In regards to Pansies:

When I saw this course was available way back when, I remember thinking, “Now here is a class that I want to take, a class about a bunch of pansies who write about, well… pansies.” I like pansies. I would admire them, for although they did nothing particularly useful, they actually got their heads out of the clouds for a minute and wrote down a poem or two; they weren’t total procrastinators (like I am, see: this post date), but a group who chose to avoid real life like I do, who lived in their own little bubbles floating along a river somewhere deep in an enchanted forest. I could connect with them.

Had I misjudged them, or what?

I did vaguely recall from high school that there were more to these pansies than what meets the eye as reactionaries against the Great Enlightenment Figures of Reasoning. But what struck me the most was the immense complexity of the poems. I’d walk out of class even more confused than when I went in, but I liked it! Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. It was all that I could do. By grappling with these texts I was forced to think about my life and life in general. Paradoxes that were logical: A fragment made whole, an original from imitation. The Hegelian dialectic applied to more than just History. All these poems shocked me into thinking, none more so than Blake. For example, in “Thel” we are imprisoned by our senses and yet what do we know without our senses? How would we experience things without them? Do we bring them with us to the afterlife even though we have no body? Or do we have a body? What is our purpose in life? Is it to be food for worms? Is there such a thing as a static figure because everything changes and transmutes? In “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” Blake turns everything I learned as a child upside down, but it makes perfect sense. If Heaven is perfect, it is therefore unalterable. If Hell is not perfect, then it is changeable and there is a sense of progression, which takes on a positive connotation for me (a positive corrosion). Blake attempts to answer these questions through his mythology, but I still have no answers.

I have come to the conclusion that these poets were special pansies. Their lives were rather depressing (Not pansy like). They pushed the limits more than anyone else in history, more so than those of the Enlightenment (Not pansy like). They were a bit weird; they tended to live in their heads after exposing themselves to life. Their ideas are so unique. (Every pansy has his/her own eccentricity). They left us without answers to their questions. But it is their thoughts that push us forward into the realm of thinking and bring us back to the real world. The cycle continues; pansies come and pansies go (both flowers and people). We live. We die. We become fertilizer for future flowers. We think about what the Special Pansies thought… we come back down… and write about what we think for future generations to come. Maybe they’ll be able figure it all out…

What We Want II: A Poem

"Peaceful" wills the homeless heart.
Towards soft essence then tearful part.
Hold close once more a sigh so sweet,
An open door, a steady beat.

Lose you again takes years to do,
The road will bend our love so true.
A swell of faith or mind of fear,
Both for souls sake, both cause tears.

To touch once more would be divine,
So on the floor I'd crawl to find.
This door may come, but enter my choice.
For where I'm from, death is the voice.

Take hands to lead and arms to pray,
A hunger to feed, but - love stay away.

Where Does Man Fit in Nature?

Wordsworth's "Lines Written in Early Spring" is uniquely powerful and characteristically Romantic poem. As Professor Schwartz pointed out, it is incorrect to say the romantics simply wrote about nature. Rather, they wrote about nature as experienced by man and about man's relationship to it. Romantic literature addresses the questions of where man fits into nature, of whether or not a harmony between nature and man is possible, of whether nature is sympathetic or indifferent to human concerns, and if man is the summit of creation or a perversion of it. In this poem, Wordsworth takes a stab at answering those questions, but in the end is more sadly confused than he began.

The twice repeated line "What man has made of man" (8, 24) is first a declared statement and later asked as a question. In between, the poet reflects on the beauty and happiness in nature and how alienated man is from that happiness. The poem begins with the narrator (presumably Wordsworth) reclining in a grove, engaged in a reflection moving from sweet to bitter thoughts. The beauty of nature he metaphorically hears as "a thousand blended notes" (1) of sweet music. I don't think I'm off base when I claim that Wordsworth sees an original unity between man and nature. As he says "To her fair works did Nature link / The human soul that through me ran" (5-6). Man is of nature and ought to play his part. But something has gone wrong. Man has made something of himself (or tried to) which nature never intended for him to be. Wordsworth never specifies what it is, but the reader's imagination immediately conjures up images of war and poverty, hatred and oppression, environmental degradation and urban jungles that humans were never meant to live in. Stanzas 3-5 artfully describe the beauty of flowers, birds and baby trees as they grow and thrive. The narrator believes there to be a "pleasure" in every moment of the lives of these creatures, as short as their existence might be. He admits that he "cannot measure" (14) the thoughts of these creatures and this can be taken as evidence that there is a fundamental separation between man and other parts of nature. The poet cannot empathize with what it means to live every day for the beauty of it, accepting all parts of existence, even death. Humans don't do this. Rather, they plan and plot for the future and seeks immortality through religion, through potions and through glory.

