SUMMARY LITERARY TEXTS/POEMS

(UNITS 5-6) INFANT SORROW (BLAKE) My mother groand! my father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt, Helpless, naked, pipin loud; like a fiend hid in a cloud. Struggling in my father's hands, striving against my swadling ands; !ound and weary I thought est "o sulk upon my mother's reast. Summary "he companion poem to #Infant $oy,% this rief piece focuses on the pain and tri ulation accompanying child irth, ut from the infant&s perspective. He finds himself #helpless% and #naked,% ut also descri es himself as a #fiend hid in a cloud,% suggesting future harms he may perpetrate. "o the infant fresh from the safety of his mother&s wom , there is no comfort in the father&s arms, so he settles for sulking at his mother&s reast. Ana y!"! 'Infant Sorrow' follows the Innocence rhyme scheme ((!! for its two rief stan)as. "he first *uatrain and half of the second include words full of energy, such as 'groaned,' 'leapt,' 'piping,' 'Struggling,' and 'Striving,' while the last couplet gives up in defeat with the words '!ound,' 'weary,' and 'sulked.' "he lively child has given way to a tired, world+weary infant in mere moments. INFANT #OY (BLAKE) 'I have no name, I am ut two days old.' ,hat shall I call thee'I happy am, $oy is my name.' (.Sweet /oy efall thee! 0retty /oy! Sweet /oy ut two days old, Sweet /oy i call thee; "hou dost smile, I sing the while+ Sweet /oy efall thee. Summary (nother simple song cele rating happiness, this poem focuses on the gift of life in a new orn a y. 1nly two days old, the a y is asked, presuma ly y its mother, what name it wants. "he a y names itself $oy, for that is all it knows. "he mother then happily lesses the a y $oy, with the hope that /oy will indeed e its lot in life.

Ana y!"! "his simple poem is two stan)as of si2 lines each. "he two stan)as each follow an (!3443 rhyme scheme, a contrast to most of !lake's other poetic patterns. "he rhyming words are always framed y the repetition of 'thee' at the end of the fourth and si2th lines, drawing the reader's attention to the parent, who speaks, and his or her concern with the a y. "he infant's words, or those imagined y the parent to e spoken y the infant, are set off with dashes at the end of each line, turning this short poem into a dialogue etween parent and child regarding the naming of the a y. "hat the a y names itself reflects !lake&s desire to see the human spirit determine its own state of liss, rather than to rely upon a form of happiness imposed upon it y social constructs or religious institutions. "his a y is the perfect innocent who, when left alone to determine its own nature, find /oy rather than guilt or repression within. T$E TY%ER By W" "am B a&' "yger! "yger! urning right In the forests of the night, ,hat immortal hand or eye 3ould frame thy fearful symmetryIn what distant deeps or skies !urnt the fire of thine eyes1n what wings dare he aspire,hat the hand dare sie)e the fire(nd what shoulder, 5 what art. 3ould twist the sinews of thy heart(nd when thy heart egan to eat, ,hat dread hand- 5 what dread feet,hat the hammer- what the chainIn what furnace was thy rain,hat the anvil- what dread grasp 4are its deadly terrors clasp,hen the stars threw down their spears, (nd watered heaven with their tears, 4id he smile his work to see4id he who made the 6am make thee"yger! "yger! urning right In the forests of the night, ,hat immortal hand or eye 4are frame thy fearful symmetryTy(' )* W)r& an+ Y'ar )* Pu, "-a.")n '"he "iger,' originally called '"he "yger,' is a lyric poem focusing on the nature of 7od and his creations. It was pu lished in 89:; in a collection entitled Songs of Experience. Modern anthologies often print '"he "iger' alongside an earlier !lake poem, '"he 6am ,' pu lished in 89<: in a collection entitled Songs of Innocence. M'.'r

"he poem is in trochaic tetrameter with catale2is at the end of each line. Here is an e2planation of these technical terms= T'.ram'.'r L"n'= a poetry line usually with eight sylla les. Tr)-/a"- F)).= ( pair of sylla les++a stressed sylla le followed y an unstressed sylla le. 0a.a '1"!= "he a sence of a sylla le in the final foot in a line. In !lake&s poem, an unstressed sylla le is a sent in the last foot of each line. "hus, every line has seven sylla les, not the conventional eight. "he following illustration using the first two lines of the poem demonstrates tetrameter with four trochaic feet, the last one catalectic= .....8...........>...............?..................; "Iger,..@.."Iger,..@..!ABC ing..@..!BI7H" .....8..............>...............?...............; IC the..@..D1B ests..@..1D the..@..CI7H" Cotice that the fourth foot in each line eliminates the conventional unstressed sylla le Ecatale2isF. However, this irregularity in the trochaic pattern does not harm the rhythm of the poem. In fact, it may actually enhance it, allowing each line to end with an accented sylla le that seems to mimic the eat of the maker&s hammer on the anvil. Dor a detailed discussion of meter and the various types of feet, click here. . S.ru-.ur' an+ R/ym' S-/'m' "he poem consists of si2 *uatrains. E( *uatrain is a four+line stan)a.F Gach *uatrain contains two couplets. E( couplet is a pair of rhyming linesF. "hus we have a >;+line poem with 8> couplets and H stan)asIa neat, alanced package. "he *uestion in the final stan)a repeats Ee2cept for one word, dareF the wording of the first stan)a, perhaps suggesting that the *uestion !lake raises will continue to perple2 thinkers ad infinitum. E1am( '! F"2ur'! )* S(''-/ an+ A u!")n! A ".'ra.")n= Tiger, .iger, ,urning ,right Eline 8F; frame thy fearful symmetry- Eline ;F M'.a(/)r= 3omparison of the tiger and his eyes to fire. Ana(/)ra= Bepetition of what at the eginning of sentences or clauses. G2ample= What dread hand and what dread feet? J What the hammer? what the chain? A u!")n= Immortal hand or eye= 7od or Satan A u!")n= Distant deeps or skies= hell or heaven Sym,) ! T/' T"2'r= Gvil Eor SatanF T/' Lam,= 7oodness Eor 7odF 3"!.an. 3''(!= Hell S&"'!= Heaven T/'m'! "he G2istence of Gvil

