Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Words of Wisdom by Wordsworth


I found this quote by Williams Wordsworth and I really loved it. I thought it was very clever and inspiring! This was my favorite of all the quotes by him.
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

William Wordsworth

I found this quote by Williams Wordsworth very interesting. I believe this quote displays how clever William Wordsworth was.
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

I had to add this quote by Williams Wordsworth because I found it fascinating. I tried to do more research on this quote but I could not find anything on it, however I would love to understand what he means because it really sparks an interest in me.
The child is father of the man.
William Wordsworth

Understanding Ode to the West Wind

I believe this is perfect commentary on Shelleys "Ode to the West Wind." It explains how Shelley uses many metaphors and expresses how he viewed nature as a source of beauty unlike a lot of other Romantic poets during his time.

The wispy, fluid terza rima of “Ode to the West Wind” finds Shelley taking a long thematic leap beyond the scope of “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,” and incorporating his own art into his meditation on beauty and the natural world. Shelley invokes the wind magically, describing its power and its role as both “destroyer and preserver,” and asks the wind to sweep him out of his torpor “as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!” In the fifth section, the poet then takes a remarkable turn, transforming the wind into a metaphor for his own art, the expressive capacity that drives “dead thoughts” like “withered leaves” over the universe, to “quicken a new birth”—that is, to quicken the coming of the spring. Here the spring season is a metaphor for a “spring” of human consciousness, imagination, liberty, or morality—all the things Shelley hoped his art could help to bring about in the human mind. Shelley asks the wind to be his spirit, and in the same movement he makes it his metaphorical spirit, his poetic faculty, which will play him like a musical instrument, the way the wind strums the leaves of the trees. The thematic implication is significant: whereas the older generation of Romantic poets viewed nature as a source of truth and authentic experience, the younger generation largely viewed nature as a source of beauty and aesthetic experience. In this poem, Shelley explicitly links nature with art by finding powerful natural metaphors with which to express his ideas about the power, import, quality, and ultimate effect of aesthetic expression.

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/shelley/section4.rhtml

Jane Tells Wicked Aunt Off!



I just finished reading Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre ( the full novel ) and I wanted to share my favorite quote.

" I am not deceitful: if I Were. I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you worse of anybody in the world except John Reed..."""(Bronte 658)

I really enjoyed this part of the novel because Jane finally sticks up to her aunt who treats her like a burden to the family. It is almost like a turning point in the novel and it gives the reader hope that maybe her life will become better...

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Plain Jane


It's not too common for a 10 year old child to be so depressed, but in Jane's case it's understandable. Being an orphan at such a young age and being ignored by her aunt and cousins doesn't help her situation either. She has no direction and no one to talk to or play with, she can't even enjoy her favorite fairy tale anymore. It turned "eerie and dreary" just like her life, it seems as if dark and depressing things are all Jane's ever known. This is the age where you are suppose to be carefree and innocent, getting into trouble and making mistakes, but not in Jane's case. When I was this age, I thought finding out Santa was fake was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, I could only imagine the way poor Jane felt.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Oroonoko: Model Material

In Oroonoko, there was one passage that really stuck out to me. On page 2140 in the very last paragraph, Aphra Behn describes Oroonoko in a very interesting way. Right away she speaks of how tall he is and what a great figure he has. " He was pretty tall, but of a shape the most exact that can be fancied: the most famous statuary could not form the figure of a man more admirably turned from head to foot." Just the fact that Behn is describing Oroonoko as a beautiful sculptor is very fascinating and made me want to read on. She then goes on to explain the color of his skin as a "perfect ebony or polished jet." This just meaning he was very dark. "His eyes were the most awful that could be seen, and very piercing, the white of them being like snow, as were his teeth." Behn is using symbolism here by saying his teeth and the whites of his eyes were as white as snow. The part that comes next is what stood out to me the most. "His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat; his mouth, the finest shaped that could be seen, far from those great turned lips which are so natural to the rest of the Negroes. The whole proportion and air of his face was so noble and exactly formed that, bating his color, there could be nothing in nature more beautiful, agreeable, and handsome." This part actually shocked me a little. She is so taken back by the fact that Oroonoko is beautiful AND black it's like she can hardly believe what she's seeing. She describes all his features as " non African " features. His nose and lips are that of a white man and it is " so rare " that he is a black man with these features. She compares his long beautiful hair to art, and goes on about how educated,generous,noble, and refined Oroonoko truly is. I think the way that Aphra Behn describes Oroonoko is very remarkable. It created imagery in my mind where I could actually imagine exactly what Oroonoko looked like. The way she described him from head to toe was very descriptive and very enjoyable.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

