Romanticism Assignment 4: The Ropewalk

This poem is about a workers producing rope in a large somewhat dreary building. This seems to be a very tiring and dull job. However the writers mind is elsewhere, thinking of the places his rope will be taken and the uses it will be put to. The imagery of the school boy flying his kite "gleaming in a sky of light" and the ships rigging, "rejoicing in the breeze", particularly stand out to me. This is an example of Romanticism because he transcends the dull factory walls and repetitive task of ropemaking; while nothing has changed around him he is miles away in the haven of his thoughts.

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The story focuses on Lyra, a mischevious eleven year old girl who grew up in Jordan College of Oxford university. Not our Oxford, but Oxford in a world parallel to ours. In the parallel world all humans have an extention of themselves, called a daemon, which takes the form of an animal. Each human's daemon is essentially their soul. Lyra was raised by the scholars and servants of Jordan College; spending her childhood wandering around the grounds of Oxford with children and her friend Roger the kitchen boy. After saving her uncle, Lord Asriel, from a poisoning attempt, however, her life begins to change. Soon after her friend Roger is kidnapped by a group known as the gobblers, who take children supposedly do some sort of experiment. She also recieves a strange compass like object known as the alethiometer, which is somehow used to find the truth. In the ensuing chain of events she sets off to the far north with a group of gypsies to rescue Roger and the other children, as well as Lord Asriel who was being held prisoner by armored bears.

Romanticism Assignment 3: Thanatopsis

As its name implies, the poem is a meditation on death. Instead of handling the subject with a common cold and morbid tone, the writer views it with a sense of unity and return to nature that supported us in our lives, saying that "All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom." Nature is the final resting place of all living things, the poem expresses that it is a thing we can learn from and be influenced by, as if another consciousness, a collection of subtle sleeping intelligences. In this way it focuses not only on death but also life.

This shows Romanticism in its view of death, drawing wholly from the authors thoughts on the subject and not sterile scientific principals. Also the focus on nature, again not scientifically but for its inspiration and insight, almost as a being, displays Romanticism.

Morning

Every morning, as the sunlight rises in our window out of the night, we rise into waking from the sleeping unconscious. The landscape is washed in color from new light; the air is cool and clean in our nostrils. Our limbs and mind are slowly rising, renewed from the previous day. The cycles of the day come in seasons - morning’s spring thawing from night’s long winter.

There is something unique in the sensation of waking. Our ethereal and corporal halves are reunited in a moment; the mind is called from its wandering back into the physical. As we steep in the warmth between the mattress and sheets, the traces of our dreams fade, slipping like water running off of a glass sphere. Our mind is left blank, completely cleansed for a split second as we re-enter our waking lives. We begin as a pure slate to be sculpted for the new day. Our heads as well as our limbs are slow and more moldable in the early hours. Muscles and sinew are slumberous but light, gradually thawing, refreshed from yesterdays ennui.

Something in the quality of light in the morning is distinctive from the rest of the day. It is more pure and clear than the afternoon, when it begins to yellow with age. The spectrum of color seems wider than at any other time of day, a vivid kaleidoscope. The moisture of the dew covers everything, almost radiating, blurring together in morning’s palate. Dawn creeps slowly over the sky line in the early hours; beginning to glow faintly with a red aura outlining the edges of vision, as if the entire curvature of the horizon were ignited at a point just out of sight. The sun rises like a burning emblem of the day against the streaming sky, waking color as it sweeps into view. The growing light cascades through our windows, climbing like wild ivy up our walls, swaying with liquid quality as we rise.

Sound is similarly effected during this hour; its waves seeming to carry differently in the brisk air. The tones are clearer and more piercing; noise seems to rip through the quiet in precise melodic strokes when the dead air is imposed upon. A still quiet hangs over everything like an atmospheric pressure; walking outside at this hour the noise is strangely hushed. From the middle of the empty street the faint approach of a cars motor can be heard from beyond the horizon line; all the slight noises of the waking world combine into a soft hum, a yawning silence permeating auroras still life.

Vitality in general seems to be heightened in the early hours. Inhalation is deeper and lighter, as if not only the lungs but entire frame breathed and coursed with air; pulsing reverberation through the innermost cavities. The air is cool and vibrant, as if the sky were being inhaled for the first time, un-recycled. Breakfast is an inevitable event of the A.M., after fasting for nearly ten hours we are in want of food. Eating seems less dull and ritualistic and more necessary and refreshing. We are empty and must consume to revitalize ourselves. The smell of tea wafts with steam in the morning air, fogging windowpanes above the kitchen sink; morning mulls in simplicity and pathos, the essential reincarnation of the earth in its axis.

Romanticism Assignment 2:

"On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys"

The detailed description of nature displays Romanticism, Van Winkle frequently retreats into the woods.

"On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes--it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. "Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of liquor--the mountain ravine--the wild retreat among the rocks--the wobegone party at nine-pins--the flagon--"Oh! that flagon! that wicked flagon!" thought Rip--"what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle!" "

Here Van Winkle is waking up from a twenty year sleep, something which theoretically isn't particularly possible, showing Romanticism.

