Christian Karrs's Class Summary

Searching for Main Romantic Themes to Discuss Reason and Fancy

The British Romantic Literature class of April 7th began with Dr. Foss announcing that Professor Emerson had been the recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim fellowship in poetry. The class subsequently recognized this honor through a celebratory Guggenheim edition reward quiz. Following the quiz, our first class period of the penultimate unit, Science and Nature, was comprised of a flurry of activity. It began with Dr. Foss providing a thorough context for the pieces we read for class, which drew from our textbook’s characterization of the unit, a shout out to previously unassigned authors Charlotte Smith and Joanna Baillie, and a discussion of how science has historically been influenced by cultural and political context. Through a thorough analysis of the selected texts, the class came to the conclusion that it was not the point to establish each author’s stance regarding the relationship between reason and fancy, science and the poetic sentiment, but instead to realize that each author explored the roles that science and poetry should take in life through discussing the ideas in terms of the specific themes of nature, memory, and mortality because these themes are indicative of Romanticism.

Following Dr. Foss’s introduction, we began the exciting and aptly named “Boom, Boom, Boom Activity.”  For this activity the class broke into small groups, each of which analyzed a select number of the texts in relation to each other, and then exchanged work with other groups and built upon or contested their ideas in a rotation dictated by a set time limit. The “Boom Boom Boom Activity” began with my group discussing Mary Robinson’s “Sonnet VII” and “Sonnet XI” along with Jane Austen’s “To the Memory of Mrs. Lefroy.” Our analysis centered on the opposition of fancy and reality, and entered also into each author’s position on fancy and reason. Members of the group found Robinson to place reason and passion in strong opposition. Examining the text closely led us to observe that Robinson, in both her sonnets, invokes reason as a structuring force, but that it ultimately fails to passion or sentiment, resulting in death. We felt that in particular, lines 6-9 of Sonnet XI indicated the consequences of this shortcoming. Robinson writes, “While Folly’s torch consumes the wreath of fame, / And Pleasure’s hands the sheaves of truth unbind. / Press’d by the storms of fate, Hope shrinks and / dies! “ The group discussed how Robinson tied the failure of reason as well as overwhelming passion or fancy to mortality and a figurative destruction of nature through imagery of the torch and the wreath’s consumption. The group then brought Austen’s poem into the discussion, and suggested that in her piece the idea of mortality is counter balanced by fancy, which allows her to “behold” her dead friend once more through memory.

As the echo of Dr. Foss’s “boom” ushered in the second round of discussion, our group considered the role of fancy and reason in three of the assigned poems by Smith. Our analysis yielded that Smith regards both fancy and reason or science, here represented in the botanic drawings, as illusionary and to her their inability to achieve an accurate depiction of life was in itself suggestive of death. We discussed how the depiction of sentiment as fancy and the portrayal of reason were both strongly characterized by death and mortality in “To Fancy”, “To Dr. Parry of Bath”, and “Reflections on Some Drawings of Plants.” Julie specifically noticed the idea of the reoccurring pencil, which Smith tied to ideas of failed representation, describing it as having “mimic powers” (8) and that the plants it depicts are in turn “mimic flowers” (1). The group conversed about the possibility of the pencil being a trope for writing or art, and that Smith suggests that representation of nature through art or fancy was only an imitation, and a dead symbol inferior to its subject. However, conversely, seeing the plants in the poem, or their drawn image, as evocative of science, again only yields suggestions of a fragile mortality as the plants will “Shrink from the bleakness of the Northern blast” (6) and die, and the continual existence of their illustration serves to remind us of their living absence. Similarly, when considering Smith’s “Written in the Church-Yard At Middleton in Sussex,” we were struck by her characterization of the natural elements as instruments of death, and the central role that mortality plays in the piece.

As we entered the last round of our activity, my group was assigned “To Mr. S. T. Coleridge” ,by Anna Barbauld, “Thunder” by Joanna Baillee, and “Written in the Church-Yard At Middleton in Sussex.”  Barbauld’s piece was notably distinct from the rest of the readings our group had considered and contrasted sharply with Robinson’s portrayal of reason as powerless, and seemed to contend with Austen’s depiction of fancy’s positive aspects. Barbauld’s “To Mr. S. T. Coleridge” staunchly portrays ascending the “hill of Science” (1) as the ultimate goal, while deprecating fancy as a dangerous distraction, and “unsubstantial food” (30). Despite the differences in Barbauld’s stance regarding the roles of fancy and reason, she also illustrates her ideas through utilizing nature imagery and implications of mortality. Our group discussed how Barbauld represents any creative aspiration aside from science with her grove of fancy. Her discussion of this grove utilizes images of nature such as such as the “turf-built seat” (20) and “moon beam rainbows” (25), through which she characterizes fancy as stationary and shrouded in night. She places the shadowy images of the grove in contrast with “the things of life”, suggesting that these fade into nonexistence, or death, after substantial time is spent in the grove. Sally noticed that Barbauld also places the two concepts in terms of societal obligation, suggesting that to indulge one’s fancy is detrimental to the welfare of civilization. In this way Barbauld indicates that to follow the pursuits of fancy is not only a danger to ones self, but also to the society as a whole. Our group invested most of its final round discussing “To Mr. T. S. Coleridge,” but had trouble drawing any substantial conclusions regarding “Thunder,” other then noticing a similarity to Smith’s treatment of nature as a destructive force in “Written in the Church-Yard At Middleton in Sussex.”

Dr. Foss then reunited the class, and led a large group discussion concerning what could be drawn from the selected poetry as a whole, and how the works could be seen to relate to each other. After Dr. Foss asked the class for input, a few moments of silence ensued before a student asked how Austin’s poem was associated with the unit or the other writers. Dr. Foss illustrated how the poem’s inclusion of fancy, mortality, and animals made it closely related thematically to the day’s selections, despite initially seeming unconnected. After I made a few comments about discerning Barbauld’s stance on science, Dr. Foss proceeded to illuminate that he hoped the day’s class would show the students that there are no easy answers. He wanted the students to realize that rather then striving to place assigned writers in concrete positions regarding reason or poetic sentiment, it was more important to notice that there are certain issues each writer is thinking about when regarding these topics. Analyzing each of the assigned readings in terms of the author’s position regarding fancy and reason indicated that nearly each assumed a different stance with regards to the concepts. Robinson and Barbauld saw them as opposing forces and characterized the pursuits of fancy as dangerous. Austin, on the other hand suggested that fancy and imagination could, through memory, bring about a revival of joy in the wake of loss. Unique from either of these, Smith characterized both reason and fancy as illusionary and incapable of defending against death and the grief the memory of her deceased daughter. Through both our large and small group discussions we established that though each author had a different standpoint regarding the ideas of reason and fancy, the importance lay in realizing that there are certain themes, nature, memory and mortality that are traced in each to achieve the writer’s message, because these themes were pervasive in the minds of Romantic era authors.

Word Count: 1,369