.......#"he "iger% presents a *uestion that em odies the central theme= ,ho created the tiger- ,as it the kind and loving 7od who made the lam - 1r was it Satan- !lake presents his *uestion in 6ines ? and ;= ,hat immortal hand or eye 3ould frame thy fearful symmetry!lake reali)es, of course, that 7od made all the creatures on earth. However, to e2press his ewilderment that the 7od who created the gentle lam also created the terrifying tiger, he includes Satan as a possi le creator while raising his rhetorical *uestions, nota ly the one he asks in 6ines K and H= In what distant deeps or skies !urnt the fire of thy eyesDeeps appears to refer to hell and skies to heaven. In either case, there would e fire++ the fire of hell or the fire of the stars. .......1f course, there can e no gainsaying that the tiger sym oli)es evil, or the incarnation of evil, and that the lam E6ine >LF represents goodness, or 3hrist. !lake's in*uiry is a variation on an old philosophical and theological *uestion= ,hy does evil e2ist in a universe created and ruled y a enevolent 7od- !lake provides no answer. His mission is to reflect reality in arresting images. ( poet&s first purpose, after all, is to present the world and its deni)ens in language that stimulates the aesthetic sense; he is not to e2hort or morali)e. Cevertheless, the poem does stir the reader to deep thought. Here is the tiger, fierce and rutal in its *uest for sustenance; there is the lam , meek and gentle in its *uest for survival. Is it possi le that the same 7od who made the lam also made the tiger- 1r was the tiger the devil's work"he (we and Mystery of 3reation and the 3reator "he poem is more a out the creator of the tiger than it is a out the tiger intself. In contemplating the terri le ferocity and awesome symmetry of the tiger, the speaker is at a loss to e2plain how the same 7od who made the lam could make the tiger. Hence, this theme= humans are incapa le of fully understanding the mind of 7od and the mystery of his handiwork.

I 4an+'r'+ )n' y a! a - )u+ By W5 W)r+!4)r./ I wandered lonely as a cloud "hat floats on high o'er vales and hills, ,hen all at once I saw a crowd, ( host, of golden daffodils; !eside the lake, eneath the trees, Dluttering and dancing in the ree)e. 3ontinuous as the stars that shine (nd twinkle on the milky way, "hey stretched in never+ending line (long the margin of a ay= "en thousand saw I at a glance, "ossing their heads in sprightly dance. "he waves eside them danced; ut they 1ut+did the sparkling waves in glee=

( poet could not ut e gay, In such a /ocund company= I ga)ed+++and ga)ed+++ ut little thought ,hat wealth the show to me had rought= Dor oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, "hey flash upon that inward eye ,hich is the liss of solitude; (nd then my heart with pleasure fills, (nd dances with the daffodils. Summary "he speaker says that, wandering like a cloud floating a ove hills and valleys, he encountered a field of daffodils eside a lake. "he dancing, fluttering flowers stretched endlessly along the shore, and though the waves of the lake danced eside the flowers, the daffodils outdid the water in glee. "he speaker says that a poet could not help ut e happy in such a /oyful company of flowers. He says that he stared and stared, ut did not reali)e what wealth the scene would ring him. Dor now, whenever he feels #vacant% or #pensive,% the memory flashes upon #that inward eye J "hat is the liss of solitude,% and his heart fills with pleasure, #and dances with the daffodils.% F)rm "he four si2+line stan)as of this poem follow a *uatrain+couplet rhyme scheme= (!(!33. Gach line is metered in iam ic tetrameter. 0)mm'n.ary "his simple poem, one of the loveliest and most famous in the ,ordsworth canon, revisits the familiar su /ects of nature and memory, this time with a particularly EsimpleF spare, musical elo*uence. "he plot is e2tremely simple, depicting the poet&s wandering and his discovery of a field of daffodils y a lake, the memory of which pleases him and comforts him when he is lonely, ored, or restless. "he characteri)ation of the sudden occurrence of a memoryMthe daffodils #flash upon the inward eye J ,hich is the liss of solitude%Mis psychologically acute, ut the poem&s main rilliance lies in the reverse personification of its early stan)as. "he speaker is metaphorically compared to a natural o /ect, a cloudM#I wandered lonely as a cloud J "hat floats on high...%, and the daffodils are continually personified as human eings, dancing and #tossing their heads% in #a crowd, a host.% "his techni*ue implies an inherent unity etween man and nature, making it one of ,ordsworth&s most asic and effective methods for instilling in the reader the feeling the poet so often descri es himself as e2periencing.

Ana y!"! )* W" "am W)r+!4)r./6! 7Pr'*a-' .) ./' Lyr"-a Ba a+!7 ('!!ay)
In ,ordsworth's '0reface to the 6yrical !allads,' something that interested me was that he said that in his poetry he wanted to represent 'incidents and situations from common life.' He said he wanted to use a 'selection of language really used y men.' He does this throughout his poetry and it was interesting to me ecause, o viously, he's a

talented guy, ut he finds different ways to relate to common people throughout his poetry. I know it's something we all do when we're writing and know other people will read it, ut it's interesting ecause he does it in so many different ways. He's like the professor that has a doctorate in the class your taking, ut has the skill to actually make it comprehensi le to his students. Bare, ut ama)ing when it happens. "he way ,ordsworth writes is very easy for the common person to understand and he writes a out things that are easily related to. 6ike in ',e are Seven,' ,ordsworth's writes a out a little girl that had two si lings that had died, yet instead of saying that her family was only five now, she persisted that they were still seven. She was intent on telling this man that even though part of her family was gone, they were still there with her and they were still part of her family. "his is something most people can relate to, whether it is from personal e2perience or not, we can still empathi)e with that feeling of loss and remem rance. "hen, in 'I ,andered 6onely as a 3loud,' he relates in a eautiful way, to people and something that's all around us; nature. He does the same in 'My Heart 6eaps Ap.' "hrough many of ,ordsworth's poems, he sufficiently acks up his ideas that he stated in '"he 0reface to the 6yrical !allads,' that he wanted to talk a out things in his poetry that were understanda le y the common man and also things that related to common life. He did a fine /o of these things in his works and I en/oyed reading them.

T/' R"m' )* ./' An-"'n. Mar"n'r8 By 0) 'r"+2'

Par. I It is an ancient mariner (nd he stoppeth one of three. I '!y thy long grey eard and glittering eye, Cow wherefore stoppest thou me"he ridegroom's doors are opened wide, (nd I am ne2t of kin; "he guests are met, the feast is set= .Mayst hear the merry din.' He holds him with his skinny hand, '"here was a ship,' *uoth he. 'Hold off! unhand me, grey+ eard loon!' Gftsoons his hand dropped he. He holds him with his glittering eye I "he wedding+guest stood still,

(nd listens like a three+years' child= "he mariner hath his will. "he wedding+guest sat on a stone= He cannot choose ut hear; (nd thus spake on that ancient man, "he right+eyed mariner. '"he ship was cheered, the har our cleared, Merrily did we drop !elow the kirk, elow the hill, !elow the lighthouse top. "he sun came up upon the left, 1ut of the sea came he! (nd he shone right, and on the right ,ent down into the sea. Higher and higher every day, "ill over the mast at noon I ' "he wedding+guest here eat his reast, Dor he heard the loud assoon. "he ride hath paced into the hall, Bed as a rose is she; Codding their heads efore her goes "he merry minstrelsy. "he wedding+guest he eat his reast, Net he cannot choose ut hear; (nd thus spake on that ancient man, "he right+eyed mariner. '(nd now the storm+ last came, and he ,as tyrannous and strong; He struck with his o'ertaking wings, (nd chased us south along. ,ith sloping masts and dipping prow, (s who pursued with yell and low Still treads the shadow of his foe, (nd forward ends his head, "he ship drove fast, loud roared the last, (nd southward aye we fled. 6isten, stranger! Mist and snow, (nd it grew wondrous cold= (nd ice mast+high came floating y, (s green as emerald. (nd through the drifts the snowy clifts 4id send a dismal sheen= Cor shapes of men nor easts we ken I "he ice was all etween. "he ice was here, the ice was there, "he ice was all around= It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, 6ike noises in a swound! (t length did cross an al atross,