Walden by Henry Thoreau, pg. 259 - 300

Thoreau discusses the pond in spring, and its thawing. He discusses the idea of spring, and regrowth, drawing parallels between the sprouting of leaves and the growth of all things. All nature is considered to consist of a legion of constantly metamorphosing leaves or "lobes" of life, from the plates of earth to river and so on; the globe an organism, quivering and erupting upon itself with life and decay.

He finally left Waldens pond after another year, summarizing the second merely by saying it passed much like the first. In explaining his reasons for moving on he states that "perhaps he had several more lives to live" and that he could not spend any more time on that one. Noting how easily we fall into routine, which was to some extent something he had come to the pond to avoid; he remarks on the migration of natural animals, as the birds fly thousands of miles in winter warmer areas, and buffaloe move across the plains to find better grassland.

Romanticism Assignment 1: Response to Rip van Winkle

Rip van winkle was an interesting story. I actually liked the illustrations a lot, they added considerably to the story, though I assume these weren't in the original text. I had heard another version of this before, but it had focused more on the dwarves teaching Van Winkle a lesson about virtues of dilligence and hazards of lazyness. This seems to be less of the intent in Irving's version, which I generally like better. The morals are left somewhat open ended, leaving the reader to decide for themselves. While somewhat lazy and a procrastinator, Van winkle is still arguably praiseworthy in his own way. He is helpful to his neighbors benevolent in general, trying to live in a simple and contented manner. However he seems incapable of managing his own obligations, embodied by his nagging wife; he finds this continually dripping stream of minor affairs exasperating.

The story describes nature vividly. Wandering in the hills is Van Winkles outlet for his frusturations. The writing style is much more detailed about surroundings than in Puritansim or Rationalism. This in my opinion makes it more interesting to read. Descriptions of things such as the old inn keeper smoking his pipe and or the sun setting over the foothills have an air of earthy familiarity. His long sleep in the woods is reflective of the feeling of simple contentedness that he found in his frequent walks in them. His slumber is looked on almost as more pleasantly beneficial than disastorous, he wakes released from his nagging wife and previous petty obligations.

Rationalist Assignment 5: Rationalism in the Declaration of Independence

"and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them"

This mentions the station to which they are entitled by not only God, but also nature, reflecting the rationalist belief that the world is governed not only by God but also science.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The passage states that all men are created equal, and also all have inherent rights, regardless of birth, class, religion, etc. This is a rationalist idea.

"That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. "

This displays the rationalist idea that it is the duty of individuals to improve their lives by applying certian principals, in this case that they have a right as citizens to abolish a government when it becomes corrupt in order to better it.

Rationalist Assignment 4: Thirteen virtues

1. Temperance - Don't do anything to a dull or licentious extent
2. Wholeness - As much as possible try to be undivided in your thoughts and actions
3. Self Control - Be in control of your thoughts and actions
4. Patience - Avoid hastiness in decisions, thoughts, and actions
5. Contentedness - if you cant be satisfied with the bare neccesities you probably wont be any more so with extravagance
6. Modesty - Don't build yourself up higher than a position you are comfortable falling from
7. Steadfastness - Don't be swayed by others opinions unless they have genuinely changed your thinking
8. Resolution. - Continue forward with what you determine to do, however minor, until it is accomplished, or your intention changes
9. Uprightness - In the occasion that you clearly know what is right, do it and don't allow other considerations to cloud your decisions
10. Open mindedness - dont discard ideas simply because they disagree with your own without equal consideration
11. Clarity - Be clear in your thoughts and speech, say what you mean to say
12. Tolerance - Measure your criticism of others with the remembrance of your own faults
13. Discretion - Don't follow any moral with legalism or dogmatically, constantly reconsider

I dont think following these guidelines would neccesarily lead to moral perfection. Then again I dont really think moral perfection can be reached by following anything. Everyone will inevitably have faults and make mistakes. I would probably be a better person if I followed all of these morals, either mine or Franklin's. But there's a considerable gap between what we we think and believe, in theory, and actually applying our beliefs to our lives. The bridge between our innner self, and the outer functioning self; the part which is actually projected into our physical surrounding, cannot always be crossed. There are few absolutes in life, there is no exact science to living rightly; we cannot fully rationalize ourselves because we are not fully rational.

Rationalist Assignment 3: Benjeman Franklins Autobiography

Franklins method of "arriving at moral perfection" is an example of his rationalism. In the passage he describes his attempt to better himself from a very logical and organized standpoint. This supports the rationalist ideas of self improvement through better understanding of the aspects of our live. He divides his plan into thirteen segments, each revolving around a virtue which he believes should be instilled into his lifestyle. These are listed in a very orderly and comprehensive manner. He explains this in the following passage, saying:

"In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalog more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewers ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating anc drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even top our avarice and ambition, I propsed to myself, for the sake of clarity, to use rather more names and fewer ideas annexed to each than a few names with more ideas; and I included after thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occured to me as neccesary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning."