, they would almost always say "Frankenstein." The picture is, of course, of Frankenstein's monster. Frankenstein is obviously the surname of the monster's creator, Victor.

I'm just curious about why and when this distinction became blurred.

Week Two - Byron, Shelley, Keats

I think that most, if not all of my blog posts will center around images because - in comparison to the discussion board posts - the advantageous ability to use images is something that a blog naturally lends itself to.

Caspar David Friedrich's painting Wander above the Sea of Fog is probably in my top three favorite paintings of all time, so when I clicked on the class link for information on Romanticism, I was definitely intrigued that I was immediately greeted with this particular work of art. So what does this have to with Romanticism? I found several interpretations that link the painting with several of the movement's tenets that are found in our readings...

"...the message conveyed by the painting is one of Kantian self-reflection, expressed through the wanderer's gazings into the murkiness of the sea of fog."

"Wanderer presents a metaphor for the unknown future."

"...the impression the wanderer's position atop the precipice and before the twisted outlook leaves 'is contradictory, suggesting at once mastery over a landscape and the insignificance of the individual within it.'"

"Some meaning of this work is lost in the translation of its title. In German, the title is Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer. There are several things to note about this German title. Firstly, Wanderer exists as both the word for 'wanderer' and for the word 'hiker.' The character can thus be seen as lost and trying to find purpose, or as a resolute journeyman."