"horough the fog it came; (s if it had een a 3hristian soul, ,e hailed it in 7od's name. It ate the food it ne'er had eat, (nd round and round it flew. "he ice did split with a thunder+fit; "he helmsman steered us through! (nd a good south wind sprung up ehind; "he al atross did follow, (nd every day, for food or play, 3ame to the mariners' hollo! In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; ,hiles all the night, through fog+smoke white, 7limmered the white moon+shine.' '7od save thee, ancient mariner! Drom the fiends, that plague thee thus! I ,hy lookst thou so-' I ',ith my cross ow I shot the al atross. Par. II "he sun now rose upon the right= 1ut of the sea came he, Still hid in mist, and on the left ,ent down into the sea. (nd the good south wind still lew ehind, !ut no sweet ird did follow, Cor any day for food or play 3ame to the mariners' hollo! (nd I had done an hellish thing, (nd it would work 'em woe= Dor all averred, I had killed the ird "hat made the ree)e to low. (h wretch! said they, the ird to slay, "hat made the ree)e to low! Cor dim nor red, like an angel's head, "he glorious sun uprist= "hen all averred, I had killed the ird "hat rought the fog and mist. '"was right, said they, such irds to slay, "hat ring the fog and mist. "he fair ree)e lew, the white foam flew, "he furrow followed free; ,e were the first that ever urst Into that silent sea. 4own dropped the ree)e, the sails dropped down, '"was sad as sad could e; (nd we did speak only to reak

"he silence of the sea! (ll in a hot and copper sky, "he loody sun, at noon, Bight up a ove the mast did stand, Co igger than the moon. 4ay after day, day after day, ,e stuck, nor reath nor motion; (s idle as a painted ship Apon a painted ocean. ,ater, water, everywhere, (nd all the oards did shrink; ,ater, water, everywhere, Cor any drop to drink. "he very deeps did rot= 1 3hrist! "hat ever this should e! Nea, slimy things did crawl with legs Apon the slimy sea. ( out, a out, in reel and rout "he death+fires danced at night; "he water, like a witch's oils, !urnt green, and lue and white. (nd some in dreams assured were 1f the spirit that plagued us so; Cine fathom deep he had followed us Drom the land of mist and snow. (nd every tongue, through utter drought, ,as withered at the root; ,e could not speak, no more than if ,e had een choked with soot. (h! wel+a+day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the al atross ( out my neck was hung T/' R"m' )* ./' An-"'n. Mar"n'r Summary "hree guys are on the way to a wedding cele ration when an old sailor Ethe MarinerF stops one of them at the door Ewe'll call him the ,edding 7uestF. Asing his hypnotic eyes to hold the attention of the ,edding 7uest, he starts telling a story a out a disastrous /ourney he took. "he ,edding 7uest really wants to go party, ut he can't pry himself away from this gri))led old mariner. "he Mariner egins his story. "hey left port, and the ship sailed down near (ntarctica to get away from a ad storm, ut then they get caught in a dangerous, foggy ice field. (n al atross shows up to steer them through the fog and provide good winds, ut then the Mariner decides to shoot it. 1ops. 0retty soon the sailors lose their wind, and it gets really hot. "hey run out of water, and everyone lames the Mariner. "he ship seems to e haunted y a ad spirit, and weird stuff starts appearing, like slimy creatures that walk on the ocean. "he Mariner's crewmates decide to hang the dead al atross around his neck to remind him of his error. Gveryone is literally dying of thirst. "he Mariner sees another ship's sail at a distance.

He wants to yell out, ut his mouth is too dry, so he sucks some of his own lood to moisten his lips. He's like, '( ship! ,e're saved.' Sadly, the ship is a ghost ship piloted y two spirits, 4eath and 6ife+in+4eath, who have to e the last people you'd want to meet on a /ourney. Gveryone on the Mariner's ship dies. "he wedding guest reali)es, '(h! Nou're a ghost!' !ut the Mariner says, ',ell, actually, I was the only one who didn't die.' He continues his story= he's on a oat with a lot of dead odies, surrounded y an ocean full of slimy things. ,orse, these slimy things are nasty water snakes. !ut the Mariner escapes his curse y unconsciously lessing the hideous snakes, and the al atross drops off his neck into the ocean. "he Mariner falls into a sweet sleep, and it finally rains when he wakes up. ( storm strikes up in the distance, and all the dead sailors rise like )om ies to pilot the ship. "he sailors don't actually come ack to life. Instead, angels fill their odies, and another supernatural spirit under the ocean seems to push the oat. "he Mariner faints and hears two voices talking a out how he killed the al atross and still has more penance to do. "hese two mysterious voices e2plain how the ship is moving. (fter a speedy /ourney, the ship ends up ack in port again. "he Mariner sees angels standing ne2t to the odies of all his crewmates. "hen a rescue oat shows up to take him ack to shore. "he Mariner is happy that a guy called 'the hermit' is on the rescue oat. "he hermit is in a good mood. (ll of a sudden there's a loud noise, and the Mariner's ship sinks. "he hermit's oat picks up the Mariner. ,hen they get on shore, the Mariner is desperate to tell his story to the hermit. He feels a terri le pain until the story had een told. In fact, the Mariner says that he still has the same painful need to tell his story, which is why he stopped the ,edding 7uest on this occasion. ,rapping up, the Mariner tells the ,edding 7uest that he needs to learn how to say his prayers and love other people and things. "hen the Mariner leaves, and the ,edding 7uest no longer wants to enter the wedding. He goes home and wakes up the ne2t day, as the famous last lines go, 'a sadder and a wiser man.' Ima2'ry 9 W)r+( ay "here&s more to a poem than meets the eye. ,eather= "he 7ood, "he !ad, "he Icy, "he 4ry In pretty much any poem or novel a out life at sea, you can e2pect *uite a lot of attention to e devoted to the weather. !ut who could have e2pected a huge fog near (ntarctica, a massive drought t... Moon, Sun, and Stars ,hat is this, an astrology lesson- ,ith the attention he pays to the moon, sun, and stars, you'd think the Mariner had a "arot card collection. ,ell, that's actually not too far, considering that t... "he (l atross ,e've got really mi2ed feelings a out the al atross. If it hadn't come along, then sure, the whole crew pro a ly would have died in that ice field. !ut, to e frank, the conse*uences of shooting th... 3olors "he importance of colors in this poem goes along with the interest in the supernatural Esee elowF and specific patterns of images like the moon and sun Esee a oveF. However, there's so much '6ucy... "he Beligious and the Supernatural

