58 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2018
    1. Worksof artare receivedandvaluedondifferentplanes.Twopolar typesstandout;withone,the accentisonthe cultvalue;withthe other,ontheexhibitionvalue of the work

      Twilight versus Pride and Prejudice

    2. mechanicalreproductionemancipatesthe workof artfrom itsparasiticaldependence onritual.Toanever greaterdegree the workof artreproducedbecomesthe workof artdesignedfor reproducibility

      This is something we see with the serial story line.

    3. The transformationof the superstructure,whichtakesplace far more slowlythanthatof the substructure,hastakenmorethanhalfa centurytomanifestinallareasof culture the change inthe conditionsof production.

      We are watching this happen right now in America. The substructure supports one thing but the superstructure (aka the government) are making change slowly.

  2. Feb 2018
    1. Skilled reading is usually thought to be a matter of discerning what is there, but if the example of my students can be generalized, it is a matter of knowing how to produce what can thereafter be said to be there. Interpretation is not the art of construing but the art of constructing. Interpreters do not decode poems; they make them.

      I love this. So much.

    2. you will search for meanings that subvert, or exist in a tension with the meanings that first present themselves; and if these operations fail to produce the anticipated complexity, you will even propose a significance for the words that are not there, because, as everyone knows, everything about a poem, including its omissions, is significant.

      I feel like he's making fun of new critics and formalists... just a wee bit.

    3. It was almost as if they were following a recipe--if it's a poem do this, if it's a poem, see it that way--and indeed definitions of poetry are recipes, for by directing readers as to what to look for in a poem, they instruct them in ways of looking that will produce what they expect to see.

      This proves why we need to be so conscious about what we are teaching kids.

    4. It is not that the presence of poetic qualities compels a certain kind of attention but that the paying of a certain kind of attention results in the emergence of poetic qualities.

      SO IMPORTANT. This is a blue curtains analogy at it's finest.

    5. It at once posed the question, "How is it that a man can climb to heaven by means of a rose tree?" and directed the reader to the inevitable answer: by the fruit of that tree, the fruit of Mary's womb, Jesus

      That's really cool to see in practice. I really like this example.

    6. meanings are the property neither of fixed and stable texts nor of free and independent readers but of interpretive communities that are responsible both for the shape of a reader's activities and for the texts those activities produce.

      The culture determines the reader's reactions to a work of literature and what they understand from it.

  3. Jan 2018
    1. Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

      Maybe Keats' point is that these things will remain. The stories themselves and their original intentions will be forgotten with the past. But the shape itself is beautiful, and that beautiful shape will last for generations. Each generation will be able to find some new beauty in the shape.

    2. Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, Forever piping songs forever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love!

      It talks about things being forever new. It directly represents Intentional Fallacy.

    3. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit

      The stanza above focuses singularly on what can be seen. It describes the urn in the same vague detail that Shelley's "Ozmandius" did the statue. There is a direct reference to what others see in the message on the urn over what the artist intended for the urn to mean.

    1.  Having determined what is poetry, and who are poets, let us proceed to estimate its effects upon society.

      Concern about effects on poetry

  4. Apr 2017
    1. Poem 3 (J 279: 1861/1896)

      https://uniqueatpenn.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/lettice-volpage.jpg?w=464&h=377 This is a picture of a commonplace book taken from google. You can see the lines that sparate the different works that the author copied down.

    2. Poem 3 (J 279: 1861/1896)

      Socarides brings up another thing that could have influenced Dickinson's Fascicles. She makes note of the fact that in the 18th century it was very popular to bind the pages of a diary the way Dickinson bound her poems (78-80). Which could make sense, especially when looking at Poem 3 because it seems to deal with a daily event, possibly a type of moving or vacation since horses and leaving a life behind are discussed. The poem could also very well deal with death and moving on when looked at a certain way which is something Dickinson could have dealt with in her time.

    3. VAR 1: firmest VAR 2: tightest VAR 3: highest— side —

      One thing that could explain Dickinson's continual variations was due to a cultural practice called common place books. Women were specifically encouraged to copy down verses in these common place books in their own hand. They incoorperated dark lines to separate verse much like Dickinson did, and it was possible for verses to be rewritten or edited many times over while the book was being edited (Socarides 71-72). It is possible that Dickinson adopted this practice so popular in the times, which would explain the different variations, re-writes, and cross outs.

    4. Poem 3 (J 279: 1861/1896)

      "the fascicles aren't what we've always assumed them to be—books of lyric poems whose contents can be both extracted individually and read sequentially (Socarides 70)."

      The above statement says that due to certain binding techniques of the time, Dickinson had very limited resources to work with. Presenting the idea that the fascicles are not in fact books meant to be in sequential order but random works that were forced together in a certain way.

