Final Paper, relating Romanticism in Lit. to Romanticism in Art.

Chelsea Dellaripa

Janelle A. Schwartz

Romanticism In Literature

December 11, 2009

 

Throughout the course of the Romanticism in Literature class, there have been many works of Romantic literature that I have taken further interest in.  As I began to expand my knowledge of certain Romantic poets and their pieces, I noticed that the use of Art to accompany the poems was a common trend.  This intrigued me because as I am a Visual Arts major, it is exciting to be able to learn how art has been apart of history for so long, in this case, in the literature of the Romantic Era.  Among the poems that we have studied, there was one that particularly stood out to me, William Blake’s The Book of Thel.

I stood in front of my Romanticism in Literature class with my fellow students while analyzing the cover plate to The Book of Thel that had been enlarged by the slide projector.  I couldn’t help but marvel at the methods and colors the artist chose.  This is the first piece of artwork that I had heard of, or even seen, that a Romantic poet had created.  Our professor explained to us Blake’s method of creating this book, which was called Illuminated printing.  I learned that this method of his was basically a reversal method of normal etching that Blake had invented and had later been used in commercial printing.  The cover itself made me want to delve into his book.  It was then that I embarked on my exploration of Art used in the Romantic Literature.

            The beliefs and characteristics of Romantic poets and artists, although expressed in different ways, were generally that in the same.  Romantics stressed the awe of nature in art and language and the experience of sublimity through a connection with nature.  They legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority.  The Romantic Poets, such as William Blake, habitually used metaphors in his writing to convey certain themes and objectives.  Equivalently, he applied this method to his etchings.  In his artwork, Blake developed precise techniques in order to produce specific associations in the mind of the viewer, such as endowing animals or inanimate objects with human values.

William Blake used a plate of etched artwork for every one of the six poems contained in The Book of Thel.  Throughout this book, Blake proposes answers to the troubles and questions of the meaning of life.  The character that he uses in the reading is Thel, a girl who is on the verge of sexuality, which is the state where most of her anxiety stems from.  She fears that she will die as a worthless and forgotten human.  Blake’s literature explicates the conflict between Thel's innocence and the world of outside experience.  He describes Thel as a young, pale woman, and utilizes the figure of a lamb in his poem as an icon of innocence that he ties into Thel’s character.  Thus referring to the curiosity of Thel when he describes Thel as one who is often wondering away from her “flock.”  The artwork he etched coincides with this theme and could perhaps alone tell the story that the actual text in Blake’s poems does.

The fourth plate of The Book of Thel presents artwork alongside verse three of the poem. The positioning and colors of the subjects in the image correspond with the meaning that is established in the passage.  On this plate, Blake has etched a hazy blue and pink background landscape.  In front of the backdrop, there is a woman in a green, flowing gown with her arms spread out to her sides, positioned in such a way that it implies power or authority.  This woman is standing over a green plant that is cradling a baby, all placed purposefully at the bottom of the etching.  In the top left of the image, there is a male angel in a flowing white garment in the sky flying over and away from the woman and baby, however he is looking at them as he flies.  There is much attention that Blake pays to detail if the etching is looked at closely.  He also has made that picture so as to narrate the poem; therefore everything depicted in the illustration has a reason for the certain placements.

The text on the fourth plate is verse three of Blake’s poem.  It is placed there because it is significant to the artwork that he did.   In this verse of the poem (verse three) Blake frequently refers to a worm.  He uses the worm as a figure of weakness and death of the mortal body, as well as death of sexual fulfillment.  The worm also epitomizes decay and the necessary paradox of Thel’s decision to be born, and the struggle with that decision itself. In the beginning of the verse, he says, “I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lilly’s leaf.”  This line refers to the baby that is nested in the plant.  He later brings together the symbolism of the worm by saying, “Is this a Worm? I see thee lay helpless & naked: weeping.”  Blake is replacing the worm for the baby in this line. He reveals the motive that the woman in the etching is emblematic to the poem, bowing over the baby, when he writes, “She bow'd over the weeping infant. and her life exhal'd.”  Throughout the whole book, Blake’s character Thel carries with her the fear of death and decay of her body, which is yet an additional reason that worms are mentioned persistently.

William Blake’s The Book of Thel is said to be consistent with his early works, nonetheless proposing a romantic view of the innocence and experience of life.  He has presented these views not only through his literature, but in his art as well.  Collectively, the engravings that Blake has produced for The Book of Thel, narrate a story with a central theme of innocence and experience, both compromising our existence, the reality that we all must face in life.

Works Cited

Grundy, Thomas E. “An Eye of gifts & graces: A Reading of Blake's The Book of Thel” <http://ir.nul.nagoya-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2237/5464/1/BB004204049.pdf> December 1, 2009.

“The Book of Thel” <http://12koerbe.de/phosphoros/blake.htm> December 1, 2009.

“The William Blake Archive.” <http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/main.html> November 21, 2009.

I am a worm.

I think that was the most influencial aspect of the course was that I able to relate myself to the characters throughout the semester. From the mariner's "mistake" to Isabelle's undying passion - there was something in each piece that I could understand or at least sympathize with. So what is a romantic? Well, I think we've pretty much figured out that there is no right answer - only good ones. It is reflection, it is passion, it is internalizing, it is externalizing...the romantics felt so many different things and exuded them through their works. What is interesting is that imaginative channeling into literature.
Like we were talking in classes before and a bit on our last class, is how the romantic period and romantic texts never end. They live on. Not like other genre's where the story will just be retold over again, but they actually live on. There is no resolution (besides the hybrid - "Wuthering Hieghts"). There is not clousure or feeling of satisfaction at the end of P. Shelly's piece or Blake's "The Book of Thell". Everything has the opportunity to be continued, which is the most powerful kind of literature. It forces the readers to wonder, but what is going to happen next??
So am I a romantic? You bet your ass I am. I reflect, I certainly have dwelled, and internalized. But like the romantics I have hope. My story will go on, I will grow, and I will rise from the destruction of my life. I am a worm. Yes, thats right. I am a worm. I proud of it.