It's hard to separate the religious, spiritual, and supernatural in this poem= welcome to Bomanticism. !y the end of the poem, the message of the Mariner's i)arre and violent story has ecome, '7o... Lyr"-a Ba a+: R/ym"n2 ;ua.ra"n! Dirst and foremost, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of the est representatives of the Gnglish allad tradition. ( allad is not /ust a kind of song that people slow+dance to with the lights dimmed. Co, in poetry terms, it's a kind of poem that tells some kind of narrative or story, often a lengthy one. "his poem was included in the collection titled yrical !allads pu lished y 3oleridge and ,illiam ,ordsworth in 89:<. Anlike some of the other works in the ook, this one is actually more allad than lyric. "he phrase 'lyrical allad' was supposed to signal the authors' intention to smoosh together two different genres= the lyric, dedicated to personal e2perience and emotion E'(h, it's a dark and dreary day in my soul!'F and the dramatic poem, which has characters and a story E'(nd then "om went to Su)ie's house'F. ,ith the intensity of its descriptions and its sheer emotional force, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner does feel like a lyric at times. !ut really, it's a story. 3oleridge orrows the form of this poem from old, popular Gnglish allads like 'Sir 0atrick Spens.' Most stan)as have four+lines, called a '*uatrain,' and a rhyme scheme that goes (!3!, so the second and fourth lines of each stan)a rhyme. 1f course, not all of the stan)as have e2actly four lines= 3oleridge isn't willing to sacrifice meaning for form. "he line lengths alternate etween eight sylla les in the first and third lines, and si2 sylla les in the second and fourth. "he meter is characteri)ed y a lot of iam s, the most common metrical unit in Gnglish. (n iam is a short eat followed y a long one, or, if you prefer, an unaccented sylla le followed y an accented one= !e+low the church, e+low the hill, !e+low the light+house top.

3)n #uan8 0an.) ./' F"r!. By L)r+ Byr)n

I I want a hero= an uncommon want, ,hen every year and month sends forth a new one, "ill, after cloying the ga)ettes with cant, "he age discovers he is not the true one; 1f such as these I should not care to vaunt, I'll therefore take our ancient friend 4on $uan, ,e all have seen him, in the pantomime, Sent to the 4evil somewhat ere his time.II Oernon, the utcher 3um erland, ,olfe, Hawke, 0rince Derdinand, 7ran y, !urgoyne, Peppel, Howe, Gvil and good, have had their tithe of talk, (nd filled their sign+posts then, like ,ellesley now; Gach in their turn like !an*uo's monarchs stalk, Dollowers of fame, 'nine farrow' of that sow=

Drance, too, had !uonapartQ and 4umourier Becorded in the Moniteur and 3ourier.III !arnave, !rissot, 3ondorcet, Mira eau, 0Qtion, 3loot), 4anton, Marat, 6a Dayette ,ere Drench, and famous people, as we know; (nd there were others, scarce forgotten yet, $ou ert, Hoche, Marceau, 6annes, 4esai2, Moreau, ,ith many of the military set, G2ceedingly remarka le at times, !ut not at all adapted to my rhymes.IO Celson was once !ritannia's god of ,ar, (nd still should e so, ut the tide is turn'd; "here's no more to e said of "rafalgar, '"is with our hero *uietly inurn'd; !ecause the army's grown more popular, (t which the naval people are concern'd; !esides, the 0rince is all for the land+service, Dorgetting 4uncan, Celson, Howe, and $ervis.O !rave men were living efore (gamemnon (nd since, e2ceeding valorous and sage, ( good deal like him too, though *uite the same none; !ut then they shone not on the poet's page, (nd so have een forgotten= I condemn none, !ut can't find any in the present age Dit for my poem Ethat is, for my new oneF; So, as I said, I'll take my friend 4on $uan.OI Most epic poets plunge 'in medias res' EHorace makes this the heroic turnpike roadF, (nd then your hero tells, whene'er you please, ,hat went efore++ y way of episode, ,hile seated after dinner at his ease, !eside his mistress in some soft a ode, 0alace, or garden, paradise, or cavern, ,hich serves the happy couple for a tavern.OII "hat is the usual method, ut not mine++ My way is to egin with the eginning; "he regularity of my design Dor ids all wandering as the worst of sinning, (nd therefore I shall open with a line E(lthough it cost me half an hour in spinningF, Carrating somewhat of 4on $uan's father, (nd also of his mother, if you'd rather....33 My poem's epic, and is meant to e 4ivided in twelve ooks; each ook containing, ,ith love, and war, a heavy gale at sea, ( list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning,

Cew characters; the episodes are three= ( panoramic view of Hell's in training, (fter the style of Oirgil and of Homer, So that my name of Gpic's no misnomer.33I (ll these things will e specified in time, ,ith strict regard to (ristotle's rules, "he Oade Mecum of the true su lime, ,hich makes so many poets, and some fools= 0rose poets like lank+verse, I'm fond of rhyme, 7ood workmen never *uarrel with their tools; I've got new mythological machinery, (nd very handsome supernatural scenery.33II "here's only one slight difference etween Me and my epic rethren gone efore, (nd here the advantage is my own, I ween, ECot that I have not several merits more, !ut this will more peculiarly e seenF; "hey so em ellish, that 'tis *uite a ore "heir la yrinth of fa les to thread through, ,hereas this story's actually true.33III If any person dou t it, I appeal "o history, tradition, and to facts, "o newspapers, whose truth all know and feel, "o plays in five, and operas in three acts; (ll these confirm my statement a good deal, !ut that which more completely faith e2acts Is, that myself, and several now in Seville, Saw $uan's last elopement with the 4evil.33IO If ever I should condescend to prose, I'll write poetical commandments, which Shall supersede eyond all dou t all those "hat went efore; in these I shall enrich My te2t with many things that no one knows, (nd carry precept to the highest pitch= I'll call the work '6onginus o'er a !ottle, 1r, Gvery 0oet his own (ristotle.'33O "hou shalt elieve in Milton, 4ryden, 0ope; "hou shalt not set up ,ordsworth, 3oleridge, Southey; !ecause the first is cra)'d eyond all hope, "he second drunk, the third so *uaint and mouthy= ,ith 3ra e it may e difficult to cope, (nd 3amp ell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy= "hou shalt not steal from Samuel Bogers, nor 3ommit++flirtation with the muse of Moore.33OI "hou shalt not covet Mr. Sothe y's Muse, His 0egasus, nor anything that's his;

"hou shalt not ear false witness like 'the !lues' E"here's one, at least, is very fond of thisF; "hou shalt not write, in short, ut what I choose= "his is true criticism, and you may kiss++ G2actly as you please, or not++the rod; !ut if you don't, I'll lay it on, y 7R+Sd! P)'m Summary 0an.) I 4on $uan was orn in Seville, Spain, the son of 4on $osQ, a mem er of the no ility, and 4onna Ine), a woman of considera le learning. $uan's parents did not get along well with each other ecause 4on $osQ was interested in women rather than in knowledge and was unfaithful to 4onna Ine). 4onna Ine) was on the point of suing her hus and for divorce when he died of a fever. "he education of $uan ecame the primary interest of his mother. She saw to it that he received a thorough training in the arts and sciences ut took great care that he should learn nothing a out the asic facts of life. (mong 4onna Ine)'s friends is 4onna $ulia, the young and eautiful wife of 4on (lfonso, a middle+aged man incapa le of engaging her affections. ,hen $uan is si2teen, 4onna $ulia falls in love with the handsome young man and finds opportunities to e in his company. 1ne midsummer evening the two declare their love for each other. In Covem er of that year 4on (lfonso comes one night to the edroom of his wife accompanied y a crowd of his friends. ,hen he enters the room, his wife and her maid are ready for him; the edclothes have een piled up in a heap on the ed. 4on (lfonso and his followers search 4onna $ulia's suite for a lover ut find none. ,hile searching, 4on (lfonso ecomes the target of a tirade of a use from his wife. "he whole company leaves, crestfallen. 4on (lfsonso soon returns to apologi)e and happens to find a pair of men's shoes in his wife's edroom. He leaves the room to get his sword. 4on $uan, who has een hidden under the heap of edclothes, prepares to make his escape y a ack e2it and runs into 4on (lfsonso. In the fight that ensues, $uan strikes (lfonso on the nose and makes his escape. "he se*uel to these events is that 4onna $ulia is sent to a convent and 4on (lfonso sues for divorce. 4onna Ine) decides that her son should spend the ne2t four years traveling. Ana y!"! In the first few stan)as, !yron esta lishes the half+playful and mocking and half+serious tone that is going to pervade Don "#an$ ,hen that is done, he gives his readers as the chief characters in his first canto a pair of married couples. "hey are oth unhappily married. 4on $osQ and 4onna Ine) are mismatched. 4onna Ine) is a cold and severe type of woman, although she has evidently not always een so. It was generally known that in her younger days she had had an affair with 4on (lfonso. 4on $osQ is a good+ natured, easy+going kind of man inclined to take his pleasures where he finds them. !yron's defense of him is that he had een adly rought up and that he was amorous y nature. In the character of 4onna Ine), !yron was satiri)ing, against the advice of his

friends, his estranged wife, 6ady !yron. 4onna $ulia and 4on (lfonso are mismatched y age as 4onna Ine) and 4on $osQ are mismatched y incompati ility of character and personality. 4on (lfonso has nothing to offer 4onna $ulia e2cept his name and station. "heirs was a marriage of convenience. !yron does not other to devote much characteri)ation to 4on (lfonso. He merely says he was neither very lova le nor very hatea le. He had a more or less negative personality, neither warm nor cold. 6ike any other hus and, he did not care to e cuckolded. !yron is far more interested in the wives than in the hus ands and characteri)es them rather e2tensively. Ceither portrait is flattering. 4onna Ine)'s is clearly malicious; in her !yron was attacking his estranged wife. She is not a faithless wife, ut she is an intolerant and rather frigid one. 4onna $ulia's portrait of woman as wife is likewise unflattering; she deceives herself M and her hus and. However, !yron makes the reader feel sympathetic toward her in spite of his using her to show up woman's wiles. 4onna $ulia and 4on $osQ, had they een closer in age, might have made a compati le pair; 4onna $ulia finds in 4on $osQ's son the warmth that was in the father. 4onna Ine) and 4on (lfonso, who had een lovers at one time, might have gotten along well in marriage. Human nature and society, !yron seems to say, work against a happy marriage. Some of !yron's contemporaries found !yron's edroom farce immoral. It can e said in his defense that his mocking presentation neutrali)es any remote occasion of sin that there might e present in his story of illicit love. Cor does he supply any provocative details. 6astly, oth 4onna $ulia and 4on $uan are made to look ridiculous, and oth are punished for their guilt "he story in 3anto I is told y an 'I' persona who is said to e a friend of 4on $uan's family. !yron may have foreseen the difficulties involved in making this persona a witness who would e present with 4on $uan in his various adventures and so decided to discard him. (t any rate the 'I' narrator is discarded efore the first canto ends, and ecomes !yron himself giving his opinions on various matters and communicating more or less confidentially with the reader. 3anto I of Don "#an is without dou t the most interesting, entertaining, and amusing of all the cantos. Dor anything of this kind compara le in *uality and liveliness in Gnglish verse, the reader has to go all the way ack to 3haucer.

T) a S&y ar& ,y P'r-y By!!/' S/' 'y

Hail to thee, lithe spirit! !ird thou never wert+ "hat from heaven or near it 0ourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher Drom the earth thou springest,

6ike a cloud of fire; "he lue deep thou wingest, (nd singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden light'ning 1f the sunken sun, 1'er which clouds are right'ning, "hou dost float and run, 6ike an un odied /oy whose race is /ust egun. "he pale purple even Melts around thy flight; 6ike a star of heaven, In the road daylight "hou art unseen, ut yet I hear thy shrill delight+ Peen as are the arrows 1f that silver sphere ,hose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Antil we hardly see, we feel that it is there. (ll the earth and air ,ith thy voice is loud, (s when night is are, Drom one lonely cloud "he moon rains out her eams, and heaven is overflow'd. ,hat thou art we know not; ,hat is most like theeDrom rain ow clouds there flow not 4rops so right to see, (s from thy presence showers a rain of melody=+ 6ike a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns un idden, "ill the world is wrought "o sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not= 6ike a high+ orn maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love+laden Soul in secret hour ,ith music sweet as love, which overflows her ower= 6ike a glow+worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering un eholden Its aTrial hue (mong the flowers and grass which screen it from the view=

6ike a rose em ower'd In its own green leaves, !y warm winds deflower'd, "ill the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy+wingUd thieves. Sound of vernal showers 1n the twinkling grass, Bain+awaken'd flowers+ (ll that ever was $oyous and clear and fresh+thy music doth surpass. "each us, sprite or ird, ,hat sweet thoughts are thine= I have never heard 0raise of love or wine "hat panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 3horus hymeneal, 1r triumphal chant, Match'd with thine would e all !ut an empty vaunt+ ( thin wherein we feel there is some hidden want. ,hat o /ects are the fountains 1f thy happy strain,hat fields, or waves, or mountains,hat shapes of sky or plain,hat love of thine own kind- what ignorance of pain,ith thy clear keen /oyance 6anguor cannot e= Shadow of annoyance Cever came near thee= "hou lovest, ut ne'er knew love's sad satiety. ,aking or asleep, "hou of death must deem "hings more true and deep "han we mortals dream, 1r how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream,e look efore and after, (nd pine for what is not= 1ur sincerest laughter ,ith some pain is fraught; 1ur sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Net, if we could scorn Hate and pride and fear,

