It is in the nature of pastoral poetry that human desires are projected into a natural setting and lived out only through fantasy. The real world, full as it is of unpredictability and unwanted emotions, is accessible to everyone, while the idyll of the pastoral is preserved “for poets’ fantasies;” its ground is not to be trampled by everyone (Ettin 43). After failing to retreat into the traditional pastoral landscape, John Milton begins, in his poem “Lycidas,” to exercise the control he does not have in the real world over the elements of the pastoral, defying the customary idyllic landscape and turning it into one of mourning.
Andrew Ettin, author of the book Literature and the Pastoral, addresses the idea of a person using the pastoral world as an “emblem of his grief,” in an attempt to reconcile the dichotomy of fantasy and reality (Ettin 55). Relieving strong emotions in a safe pastoral setting can purge the emotions from reality as well. And he explains how the pastoral stands “for ordinary life, magnified,” so that emotions experienced or displaced there may seem more extreme than their effects are in actuality (Ettin 31). As is demonstrated in “Lycidas,” the pastoral setting can either be one of familiarity or estrangement because of the strong emotions mitigated there.
At the beginning of the poem, Milton disappears into the world of the pastoral and begins describing the place where he and the now-deceased Lycidas were “nursed upon the selfsame hill” (Milton 23). This is the normal site of the pastoral landscape, where “the grayfly winds her sultry horn,” and the two boys fatten their “flocks with the fresh dews of night;” a place carefree and beautiful (Milton 28, 29). Yet as Milton escapes t...
... middle of paper ...
...trol he cannot find in his own life, Milton creates an alternative pastoral setting in which to exert power in his poem, “Lycidas.” As Ettin explains is usual of the pastoral, he uses it to contain runoff emotions. The plant-life shows this throughout the poem through picturesque despair. However, Milton rises to a position of such great power in this place that he becomes able to question gods and Muses. This raises the question of why the writers of most pastorals, powerful as they are with pen-in-hand, simply ignore their ability to place themselves above the gods. It was Milton’s shattered emotional state and growing anger with his lack of closure that allowed him to ascend higher in his own fantasy. He surrounded himself by the greatest mourning there could be for Lycidas, one rooted in the very earth he once tread and to which he has now been returned.
Comparing The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd. and the stark contrast of the treatment of an identical theme, that of love within the framework of pastoral life. I intend to look at each poem separately to give my interpretation of the poet's intentions and then discuss their techniques and how the chosen techniques affect the portal of an identical theme. The poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love appears to be about the Elizabethan courtly ideal of living with the barest necessities, like.
Great works of literature have been written throughout history. However, The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost have the inept ability to stir the soul and cause a person to examine and re-examine their life. The brilliant descriptions, use of imagery, metaphor and simile give a person a vivid picture of the creation of man and the possibilities for life in the hereafter. This is done, as a person is able to see, full circle, from the beginning of time to the end of time, the consequences of turning away from God. The ability to see a life full circle is apparent through the examination of both of these poems. Although written many years ago, the morals and principles that they convey ring very true for people in this century as well as times yet to come.
The seat of faith resides in the will of the individual and not in the leaning to our own reasoning, for reasoning is the freedom of choosing what one accepts as one’s will. In considering the will was created and one cannot accuse the potter or the clay, Milton writes to this reasoning, as “thir own revolt,” whereas the clay of humankind is sufficient and justly pliable for use as a vessel of obedience or disobedience (3.117). The difficulty of this acceptance of obedience or disobedience is inherent in the natural unwillingness in acknowledging that we are at the disposal of another being, even God. One theme of Paradise Lost is humankind’s disobedience to a Creator, a Creator that claims control over its creation. When a single living thing which God has made escapes beyond the Creator’s control this is in essence an eradicating of the Creator God. A Creator who would create a creature who the Creator would or could not control its creation is not a sovereign God. For who would not hold someone responsible for manufacturing something that could not be controlled and consider it immoral to do so? To think that God created a universe that he has somehow abdicated to its own devices is to accredit immorality to the Creator. Since the nucleus of Milton’s epic poem is to “justifie the wayes of God” to his creation, these ‘arguments’ are set in theological Miltonesque terms in his words (1. 26). Milton’s terms and words in Paradise Lost relate the view of God to man and Milton’s view to the reader. Views viewed in theological terms that have blazed many wandering paths through the centuries to knot up imperfect men to explain perfect God.
The first three stanzas invoke the West Wind as a driving force over the land, the sky, and the ocean and implore it to “hear” the poets call for it to perform its duty. (14, 28, 42) In the first stanza the wind is characterized as a “Destroyer and preserver” (14) which drive dead leaves and the “wingèd seeds” (7) to the closing season’s burial and the coming spring’s rebirth. Within the recurring second and third stanzas Shelley extends the leaf image to additional earthen objects thus creating an epic metaphor throughout the poem.