Reading this poem left me agreeing with Wordsworth in part, but mostly with questions for him. Does he think there is a solution, a way for man to unmake himself and become natural again. If so, what is it? The poem has a feel to it which echoes the creation story of Genesis and the fall of man. Is Wordsworth saying that the fatal flaw in man is really his inability to accept himself as a part of nature and be content with it? If so, is there a way back to the garden? Additionally, Wordsworth seems to regard the ideas this poem expresses as revelations from a higher power. What is that power and what relevance does it have for both man and nature? It's a good poem, but reading it left me wondering.

Exploring Keats

After both reading and enjoying Keats’ “Isabella, or the Pot of Basil,” I decided to scan through some more of his poetry in our Norton text so that I could see how my interpretations of the readings have either gotten better, worse, or stayed about the same. Here goes my understanding of “Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell.”

Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell:
No god, no demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from heaven or from hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once—
Heart! thou and I are here, sad and alone;
Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O darkness! darkness! ever must I moan,
To question heaven and hell and heart in vain!
Why did I laugh? I know this being's lease—
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads:
Yet could I on this very midnight cease,
And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds.
Verse, fame and beauty are intense indeed,
But death intenser—death is life's high meed.

Instantly, Keats presents the reader with a question that proves unanswerable by gods and demons, two polarities. Realizing that these two external forces are unable to provide an explanation for Keats’ laughter, the poet suddenly believes he has found the source for this plaguing question: the heart. Feeling both excited and assured, this realization marks an important turning point in the poet’s quest for answers; he pleads for an answer from within. However, as the poet searches within, he discovers only darkness that once again leaves Keats answerless. The source for the answer is neither wholly external nor wholly internal.

Keats poses his question for the third and final time, though this time he comes across as more composed as he begins to discover the reason for his laughter. While he recognizes the fact that happiness can be found through different outlets in life—particularly through “verse, fame, and beauty”—he nonetheless would leave it all behind, life ended. The image of the “word’s gaudy ensigns” all shredded up paints a particularly apocalyptic scene.

In the final line, Keats acknowledges the fact that while there may be sources of intense joy throughout life, death nonetheless overshadows the things most important to all of us; death is life’s greatest reward. At first I had trouble understanding this line because never had I heard death described as such. Most often, death is viewed negatively as it reminds us of our mortality, ultimately all of the limitations that bound us to some degree. However, Keats takes another approach. By describing death at “life’s high meed,” the poet portrays death as a reminder that in this moment we are alive.

Throughout the poetry we have been reading in class, man’s ability to reflect has come across as a nuisance, a burden to our existence; however, in this poem, Keats seems to celebrate this ability. We can recognize that death represents an end, and because of this, people can live. People can laugh.

What We Want

Something that caught my interest from the piece, "Isabella," by John Keats is the relationship between Isabelle and Lorenzo. Their passion and love is so strong that it is obvious that nothing can break it. It reminded me of all the stories that we have been taught over the years. Its all about LOVE. Whether a childhood story about princesses and magic carpets, movies with notebooks, or songs on the radio that "bleed love," this idea of timeless love is universal and unwavering. Regardless of generation or artistic outlet, we are as a race, obsessed with love.
We use it as a reason to live- in hopes that we will have the perfect family, to do certain things- like going out to a bar seeking a connection, we concentrate on it as if it will solve all of our problems, fears, and doubts. But will it really do all of that? Certainly Isabella didn't get the perfect family or have her problems solved.
So what did Isabella and Lorenzo have that could possibly make up for all their pain? They lived a passionate life which consumed their souls until and beyond death. As "nice" as that all sounds, its not exactly what dreams are made of . Even "Romeo and Juliet," that's not the real title. Its called, "The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet." People want to be in this romantic state where they find someone who they can't bear to live without, but in the end, it always destroys. This is because along with passion and love is obsession and rage and destruction.
Although we know this we still want it. We focus on all the goodness of the story, on the maybe two scenes where the lovers were happy and hope that we could have that one day. But what we really want it to have that and have the happy ending as well. We want to have the story of Romeo and Juliet and be strong enough to fix the ending- to get Romeo the letter before its too late. Theres always little factors we think we could fix if it was us. Isabelle should have stopped Lorenzo from going out with her brothers; she should have seen something. But love isn't this ever powerful essence that we can control or conform to our will.
Love is hard. Love is painful. I'm no literary character, but that much I know. In real life love is almost always confused with lust, love can seem clinging to the other party, or love can destroy the good that was already there. In real life someone if not both parties loose.
Call me pessimistic or a Debbie Downer, but art imitates life and vice versa and art has been telling us a message. Maybe we should pay attention.

