Blog post #4 - Post by late Thursday night, Feb. 26

Post to the blog by late Thursday night, Feb. 26, about the extract I emailed you by Michael Sandel.  Sandel is not a Marxist, but he's worried about everything being for sale.  Is there anything he talks about that shouldn't be for sale?  Why or why not?

Remember that the first sentence of your 250-300 word blog post should be the thesis statement of your whole post.

Place your post on the blog's main page (not as a comment to this post).

I think that the poem “Love’s Philosophy” is important. It is important because it makes one think about how we are not alone in this world. It gives earthly actions that show a relation to love and then goes on to tastefully describe how everything and everyone in the world are connected/one. Each stanza correlates the work of the Earth, the simplicity of it, and how human interaction can be the same. There is also a strong use of personification. For example, “See the mountains kiss high Heaven, And the waves clasp on another…” The personification makes the poem easy to understand in the sense that it provides a mental picture of these actions causing one to think of the relating human action. It also explains how natural our interactions with one another can and should be.  For example, “The fountains mingle with the river and the rivers with the Ocean…” then goes on to say, “In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?” This means that if nature can simply/naturally go about and mingle and mesh with each other, then it shouldn't be hard for us to do the same. Love is what binds us all. It is what binds our aura to this earth so that we can try to live in harmony. Shelley writing this poem is sort of like a reminder that if nature can continue and go on naturally, we can do just the same and it’s our love that will keep us here.

To the Moon p. 162

I choose the poem “To the Moon” for a couple different reasons, one of the main reasons being I love the moon. I mean between it and the sun I would have to go with the moon. Plus the moon won’t cause me to burn in 3 minutes flat. That’s my record for fastest sun burn. Anyway, onto more interesting reasons why I picked the poem “To the Moon” is because it shadows the human life cycle. This depiction is shown mainly in the first stanza and a little in the second stanza. The way that I see it the moon is personified. It mirrors a human female forever searching for her life partner. As the moon goes through its cycles so does a human, growing and getting dimmer with age. I also see in the first paragraph that the moon is lonely and feels like an outcast among its fellow stars which are similar in appearance. It circles the earth day in and day out to see if it can find its forever moon. And as the moon continuously encircles the earth it starts to become dimmer which indicates sadness as mentioned before. In the last two lines of the first stanza, it states that the moon is a joyless eye that finds no object worth its constancy. It is one of a kind but this is not what it desires.       

One of the other reasons that I adore the moon is because even when shrouded with eternal darkness it shines through to depict that even in hate there is love; even in darkness there is light and where there are enemies there are friends. As the sunsets it takes all the hopeful feelings and brightness away from the world leaving darkness and despair in its place. However the earth is not without the light of guidance. The moon takes over and provides a ray of peace. It shows that there is still light at the end of a tunnel and if you follow its light you will find your way.  

Sonnet

The blog post said to, pick a poem from our collection English Romantic Poetry, and defend why you think it's important so I chose, the Sonnet (p.149). The spoke to me because I always think of how the world works and to live each day in the moment because you never know when that day could be over and you would be lost to eternity for all time. In the first line it talks about “Lift not the painted veil in which those who live”. So I feel like it is hard for some people to not liver in the moment because you might miss something extraordinary and if you do live a bit sheltered you are missing out on a world of beauty and you may never ever know the feeling of having the wind on your face or the smell of the salt water against the rocky shores of an tropical island. You will miss the simple things in life that make things great and worth living for. It really showed a sense of inner freedom and the idea that we all have a right to a life of not looking through rose colored glasses. This poem is simple with an edge, a deeper end to an all in world of possibilities. But you have to be willing to stick out your neck for someone or something completely and completely life changing in every way, such as eating Chinese in china on the day of Chinese New Year. You never know what you will get until you risk to know.

A Song to the Men of England

The poem A Song to the Men of England is important to me because of its cry for men and women to stand up and not take being oppressed. This poem encourages men to take a stand and fight against the forces that try and keep them down, or take what they work for. I enjoy things along these lines because of the encouragement it gives people. With this a movement could even possibly be started because it causes people to feel their chains and want to fight them off. To me nothing in this world is worse then when a people is oppressed and losses the inhabitation to fight off the chains and shackles that the over lord power has on the oppressed people. When it comes to inspiration for the underdogs, I will always have a soft spot in my heart like most people would, but for some reason this poem slightly spoke to me. Also, this poem has importance to me because of the power it has and the emotion that it fills you with. This poem fills you with the passion and power to stand up for yourself and take back what the majority has taken from you, and that's what poetry is supposed to do. Poetry is to fill you with a multitude of feelings from depression, to anger, to even pure joy. If it isn't able to do such it really isn't a good or an "important piece of poetry. Then again I could be completely wrong and be over analyzing everything in this poem, but that is yet another great beauty with the ageless art.