The diction surrounding this alteration enhances the change in attitude from self-loath to outer-disgust, such as in lines 8 through 13, which read, “The sky/ was dramatic with great straggling V’s/ of geese streaming south, mare’s tails above them./ Their trumpeting made us look up and around./ The course sloped into salt marshes,/ and this seemed to cause the abundance of birds.” No longer does he use nature as symbolism of himself; instead he spills blame upon it and deters it from himself. The diction in the lines detailing the new birds he witnesses places nature once more outside of his correlation, as lines 14 through 18 read, “As if out of the Bible/ or science fiction,/ a cloud appeared, a cloud of dots/ like iron filings, which a magnet/ underneath the paper
Five different situations are suggested in "Lines" each divided into separate sections. The first section details the landscape around the abbey, as Wordsworth remembers it from five years ago. The second section describes the five-year lapse between visits to the abbey, during which he has thought often of his experience there. The third section specifies Wordsworth's attempt to use nature to see inside his inner self. The fourth section shows Wordsworth exerting his efforts from the preceding stanza to the landscape, discovering and remembering the refined state of mind the abbey provided him with. In the final section, Wordsworth searches for a means by which he can carry the experiences with him and maintain himself and his love for nature. .
Hanford, James H. "The Pastoral Elegy and Milton's Lycidas." Milton's Lycidas: The Tradition and the Poem. Ed. C. A. Patrides. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1983. 31-59.
Unlike her brother, Dorothy seems to be less solitary in her experiences, her accounts of what happened and who was with her are less personal than William’s. Dorothy tends to include everyone who surrounded her at that point and time – ‘We [Dorothy and her brother William] were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park’ – whereas William makes it a companionless experience, he forgets everyone that may have been sharing the moment with him – ‘I wandered lonely as a Cloud’ . This, in conjunction with the use of imagery, similes and personification, not only makes William’s poems more accessible to a wide range of readers but it also adds character and personality, whereas Dorothy’s journal tends to be more reserved and closed to interpretation. Although both use semantic field of nature, William’s use is more affective as it conveys emotion, passion and attachment to his work.
Originally published in November 1915 and then included in Harmonium, 1923. The poem is separated into seven parts. The narrator tells a dynamic story of a woman casually having a late breakfast on her porch one Sunday morning, with a surprising absence of guilt for not going to church because of her admiration for the beautiful wildlife around her. The woman then daydreams a visit to Christ’s tomb and compares the value of Christian faith to nature’s ability to give one paradise. The narrator furthers the story by discussing how the causes life and death change, the purpose of life, and nature’s endurance. As a whole, the work is very dynamic and complex; however it is centered around justifying nature’s ability to fulfil one’s need for
Unlike Hardwig’s poem Hardyd’s lacks any type of reverence or fear of the suffering he undergoes. In fact he mocks both the idea that suffering is something meted out by God and the idea that a man can do anything to effect the amount of suffering he experiences through out his life. In a sense the two author’s while expressing similar ideas, the idea of personal struggle and suffering, are in contention in a very similar way that religion and enlightenment ideas were during the Victorian period.
Goldsmith’s speaker begins nostalgically for the “loveliest village of the plain,” (1) by listing the town’s virtues which include “The never-failing brook, the busy mill, The decent church [.]” (11-12) Goldsmith uses this imagery to contrast the current state of the village, he goes on to say that “These were thy charms—But all these charms are fled.” (34) Here, the speaker urges readers to admonish the loss of the village’s charms by destroying the imagery created by the first 33 lines. He continues the description of the land as “forlorn” (76), but while the villagers were forced to abandon the area, the speaker’s nostalgia implies that he chose to leave. This nostalgia implies that the speaker’s depiction of the village could be highly romanticized. The speaker likens the loss of the village with a much greater problem, “The country blooms—a garden, and a grave.” (302) He suggests that this is not an isolated problem, but an epidemic that is happening all over the country. The village is lost to make room for a garden and a grave; the first belongs to the nobility and the later to the peasant. His portrayal of the New World supports th...
When we first started the poetry unit, I felt that I would hate reading and creating poetry. When I heard we had to read poetry I was very disappointed. Every other year we did poetry units, I hated it. I hated every part of it. I dreaded reading poetry and answering the questions. I mostly felt this way because I am a factual person. I always have to have one right answer. I do not like when there are more than one answer choices that are correct. Poetry always has more than one interpretation.This year, however, hearing poetry and writing my own poetry has changed my opinion on poetry. Although I still hate answering questions on the poems I love to listen to poetry and write my own poetry. But, even when you read the poems that I write they are very straightforward and there are usually no other ways to interpret it.
Nature and God are the main themes in “Robert Frost poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, William Wordsworth’s poems, “The World is Too Much With Us”, and “It is a Beauteous Evening”. The poets portray the themes of Nature and God both explicitly and implicitly, exposing the reader to a variety of ways in which nature and God is synonymous.
The purpose of displaying earthly reality as transient is to contrast it with the theme of a heavenly kingdom. As the poem ends, the Wanderer notes that there is, "comfort from the Father in heaven, where all stability resides" (70). The heart of Anglo-Saxon life will pass for all as it did for the Wanderer. Comfort is not to be found in that transient world, but in the world beyond, through security in the heavenly kingdom.
Many poets are inspired by the impressive persona that exists in nature to influence their style of poetry. The awesome power of nature can bring about thought and provoke certain feelings the poet has towards the natural surroundings.