Samantha B's class summary essay

The topic of class on Tuesday, April fifth was religion and science. Examination of the assigned texts as small groups and as a whole made a few points clear about the Late Victorian Period. Broadly, the internal struggle between religion and doubt, along with the societal struggle between religion and science, was still being fought. More specifically, some works had a clear, strong belief in religion and others did not. Also, Darwin’s publications had an impact on some writers of the day.

Class began, as it often does, with a lovely reward quiz, Dr. Foss read the assigned Gerard Manley Hopkins poems to the class as an introduction to the author. Dr. Foss then mentioned some of the key biographical points about Hopkins’ life that were discussed in the Longman Anthology (1701). First and foremost, Hopkins was a key religious figure for Victorian Poets. After his conversion to Catholicism in 1866, he burned all of his earlier poems. In 1877, he became a Jesuit Priest, and it was during this time in his life that he wrote many poems filled with a strong presence of God and God in nature. However, later in life, Hopkins wrote a set of poems that are given the title “terrible sonnets.” By comparing a poem of this period to some poems from earlier in his life, the transformation is made very obvious. Dr. Foss also discussed the fact that Hopkins was not greatly recognized nor published until after his death when Robert Bridges published his works. The point was made that Hopkins can be put into the same category as Emily Dickinson, seeing as how both artists were so far ahead of their time. Dr. Foss then started to talk about Hopkins’ writing style. Hopkins openly admitted that his poetry was different. He used what he called “inscape” and “instress” in order to “convey the organic beauty that for Hopkins speaks of God’s presence in nature,” (1702). Hopkins’ poems also used a specific rhythm where the number of stressed syllables was counted, but the number of unstressed syllables was not. This complimented the reason that Dr. Foss wanted to read the poems aloud to the class. Hopkins himself said “’My verse is less to be read than heard,’ he concluded; ‘it is oratorical,’” (1702).

After the biographical discussion, it was time to break into groups for the first of two small group activities for the day. Dr. Foss instructed the class to look at the Hopkins’ poems in light of religion and doubt. There was a consensus among my group that not much doubt was seen in the first few Hopkins’ poems. “God’s Grandeur” (1702) possessed the typical theme of Hopkins in that there was a strong presence of God in nature, which could be seen by examining the first line of the poem, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” This theme continued throughout the rest of the poem, as well. My group was a bit struck by “The Windhover” (1704), and didn’t really know what to make of it at first. However, it was clear from the complete title “The Windhover: To Christ Our Lord” that Hopkins was praising God in this work as well. The poem is about a bird, which is one of God’s creatures, and this further illustrates Hopkins’ theme of God in nature. When examining “Pied Beauty” (1704), my group again agreed that the Godly presence could be seen throughout the poem from the first line, “Glory be to God…” (line 1), all the way to the last line, “Praise him” (line 11). These few poems seemed to carry the same ideas, however, everyone noticed a complete change in feeling when discussing “Carrion Comfort” (1708). This change should make sense because the footnote says that “Carrion Comfort” was one of the “terrible sonnets.” It seemed that the speaker was confused about the idea of God and even said, “Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God,” (14). “Carrion Comfort” completed the first small group activity. By the end of the discussion, the parallel between Hopkins’ biography and his poems was evident.

As a class, we then switched over to Christina Rossetti’s “Sleeping at Last” (1666) and Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar” (1259). It was time for group participation points because both of these poems were read aloud by students. We focused on religion and doubt for these two poems, as well. A few questions were proposed about “Sleeping at Last” to get discussion rolling. Where was God in the poem? Was the sleep more of a naturalistic sleep? After a few comments, it seemed that the class was leaning more towards there being no religion in “Sleeping at Last.” It was also agreed upon that the sleep in the poem was indeed a naturalistic sleep. However, an interesting point was made that Rossetti’s poem, in relation to Hopkins’ theme, could have incorporated God through nature by the use of the color purple. When discussion moved to “Crossing the Bar,” it was pointed out that Tennyson seemed to have hope for God in this poem.

The conclusion of large group discussion led to the second small group activity, which was also the last activity for the day. The last poems were all from the Victorian Women Poets Anthology. The class was asked to discuss these poems and how they portrayed new theories that came about from Darwin’s work. Mathilde Blind’s “Motherhood” (189) was interesting because it tied motherhood to religion and seemed to be comparing the woman in the poem giving birth to Mary giving birth to Jesus. The message appeared to be that childbirth was a miracle. Constance Naden’s “Natural Selection” (251) advocated for Darwin’s approach and the male speaker, which was a topic of interest in my group, used it to describe a situation with a woman by saying “Ah no! for since Chloe is false, I’m certain that Darwin is true!” (31-32). My group had fun discussing May Kendall’s poems. “Lay of the Trilobite” (311), “Ballad of the Ichthyosaurus” (314), and “The Philanthropist and the Jelly-fish” (317) all used a Darwinian approach to mock man.

The end of this discussion concluded the class period. Key facts were learned about the Late Victorian Period. It was interesting to see, through close examination of all of the assigned texts, the wide variety of beliefs, or lack thereof, and the influence of Darwin on works of the time.