Opposite Ends of the Spectrum

Throughout the Romantic period there was a surge in placing value on passion, feeling and reason as a form of decision making. The ideas surrounding the works of William Blake’s London and Robert Burns’ The Fornicator prove to readers that an individual need not have proper education in order to understand and change the world around them. The use of passion and perception as a form of reasoning, in opposition to rationalism, helped to inspire the masses into political upheaval and change. In contrast to Blake, Burns forces readers to look beyond what is seen on the surface and question circumstances at a deeper level. The idea that vision alone is enough to evoke change within an individual is overlooked by Burns and replaced with the idea that vision and thought combined make for the soundest logic. These two opposing views helped individuals to form opinions regarding the government and ultimately resulted in the French Revolution.
During the Romantic period, the period of Blake and Burns’ poetry, politics and social ideas were changing. The National Assembly was in the process of accepting and approving the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” The Declaration would soon be approved by the National Assembly and disapproved by the Catholic Church. Romantics were learning to place emotional and sensory oriented experienced values above that of ideas expressed in rationalism. Charles Baudelaire said it best, “Romanticism is precisely situated neither by choice of subject nor exact truth, but in a way of feeling,” (3). Although the revolution was ultimately named the French Revolution, it was ecumenical.
Blake used poems such as London, to create an artificial emotion in readers which exhibited the feeling associated with romanticism. This artificial emotion which Blake is able to evoke encourages readers to feel for the so called victim of society. The victim of society is traditionally an individual who has been cast down from social grace and must struggle to survive in an unforgiving society. In London, published in 1794, Blake uses the first person to make readers conscious of their surroundings. Blake begins the poem saying “I wander thro’ each charter’d street/Near where the charter’d Thames does flow” (179). The repetition of chartered draws the readers’ attention to the word and thus evokes a feeling of confinement and restriction under the government. Blake goes on to use a graphic visual image to emphasize his views of the world, stating “And the hapless Soldiers sigh/Runs in blood down Palace walls” (179). Readers are encouraged to open their eyes to the world around them and take in that which they see. According to Blake, readers should feel so moved by that which they view physically and the feelings these images evoke, that they have no choice but to act.
Blake goes on to use sexual references to express his ideas of the times political environment. This connection is made to bring forth the vulgarity which can be found in prostitution and politics, a rather cunning suggestion. Blake says “But most thro’ midnight streets I hear/How the youthful Harlots curse/Blasts the new-born Infants tear/And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse” (179). In this stanza, Blake focuses on sexual impunities and their effects on society. Blake has already shown the streets of London to be filled with filth, but what could be worse than a curse upon our new born children? Blake’s references encourage the masses to rise up and demand change within their cities. Blake says “How the Chimney-sweepers cry/Every blackning Church appalls” (179). Here Blake is showing that as the victim within society is crying for help and expressing the woes of his struggles, the church is turning a blind eye and is appalled by the dirty homeless child. Readers are supposed to feel a raw emotional connection to the child calling for help. This emotion is used to cause a surge which results in the uprising of the people and ultimately the French Revolution.
Much like Blake, Robert Burns, a Scotsman, presents the world from the eyes of a victim of society. Burns shows readers the hypocrisy of the society everyone is living in and encourages one to think about their actions in relation to their perceptions. Although Blake and Burns write during the same time period, their poetry is nearly in contradiction to each other in that Blake believes in evoking raw feelings in order to move individuals to action, while Burns encourages readers to look beyond the surface and question morals on a deeper level.
Robert Burns writes The Fornicator in the first person and places the poem in a public realm, much like Blake. However, different from Blake, Burns writes The Fornicator less to encourage individuals to use their own perceptions but to make readers question the perceptions that they see. Rather than perceiving something as Blake suggests, Burns suggests that sight alone is not enough. Burns forces readers to look beyond what is seen on the surface and question circumstances at a deeper level. The idea that vision alone is enough to evoke change within an individual is overlooked by Burns and replaced with the idea that vision and thought combined make for the soundest logic.

