The Wind in the Willows: Kenneth Grahame and Neopaganism

3002 Words7 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Influence of the romantic literary period

The Wind in the Willows: Kenneth Grahame and Neopaganism

The beauty of the English countryside--cultivated or wild, pastoral or primeval, it was an endless source of inspiration for eighteenth-century Romantic poets. Such notables as Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley envisioned ancient and exotic Hellenic gods in familiar, typically British settings. Douglas Bush says of Keats, "For him the common sights of Hampstead Heath could suggest how poets had first conceived of fauns and dryads, of Psyche and Pan and Narcissus and Endymion" ( Pagan Myth 46). Later writers, clearly influenced by the Romantic world view, would describe idealized pastoral scenes in terms of "the rich meadow-grass . . . of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable . . . . the roses so vivid, the willow-herb so riotous . . ." (Grahame, Wind 911). This was the haunt of Nature personified:

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror-- indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy . . . he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humorously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward . . . . (912]

Pan's appearance in "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" constitutes my most vivid impressio...

... middle of paper ...

...dence in the Victorian Fin de Siecle . Princeton: Princeton

UP, 1986.

Grahame, Kenneth. Pagan Papers . 5th ed. 1898. London: Lane, 1914.

---. The Wind in the Willows . 1908. Classics of Children's Literature . Ed. John W. Griffith and

Charles H. Frey. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 1996. 865-957.

"Grahame, Kenneth." Yesterday's Authors of Books for Children . Ed. Anne Commire. Vol. 1.

Detroit: Gale, 1977. 144-153.

Green, Peter. Kenneth Grahame: A Biography . Cleveland: World, 1959.

"Kenneth Grahame." Children's Literature Review . Ed. Gerard J. Senick. Vol. 5. Detroit:

Gale, 1983. 109-136.

Sale, Roger. "Kenneth Grahame." Fairy Tales and After . Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1978. 165-193.

Wullschlager, Jackie. "Kenneth Grahame: Et in Arcadia Ego." Inventing Wonderland . New York:

Free P, 1995. 143-174.

Show More
Related

  • Misery, Trauma and Isolation in The Thing in the Forest by A.S Wyatt

    1493 Words  | 3 Pages

    Byatt, A.S. “The Thing in the Forest.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 352-67.

    Read More

  • The Rural Privilege in A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett

    2003 Words  | 5 Pages

    Jewett, Sarah Orne. "A White Heron." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. 131-139.

    Read More

  • The Film Analysis Of 'The Snake Wrangler'

    1731 Words  | 4 Pages

    Documentary is a term that stresses a broad category of expression that is based on the attempt to ‘document’ reality. The classification of documentary includes formally structured or seemingly unstructured films that are either non-fictional or entirely fictional. From around 1921, early films captured real people with everyday situations and filmmakers edited these footages to create a structure with either a story or an argument. By 1932, John Grierson had formulated a definition that distinguished between documentary and other factual forms of cinematic journalism, travelogue and scientific or nature films. Grierson found documentary beyond arrangement and description because it used a ‘creative treatment of actuality’. This shaping offered

    Read More

  • The Wind In The Willows Analysis

    175 Words  | 1 Pages

    Imagine a world where animals walked, talked, and lived like humans; where rats went boating, toads drove cars, and moles went on picnics. This is the reality in The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. The river, the forest, even the prison are all locations you'll get to visit in this tale revolving around the adventures of Rat, Mole, Toad, and Badger. Grahame's rich language and enjoyable characters are captivating, making you want to find out what happens next to these four friends.

    Read More

  • What Is Occupational Therapy Essay

    1563 Words  | 4 Pages

    An occupational therapist becomes trained and licensed in the healthcare profession and obtains the credentials to make a complete assessment of the impact of an injury that is causing the activities of the patient at home and in work situations

    Read More

  • Romanticism And The Romantic Age

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    Blake, Wordsworth, and Keats all represent the Romantic style of literature with their unorthodox themes of nature, art, and life; and how those three points can be tied together and used for creative purposes among humankind. Art and life are counterparts; one is lacking without the other. The Romantic period was about passion; finding inspiration and beauty in things people see every day. Wordsworth found childhood memories in a familiar landscape, Blake found himself captivated by the mysteries of how the majestic tiger was created, and Keats’ urn triggered him to put his inquiries of it into poetry. Each man expressed his individual view within their works; and like many of their Romantic contemporaries, their ideas ran against the flow of their time’s societal beliefs.

    Read More

  • Objectivity of Documentary Film: Cinema Vérité

    1557 Words  | 4 Pages

    Williams, Linda. “Mirrors without Memories. Truth, History, and the New Documentary.” Film Quarterly 46.3 (1993): 9-21.

    Read More

  • Dodgeball

    887 Words  | 2 Pages

    ?gIf you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball.?h That is one of the many statements are by Patches O?fHoulihan. This movie is filled to the top with raunchy, hilarious, and subtle jokes throughout the movie. The movie has a lot of what some would call immature humor such as Justin Long not catching any of the balls thrown at him; instead he took them all to the groin or the head. Long alone keeps you laughing almost as if your gut is going to bust. Vaughn?fs character helps to keep the audience laughing by all of his subtle jokes. For example when Peter meets up with White they discuss all of the horribly funny things that Peter did to him.

