Hardy Novel

As this class has continued on and we have progressed our way through the assigned readings, I finally found a book I think I enjoyed. The Return of The Native by Thomas Hardy was actually an okay book. I really do enjoy reading but I strongly prefer to read books of my choosing and read on my time. This book was filled with many twists and turns. The characters had quite the personalities. One character in particular, Eustacia was one of my interest. She seemed so shallow and selfish. She wanted so bad to leave the heath. She wanted to leave and be away from the natives of Egdon Heath. At times though, this book was hard to follow and understand but looking at a couple criticisms seemed to help and give me some new insights into Hardy and the novel.

The first criticism was by Donald Davidson. Davidson discussed an interesting point of view on the novel. I first learned from him though that Hardy wrote ballads and it could be possible that his ballads were turned into long works of fiction. Davidson also discussed the point that Hardy wrote for particular reasons; “He sought to please and entertain, and perhaps instruct…” (427). The part about Hardy wanting to instruct makes sense since I feel that the point behind some of the scenes in Return of the Native hold morals or truths that he is trying to tell us through the characters and their narrative. Davidson’s main point in his criticism really is that Hardy wrote outside of his time. He wrote in another century, not from his own. He was more “advanced” than his fellow writers.

The second criticism was by Gillian Beer. Beer made a good point that I guess I really didn’t think much about until reading his criticism. He made the point that Clym was the native that returned and he was significantly advanced compared to his peers and neighbors that stayed their lives in the Heath. He ‘regressed back to savageness’ as Beer puts it. He brought back advanced ways of thinking, i.e the education and the ways of teaching he wanted to do; the school he wanted to open. Hardy may have done this on purpose to show us like Clym coming back to a lower place, Hardy was writing outside his time period but by bringing Clym back, it brought Hardy back to his real time period.

These criticisms helped me to take a closer look at the characters and the Hardy himself.

*the criticism essays were found in the back of the Return of the Native book that I own.

Widowed Dad's

One of the most devastating things that could happen to a family, especially a new family would be for a parent to pass away. This unfortunate thing does happen in the book Aurora Floyd by Mary Braddon. Mr. Floyd is left to be a new father and take care of his new daughter Aurora after her mother passes while giving birth. Friends and family swoon to help the new father but they can only help so much and he must learn how to be a parent.

            In recent British News, the Guardian reported a story about a father who had to learn to take care of his children and family after his wife passes from cancer. Although he has a special kind of help from his wife before she passes. His wife left behind a list of instructions to help while raising their kids.

            Ian Millthrope ‘s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have a double mastectomy, she however went into remission and was a survivor. She and Ian had 3 more children during her time of remission bringing their total children number to eight. Eight children made their family whole. After just going through his wife having breast cancer and miraculously being a survivor and then having 3 more children, Ian suffered a brain hemorrhage. Ian underwent immediate surgery which saved his life. Also because Ian had suffered much lung damage from working in the mines, he could no longer return to work; he took early retirement.

            Their life seemed to return to a happy – normal with a few new adjustments since Ian was no longer working but in later 2007, Ian’s wife discovered that her cancer had returned, manifesting itself in her lungs and unfortunately for her and her family, it was terminal. While she was dying, she wrote Ian a list to follow to raise their children. Ian was about to learn how to be the sole parent in the household. He would take over all duties and responsibilities. Like Mr. Floyd, they were widowed fathers. Ian received help from neighbors and his older children, just like Mr. Floyd received help from family. Although Ian had a little special help from his wife, I feel that if Mr. Floyd and he talked, they would maybe have some things in common with being widowed dads.

           

This is the link to view the article, its great read and also shows a bit of the list his wife wrote before dying.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/mar/23/ian-millthorpe-how-will-i-cope

Beatrix Potter

Well all had our favorite stories we liked to read or have read to us when we were little. Now that we are grown up, when we hear the stories they bring back memories of our childhood. We may even share them with our kids when have them. Beatrix Potter was and is a famed children’s author. She wrote many small children’s books. The most famous book that most people will know or will have heard of is: The Tale of Peter Rabbit.  

I chose to read two of her books and take a closer literary look at them. I read The Tale of Mrs. TittleMouse and The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse. I chose these two books because they book involved a mouse or mice as the main character(s). I wanted to choose two books that were closely related to compare how she portrayed them in the books. I also find the mice characters to be more inviting.

Just a quick summary of the books for those who may have not read them.

