The Lake Isle of Innisfree

After reading "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and making some notes on it, click on this link to hear Yeats reading the poem. Focus in your response on how his reading confirms, adds to or alters your understanding of the poem.

As I read the poem, I felt it was a longing. The footnote I feel agrees with this. This is his ideal wish, to create this home for himself in Innisfree. The first stanza has him describing the place, “And a small cabin will I have there, of clay and wattles made” He even says he will have bean rows and bees, perhaps things he had growing up or that help him recall his joyful days there. The speaker feels he’ll find peace at this place, “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,//Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the crickets sings” He feels peace can be found in this sort of place because it’s not some maddening fast paced environment. The speaker even feels pulled to this other place, as he heard the sound of the lake he missed where ever he went, sort of haunting him.

"I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core."

Listening to it, I feel my opinion and his agree on this poem. He sounds like a sad old man when he reads this poem.

No Second Troy

"No Second Troy" almost HAS to be read as authobiographical, containing pretty clear references to Maud Gonne. (Another poem Yeats wrote to/for her, which the ladies might find touching, is "The Folly of Being Comforted".) Interestingly, however, Yeats transcends the personal by identifying Maud Gonne with Helen of Troy. Focus on this in your response.

The references to Gonne are for her passion as a revolutionary activist and her strength in that. The similarities between herself and Helen of Troy make good sense when thinking of it from Yeats’ point of view. He loved her as men loved Helen, leading to the infamous war. What I suggest though, is that the speaker’s Helen is not just some great beauty, but a woman of strong passion that can make things for herself. The speaker asks, “Was there another Troy for her to burn?” which suggests many things. Would this woman be the downfall to great nations, perhaps by way of revolutional inspirations? To me, I feel she is as the title suggests. “No Second Troy” meaning she will not be one to be used and an item to be stolen.

Yes, the speaker (or Yeats) sees her this way, but Gonne also turned many other men's (and more politically involpved ones) heads.
On the title, maybe you're right, but maybe it also means she does what she does BECAUSE there is no second Troy for her to cause to be burned--that she's a Helen outside of her proper (heroic) time?
See Yeats' other poems on the Irish Rebellion--he was pretty ambivalent about it.

I enjoyed reading this poem there were times when I felt like the speaker was describing Maude and there were other times when the speaker was describing Helen. I especially felt that the first half of the poem was specifically about Maude and the second half of the poem was specifically about Helen. What do you think?

Easter 1916 & September 1913

Before you read "Easter 1916," read "September 1913." In responding to these, focus on the different views of/attitudes toward the Irish expressed in these poems, and speculate (having read the intro to Yeats in the book) about what caused this difference.
I feel that “September” could be better set to music than “Innisfree” because of the repetition of that final line. Not overly relevant, just a thought there. “September” is about what Yeats sees as a lack of passion in his countrymen. Here specifically, the speaker speaks of a lack of passion for the arts at first, with the reference to the lack of care the middle class held for the possibility of housing a collection of French impressionist painting when all that was asked for was a place to put them. Later the speaker brings in mention of prominent figures in the fight for Ireland’s freedom. He suggests that if they could go back and “call those exiles as they were” that people would still say they were made mad by “some woman’s yellow hair” lured into their behaviors by means beyond themselves. That is just dismissive and disrespectful of them, which I feel is what is being expressed in this poem. His repeated line, “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,//It’s with O’Leary in the grave.” is I feel the simplest sum of this poem.

In “Easter” we see Yeats taking back his previous words. The speaker here talks of knowing these men, these people likely when he held the opinions expressed in “September”, but that they have since changed, “All changed, changed utterly://A terrible beauty is born.” as he repeats here. He again lists of people who fought, most who were executed, then goes on talking about the change. The speaker here sees that the people have changed; they don’t just sit idly by and allow things to happen around it.

You only get the first poem at the end--how does that refrain relate to what the speaker is saying of the Irish in the first?
Better on the second, but how would you characterize the tone of it (especially that "A terrible beauty is born")? See an attitude toward the Uprising developing between "No Second Troy" and this?
If you want a poem that REALLY should be set to music, respond to "Who Goes With Fergus." (actually, though, "Down By the Salley Gardens" is the one poem of Yeats that has most often been set to music).

Under Ben Bulben

"Under Ben Bulben" is a self-epitaph, written in anticipation of the poet's own death.It begins (first three parts) by transferring an ancient sybil (female soothsayer) to Ireland, and goes on to talk of Irish history and the Irish.
We’re set off with mystical images: Sages and the Witch of Atlas, horsemen and fairy women, a company of immortals that travels through the dawn by the mountain, Ben Bulben. I feel with this presentation, these are all the same people. The next stanza speaks of the mortality of man. The speaker suggests that no matter how a person might die, it is not death they fear, but “A brief parting from those dear” and once dead their burial carries them along to their final eternity. I find this suggestion interesting; it involves no mention of Heaven or Hell, simply eternity and what waits there, being your loved ones. The third stanza goes on to reference John Mitchel, Irish nationalist, who called men to arms with his line, “Send war in our time, O Lord!” It almost reads as standing to fight is a natural position to man,
“Know that when all words are said
And a man is fighting mad,
Something drops from eyes long blind
He complete his partial mind,
For an instant stands at ease.”
Also saying that all men feel this at some point of time, “Before he can accomplish fate//Know his work or choose his mate.”
I can see the soothsayer business in the first part, the sybil being part of the company at the start. I don’t personally know Irish mythology, but the belief that when you’re put into the ground it you pass along into eternity was also slightly mentioned in “Dead Man’s Dump”, though Rosenburg did not specify eternity, he say that the dead soldiers had returned to the earth, making me feel that the burial of a body might be a key factor in their mourning and passing process.

