http://coleridgewjr.blogspot.com/
The title of this blog is "Coleridge Symbolism and Meanings." In the first post I read, "A Day Dream." I was really confused at first about what the whole poem was about until I looked it up, but once I did that I had a pretty good understanding of what he was trying to convey in the post. I wouldn't mind a little bit "more" of it though, as far as the deeper understanding of the poem because it seemed very quick. I really liked the post about Coleridges life and biography. I thought it was very interesting that he became addicted to opium, because that's just not what I would imagine someone of his line of work doing. The only thing I didn't like about the biography post was the random symbols and letters in it, which made it really hard to understand what the sentence was saying sometimes. I really liked the quote in the last post, i just wish it were a bit longer. The relation he made to independence in the worlds countries. The post that Wade had about "Common Sense" was really good, I liked how he put a different spin on it in his thoughts about what wisdom really is because I really haven't thought about it that way before. I also liked towards the end when he stated that Blake really doesn't make or say quotes that only scholars who have years of school under their belts are able to understand, but people from all walks of life are able to put their own spin on it and interpret it in a different way. Parts of this blog are really unclear and not totally backed up with a lot of thought so I wouldn't really call it a "great" resource if someone wanted to learn a lot about romanticism and one of it's greatest artists. I think this blog WOULD be good for someone to read if they wanted a light skim over who Coleridge is and what type of philosophies he had. It will teach them the way he came to be who he was as well as show them a couple examples of what he created in his life.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The Crook and The Honest Man
"In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing." - William Wordsworth
As soon as I read this quote I thought of a variety of things that this completely relates to or describes. There are always people doing the wrong thing or something destructive without the knowing of the people who should. When someone sees those actions going on they become the person to fear, for the crook to fear. That being said, I wonder who should be the one with fear and the one causing it. We've all had that feeling when we do something we know someone is going to tell on us about it. So at the moment we are committing to that unjust action, we are the crook, and at the moment the person who is going to tell on us comes in, the honest person who doesn't know what they are doing, we shift in our mind from having power to fearing and asking for mercy. In the end, the person the unjust is being shown by the crook should have no fear, because the crook himself should fear the people around him that witnessed his unjust. Another thing that I thought about was, if one word in this quote was changed, "doesn't" to "does." The whole quote would change and all of a sudden, the honest man would be put in a position of a black mailer who both the crook and the person the unjust action is being done onto have reason to fear, which would make him a whole other crook. This quote leaves me with the question of where fear really even starts.
As soon as I read this quote I thought of a variety of things that this completely relates to or describes. There are always people doing the wrong thing or something destructive without the knowing of the people who should. When someone sees those actions going on they become the person to fear, for the crook to fear. That being said, I wonder who should be the one with fear and the one causing it. We've all had that feeling when we do something we know someone is going to tell on us about it. So at the moment we are committing to that unjust action, we are the crook, and at the moment the person who is going to tell on us comes in, the honest person who doesn't know what they are doing, we shift in our mind from having power to fearing and asking for mercy. In the end, the person the unjust is being shown by the crook should have no fear, because the crook himself should fear the people around him that witnessed his unjust. Another thing that I thought about was, if one word in this quote was changed, "doesn't" to "does." The whole quote would change and all of a sudden, the honest man would be put in a position of a black mailer who both the crook and the person the unjust action is being done onto have reason to fear, which would make him a whole other crook. This quote leaves me with the question of where fear really even starts.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Who is "Andrew Jones?"
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/andrew-jones/
In the poem I think "Andrew Jones" is that man at the end of the street that no one likes. He is a man who people think will raise his children to raise hell in the community, like many people think of parents who act poorly. The people want Jones to be called into the draft away from where they live so he can be done away with. Wordsworth doesn't hate him for the long days that he curses all the way through and gets drunk, but because of what he did to a man who was crippled and alone. The crippled man had a penny thrown to him by a passing traveler and he couldn't reach down to grab it, without help. There was a lot of dust down the ground and the weather was bad, but the crippled man looked through all the dust until he found the penny. Just as the cripple found the penny Andrew Jones reached down and took the penny from the old man and told him that what he had found was his. That is why Andrew Jones will raise children who would do the same as he did to the poor cripple. There is always and Andrew Jones in the world, or society we put ourselves in. Some people make one bad decision and it sticks with them their whole life and becomes their nature in the eyes of everyone around them. I myself have even experienced one of those people. When I was younger, I lived in a neighborhood where a man who had two kids lived in a house that was really worn down and was always drunk and causing disturbances to people around him, and because of it I was told not to go around him or his kids, simply because they might be like him. It just goes to show that there is always an Andrew Jones in all walks of life.