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"Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau"

I feel that this poem is important because it shows how our perceptions of the world can be both quick to change, and hard to let go of.  Here, William Blake mocks philosophers like Rousseau and Democritus for choosing to believe in the hard sciences rather than God's power.  He taunts them, telling them that, whatever it is they think, it is ultimately insignificant and meaningless in the grand scheme.  He claims that their ideas are nothing but grains of sand, which will eventually come back and fly in their faces when they see they are wrong.  With Blake attempting to discredit philosophers like Voltaire, we see how hard it can be to give up our perceptions of the world and what we know about it.  Anything that run contrary to our beliefs puts us out of our comfort zone, and makes us irrational.  We see that Blake offers no real argument against Voltaire and Rousseau, rather offering various insults.  At the same time, we see how often it is that out perceptions change.  Blake compares their ideas to grains of sand in a desert.  While Voltaire and Rousseau were two of the more famous thinkers, they were certainly not the first, and they are definitely not the last.  We find that their ideas are one part of the vast collection of human thought throughout history.  This poem is important, because it reminds us that to always be open to ideas that are out of our comfort zone, and to stand by these ideas, even when other people mock them.

A Poison Tree

I felt that "A Poison Tree" was an important poem because it shows the bond and strength that friendship entails. The guy was clearly upset about something that happened with his friend, but instead of holding a grudge, he told his friend and they worked it out. On the other hand, the guy he had a problem with that he was not friends with, he did not tell. Instead of the  feeling just going away, it grew bigger and bigger until it was much more of a deal than it should have been. He ended up killing the guy over an issue that, if he knew the person, he would have talked out with and would have diffused the situation instead of going to extremes. I think it is important too because this also applies to the world we live in today as well. Just recently, a guy killed his girlfriend because he thought she was cheating on him. If they had just talked it out, I do not believe he would have gone to such extremes. A lot of problems that people have with other are solely because they have an issue that grows so big and out of control that it ends up being detrimental when they could have talked it out much earlier.

The Dungeon (pg 62)

The Dungeon is Samuel Coleridge commenting on the way society goes about treating its prisoners. Coleridge debates if a prison or a dungeon is truly the best way to reform/rehabilitate a person who offends against society and this argument is still alive in many forms today. Prisons have been around for a very long time and they seem to make perfect sense; when someone causes harm to someone else or the greater populous, we take them out of the population so they cannot continue to do harm. Coleridge argues that taking these people out of society and surrounding them with other criminals is only causing more harm to that person whereas they should be receiving some sort of support or help. According to Coleridge, prisons deform souls to a point where they were better people before they entered. Colridge’s answer to this problem show the person all the good in the world and all the world has to offer and eventually, the soul in question will be touched by love and beauty and not wish to cause any more harm.

While I may not fully agree with Coleridge on how he thinks prisoners should be helped, I do agree that there is something wrong with the system we have been using. I feel in many aspects prisons are used as a deterrent or forced retribution where they should be used to rehabilitate and help prisoners be able to become productive members of society. I realize there will be outliers and not every can or wants to be helped but that does not mean that everyone who ends up in a prison must be punished so severely.

Rob Bacovin


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Character of the Happy Warrior






                
                      I chose the poem "Character of the Happy Warrior".  When I think of why a poem


would be important I think that it is because the poem says something that is meaningful to who is


reading it or to everyone.  This poem is about a warrior who is everything that a warrior and


man should be.  I think this poem is different from some of the other ones in the collection.  It seems


like a lot of the other poems in this collection are more on the sad and gloomy side.  This is one


reason why I think this poem is important.  The poem goes on talking about this warrior who "every


man in arms should wish to be".  I think this poem is important because it talks about qualities we all


should strive for in our lives.  I think this poem gives good guidelines on how to be a good person. 


