Memorial Verses

"Memorial Verses" (pp.1358-60) can be read as Arnold's own reflections on the poets of the previous generation, primarily Wordsworth, to whom this is an elegy. Arnold, as a young man, knew and looked up to Wordsworth. What does he say (and HOW does he say it) about Wordsworth's value? About the other poets?

Wordsworth is such a focus for this poem that frankly it could almost be called Wordsworth and be gotten away with. The speaker refers to Wordsworth of “the last poetic voice” which makes good sense as he was the last of his generation of poets to pass on. The speaker talks about Wordsworth as a calming introduction to darker things, comparable to the song of mythical Orpheus, singing from Hades:

“For never has such a soothing voice
Been to your shadowy world conveyed,
Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade
Heard the clear song of Orpheus come
Through Hades, and the mournful gloom.”

The speaker feels that Wordsworth made a big dent on the literary world. Wordsworth took us from the “iron time//Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears” suggesting a time of coldness and many problems back to a time where we could appreciate the earth around us.

“He found us when age had bound
Our souls in its benumbing round;
He spoke, and loosened our heart in tears.
He laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool flowery lap of earth.”

The speaker goes as far to say that “our youth returned; for there was shed//On spirits that had long been dead” meaning that Wordsworth was revealing to people an almost childlike joy in his writing at times, which I fully agree with. Wordsworth’s appreciation for children and innocence was often evident. The speaker though he respects other poets that he knows and likely feels too were great at times, he has such appreciation for Wordsworth and love of what the man has created that he sets him on a higher pedestal. “Again find Wordsworth’s healing power?... But who, ah! Who, will make us feel?”

Wordsworth was well respected, though he does mention others in passing. Goethe and Byron are both mentioned. The speaker says that Byron “taught us little; but our soul//Had felt him like the thunder’s roll.//With shivering heart the strife we saw//Of passion with eternal law” Which to me feels that while he enjoyed Byron’s work and was touched by it at times, as he knew many were by the man’s deep passion, the speaker himself did not feel he learned from Byron. As for Goethe, a German poet (I believe?), he seems to have a deeper respect for his work, calling him a “Physician of the iron age” and appreciate his almost painful accuracy, “He reach each wound, each weakness clear;//And struck his finger on the place,//And said: Thou ailest here and here!” That Goethe was a man who could identify problems of society. The speaker does belief that there could be other Goethe-like or Byronic poets, “time may restore us in his course//Goethe’s sage mind and Byron’s force” though he doubts this is likely for Wordsworth. Considering he lives in an era which demanded readers to “Close thy Byron; open thy Goethe" it’s actually interesting he mentions these two specifically.

Don Juan Canto 1

SUMMARIZE the tale here. If you choose this one, I expect a DETAILED summary of both plot and characters.

Don Juan is our hero. He was born is Seville, a city in Spain. His parents lived by a stream. His father, Don Jose (which an accent on the o and not the e, but I'm not sure how to manage that on the discussion board) was a noble man, or Higaldo and purely a Spanish man at that. The man was an amazing rider. Don Juan's mother was Donna Inez and she was incredibly smart, well educated in every science and every "christian language" (though I'm not sure what exactly that entails personally, it later mentions Greek, Latin, French, and Spanish, though the last was a given) and was as virtuous as she was intelligent. Then her memory is also perfect and she knew many plays by heart that she could correct actors in their lines. She and her husband, who was notably less intelligent, often fought, but no one knew why though many people guessed.
Don Juan was a curly haired and naughty child. The only thing his parents could agree on was doting on the boy and they wouldn't send him to school to improve his behavior. His parents lived unhappily though, to the point of wishing each other was dead. However, they acted properly in public.
One day, Inez called in druggists and physicians and insisted her husband was crazy. Since he was often lucid though, she decided he was simply a bad man. When asked, she never explained why she thought either of these things however. She kept notes on his behavior and received many letters on the topic of his behavior. But she simply bore the information.

The couple's friends and family tried to help, but only made matters worse. Lawyers were trying to work out a divorce for them, until Don Jose died and spoiled the case. All of his land and houses were left to Donna Inez of course and Don Juan was then raised by just his mother. She decided that her son would be raised properly as befit his family names and holdings. He would be taught of chivalry, along with riding, fencing, gunnery, and how to scale a fortress. The thing his mother wanted most of the boy was that he lived by good and strong morals. Because of the, Don Juan had tutors for every subject and learned everything except for natural history, because it would provide a sexual education in the form of plant life. She also didn't care for mythology, so his education in that topic was a bit off as well. Though his tutors were loathe to exclude so much, especially with her concern for morals, they did somehow manage.