If we were things orn Cot to shed a tear, I know not how thy /oy we ever should come near. !etter than all measures 1f delightful sound, !etter than all treasures "hat in ooks are found, "hy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! "each me half the gladness "hat thy rain must know; Such harmonious madness Drom my lips would flow, "he world should listen then, as I am listening now. Summary "he speaker, addressing a skylark, says that it is a # lithe Spirit% rather than a ird, for its song comes from Heaven, and from its full heart pours #profuse strains of unpremeditated art.% "he skylark flies higher and higher, #like a cloud of fire% in the lue sky, singing as it flies. In the #golden lightning% of the sun, it floats and runs, like #an un odied /oy.% (s the skylark flies higher and higher, the speaker loses sight of it, ut is still a le to hear its #shrill delight,% which comes down as keenly as moon eams in the #white dawn,% which can e felt even when they are not seen. "he earth and air ring with the skylark&s voice, /ust as Heaven overflows with moon eams when the moon shines out from ehind #a lonely cloud.% "he speaker says that no one knows what the skylark is, for it is uni*ue= even #rain ow clouds% do not rain as rightly as the shower of melody that pours from the skylark. "he ird is #like a poet hidden J In the light of thought,% a le to make the world e2perience #sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.% It is like a lonely maiden in a palace tower, who uses her song to soothe her lovelorn soul. It is like a golden glow+worm, scattering light among the flowers and grass in which it is hidden. It is like a rose em owered in its own green leaves, whose scent is lown y the wind until the ees are faint with #too much sweet.% "he skylark&s song surpasses #all that ever was, J $oyous and clear and fresh,% whether the rain falling on the #twinkling grass% or the flowers the rain awakens. 3alling the skylark #Sprite or !ird,% the speaker asks it to tell him its #sweet thoughts,% for he has never heard anyone or anything call up #a flood of rapture so divine.% 3ompared to the skylark&s, any music would seem lacking. ,hat o /ects, the speaker asks, are #the fountains of thy happy strain-% Is it fields, waves, mountains, the sky, the plain, or #love of thine own kind% or #ignorance or pain%- 0ain and languor, the speaker says, #never came near% the skylark= it loves, ut has never known #love&s sad satiety.% 1f death, the skylark must know #things more true and deep% than mortals could dream; otherwise, the speaker asks, #how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream-% Dor mortals, the e2perience of happiness is ound ine2trica ly with the e2perience of sadness= dwelling upon memories and hopes for the future, mortal men #pine for what is not%; their laughter is #fraught% with #some pain%; their #sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.% !ut, the speaker says, even if men could #scorn J Hate and pride and fear,% and were orn without the capacity to weep, he still does not know how

they could ever appro2imate the /oy e2pressed y the skylark. 3alling the ird a #scorner of the ground,% he says that its music is etter than all music and all poetry. He asks the ird to teach him #half the gladness J "hat thy rain must know,% for then he would overflow with #harmonious madness,% and his song would e so eautiful that the world would listen to him, even as he is now listening to the skylark. F)rm "he eccentric, songlike, five+line stan)as of #"o a Skylark%Mall twenty+one of themM follow the same pattern= the first four lines are metered in trochaic trimeter, the fifth in iam ic he2ameter Ea line which can also e called an (le2andrineF. "he rhyme scheme of each stan)a is e2tremely simple= (!(!!. 0)mm'n.ary If the ,est ,ind was Shelley&s first convincing attempt to articulate an aesthetic philosophy through metaphors of nature, the skylark is his greatest natural metaphor for pure poetic e2pression, the #harmonious madness% of pure inspiration. "he skylark&s song issues from a state of purified e2istence, a ,ordsworthian notion of complete unity with Heaven through nature; its song is motivated y the /oy of that uncomplicated purity of eing, and is unmi2ed with any hint of melancholy or of the ittersweet, as human /oy so often is. "he skylark&s unimpeded song rains down upon the world, surpassing every other eauty, inspiring metaphor and making the speaker elieve that the ird is not a mortal ird at all, ut a #Spirit,% a #sprite,% a #poet hidden J In the light of thought.% In that sense, the skylark is almost an e2act twin of the ird in Peats&s #1de to a Cightingale%; oth represent pure e2pression through their songs, and like the skylark, the nightingale #wast not orn for death.% !ut while the nightingale is a ird of darkness, invisi le in the shadowy forest glades, the skylark is a ird of daylight, invisi le in the deep right lue of the sky. "he nightingale inspires Peats to feel #a drowsy num ness% of happiness that is also like pain, and that makes him think of death; the skylark inspires Shelley to feel a frantic, rapturous /oy that has no part of pain. "o Peats, human /oy and sadness are ine2trica ly linked, as he e2plains at length in the final stan)a of the #1de on Melancholy.% !ut the skylark sings free of all human error and comple2ity, and while listening to his song, the poet feels free of those things, too. Structurally and linguistically, this poem is almost uni*ue among Shelley&s works; its strange form of stan)a, with four compact lines and one very long line, and its lilting, songlike diction E#profuse strains of unpremeditated art%F work to create the effect of spontaneous poetic e2pression flowing musically and naturally from the poet&s mind. Structurally, each stan)a tends to make a single, *uick point a out the skylark, or to look at it in a sudden, rief new light; still, the poem does flow, and gradually advances the mini+narrative of the speaker watching the skylark flying higher and higher into the sky, and envying its untrammeled inspirationMwhich, if he were to capture it in words, would cause the world to listen.

O3E TO T$E WEST WIN35 By S/' 'y

8. 1 wild ,est ,ind, thou reath of (utumn's eing,

"hou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead (re driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Nellow, and lack, and pale, and hectic red, 0estilence+stricken multitudes= 1 thou, ,ho chariotest to their dark wintry ed "he winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Gach like a corpse within its grave, until "hine a)ure sister of the Spring shall low Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill E4riving sweet uds like flocks to feed in airF ,ith living hues and odours plain and hill= ,ild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; 4estroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear! >. "hou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion, 6oose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled oughs of Heaven and 1cean, (ngels of rain and lightning= there are spread 1n the lue surface of thine aery surge, 6ike the right hair uplifted from the head 1f some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge 1f the hori)on to the )enith's height, "he locks of the approaching storm. "hou dirge 1f the dying year, to which this closing night ,ill e the dome of a vast sepulchre, Oaulted with all thy congregated might 1f vapours, from whose solid atmosphere !lack rain, and fire, and hail will urst= oh, hear! ?. "hou who didst waken from his summer dreams "he lue Mediterranean, where he lay, 6ulled y the coil of his crystalline streams, !eside a pumice isle in !aiae's ay, (nd saw in sleep old palaces and towers Vuivering within the wave's intenser day, (ll overgrown with a)ure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! "hou Dor whose path the (tlantic's level powers 3leave themselves into chasms, while far elow "he sea+ looms and the oo)y woods which wear "he sapless foliage of the ocean, know "hy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, (nd trem le and despoil themselves= oh, hear!

