ENGL Final

Gerard Manley Hopkins "God's Grandeur"

Auhtor: Gerard Manley Hopkins Date: 1877, 1918 The most joyous synchronic reading of the Bible and the Book of Nature was the hymn of creation, a traditional genre inspired by Psalm 148 to which such poems of Gerard's as "God's Grandeur" Hopkins agreed with his father and uncle that man seemed "backward" in comparison with nature, especially in "God's Grandeur," "Spring," the image of God brooding protectively over nature ("God's Grandeur") with a new image of God giving all of nature over to "rack or wrong." The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. He's most famous for what he called "sprung rhythm," or a rhythm that springs (or flows) naturally from the poet, like plants spring from the soil.

"In Memoriam"

Author: Alfred Tennyson Date: 1850 though the earliest section dates from 6 October 1833. Alfred Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam in 1829, when they were both students at Trinity College, Cambridge. Their relationship was cemented further when Hallam fell in love with one of the poet's sisters, Emilia (known in the family as Emily), and they were engaged in 1832. Notebook of Arthur Henry Halla The speaker asks that God help foolish people to see His light. He repeatedly asks for God to forgive his grief for "thy [God's] creature, whom I found so fair." The speaker has faith that this departed fair friend lives on in God, and asks God to make his friend wise. "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made. Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just. Questions the growing theory of evolution: Indeed, although Charles Darwin had not yet published Origin of Species when the poem was published, a theory of evolution appears to be present in the passage in which man arises from nature's "seeming random forms." http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/im/dahlbom.html It is loosely organized around three Christmas sections (28, 78, and 104), each of which marks another year that the poet must endure after the loss of Hallam "In Memoriam" ends with a an epithalamion, or wedding poem, celebrating the marriage of Tennyson's sister Cecilia to Edmund Lushington in 1842. The poet suggests that their marriage will lead to the birth of a child who will serve as a closer link between Tennyson's generation and the "crowning race." This birth also represents new life after the death of Hallam, and hints at a greater, cosmic purpose, which Tennyson vaguely describes as "One far-off divine event / To which the whole creation moves." Tennyson insisted that we hold fast to our faith in a higher power in spite of our inability to prove God's existence: "Believing where we cannot prove."

Dracula

Author: Bram Stoker Date: 1897 When Lucy falls victim to Dracula's spell, neither Mina nor Dr. Seward—both devotees of modern advancements—are equipped even to guess at the cause of Lucy's predicament. Only Van Helsing, whose facility with modern medical techniques is tempered with open-mindedness about ancient legends and non-Western folk remedies, comes close to understanding Lucy's affliction. Evolution really progressing society or de-evolving it? In Chapter XVII, when Van Helsing warns Seward that "to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must have all the knowledge and all the help which we can get," he literally means all the knowledge. Van Helsing works not only to understand modern Western methods, but to incorporate the ancient and foreign schools of thought that the modern West dismisses. "It is the fault of our science," he says, "that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain." Here, Van Helsing points to the dire consequences of subscribing only to contemporary currents of thought. Without an understanding of history—indeed, without different understandings of history—the world is left terribly vulnerable when history inevitably repeats itself. The folk legends and traditions Van Helsing draws upon suggest that the most effective weapons in combating supernatural evil are symbols of unearthly good. Indeed, in the fight against Dracula, these symbols of good take the form of the icons of Christian faith, such as the crucifix. The novel is so invested in the strength and power of these Christian symbols that it reads, at times, like a propagandistic Christian promise of salvation. "weird sisters." Stake Driven Though Lucy's Heart: Arthur Holmwood buries a stake deep in Lucy's heart in order to kill the demon she has become and to return her to the state of purity and innocence he so values. The language with which Stoker describes this violent act is unmistakably sexual, and the stake is an unambiguous symbol for the penis. In this way, it is fitting that the blow comes from Lucy's fiancé, Arthur Holmwood: Lucy is being punished not only for being a vampire, but also for being available to the vampire's seduction—Dracula, we recall, only has the power to attack willing victims. When Holmwood slays the demonic Lucy, he returns her to the role of a legitimate, monogamous lover, which reinvests his fiancée with her initial Victorian virtue. "It is nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere "modernity" cannot kill. (3.24)" While trapped in Dracula's castle, Harker comforts himself with his super-modern shorthand diary. But he also realizes that history has a certain power that all his modern technologies can't cope with.

