Audience and Expectation in John Clare’s An Invite to Eternity
Although John Clare’s “An Invite to Eternity” appears to be a direct address to an unknown and anonymous “maiden,” in reality the poem is a much more complex appeal to the reader, which takes on the guise of traditional love poetry only to subvert it. In many ways, Clare’s poem seems to emulate and echo more classical poems such as Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” in its direct entreaty to a young lover. However, unlike that earlier poem, Clare’s offers his “sweet maid” a less than appealing prospect for future life, presenting her with an “eternity” filled with apocalyptic landscapes and almost monumental human disconnection. Indeed, the very vision of eternity
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Even in this very opening there are clues that what follows may not completely be what it seems because of the use of antiquated word forms, seemingly out of place in a poem by a self-taught, peasant poet: “Wilt thou go with me sweet maid / Say maiden wilt thou go with me” (1-2). Words like “wilt” and “thou” connect the poem more firmly back to classical tradition and poems such as Marlowe’s “Passionate Shepherd to His Love” which begins in a similar vein (an entreaty to “come with me and be my love” (1)), but interestingly does not make such use of antique language. However, Clare’s use of this language clearly places his poem in a classical, traditional vein, an expectation disrupted by the following description the land he wishes the maiden to accompany him to, a place “of night and dark obscurity / Where the sun forgets the day / Where there’s nor life nor light to see” (4-7). A far cry from the “pleasures” of “valleys, groves, hills and fields” of Marlowe’s pastoral poem (2-3), “An Invite to Eternity” rejects the expectations its first two lines promise, exchanging the anticipated and conventional world of the romantic pastoral or the heavenly for the decidedly hellish and ominous. The stanza closes with an echo of the first lines – “Sweet maiden wilt thou go with me” – seeming perverse and almost ironic in the face of the world described in the lines previous …show more content…
This return to the conventions of love poetry, the happy ending and consummation, adds a parting shot of additional irony to the poem as a whole, for the future life we have seen for this couple is less than pleasant. Indeed, this ending, more clearly than any other part of the poem, directly mocks the notion of romantic and eternal love as traditionally presented by poetry and expresses Clare’s own bitterness and anger at his isolation from the world and from human love.
Throughout “An Invite to Eternity,” Clare invokes the traditions of love poetry, only to subvert these conventions, mocking the notions of love and eternity with sad irony and the truth of his own social isolation. The descriptions of the world he occupies are hardly appealing and Clare is well aware of this, knowing that such an offer would be made in vain if truly made at all. The straightforwardly presented horror of Clare’s world lies in direct contrast to the world of love he continually invokes, and the improbable triumph of love over isolation is nearly laughable in its impossibility. By complicating his poem’s mode of transmission through the filter of the maid and the frame of traditional love poetry, Clare’s portrait of isolation and social death becomes even more moving and poignant, for it is just as obvious to the reader as it is to Clare that such an offer of “eternity” would be unlikely to be accepted. And if it were, would it matter in an eternity where
Clare longs to be part of the black community again and throughout the book tries to integrate herself back into it while remaining part of white society. Although her mother is black, Clare has managed to pass as a white woman and gain the privileges that being a person of white skin color attains in her society. However whenever Clare is amongst black people, she has a sense of freedom she does not feel when within the white community. She feels a sense of community with them and feels integrated rather than isolated. When Clare visits Irene she mentions, “For I am lonely, so lonely… cannot help to be with you again, as I have never longed for anything before; you can’t know how in this pale life of mine I am all the time seeing the bright pictures of that other that I o...
Wanjek, C. (2013, March 9). Left Brain vs. Right: It's a Myth, Research Finds. LiveScience.com.
Readers of Keats’ poetry have long spoken of the enchanting power of his language, and in one of his most famous works, “The Eve of St. Agnes”; the reader is positively enchanted by the protagonist, Madeline. She’s pure, virginal, positively otherworldly, and “seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest” (Keats 77). Madeline also displays trappings of religious symbols throughout the work. She is called a “Mission’d spirit and a “seraph fair” (Keats 72-3). The reader could scarcely read the poem without immediately associating Madeline with the most divine cherubs in Heaven. Her virginity is repeatedly mentioned and referenced; even her room, or the maiden’s chamber, is “silken, hush’d, and chaste” (Keats 76). Young Porphyro with “heart on fire” for Madeline simply couldn’t resist this angel (Keats 71). One might connect that, similarly, young John Keats could not resist his own angel, Fanny Brawne. At the time of the composition of “The Eve of St. Agnes” Keats was heavy in the thralls of his engagement to Fanny. In her book, John Keats: The Making of a Poet, Aileen Ward proclaims “The Eve of St. Agnes” to be "the first confident flush of [Keats's] love for Fanny Brawne" (Ward 310). However, if Madeline is meant to be a manifestation of Fanny Brawne, Keats must not think of his fiancé as merely an angel, but something more.