In part 4, the speaker addresses the Irish poet, tracing the history of art from Michaelangelo to the unsatisfactory present, which he calls upon the present Irish poet to improve.
This continues in part 5, where the speaker gives more specific direction to the Irish poets.
This section is a plee to the artists (including writers I’m sure, but here most named are especially of artistic merit) to continue creating, to make great works like Michaelanglo’s Sistine Chapel that has lasted the ages can continue to be creating and give a beautiful meaning to life and representation of a further purpose. The second artist he mentions, Quattrocento created works of dreamy images that also gave the speaker thoughts of the eternal. Then he calls up artists and poets, which both include Blake and more than one are followers of Blake, which makes good sense in this context. Blake was not only a master, but his strong faith and works of faith fit in perfectly. The speaker doesn’t just want art for art’s sake, he wants it to have meaning, to show people that there is more beyond this existence and to give a spark to life.

Finally, in part 6, the poem focuses on Yeats himself, his life, his grave and epitaph. In responding, expand on these notes, quoting to support your commentary. As I say in the schedule, we'll come back to this poem when we get to W.H. Auden's "In Memory of W.B. Yeats."
It’s rather morbid honestly, I couldn’t imaging writing something about my grave like this. I feel here again, he wishes to push for a lack of vanity in himself. He wants his grave simple, “No marble, no conventional phrase” At his grave he wants the words, “Cast a cold eye/On life, on death.//Horseman, pass by!” I feel that he is still pushing for us to think about more than just living and existing, to actually work to make something of oneself and to give a meaning to life. Also I feel he suggests we should not fear death, as possibly the speaker no longer does. By this point, I know Yeats had buried many friends, so I feel he has come to accept it in this.

On the first 3 parts, isn't Yeats' speaker actually focusing on the continuum of Irish history and culture, placing that within the context of the whole of history, and suggesting that when Irishmen dies, they become a part of that history, that culture? And isn't he tracging Irish history to his time? Doesn't this tie it better to the next part, on the history of art, placing Irish art within it?
Also, on the directions to poets, isn't he adressing Irish poets, calling on them to preserve and promote Irish culture?
Also rethink/reread the ending in this context.

The Second Coming

"The Second Coming," as I said above, illustrates Yeats' theory of history repeating itself in a rising and narrowing spiral, on different planes of reality. Use this (and the footnote) to discuss what the poem suggests (and how) about the (1919) present it represents--about the way in which the speaker sees this age as a repetition, with difference, of the advent of Christ.

His suggestion of the Second Coming at this time makes good sense. The whole of Europe is recovering from one World War and have little clue of the one to follow it soon after. Ireland itself has gone through some Hellish times by way of the rebellion shaking things up and were at that time dealing with the Anglo-Irish War itself. “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” sounds like a good way to put it. The world at Christ’s birth was also rather chaotic and much of the power (I believe, from what I recall of history) that much of the power was held by one empire (Rome) which maybe at this point he equates with England not purely because they are a super power (they took a big hit in the war and I think this is about the time America was coming into its “super power” status), but also because England has such a hold on Ireland and wishes to squash out rebellion and not allow questioning. This is a time of change, as was the time of Christ. The speaker feels like this is all building up to something, and his idea of this something is the Anti-Christ.

Decent reading of the poem's inspiration, though I think you get a bit too much into the England/America thing here. Aren't the most interesting aspects of this the view of history as a spiral and the poem's prophetic nature: the view of what's coming as the work of an antichrist (history repeating itself as tragedy)?

The Wild Swans at Coole

The "poem idea" of "The Wild Swans at Coole" is a return. In it, the speaker has returned to a place 19 years after his last visit. What has changed (in the scene and the speaker)? How does the speaker feel about this?
--
It’s interesting that he visits in the fall as that is very much a time of change in itself. That isn’t actually a change for his view, however, considering his original visit was also in the fall. The primary change in the place he’s visiting is the swans. His first visit, he couldn’t count everyone before they flew off. Then this time he gets an exact point, 59, which we can assume is less considering he was able to make the point. Though perhaps the swans are also older and more subdued in age, not skitting off in fear of some stranger. The speaker sees his own aging and changing though as he considers the change in the amount of swans. He recalls that he had “trod with a lighter tread” then and now that there are fewer swans, and says that “my heart is sore” suggesting it’s simply or them, but ti is for everything, how things all change. At first I thought his wondering where the swans would go when they had left him had meant his death, giving the impression of his own immortality, but I feel now that it’s a matter of lose. He takes it well though, knowing his lose is another man’s gain, even though he might not be exactly pleased with this.

I can tell you're not up to snuff from the spelling in this, but good on that the poem is really about the speakers' sense of loss, and VERY good on the last part--minus quotes.