Thomas De Quincey: Confessions of a Romantic Gutter Punk

I spend a lot of time walking through my neighborhood. It is quiet and contemplative, gives me a chance to let my mind wander. The marigny is my own little haven; I know the sounds, the scarred streets, my eccentric neighbor who never wears pants, the feeling of being outside the chaos of Uptown New Orleans but with debauchery just around the corner if I am so inclined to partake. There is, however, a new installation to my habitat that can not go unnoticed: several times a day I trip over young kids passed out in the gutters, clad in denim that was possibly washed in 1981, mangy, malnourished dogs with nope around their necks attached in some way to the owner that attempts to relieve me of my box of left overs, some form of payment that could be exchanged for a tall boy tucked into a brown paper bag, or simply howls into the sky about how difficult it is to live on the streets, strumming a Martin guitar that I know costs at least $500. It is the newly fashioned New Orleans transient gutter punk that so often interrupts my reverie. The young kids that leave their suburban homes in Kentucky, hop on a freight train and end up sucking down whiskey on my front lawn (or stoop rather--alas! I have no yard or grass). It is the exploitation of those that are actually homeless or in need of monetary aid that really pisses me off. These kids ran away from mothers that would love to welcome them back into their brick homes, wash their denims, give them lunch money and tuck them into bed. But this population lives a life of choice poverty, toting expensive musical instruments and bragging about drug and alcohol addiction. It is here that I bring in the charismatic opiate lover himself, Thomas De Quincey.
As stated in biographical information, De Quincey dropped out of school, ran away from an affluent family, renounced his money and took up a life of chosen poverty where he developed a drug habit and enjoyed pretending to be poor so that he could participate in some self indulgent form of what he calls "the pleasures of the poor." The first thirty pages of his confessions talk about squatting in a mansion on Oxford street, struggling to survive from want of food. I understand the fascination with opium that has propelled him to think that this was a sort of romantic idea (not of course in the literary sense), but he simultaneously attempts to convince the reader that his scholarship is his most cherished past time. I would think that it is hard to critically review literature when you are bent over in a gutter begging for your life, or you only feel alive on Tuesday and Saturday nights pumped full of laudanum drifting through an Italian opera. This is not an expansion of mind, it is a rejection of reality for a fantasy life in which nothing becomes of value except desire to continue this fantastic vision of the world.
Not to mention De Quincey's inconsistencies throughout the text in his descriptions of the experience of the drug itself. At one point he claims that opium in no way isolates the user, that it enables the user to more enjoy social settings, yet describes the happiest year of his life as alone in a cottage behind Worsworth during winter with opium and books as his only companions. I do not want to suggest that De Quincey is a complete discredit to the Romantic movement, I just want to claim that he is unlike the others that we have studied in that his habitual reliance upon opium, and the means to which he started this lifestyle, perpetuates a sort of illusion--a role that he condemned himself to that is not transcendence, as Blake or Wordsworth is aching for, but a veil that keeps him from truly experiencing sublime vision. It is an imitation of sublime vision that leaves De Quincey with little more than nightmares, terrible health, and a chronic opium dependency.
So I warn you gutter punks out there, it may be fun to play the starving artist/ musician role for a while, but eventually you are going to wake up one morning pining for breakfast, a bar of soap, and a conversation with someone other than your dog.

O, Confessions of an Opium Eater

De Quincey begins his "Confesssions of an Opium Eater" with lines like grappling hooks, which forced me to read on. I quickly ran my eyes from left to right, left to right, like a typewriter resetting its ribbon repeatedly, and I remember the moment at which they stopped. De Quincey writes, "But I took it: -- and in an hour, oh! Heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished, was now a trifle in my eyes: -- this negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those positive effects which had opened before me -- in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea - a [pharmakon nepenthez] for all human woes..." I pictured him on his knees, the opium allowing his eyes to feel open for the first time with its painful bliss. His words allowed me to see him; the feelings inside him swelling from their deepest point and shooting forward in lines throughout his body. Previous to this description, he goes into great depth about the druggist. In his mind an ephemeral being, sent to Earth solely for the purpose of serving him. When De Quincey wrote, "...returned me what seemed to be real copper halfpence, taken out of a real wooden drawer," it brought about such beautiful imagery. This prose reads like poetry throughout. His writing style and words seem to be, themselves, eternally drugged. The "cloudless serenity" of which he speaks, battled with the men "disguised by sobriety," and the brutish drunks all give way into his clear window of logic in recounting his prior actions, feelings, and descriptions of this drug. There is, however, the ever-present and lurking reminder that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. This realization comes later in the piece. It was interesting to find that opium led him to be intellectually stimulated, to be seen as a "visionary" and to go about the streets of London at night, inspired. His opium-induced self seems to be the true definition of a Romantic. Opium itself is derived from nature - poppies - and that is where Romantic poets and writers claim to always find true happiness and inspiration. His outings to the Opera-house sent music of all sorts (the singer's soul, tyrannic violins, crowds of people) swirling around him blissfully, and all the more enjoyed by his 'debauch of opium.' He seemed sort of like Hunter S. Thompson, taking drugs and going out into the sufferings of the sober or the drunk; but rarely is anyone else in public on hard drugs, and if they are, they are all too out of sorts to recognize their bretheren. His later realizations fall on solitude and reflection; another definition akin to the true Romantic. De Quincey proves full circle to have experienced the tragically beautiful life of a romantic writer.