The "Nature" of Nature Poetry

Of the assigned poets, so many of them focus on man's relationship to nature. William Blake, Percy Shelley and William Wordsworth are Romantic poets. This category of poets are known for having nature themed poems. Their influence is immense because later poets such as Walt Whitman and Robert Frost also explored the affect of nature on man's emotions. Whitman's poem, "A Noiseless Patient Spider," compares the speaker's soul to that of a spider's web. The spider tediously works at its web, in its isolated space in the world. The speaker also feels isolated and that his soul is seeking its bearings, its place in life. Whitman had the ability to look at something common in nature and interpret in a way that reflected what was going on in his own mind and heart. Not all nature poems are optimistic. Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" starts out with a pretty description:
"The sea is calm to-night, / 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."
The poem takes a turn when it begins to talk of the melancholy sounds in the dark and ends on a very pessimistic note:
"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..."
It shows that the beauty of the world can affect people in so many different ways. It can inspire love and hope, or it can remind one that all must die and decay, as Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." He states, "The woods are lovely, dark and deep. / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep." There is no direct statement of unhappiness or suicidal feelings. It is subtly in the poem, as if nature itself can draw that out of a person.
One author we were not assigned wrote a gorgeous nature poem, in which he compares the beauty of his love to that of nature, Lord Byron's "She Walks in Beauty." He claims her beauty and love is innocent and nature is in harmony with it, for, "all that's best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes: / Thus mellow'd to that tender light / Which heaven to gaudy day denies." He immortalizes his love, just as Whitman does his soul and Frost does his will to live, by embedding them in enduring nature.

"March Violets" The Song with its music and lyrics, Part Two

After hearing the song in full, I can sense a sadness in it that I did not from a simple reading of the lyrics. I think maybe there is a sense of loss connected to the people. These people are outside of the accepted society, and it is hard to tell them apart from "regular people." Young people more and more are not participating in society and feel lost. The song seems to be a warning to these people that they need to find direction in their lives because there will be a time when "it's too late/ to show up smashed." A different type of war, a battle for adolescence, a call for them to think of their futures, to be passionate about something.

Classmates ideas: War, can't tell the armies apart. War with yourself, or the enemy who looks just like you. Soldiers look alike on a bloody battlefield. "Ides of March" is a military term. March is named after the God Mars- the god of War. I did not know this. I knew it from Shakespeare but from so long ago that I couldn't remember it was from "Julius Caesar." This idea makes so much more sense to me than my own interpretation. Classmate also talked about nihilism, that you can't hold onto anything when you have no faith in anything. It's funny how one song can have so many different meanings. Cynical, pairing of people. Animal imagery. Biblical imagery. Two by two, dust to dust.

The idea is that you can find meaning without relying on the intention of the author, although for me I think there validity to taking into account author intentionality.

"March Violets" A Song, Part One

I think this song is about people who spend their nights out on the town, with little ambition. "Last in line/ Tight on Cast/ Right on time," sounds like people who are waiting to get into a club scene. The people may be nihilistic, caring only for the moment they are in, not concerned with consequences. I like the line, "Every day is the Ides of March," because every night is full of a type of mystery or uncertainty. I find this song really hard to understand, it feels obscure to me.
This is hard to interpret. This is a lyric and not a regular poem. I wish I could hear the music and the singing style that accompanies these lyrics because that would help with interpretation. Songs are different than poems because the music and singing is vital to the meaning of the lyrics.

Interesting Idea

In an article by David Chandler called, "Texts and the Construction of Meaning," he is discussing Roland Barthes' idea of the "readerly" and "writerly" types of texts. In a quote that I found relevant to this class, he says, "It is worth noting that the extension of Barthes' notion to other media could be productive, involving a consideration of the extent to which engagement with such media might be regarded userly or makerly." The great literary theorists of the past two centuries can find fresh scholarship in terms of this type of extension to technology and other types of media.

Welcome, to Caitlin's Blog

In the 21st century people gain knowledge in vastly different ways than in any other time. We have traditional input such as books, newspapers and magazines. But now we have T.V., movies, music, radio, and most important to the global expansion of knowledge and entertainment: the Internet. Literacy no longer means being well informed about the Classics. While this is included in being considered literate, we must also master the Web and multi-media world, that has shrunk the size of the world into one that we grapple with daily. In this blog, I will comment on the literature that we will read in this class, from poetry to videogames, to world myths.
Literacy is increasingly important, and a functioning person of society must navigate smoothly through the enormous amount of input from a variety of sources. I was resistant to this idea for a long time, and as a result, this is my first blogging attempt. I now understand the necessity of integrating the new with the old, and understand computer literacy is just as important as book literacy. I think teachers need to bring a multi-genre approach to their students so they will be comfortable with all types of media, and be able to properly analyze the information they will find in these types of media, instead of taking everything at face value. I have not experienced a lot of media technology in my classes, but I can see that more and more this is what students will be doing. I look forward to lively discussions with my classmates and outside commentators.
Thanks,
Caitlin McGinn