"Only unfullfilled love can be romantic." -Vicky Christina Barcelona

So if only unfullfilled love can be romantic, then I guess we will never be totally complete. The story will never end.



P.S>>> I PROMISE I DID THIS BEFORE 12!!! BLOGGER KEPT SAYING: ERROR HTM>//

Last Post for the Semester

I’ll be uncharacteristically brief in my last post. This blog will only contain a simple question to ponder, and nothing more. Wuthering Heights, similar to other poems and prose we read, keenly represents this distinct Romantic creativity and imagination. Such creativity exemplifies experimental boldness, unrestrained spirituality, untrammeled vision, as well as liberation, idealism, originality, and spontaneity. Throughout the semester, I’ve continually asked myself: how would the Romantics have reacted and responded to recent neurobiological studies on human creativity, which describes creativity as merely a modulation of neurotransmitters in the frontal lobe and an interaction of the frontal lobes with the temporal lobes and dopamine from the limbic system. How would they transcend this materialism?

In Love with the Byronic Hero .. er, Heroine.

Okay, after all this talk about Lord Byron and his sex-capades and the Byronic hero, I did some reading on both. I wonder if there'll ever be a course dedicated to Byron and his "adventures," or even his literature .. ? Moving on; There's so much information surrounding the larger than life male characters from Manfred and Wuthering Heights (Manfred and Heathcliff, respectively), but the women that loved them (or that they loved) are considered not as important because they aren't the center. Of course, this made me consider WHY women can't be Byronic heros. There are many websites with lists of the personality traits of the BH, but none of them a gender-specific. Is the term Byronic hero exclusive only to males because of the inspiration from Lord Byron? If Catherine believed she was connected, in fact, to Heathcliff, wouldn't she be a Byronic hero? Of course, because she considered herself part of him and HE was the Byronic hero, then her gender was ultimately canceled out. Wait, did the term Byronic hero even come from Byron? When applied to the life of Byron, the BH is essentially Byron reincarnated into different characters. Considered extremely beautiful, mysterious, passionate and highly sexual, Byron was quite the character. Just ask the 200+ women that .. um, experienced (?) him. Where does the Byronic Heroine gain her inspiration, then? Considered a complex, independent character (1), the B Heroine would be vampy, dark, and sexual, the opposite to the respected madonna. Obviously, she gets no love because of her behavior. But where is the example for her, as the men have, arguably, Lord Byron? Modernly, we have Xena (warrior princess ..) but did she exist in the Romantic Period? Given the strict gender roles, the sexy Byronic Heroine may just be hiding, waiting to be discovered.

1. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dissertations/AAI3034921/

Heathcliff, it's me--cathy

Hey guys!! Here is a link to the video "Wuthering Heights" by Kate Bush. This is the song that we heard in class today. I think I'm going to download the video onto my Zune. The video is pretty good.

I hope you enjoy!!!
~G
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv0azq9GF_g

Impressions

I really liked Sarah's idea of a personal farewell, so I decided to write one, too, especially since I was so quiet in class. First of all, I want to apologize for this, and I really get angry about it, every time I think about it. It was a difficult situation: my personal shyness combined with my feeling of being unable to translate and verbalize my thoughts. I somehow felt trapped in my own mind. I still feel trapped but hope that I will be able to cope this shyness in the near future, it really annoys me that I am seemingly not able to overcome my own doubts and boundaries.
Regardless of this personal 'problem', I enjoyed the class! I often had to struggle with the texts and became frustrated by trying to get the meaning of a poem. At the same time, this frustration was an incentive to continue my 'discovery'. I loved the class discussions as they added so much and offered new ways of interpretation. I think that the atmosphere in class was very fair and respectful. Sidenote about the twitter-thing: I became so used to it that I often wanted to tweet for other classes, too ;-)
This course was much more intense than I expected it to be. And it was good this way, I would not wish it to be different. So I not only learnt a lot about Romanticism but also about so much else, philosophical constructs, questions of belief and disbelief, power of imagination, boundaries.... This totally struck me! It works in my mind, my heart, my soul. My wish list for Christmas mostly consists of books: Milton's Paradise Lost, Kant, Blake...
To be honest, I can't remember any class since I attended university where I learnt so much in every sense! Together with "Capturing the Self", it was my favorite class.
I am unimaginably sad that I have to go back to Germany in less than a week. I really don't want to go. I realized that I actually like Loyola more than my University back home (bad ad...) . My reasons for Loyola: small university, personal and familiar , intense classes and teachers who are also interested in things beyond their subjects. And amazing people, of course. Being confronted with this 'detection' (approx. less than a week ago) I have a really, really, really hard time. I already now fear homesickness/wanderlust for Loyola. I will miss Loyola, New Orleans and all people so much, I don't even dare to think about this. I have never expected that this feeling could be so strong! Why has this semester abroad to end with such an inward struggle? In my head, my heart, my soul, everything seems to be a chaos.
So...thank you all for this amazing(!!!) class and experience.

The Shelleys and Byron...Oh, Byron.

I realize that the cartoon beyond this link may seem inappropriate to some. Therefore, this is an official disclaimer---only click this link if you think that Lord Byron is as silly as I think he is.

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=56

Enjoy (I think)!

Percy Shelley's "Mutability"

Having ended our class section on the Shelley’s, and now well into Wuthering Heights, I’ve been hit with an unexpected nostalgia, an emphatic longing for Mary and Percy Shelley’s profound imagination, keen philosophical insight, and poetic creativity. In my blog, I refrained from commenting on Frankenstein perhaps out of fear for my safety. Class debates were too heated. Some believed the novel belonged in the Western Canon along with the Bible; others believed reading the novel was a form of cruel and unusual punishment. Despite this, as a class, we seemed to share a rightful affinity for Percy Shelley’s “Mutability.” I, too, loved the poem’s skillful use of imagery, somber and musing tone, clever diction, and its quintessential Romantic sensibility. But its philosophical message? Not so much.