·         The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse:

In this short children’s book a nice country mouse whose name is Timmy Willie gets carried away in a hamper to a house in town. When he wakes up he drops in on Johnny Town-Mouse and his friends. Johnny-Town Mouse tries to convince Timmy Willie that he will get used to living in town but Timmy Willie is just ill and needs to go back to the country. Every Saturday the hamper goes back to Timmy Willie’s country home. So he gets in the basket and goes home. Johnny Town-Mouse promises to come visit one day. He does eventually come to visit and all the country sounds scare him. Timmy Willie says he will settle in and get used to it, but Johnny can’t and goes back to town in the hamper. At the end we get a sort of moral that one place may be good for one person but not good for another.

·         The Tale of Mrs. TittleMouse:

Mrs. TittleMouse lived in a bank under a hedge. She kept her little home very clean. She was always sweeping and dusting and keeping everything nice and tidy. She doesn’t like when the creepy crawlers come into her home. She shews them out of her house and cleans up their dirty feet marks. One day while walking down through the passages in her home, she finds a bumble bee, who has made a nest in one of her storage rooms. When Mrs. TittleMouse comes back out she finds Mr. Jackson, who is a big frog. He stays until dinner and then gets rid of the bees for her. She then cleans and cleans until she is so tired that she falls asleep in her chair. The next day she boards up her doorway so Mr. Jackson is unable to fit into the door. She throws a party for some of her mice friends and they give Mr. Jackson food out the window.

The art work that Potter also incorporates with her book helps us as the readers imagine what these characters may look like and what they are doing. She gives each of the characters such distinct personalities—which I value since the characters are mice. They way she gave them human characteristics (in both books) I felt really worked well. It makes me wish that mice actually were like that. Real mice creep me out. One thing I noticed that was a big similarity was that she writes about mice that live in the country. Which seems fitting since that is where Potter enjoyed spending much of her time. At the end of The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse, Potter writes “One place suits one person, another place suits another person. For my part I prefer to live in the country, like Timmy Willie” (p.60). These lines let us also hear Potter’s actual voice coming through.

The way Potter writes I feel was very appropriate for young children. She used language that they would understand and would be able to read themselves. They also teach a lesson in some aspects. Like I mentioned before she teaches at the end of one book that one place may not be suitable for another, even if its suitable for you. In the second I feel she teaches children to clean and pick up after yourself because that is what Mrs. TittleMouse does throughout the whole book. She is also generous even if she doesn’t exactly want to be.

 

Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold was a Victorian Poet. He was also a social critic during his day. He was the man that said we should read to make judgments about the BEST that’s written. In class we were assigned to read a poem he had written. When I read the poem on my own it wasn’t very clear and I didn’t find much meaning it. When we went over it in class and read through it again and broke it down, it made a lot more sense and I liked it.

Dover Beach:

The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,    Ü this is a wonderful image!
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world. Ü  I really enjoy this image, it’s an interesting perspective.                    

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

In the second stanza for those who don’t know Sophocles was a playwright, not to be confused with Socrates, who was Greek philosopher. The first stanza is all in reference to the English Channel. The author and his wife are having a conversation overlooking the channel. The third stanza is faith and the fourth is about his wife.

This poem is a dramatic monologue. It has a heavy tone. It is a challenge to faith and religion in a time when reforms were happening. In 1867, when this poem was written, there was a reform bill that was used to expand the male vote. All the worries in this poem could possibly represent the ‘social worries’ of the time.

There is also a certain rhythm to the poem, you might notice as you read. They are looking over the channel, which has waves and the rhythm is supposed to be like the waves in the channel. I feel that the author used good images and details to let us understand what was happening. We don’t really get to see what is going on from his wife’s point of view during this poem, only the authors. We get to question in this poem how the author feels. I think that he wishes to be young again, or at least continue to live while he can.

A Young Faithful Heart

A few poems have caught my attention this semester as we have moved forward. Casabianca is a traditional, classic poem. I think that it deserves literary merit because it is well known and liked. I, not really being a fan of poetry like I mentioned in a different post, actually enjoyed this poem.

Something about the depth of the poem and the emotion that is felt as the young boy in the story dies with the ship.

 

Casabianca:

 The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though child-like form.

The flames rolled on–he would not go
Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud–'say, Father, say
If yet my task is done?'
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.

'Speak, father!' once again he cried,
'If I may yet be gone!'
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death
In still yet brave despair.

And shouted but once more aloud,
'My father! must I stay?'
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound–
The boy–oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea!–

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part–
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart.

 

This poem is a sad but heroic story about a young boy who dies with a ship. He is waiting for his father’s signal that his task of staying with the ship is finished, but it never comes since the ship is burning and his father has already perished. The young man sinks with the ship never leaving his “task” because he never received word to do so: the lines below really help the reader to see the young boys loyalty to the ship and his task.

