Anthology: Natural Forces

Nature. Nature can be a great influential element in our lives. Nature is present everywhere. It is such an important factor that even mankind attempts to replicate its properties in architectural moves to bring us closer. Man seeks to be with nature. In buildings, it is highly desired to have plenty of openings with views to the outside and to let the sun penetrate in. There are attempts of blurring the line between interior and exterior to create a more heightened experience with in the building.

Nature is also such a powerful force that even the smallest and most fragile forms of life can coexist with such harsh elements that mankind cannot withstand. There are the smallest life forms (worms) that thrive in the icy glaciers of Antarctica; insects that can freeze over during winter and thaw themselves out at the start of spring. Starfish can regenerate severed limbs. Even the roots of a “flower [can] split[ the hardest of] rocks” (Ferguson 1169). There are just so many wonders of nature it is mind boggling.

Nature can be serene and peaceful at times yet powerful and unpredictable at other times. There is so much that can happen that one cannot experience it all. But you can write about that particular instance and share it with the world.

There are several opportunities to write about the feelings that come forth when you have an experience with nature. Even the smallest and mundane events such as the wind whistling through the leaves can strike a chord and bring back the memories of the past. In Gary Snyder’s “Four Poems for Robin,” the story is based on a past love. His current encounters with nature (sleeping on the deck on a cool night) made him reminisce when they were together. The lovely settings set the mood- very romantic. The green rolling hills and the blue ocean front; the “thick autumn stars” (Ferguson 1707), smoky breath under the moonlit sky and “tall dry grass by the orchard” (Ferguson 1708). The one simple thing that seems to trigger all of these special memories is when he is outside admiring the night sky.

Everyday routines can become very entrancing. “The Fish” by Marianne Moore describes the simple tide crashing against the rocks. But Moore goes into much more detail of the life that happens in between. This is where the barnacles live. They are stationary and helpless against the rays of the sun and the power of the water pounding against the rocks. Their only defense is to open and close like “injured fan[s]” as the day passes by (Ferguson 1221). Ted Hughes’ “Relic” also speaks of the complexity of nature with his simple encounter at the beach. On the shore’s edge he found a jawbone. The sequence of events played like a film in his head. These are the remnants of the sea, the start and ending of a never ending cycle. The injured, weak, and old are the first to go. The strong and healthy strip the carcasses clean. The “indigestibles” are cast back onto the surface as time permits (Ferguson 1698). And what is left shows how much time has gone by. Conrad Potter Aiken’s “All Lovely Things” is also about the cycle of life. Everything has a beginning and an end, both the beautiful along with the unnoticeable things in life along. The flowers bloom and wither away. The rain comes and washes them away. But it is how nature works. The narrator outcries “come back, true love! Sweet youth, remain” (Aiken). As human beings we are able to see our futures. But there is not much you can do but to enjoy what time you have left because nature will take its course as time goes by.

Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” speaks of “something” that does not love walls- man made that is (Ferguson 1121). And that something is referring to nature. The earth freezes over and swells the ground under the wall, damaging it, creating cracks that make the wall no longer impenetrable. And what is the purpose of a fence if it is no longer viable at doing its job? But then Frost brings up the notion of the real purpose of a fence. His neighbor said that “good fences make good neighbors” (Ferguson 1122). But a fence’s sole purpose is to keep something either in or out. And the fence that they make annual repairs to is only separating an apple orchard and a field of pines. His neighbor has only erected the wall because his father has done so in the past and he is just replicating what he knows. But there is no real reason for the fence and that ‘something’ tears it down slowly every year and he knows this. As he in fills a gap in the wall he talks back to it, telling it to “stay where you are until our backs are turned” (Fergson 1122). The forces of nature are inevitable but at the same time unstoppable.

Nature can every easily lead to the imagination. Emily Bronte’s “The Night Wind” shows how powerful something small can lead to such great things imagined. In the cabin in the forest, the window is open at midnight. The sky is clear and the moon is full. The breeze is free to come in and out. Bronte animates the wind and transforms it into a spirit. It tries to convince her to go into the sinful forest, and out there she would be in the glorious heaven (earth is fair but only while asleep), but “the wanderer would not heed” her (Bronte). As she continued to reject the wind’s seductiveness, “its kiss grew warmer still” (Bronte). The wind reminds the narrator that they have been together since childhood, ever since she started to enjoy the beauty of the evening night, awaiting the evening song. The wind wants her to accept his love, because she is alone now as a mortal. If she rejects him now, she will lie lonely in her grave and he will be in mourning (They can only be lovers for the span of her mortal life).