According to the poem, the only constant that humans can rely on is change and cyclicality. Lines 9-12 uncover the disadvantages of this type of existence, but the last stanza, especially the last three lines, strikes a positive chord: “The path of its departure still is free:/Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;/Nought may endure but Mutability.” Seeing no other option, one may find consolation in the idea that there will always be another day, whether it is in the individual’s immediate lifetime or in the future. But for Shelley, this constant moving teaches humankind about its possible futility or unimportance, perhaps anticipating an eye-opening point in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution; that is—humans are not the apex of evolution. It may also help humankind escape, as Shelley poignantly writes in the “Defense of Poetry,” “the curse which binds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions.”

For me, mutability is monstrous and monotonous, forcing the individual human mind into a bland, cyclical prison. Even worse, mutability is a contradiction within itself. To put more or less simply, mutability is not mutable—it’s fixed and permanent. From endless sunsets and sunrises, myriad human life spans, measureless viruses, ceaseless social and economic changes, idea after tedious philosophical idea to countless, beautiful cosmic explosions, everything seems open-ended, not heading towards a meaningful end purpose. Luckily, I think my and Shelley’s conception of mutability is mistaken.

With a feline-like curiosity, I had always wondered why the short, imperative sentence, “Read Kant” was listed high in a self-help, how-to-be-happy checklist posted on the Internet by an unknown blogger. This was before my reading of Kant, of course. At present, I’m reading Kant’s Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. And fortunately, his view of time within this text has shattered my preconceived notion of mutability. Human perception of change is no different from our perception of time. According to Kant, we see space and time only as appearances, not as they are in themselves. In this view, time does not refer to any kind of entity that "flows," that objects "move through," or that is a "container" for events. Spatial measurements are used to quantify the extent of distances between objects, and temporal measurements are used to quantify the durations of and between events. Excuse the philosophical jargon, but time is an a priori intuition that allows us to comprehend sense experience. Giving “Mutability” a Kantian reading, the oppressive view of mutability dies. If wearing our Blakean “mind-forg’d manacles” mutability becomes an appearance, almost an illusion. What’s behind this appearance (excuse my Kantian category mistake in this sentence) belongs inside the imaginative, liberated Romantic mind.

As I mentioned earlier today, this class has literally opened a can of worms in my brain. I feel compelled to re-examine all the works we have already read and delve deeper and deeper into the texts in order to find myself in them--where do I exist within the extremes of the Romantic state of mind and what can I take from their understanding of sorrow and sublime, life and death, transcendence and an empty existence. Is my vision so blurred from the chaos of contemporary life that I am missing what is always already there? That on a base level I am a living, breathing creature that lives and will die and what I choose to see in between sets forth the paradox of a cyclical existence that is at the same time grand, meaningful, powerful, arbitrary, and insignificant.

I guess reading Frankenstein brought these questions to the foreground focusing or the cyclical aspect of our human condition. Not only is the novel structured so that it begins and ends at the same time, but the characters within the text are constantly revolving their position as man or monster. Victor, the monster and Walton each play their part in the destruction and animation of life solidifying their function as doubles throughout the story and compounding the lurking theme of cyclicality in the text. The three characters exist as extensions of one another, with the monster and Victor especially switching roles as creator and destroyer. The first description given to us of Victor greatly resembles one we would imagine of the monster, suggesting that the seemingly polar extremes of man and monster are actually interconnected:

"I never saw a more interesting creature: his eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness; but there are moments when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards him, or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled. But he is generally melancholy and despairing; and sometimes he gnashes his teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses him."

Walton reanimates Victor so Victor may tell his story of giving life to the monster. As Frankenstein recounts his tale, he says, "To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death." Here the link is made that in order to see the truth of one thing, you must look at what you assume to be its complete opposite only to discover that they are intrinsically connected. As the natural decay of the human form is manifested in the worms eating a rotting corpse, death and life are seen as a cohesive force.

I think that this is the contradiction underlying all of the Romantic works that we have looked at this semester, this idea of conflating contradictions in order to achieve a more accurate perspective of life. Surpassing just the themes of life and death and moving to simple action and emotion. There is always a negative that accompanies a positive in order to maintain balance in the force (sorry about the star wars reference, but that just emphasizes the point that Romanticism is definitely NOT dead!!). We are all frankensteins and monsters at different times in our lives and experience both pleasures and pains stronger than we ever thought possible. But my point is, I guess, very coarsely worded, is that reading these texts helped me to understand myself more re-evaluate my position in a big, messy, beautiful, chaotic, fucked up world.

The Nature of Evil (Inspired by Heathcliff)

Last night I was with a friend on the third floor of Bobet rummaging through books piled outside Dr. Cotton's office, books which he was essentially giving away to the Loyola community. Professor Biguenet passed us by in the hallway and I decided, on a whim, to ask him whether or not he thought Heathcliff a character of pure evil. He said no and launched into a discussion on the nature of evil. This is a huge question for me and one with very real applications to a Romanticism class, especially so far as the Byronic hero is concerned. Is that hero evil? Are Manfred and Heathcliff evil people. Is misanthropy equivalent to evil? Does Frankenstein's desire to transcend humanity through knowledge and creation evil, and does the monster of Victor do more evil?

What is evil exactly? Biguenet told me about an Atlantic Monthly article written a few months after 9/11 where the author debated where or not the attacks were acts of pure evil. The religious fanatics which perpetrated them thought they were doing God's work on earth, which is a dangerous idea, but not a necessarily evil one. But the author focused on a tape which fell into U.S. hands of Osama Bin Ladin laughing at the images of people jumping out of the 1ooth floor of the burning buildings to their deaths. This aesthetic appreciation of murder and suffering is what constitutes evil, the author concluded. All other definitions of evil can simply be explained by people acting of self interest, fixating on their own lives above the good and rights of others.

Bringing this back to Romanticism, Heathcliff certainly relishes in the misery he brings. There is no repentance on his part and, unlike Victor's monster, the sufferings of Hindley, Hareton, Edgar, Isabella and the others are "music to his ears". But does this make him evil. I cannot answer such a question. I can only pose it.

This started out as a response to a quote from Shelley's Defense of Poetry but ended up being a prose poem. I just went ahead and let it happen.

Shelley writes, "tragedy delights by affording a shadow of pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself."

Spontaneous overflow of emotion--a laugh, a song, an expletive, a dance, a tear, a kiss. There exists within me overwhelming emotions that are all consuming, isolating, and force me to disregard all that reason dictates wrong. It is dark. It is bright--at times the warmth of a lover's embrace or the cold of a dark alleyway that reeks of stale urine and failure. Lie next to me and watch our dreams disappear down the neck of an empty whiskey bottle as the sun fades and takes my pride away. Leave me. My eyes burning with the ecstasy I stole from you but my lips want more. Don't leave me, tasting recklessness alone. Cut out my eyes and bury them in your breast so I can see your soul magnified. Knocked down, lifted up, immersed in a wet flame to flicker, swell, and exhaust.

Survey. You can't eat just one romanticism chip.

The definitions of "Romanticism" which were supplied to us nearing the end of the course caused me to re-examine what we had read. With a more experienced lens, and with new knowledge gained from the course, I could more clearly and vividly understand our chosen collection of "legislators."

Since romanticism was an art, a brilliance, that sprung individually from the artists' minds, the writers works which we examined were all purely original. The interesting thing is that they all shared extremely common viewpoints on life. Their lives must have been fascinating, especially with no interruptions (cell phones and other external intrusions). How amazing it must have been for the romantic poets to meet each other, realizing that they all had similar, tortured, inspired, beautiful, painful images of the world around them. DeQuincey comes to mind here, because as a true wanderer, he was outcast even from the outcasts, themselves.

DeQuicey's "Confessions of an English Opuim Eater" was one of the most interesting works we have read, because it was so unique and he was so removed from the other romantics. DeQuincey's split persona of being on opium all of the time yet functioning added to his particular lifestyle and writing; always in search of himself. He had many realities and went about his life in a self-inflicted and self-invented madness. He is completely in his own mind, trapped within his physical self in a Blakian hell. His skull and heart blissfully bursting forward at the instant intake of opium, while he ached without it. His confessions are a glimpse into his life, exiled and looking down onto a smaller world. His walks among the streets and alleys at night must have awarded him a great feeling of freedom and creative energy, but at the same time a feeling of loneliness. The wider eyes of romantic poets take in more than they can handle, at times, and as they lament what has been lost, they destroy themselves in order to create brilliant works.

Speaking of a tortured, seemingly all-knowing soul, let's examine Percey Shelley. Examine him like the monster his second wife created through Victor in her birth of Frankenstein.Shelley's "Mutability" makes a good point about "Embrac(ing) fond woe, or cast(ing) our cares away" (ln. 12). DeQuincey or Coleridge may have appreicated some of Shelley's words, especially in the last stanza of this poem when he writes "It is the same! -- For be it joy or sorrow,/ The path of its departure still is free:/ Man's yesterday may ne'er be like this morrow;/ Nought may endure but Mutability" (ln. 13-16). Mutability, or subject to constant change, is what DeQuincey modeled his life around. Never having a planned night, mingling with whoever he ran into on the street, marketplace, or in a pub, always in an opium induced cloud-like.

“Mutability”. It’s just so perfect. “We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;/ How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,/ Streaking the darkness radiantly! – yet soon/ Night closes round, and they are lost for ever” (ln. 1-4). If the romantic writers are the “we” in this poem, they dart with complete, inspired, freedom, moving “restlessly” and leaving a “radiantly” marked trail in their wake. Once they are put out into the world, that is, out of their minds and into reality, they are corrupted and “lost.” Their true meaning, their innermost brilliance, as Percey Shelley would agree upon in his “Defence of Poetry”. If these legislators were acknowledged, they might gleam too brightly in the night, or not “veil” the “midnight moon” enough, to get their true feelings of despair and hope across to their audiences.

My Opening Farewell

Yeah I have been listening to WAY to much Jackson Browne lately, if that is even possible.

I really loved this class, it was by far my favorite class this semester and the only light in what seemed like a dismal semester. The readings were fantastic, I truly liked reading every one of them and though I might not have liked everyone, I have actually learned something from everyone. How often does that happen in a class? Certainly not in any I am taking this semester. The discussions in this class were some of the best I have had in English classes and that is what made this class for me. As frustrating as they could be at times with different opinions, ideas on "sorority girls" and intense arguments, they were all great. At times, I learned so much from a fellow student and I changed completely the way I thought about a poem or a notion of romanticism. This is not to mention the most frustrating times when I personally could not find the words to describe the amazing ideas I believed to have in my mind. The discussions were also a lesson in discipline, respect and courage.

I personally did not enjoy Wuthering Heights that much. In truth, the challenge of reading it at finals time might have been a driving force behind this belief because I loved the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy as my last post shows. There is always something about destruction, the anti-hero and consumption that draws me into characters; they are always some of my favorites. I think that it was right for this to be the ending of the class though. This novel is all about ends; end of generations, end of love, hope, desperation and humanity. The utterly destructive nature of the characters as well as the settings of this novel is a really great final thought. I think the romantics (well I guess not Byron) really cared and thought about what the consequences to their actions were. This can certainly be applied to our reading of this novel and the terror of Wuthering Heights. Nice way to wrap it all up. Guess even the class was wrapped up in a little bow with a moral on the end.

Haunted beach photo...more "art-talk"...(sorry guys, im an artist)

i don't mean to keep flappin my gums about art and everything, but i came across this picture online and immediately, Haunted Beach popped into my mind.  There is something so eerie about this picture, yet elegant and whimsical....what do you guys think??

Romanticism in my major

I have to say, that being a Visual Arts major, although easy at times, is extremely challenging and I often feel overworked.  However, now that I'm into my 2nd year of being a visual arts major, I am finding more and more ways that it applies to different areas of education.  With this being Romanticism in Literature class, I must emphasize how much I was able to connect it with art.  I'm writing my paper on just this so i wont go into too much detail, but hopefully yall will get a sneak peek at my point... i noticed art in the poems and books we read had so much description that i was able to paint a picture in my mind.  I find it difficult at times to put that much visualization into words on paper.  I really felt most of the time that I was with the author of the literature we were reading. It fascinated me, and I'm positive will keep doing so as I continue with my major and being exposed to more Romantic literature.