“The flames rolled on–he would not go
Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud–'say, Father, say
If yet my task is done?'”

In this work there also some good consonance used. “but the booming” we really hear that b- sound coming out. “ship the splendor” would be another good example of consonance. A few others would be: “father, faint”, “fast the flames” and “he had”.

The last two lines of the poem I feel are a powerful ending and sum up the poem wonderfully as a whole. The author lets us remember and/or think that the boy was nobler than the ship or his other crewmates. When I read this poem, I image a young pirate boy, being loyal until the end.

“But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart.”

Mr. Oxford Don

As I venture into this class, we started with looking at a poem. Side Bar: I am not a fan of poetry, I like it but not to the extent that I would sit down and read it for hours analyzing it. I would rather get absorbed in a good novel of my choosing and/or just sit and write. I love to sit and write, it’s a great stress relief for me and I like to see my pen on the page. Now back to poetry, I have grown to like it more after taking a class entirely focused on writing poetry. We also analyzed and interpreted poems in this class to learn about the different styles of poetry and the voice that can be heard in it. With that being said, let’s look at the first poem: "Listen Mr. Oxford Don" by John Agard;

 Me not no Oxford don
me a simple immigrant
from Clapham Common
I didn't graduate
I immigrate

But listen Mr Oxford don
I'm a man on de run
and a man on de run
is a dangerous one

I ent have no gun
I ent have no knife
but mugging de Queen's English
is the story of my life
I don't need no axe

to split/ up yu syntax
I don't need no hammer
to mash up yu grammar
I warning you Mr Oxford don

I'm a wanted man
and a wanted man
is a dangerous one
Dem accuse me of assault
on de Oxford dictionary

imagine a concise peaceful man like me
dem want me to serve time
for inciting rhyme to riot
but I tekking it quiet
down here in Clapham Common
I'm not violent man, Mr Oxford don

I only armed wit mih human breath
but human breath
is a dangerous weapon
So mek dem send one big word after me

I ent serving no jail sentence
I slashing suffix in self-defence
I bashing future wit present tense
and if necessary

I making de Queen's English accessory
to my offence

 The first thing I notice when looking at this poem at first glance is the dialect used. We get a sense of who the speaker is and how he may speak in real life. He uses words like “ent” “dem” and “yu”. It’s almost a form of slang. He says he is an assault on the Queen’s English and the way he speaks in the poem, he conforms that is what he is doing.

The next thing I notice when looking is closely is the use of his repetition of certain phrases or words, which I feel make the poem that much more powerful to his case. The first repetition we see is in stanza two “I’m a man on de run and a man de run is a dangerous one”. He says the same thing but they hold two different meanings. He first calls himself a man on the run and then explains what a man on the run is. We see the repetition of the phrase “is a dangerous one” again in the fifth stanza, where he explains that  a wanted man is also a dangerous one. The repetition like mentioned, really helps get his point across, because when he repeats they hold different meanings for the most part.

He ends the poem with saying that if necessary he will make the Queen’s English accessory to his offense. I find it interesting while reading this poem, that he misspells some words but not others. I think he does this in order to emphasize his voice as the speaker/ narrator but then to prove his point that he is educated even if his English is not the same as the precious Queen’s English. I think the title is so creative in the fact that the Oxford dictionary is so widely known, and then he uses part of the name in his title. I like that this poem has humor in it, yet serious at the same time.

Meet me :)

Would you like some tea and crumpets? Perhaps if you were British you would. I personally though am not a fan of tea, nor have I ever tasted a crumpet. I'm not even entirely sure what a crumpet is; I think I should look into that. Maybe once I find out, I can enjoy a crumpet( or something close to it) and some hot chocolate while reading the selections for this course.
This blog will be about literature I'm reading for my British Literature class. It will contain responses and other thoughts to the books we are reading; as well as other various topics we cover in class. I am taking this class as part of my core English major. I am on the writing strand of the major. I do enjoy reading don't get me wrong, I just enjoy writing more. I am looking forward to this class, because it's the first literature class I have taken in awhile. I am also taking another literature class this semester. I have not read a lot of British Literature, so I am looking forward to reading the pieces in the this class. I am also looking forward to broadening my horizon in the field of literature through this class.
I am a junior this year and am VERY MUCH looking forward to graduation next spring. I am hoping to continue on to a masters degree for my other major, which is psychology. I hope to become a counselor for teens and young adolescents; some how incorporating my bachelors degree in English with that.
I enjoy spending time with my loved ones. I also enjoy dancing and listening to music--they are my stress relief. I also cannot wait for the snow to go away and the warm weather to come back!