Jenkins, B.; Walker, S.; Burns, M. (2011). Left vs. Right: What Your Brain Hemispheres Are Really Up To. Scientific Learning. Retrieved from http://www.scilearn.com/blog/left-brain-right-brain-hemispheres.php
Louisa’s feelings for her lover have disappeared throughout the years and when her lover returns to marry her, she feels very uncertain of the marriage. Similarly, many engagements are broken due to the fact that the feelings between couples fade after there is a distance between them, for years. Another example that relates to life is, “[i]n that length of time much had happened. Louisa's mother and brother had died, and she was all alone in the world” (Freeman p). When immigrants return to their country, many deaths have occurred in the time period of their absence and sometimes the deaths include their own relatives. To their misfortune, they never have a chance to say a last good bye. The story, A new England’s Nun is very similar to the lives of many people and in many cases the same.
Before reaching this moment, the reader can discern that Louise is struggling between the thoughts of how she “should” be reacting to the news of her husband’s death against the feeling of elation of being free from her perceived marital constraint. Louise is living in the late 19th century where society believed women belonged in a domestic realm where they “manned” the house (cooking, cleaning, raising the children) binding them to their home and husband. A time when a woman is to be the social moral compass and live by a strict social code of conduct. Even in the description of Louise it is clear she upholds these values: “She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength” (Chopin 306). It is also when the reader gets the first glimpse of Louise’s repressed life.
The left and right hemispheres of the brain are each divided into sections. Within each sections are lobes, controlling such processes as our visualization, our movement, and our personalities. For instance, the occipital lobe in the back of our brain is responsible for processing vision, and the frontal lobe behind our forehead controls cognition and personality. The lobes of the brain are split between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. This well-designed arrangement is for the lobes to function correctly, so the two hemispheres of the brain can communicate with one
Mary Wroth alludes to mythology in her sonnet “In This Strange Labyrinth” to describe a woman’s confused struggle with love. The speaker of the poem is a woman stuck in a labyrinth, alluding to the original myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. The suggestion that love is not perfect and in fact painful was a revolutionary thing for a woman to write about in the Renaissance. Wroth uses the poem’s title and its relation to the myth, symbolism and poem structure to communicate her message about the tortures of love.
Keats, John. “The Eve of St. Agnes”. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic
When looking out the window "she was drinking in a very elixir of life” (Chopin). The short story comes to an end with her husband walking through the door and Louise falls dead at the sight of her diminishing dreams. This well known short story is comprehended in many ways deciding the reason of Louise’s death and what “freedom” she experiences.
Edgar Allan Poe’s unique, fearless and morbid writing style has influenced literature throughout the world. He was once titled the "master of the macabre" (Buranelli, 57). One of the aspects in his life with which he struggled was social isolation. He used this as a topic in a number of poems and short stories. Poe's life was also filled with periods of fear and irrationality. He had a very sensitive side when it came to the female gender, any woman he was ever close to died at an early age. Another of his major battles, actually the only one he really lost, was his struggle with alcoholism. Of all these topics, Poe's favorites were the death of a beautiful woman, a feeling, which he knew all too well, and the general topic of death. Edgar Allan Poe endured a very difficult life and this is evident in his literary style.
Nowadays, it is widely known that the right and left hemisphere have different functions. The two hemispheres are equally important in a daily life basis. Nevertheless, in the 1960’s this was not common knowledge. Even though today the importance of the brain hemispheres is common knowledge, people don’t usually know to whom attribute this findings. One of the people who contributed to form a more defined picture about the brain hemispheres and their respective functions was Roger Wolcott Sperry, with the split brain research. Roger Sperry did more contributions than the split brain research, but this is his most important and revolutionary research in the psychological field. Thanks to the split brain research, Sperry proved that the two hemispheres of the brain are important, they work together and whatever side of the brain is more capable of doing the task is the hemisphere that takes the lead.
Edgar Allan Poe’s 1849 poem, “Annabel Lee”, explores the common themes of romance and death found in many of Poe’s works. The poem tells the story of a beautiful young maiden named Annabel Lee who resides by the sea. The maiden and the narrator of the poem are deeply in love, however the maiden falls ill and dies, leaving the narrator without his beloved Annabel Lee. Contrary to what many might expect from a poem by Poe and yet still depressing, the poem ends with the narrator accepting Annabel’s death and remains confident that they will forever be together despite her parting.
We trace her struggles with personal grief, a restricted social life, socio-economic decline, and romantic misfortune, a long history of trauma and repression.”(445)
She is marginalize from society by her partner and she has to live in the shadows of him. She is unbelievably happy when she found out about the death of her husband. She expresses her feelings of freedom in her room where she realize she will live by herself. This illustrates that Louise has been living in an inner-deep life disconnected form the outside world where only on her room away from family and friends she discovers her feelings. It is important to mention that even though Louise has a sister, she does not feel the trust to communicate her sentiments towards her. We discover a marginalization from family members and more surprising from a women, Louise’s sister. The narrator strictly described Louise’s outside world but vividly reveals what is in her mind. At the same time she feels guilty of her emotional state by recognizing that she loved Brently mallard sometimes, her husband. Louise contradict herself but this demonstrates her emotional feelings about her husband disregarding her marriage. The situation of this woman represents the unhappiness and disgraceful life that women had to suffer from their