R F 02 (382)

Alex Spangler's Class Summary Essay

Boom, Boom, Boom Activity

February 2nd marked the famous “Boom, Boom, Boom Activity” and the class began with a reward quiz. Unfortunately, Dr. Foss’ daughter Julia was home sick from school so she was in class today. She started out pretty shy but then warmed up to the class. While Dr. Foss explained the “Boom, Boom, Boom Activity” that we would be doing for the class period, Julia managed to entertain us all with her animal drawings on the board. She snuck in a “my dad’s weird” quote on the board, but quickly erased it. Before the “Boom, Boom, Boom Activity”, Dr. Foss went over the biographies of Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, and Joanna Baily. Julia has, by this time, drawn an array of exquisite animals on the board and claims that she can write in bubble letters and has better handwriting than her dad! The poems that were assigned for class today involved themes of nature, society, and relationships and will be the focal point of this essay. The poets that created these pieces mix these elements together to create an appropriate compare and contrast between the poets and their works.

Dr. Foss then broke us up into six groups. Group A (House of Mouse) would be starting with pages 64/66, 359/398, and 874/989, Group B (London Calling) would be starting with 275/291, 282/298, and 345/384, Group C (Seaside Retorts) would be starting with 85/89, Group D (Home Front) would be starting with 66/70 and 346/385, Group E (Hear Me Roar) would be starting with 855/950 and Group F (Mores Roars) would be starting with 364/403 and 876/971. Dr. Foss explained that each group will be given about five minutes to discuss the poems. We are also supposed to write on a piece of paper what we believe the poems represent and also how they compare with the other poets as well and then pass the paper along to the next group. We will then receive the previous group’s paper, read what they have written, and expand on their thoughts or come up with our own. In doing this, we will have visited many different themes and elements and compared and contrasted the poets’ forms and styles. By the end of the exercise, we will have seen the themes of nature, society, and relationships and compared and contrasted each of the poets elements. Our group was F (Mores Roars).

Our group began with Burns’ “Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled” and Clare’s “The Mores”. We discussed how “The Mores” is more centered around nature with the beauty of nature and the cycle of life. John Clare focuses more on the nature and sublime rather than life and hardships. Clare has a more romantic style of writing believing that the cycle of life and nature are far more important than other aspects such as the city and industry. Although he does speak of nature, there are traces of society found as well. The patriotic nature stance is considered with Clare’s poem with “Of cornfields crimson o'er the headache bloomd Like splendid armys for the battle plumed”. Burns’ “Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled” also has elements of patriotism and portrays the act of dying for your country as a valuable and honorable effort. Our group discussed that the closing lines, “Liberty's in ev'ry blow! Let us do or die!” provide the patriotic element that Burns’ speaks of. Our five minutes were up and instead of Dr. Foss shouting “boom”, Julia shouted instead, scaring most of the class.

We switched papers and began to work on Hemans’ “Joan of Arc, in Rheims” poem. Our group discussed mostly the unexpected power of woman and the emphasis on childhood and the power of family. In this instance, women pay a price for their fame. For example, the very last stanza includes the lines, “Wander again, Joanne! – too much of fame Had shed its radiance on thy peasant-name” This represents the powerful woman and the position that women hold. Without being able to dive too deeply into this poem, Julia yelled “Boom!” again and we are to switch to Group D.