The title states that the warrior is happy and I think this is important because the poem is saying that


these virtues and beliefs will lead to some sort of happiness. 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner pg. 63

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge tells the story of a sailor and his journey through the Pacific Ocean and his troubles during the adventure. It provides us with the concept of having an albatross around one’s neck. The sailor kills the albatross that he believes is bringing the fog while they are sailing, when in fact it was bringing them wind. As a punishment to remind him of his wrongdoing he says that, “Instead of the cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung” (67). With the wind no longer moving the ship, the crew of the ship beings to starve and the albatross is hung around the Anceint Mariner’s neck to remind him that he is responsible for the death of his crew and he is punished by watching them die when he is forced to stay alive.

            This poem is important because it provides a moral and an important idiom for the English language. This poem provides a moral to not kill innocent creatures and to love all of God’s creations, when Coleridge said, “he prayeth best, who loveth best / All things both great and small; / For the dear God who loveth us, / He made and loveth all” (81). In this Poem Coleridge provides us with a moral to the tale of the Ancient Mariner that we can all learn from. He provides the idiom of the albatross that is still prevalent in literature and popular culture today in novels such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Bastille’s song “Weight of Living, Pt I”. Because Coleridge provided a story that is still deemed important today in our popular culture and literature and because the moral of his story is still relevant in our society “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is an important poem.  

CIE Blog post 3

                The Poem I have decided to write about is “My Heart Leaps Up” by William Wordsworth. I chose this poem because it delivers a short but simple message that I believe is extremely important but is often forgotten as we grow old. The message I am talking about is not letting the inner child in you die once you become older. Do not let the things that use to excite you and fill your days with joy escape your life. Because as we become older and our lives get more complicated I am sure that all of us could use anything we can to brighten our days, even if it is just a little bit. I also think that, at least for me, this poem kind of relates to the stage I am currently at in my life. In my first year at college, leaving home for the first time, leaving all my friends and family for the first time it can be really easy to feel like I am growing up real quick. And with all the responsibilities that being at college and on my own for the first time brings you have to start to be mature and handle your own responsibilities. Sometimes you forget you are still only 18 years old and really in the prime of your life. when I read this poem I remind myself to relax a little bit, remember to embrace all the small things that make me happy in life, and be a kid.  

'A Poison Tree'

This poem is important because it has a universal message and it’s constructed in a way that supports the storyline. In this poem, the speaker is first angry with their friend, who they confront and relinquish their wrath, and is then angry with an enemy, who the speaker does not confront, and therefore their wrath grows. The speaker cries about the wrath, which makes it build even stronger, but he conceals this with smiles and tricks the enemy into thinking everything is ok. Eventually this anger creates a poisonous apple that the enemy eats and dies from. I think the message is to “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” The key stanza of this poem is the first one: “I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.” We don’t know why the speaker was angry with these people; maybe what the friend did was easily forgivable, while what the enemy did was inexcusable. All we know is that the speaker presented his anger to his friend, talked it out, moved on, etc., but kept his anger concealed from his enemy. By giving the foe a false sense of security (“And I sunned it with smiles”), the speaker was actually one step ahead of them because he was able to manipulate (“And with soft deceitful wiles”) the enemy to win / pay revenge. The poem has an AABB rhyme scheme and every line is either seven or eight syllables long, so ‘A Poison Tree’ has a beat and is calculated, just like the speaker’s actions toward his enemy are.

"Auguries of Innocence"

"To see the World in a Grain of Sand

and Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour"

Blake presents a never-ending sets of paradoxes  whose imagery juxtaposes all that which is innocent and natural in the world with the unnatural and corrupt introduced by Man. His 'auguries' serve as a metaphorical omen to the disastrous dominant reign that mankind has exerted upon nature; and, in between the lines, the oppression that society has put on those who are innocent and forgotten. The significance of this poem lies in the inevitable consequences that await humanity for its cruel mistreatment of nature, which Blake believes severely strays away from what it means to be human, "He who shall hurt the little Wren // shall never be beloved by Men."

I personally find great meaning in the first stanza (quoted above) because it reminds me of how glorious, the seemingly trivial parts of the universe are, yet often overlooked by most. It serves as a wonderful motto for the appreciation of beauty which pervades the natural world. These days, most young people walk outside with their heads down, staring at the artificial light of smartphone screens.  Even I wonder to myself, how often do people look up at the sky anymore? Would anyone in our CIE section care? In this technological age, there is a widening gap between humans and the environment, accompanied by an increasing desensitization that we have to the existence of this gap,  our indifference to how the Earth is treated. The omen is resounded by environmentalists, climate change activists and naturalists alike--by assuming ourselves as "planetary managers" of the Earth, humans are greedily taking most of its resources in a manner that is inefficient and could have devastating  repercussions for the future of this species, our children. If we covered all of the globe with skyscrapers, would that be ok? A frightening question arises from this corruption of innocence, of whether human morality would be degenerated.