A Christmas Carol

Author: Charles Dickens Date: December 19, 1843 "You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?" "I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."

Song

Author: Christina Rossetti Date: 1848 "She" implies that the subject is female, the past tense of "sat" and "sang" suggest that the subject either existed or acted in the past, and the title as a whole denotes a pleasant memory. The girl is dead. Just like her songs, she ceased. She sat and sang alway By the green margin of a stream, Watching the fishes leap and play Beneath the glad sunbeam. I sat and wept alway Beneath the moon's most shadowy beam, Watching the blossoms of the May Weep leaves into the stream. I wept for memory; She sang for hope that is so fair: My tears were swallowed by the sea; Her songs died in the air.

The Cry of the Children

Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Date: August 1843 It examines children's manual labor forced upon them by their exploiters. Terrible conditions and expolitation faced by working children in mines and factories "For all day, the wheels are droning, turning, — Their wind comes in our faces, — Till our hearts turn, — our heads, with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling — Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall, — Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling — All are turning, all the day, and we with all ! — And all day, the iron wheels are droning ; And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning) 'Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' "

'The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point'

Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Date: 1846 Elizabeth Barret Browning's poem "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" is narrated by a female slave who has fled from the abuse and cruelty she has experienced. The speaker describes being separated from a fellow slave with whom she was in love. After this traumatic incident, she becomes pregnant and has a child as a result of sexual abuse at the hands of her white master. Fearing discovery, the speaker flees with her son. She notes that he is "too white for me" and is troubled by his resemblance to her tormentor; tragically, the speaker chooses to smother the child to death. Throughout this ordeal, she considers the relationship between God and slaves; while the speaker appears to believe that everyone is a child of God, she has difficulty reconciling this with the realities of slavery. It is also important to note the importance of Pilgrim's Point within the work as a symbol of the hypocrisy of the founders who came seeking freedom from oppression but allowed for the establishment of slavery in the United States. "But if he did so, smiling back He must have cast His work away Under the feet of His white creatures With a look of scorn, that the dusky features Might be trodden again to clay." "Ah, God, we have no stars About our souls in care and cark Our blackness shuts like prison-bars The poor souls crouch so far behind That never a comfort can they find By reaching through the prison-bars." The prison cell imagery is appropriate when discussing slavery, as slaves were virtually prisoners and unable to do what they wished. "sang his name instead of a song, over and over I sang his name" (lines 78 & 79)

Wuthering Heights

Author: Emily Brontë Date: December 1847 Read my essay/notes. And this for quotes https://www.shmoop.com/wuthering-heights/quotes.html

Porphyria's Lover

Author: Robert Browning Date: January 1836 The unnamed speaker of the poem sits by himself in his house on a stormy night. Porphyria, his lover, arrives out of the rain, starts a fire in the fireplace, and takes off her dripping coat and gloves. She sits down to snuggle with the speaker in front of the fire and pulls his head down to rest against her shoulder. The speaker realizes for the first time how much Porphyria loves him. So...he strangles her with her hair. Then he opens her eyes, unwraps the hair from her neck, and spends the rest of the night cuddling with her corpse. "The rain set early in tonight, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, and did its worst to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. "

The Woman in White

Author: Wilkie Collins Date: August 25, 1860 Read my essay/notes. And this for quotes: https://www.shmoop.com/woman-in-white/quotes.html

An Apple Gathering

CR 1857 The idea of losing chastity comes to the mind of the reader $ust at the beginning stanza of the poem. % plucked pink blossoms from mine apple"tree And !ore them all that evening in my hair& Then in due season !hen % !ent to see % found no apples there. The poem 'An Apple Gathering' by Christina Rossetti talks about a betrayed love or an unfulfillment of love. The condition of a betrayed girl and the harsh treatment on her by the society is vividly pictured in this poem. The poet symbolizes the action of losing chastity or virginity by the action of plucking 'pink blossoms' of an apple tree. After losing her chastity and being betrayed the speaker faces a dangling condition !hich is symbolized by her 'dangling basket'. This condition is also contrasted sho!ing the 'heaped"up basket' of the other girls. #hen she sees other girls not betrayed in love happily singing smiling she laments over her ill fate. The use of symbolism to sho! all these is really very authentic throughout the !hole poem