The Mark on the Wall

"The Mark on the Wall" is an excerpt from a collection of autobiographical essays titled Monday or Tuesday, which Woolf published in 1921. I include it here, because it's the best example in our book of Woolf's use of stream of consciousness. In responding to it, focus on the way the narrator's mind flits from impression to thought to memory to impression, and so on.

The stream of consciousness writing is interesting. I learned about this process in poetry when I was in high school and wrote some terrible terrible things that I don’t care to look back on. But I’m familiar with this! Woolf does it beautifully. Without considering who we’d be reading, when I saw that it would be a matter of stream of consciousness, I expected it to be a pain and difficult to read because of jumping from thought to thought. But Woolf is a master of it. She flows from talking about this unknown mark on the wall into an idol daydream she’s had since childhood, the past residents of the house, things she’s lost in her lifetime, babes and giants even, but continues to return to this mark. With all this thinking, all these ideas that came from some smudge on the wall, the end honestly is so startling that I laughed out loud. Of all the things she’d thought of what the mark could be, all the ideas it inspired in the speaker, it turns out to be a snail and this is told her by someone else entirely. Frankly, if this is truly how Woolf found her mind working, it’s no wonder she was such an excellent writer.

LOL on those "terrible terrible things":-)--but that showed you how hard it is to carry this off, and you see, too, that Woolf is a master (mistress?) of it.
We'll see this again in Joyce. Thinking of it as a fiction technique, how does it compare for you to the style, for example, of Dickens?
Here and in your reply to Aden, you focus on that very sudden and down-to-earth realization about the mark--but isn't the mark mainly a device which she uses as an occasion for the stream of consciousness?

A Room of One's Own: Women

What does Woolf say a woman needs in order to be a writer? What is the larger meaning of this?

In order to become a writer, Woolf feels a woman needs her own money and a room of her own. I feel this means that a woman writer must be sure she is in a position in which she can provide these things without either being hindered. This is a statement of independence, privacy, and revolution. As she, or Mary of her tale rather, was leaving to write something down after a fine thought had occurred to her, when her path was interrupted, she lost the inspiration. Then Mary heads to the library of Oxbridge while again differently inspired, and is turned away because she is a lone woman and needs either introduction or accompaniment to make use of the facility. As the story progresses on, Mary finds that woman have been and still are quite limited in rights. With this, I feel that Woolf wishes women of her time to pursue what rights they have above their past generations and to strive for more for the next. How can a woman be a writer of any repute to do for herself if she cannot do for herself?

A bit hurried/slightly incoherent on this, but isn't it because she uses stream of consciousness here, too?
Good on the title and the 500 pounds as representing independence, on her creating the character of Mary (Seton, Beaton, etc.) as her example, and on the limited access of women to higher ed at the time (might have included the women's college here, too). Good, too, that you extend this to women's rights in general, but isn't her focus mainly on women as writers?

What did you think of the tale of Shakespeare's imaginary sister? I felt she described the consequences of what would happen should one not have a room of their own quite well. It was also neat that she enveloped a tragedy out of a family that produced tragedies. Also, what did you think of her views on money? I felt that she made a valid point that without money one may be bitter. If you are treated as an unequal, you would be drawn to write about your inequalities. With money, you may be inspired to write more fictitiously.

Good on the money thing, too, but see how that relates most to women?

A Room of One's Own

Why does she include the meals at the two Colleges? What do they show about the status of women in her time?

The two meals show the great contrast in the two schools quickly and in a manner that can be easily related to. Everyone eats and it’s not difficult to see the difference in such things. Oxbridge has grand food and a fancy desert that she can’t even give a name to as “to call it pudding and so relate it to rice and tapioca would be an insult.” The whole dinner was leisurely, though the lose of something was evident when comparing the discussion to times before the war, that maybe people cannot relate to each other and artistry in general the same way as what was then new is not as flowing, but darker and with in more simple speech without flowery beautiful language. Then at the Fernham we see a different sort of dinner and discussion. There was no desert, the biscuits were dry, and the soup so thin that “one could have seen through the transparent liquid any pattern that there might have been on the plate itself. But there was no pattern.” I feel that properly describes the dinner. Then there was no talk of leisure, only leaving to allow the dining hall to be made ready for the morning meal. This makes me feel there was little discussion or relaxation, this was a meal to feed the stomach and not the mind. This seems very unfair when comparing the two meals. The inequality in the sexes is glaringly obvious here.

Good here on the contrast between the meals, and especially good on the lack of conversation at Fernham.
See my reply to Ash on this about the historical context, with regard to women and higher education.
I'd really like your reaction/response to her Judith Shakespeare story.

Tradition and the Individual Talent

"Tradition and the Individual Talent" is about what the title says--how and how far the modern poet (Eliot's target audience) is and should be influenced by the entire literary tradition. Focus on this in your response.

Eliot feels there is a lack of tradition unless it’s taken to be compared with what I’ll call modern or new, as in “this is too traditional” or “so-and-so’s work is traditional”, however, the old and dead poets still have their presence known in more modern works. Should we approach a work looking for what makes it more independent of its predecessors or inspirations, we would often miss out on what might truly give if live and individuality, that being what in it that harkens back to those very predecessors. Meaning that these modern poets have taken what they’ve learned, perhaps even from tradition sources, and while it is still very much their own, the inspiration or backing of the technique or word usage, or something makes it obvious that the poets of the past have been studied. However, one cannot just stand on the shoulders of great poets, one much Take in the source material and truly learn and understand it. I think one of the most significant points made here is this: “Someone said: ‘The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.’ Precisely, and they are that which we know.”