Nature is wild and rugged. But mankind has the technology to tame it. Mary Colborne-Veel’s “We Go No More to the Forest” shows how mankind changes the landscape of nature over time. The woods are cut down and are “built into roof and sill and wall” (Colborne-Veel). The same are done with the “kauris” and “ratas” and “young wild things” (Colborne-Veel). They are turned into ships, fields of agriculture, and eventually a town. The forest land is totally transformed from a wooded area to an area of living space. But mankind can only do so much. There are natural disasters that can easily wipe out entire cities, such as volcanoes along with typhoons and such. Also nature tends to reclaim itself if allowed to over an extensive time period (ancient cities such as Pomei in Rome have been rediscovered. The city was destroyed by a volcanic eruption; the ashes covered the city with several layers of ash and several 100 years later was dug up).

William Carlos Williams

“A Sort of A Song”

Let the snake wait under

his weed

and the writing

be of words, slow and quick, sharp

to strike, quiet to wait,

sleepless.

---through metaphor to reconcile

the people and the stones.

Compose. (No ideas

but in things) Invent!

Saxifrage is my flower that splits

the rocks.

Gary Snyder

“Four Poems for Robin”

Siwashing It Out Once in Suislaw Forest

I slept under     rhododendron

All night    blossoms fell

Shivering on            a sheet of cardboard

Feet stuck   in my pack

Hands deep    in my pockets

Barely  able    to   sleep.

I remembered    when we were in school

Sleeping together   in a big warm bed

We were     the youngest lovers

When we broke up     we were still nineteen

Now our   friends are married

You teach  school back east

I dont mind     living this way

Green hills   the long blue beach

But sometimes           sleeping in the open

I think back    when I had you.

      A Spring Night in Shokoku-ji

Eight years ago this May

We walked under cherry blossoms

At night in an orchard in Oregon.

All that I wanted then

Is forgotten now, but you.

Here in the night

In a garden of the old capital

I feel the trembling ghost of Yugao

I remember your cool body

Naked under a summer cotton dress.

    An Autumn Morning in Shokoku-ji

Last night watching the Pleiades,

Breath smoking in the moonlight,

Bitter memory like vomit

Choked my throat.

I unrolled a sleeping bag

On mats on the porch

Under thick autumn stars.

In dream you appeared

(Three times in nine years)

Wild, cold, and accusing.

I woke shamed and angry:

The pointless wars of the heart.

Almost dawn. Venus and Jupiter.

The first time I have

Ever seen them close.

           December at Yase

You said, that October,

In the tall dry grass by the orchard

When you chose to be free,

"Again someday, maybe ten years."

After college I saw you

One time. You were strange.

And I was obsessed with a plan.

Now ten years and more have

Gone by: I've always known

         where you were--

I might have gone to you

Hoping to win your love back.

You still are single.

I didn't.

I thought I must make it alone. I

Have done that.

Only in dream, like this dawn,

Does the grave, awed intensity

Of our young love

Return to my mind, to my flesh.

We had what the others

All crave and seek for;

We left it behind at nineteen.

I feel ancient, as though I had

Lived many lives.

And may never now know

If I am a fool

Or have done what my

        karma demands.

Marianne Moore

“The Fish”

wade
through black jade.
Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
adjusting the ash-heaps;
opening and shutting itself like
an
injured fan.
The barnacles which encrust the side
of the wave, cannot hide
there for the submerged shafts of the
sun,
split like spun
glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness
into the crevices—
in and out, illuminating
the
turquoise sea
of bodies. The water drives a wedge
of iron through the iron edge
of the cliff; whereupon the stars,
pink
rice-grains, ink-

bespattered jelly-fish, crabs like green
lilies, and submarine
toadstools, slide each on the other.
All
external
marks of abuse are present on this
defiant edifice—
all the physical features of
ac-
cident—lack
of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and
hatchet strokes, these things stand
out on it; the chasm-side is
dead.
Repeated
evidence has proved that it can live
on what can not revive
its youth. The sea grows old in it.