    Read More

  • Benefits of Communication in the Movie, The Doctor

    732 Words  | 2 Pages

    The movie “The Doctor” is a good example of how communications in the health field work to benefit not only the patient, but the doctor too. In this movie, the main character, also known as Jack McKee, is a heart surgeon. The movie begins by showing how McKee’s attitude towards his patients tends to be inappropriate. Jack jokes about his patients and laughs at their concerns. His home life is also a struggle; his relationships with his wife and son are falling apart. The movie takes a turn when Jack becomes suddenly ill. He begins coughing up blood. He meets with a specialist by the name of Lesley. Tests reveal that Jack has a serious tumor on his vocal cords. He has now become the patient. He begins treatment but the results are not what they expect. Along the way, he befriends a brain tumor patient by the name of June. She will teach Jack how to empathize. He will learn how to feel and communicate not only with his wife and son, but for his patients as well.

    Read More

  • Effective Listening

    1502 Words  | 4 Pages

    The skill of listening according to Dr. Robert Bolton (1979) extends beyond simply hearing sound as a physiological sensory process but instead requires and involves interpreting and understanding the sensory experience or what is being heard (p 32). It also is an active experience wherein the listener is fully engaged and has absorbed the information of the speaker while showing interest and providing feedback all while demonstrating that they have heard and understand the message. It is a fair assertion that most people in varying relationships and environments listen in what is considered a passive capacity or only digesting and processing bits and pieces of the speaker’s message. This type of listening lends itself to frequent miscommunication, mixed messages and overall misunderstandings. Effective listening on the other hand provides concise communication, decreases interpersonal conflict and mistakes and also...

    Read More

  • The Nature of Frost

    962 Words  | 2 Pages

    Whether he wrote about woods, milkweed, apple-picking, fire and ice, or rolling hills Robert Frost stands out among poets with his descriptive use of nature with its beauty and splendor. These images hold in a reader's mind and are hard to forget. In many of the works of Robert Frost, you can see the use of nature to convey emotions and thoughts. Not only does Frost use nature to convey images and emotions, but he allows for nature to take its place in the human world around him. Frost's nature poetry is closely related to his pastorlism (Lynen), but unlike most pastoralists, Frost includes nature.

    Read More

  • The Process of Listening

    1190 Words  | 3 Pages

    The common view on listening often does not even involve true listening. People often mistake hearing for listening. Just because you heard something does not necessarily mean that you were listening. While others do not even realize that listening is one step of a four-part process. While two people are involved in communication, the one receiving the message while “listening” formulates the next phase within their head. They miss a large percentage of what the person involved in speaking is saying (Tubbs and Moss 141). The reasons [for ineffective listening] are so obvious that they are sometimes overlooked. First, listening is mistakenly equated with hearing and since most of us can hear, no academic priority is given to this subject in college. Second, we perceive power in speech. We put a value on those who have the gift of gab. How often have you heard the compliment, “He/she can talk to anyone?” Additionally, we equate speaking with controlling both the conversation and the situation. The third and last reason we don’t listen, is that we are in an ear of information overload. We are bombarded with the relevant and the irrelevant and it is easy to confuse them. Often it is all jus...

    Read More

  • Documentary Critique

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    Michael Moore is the author and narrator of this touching film. He is seen throughout the film. He interviews many people and tries again and again to find Roger Smith. He is thrown out of private clubs, offices and yacht clubs. His authorial voice is observational. He tells all sides of this sad story. He interviews the people of Flint and GM executives including Roger Smith. He even interviews the few very well to do people in the now struggling city. One executive is used over and over in this film. His opinion is that "GM has to do what GM has to do to stay competitive", and " the nature of corporations is to ...

    Read More

  • Nature Imagery in Tennyson's In Memoriam and Arnold's To Marguerite--Continued and Dover Beach

    1471 Words  | 3 Pages

    Two poets who used an abundance of nature imagery in the Victorian period were Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Matthew Arnold. In Tennyson's In Memoriam, he utilizes many different aspects of nature as metaphors to describe his emotions after the death of a close friend. Arnold's poetry uses different types of water as metaphors in To Marguerite--Continued and Dover Beach.

    Read More

  • Keats Attitude Towards Nature

    483 Words  | 1 Pages

    But Keats is not only the poet of nature. Infact, all the romantics love and appreciate nature with an equal ardour. The differnce is that Keats's love for nature is purely sensous and he loves the beautiful sights and scenes of nature for their own sake, while other romantics see in nature a deep meaning-ethical, moral or spiritual. For example, Wordsworth claims that nature is a moral guide and universal mentor. Coleridge adds stangeness to the beauty by giving it supernatural touch. Shelley, on the other hand, intellectualizes nature. Byron is interested in the vigorous aspects of nature and he uses nature for the purpose of satire.

    Read More

More about The Wind in the Willows: Kenneth Grahame and Neopaganism

Open Document