Pawel Kuczynski

"The Garden of Love"

What is important about this poem is that the Garden of Love is reminder to remember our loved ones that have passed on.  In the first stanza it says “A chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. … An I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be;” This poem is reminding readers to remember their dead ones, and that their dead ones are loved ones. It is saying don’t just abandon or forget them. Their tomb-stones should have flowers every once in a while to show that they have not been forgotten. The poem then goes on to say, “And binding with briars my joys & desires.” This line shows that there are things left behind when a loved one dies. Deceased love ones, in this line, are our memories. It is that when we remember them, our thoughts are full of joy and happiness to be with them. It is that the memories about deceased loved ones are joyful, remembering how much fun we have. However, they are also full of desires. The desire to have more time with them, to ask them questions that only they can answer. This whole poem is important because it reminds the reader to think of their loved ones and remember them. It is reminding the reader that a graveyard is a “Garden of Love” because everyone there is a loved one for someone else. It is reminding the reader to respect how their deceased ones and to not forget them.

"When I have fears that I may cease to be" A.Basla Blog 3

I believe that "When I have fears that I may cease to be" (p.228) presents some of the most relatable content despite any circumstances. The poem is about the narrator's fear of not being able to accomplish the goals on his checklist before his death. This is quite fitting, due to the fact that John Keats, the poet, unfortunately died young. His fears may stem from the loss of his loved ones from a young age as well. As a poet, one of his obvious worries is to not be able to write all the things he desires and get all of his thoughts down in his own crafted words. Another fear mentioned is the fear of not having this “unreflecting love” or that of “high romance.” His lack of fame and acknowledgement does not go unnoticed by Keats, as it is something he fears he will never get before his death. He pictures the way in which we will watch his life from a shore alone, seeing all the things that he was never able to achieve sink before him.

            I think this poem is incredibly relatable because everyone has this thought, or else they wouldn't try to do anything with their lives. No matter what the things sought after are, we intend on trying for something. Death is our conclusion, and we want our pages full before we reach that point. Keats has always been my favorite poet for his darker and meaningful poems that are conveyed through flowery and purposeful language. I find this poem to be an excellent example of his way of expressing our common fear. 

"I wandered lonely as a cloud" (pgs. 43-44)

I believe this poem is important because it’s applicable to everyday life and makes me think a lot about how I perceive the world. When I was flipping through the book this title caught my attention, and when I read it, it was fairly easy to read and interpret. I think this is because Wordsworth is describing the feared but attainable unknown of our thoughts and actions in the world and how we perceive and present them to society and ourselves.

Because “important” is a subjective term, in this context I’m going to define it as something that can be meaningful to one’s life. I think the main idea that Wordsworth is addressing in this poem is fulfilling loneliness through realization, acceptance and changing.

My interpretation of the “plot” of this poem is as follows: in the beginning he’s expressing lonely thoughts, than he’s following them and realizes that they are everywhere, but mainly in good, relaxing places, and finally he accepts these lonely thoughts and now thinks that they are a part of being happy and okay with yourself in life. Why I think this plot line is applicable and important to lots of peoples lives in general is because I think we all feel lonely at times and wander off, thinking about what to do, where to go, etc. We realize overtime through experience, time and maturity that sad thoughts happen but don’t have to consume us; that there should be more good than bad and that we can take sad and bad situations and deal with them and perceive them in a happy, healthy way. I think that is exactly what Wordsworth is doing with this poem—following his lonely thoughts, accepting them, and being okay and happy with himself in the end of his journey following those thoughts.

Blog post #3 - Post by Tuesday, Feb. 10, 9:00 PM

Post to the blog before Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 9:00 PM.  Pick a poem from our collection English Romantic Poetry, and defend why you think it's important.  (What is meant by "important" is part of what you should state and defend.)

Remember that the first sentence of your 250-300 word blog post should be the thesis statement of your whole post.

Place your post on the blog's main page (not as a comment to this post).