;. If I were a dead leaf thou mightest ear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; ( wave to pant eneath thy power, and share "he impulse of thy strength, only less free "han thou, 1 uncontrolla le! If even I were as in my oyhood, and could e "he comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, (s then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven (s thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 1h, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I leed! ( heavy weight of hours has chained and owed 1ne too like thee= tameless, and swift, and proud. K. Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is= ,hat if my leaves are falling like its own! "he tumult of thy mighty harmonies ,ill take from oth a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. !e thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! !e thou me, impetuous one! 4rive my dead thoughts over the universe 6ike withered leaves to *uicken a new irth! (nd, y the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an une2tinguished hearth (shes and sparks, my words among mankind! !e through my lips to unawakened earth "he trumpet of a prophecy! 1, ,ind, If ,inter comes, can Spring e far ehind-

Summary "he speaker invokes the #wild ,est ,ind% of autumn, which scatters the dead leaves and spreads seeds so that they may e nurtured y the spring, and asks that the wind, a #destroyer and preserver,% hear him. "he speaker calls the wind the #dirge J 1f the dying year,% and descri es how it stirs up violent storms, and again implores it to hear him. "he speaker says that the wind stirs the Mediterranean from #his summer dreams,% and cleaves the (tlantic into choppy chasms, making the #sapless foliage% of the ocean trem le, and asks for a third time that it hear him. "he speaker says that if he were a dead leaf that the wind could ear, or a cloud it could carry, or a wave it could push, or even if he were, as a oy, #the comrade% of the wind&s #wandering over heaven,% then he would never have needed to pray to the wind and invoke its powers. He pleads with the wind to lift him #as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!%Mfor

though he is like the wind at heart, untama le and proudMhe is now chained and owed with the weight of his hours upon the earth. "he speaker asks the wind to #make me thy lyre,% to e his own Spirit, and to drive his thoughts across the universe, #like withered leaves, to *uicken a new irth.% He asks the wind, y the incantation of this verse, to scatter his words among mankind, to e the #trumpet of a prophecy.% Speaking oth in regard to the season and in regard to the effect upon mankind that he hopes his words to have, the speaker asks= #If winter comes, can spring e far ehind-% F)rm Gach of the seven parts of #1de to the ,est ,ind% contains five stan)asMfour three+ line stan)as and a two+line couplet, all metered in iam ic pentameter. "he rhyme scheme in each part follows a pattern known as ter%a rima& the three+line rhyme scheme employed y 4ante in his Di'ine (omedy$ In the three+line ter%a rima stan)a, the first and third lines rhyme, and the middle line does not; then the end sound of that middle line is employed as the rhyme for the first and third lines in the ne2t stan)a. "he final couplet rhymes with the middle line of the last three+line stan)a. "hus each of the seven parts of #1de to the ,est ,ind% follows this scheme= (!( !3! 343 4G4 GG. 0)mm'n.ary "he wispy, fluid ter%a rima of #1de to the ,est ,ind% finds Shelley taking a long thematic leap eyond the scope of #Hymn to Intellectual !eauty,% and incorporating his own art into his meditation on eauty and the natural world. Shelley invokes the wind magically, descri ing its power and its role as oth #destroyer and preserver,% and asks the wind to sweep him out of his torpor #as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!% In the fifth section, the poet then takes a remarka le turn, transforming the wind into a metaphor for his own art, the e2pressive capacity that drives #dead thoughts% like #withered leaves% over the universe, to #*uicken a new irth%Mthat is, to *uicken the coming of the spring. Here the spring season is a metaphor for a #spring% of human consciousness, imagination, li erty, or moralityMall the things Shelley hoped his art could help to ring a out in the human mind. Shelley asks the wind to e his spirit, and in the same movement he makes it his metaphorical spirit, his poetic faculty, which will play him like a musical instrument, the way the wind strums the leaves of the trees. "he thematic implication is significant= whereas the older generation of Bomantic poets viewed nature as a source of truth and authentic e2perience, the younger generation largely viewed nature as a source of eauty and aesthetic e2perience. In this poem, Shelley e2plicitly links nature with art y finding powerful natural metaphors with which to e2press his ideas a out the power, import, *uality, and ultimate effect of aesthetic e2pression.

O3E TO A NI%$TIN%ALE By KEATS

My heart aches, and a drowsy num ness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, 1r emptied some dull opiate to the drains 1ne minute past, and 6ethe+wards had sunk= '"is not through envy of thy happy lot, !ut eing too happy in thine happiness, + "hat thou, light+winged 4ryad of the trees, In some melodious plot

1f eechen green and shadows num erless, Singest of summer in full+throated ease. 1, for a draught of vintage! that hath een 3ool'd a long age in the deep+delved earth, "asting of Dlora and the country green, 4ance, and 0rovenWal song, and sun urnt mirth! 1 for a eaker full of the warm South, Dull of the true, the lushful Hippocrene, ,ith eaded u les winking at the rim, (nd purple+stained mouth; "hat I might drink, and leave the world unseen, (nd with thee fade away into the forest dim= Dade far away, dissolve, and *uite forget ,hat thou among the leaves hast never known, "he weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; ,here palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, ,here youth grows pale, and spectre+thin, and dies; ,here ut to think is to e full of sorrow (nd leaden+eyed despairs, ,here !eauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 1r new 6ove pine at them eyond to+morrow. (way! away! for I will fly to thee, Cot charioted y !acchus and his pards, !ut on the viewless wings of 0oesy, "hough the dull rain perple2es and retards= (lready with thee! tender is the night, (nd haply the Vueen+Moon is on her throne, 3luster'd around y all her starry Days; !ut here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the ree)es lown "hrough verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Cor what soft incense hangs upon the oughs, !ut, in em almed darkness, guess each sweet ,herewith the seasona le month endows "he grass, the thicket, and the fruit+tree wild; ,hite hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Dast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; (nd mid+May's eldest child, "he coming musk+rose, full of dewy wine, "he murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 4arkling I listen; and, for many a time I have een half in love with easeful 4eath, 3all'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, "o take into the air my *uiet reath; Cow more than ever seems it rich to die,