Jackson Browne, Heathcliff and Les Liasisons Dangereuses

The other day, when first starting Wuthering Heights I was listening to Jackson Browne and the song "I'm Alive" came up. Browne is first starts singing about losing a love and how he would have done something to keep that love if he had the chance. The whole story is that Browne has lost someone that he loves immensely yet he hates and is glad is gone; the entire song is this back and forth motion of thinking about this person, being haunted, and yet wanting to escape to where he will never think of them again. He is so glad they are gone yet can't bear to stop thinking of his heart in their hands. This immediately made me think of the consuming relationship of Heathcliff and Cathy, which we sort of touched on today in class. The idea of being so consumed with something that it can literally drive you insane, reach to your lowest points in life of sorrow and evil as well as bring you immense happiness and love is such a reckless, romantic, scary idea. It is this consumption that will lead you to do whatever you must to be with this person as well as tearing them apart. Browne has a lyric,"And I will follow through/With my beautiful plans," which makes me think of the games that Heathcliff and Cathy play. They have these plans of destruction and rapture that they believe are right, true and beautiful in nature. This also made me think of the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liasisons Dangereuses. These two characters are so literally obsessed with each other and themselves at the same time that they want to destroy everything about each other and yet are desperately in love with each other. In the case of Heathcliff and Cathy, they do not want to admit, and certainly not be the first to admit, that they desire each other so strongly so they begin to hate each other. This hatred comes from the desire to be with that person so badly as well as the almost rejection they feel by not getting that love back. This leads them to want to destroy them because they hurt so badly; it is just like the old saying, "can't live with them, can't live without them." Consumption is almost the true terror of this story (along with the setting in my opinion) because it is the absolute demise of these two people and in turn, everyone around them. Consumption is the not just the path that these characters choose to go down, but the one they run to. It is all about the "time wasted and pleasure tasted" in the words of Jackson Browne for Heathcliff and Cathy.

The Modern Day Albatross

The Ancient Mariner made a terrible decision and for it he was punished. But the punishment was not simply shame and ridicule but a curse on him and on those around him. The Albatross itself was a temporary punishment and burden that existed as a sign of things to come.
I wonder personally if there was something modern that could reflect or be considered parallel to the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Perhaps not because the author gave thought to it, but simply through the emotions and the process by which the Ancient Mariner made the mistake, and was punished to the point of which he told the story to others, perhaps for the rest of eternity.
But what could fit humanity as a curse that at first may have seemed like a good idea, and today continues to haunt us and forces us to retell stories and warnings? If such a thing were to exist, who would we tell besides our children? Would it matter all that much, or is it simply worth it to leave the message where it is and when it was?
Now you may laugh at this, but from a modern perspective it does not seem like a stretch to find nuclear weaponry as a modern day version of the albatross. While obviously it does not live, the act of using a nuclear weapon sends a clear message, to the point that a countries power becomes, or can become, relative to how many nuclear bombs they have in their arsenal.
The single act of creating this bomb changed the face of an entire war (World War II) and then the course of history by adding a new and more global threat to the negotiating tables. A new form of raising the bar as far as equality went, and of course a curse that hangs over our heads.
Of course, no supernatural creature is watching over us and throwing dice in order to decide on our fate and punishment, but that's what the leaders of our government are for. At the same time, we are not responsible for the first creation of the nuclear bomb that eventually became produced and infamous today. But the same can be said of the crew of the Ancient Mariner, who were not responsible (directly) with the death of the Albatross.
What does this all mean? I find that it could mean that using old poetry and connecting it to the modern day world is possible, and sometimes can actually fit pretty well. Just seems like a good way to garner more interest in poetry that seems out-of-date in the eyes of many people.

The Monster vs. Christ

Comparing the "Birth" of Frankenstein's Monster to the Birth of Christ

M: "Born" from a man, no woman

JC: Born from a woman, no man

M: "Born" at a November night, during a thunderstorm

JC: Arguably, born a December night, under clear skies

M: Takes lives.

JC: Gives back life, from resurrection.

While the birth of Christ is arguably feminist based, having occured with no natural man, the creation of the monster occurs completely by a man. It was Victor who, "infused the spark of life into the lifeless body at his feet." What makes Christ's birth sacred and free of sin is the absence of a man. The monster's creation leads to the destruction of lives and proves problematic to the his creator, while Christ's life leads to the creation of a religion.

Consider the "sex" of it all:

Frankenstein:

1. Infuse the spark of life in a ... form.

2. Victor's candle nearly burnt out

3. Monster's eye opens

4. Hard breath, followed by convulsion that agitated the limbs.

Christ (from the Bible)

1. And the angel answered and said to her [Mary], "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you .." -Luke 1:35

Human, and Knowledge, and History, Oh My!

The scene where the monster is talking to the blind man opened my eyes to many questions and ideas about Frankenstein. Not only did I empathize with the creature’s immense grief, I also criticized the family’s inability to know the monster, a cruel and inhumane act in itself. Appearances often deceive; it seems a habit of humans to immediately judge a book by its cover. Although, he is initially upset and wants to avenge himself on the family, the monster reconsiders to give the family another chance. This hope is short-lived, but it also shows the full range of emotions the monster has. If the family knew the monster as the reader does, maybe they would not run away. Then again, maybe it is better to be blind like the old man, simply accept what we cannot see and go by our gut. Maybe knowledge does not have all the right answers. Or maybe it does.

As a said earlier, the family running away seems like a cruel and inhumane act. However, how cruel could it be when they did not really understand what was going on? Despite this, knowledge itself, and knowledge of the human condition is the main focus of the book. But I think it is important to note a base knowledge of history shows us that humans can be inhumane, even monstrous; something that I think we often forget. The creature is surprised to learn this from Volney’s Ruins of Empires:

Was man, indeed, once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike… I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust and loathing” (145).