    5. Bibliography :

      Socarides, A. "Rethinking the Fascicles: Dickinson's Writing, Copying, and Binding Practices." The Emily Dickinson Journal, vol. 15 no. 2, 2006, pp. 69-94. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/edj.2006.0048

    1. Poem 10 (J 608: 1862/1890)

      "Disapproval had been, after all, the motive for withdrawal from the world since the earliest eremitic and monastic regimens. But hers is not a reclusion attesting to interiority as a superior resource of meaning. Rather, Dickinson in reclusion protests the lack of design in the external world of phenomena and events, where she holds that intelligibility should (but does not) reside (444)." In most of these fascicles it is clear that Dickinson has a dark mindset with her poetry. By the time this poem was written Dickinson had most definitely removed herself from society. She lived as a recluse almost refusing to leave her home. I believe her poetry at this point, much like is explained above shows the issues that she had with a society she could not put herself in.

    2. Bibliography Cont.: Wolosky, S. "Emily Dickinson: Reclusion against Itself." Common Knowledge, vol. 12 no. 3, 2006, pp. 443-459. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/203120.

    1. We show them—prayer— We show them—prayer— 13: But we, who know, But we, who know, 14: Stop hoping, now— Stop hoping, now— 15: Looking at Death, is Dying—

      Dickinson grew up in a very religious household. Her family took vows to become a part of the chuch. Dickinson did not. A lot of her poetry hits me at home because it shows a clear struggle between faith and how you should practice it. These lines definitely show that struggle. Dickinson believed that you did not need to be a part of the church to practice good faith and that you could be faithful from home. A relatively new idea.

    2. "Emily Dickinson and The Church." Emily Dickinson Museum. Emily Dickinson Museum, 2009. Web. 20 Apr. 2017.

    3. prayer

      Gerlach brings attention to the fact that despite a certain rebelliousness, Dickinson does really include religion in to many of her poems (121-122). Which makes sense since she lived in an area where new scientific discoveries were at war with Christian beliefs, and Dickinson struggled with this as much as any good Christian would have at the time.

    4. Bibliography Cont:

      Gerlach, J. "Emily Dickinson's Fascicles: Method & Meaning (review)." The Emily Dickinson Journal, vol. 5 no. 1, 1996, pp. 121-123. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/edj.0.0144

    1. Perhaps you ask, why do not these girls go out to service? Surely it were better to live in a clean, nice house, in a healthy atmosphere, with respectable people, who might take other interest in them than to wring out the last particle of their available bodily strength. It were better surely to live in a house cheerful and bright, where merry voices were sometimes heard, and clean, wholesome food was given them. Why do they not? First, because, unhappily, they look down upon the position of a servant, even from their miserable stand-point. But chiefly, and mainly, because when six o’clock in the evening comes they are their own mistresses, without hinderance or questioning, till another day of labor begins. They do not sit in an under-ground kitchen, watching the bell-wire, and longing to see what is going on out of doors. More’s the pity, that the street is their only refuge from the squalor and quarrelling and confusion of their tenement-house home. More’s the pity, that as yet there are no sufficiently decent, cleanly boarding-houses, within their means, where their self-respect would not inevitably wither and die.

      I love how she addresses the argument of why women choose not to take the cushy serving job. It's almost a subtle comparison to slavery. But she says well by choosing to live their own lives and not seve someone like a glorified slave they are treated to horrible conditions.

    2. Walt Whitman, the world needed a Native American of thorough, out-and-out breed—enamored of women not ladies, men not gentlemen; something beside a mere Catholic-hating Know-Nothing; it needed a man who dared speak out his strong, honest thoughts, in the face of pusillanimous, todeying, republican aristocracy; dictionary-men, hypocrites, cliques, and creeds; it needed a large-hearted, untainted, self-reliant, fearless son of the Stars and Stripes, who disdains to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage; who does Not call one greater or one smaller, That which fills its period and place being equal to any; who will Accept nothing which all cannot have on their counterpart of on the same terms.

      I really liked this little paragraph because she discusses how Whitman made a Native American who was very much the Catholic version of a Native American. She calls him out for not recognizing the fact in Native culture men and women were equal and had equal responsibilities. It's a nod to our earlier readings.

    1. he version that is most quoted was published in the 1875 edition of Truth’s Narrative (which was written by others) and in Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s History of Woman Suffrage which appeared in 1881. Both versions were published 25 years after Truth spoke. However the Salem, Ohio, Anti-Slavery Bugle published its version of the speech on June 21, 1851.