Good grasp of Eliot's two takes on tradition in this, and especially of his more postive (and difficult) take--and very good quote at the end:-).
Any thoughts on what he says of the necessity of the poet extinguishing his personality in his poetry?
How about how the first applies to Eliot's own poetry and the second to both Eliot's and Browning's, whom Eliot admired? Also, can you see how the second point hearkens back to Keats' idea of the "cameleon poet?"

Endgame

As for the prompts on this, simply make notes on your evolving reaction to the play as you read it, and then post these and your overall reaction.
I read Godot in high school, and I can certainly feel this is the same writer. The play starts strangely, with Clov checking out what’s outside the windows and in the trash cans. Knowing Hamm’s parents are in them, I sort of understand the humor in looking in, but I’m hoping to understand that better when they come in to play. The interaction between Clov and Hamm is fun, you can tell Clov is used to this treatment, but he still doesn’t care for it. Hamm seems to not know the proper state of things. He forgets that the world is changed at times, but other times he recalls clearly. Nell and Nagg are oddly endearing. They still feel for each other, trying, but failing to kiss as they do. They’ve also forgotten much and are assumedly in worse shape than their son and his servant considering they’re physically in trash cans. The trousers story was funny in a very dry sort of way.
When Clov examines the outside with a telescope, we learn that they are near the sea, but that there is nothing there really. No waves, no sun, all grey. It’s bleak, but makes good sense for this. It’s some sort of end of times where everything isn’t leaving in vibrant explosions, but just ceasing and rotting away. When Clov finds a flea, Hamm says “But humanity might start from there all over again!” and then he insists it killed. This makes no sense. But then, Hamm must not want humanity to renew, he must want it to complete and end as it is doing.
We come to find that Clov has served Hamm since he was small. Yet he will still leave if he had the combination to the cupboard. Hamm tells him to kill him that he’ll give him the combination, but Clov won’t kill him though he still insists he’ll leave. Which then leads to the confusing question of how would Hamm know that Clov had left instead of simply dying.
Hamm’s story feels disjointed, but that’s because of him more than the story itself I feel. He gets distracted mostly by criticizing how he puts things “Nicely put that” “A bit feeble, that.” His story is about a man asking him for bread and then corn for his boy. Hamm denies him this and goes on about how things won’t improve. Use your head, can’t you, use your head, you’re on earth, there’s no cure for that!” “But what in God’s name do you imagine? That the earth will awake in spring?” Instead he offers to take the man in as a servant, but the man asks if he will take on his son as well. Perhaps the boy was Clov?
This entire time Hamm is terribly rude to his parents. He tells them to quiet down, promises his father a sugar plum when there is none. His father understands that it’s like a role reversal for them, but he also feels that things will reverse once more. Considering Hamm is stuck in the chair, I feel this is very possible. When he picked up talking again in another monologue after Nell turns out dead, he suggests that maybe he’d crawl along the floor on his stomach to escape and plead for help, mirroring the image of the man that had gone to him before. He even says he will call for his father and son, though what son? Maybe Clov, considering he had earlier said he’d been like a father to him.
In the end, Clov did leave after spotting another person outside. Hamm was left alone, when he called to his father the man did not appear, so he was quite possibly dead as well.
This is a strange but interesting play. It’s sort of different from Waiting For Godot in that that one was about waiting for the action, a great deal of action has happened already. We are also waiting for someone to get up the nerve to leave. I’d love to see this performed or be involved in a production of it. There so much going on without anything really going on at all. The relationship between Hamm and his father is strained dreadfully, even in this decomposing state, Nell and Nagg still love each other and wish to be with one another, especially Nagg because we can see that Nell is getting towards her end and is the least lucid of the lot. Then the relationship between Clov and Hamm is strange. Clov threatens to leave constantly and Hamm doesn’t always believe him, or so he says. They are not just servant and master, but like father and son and vice versa. While Hamm took Clov in, Clov is the one that takes care of Hamm.

Good reading of the play, especially on the post-apocalyptic--though long after the apocalypse--setting, the relations between the characters, their various states, Hamm's (non)sense, and the hints at the backstory.
Good on the humor in it, too--Becket was a Vaudeville fan.
Having gotten all of this, as I asked Ash & Erica, what, if anything, does this play say about the human condition and human relationships in general?
Your comment about seeing the play in performance: couldn't you see the video?

The Journey of the Magi

"The Journey of the Magi" is Eliot's take on the birth of Christianity, so for this, I want you to go back and reread Browning's "Karshish" and Swinburne's "Hymn to Proserpine." Then tell us how this poem compares to those in terms of perspective (speaker, location, time) and attitude toward the event. Be careful about identifying speaker and author here: Eliot was a DEVOUT Anglican Christian.