Man uses military knowledge to conquer. Military knowledge spawns from technological advances. However, too little knowledge, like the absence of technological advances, or the flooding of knowledge, such as not knowing what to focus on next, is an empire’s downfall. Mary Shelley certainly would certainly be familiar with the emergence of the British Empire at this time and the role the Industrial Revolution played in it’s advancement. This causes me to wonder how much is Frankenstein a social commentary on the period? For example, industrialization also caused a lot of social fluctuation. Due to Victor’s superfluous upbringing, he often acts like a child and runs away from his problems. Everything is seemingly always about him. Is Victor’s monstrosity a result of his rich and selfish childhood? Do humans encourage inhumanity in one another either through power, technology, or knowledge? Is inhumanity a part of being human? I don’t really expect an answer to these questions. I don’t think I really want them either. I just want to send these questions out into the void…

[Insert Clever Title Here]

Having never read it before, I expected to hate Wuthering Heights. My main aversion was that it contained Megan’s “soap opera” aspect, complex and exaggerated relations that would never occur in real, day-to-day life. Domesticity and exaggeration were originally paradoxical to me. However, I was particularly struck by the insights on people in the novel, especially that of façades. In my reading, the text seemed to be more layered than Frankenstein, possibly due to the rounded characterization of the narrators. When reading Frankenstein, Walter, whom we know virtually nothing about other than he is seeking knowledge in the Arctic, writes Victor’s story to his sister. This ‘everyman’ character’s descriptions do not shadow the characters Victor and the monster like in Bronte’s novel. There was no lens to see through, other than Victor’s, which was easily identifiable. In other words, in my reading, the narrations tended to be unbiased in terms of characterization in Frankenstein. Albeit in Wuthering Heights, Lockwood frames the story told by Nelly, but he is obviously a pretentious and vain gentleman. Additionally, Nelly’s ulterior motives, suggesting Lockwood marry young Cathy in order to save her, taint Nelly’s previous observations on the individuals. Lockwood’s constant interruptions also helped remind me that Nelly’s story had already occurred. And although I recognized their faults, Nelly and Lockwood’s characterizations still shadowed my judgment of the characters; this is the darkness that lingers in the background, which echoes the environment. We do not truly know what is happening underneath these narrations.

This element of mystery made me suffer from Manfred-itis; I wanted to know what was going on in between the lines. What really happens between Heathcliff and Catherine when Nelly leaves to go get Edgar and he eventually punches Heathcliff? Should I watch a film adaptation or two to fill in the gaps? There are only rare scenes where Catherine and Heathcliff are together discussing anything. In fact, I did not truly understand the depth of Heathcliff and Cathy’s affection or their personalities until Catherine dies. This leads me to question whether we can only understand or identify certain things, such as human emotions, with the existence of extremities. Romanticism, in general, magnifies emotions. Do we really need a monster to allow us to realize that Victor is the ‘actual monster,’ for instance?

Defending Frankenstein's Humanity (a response to Keaton)

I will preface this post by saying two things. First of all, I am winging it in not having the primary text in front of me (it being returned to the library). I will have to work from memory alone and thus this post is not as professional as it could be. Second, I am taking issue only with Keaton's refusal to answer the question of whether or not the monster is human. I wholeheartedly agree with his idea of reflexive humanity running through the book, with it being a romantic idea and with his linking of Frankenstein to Blade Runner. I think Keaton's conclusion about empathy being a distinctly human trait is right on the mark. I only insist he could go further with it and decisively conclude that the monster is a human being.

The question of what it means to be a human being and of whether or not the monster is human is certainly one of the major reasons why Frankenstein is canonical to Romanticism and is widely read today. But I don't think Shelly means it to be just a question. I think we readers are meant to draw away a singular answer of "yes" to the question and that Shelly herself argues this point in her text. I believe her primary argument is in the character of Victor, although various capacities and feelings of the monster himself are also evidence for his humanity.

Of course, the question of "what is a human being ?" is difficult to answer. Perhaps every organism biologically human is a human being. I would argue for that definition of humanity. But there is a certain dignity at stake in the debate over humanness, a dignity depending on a "humanness" transcending biology. Whomever is decided worthy of the title "human" is afforded rights and handed responsibilities so that they might be able to live in society and promote the common good. This dignity presupposes a certain common purpose to life, whatever that might be, beyond mere survival. And as such, biological definitions of humanity simply won't do. Yet the exclusion of groups of biological human beings from the community of humanity is horrific. Such systems of thought are the forces behind the holocaust, the killing fields, slavery, the oppression of women, racism, homophobia, etc. Anytime a group of biological human beings begin to be called something less then human, people are about to lose their rights, their freedom and their lives. Hence we talk about capacities for language, reason, freedom of the will, love, society, and religion as fundamentally human traits. But no one of these capacities defines us as human. Hermits are human, as are retarded people, as are mute and deaf people. These characteristics, as Keaton suggests, are human (adjective), but they are not equal with human (noun). But biological humanity may not be the totality of humanity either, as increased technological capacities may make artificial intelligence possible. If creatures made of metal and plastic, creatures containing no biological humanity, come to us, speak our language and express consciousness, rationality and love, then who are we to turn them away. Perhaps the best answer to the question of what it means to be a human being is in a negation. If you have any human qualities, including biological humanity, it may not make you human, but you cannot be called not human with any certainty. And if you cannot be called not human, the best thing to do is to treat you as human.

Shelly ascribes the monster definite human qualities. First, he is biologically a human being. He is made of body parts reanimated and shares the genes of many human beings. Hence, biologically he is almost more human than humans. He has capacities for language, literature, philosophy and history. He seeks companionship, affection and love. He desires a romantic soul mate and he possess the capacity for altruism. After his alienation from the family who's hovel he lived in, he begins a murderous spree of revenge against Victor's loved ones. These actions lead many to think him subhuman or a monster. But these actions too are human possibilities. Its not like no human has murdered or sought revenge before. And Victor, after the monster kills Elizabeth, is filled with murderous anger and seeks his creation to the ends of the earth for the purpose of destroying him. The monster's story is not unlike many serial killers who grew up hated and abused and returned that hatred to the rest of the world.

Shelly would not have made the interplay between the monster and Victor so ironic if she did not want to emphasize the former's humanity. Victor's misery begins when he seeks the secrets of life and wants to play God by creating his own race of creatures. Victor suffers for it the whole book, but to the end cannot accept the bounds of humanity. He urges Whalton to inspire his sailors to go onward in the Artic, towards their deaths even, in order to become "more than men". In contrast, all the monster desires is inclusion in the community of humanity, despite of his ugliness and deformity. His alienation from humanity is what drives him to murder. Yet, while he is murdering he still has more remorse and empathy for others than Victor. Victor sees only his own misery in the monster's existence and is so self-centered as to think the monster will kill him and not Elizabeth. I think Shelly fills the scenes at the hovel with such pathos as to convince readers that all this misery would not have happened if the monster had only been accepted as human. Overall, I would say the monster's primary motivation is to be human and Victor's to be more than human. If to be a monster is to not be human, and vice versa, Victor is more the monster than the monster is.

Perhaps the category of monster exists because there are some actions so evil, we humans don't want to acknowledge them as possibilities of our lives. But the holocaust was committed by human beings. Slavery was a human system. And Frankenstein's monster is a human being. Only when we throw of the category of "monster" can we truly address the evil in humanity.

Rafiq's Lame Poetry

The Rain and the Roof

The rain and the roof met last night

In the darkness of the covered moon,

It was evident with a flash and groan

That the thunder did not approve.

The rain pitted down against the tile

And the roof sounded with taps and knocks,

The water ran fast through the cracks

And dripped off onto to the rocks.

The rain threw affection,

The roof pushed away,

But neither would cease

Even past the day.

Those inside and out

Could hear their loud game,

The two were not shy

And they both would not wane.

While the thunder might grumble

And cause a stir to sleeping heads,

The rain patted rhythmically

And the roof protected their beds.

A friendship or a love,

Or perhaps nothing at all

But the lullaby would come

Through winter, spring, summer and fall.

It could be said, of course

That the roof and the rain enjoy

Too much for a manmade invention

And a specter of natures employ.

The two exist against each other,

One made to solve the other

Who expected that their meetings

Would bring more than dry cover.

The roof and the rain met last night

Under the darkness of the covered moon,

It was evident with a flash and groan,

That the thunder did not approve.

I was trying to fall asleep last night when the rain started to fall, pretty hard I might add. I was listening to it though, and letting it help me fall asleep when the first line of this poem came to my mind. And then the thunder grumbled as if in protest to my thoughts.

I’m not sure why I wrote it, or how well it fits with Romanticism. There is an obviously natural element, a few if you take the thunder and lightning and then of course the rain. And then there are human characteristics for all of these elements at the same time. I really did wonder who would have imagined that rain and roof could create a lullaby that would help some (me at the very least) fall into a restful sleep.

I just find it strange that the roof was created to keep elements like the rain away from us, cause we were so afraid of it soaking us, making us sick. Yet, once you listen to it against the roof, it doesn't sound or feel all that bad. Obviously because we aren't getting soaked by the rain and getting sick because of it, but also because it is a little soothing. Rain without the roof would be cold and sucky. And a roof without the rain might seem pointless, even dull.

Wuthering Heights Virgin

Having just finished reading the first half of Wuthering Heights for the first time, I felt disillusioned by the chaos that was created by the intensity of the characters’ emotions and their conflicting life pursuits. Keeping Romanticism and its reoccurring themes in mind, I particularly paid attention to the varying roles nature played, both intimate and threatening. Throughout the first half, the weather not only brought illnesses upon most of the characters, but also physically kept them from many of their journeys, ultimately putting a limit on human ambition. Even animal life—namely the many dogs Heathcliff kept in Wuthering Heights—in the beginning scenes of the novel came across as sinister; many interactions with the natural world ended in insult or injury. The setting of the novel itself at Wuthering Heights highlights the wild, untamed aspects of the natural world as storms continually come down upon this house of so much human misery.

Plowing through the novel, I was amazed at the madness that permeated throughout the minds of the characters, even Mr. Lockwood as the tale surrounding his current tenant increasingly entrances him. Also throughout this course, particularly when reading Blake, we have discussed the child/youth as a possible means of reaching a more profound understanding of our circumstances, the varying roles we play here on earth along side “Mother Nature.” Yet, in this novel I did not come across the embracing or understanding of youth, but the wickedness of children and the intentional corruption of said children by “older, wiser” adults.

Bringing this novel up in conversations, I’ll often encounter sighs and comparisons of Wuthering Heights as an extension of the soap opera, “save the drama for your mama” types of attitudes. However, I refuse to take this approach; my perspective of this novel will not be distracted and distorted by the often times dramatic behaviors of the characters. Instead, I view much of what I have read so far as a search for self-identity in a world on the periphery of society at large, nature continually posing as both enemy and ally.

Get out your ironing wine, it's time for some Soaps!

I have been overhearing my classmates gossiping about Wuthering Heights and how melodramatic they think the characters are. I've already put out my opinion about the swooning and frail Victor Frankenstein in class, but I thought I could validate our feelings about Wuthering Heights a bit more on the blog. Romantics were melodramatic, end of story. They sought to deal with the gravity of the human emotions, to manifest them in the physicality of their characters, and they did so, with a few extra hankies thrown in. I argue that dramatic romantic narratives have been remanifested in the modern cultural phenomenon THE SOAP OPERA.

Catherine Earnshaw comes off as a weak woman because she is so strong in spirit that she physically cannot handle her own hurricane of emotions. Heathcliff is hard-headed; he has formed his shell to such an extreme, that he can only be with Catherine when she is dead. Whatever story revolves around these two, whoever becomes involved with them, whatever lies in their path, is destined to be swept into the fire of drama that makes Wuthering Heights a classic.

What then do soap operas have to do with this? If you do your daytime ironing in front of the TV, or have ever been channel surfing and have stopped to briefly giggle at General Hospital or One Life to Live, you are guaranteed nonstop, hard-reality-filled drama. Bronte's story takes place in the fictional world, but pulls out no stops to bombard its characters with some of the harshest realities people can experience. Heathcliff is an orphan, he is eventually dejected by Hindley, Hindley is an abusive alcoholic, he also raises an evil spawn, Hareton, Heathcliff can never win Catherine because she is only attracted to refined men, she marries one, Heathcliff leaves in a passionate fit, Catherine, in a swoon, falls deathly ill, never to recover, Heathcliff marries Catherine's refined husband's sister as a stab at Catherine...I won't go on. Soap operas thrive on plots such as these, open-ended and malleable, because they present real human dramas; the secrets between loved ones and families that can never be exposed, what goes on behind closed doors. Bronte's drama manifested in todays soaps comes out to be a never ending cycle of missing brides, twins who steal each other’s identities, abortions, birth defects, job loss, alcoholism and drug addiction, crimes of all sorts, fatal car accidents, fatal diseases, miracle cures of fatal diseases, and more. The characters no longer seem to be agreeable when the facade is cast away and we must watch them flounder in their own bad decisions.