      I'm of the mind that both versions were edited to fit a purpose, and that neither was the true account of what she said. The second version of the poem that was written right after her death makes her sound way too proper, but I think that the abolishonist movement did this to appeal to those that believed blacks were overly uneducated and couldn't fight for their rights because they couldn't speak or read. In the second one that was published later I believe they changed the speech to fit the stereotype mentioned above because they wanted to show that she did fit that stereotype. They wanted to make it sound like what the original was expected to feel like.

  5. Mar 2017
    1. First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut.

      The food names are incredibly important to the meaning of the story. Materialism is a huge focus in the story, all of the food references in the story represent that materialistic focus. The fact that Bartleby refuses the food and ultimately dies from lack of food is in a way a metaphore for the fact that he refused all things that were material. Melville makes the point that the view of the day was the less materialistic you were the less likely you were to survive.

    1. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back.

      Douglass brings up this unjust treatment of the forefathers of America as a sly comparison to what is currently going on in the anti-slavery movement. He wants his audience to agree with the fact that the forefathers had the right to rebell against the government in England because they are being treated unfairly. This allows him to make the audience question why they are making such a big deal about the anti-slavery movement. People pushing for the anti-slavery movement are basically doing the same thing that our country's forefathers were. Douglass just wants them to realize the comparison and juxtapositon between the two

  6. Dec 2016
    1. piece

      Piece was also a term referring to a woman or girl during Renaissance times, only later did it acquire a negative connotation. However the word piece could also be a reference to how the count wished to control the woman the painting was of.

      Crowder, Ashby B. "The Piece in Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess"" Notes and Queries. Oxford Journals, 27 June 2012. Web. 7 Dec. 2016.

    2. sea-horse

      Seahorses carry the symbolism of being calm, peaceful, friendly, generous. By saying that he tamed the seahorse, Browning shows how the Duke has destroyed and twisted all that was good in nature.

    3. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet The company below, then. I

      The Duke asks these types of questions throughout the poem to the Count whose daughter he wishes to marry. These questions are so short and clipped that they really sound more like commands. Browning did this to display the Duke's unbending, serious attitude. He deliberately directs his guest's attention to certain things at certain times.

    4. last Duchess

      It is believed that the Duchess in the poem refers to Lucrezia de' Medici. The Duke is believed to be her husband Duke Alfonso II. Browning and his wife Elizabeth Barrett moved to Italy after they had to run away from Elizabeth's father to get married, so the fact that he chose these very real people into his poem makes sense.

    5. ’twas all one! My favor at her breast,        25 The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—

      These lines display the count's jealousy. His jealousy of the natural is further proof of Browning's dislike of Renaissance Humanism. The Duke's jealousy and dislike of the natural twists his wife's purely innocent activities into something darker and more sexual. Her actions challenge his orders and therefore his manhood.

    6. I call That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

      Browning specifically uses words like "she" to describe the painting of the Duchess rather than "it." Many believe that this has something to do with Brownings own views on Renaissance Humanism. The Duke and Duchess are certain juxtapositions. She is pleased by everything, especially the natural. The Duke however is pleased by very little, except the painting; an artificial representation of the real. Domhnall Mitchell states in a scholarly review of the poem that lines such as these display Browning's unhappiness with Renaissance Humanism. He goes on to state that browning considers this Humanism "a philosophy that elevates man to the center of the universe displaces what is natural in man and, by extension, devalues the uniqueness of man as a creation of God." And that all of this can be seen in the distinction between what pleases the Duke and what pleases the duchess.

      Mitchell, Domhnall. "Browning's My Last Duchess." Explicator 50.2 (1992): 74. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Dec. 2016.

    7. Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

      Joshua Adler brings to light the fact that Browning finishes the poem the way that he starts it, with a piece of art. This creates the frame of the poem. The outer frame is clearly focused on the problem human kind has with the materialistic, while the inside focuses on issues socially.

      Adler, Joshua. “Structure and Meaning in Browning's ‘My Last Duchess.’” Victorian Poetry, vol. 15, no. 3, 1977, pp. 219–227. www.jstor.org/stable/40002116.

  7. Nov 2016
    1. Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,        55 Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

      Statement that he can tame the duchess' wild behavior.

    2. Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed At starting, is my object.

      The narrator is a suitor looking for the maiden's hand in marriage.

    3. This grew; I gave commands;        45 Then all smiles stopped together.

      Makes it seem as if he killed her, either by commissioning someone to do so or by giving her commands to stop her undesirable behavior.

    4. I choose Never to stoop

      Makes it seem like it would be below him to tell her that her behavior is unacceptable and undesirable.

    5. “Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark”

      The narrator disapproves of the duchess' behavior but has no way of politely telling her.

    6. I know not how

      Shows a sense that the narrator never received the kind of favors from the duchess that she paid to other suitors.