In the poem I think "Andrew Jones" is that man at the end of the street that no one likes. He is a man who people think will raise his children to raise hell in the community, like many people think of parents who act poorly. The people want Jones to be called into the draft away from where they live so he can be done away with. Wordsworth doesn't hate him for the long days that he curses all the way through and gets drunk, but because of what he did to a man who was crippled and alone. The crippled man had a penny thrown to him by a passing traveler and he couldn't reach down to grab it, without help. There was a lot of dust down the ground and the weather was bad, but the crippled man looked through all the dust until he found the penny. Just as the cripple found the penny Andrew Jones reached down and took the penny from the old man and told him that what he had found was his. That is why Andrew Jones will raise children who would do the same as he did to the poor cripple. There is always and Andrew Jones in the world, or society we put ourselves in. Some people make one bad decision and it sticks with them their whole life and becomes their nature in the eyes of everyone around them. I myself have even experienced one of those people. When I was younger, I lived in a neighborhood where a man who had two kids lived in a house that was really worn down and was always drunk and causing disturbances to people around him, and because of it I was told not to go around him or his kids, simply because they might be like him. It just goes to show that there is always an Andrew Jones in all walks of life.
Analysis of "Perfect Woman"
http://www.poetry-archive.com/w/perfect_woman.html
What I think Wordsworth is trying to convey here is: every woman that you may have an attraction to at first sight will seem utterly perfect in every way and will perhaps be a gift to your eyes, for the time being at least. At first glimpse everything seen on her is like "twilight," something beautiful to behold, down to her hair and eyes and she is a present of the moment. After someone so great has been described, he goes on to say that she is a happy image drawn from the month before summer where all nature is in its prime that is to scare and stay with you, as if she is waiting for the right time to ambush with her beauty. He then starts to have the woman in a "closer" view in her household motions, as if she is a housewife taking pride in her role or even as his wife. She is a woman who is "not too bright or good for human nature's daily food," meaning she really is a human who has faults and isn't the perfect being he first thought as her virginal steps in things show themselves to him. As he concludes his description of her, he sees the "pulse of the machine," as if she is a worker come alive. She has good reasoning, endurance, foresight, who is not very rough (in a mentality sense,) but can also command people and be stern. As she is a spirit in "angelic light," I think he is starting to think of her as a guardian angel or something that is always with him as he looks at her with a very unclouded look, as if she has become clear to him and he now understands her. This poem left me with a really different view about Wordsworth thinking about everything this way, and if so, how everything could have been written about.
What I think Wordsworth is trying to convey here is: every woman that you may have an attraction to at first sight will seem utterly perfect in every way and will perhaps be a gift to your eyes, for the time being at least. At first glimpse everything seen on her is like "twilight," something beautiful to behold, down to her hair and eyes and she is a present of the moment. After someone so great has been described, he goes on to say that she is a happy image drawn from the month before summer where all nature is in its prime that is to scare and stay with you, as if she is waiting for the right time to ambush with her beauty. He then starts to have the woman in a "closer" view in her household motions, as if she is a housewife taking pride in her role or even as his wife. She is a woman who is "not too bright or good for human nature's daily food," meaning she really is a human who has faults and isn't the perfect being he first thought as her virginal steps in things show themselves to him. As he concludes his description of her, he sees the "pulse of the machine," as if she is a worker come alive. She has good reasoning, endurance, foresight, who is not very rough (in a mentality sense,) but can also command people and be stern. As she is a spirit in "angelic light," I think he is starting to think of her as a guardian angel or something that is always with him as he looks at her with a very unclouded look, as if she has become clear to him and he now understands her. This poem left me with a really different view about Wordsworth thinking about everything this way, and if so, how everything could have been written about.
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