File:Victor Catlett Class Summary.docx

Victor_Catlett_Class_Summary

Victor Catlett's Class Summary Feb. 22, 2011

The class session on Tuesday, February 22, 2011, began as a usual Tuesday would for British Romantic Literature (BRL). Dr. Foss lead in with an icebreaking reward quiz on the Society and Political Economy poems by John Thelwall, Amelia Alderson Opie, Jane Taylor, Lord Byron, Dorothy Wordsworth and William Wordsworth. Following the quiz, Dr. Foss instructed us to divide into small groups where we began making comparisons between the assigned poems that focused on the social difficulties that plagued the society of London in the late eighteenth century. There was a vast division between the lower/working class and the upper class that triggered poets such as Thelwall to dual exist as successful poets and political figures. During the discussions in large and small groups, the gender of the author and which economic group is being represented were areas of consideration and analysis. Dr. Foss prompted the class with potentially promising comparisons before breaking into small groups. Samuel Taylor Coleridge admired Thelwall's courage as a political figure and Dr. Foss thought it beneficial to compare Coleridge’s, The Nightingale and Thelwall’s, To the Infant Hampden. Second, Thelwall’s, Maria would be paired with William Wordsworth’s, Composed on Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1803. Lastly, a female perspective from Amelia Alderson Opie’s, Lines Respectfully Inscribed to the Society for the Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts meets William Wordsworth’s, Resolution and Independence. During the discussion of The Nightingale and To the Infant Hampden, our group wondered how these two poems were similar. We finally came to the realization that the infant in To the Infant Hampden could represent innocence. The infant is innocent and unaware of the state of the political economy, but with age will inevitably be directly impacted by the struggle between the haves and have-nots. The second comparison between Maria and Composed on Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1803 did not enlighten us easily either and a moment of silence followed the introduction of the titles. The last intertexual comparison between Lines Respectfully Inscribed to the Society for the Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts and Resolution and Independence were decodable. The theme we came up with for Opie’s poem was fame. In Resolution and Independence we thought the speaker, who was the traveler, dehumanized the leech gatherer. After shifting physically in our chairs, our class also mentally shifted back into large group. As a collective effort, we made sense of the confusion in small group. In large group I realized that the infant and the nightingale are very similar. The infant smiles in the midst of his underprivileged surroundings. The infant can sleep and dream of pleasantries contently as the society around him has nightmares of unjust taxes and worries of arrest. Thelwall also differentiates the public and private domains in To the Infant Hampden. The private domain of the home is full of “matron cares” that will shun the outside forces of wrongdoing and selfishness. However there is a tone shift at line 18 that begins to describe the possibly haunted future of the infant because of the last name that it bears. The nightingale also deals with a contrasting existence. The nightingale sings a musical and melancholy song. However, the speaker proposes that nature can never be melancholy. The similarity between the two poems is that the natural family of the infant is beautiful because it’s nature at work as is the nightingale’s song. The interpreter’s melancholy mood is what extracts the beauty from nature, the nightingale. The differences between Thelwall’s, Maria and Wordsworth’s, Composed on Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1803 are clear in each poem’s form and content, I would say. Once again, Wordsworth utilizes the Romantic Imagination and uses a contrast between man-made marvels and nature’s given beauty to emphasize the power struggle between the two. Wordsworth describes a lively depiction of the city in an initial glance. The massive ships, towers, and theaters are only beautiful when combined with the natural glimmer of the sun and smokelessness of the morning. The words lie in line 6 and lying in the last line explain the corruptness that is present amidst the beauty of the buildings. Thelwall, on the other hand, does not use a Romantic Imagination approach. Similar to the first comparison between Thelwall’s, To the Infant Hampden and Wordsworth’s, The Nightingale, Thelwall uses a real-life experience to explain the corruption rather than use a more subtle metaphor. Thelwall explains the importance and honor that comes with his prison sentence, similar to the ironic beauty that was found in Wordsworth’s, The Nightingale and his own, To the Infant Hampden. Similar to the imprisonment of many figures that fought for freedom during Civil Rights in America, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela of South Africa during his fight against Apartheid, Thelwall knows that his suffering will be beneficial to mankind in the long run and the fame that he acquires will transfer into a passionate mass of people that will stand behind his cause. The feminine voice of Opie is obviously present in, Lines Respectfully Inscribed to the Society for the Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts. The male in this poem represents tyrannous reign of the public and the female character embodies nature, the humble poor, and love. Fame is negative in Lines Respectfully Inscribed to the Society for the Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts. Opie refers to the traveler in line 15 and William Wordsworth’s Resolution and Independence gives us an example of that traveler. The traveler is a male in both instances. Opie’s male traveler represents the corrupt tyrant who overlooks the natural beauty of the stream. The male traveler in Resolution and Independence comes across a poor leech gatherer who is surrounded by nature and at a moment in the poem the leech gatherer appears to be a piece of nature himself. Nevertheless the male traveler begins to listen to the leech gatherer talk and more and more the male traveler begins to think of himself rather than the plight of the leech gatherer and his underprivileged lifestyle. Just like Opie’s traveler who overlooks the stream, Wordsworth’s traveler describes the leech gatherers words and expression of his experience as a stream of words tied together.