A birthday

CR 1857 This relationship has the speaker happier than kid in a candy store and more satisfied than a Tasmanian devil at an all-you-can-eat buffet. (Okay, so maybe we made that last one up.) The point here is that her life is peaceful and full: "My heart is like an apple-tree/ Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit" (4-5). So, what's the cause of all these good feels? Well, we learn through the poem's refrain—"my love is come to me" (8, 16)—that the speaker's experiencing a sense of closeness to a particular person. Given all the religious symbolism and imagery going on here (check out "Symbols" for the details), we'd say that it's a safe bet to assume that she's talking about her relationship with God. After all, in a religious sense, God is responsible for everyone's birthdays (see "What's Up With the Title?"). At the same, the speaker never actually mentions God in this poem. That's caused some critics to speculate that Rossetti was actually talking about a mortal man, some love interest or another that she had in her own personal life. That's definitely possible, and we're open to listening if you want to make that argument (we like to think we keep an open mind). Still, the Christian symbolism seems pretty convincing if you ask us. That, coupled with Rossetti's well-documented Christian faith, which she practiced in her own lifetime, tell us that our speaker has found God—as is darn happy to have done so.

Winter: My Secret'

CR 1857 Winter: My Secret I tell my secret? No indeed, not I: Perhaps some day, who knows? But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows, And you're too curious: fie! You want to hear it? well: Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell. Or, after all, perhaps there's none: Suppose there is no secret after all, But only just my fun. Today's a nipping day, a biting day; In which one wants a shawl, A veil, a cloak, and other wraps: I cannot ope to everyone who taps, And let the draughts come whistling thro' my hall; Come bounding and surrounding me, Come buffeting, astounding me, Nipping and clipping thro' my wraps and all. I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows His nose to Russian snows To be pecked at by every wind that blows? You would not peck? I thank you for good will, Believe, but leave the truth untested still. Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust March with its peck of dust, Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers, Nor even May, whose flowers One frost may wither thro' the sunless hours. Perhaps some languid summer day, When drowsy birds sing less and less, And golden fruit is ripening to excess, If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud, And the warm wind is neither still nor loud, Perhaps my secret I may say, Or you may guess. Oh okay. So Rossetti's speaker isn't going to divulge her secret after all. A brief summary of 'Winter: My Secret' might run as follows: the poem's speaker, seemingly in response to a request to divulge her secret, says that she won't tell it, but perhaps one day she will. It's too cold for such things (it is winter, after all, as the title tells us), but she continues to refuse. There may not even be a secret for her to tell. Is she playing with us? She wants to keep us guessing. She reiterates that it's too cold, the weather 'nipping' and 'biting', and the speaker would rather keep her veil on and her face covered, rather than remove it and tell her secret.

Up-Hill

CR 1858 Over the course of a journey, the narrator asks her guide eight questions about the road ahead. The narrator asks if the roads are all up-hill and if the journey will take all day. The guide replies in the affirmative. Next, the narrator asks if there is a place to rest for the night and if the darkness will obscure said resting-place from their view. The guide assures the narrator that there is an inn and they will not be able to miss it. The narrator's fifth question is about which other travelers will be on the road. At the inn, the narrator asks if the other travelers would prefer for her to knock or call out. The guide tells the narrator that someone will open the door. Lastly, the narrator asks if there will be a bed for her. The guide tells her that there are beds for everyone. The question and answer form is common in devotional writing, because it encourages the reader to contemplate his or her own response to the question. The guide addresses the narrator as "my friend," which is also what Christ called his disciples. The poem is comprised of four stanzas with four lines each, following the ABAB rhyme scheme. In this way, the rhyme scheme separates the traveler from the guide, and the simplicity alleviates the pressure of the difficult topic. The meter starts with a trochee and shifts into alternating iambic pentameter and trimeter. The pace is consistent, just like the narrator's steady up-hill climb. Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend. But is there for the night a resting-place? A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from my face? You cannot miss that inn. Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before. Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? They will not keep you standing at that door. Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? Of labour you shall find the sum. Will there be beds for me and all who seek? Yea, beds for all who come.