When Juan was sixteen and a page. Everyone but his mom thought he was nearly grown. During this time, Inez had a friend, Donna Julia. She was amazingly pretty and of Moorish origins. This woman was the result of a Moorish great great grandmother and a Hidalgo from a line that intermarried not cousins, but nieces and aunts. Julia was the last of this line at this point. She is twenty-three, married, and loyal to her husband, who was fifty and named Alfonso. The public had a very average opinion of him, neither hateful nor loving. He was still a jealous man though.

Julia liked Juan as a child and would often caress him. That became inappropriate by the time he was sixteen of course. She grew distant and he grew bashful around her, both seeming embarrassed. Julia knew it was because of her attraction to him, but Juan had no clue. Though she acted coolly, he did take it to heart after feeling her small hand in his own. When they would see each other, she would seem sad but it actually looked sweeter than her smile because it was full of deeper feelings.

Donna Julia felt herself falling in love with Don Juan, but she tried her best to not allow it and to remain faithful. She vowed to never see Juan again. She went to his mother's the next day and expected him to come, but twice the door opened and it wasn't him. Her anticipation made her decide she'd rather confront her feelings to overcome temptation. Don Juan hadn't a clue of any of this, or at least that nothing would come of it.

One day Juan was walking by the brook when he laid beneath a tree as he thought. Here he meditated on many things, himself, the earth, war and earthquakes, air-balloons, the skies and Donna Julia's eyes. He thought so long that he was late for dinner.

On the sixth of June, around six thirty or possibly closer to seven, Donna Julia sat with Don Juan. They might just be staring lovingly at each other, but then they also might be kissing. At least. It's implied more was done, I'll even suggest that they had sex. Julia sighed, but then cried and though she said she would not, she still did it.

Then we jump to November. It was a cloudy night. At midnight, Donna Julia was asleep when a loud noise occurred at her door. A servant banged at the door and told her Don Alfonso was coming with a bunch of people. They all entered her bad chambers then, while Donna Julia was panicking, screaming, crying, and yawning. Her maid, Antonia, tried to make it look like she had been in her mistress's bed. The men searched the room, but they didn't find what they were searching for. The entire time, Don Juan was hiding in the bed, the one place the men didn't search. Julia took much insult by this searching and decided right there she would divorce Don Alfonso.

Don Alfonso was confused by this declaration. Antonia, the maid, went about the room fixing things. Alfonso watched her suspiciously. With nothing found, Alfonso tried to beg forgiveness, but didn't receive it. When he tried to speak again, Antonia cut him off and sent him away. They all left, the lawyer lingering the longest and getting the door shut in his face. After all the men left, Don Juan came out of hiding, but before he and Julia could start fooling around again, Antonia insisted on sticking him in the closet.

Don Alfonso returned and sent Antonia away, though she tried to linger he wouldn't allow it. He made excuses to his wife for coming in late, but not for his actual actions. He asked for her forgiveness which she gave him under certain conditions. He was thinking about this when he tripped over Don Juan's shoes. He left to get his sword and Julia sent Don Juan to flee. When he tried to run, he ran into Don Alfonso and knocked the man down in fear of death. The two men fought but then Juan ran off with Alfonso still holding the man's shirt.

So Don Juan ran home naked. Don Alfonso sued his wife for divorce. Donna Inez then sent her son away to Cadiz. He hoped he could repair his morals by traveling Europe. Donna Julia was sent to a nunnery. She did write a letter that showed her tragic love for Don Juan.

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; Canto 3

In the first section (Stanzas 1-18), what does the narrator tell us how and why he created, and how he differs from, the hero?

The Narrator sets him self up as a creator, Byron even having this Narrator mentioning a daughter Ada (Byron's own daughter's name) which concretes him as a voice in control and of creation. He creates Harold who is almost a more intense version of himself, "A being more intense, that we endow//With form our fancy, gaining as we give//The life we image, even as I do now" Harold almost sounds as though he should be an idyllic person, or at least a more fanciful version of the Narrator. The Narrator is nothing, calling himself exactly that, "What am I? Nothing." Harold however is a creation that the Narrator may "traverse earth//Invisible but gazing, as I glow//Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,//And feeling still with thee my crush'd feelings' dearth." So he acts as a sort of figure in which the Narrator can extend himself as the readers may also do and live vicariously this interesting existence.

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 3

Both sections provide examples of the Byronic character and hero described in my and the Editors' introductions. What aspects of this do you see, and where (QUOTE)?