Ted Hughes

“Relic”

I found this jawbone at the sea's edge:
There, crabs, dogfish, broken by the breakers or tossed
To flap for half an hour and turn to a crust
Continue the beginning. The deeps are cold:
In that darkness camaraderie does not hold.

Nothing touches but, clutching, devours. And the jaws,
Before they are satisfied or their stretched purpose
Slacken, go down jaws; go gnawn bare. Jaws
Eat and are finished and the jawbone comes to the beach:
This is the sea's achievement; with shells,
Verterbrae, claws, carapaces, skulls.

Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts these
Indigestibles, the spars of purposes
That failed far from the surface. None grow rich
In the sea. This curved jawbone did not laugh
But gripped, gripped and is now a cenotaph.

Robert Frost

“Mending Wall”

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Emily Bronte

“The Night Wind”

In summer's mellow midnight,
A cloudless moon shone through
Our open parlour window,
And rose-trees wet with dew.

I sat in silent musing;
The soft wind waved my hair;
It told me heaven was glorious,
And sleeping earth was fair.

I needed not its breathing
To bring such thoughts to me;
But still it whispered lowly,
'How dark the woods would be!

'The thick leaves in my murmur
Are rustling like a dream,
And all their myriad voices
Instinct with spirit seem.'

I said, 'Go, gentle singer,
Thy wooing voice is kind:
But do not think its music
Has power to reach my mind.

'Play with the scented flower,
The young tree's supply bough,
And leave my human feelings
In their own course to flow.'

The wanderer would not heed me:
Its kiss grew warmer still:
'Oh Come!' it sighed so sweetly;
'I'll win thee 'gainst thy will.

'Were we not friends from childhood?
Have I not loved thee long?
As long as thou, the solemn night,
Whose silence wakes my song.

'And when thy heart is resting
Beneath the church-aisle stone,
I shall have time for mourning,
And thou for being alone.'

Mary Colborne-Veel

“We Go No More to the Forest”

WE go no more to the forest,
The rimus are all cut down.
They are built into roof and sill and wall,
Into floors that thrill to the last foot-fall
In the dancing of the town.

We go no more to the forest,
The kauris are all cut down.
They are built into ships so stout and strong,
Bearing their cargoes safe along,
Sailing from town to town.

We go no more to the forest,
The ratas are all cut down.
There are cornfields, golden and green and wide,
For the tangled depths where a world might hide,
And our lawns lie smooth in town.

We go no more to the forest:
Young, wild things are all cut down.
We are buying and selling and making love,
As the grown folk do, with a roof above,
And our hearts are at home in town.

Conrad Potter Aiken

“All Lovely Things”

All lovely things will have an ending,
All lovely things will fade and die,
And youth, that's now so bravely spending,
Will beg a penny by and by.

Fine ladies soon are all forgotten,
And goldenrod is dust when dead,
The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten
And cobwebs tent the brightest head.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!--
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, remain!--
But goldenrod and daisies wither,
And over them blows autumn rain,
They pass, they pass, and know not whither.

Dante Alighieri

“Sestina”

I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow,
to the short day and to the whitening hills,
when the colour is all lost from the grass,
though my desire will not lose its green,
so rooted is it in this hardest stone,
that speaks and feels as though it were a woman.

And likewise this heaven-born woman
stays frozen, like the snow in shadow,
and is unmoved, or moved like a stone,
by the sweet season that warms all the hills,
and makes them alter from pure white to green,
so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.

When her head wears a crown of grass
she draws the mind from any other woman,
because she blends her gold hair with the green
so well that Amor lingers in their shadow,
he who fastens me in these low hills,
more certainly than lime fastens stone.

Her beauty has more virtue than rare stone.
The wound she gives cannot be healed with grass,
since I have travelled, through the plains and hills,
to find my release from such a woman,
yet from her light had never a shadow
thrown on me, by hill, wall, or leaves’ green.

I have seen her walk all dressed in green,
so formed she would have sparked love in a stone,
that love I bear for her very shadow,
so that I wished her, in those fields of grass,
as much in love as ever yet was woman,
closed around by all the highest hills.

The rivers will flow upwards to the hills
before this wood, that is so soft and green,
takes fire, as might ever lovely woman,
for me, who would choose to sleep on stone,
all my life, and go eating grass,
only to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.