Cobwebs

Christina Rosetti Date: 1855 This poem by Rossetti is all about the lonely emotions that she has felt during her life when she believes to have no one to love. Rossetti is deeply moved by the isolation that she faces and has illustrated her feelings regarding this in the given poem. She describes herself to be in a place that is an amalgam of nothingness and hence speaks of being in a place that is neither this nor that. She sees no future in this land and calls it a land of forevermore. The poem is set in a land that Rossetti seems to be stuck in. She cannot help but express her feelings regarding her state of loneliness through this poem. She speaks of a place that is in between happiness and sadness where she cannot experience any profound feeling or emotion. She feels like this emotion shall last forever and feels trapped in this realm for what seems like forever. It is a land with neither night nor day, Nor heat nor cold, nor any wind, nor rain, Nor hills nor valleys; but one even plain Stretches thro' long unbroken miles away: While thro' the sluggish air a twilight grey Broodeth; no moons or seasons wax and wane, No ebb and flow are there among the main, No bud-time no leaf-falling there for aye, No ripple on the sea, no shifting sand, No beat of wings to stir the stagnant space, And loveless sea: no trace of days before, No guarded home, no time-worn restingplace No future hope no fear forevermore.

A Triad"

Christina Rosetti date: 1856 Among the most illuminating of Rossetti's poems that explore possibilities of attaining a love-ideal in this world is"A Triad," The power of "A Triad" (1856) is indicated by the opposite responses the poem elicited from Rossetti's contemporaries. At one extreme, Edmund Gosse — who is certainly her most astute early critic — described the sonnet as "marvellous," and in his general review of her work (1893) queried incredulously, "Why has Miss Rossetti allowed this piece, one of the gems of the volume of 1862, to drop out of her collected poems?" ("Christina Rossetti," 216). At the other extreme, an anonymous reviewer in the Spectator sneered, "For voluptuous passion ... ['A Triad'] could have been written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti" (Quoted in Packer, 106). Whereas Gosse values the poem primarily for its aesthetic achievement, the Spectator's reviewer is clearly disturbed by its moral and social implications. Indeed, Jerome McGann praises the poem as an exposé of the sexual and social constraints on Victorian women, which undermined their integrity and prevented true fulfillment in love relationships (NER, 245). Although the sonnet certainly can be viewed as a critique of the facts of love for women in Victorian England, it does not initially invite a reading in its true historical contexts, but rather elides them. The poem portrays three types of female passion — all ultimately inaccessible to true fulfillment, two pursuing delusive pathways to it: ambiguous in defining the nature (erotic or spiritual) of the described love. The power of "A Triad" (1856) is indicated by the opposite responses the poem elicited from Rossetti's contemporaries. At one extreme, Edmund Gosse — who is certainly her most astute early critic — described the sonnet as "marvellous," and in his general review of her work (1893) queried incredulously, "Why has Miss Rossetti allowed this piece, one of the gems of the volume of 1862, to drop out of her collected poems?" ("Christina Rossetti," 216). At the other extreme, an anonymous reviewer in the Spectator sneered, "For voluptuous passion ... ['A Triad'] could have been written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti" (Quoted in Packer, 106). Whereas Gosse values the poem primarily for its aesthetic achievement, the Spectator's reviewer is clearly disturbed by its moral and social implications. Indeed, Jerome McGann praises the poem as an exposé of the sexual and social constraints on Victorian women, which undermined their integrity and prevented true fulfillment in love relationships (NER, 245). Although the sonnet certainly can be viewed as a critique of the facts of love for women in Victorian England, it does not initially invite a reading in its true historical contexts, but rather elides them. The poem portrays three types of female passion — all ultimately inaccessible to true fulfillment, two pursuing delusive pathways to it: Three sang of love together: one with lips Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow, Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips; And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow [105/106] Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show; And one was blue with famine after love, Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low The burden of what those were singing of. One shamed herself in love; one temperately Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife; One famished died for love. Thus two of three Took death for love and won him after strife; One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee: All on the threshold, yet all short of life. [Poems, 1:29] Here the parodic use of the Petrarchan sonnet form, synonymous in English poetry with the statement of love ideals, serves to expose and undercut such ideals. One woman is a voluptuary who ambiguously "shamed" herself in love, thus proscribing the possibility of genuine fulfillment. The second, vain and calculating "like a hyacinth at a show," misguided in her goals and values, destroys all potential for genuine love by participating in a "soulless" marriage as a "sluggish wife." The third apparently attempts no gratification of her passionate impulses and "famished died for love." Yet all three are paradoxically "on the threshold" simply by virtue of their all-consuming compulsion to love. Significantly, all "sang of love together." Making up a pathetic but harmonious chorus, the three types of women combine to suggest the various impulses at work in every woman's quest for fulfillment in love. The poems final phrase, however, suggests that fulfillment would be impossible even to such impulses in combination: not each, but all "are short of life." One could infer from this poem that an ideal of fulfillment is attainable but would require a love match in which the woman is able to satisfy her passions without debasing herself as a voluptuary or a dependent. Yet the presence in the sonnet of the woman "blue with famine after love" is monitory. The ambiguous description can be seen not only to characterize a woman in vain pursuit of love, but also to insist that even "after love" — apparently a satisfactory experience — the lover remains unfulfilled (as does Laura in Goblin Market after eating the Goblin men's fruits). In short, not just these lovers, but all possible variations upon them, are doomed to be "short of life. "Ironically, such lovers turn to "song" — an expression of their frustration and victimization by false ideals — as a surrogate source of fulfillment and harmony in their lives. Three sang of love together: one with lips Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow, Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips; And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow [105/106] Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show; And one was blue with famine after love, Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low The burden of what those were singing of. One shamed herself in love; one temperately Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife; One famished died for love. Thus two of three Took death for love and won him after strife; One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee: All on the threshold, yet all short of life.