As ridiculous as it gets.

The Modest Proposal was extremely ridiculous. Did Jonathan Swift really think that people would start eating their babies to make the economy better? I mean, this guy was crazy! I don't think you can get much crazier than that, but the proposal I found comes close.

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2009/03/14/news/50malloy.txt

--> I don't know about you, but I think they should keep the breast milk for the infants who need it. I'm sure Swift would agree with me considering babies with meat on their bones are "the best to eat." Creep!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

The Country Wife

Horner, a sex crazed whoremaster tells women that he is a Eunuch so that they will sleep with him, although he really is not. This to me, is very hilarious. Pinchwife, another whoremaster is very jealous of Horner because he knows of his brilliant plan and is afraid that Horner will steal his new wife. He is so threatened by Horner that he dresses up his wife as a man to take her out. This plan however, fails miserably for Horner knows that it is Pinchwife's wife and they leave together to have sex.

http://www.philipcrammond.com/heather_brothers/music/lust/04-apoxonloveandwenching.htm
^ This link is from Love,Lies & Lust which is based upon Wycherley's The Country Wife. It is called A Pox On Love And Wenching and is Horners reaction to the eunuch rumor. Check it out, it's very funny!

Basically, in The Country Wife, the men believe that women " are not really what they seem."
It is evident that the men use women strictly for sex and that's about all they want from them. They put a new meaning to the word Man Whore.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Facebook Satire


Hey guys! So I think this video is a really good example of satire. I can't even begin to tell you how many people I know who are in relationships and have gotten mad at their significant others about something they did on facebook. This video makes fun of just that! Check it out, it's really funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTwwuIn9inE

The Rape Of The Lock


Something I found quite funny in the Rape Of The Lock is the Sylphs who protected Belinda from having sex. Sylphs did this by providing Belinda and the beautiful women with many suitors so they could never decide on just one. They were referred to as a " militia of fairies. When I think of that all I can see in my head is Tinkerbell and her little fairy friends with guns! Therefore it is kind of hard to take the situation seriously.

Also, I found it very comical that beautiful woman turn into fairies but prudes ( or ugly woman ) turn into gnomes !!

And the whole use of the word toilet .. It took me about 2 hours to figure out Pope wasn't actually talking about a real toilet, he was talking about a dressing table! Did anyone else get confused by that?

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The Wholesome Liquor


" Coffee came to be regarded as the very antithesis of alcohol drinks, sobering rather than intoxicating, stimulating mental activity and heightening perception rather than dulling the senses "
In the Islamic world, coffee was an alternative to alcohol which was forbidden! This to me is very interesting. Now a days alcohol is served at events and social gatherings just as much if not MORE than coffee is. It breaks down walls and brings people out of their shell. Today, coffee houses are a place to have conversations and discussions among you're peers, but a bar could also be a place for that.

"Many attempts were made to prohibit coffee and coffee-houses in the Muslim world. Some claimed it was intoxicating and therefore subject to the same religious prohibition as alcohol."
Should there be AA for coffee drinkers?! Just like alcoholics (who cant live without drinking alcohol everyday) there are also Coffee addicts who cant live without drinking coffee everyday! Ever think of what a businessman or woman would do if they couldn't consume their daily amount of coffee? Probably fall asleep at their desks without getting any work done at all!

"It is estimated that Americans consume about 45 million pounds of coffee each year. In the US, those who drink coffee have an average of 2.6 cups per day."