The insular nature of the setting is just like the small worlds created on soap operas. The suffocating world created by Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange only presents the characters with so many options; they've grown up together, they must marry each other, they must die together. Soap opera characters are locked into small worlds because, when everyone is packed into a small town together, things are bound to happen; think of bacteria growing in agar. With characters that refuse to resolve personal and relational issues, a small, inescapable world can be killer.

So we may see Victor and Catherine as wussies, Heathcliff as insufferable, and soap operas as ridiculous, but they are merely concentrated presentations of the everyday dramatics of life and the emotional turmoil which inevitably comes with them. If you pretend that you don't want to pick up those celebrity tabloids while you're waiting in line at the grocery story, you're lying. We are fascinated with the secret underbellies of our fellow humans, soap operas and Emily Bronte simply made art of it.

Frankenstein: Reflexive Humanity and Blade Runner

While discussing Frankenstein, we frequently raised the question of the creature’s humanity: is the creature human or isn’t he? In many ways this is a loaded question, one that we, as human beings, cannot possibly answer, probably because we cannot possibly determine what qualities a living thing must possess in order for us to classify it as human. Questions of biology, morality, and language (among others) arise, allowing us to ask the following:


1) Must a living thing be created in the image of a human (i.e. anthropomorphic) in order for it to be considered human?
2) Must human beings act in accordance with human morals/ethics (whatever these may be)?
3) Is language a prerequisite for human classification?


While all of these questions certainly seem worthy of debate, they are, in all likelihood, questions that we will never reach any sort of agreement upon, at least not anytime soon (there’s a reason that people have been discussing these types of questions since Mary Shelley’s novel was first published in 1818). Therefore, it is not my intention to attempt to provide answers to them.

I would, however, like to cite a passage from an essay that addresses this general issue (i.e. the creature’s struggle for humanity). Timothy Morton, the author of the essay, writes the following:


We could call this obsession with the possibility of being human reflexive humanity. It is a very Romantic notion and is thus, not surprisingly, found in Frankenstein. It is the creature’s demand to be treated as a human being that makes him a human being: the contrast between the abstractness of that demand and the concreteness of his horrific body and his doomed situation is what makes this novel both tragic and utopian.


In citing this passage, it is not my intention to provide answers to the aforementioned questions. Rather, I am looking for discussion: why is “reflexive humanity” (which I interpret as thinking about humanity, thinking about being human) a “very Romantic notion”?

If my interpretation of “reflexive humanity” is correct (i.e. thinking about humanity), and if, as Morton maintains, this concept is a Romantic one, then I am instantly reminded of a passage from Chapter II of Frankenstein, when Victor utters “If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows, and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us” (124). Victor is echoing one of the key points in Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring”: it is our ability to think, our ability to “Bring sad thoughts to the mind,” that causes so much of our emotional instability, while, at the same time, it remains the very thing that makes us human. I’ll conclude my analysis here, but I’d be interested to see what the rest of the class thinks about Morton’s concept of “reflexive humanity.”



In addition, I’d like to discuss Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner, which Morton explicitly mentions in his essay. Blade Runner, based on Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, addresses (like the novel) many of the issues that are found in Frankenstein, most notably the question: what does it mean to be human? My intention, once again, is not to provide any sort of answer to this question, nor to any of the questions mentioned above, but rather to point out some parallels between Shelley’s novel and the film in hopes of drawing some sort of conclusion.

In BR, humans build ‘replicants’ (the film’s term for androids, i.e. robots made to resemble humans) that they exploit for off-colony (i.e. not on Earth) work. In addition to being manufactured with bodies and/or brains that are perfectly equipped for a specific kind of labor, replicants are implanted with false memories that give them the impression that they have lived full lives, when in fact they are built with short-term obsolescence: after four years of existence, they will cease to operate.

In BR, we find again the terror that we first found in Frankenstein: replicants, which both act and appear human, force us not only to reconsider what it is that makes one human—they also force us to question our own humanity. To distinguish replicants from real humans, ‘blade runners’ (the film’s term for cops that are hired to ‘retire’ (i.e. kill) rebellious androids) subject alleged replicants to a test that determines their emphatic capabilities: in both the film and the novel, empathy is a human quality only, one that androids do not possess. Yet in the film, only the opposite is discovered to be true. The only character in the film to display any type of emotion is Roy Batty, an android who cries over the death of another android.

If we translate this question of empathy to Frankenstein, we get an interesting conclusion: the creature, like the replicants, is in many ways more emphatic than Victor. To cite an example, we might mention the creature’s remarks to Walton at the close of the novel, where we get a more objective look at the creature (in the sense that his statements are not subjected to Victor’s scrutiny). For he says: “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and, when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture, such as you cannot even imagine” (241). It is at this point that we feel for the creature—we empathize with him—and it is through this empathy that we come to the conclusion that the creature, if not empathic, has, at the very least, “failed better at empathy” than Victor, to use Janelle’s phrasing.



BR draws directly from Frankenstein several times. Roy Batty, while speaking to his creator, mimics the creature’s narrative recitation to Victor when he states: “If only you could see what I have seen…with your eyes.” Roy Batty’s closing monologue before his death closely resembles the creature’s final words to Walton. And, finally, when Roy Batty dies, Rick Deckard, the blade runner who was hired to kill him, is present to hear his last words, and it is through Deckard’s perspective, much like Walton’s, that we are able to get a story. Roy Batty even recites William Blake’s America A Prophecy. The point is, there is no shortage of references to Romanticism in BR. Therefore, I’d advise anyone who hasn’t seen to check it out, and anyone who has seen it to watch it again and apply all of your new Romanticism knowledge to your viewing experience.