"Dead before Death"

Christina Rosetti Date: 1854 Ah! changed and cold, how changed and very cold! With stiffened smiling lips and cold calm eyes: Changed, yet the same; much knowing, little wise; This was the promise of the days of old! Grown hard and stubborn in the ancient mould, Grown rigid in the sham of lifelong lies: We hoped for better things as years would rise, But it is over as a tale once told. All fallen the blossom that no fruitage bore, All lost the present and the future time, All lost, all lost, the lapse that went before: So lost till death shut-to the opened door, So lost from chime to everlasting chime, So cold and lost forever evermore. The realisation that she, Rossetti, would not have a child is transformed into a series of poems dealing with plants and their fruitlessness. The imagery of fading blossom and leaves hints at Rossetti's "fading beauty" [Flowers, 169] as well as on her childlessness. Like a plant who had a beautiful blossom, but did not bear any fruit, Rossetti was very beautiful as a young woman, but now finds herself to be past the age of childbearing without having produced an offspring. In a poem like "Dead before Death" the lines "All fallen the blossom that no fruitage bore,/ All lost the present and the future time" express the feeling of the senselessness of one's being if it did not bare any fruit (did not have children). This senselessness does not only enclose the present, but also the future. This expresses the doubt that a life that doesnot produce some kind of fruit has any meaning. The lyrical self is "dead before death" and can only be revived in the next life after death. In "Song (Oh roses for the flush of youth)" the lyrical self also declares herself to have "grown old before my time".

After Death

Christina Rossetti Date:1849 In "After Death" (1862) Christina Rossetti addresses common themes in Victorian poetry at the time — death, tragic love, and the possibility of an afterlife. As a female author, however, Rossetti offers a different perspective on these subjects from the standard tone and attitude of other male poets, including that of her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Rather than depicting a male narrator lusting after a lifeless, thoughtless female, Rossetti elects to write from the woman's perspective. Laying on her death bed, the female subject remains a motionless object of male desire, as in Tennyson's "Lady of Shallott" Despite being deceased, the woman sees, hears, and feels her male admirer's grief. As Rossetti writes, the narrator "heard him say, 'Poor child, poor child," "knew that he wept," and perceived his strong love for her, which did not truly surface until after her death: He did not love me living; but once dead He pitied me; and very sweet it is To know he still is warm though I am cold. These last few lines assert the female subject in a position of power. Other Victorian authors often afforded their feminine objects of desire a sense of authority, derived from a man's devotion toward them. In selecting a female narrator and giving her a voice, thoughts, and feelings, however, Rossetti heightened the woman's prominence in her own right. In doing so, Rossetti essentially made a feminist statement, whether intentionally or not. The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay, Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept. He leaned above me, thinking that I slept And could not hear him; but I heard him say, 'Poor child, poor child': and as he turned away Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept. He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold That hid my face, or take my hand in his, Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head: He did not love me living; but once dead He pitied me; and very sweet it is To know he still is warm though I am cold.