Now our group is working on Barbauld’s “Washing Day” and Baillie’s “A Mother to Her Waking Infant”. Our group focused mainly on the idea that, in “Washing Day”, the work of a woman is just as important the work of a man. Both of these poems speak to how families work and the balance between the relationships. Our group then discussed that in Baillie’s poem “A Mother to Her Waking Infant” there is a strong bond and relationship between a mother and her child. This poem speaks to a real family and how families operate. This shows a more sentimental and fulfilling life while the “Washing Day” poem is more complex and rough. These poems all focus on the emphasis of the power of family and childhood. Another “boom”, time to switch again. Our group now gets to work on Group C. This time we are only discussing Smith’s “Written in the church-yard at Middleton in Sussex”. This was a complete contrast from the other poems that we read, in that, although this was a discussion of nature, it was focused more on the rough aspect of nature. By that I mean the physical act that nature produces on the world. Smith views nature more dark and realistic, invoking many thoughts of death instead of life and passion like the other poets that we have been discussing before this. It was refreshing at this point to view something other than love and passion and get a sense of the other side of the spectrum. There is a strong continuation of nature and society, but a much different view of nature than Clare, Hemans, Burns, Baillie, and Barbauld. In this instance, nature swallows humanity, literally. Lines 6 and 7 explain this perfectly with, “Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed; Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead”. Other groups agreed wholeheartedly that Smith’s poem was refreshingly nice. “Boom!” Our second to last set of poems are Robinson’s “January, 1795”, “London’s Summer Morning”, and Baillie’s “London”. Like the others, these poems focus on society and the contrast between societies. In “January, 1795”, Robinson focuses on the societies dichotomy with the rich vs poor and how there is no middle class. This poem, like the others, focused primarily on the social aspect rather than the natural aspect. “London’s Summer Morning” focused on the occupations of the people in London while Baillie’s “London” focused on the sublime nature of London and the innocence. All of these poems have the elements of society and infrastructure but also have traces, through comparison, with nature. For example, in Baillie’s “London” she claims, “She is sublime. - She seems a curtain'd gloom, Connecting heaven and earth.” Although the focus is primarily on the physical place, nature is found throughout the poem, much like in all of the rest of the poems. The three of these poems are strikingly similar in that the society and social classes are very prominent but elements of nature are also found. Julia decided to bang on the side of the trashcan to indicate the final boom! For our last set of poems, our group looked at Barbauld’s “The Mouse’s Petition to Dr. Priestley”, Burns’ “To A Mouse”, and Clare’s “The Mouse’s Nest”. All of these poems focused on the idea of innocence and nature. Our group focused primarily on the idea that there is simplicity in nature that can only be found at life so small and there is a beauty of living in the present. In these instances, the mice are compared to people and then the mouse actually represents people on a larger scale. Society and nature are both, in this instance, present because the poets are viewing our lives through a small animals life and their surroundings and doing a complete compare and contrast of nature and life. For example, “Let natures’ commoners enjoy the common gifts of heaven.” At the end of this small group discussion, Dr. Foss gathered the class together to discuss, for a few minutes, what all of the elements mean as a whole. In all of these poems, there are strong elements of nature, society, and relationships between them. Whether the relationships are between nature and society or the actual relationships between people, all of the poems strongly convey some sort of natural elements that cannot be ignored. These poets are all similar in this instance but each brings their own different style of writing which makes all of them unique in their own way. Whether nature is portrayed as provocative or innocent to the different forms of life between people and animals and their relationships, there are enough elements to create the perfect mixture both on a small and large scale between nature and life.

Word Count: 1476

Shama Doshi

Class summary: Thursday 2nd February 2012

Class this Thursday was rather unusual. The class was given their second reward quiz and we had a little visitor. Dr. Foss promised our class that the reward quiz would be easier than our first. Five questions later and the atmosphere in the room seemed to have dulled slightly. Perhaps that quiz was not as easy as some of us had hoped. We were still in high spirits after turning in our quizzes, how could we not be for we had an artist in the room. Today we were to discuss seven poets of the Romantic Period. Dr. Foss predicted that six out of the seven poets would be new to us. This Thursday was exceptionally exciting because as Dr. Foss stated it was “The debut for the Boom Boom Boom Activity.” Buzzing with excitement the class broke up into six groups. We were to attempt to place the seven poets amoung the Big Six. We explored the commonalities and differences between the Big Six and our seven poets. By doing so we would be able to better understand and appreciate the growth in poetry’s existence.