The speaker is one of the Wise Men, the three kings that were to have witnessed the birth of Jesus Christ and given him presents. The trip was hard at times, but he does not regret it when looking back upon it. Seeing the Birth has changed him, called him to a different god from that of his people. This is why when he returns to his home, “[He] should be glad of another death.” I feel he was referring to his own when he will go to Heaven and be united with his God. Of course, maybe it’s a reference to Jesus’s later death that saves all of them.
I feel that this is very different from the previous pieces. “Karshish” took the point of view of an educated man who was taking Christianity with the logic of such a character. “Hymn” felt that this new religion was going to just leave out one day. I feel that the speaker in “Journey” has already accepted Christianity on to himself by the point we as the reader meet him. He might have almost felt forced into it by what he had witnessed with the Birth, feeling a sort of Death within him for his former beliefs. The speaker of “Hymn” wouldn’t hear of giving up his beliefs for some new religion trying to slip into his life. Then with “Karshish” I don’t think it was as much him feeling any one way on the religion itself as much as the facts of the situation.

First, take another look at at least the last lines of "Karshish"--isn't he INTRIGUED with the Christ idea?
Decent on "Hymn."
On this--interesting that you say this Magus was "forced into" his belief: what makes you say that? I didn't ask Ash or Erica about this, but what do you think of his rather lukewarm reaction to the Nativity?
An otherwise good read of his conflicting emotions: as I DID ask Ash or Erica, what do you think Eliot, a devout Christian, was trying to say or do with this poem?

The Wasteland: The Burial For The Dead

"The Wasteland" is a difficult (highly academic) poem, but I think you can get the general idea and mood of it. Click here to listen to (and read along with) Eliot's reading of the first section, "The Burial of the Dead." Then pick ANY section of the poem and tell us what it says, what it describes, and the mood it conveys. Remember that this is a primary document in literary modernism.

“The Burial For the Dead” I feel isn’t as much about burial as it is about death and the disturbance of such a state, maybe something like resurrection. The first lines “April is the cruelest month, breeding//Lilacs out of the dead land” illustrates this thinking well. The spring is breathing life into the dead land, but no one has said this dead land wants for it. “Winter kept us warm, covering//Earth in forgetful snow” The speaker preferred the state of death to the state of life that the spring time is known to bring about. The speaker had good memories from this season, like drinking coffee and chatting for an hour and staying with their cousin and sledding. The images he presents also associate with death, but the one that rings clearly to me in the end in relation to death and resurrection is when he asks Stetson, “That corpse you planted last year in your garden,//Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?//Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?”

Very clever quoting here on the death/ressurection theme you see (and it's there, but see the end of the poem--not a simply Christian take on this): I chuckled at your use if the last lines.
However, aren't there several different speakers here? And what does the poem say about modern life and society?

The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is, as we can tell from the title (the name of the "singer"), a VERY ODD Love Song. Click here to listen to Eliot reading the poem as you read along. Once done, tell us about the speaker in the poem: What is his mood? What causes it? What does he tell us of his inability to act on his passions--or perhaps to HAVE passions?

I have a long standing relationship with Eliot and this particular poem, so here's hoping I can to this thing justice. Prufrock was a Forensics piece for me in my Senior year. A strange selection for an 18 year old girl at the time, I know, but my teacher helped me choose it and I liked it.

The poem is from an aging man observing his surroundings. He and his partner are wandering alone. They are restless, or at the very least he is, "The muttering retreats//Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels" He asks her not to question what they have and what they do, "Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'//Let us go and make our visit." I feel his restlessness comes from his age and insecurity of it. While he can not stay still himself, he knows "indeed there will be time" for all things. Again we see his restlessness, "And times yet for a hundred indecisions//And for a hundred visions and revisions." He feels he will be judged in these times of his aging, "They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!'" "They will say: 'but how his arms and legs are thin!'" because he feels they all notice and they all will judge him for how he has grown old. Even for as how he worries about his age, he acknowledged that he is old, that he has seen many things. "For I have known them all already, known them all-//Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons". One of the most vivid examples of Prufrock's fear of being judged is here:

"And I have known the eyes already, known them all-
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase.
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?"

How should he start to explain his life and his feelings or thoughts? How will his life add up to others? He doesn't know what's expected of him when he is there being judged by the world. Still, he knows that these concerns aren't important in the long run. "Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,//I am no prophet- And here's no great matter." He knows in the end, he is insignificant . "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,//And I seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,//And in short, I was afraid."

Yes--odd for a young girl's forensics exercise, but glad you liked.
Good reading here, except in the identification of the audience--gender is not specified, and isn't the audience whoever reads it?
Again, I have no other bones to pick with your reading, though I'd like your thoughts on what this poem says about modern (circa 1920s) love and romance, or whatever else you think Eliot was trying to do/show in writing it.
OH--and how about the final lines and his self-comparison to charaters in Hamlet?

Ulysses

TRY to trace what Stephen thinks and feels, sees, hears, smells through this. Read first WITHOUT the footnotes.