Whenever the hills cast blackest shadow,
with her sweet green, the lovely woman
hides it, as a man hides stone in grass.

Works Cited

Aiken, Conrad Potter. “All Lovely Things.” December 2, 2007. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/all-lovely-things-2/.

Alighieri, Dante. “Sestina.” December 3, 2007. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sestina-2/.

Colborne-Veel, Mary. “We Go No More to the Forest.” December 3, 2007. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/we-go-no-more-to-the-forest/.

Ferguson, Margaret; Salter, Mary Jo; and Stallworthy, Jon. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. ed 4. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996. (Pages 1121-22; 1168-69; 1221-22; 1698; 1707-08).

Bronte, Emily. “The Night Wind.” December 2, 2007.

New York Beats

My first response to Frank O'hara's "Ave Maria" was that I agreed. I agreed to what he was saying. The mothers are being so protected, over protected, of their children. Let them experience life and let them learn from it. The poet is trying to tell the mothers to let loose. Let their kids go to the movies now while they are young. And while they are out, it serves as relax time for themselves. Other wise when they grow old they will be too dependent on their mothers. And they will spend their adulthood trying to catch up with the things they missed out on.

I enjoyed Gary Snyder's "Four Poems for Robin." I read it for the first time and I had a liking to it and I do not know why. It was just so appealing. Maybe it was the read. It was easy to understand. The diction was clean and simple. There was not much to interpret. Maybe it is the setting: flowers, moonlight, beach. Very romantic. I enjoyed how the speaker would so easily reminisce about his past love. The smallest things would trigger lovely memories of her. It was also sad that he was unable to move on. He was forever waiting for her to come back to him. Always wondering if she would ever love him again.

Metaphors in "Coal" by Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde’s “Coal” is full of metaphors. I believe that metaphors give more strength to the meaning of a message. It is also a means of explanation when there are no other words to explain. Metaphors are also used to describe a condition in an exploded and exaggerated way. Lorde first starts off with describing herself as a natural element that exists within the earth itself-coal. Coal starts off as one element and changes through the course of time depending on where it is located and what treatments it is exposed to. It may start off as a worthless chunk of earth, but when the conditions are right, the coal has the possibility of turning into a valuable diamond. So the speaker is saying that there are some things that are closed but can be opened, just like coal. An other example in the poem is the perfect combination of sounds that make words that can make or break the situation. There are words and thoughts that boggle your mind in a good way. Then there are words that make you cringe and think bad thoughts. Lorde’s metaphors are also alive and fun. This makes the poem interesting and easier to read. “Others know sun seeking like gypsies over my tongue to explode through my lips like young sparrows bursting from shell” is an example of a metaphor that brings the reader in with strength. The use of imagery of coming into the world and dancing in the sun has positive affect on the reader. Use of words is like a diamond, if the cut is correct and held into the light, it will shine with great brilliance. But if cut poorly, there will be a dull shine that is not pleasing. This is easily applied to diction used in poetry.

Poetic Elements in "The Fish" by Marianne Moore

The form of “The Fish” by Marianne Moore is artistically articulated in its appearances. It does not follow a traditional form but uses a certain pattern (due to the line breaks) to create the undulating sensation of a wave. Each stanza is as if it were the start of a new wave, which suits the theme of the poem well because of the contents. The poem starts off with how the sea barnacles on the cliff rocks react to the waves crashing in and out by “opening and shutting itself like and injured fan.” They can not hide from the waves or the sun. They are helpless and remain stationary as the day moves on. The number of syllables in each line fluctuates, contributing to the physical form of the poem. There are eight stanzas, and the rhyme pattern of each stanza is AABBC. The poem is linked together literally because each stanza relies on the previous one in order to continue the thought, just as the title is apart of the first line in itself. Moore uses alliteration of the dominate ‘s’ sound such as “submerged,” “shafts,” “sun,” “split,” “spun,” “spotlight,” and “swiftness” in just four lines. All of these descriptors create very vivid images of the theme of the sea and the waves crashing onto the rocks as the sun shimmers down.

Form, Rhythm, Imagery, and Metaphors in John Keats’ “To Autumn” and Percy Shelley’s “England in 1918”

John Keats’ “To Autumn” is written in a three-stanza structure with a variable rhyme scheme. All of the stanzas are eleven lines long and is metered in an iambic pentameter, meaning that the pattern of the syllables alternate from unstressed to stressed. In terms of rhyme scheme, the stanzas are in two parts. The first four lines of each stanza follows an ABAB pattern (Lines 1 and 3 rhyme while lines 2 and 4 rhyme). This first part is used to define the subject of the stanza. The last seven lines vary in rhyme scheme which are arranged CDECDDE. This second part is used to further develop the subject.

The poem starts off with how the season of autumn ripens the fruit and causes the late flowers to bloom in the first stanza. In the second stanza, the speaker describes autumn as a female goddess, often seen sitting on the granary floor or sleeping in the fields. In the third stanza, autumn is awaiting the season of spring. But it should realize that it has its own beauty too.

In stanza I, Keats describes autumn with a series of vivid images. These descriptions are very active, showing autumn at peak season, where the fruit continues ripening at an alarming rate. At first the sun "load and bless" by ripening the fruit (Page 849, line 3). But then so many apples start to emerge that their weight bends the tree limbs. The flower bloom-age is so overwhelming that even the bees’ hive is “o’er brimm’d” with honey (line 11). In stanza II, the imagery shows less action, autumn is nearing the end. The setting is more laid back. The wheat fields are only half way reaped. The swell of apples has come down to the last batch because the goddess is watching the “last oozings” from the cider press drip out (line 22). In stanza III, autumn is dying. There are no more signs of spring. The death of autumn is like the “soft-dying day” (line 25), the sunset brings a pleasant “rosy hue” to the stubble harvested fields (line 26). Winter is now approaching and the swallows fill the sky as they migrate south. It is apart of the cycle of time and process. In time the flowers will bloom once more and the birds will return.

“To Autumn” is very descriptive in form. The entire poem acts as a metaphor. When autumn's harvest is over, the fields will be empty, the cider-press dry, and the skies empty. The sense of grief is infused in the poem. But the cycling seasons softens the loss of autumn. There is simplicity in Keats's song to the season of autumn, with its fruitfulness, its flowers, and the song of its birds gathering for migration. The calm and gentle descriptions of autumn are not obscured when the exploration of themes are developed. Autumn is a time of warmth and abundance, but it is on the edge of winter's cold and desolate coming. Despite the approaching chill of winter, the late warmth of autumn provides full beauty to celebrate: the cottage and its surroundings in the first stanza, the agricultural references in the second and the animals in the third.

Percy Shelley’s “England in 1819” is a fourteen-line poem metered in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is ABABABCDCDCCDD. The first six lines deal with England's rulers (the king and the princes) and how they are selfish and overly powered. The last eight lines speak of the common people’s struggles. The last couplet implies what hope can come of this horrid state of nation.

In “England in 1819,” Shelley describes the corrupt aristocracy as preying on the common people’s sufferings. The king is despised because of his actions, and his sickly condition produces no pity in the heart of the working class. The king is incapable of seeing, feeling, or knowing, but clings to his "fainting country" (page 800, line 5). Shelley also addresses the plight of the working class and the ways that the ruling class is oppressive. The king is shown as an “old, mad, blind, despised, and dying” ( line 1). His sons are described as low life leeches that do not see, feel, or know what happens to their country. The people are suffering with hunger and oppression. The army is corrupt and is feared. But there is hope yet in the end because Shelley starts to use lighter words like glorious and illumine near the end.

Shelley uses a lot of descriptive words to show how he feels towards England. He uses dirty and grim words to create a certain images to relate with the aristocracy. These words are associated with negative images. He is using them to point out the terrible state in which his nation fallen into. A sealed book describes no religion. The people are too famished to practice faith, maybe they do not believe because of the conditions they have been put in. All of this imagery magnifies Shelley’s focus on addressing the public. He wants them to take action in order to make a change for the greater of the nation.

Shelley also uses a handful of metaphors to express his feelings towards the oppressive burden upon the working class. He describes the princes as leeches that are sucking their nation dry. The rulers are selfish and do nothing to help the depressed state. In fact they make it worse by preying on their own people. The army is described as a two edged blade that has no mercy. The laws are said to be “golden and sanguine” but in reality they gray and grim (line 10).

Both Keats’ and Shelley’s poems are similar in form because the stanzas are broken down into parts. The first part of the stanza introduces a subject and the second part goes into more detail. Both poets also use very descriptive imagery that enables the reader to feel and vividly see the themes of each poem even though the approaches are different. Keats poem is more descriptive and straight forward in observation while Shelley’s descriptions, shown metaphorically, are politically influenced. Keats sees physical change in the seasons, while Shelley wants to see and is advocating structural changes in the social system.

Ferguson, Margaret; Salter, Mary Jo; and Stallworthy, Jon. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. ed 4. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996.

Line Breaks

In William Carlos William’s “A Sort of a Song,” the line breaks are used as the actual metaphor. In line 11, saxifrage is Latin for “breaking rocks.” The saxifrage flower plants its roots into the rocks and the rocks are split due to the shear power of the downward force of the roots’ destination to the ground. Strategically, the line is broken after “splits” just as the flower splits the rock. The line breakage also contributes to the choice of words. They move, wait and even attack, just as the snake’s actions are in nature. The lines are incomplete, continuing over to the next line. This seems to make the poem a fast read.

Williams’ “This is Just to Say” also has a fast pace due to the line breaks. Each stanza seems to be its own sentence. But the incompleteness of each line ties it in to the following line, creating pauses that help accentuate the main message (I ate your plum, sorry). This poem is more on a personal level with a close friend. He acknowledges that the plum was not his but ate it anyway because he knew he would not be punished for his actions. He was just being courteous by leaving a note just because. The irony in his asking for forgiveness is bittersweet for his friend. The friend at least knows that he was sorry for eating what was not his but also has to throw in how delicious, sweet, and cold the plums were.

The more things change, or stay the same

In “The Mill,” Edwin Arlington Robinson shows his response to the industrialism era. He speaks of a shortage of millers. Most likely they have all moved into the city for factory jobs. Robinson’s “Miniver Cheevy” is also influenced by the industrial age. The main character’s name seems to play off of the technology of the car in today’s age - ‘mini Chevy’. Miniver talks about how he was born to late. He wanted to be born in the age before technology (in the medieval period), when every one wore mail chain armor instead of khaki attire. Robinson can relate to the Romantics because this era was also based on emotions. Robinson expresses his feelings towards the current state in the rise of technology.

These week’s poets are still using romantic traditions because to the reference to nature. A.E. Housman’s “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now” speaks of how he treks through the woods to see the bloom-age of the cherry tree. He is also relating to the passage of time by using the season’s to tell his age. In Thomas Hardy’s “Afterwards,” there is much reference to nature. A man fond of his natural surroundings has recently passed away. His neighbors state how he “notice[s] such things” as how the May month flaps its wings and the landing of a hawk. These observations were “a familiar sight” to him. In “The Darkling Thrush,” by Thomas Hardy, the mood of the poem is changed completely from bleak to blissful just from the mentioning of a bird and the song it sings.

Emily Dickinson Poems

Emily Dickinson’s poems are surely influenced by Romanticism. It is apparent because she relates some of her poems strongly with nature, which is an important feature of the romantic period. In “Because I could not stop for Death” the speaker is describing that they can feel their last moments on earth are coming to an end; but they are taking their time to enjoy the sweet scenery of the fields of grain and the setting sun. “A Bird came down the Walk” is all about nature; it describes carefully every movement the bird makes during a simple action of finding food.

The poems are very imaginative in just the way they are explained. No detail is left untouched. The descriptions are also cleverly stated. The stanzas are used to repeat the same message in a different way. This can be seen in “A Clock stopped.” In stanza one, the clock stops working. In stanza two, the hands are hunched in pain, meaning that they are not moving. And in stanza three, the clock will not move even for the most important people.

Dickinson’s poems are also very emotional. The topic of death is brought up repeatedly, such as in “After great pain, a formal feeling comes,” “I heard a fly buzz- when I died,” and “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain.” I am not sure if these emotions of death and dying are influenced from the romanticism period. Romanticism focuses more on emotions of the past (usually childhood days relating to nature) instead of the future (death) or present state of illness. I think this is where the poems break from the tradition of romanticism.