The Byronic hero isn't too hard to pinpoint. The narrator starts off by speaking of his daughter Ada, reflecting on her in a way that seems longing to see or know her. "Is the face like thy mother's, my fair child!//Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?" I'd call this tortured or pained, though not from some unknown and mysterious event. He travels because he is feels that he must, even through the storm, "Still must I on; for I am as a weed,//Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail//Where're the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail." He is driven to sail, which I think works well with the antisocial and isolation portions of the hero because he makes no mention of shipmates. He portrays the scene as though it is only him and the sea, which though he is led by it, he speaks of it as though it is still somewhat tamed by himself, "And the waves bound beneath me as a steed//That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar!"

The Narrator goes on to describe a "He" in the fifth stanza that is not identified but it is to be assumed to be either the Narrator or Childe Harold. I'm leaning toward this being Harold, but I'm not dedicated to that. "He, who grown aged in this world of woe,//in deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life;//So that no wonder waits him" sounds like a man who is likely now to be much jaded by life. "...he can tell//Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife//With airy images, and shapes which dwell//Still unimpair'd though old, in the soul's haunted cell." Which ever "He' this stanza refers to is wallowing is his past an no, he is not recalling it fondly as he is haunted by it which he remembers all too clearly for as old as the events or persons might be.

Back to the Narrator, we know he often dwells on matters, possibly the character his storytelling "Too long and darkly, till my brain became,//In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought" and comments that though he has changed, he is "still enough the same//In strength to bear what time can not abate,//And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate." which to me means something akin to "grin and bear it" only without the grinning. Our narrator has lived a harsh life in his youth "untaught in youth my heart to tame,//My springs of life were poison'd" and now he holds the pain within, changed by it but not enough to not be able to bear the load. That's Byronic as it gets to me.

Harold himself is also quite Byronic as when Stanza sets us up for his re-introduction, he is a man wounded by love or hurt "He of the breast which fains no more would feel,//Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal"

Jumping forward into the later stanzas, we again see the Narrator. "I have not loved the world, nor the world me;//I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow'd//To its idolatries a patient knee" This man does not expect the world to be kind to him at this point, and so is not kind to it in return. He does not take too the frivolous fancies of the classes as he might be expected to in this period. Again, we see the isolation and the anti-social behavior, "I stood//Among them, but not of them".

He also revisits the longing for the daughter here, speaking to her in saying, "I see thee not,-I hear thee not,-but none//Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art friend//To whom the shadows of far years extend" and though he had no intention of meeting her again, he hopes that his "voice" in the form of writings I'd suggest, will "reach into [her] heart" He also knows she will know little of him by way of her mother, but hopes that he can have the child's love still. Again, the longing is evident, "Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,//As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to me!" After he lists of what wrongs he feels would be between them and what things he hopes for the child, including a more mild tempter than his hot one, "but they fire//Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher," But these hopes are surely doomed and are all very much in vain.

When we two parted

In responding to/explicating this poem, do so with the assumption (supported by the statement "pale grew thy cheek") that the male speaker is addressing a female ex-lover. Focus in your explication on the speaker's tone and mood. In explicating what went on between these two, STICK to what we can tell FROM THE TEXT of the POEM.

We see that the speaker and this woman have had some sort of relationship that had ended, "When we two parted//In silence and tears" This wasn't a good end either, with both sides left distraught. "Half broken-hearted//To sever for years," so they've been separated for years at this time. The past relationship was secret if not from all, than at least from certain people who knew them both, "They know not I knew thee,//Who knew thee too well" I'm unsure about this last line. Does he mean that he knew her too well, or that her family or dear friends who knew her too well didn't know about their relationship? I'm leaning toward the latter. It seems like an awful sort of torture to socialize with those people after the relationship they didn't know about ended, but it would have been unacceptable not to were they still in the same social circle.

To me, this seems more like an outreach than a later meeting, especially considering the ending, "If I should meet thee//After long years" so they have not seen each other since they last parted. This man knows that his lover had grown cold to him back then, "Pale grew the cheek and cold,//Cold thy kiss" Perhaps their love wasn't just secret, but forbidden, "Thy vows are all broken,//And light is thy fame;//I hear thy name spoken,//And share in its shame." I feel this implies she was married during the time these two were lovers. He feels shame because he assisted in her breaking her vows. He still feels strongly about this woman or in the very least about their separation, "How should I greet thee!-//With silence and tears." He is pained by her name, her memory, but he still mourns the loss of her. "They name thee before me,//A knell to mine ear;//A shudder comes o'er me-//Why wert thou so dear?" This speaker is a man still much distressed by the affair with this woman. He is mournful and sorrowful, but not angry. I don't feel like there is even a hint of anger.