This is the most intimidating piece of work in the textbook yet. I just wanted to mention that. It’s all for the footnotes, which are necessary and I did my best to avoid them at first. I was too confused by that though, but I tried not to concentrate on them.
The imagery is interesting and it makes things feel sort of strange and dreamlike. It starts off that way at least. He’s walking on a beach, “I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot.” He sees these sights and these colors, “Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs.” He closed his eyes to better take in the sounds there, “his boots crushing crackling wrack and shells.” In doing this his mind wonders if the world might have left him or if he might find himself suddenly over a cliff were he to open his eyes again. He takes in the sounds still, “Crush, crack, crik, crick.” I liked that he didn’t simply take one word and repeat it, instead he expressed the variety of the noises with his words. He imagines others walking on this stretch of sand. The visit to his aunt and uncle is choppy, you can tell he sees it clearly, but he doesn't linger long on what they might be thinking, but then how would he know truly? The imagined version of his uncle doesn't seem very sympathetic at times and is rather flighty to me, but again, this is what Stephen is imagining. You can tell who he sees as the primary person in that house, though later he refers to it as "aunt Sara's."
He gets lost in his own thoughts so easily, thinking about Virgin Mary having no naval, how he’ll never be a saint or how his family thinks so at least (his uncle most likely), books named by letters. He almost entirely misses his aunt’s home altogether. The jumping here throws me off. I can’t follow him easily. I can’t tell what he’s dealing with and what he is just thinking.

On that first remark, you read (or posted on) this AFTER Finnegan's--is this really more intinidating than that?
Not given how much you get of what's happening here--good job!
How does this compare for you to Woolf's stream of consciousnes in "The Mark on the Wall?"
It might help to realize that Stephen is a sholar of languages ad philosophy who teaches in a boys' school and is a lapsed Catholic--all like the young Joyce!
I hope you read the whole novel later on (there are several guides to it)--it's not all like this, and as you see, Joyce's use of language is AMAZING, and often amazingly BEAUTIFUL.

Finnegan's Wake

Click on the link below to hear Joyce reading the first part of the passage from Finnegan's Wake in our book. Read along, and then tell us what you think.

This would have been entirely lost on me without the recording. I’ve had awful issues with Ulysses that I’m hoping to work out. This whole section caught me by surprise. I thought I wasn’t in for this sort of trouble after reading The Dead, which I liked a lot. When he reads it, there is this beautiful flow to much of it. You can see the conversation of it and the words that look like nonsense, “Lord help me, Maria, full of grease, the load is with me!” When you hear him speak it aloud, you hear “Lord help me, Maria, full of grace, the Lord is with me!” which makes far more sense. He also threw in a couple different lines I noticed from what we have. I understand it’s a parting for the topic, assumedly a death considering the title. The writing is stream of consciousness, and not as lucid as we read with Woolf at all. He jumps about, but it’s interesting to see the words inserted for the spoken word to sound as he wished it to.

As I told Ash and Erica, few, if any, "get" this work, and most think Ulysses, let alone Dubliners, is more coherent.
Finnegan's IS stream-of-consciousness, but the mind in which it takes place is that of the whole of humankind, and its theme is the history of the world: the "novel" opens, "Rivverrun past Eve and Adams."
Good catch on the punning nature of the writing--and many of those puns are in other languages: scholars have identified over 80!

The Dead

What is the significance of the title to "The Dead"? How does this title relate to the story? Base your response on a CLOSE reading of the story, as well as the parts of the intro to Joyce in the text that have to do with Dubliners and with Joyce's attitude toward Ireland.

The story goes between people and the way it starts it seems like it will mostly follow two sisters, Julia and Kate, and their niece Mary Jane that are all living together and throwing a Christmas party. They’re anxious for the coming of two people, their nephews Freddy and Gabriel. This is when we meet the man that the story truly takes stick in, Gabriel Conroy.
He seems like a good man, well liked, who means well, but he doesn’t seem to be fully aware of himself and his actions. He missteps in asking in speaking to Lily, a servant of the house, when he suggests they’ll be going to her wedding one day and she responds negatively about all men. Really, asking her such a thing is rather presumptuous and rude if others had known. Then he gives her money for Christmas, which she finds far too rich for her position.
While dancing, he is teasingly accused of being a traitor by Miss Ivors because he writers a literary column in The Daily Express. The situation embarrasses him, though it’s mostly unnoticed by other party go-ers. Gabriel sees no issue in his writing a literature column because he feels it has nothing to do with the politics of this paper and everything to do with his own love of literature and the reward of free books along with his small pay. Yet he stills keeps his writing a secret, letting this column be printed under his initials and not his actual name. Obviously he knows there’s some sort of deeper implications there. In those of tumultuous times, given the opinions of the Irish on Ireland and the British, it’s impossible for him to not think he’d be judged in some way for his writing for this paper as opposed to something solidly Irish. When the same woman suggests that he and his wife vacation in Ireland, their own country, he comments that he’s tired of his country. She pushes for a reason, but he has none or at least cannot give one. Then when his wife brings up talking to Ivors and he tells her about the suggestion of vacationing in their country, his wife loved the idea and he still did not.
His later toast speech that he delivers also touches on the topic of rebellious Irish. Gabriel saw, as Yeats saw, a reemergence of passion in this new generation that was coming to be. However he went into how he found it misdirected and feared it would take away from the hospitality and humanity of the generation he includes himself within. He must have scanned for Ivors before speaking on this as he felt quite specifically that it applied to her. Gabriel finds himself in the norm, so he thinks. He also says how while they all come with sadness and pasts, that he “will not linger in the past” for the night. Not to say that he commonly thinks of his past sorrows.
After he sees his wife in her tender thoughtful state as she mourns the man the song made her think of, Gabriel doesn’t know what she’s thinking about, but is inclined to want to protect her. When she tells him finally, it’s a shock. While he’d been thinking of all their sweet loving times, she was mourning this boy. He’d never thought of her past, never contemplated their might be more than just their time, or that she’d ever dreamed of another. It also says something that in their marriage with two children, he had never before heard of this other man. It makes him realize that he’s never felt so strongly about another women in his life, and he knows he’s missing out. Though Gabriel made earlier mention of his dislike of the direction of the passion of the new generation, that meaning in rabblerousing as we see personified in Molly Ivors, he longs for the passion they show (seen in his wife crying herself to sleep over the boy who died for her) and knows it’s not something he can capture, much like he will not be the sole inhabitant of his wife’s heart.