Shelley's "England in 1819"

The speaker is bitter towards England’s social structure at the time. The speaker’s sex is most likely to be male because of the feelings being expressed through this poem and the time period in which it is written. The speaker’s acknowledgement of the surrounding environment tells the audience, which is general, that the speaker is middle aged. In the poem “England in 1819,” Shelley describes the horrible conditions of the state of England. The king is “old, mad, blind, despised, and dying.” His sons are described as low life leeches that do not see, feel, or know what happens to their country. The people are suffering with hunger and oppression. The army is corrupt and is feared. “A sealed book” describes no religion. But there is hope yet in the end because Shelley starts to use lighter words like glorious and illumine.

The diction is mixed. Shelley uses a lot of descriptive words to show how he feels towards England. He is pointing out the terrible state in which his nation has become. Shelley also uses metaphors such as how the princes are leeches that are sucking their nation dry. The rulers are selfish and do nothing to help the depressed state. The army is described as a two edged blade that has no mercy. Also, religion is not practiced because the books have not been opened. The speaker is passionate about the issue. This is an important topic that he wishes to address to the public in order to make a change.

I had to read the poem a few times. After the first time I needed to look up a few words to further understand the entire concept. I picked up a few things the first time, but the metaphors required some more time to register. I still do not understand the ending, but the language used in the last two lines makes me think that there is hope yet to come.

Romantism and nature

Romanticist writers such as Coleridge, Blake, and Wordsworth focus on imagination, freedom from rules, the past, the love of nature, and emotions. These characteristics are evident in all of their works; nature being one of the more prominent points.

These writers always write about the past. In “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth starts off with where he was five years ago, in the very same spot he stood. In the past, or during his childhood days, nature was dear and close to his heart. He reminiscences about how he felt towards mother nature back then. But he has seen it all before so the “aching joys are new no more.” He still enjoys nature but with a different perspective than before. He feels this way because he used to come visit this wonderful place with his sister. All of his happy memories were made with her but now that she is gone, he registers these experiences in another manner.

In Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode,” nature is linked with the imagination. As he watches the clouds roll by, he sees a sky-canoe. The animation of the stars twinkling behind the moving clouds is magnified against the moonlit sky. As excitingly as he describes these scenes, he says that he no longer feels the beauty that lies with in them. His “shaping spirit of imagination” was given to him at birth.

Blake’s series of “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience” tie in with freedom from rules. He mentions how children are so naïve in “Songs of Innocence.” Their actions are compared to the beauty in nature, such as ideal weathered days and fields full of bloom-age. What they do now is not restricted from the harsh reality that they will face in the future; and that is the beauty of childhood. This restriction of freedom is now depicted in “Songs of Experience.” No longer children, man kind is restricted from the joys of childhood. The cruelty of life is now surfaced and there is no turning back.

Introduction

Hello to all. My name is Jeanie. I was born in Houston, Tx and when I turned 14 we moved to Sugar Land, not to far away from home. But far enough to leave my closest friends behind. Maybe if I was old enough to drive I would have been able to keep in touch with them more often. But now since college has started I an always busy with school, even in the summer time.

I am an architecture student starting my fourth grueling year. The Architecture program is a five year plan. It has already been a hectic week! We are in the middle of a one week project, usually they give us a few weeks to a month or so, so everything is very fast paste righ now. Every one is freaking out. When everything is finalized on Monday, the results will show us the winners of the cash prize of up to $500. I would be so shocked if I was one of the winners. Every year for this 'sketch project' the majority of the students make C's, D's, and F's. Only a few students make A's and B's.

I have trouble sometimes with grammar. And if I am not assigned a topic to write about, I have even more trouble getting started. I would rather have an assigned topic rather than an open topic because I will at least have a starting point. That also ties in with research. There is such a broad genre of things you can research and write about that I almost always never know where to start. I feel as if my vocabulary is not wide enough to write a suffiecient paper. I still do not understand how to correctly write a bibliography. I have to sit down and think for hours and hours before I can start writing; it is not something that comes naturally to me. Sometimes I will only get a few sentences written in a few hours!

I would like to be able to better express my thoughts onto paper. If by understanding the different ways poets can express themselves, then maybe I can reapply their technique to better fit the way I think. I usually have a hard time discribing my thoughts, but if I am able to walk away of this course with the ability to clearly show my thinking on paper (if it is through literature or graphically) then I will be more confident in my furture work I do.