in an artist's studio

Christina Rossetti 1856 In an Artist's Studio My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water'd shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. Raise me a dais of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me. One face looks out from all his canvases, One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans: We found her hidden just behind those screens, That mirror gave back all her loveliness. A queen in opal or in ruby dress, A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, A saint, an angel — every canvas means The same one meaning, neither more or less. He feeds upon her face by day and night, And she with true kind eyes looks back on him, Fair as the moon and joyful as the light: Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright; Not as she is, but as she fills his dream. In summary, 'In an Artist's Studio' is about the male artist's tendency to objectify his female sitters or 'models' for his paintings and sculptures; indeed, in one interpretation, the woman is merely a passive object on which the artist projects his fantasies and Christina Rossetti 2'dreams'. No particular artist is intended; Rossetti is speaking in general terms about the male artist and the female model. However, it is worth noting that Christina Rossetti's brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was a painter.

Song 'When I am dead, my dearest'

Christina Rossetti Date: 1848 when Christina Rossetti was still a teenager (wasn't published until 1862). The speaker asks her beloved that when she dies, he doesn't sing any sad songs for her, or put flowers or plant a tree on her grave. The grass on her grave, showered by rain and morning dew, will be enough - and if he does remember her, that's fine, but if he forgets her, so be it. ndeed, the poem's very message - asking that her beloved not seek to remember her in all of the usual conventional ways a lover was expected to: placing flowers on the grave, singing sad songs. Even the tears of mourning are absent from Rossetti's poem: instead, nature will provide the 'tears' on her grave, in the form of the 'showers and dewdrops wet', but these are forces of nature and so don't weep in mourning for her - they would be there anyway. In the second stanza, the speaker explains why she isn't fussed about what her beloved does to remember her after she has died: she will not be there to see the shadows or feel the rain, or hear the nightingale singing; after death, she will be 'dreaming', and sleeping, through a perpetual 'twilight', and she may remember him, but she may not. When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet; And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget. I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain; I shall not hear the nightingale Sing on, as if in pain: And dreaming through the twilight That doth not rise nor set, Haply I may remember, And haply may forget.

Sonnet 43 1845-47

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Sonnets from the Portuguese Sonnet 21 1845-47

Say over again, and yet once over again, That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it, Remember, never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed. Belovèd, I, amid the darkness greeted By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain Cry, "Speak once more—thou lovest!" Who can fear Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll, Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year? Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear, To love me also in silence with thy soul.

Sonnets from the Portuguese Sonnet 32 1845-47

THE FIRST time that the sun rose on thine oath To love me, I looked forward to the moon To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon And quickly tied to make a lasting troth. Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe; 5 And, looking on myself, I seemed not one For such man's love;—more like an out-of-tune Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste, Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note. 10 I did not wrong myself so, but I placed A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float 'Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,— And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.

Far From the Maddening Crowd

Thomas Hardy Date: 1874 Hardy evokes the rural culture that, by Hardy's lifetime, had become threatened with extinction at the hands of ruthless industrialization. His novel thematizes the importance of man's connection to, and understanding of, the natural world. Gabriel Oak embodies Hardy's ideal of a life in harmony with the forces of the natural world. Gabriel, are always responsible and cautious, others, like Sergeant Troy, are careless and destructive. Hardy was very much influenced by the ideas of Charles Darwin, who maintained that the development of a biological species--and, by extension, of human society and history--is shaped by chance and not by the design of a god. omniscient perspective (the reader has), like God observing His creation from above. Bathshaba is society, constantly vain, wanting to had new things, and overlooking the obvious good right before us. Where Gaberiel can read nature well and is an excellent Gabriel Oak is a farmer, shepherd, and bailiff, marked by his humble and honest ways, his exceptional skill with animals and farming, and an unparalleled loyalty. Troy is handsome, vain, young, and irresponsible, he throws a party insisting everyone get as drunk as he.

Sonnets from the Portuguese Sonnet 22 1845-47

When our two souls stand up erect and strong, Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening wings break into fire At either curvèd point,—what bitter wrong Can the earth do to us, that we should not long Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher, The angels would press on us and aspire To drop some golden orb of perfect song Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay Rather on earth, Belovèd,—where the unfit Contrarious moods of men recoil away And isolate pure spirits, and permit A place to stand and love in for a day, With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.