Nice summary of the story and of Gabriel vis-a-vis his fellow Irish, but it doesn't answer the prompt. Why do you think Joyce tited this story "The Dead?"
You're on track, in part, with the mention of Gabriel's realization (of his lack of passion), but what of the decison he takes at the end to venture "westard"--i.e., to the Aran Islands?

The Windhover

In "The Windhover," the bird (a kestrel) is described in its flight. With this one, focus on how the speaker's emotions color the description of the bird.
The poem is also subtitled "To Christ our Lord." If you wish, discuss the bird as a metaphor for Christ.

The speaker projects the image of the kestrel as this majestic thing. He talks about the creature’s mastery of the wind in how he flies, or how he hovers in midair rather. He describes him as a “Brute beauty” and is awe of his abilities. The language used here is so grand, “the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion//Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!” It’s as though he thinks this bird is defying nature, like he’s some amazing thing that acts against nature with how he flies. The speaker’s adoration for this bird is something like what one might hold for Jesus Christ. The speaker even declares this bird “morning’s minion king-//dom of daylight’s dauphin.”

Journal: May 18, 1870

In the journal entry for May 18, 1870 (pp. 1525-6), Hopkins uses the terms "instress" and "inscape." How does his use of them here help you to understand what the editors tell us about these concepts? How does it help you to see what he attempts to do in his poetry?

In the introduction, the editors give us some information on “instress” and “inscape” already. “Inscape” is “the distinctive design that constitutes individual identity” which seems to be to be the thing that defines a work, or a poem in this case particularly. It’s about the individual feeling of the poem. “Instress” is the “apprehension of an object in an intense thrust of energy toward it that enables one to realize its specific distinctiveness” which I think means the understanding of something, in this case a poem, in such a way that you fully understand its uniqueness. So it seems from this, we’re meant to get the instress of the inscape. One solves the other rather.
With this journal entry and Hopkins’ use of the word, I feel that “inscape” reminds me of “landscape.” “I do not think that I have ever seen anything a more beautiful than the bluebell I have been looking at. I know the beauty of our Lord by it. It[s inscape] is [mixed of] strength and grace, like an ash [tree].” It’s the image, the picture painted by the poem to the audience. Hopkins felt that understanding and seeing this, or instressing the inscape, would bring one closer to God. In his poetry, he wants others to share in what he sees and feels and that is why he puts these images, or this inscape, into his work.

Pied Beauty

"Pied Beauty" (p. 1518) praises God for many things. What do all these things have in common? Also, how does the speaker say God differs from these things He created? As with the others, focus on the language and imagery Hopkins uses to "paint his pictures."

This poem specifically applauds “dappled things” or things with mixed colors. “For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;//For rose-moles all in stipple upon upon trout that swim” These are all things of nature, things that change in time or simply by man’s own hand. The inscape I see here is a rich forest in fall with leaves still changing colors. Hopkins wants us to see here that we should appreciate our ever changing world and the God that in his constancy provides it, because while the world changes and is imperfect, its creator is not. “He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change.”

Spring and Fall

What does the speaker first ask of her, and what does he tell her? Again, look also at the language and imagery. (You may, if you wish, compare this poem to Wordsworth's "We Are Seven").

The speaker is asks Margaret at first if she is mourning over Goldengrove, “Margaret, are you grieving//Over Goldengrove unleaving?” The speaker wonders if she loves the leaves like she loves the “things of man” thus we’re given the impression that this girl is young and possibly naïve. The poem being addressed “to a young child” also adds to this impression. He, the speaker, tells her that she will age and return to “such sights colder” as the forest, assumedly Goldengrove, will pale and change to her aging mind. Still, he says she’ll mourn the loss of the place she knew; here is where I first see the reference to the Garden of Eden. Goldengrove is Margaret’s Garden of Eden, a place that she could no longer visit after she had grown older, though aging is nothing like the Original Sin. The childish innocence of loving something so strongly as a place does remind me of the sweet child of “We Are Seven” who refused to allow that her and her siblings were no longer seven. With the final lines though, “It is the blight man was born for,//It is Margaret you mourn for.” I feel links the two girls more closely. Margaret didn’t wish to give up her beloved place that she loved more than people’s things, and the other girl simply refused to let it go of her belief. Both characters held strongly to something that seemed silly, but still the strength of their convictions was worth envy.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

"Dulce Et Decorum Est" is perhaps the most famous (anti)war poem in English. Read the note on the Latin phrase to get the full irony of the poem. In responding (YOU MUST) to this, consider how the horrors it describes is turned to ironic use at the end. How does the poem affect YOU?