    7. She thanked men,—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift.

      Again a reference to the duchess' scandalous behavior.

    8. she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

      Browning basically calls the Duchess a whore in the nicest way possible.

    9. “Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat:”

      Could very well be a reference to how the medium of art does not do justice to describe a person's form. Playing off of Coleridge's idea that he strived through his words to paint a picture.

    10. Frà Pandolf’s

      There is no evidence that Fra Pandolf was a real painter who painted the duchess according to Victorianweb.org.

      “I said Frà Pandolf by Design”: Browning's “My Last Duchess”. (2011, November). Retrieved November 21, 2016, from http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/rb/duchess/monteiro5.html

    11. wonder

      The Oxford English Dictionary describes the word wonder as being "A marvellous object; a marvel, prodigy."

  8. Oct 2016
    1. And mossy network too is there, 41As if by hand of lady fair 42The work had woven been, 43And cups, the darlings of the eye, 44So deep is their vermillion dye. V. 45Ah me! what lovely tints are there! 46Of olive green and scarlet bright, 47In spikes, in branches, and in stars, 48Green, red, and pearly white.

      This imagery is vastly different from how he describes the mound in later stanzas. I believe that this switch in description of imagery is Wordsworth's way of using repetition, this time in scenery, to effect the way the reader views the mound. He talks about ever changing beliefs and I wonder if perhaps this is how he is "experimenting" with the effect that the reader will believe whatever they are told short term, no matter if it has changed or not.

    2. High on a mountain’s highest ridge, 24Where oft the stormy winter gale 25Cuts like a scythe, while through the clouds 26It sweeps from vale to vale; 27Not five yards from the mountain-path,

      https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/4/21/1271867072464/Quantock-Hills-001.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=7414b5c874d0a91e240600bb2af9de90 This would be the kind of scenery found on this mountain. I also found quite a few pictures that involved hills of flowers. I think that Wordsworth adapted the scenery in this poem to fit his need to see what sublime imagery does to the reader.

    3. lichens

      "... plants, often of a green, grey, or yellow tint, which grow on the surface of rocks, trees, etc." Also called liverwort according to the Oxford English Dictionary. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KSbqGwqSreU/T7HPTvPjvnI/AAAAAAAABpM/rqTsrkwyac8/s1600/awesome+lichen.JPG

    4. Martha Ray)

      In response to slc147: There is actually a footnote in our book that shares a similar story but with an interesting twist. The book says that Martha Ray was a mistress to a nobleman, and was murdered by a rejected clergyman in the form of a suitor. He claimed he did the deed because of "Love's madness." It also goes on to state that one of the illegitimate children Martha Ray bore to the nobleman was friends with Wordsworth and Coleridge. I wonder if there's a little bit more research to be done here.

  9. Sep 2016
    1. And in our life alone does Nature live:

      This line touches on the divinity of human kind. By saying that everything we live and experience Nature also lives. It imparts an importance to treat our experiences reverently because they display the Devine in us.

    2. Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,With the old Moon in her arms;And I fear, I fear, my Master dear!We shall have a deadly storm.            (Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence)

      I think this small introduction is more to set up an emotion. Samuel Coleridge chooses to build off of Spence's work. He uses the work to establish a sense of overwhelming fear. Then goes on to say that while those signs of storm "raised" him and "sent his soul abroad," they also brought him life and a good kind of excitement. So where Spence focuses on the sublime in what is considered beautiful, Coleridge focuses on what is beautiful in the sublime.

    1. That I might learn, fleet bird, from thee, 23What our vain systems only guess,

      In the stanza's and lines leading up to lines 22 and 23 Turner does a very good job of narrating the freedom the Swallow has. And in lines 22 and 23 she expresses her want for a society where freedom is a norm by saying that she wants to learn from the free Swallow.

    2. Her sacred veil where Nature draws; 68Let baffled Science humbly own, 69Her mysteries understood alone, 70By Him who gives her laws.

      I really enjoy the fact that she finds a way to merge science and a higher power. She gives credit to science for understanding the complexities of nature, but she also expresses that these complexities may have been created by a much higher power.

    1. And worthy of the Master: he, whose hand With hieroglyphics elder than the Nile, Inscribed the mystic tablet; hung on high To public gaze, and said, adore, O man! The finger of thy GOD.

      A master in the Oxford English Dictionary is described as being "A person (predominantly a man) having authority, direction or control over the action of another or others." The way that Barbauld uses the term Master shows a definitive switch in her spiritual terminology. She began the poem using Roman mythological names, but it is here she switches to more Catholic references when referring to the space; Eve (the stanza above) and then God. Later she switches terminology again and refers to space in a scientific way.