The class was surprised yet again with Dr. Foss’ enthusiasm to first discuss the lives of the seven poets. This activity was done collectively as a class. In order to discuss the ways in which the poets, for today’s class period, compared with the Big Six we had to understand where the poets came from, and what they believed in. Anna Barbauld (page 66) was an important poet of her time; she wrote literature that targeted the interest of the everyday reader as well as the elite. She was against slavery and believed in a woman’s education. Charlotte Smith (page 85) was famous for her sonnets. Despite her ill-fated life, Smith was considerably successful. Her sad life is reflected heavily throughout her literature. Mary Robinson (289) surprisingly was most talked about for her appearance in the theatre. She led a tragic life, like many of the female poets. Robinson was a great admirer of Coleridge and his “Lyrical Ballads.” Perhaps the most interesting was Joanne Baillie’s life (page 378) She never married, which puts an interesting twist on her poetry. She was a dramatist primarily and extremely popular well into the nineteenth century. Felicia Heman (page 930) wrote patriotic poems that gave Bryon a “run for his money” as Dr. Foss told us rather eagerly. Finally John Clare (page 961) grew up in an illiterate family and was not interested in conventional spelling.

With this background knowledge the groups were ready to plunge into the “Boom Boom Boom Activity” Dr. Foss had provided the class with what, I felt, were incredibly creative titles for each cluster of poems. My group began with “Role of Emotions.” Smith’s poems “Written in the church-yard at Middleton in Sussex” and “On being cautioned against walking on a headland overlooking the sea, because it was frequented by a lunatic” both mirror the ideas that the poetic speaker would much rather be dead for “they hear the warning elements no more.” This was rather different than what we had read before in the early poems of the Big Six. Ideally, Romantic poets celebrated the life and human existence. Smith laments her situation in both poems, which is seen through out the works of the Big Six. My group found Smith to be much like Wordsworth. Smith draws light on the power of nature through the churchyard setting and the seaside. Much like Wordsworth, Smith believed that nature had the power to move people, something Wordsworth dealt with. Before we could even begin to further discuss another angle we were onto “London Calling.” Almost in unison my group chanted, “Robinson shares the same elements as Keats and Blake.” Robinson and Blake discuss the failure in London and neglect. “London’s Summer Morning” was strikingly similar to Blake’s “London” (page 199). Blake described the awful aspects of London and highlights the chimneysweepers life. Blake and Robinson appear to be dedicated to writing about the ill treatment of the chimneysweepers and consequently the people of London. There was, in my group, some disagreement regarding Robinson’s decision to include the theatre and balls of London in her poem. Half of my group felt that the social divide was included to magnify just how poor the majority of London was, while others believed that it highlighted the good side of London. Sadly, before we could truly argue both sides my group was at a loss for time with another bellowing boom.

This time we discussed “House of a Mouse.” My group agreed that Barbauld was unlike any of the Big Six because she believed in the freedom of women. We acknowledged that she fell next to the six poets in regards to writing with a liberating spirit. Our next set of poems focused on “Liberating and Revolution.” Our group concentrated on Clare’s poem “The Mores” (Page 971) and Wordsworth, who claimed to write in the people’s language. Upon further discussion we concluded that Clare truly wrote in the language of his time. The spelling and grammatical errors indicate his humble tone. Clare’s poetry focused on nature and the circle of life. One of my group members made an interesting observation regarding the fences in Clare’s poem. In “The Mores” Clare’s fence mimics the governments setting up of laws and regulations.

With another boom my group was onto their second last set. “Hear Me Roar.” Dr. Foss urged us to consider the place of woman in London. Heman wants women to have their rights but she is left conflicted because she does not see fault in what they are expected to do in the house for her family and husband. This instantly shows a fault in the writers of the Romantic Period, they were relatively narrow-minded. In regards to the Big Six, Heman fits in with Keats, for both poets believe that love and fame make you live forever. However, Heman goes one step further and believes that if a woman were to achieve fame she will be ruined. This is clearly seen throughout “Joan of Arc, in Rheims” With the sound of the last boom we were onto “Home Front.” We focused on Coleridge’s “Frosted Night” and the intense love for the poetic speaker’s infant. Baillie explored this same love in “A Mother to Her Waking Infant.” Our group found it difficult to come to terms with how Baillie was able to write so sentimentally on a topic she knew close to knowing about, considering she never married or had any children.

As 12:15pm drew closer we came to realize that all seven poets could be placed between the Big Six. They all share the same elements that make up the Romantic period. Nevertheless, it was obvious that there has been a significant growth in poetry between the Big Six and these seven poets, however, it is evident that the seven poets still rely on the form, style and topics the Big Six explored.