This poem gives us the war with a very honest account, one not concerned with pretty metaphors. These are not happy soldiers, these are real men that have undertaken hardships. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” Some had even lost their shoes. They were numb to their surroundings, barely even aware when the bullets flew. One is lost as they neglect to fit on their gas mask quickly enough, “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.” The dying man comes at the speaker in his panic, a frightening sight, “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,//He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” An image like this will stay with the speaker, haunt his dreams as he has said. The detail he goes into about the cart where they carry the dead man is disturbing to say the least. For me, this poem is horrifying. It clearly illustrates the reality of war. To me, it’s like the exact opposite of “The Soldier” which speaks of death at war as something to take pride in. There is no mention of pride here.

Good on the horrors presented here, and, yes, very different from the Brooke, but you might, again, compare this to other poems on the horrors of the war.
An easy one (I think): how does the title relate to the poem?

Dead Man's Dump

"Dead Man's Dump" is a very graphic poetic description of its subject. Focus on how the speaker makes us see, hear, and almost feel what the poem describes.

“Dead Man’s Dump” sure paints a picture. A cart is carrying barbed wire and is rolling over dead bodies, “The wheels lurched over sprawled dead//But pained them not, though their bones crunched”. The fighting continues and the bodies of both sides mix together in death as it unifies them all as human as opposed to fighting forces, “They lie there huddled, friend and foeman,//Man born to man, and born to woman”. The speaker feels that in death, these men’s bodies have returned to the earth, “Now she has them at last!” but possibly not their souls, “Earth! Have they gone into you?” Rosenburg creates some interesting metaphors here, like when he speaks of the dead men getting shot, the speaker says, “When the swift iron burning bee//Drained the wild honey of their youth.” I found this metaphor perfect in how it contrasts the image of war, making it more like nature.

The speaker asks, “What of us?” the men who live and suggests they feel immortal for having lived when others have died, but that there is still a great fear within them that they will join their friends and enemies. Then the speaker goes on to describe the fighting, the metaphors are appropriate and work beautifully to show the harshness of war, “The air is loud with death” I found especially excellent with how simple it was to start off this stanza. What did he mean by death? Not just those dying men receiving their final wounds, but the explosions he goes into detail about further down and the gunshots exchanged between each side. Then the speaker describes seeing a stretcher-bearer taking a body to the load of others. When the man looks back at his dropped load, “The drowning soul was sunk too deep//For human tenderness.” The body was already too dead to warrant sympathy.

Good reading of how this poem presents the horrors of war and fear on the parts of the soldiers.
On the last part of your first paragraph, do you think that, by making death in war seem more natural, the speaker here is diminishing the horror? Why or why not?
You really NEED to see the last two stanzas of this--the closing image/experience.
Might also compare this take on the horrors of war to Owen's in "Dulce."

They

In responding to "They," focus on the two different meanings given to the idea that the soldiers will not be the same when they return from the war.

This poem takes two different points of view that are both true. The Bishop explains to “us” as the speaker puts himself on the level with the reader, that the “boys are changed” in which he means they’ve been changed by the horrors of war. They have seen their friends die and have killed other men. “They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.” They could have easily died, but they have not. “Their comrades’ blood has bought//New right to breed an honourable race” The boys have gone to war and as they have survived where their friends hadn’t, it’s as though they have been given this second great chance and their children will be children of honorable men. The boys see their return differently. Yes, they are changed, but they are changed from injury and illness. “George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind” One man is “shot though the lungs and like to die” while another caught syphilis. So the boys are certainly changed in more ways than one. The soldiers are surely changed as the Bishop suggests, mentally altered by the war, but the fact that the men don’t speak of this and concentrate on their physical changes is pretty understandable. Those are far more obvious.

Good on the differing points of view about the changes, but which change does Sassoon want us to see as the more real (and valid) one? Why? And how can we tell?

The Soldier

Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" was a British patriotic favorite during World War I and remained so long since. Focus in your response on what the speaker says and how he says it about war, glory, and England.

This poem is very nationalistic. The speaker is a young English soldier. He isn’t just proud of what he’s doing, he’d happy to be of service to his country. There is no fear of death, only pride that he had been able to fight for his country and bring his strong English blood to another land. Obviously he feels that if/when he is to die his love for his country will take him to an “English heaven.” He himself carries the country with him in heart and spirit so much so that “If I should die, think only this of me://That there’s some corner of a foreign field//That is forever England.”
Had Brooke survived his dysentery and blood poisoning, then I feel that yes, he would probably not viewed the war and his time within it as positively. Maybe he didn’t have the same experience as other poets because he had died when he did. This poem is positive and like a love poem for the soldiers or perhaps for the English fighting spirit in general. This is not a man jaded by death and war.

VERY nationalistic, and (LOL) you mention England in your response almost as often as the speaker mentions it in the poem!
Agreed on the rest.

I know! He as really drilling that home.

"Drilling" is a good way of describing the repeated references to England and things English.
Beside the naivety about war, this poem is an interesting contrast of the nationalistic thing to Sassoon's "Glory of Women."
Still, I think we all regret, by now, that Brooke didn't live long enough to contribute his takes on the horrors of war.