In a different light from that seen in London, Burns expresses sexual impropriety as wrong only in some instances. Burns writes his poem of fornication while expressing a somewhat genuine love between two characters. He describes the love that is felt by harlots in opposition, by saying “Ye wenching blades who hireling jades/Have tipt you off blue-boram” (381). Here Burns is saying that there is a difference between love outside of marriage and prostitution. He is not entirely condoning either but has not shown disdain. Burns, again, is not calling for actions from his readers, but is encouraging readers to question that which they see.
One example of the varied views expressed by Blake and Burns can be clearly identified in their views of orthodox religion. Burns, rather than evoking thoughts of the church, places his characters physically within a church, “Before the Congregation wide/I pass’d the muster fairly” (381). Burns’ characters are atoning for their sin of fornication in front of the congregation. This social ostracizing is shown to be a hypocritical statement. Burns uses the final stanza of his poem to emphasize the idea that all people are “fornicators” or sinners. Both Blake and Burns use the church to show the hypocrisy found within churches during the Romantic era and also to place an emphasis on perceptions. Blake wants readers to see and act, while Burns wants readers to consider that sin and wrong doing is all in the eye of the beholder. Why such a vast difference between the two views? Blake’s poem is written to show individuals the injustice around them, while Burns poems are from the eyes of the sinner. The perception of the speaker, in Blake being the observer and in Burns being a criminal, allows readers to understand the position of the author himself.
However not all ideas found within the two poems are in contraction. The most prominent similarity between Blake and Burns is their joint belief in the idea of a fallen society. London focuses on the overall fall of the great city. The poem shows a society which is struggling to provide its people with the necessities. Burns too shows a fallen society in that he says all are fornicators. The similar belief that society has reached an all time low is often expressed in writings of the Romantic period. Use of sensory imagery is used by both Blake and Burns to allow readers to connect first hand with the writings. Blake ends lines 9 and 13 with “I hear” while including visual images of the streets to draw readers into the poem. Burns’ poetry emphasizes sight as well, while showing readers two individuals sitting before a congregation. Burns’ sinners are shown using visual imagery as sitting with shame, “my downcast eye by chance did spy/What made my lips to water” (381). The use of the primary senses in relation to how the world is perceived and how one interacts with the world is key to understanding poems of the Romantic period.
The use of passion and perception as a form of reasoning, in opposition to rationalism, helped to inspire the masses into political upheaval and change which manifested through the French Revolution. Writings such as those mentioned above by Blake and Burns, although at different ends of the spectrum, worked to provide the public with the knowledge and inspiration to act on feeling as a form of reasoning.

Works Cited
Benjamin, Walter. The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire. Berlin, Germany: Belknap Press, 2006.

Damrosch, David and Kevin Dettmar, eds. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. United State: Pearson Education, Inc, 2006.

Passing Ideas

“Racial Formation” by Michael Omi and Howard Winant abstractly covers the idea of race, both as an essence and an illusion, as it relates to modern practices within the United States. Race within politics, everyday life, science, and more is reviewed as a fundamental concept which is constantly affected by hegemony within our society. The idea that race is a historical concept is established to help create a concrete idea that race will eventually evolve into something new and unique from that which it is believed to be today.

In “Racial Formation,” the following passage exhibits the argument Omi and Winant are trying to imprint upon the reader:

Since racial formation is always historically situated, our understating of the significance of race, and of the way race structures society, has changed enormously over time. The processes of racial formation we encounter today, the racial projects large and small which structure U.S. society in so many ways, are merely the present-day outcomes of a complex historical evolution. The contemporary racial order remains transient. By knowing something of how it evolved, we can perhaps better discern where it is heading. (61)

Omi and Winant are trying to stress the importance of understanding the history of race in order to better lead and establish what “race” will mean to future generations.

The illusion of race as a fundamental means for understanding an individual is established as being socially constructed and therefore invalid. However, the idea that understanding race can better help individuals to establish non-racial projects for the future, in an attempt to better mankind, is stressed as being the articles’ purpose. The idea that understanding contemporary racial order as a fleeting structure establishes the solvency of racial evolution.

WTF

P.G. Wodehouse, author of “Strychnine in the Soup” a story, in essence about a story, is a classic example of the use of literature in modernist writing. The tale, “Strychnine in the Soup” focuses readers on the culture surrounding a good novel and brings readers to understand and question the culture surrounding literature.
Individuals throughout Wodehouse’s “Strychnine in the Soup” are constantly attempting to read a single piece of literature, a novel within the story - Strychnine in the Soup. The players are so interested in reading that they often become neglectful of other life details and personal interactions. The group of individuals enthralled in the novel, are depicted as being very exclusive of those who have not, or are yet to, read the novel. Wodehouse is able to show the exclusivity of the literary culture established during the modernist era and use this environment as a setting for his tale.
One can call into question the idea that Wodehouse has written a story, about a man in a bar telling a story…about a story. Through this detachment, Wodehouse is able to show readers their degree of removal from the actual literature and call into question the role of the reader. Whether it is the detachment of the reader or the representation of what a reader is like, Wodehouse is able to focuses readers on the culture surrounding a good novel and brings readers to understand and question “literature”.

In The Coquette by Hannah W. Foster, General Sanford is introduced as a man passionately in love (or perhaps just lust) with Eliza Wharton. However, Eliza never has the opportunity to marry Sanford. Not only does he never ask, but he returns from abroad with a wife. The reader is then forced to question, why Sanford hesitates in making Eliza an offer of marriage, when their feelings of love for each other are so evidently mutual? Simple, Sanford feels that he is entitled to live a life of luxury, which he can not support of his own means and must therefore marry a women with financial backing.
Throughout the novel, the connection between Sanford and Eliza is clear. There is no question that she feels for him and although a reader could wonder if he feels the same, Foster is blunt in depicting that Sanford does love Eliza. Sanford writes “Love her, I certainly do! Would to heaven I could marry her” (72). Therefore, why does he not act on these feelings? Sanford begins to explain his circumstance to the reader in a letter to Mr. Charles Deighton. Here he states:

I shall manage matter very well, I have no doubt, and keep up the appearance of affluence, till I find some lady in a strait for a husband, whose fortune will enable me to extricate myself (65).

From this, the reader is able to gather that Sanford has no money and is simply keeping up the appearance of being affluent. Sanford feels that his only option for gaining the wealth needed to support his lifestyle would be to marry a lady.
Foster invites readers to understand and even sympathize with the situation Sanford has found himself in through use of Eliza. The reader is greatly attached to and connected with Eliza and her feelings; therefore, reader has no choice but to mutually like Sanford for his wit and cunning. Being that Eliza is only able to connect intimately with Sanford, allows the reader to feel sympathy for Sanford as an individual and identify him as a human being, capable of all such emotions.
Whether because of Eliza’s clear connection with Sanford or the illusion which Foster has created of love between the two, readers of The Coquette have no choice but feel sympathy for all players in the novel, regardless of their actions. Sanford’s decision to not marry Eliza may have ultimately led to the fall of both players, but was made with deep thought and consideration.

Hope Leslie

There are many scenes which play parallel or mirror scenes in Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s Hope Leslie. The use of echo scenes plays a large part in the flow and foreshadowing of the novel. Through use of these scenes, Sedgwick is able to incorporate a degree of anticipation while encouraging the reader to make historical, biblical, and social connections to the events as they unfold.
The novel begins with the tale of love lost due to the meddling of Alice Fletcher’s father, Sir William. In fact, “Sir William perceived their growing attachment and exulted in it” (4). The scene plays out that the lovers who are originally thrust together by Sir William are then forced apart. In Volume I, Mr. Downing suggests that Everell should wed Ester; here he says “I have already taken the first steps towards bringing about so desirable an end” (97). Much like the scene which takes place between Alice and her father, Ester is thrust into a situation with Everell because of her father. Had Ester’s father not encourage the relationship to foster by inviting Everell to his house, it is possible that Ester’s life would take a very different turn; use of these parallel scenes, helps readers to notice the citizenship status of unmarried women. Both Alice and Ester’s futures are shown as being entirely dependent on the decisions made by their fathers.
Another parallel scene Sedgwick demonstrates is far less obvious. Rosa, a young girl under-cover, warns Hope Leslie of her master’s deceitful ways. Here she says “Promise me you will not love my master. Do not believe him, though he pledge the word of a true knight always to love you” (110). In a similar scene, Jennet, a house-maid overhears a conversation between Everell and an accomplice and runs to tell Sir Philip Garner of this great secret. The use of characters such as Rosa and Jennet as a means for establishing a social gossip network are a tool Sedgwick shows great mastery of.

The Servant in the Household

Many authors understand the pressures and complications that come with being a woman in a patriarchal society. The loss of identity and independence was often a topic of writings during the 19th century, writings which are still revered and discussed today. One author who used her poetry to emphasize the struggles that women faced while trying to find independence within the public sphere was Emily Dickinson. Dickinson’s poems addressed a wide variety of topics and ideas, but one very prominent theme in her poetry was the conflicting feelings and emotions women faced when marrying. In review of Dickinson’s poems numbers 199, 732 and 1072, the theme of loss of identity through marriage is unveiled and examined.
Dickinson’s poem 199 focuses on the death of self upon marriage. The idea that a woman is no longer able to stay true to herself and must become a servant to societal rules is clearly displayed. Poem 199 begins “I’m ‘wife’ – I’ve finished that -/That other state.” This line draws on the woman as independent prior to marriage and defines the woman’s pre-married self as “That other state,” a state of being undefined. In leaving the female undefined before marriage Dickinson is creating a character that in essence does not exist. The idea that an unmarried woman is incomplete and unnoticed is expressed in defining her as the other. Prior to marriage, woman of the 19th century were not responsible for their own business affairs and were often under the charge of older relatives.
Stanza two begins to review the idea of marriage as death. Dickinson expresses in stanza two that through marriage a woman dies as an individual and begins to take on the role of a titled self, a role which no longer allows her to be herself, but requires her to be what others view her as. “Girl” or the undefined other is viewed from heaven during this stanza and seen as an irregularity. During this viewing it is noted “How odd the Girl’s life looks.” The idea that unmarried women during the 19th century (and even today) are viewed as undefined and incomplete is seen as problematic and unnatural within society. A woman who is unmarried must certainly have something wrong with her. In order to be plenary in society a woman must find her place along side a male counterpart. A girl cannot be classified as a woman until she has found a mate, married and thus become complete.
The ending of poem 199 by Dickinson begins to review the ideas of wife as the ultimate end to all for woman. Stanza three draws on the “other” (the undefined self) from stanza one when Dickinson says “That other kind – was pain.” The independent self is viewed as a harsh state of living because woman must struggle against the views of other women and the pressures of society to avoid being labeled a spinster, misfit or oddity. However, Dickinson stops the thoughts from reeling in readers’ minds “But why compare? / I’m ‘Wife’! Stop there!” The idea that wife is enough title to complete and fulfill a woman’s life is used to conclude the poem. The ideas of wife as fulfillment not only concludes the poem but is also symbolically the conclusion of the identity found as an individual.
Dickinson’s poem 732 again addresses the female issues of stopping existence as an individual in order to complete the roles and requirements established by society. Poem 732 begins with “She rose to His Requirement – dropt/ The Playthings of Her Life.” The idea of leaving behind hobbies and joys which are considered menial tasks for the pleasure of waiting on a husband are expressed here. A woman is unable to maintain a life which includes both personal pleasures and completion of household duties. A woman must choose to either be alone or give up that which has defined her thus far in her life. The poem continues “To take the honorable Work / Of Woman, and of Wife.” Women are depicted heroically in leaving little hobbies for the greater good of serving a man. The sarcasm in the verse is clear and the detrimental effects on females who are obligated to marry begin to spin through a reader’s mind. In stanza two, Dickinson begins to explore the lasting effects marriage has, “If ought She missed in Her new Day, / Of Amplitude, or Awe - / Or first Prospective – Or the Gold / In using, wear away.” The heroic female is no longer seen and what is left is the faded glory of marriage, the little tasks which Wife once completed are no longer valued or respected and the beauty which appeared on first prospective has left Wife a dull used toy.
The used toy will quickly begin to irritate and annoy the husband in the household. Wife will quickly lose the grace and acceptance which was first established. Dickinson puts it well when she says “Develop Pearl, and Weed, / But only to Himself – be known / The Fathoms they abide-.” Both a pearl and a weed take time to develop and are very much an irritation. The idea that the husband and the wife both understand and notice the annoyances caused from their relationship but fail to acknowledge these to others is expressed here. The silence of a disappointed marriage is never drawn forth nor addressed in the public sphere and is thus a hidden secret among the married. The idea that both individuals abide by this disturbance causes one to question why anyone would get married.
In poem 732 Dickinson clearly expresses that marriage is detrimental and will eventually lose its novelty and become a mistake. Women who choose to reject the lifestyle of Wife will not fade into the background of a male and will not be forced to live with the developed irritation. The independent woman will never be seen as complete but to herself she will have peace. Poem 199 does not allow a reader to consider life without a male; however, it does not depict life as Wife as being ideal either. Dickinson’s encouragement to discard the social roles created for woman is shown in the ways in which she led her own life. Dickinson’s solitude and independence can be viewed as an idealistic state for most unhappily married women. However, an unmarried reader would most likely have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to spend their life without a companion.
One question that Dickinson raises to help readers question society’s rules is, what might be an ideal life? Dickinson explores the ideas of being a wife to God as a form of ideal living in poem 1072. “Title divine – is mine!” The idea that being a wife to the ultimate of ultimate, as creating a great power and divine joy, is looked at in the first line of this poem. However, quickly Dickinson notices that being a wife to God or being a wife to a human is still an exchange of self in order to serve another. “Betrothed – without the swoon / God sends us Women - / …Garnet to Garnet - / Gold – to Gold - / Born – Bridalled – Shrouded.” The idea that sacrifice comes with all forms of marriage and little is ever returned to the giving woman is explored. In comparing life as a wife to God and a man, Dickinson uses the visions of identical physical elements to express that there is no real difference. Ultimately, Dickinson demonstrates in 1072 that marriage, on earth and in heaven, results in the death of self or shrouding. She then asks readers “Is this – the way?” Readers are encouraged to question the role that the woman plays in society and the roles that marriage play in a women’s life. The path that has been pre-assigned to all females is questioned and in so doing, readers must ask what alternatives there are.
The questions which arise from poems such as those explored above and many others of the 19th century help to inspire woman to rebel against the defined social roles. Women are encouraged to maintain independence at all costs and avoid giving up that which they love and cherish for other individuals. The establishment of a female character outside of the existence of a male helps to solidify views that woman can be independently defined and “girl” can be replaced. Dickinson’s poems number 199, 732 and 1072 express the theme of loss of identity through marriage and can be viewed as early thoughts on feminism.