"o cease upon the midnight with no pain, ,hile thou art pouring forth thy soul a road In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain + "o thy high re*uiem ecome a sod. "hou wast not orn for death, immortal !ird! Co hungry generations tread thee down; "he voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days y emperor and clown= 0erhaps the self+same song that found a path "hrough the sad heart of Buth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; "he same that oft+times hath 3harm'd magic casements, opening on the foam 1f perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Dorlorn! the very word is like a ell "o toll me ack from thee to my sole self! (dieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well (s she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. (dieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 0ast the near meadows, over the still stream, Ap the hill+side; and now 'tis uried deep In the ne2t valley+glades= ,as it a vision, or a waking dreamDled is that music= + 4o I wake or sleepSummary "he speaker opens with a declaration of his own heartache. He feels num , as though he had taken a drug only a moment ago. He is addressing a nightingale he hears singing somewhere in the forest and says that his #drowsy num ness% is not from envy of the nightingale&s happiness, ut rather from sharing it too completely; he is #too happy% that the nightingale sings the music of summer from amid some unseen plot of green trees and shadows. In the second stan)a, the speaker longs for the o livion of alcohol, e2pressing his wish for wine, #a draught of vintage,% that would taste like the country and like peasant dances, and let him #leave the world unseen% and disappear into the dim forest with the nightingale. In the third stan)a, he e2plains his desire to fade away, saying he would like to forget the trou les the nightingale has never known= #the weariness, the fever, and the fret% of human life, with its consciousness that everything is mortal and nothing lasts. Nouth #grows pale, and spectre+thin, and dies,% and # eauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes.% In the fourth stan)a, the speaker tells the nightingale to fly away, and he will follow, not through alcohol E#Cot charioted y !acchus and his pards%F, ut through poetry, which will give him #viewless wings.% He says he is already with the nightingale and descri es the forest glade, where even the moonlight is hidden y the trees, e2cept the light that reaks through when the ree)es low the ranches. In the fifth stan)a, the speaker says that he cannot see the flowers in the glade, ut can guess them #in em almed darkness%= white hawthorne, eglantine, violets, and the musk+rose, #the murmurous haunt of flies

on summer eves.% In the si2th stan)a, the speaker listens in the dark to the nightingale, saying that he has often een #half in love% with the idea of dying and called 4eath soft names in many rhymes. Surrounded y the nightingale&s song, the speaker thinks that the idea of death seems richer than ever, and he longs to #cease upon the midnight with no pain% while the nightingale pours its soul ecstatically forth. If he were to die, the nightingale would continue to sing, he says, ut he would #have ears in vain% and e no longer a le to hear. In the seventh stan)a, the speaker tells the nightingale that it is immortal, that it was not # orn for death.% He says that the voice he hears singing has always een heard, y ancient emperors and clowns, y homesick Buth; he even says the song has often charmed open magic windows looking out over #the foam J 1f perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.% In the eighth stan)a, the word forlorn tolls like a ell to restore the speaker from his preoccupation with the nightingale and ack into himself. (s the nightingale flies farther away from him, he laments that his imagination has failed him and says that he can no longer recall whether the nightingale&s music was #a vision, or a waking dream.% Cow that the music is gone, the speaker cannot recall whether he himself is awake or asleep. F)rm 6ike most of the other odes, #1de to a Cightingale% is written in ten+line stan)as. However, unlike most of the other poems, it is metrically varia leMthough not so much as #1de to 0syche.% "he first seven and last two lines of each stan)a are written in iam ic pentameter; the eighth line of each stan)a is written in trimeter, with only three accented sylla les instead of five. #Cightingale% also differs from the other odes in that its rhyme scheme is the same in every stan)a Eevery other ode varies the order of rhyme in the final three or four lines e2cept #"o 0syche,% which has the loosest structure of all the odesF. Gach stan)a in #Cightingale% is rhymed (!(!34G34G, Peats&s most asic scheme throughout the odes. T/'m'! ,ith #1de to a Cightingale,% Peats&s speaker egins his fullest and deepest e2ploration of the themes of creative e2pression and the mortality of human life. In this ode, the transience of life and the tragedy of old age E#where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, J ,here youth grows pale, and spectre+thin, and dies%F is set against the eternal renewal of the nightingale&s fluid music E#"hou wast not orn for death, immortal ird!%F. "he speaker reprises the #drowsy num ness% he e2perienced in #1de on Indolence,% ut where in #Indolence% that num ness was a sign of disconnection from e2perience, in #Cightingale% it is a sign of too full a connection= # eing too happy in thine happiness,% as the speaker tells the nightingale. Hearing the song of the nightingale, the speaker longs to flee the human world and /oin the ird. His first thought is to reach the ird&s state through alcoholMin the second stan)a, he longs for a #draught of vintage% to transport him out of himself. !ut after his meditation in the third stan)a on the transience of life, he re/ects the idea of eing #charioted y !acchus and his pards% E!acchus was the Boman god of wine and was supposed to have een carried y a chariot pulled y leopardsF and chooses instead to em race, for the first time since he refused to follow the figures in #Indolence,% #the viewless wings of 0oesy.% "he rapture of poetic inspiration matches the endless creative rapture of the nightingale&s music and lets the speaker, in stan)as five through seven, imagine himself with the ird in the darkened forest. "he ecstatic music even encourages the speaker to em race the idea of dying, of painlessly succum ing to death while enraptured y the

nightingale&s music and never e2periencing any further pain or disappointment. !ut when his meditation causes him to utter the word #forlorn,% he comes ack to himself, recogni)ing his fancy for what it isMan imagined escape from the inescapa le E#(dieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well J (s she is fam&d to do, deceiving elf%F. (s the nightingale flies away, the intensity of the speaker&s e2perience has left him shaken, una le to remem er whether he is awake or asleep. In #Indolence,% the speaker re/ected all artistic effort. In #0syche,% he was willing to em race the creative imagination, ut only for its own internal pleasures. !ut in the nightingale&s song, he finds a form of outward e2pression that translates the work of the imagination into the outside world, and this is the discovery that compels him to em race 0oesy&s #viewless wings% at last. "he #art% of the nightingale is endlessly changea le and renewa le; it is music without record, e2isting only in a perpetual present. (s efits his cele ration of music, the speaker&s language, sensually rich though it is, serves to suppress the sense of sight in favor of the other senses. He can imagine the light of the moon, #!ut here there is no light%; he knows he is surrounded y flowers, ut he #cannot see what flowers% are at his feet. "his suppression will find its match in #1de on a 7recian Arn,% which is in many ways a companion poem to #1de to a Cightingale.% In the later poem, the speaker will finally confront a created art+ o /ect not su /ect to any of the limitations of time; in #Cightingale,% he has achieved creative e2pression and has placed his faith in it, ut that e2pressionMthe nightingale&s songMis spontaneous and without physical manifestation

O3E ON A %RE0IAN URN By #)/n K'a.!

"hou still unravished ride of *uietness, "hou foster child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus e2press ( flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme= ,hat leaf+fringed legend haunts a out thy shape 1f deities or mortals, or of oth, In "empe or the dales of (rcady,hat men or gods are these- ,hat maidens loath,hat mad pursuit- ,hat struggle to escape,hat pipes and tim rels- ,hat wild ecstasyHeard melodies are sweet, ut those unheard (re sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Cot to the sensual ear, ut, more endeared, 0ipe to the spirit dities of no tone. Dair youth, eneath the trees, thou canst not leave "hy song, nor ever can those trees e are; !old 6over, never, never canst thou kiss, "hough winning near the goal+++yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy liss Dorever wilt thou love, and she e fair! (h, happy, happy oughs! that cannot shed Nour leaves, nor ever id the Spring adieu; (nd, happy melodist, unweari+ed, Dorever piping songs forever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love!

Dorever warm and still to e en/oyed, Dorever panting, and forever young; (ll reathing human passion far a ove, "hat leaves a heart high+sorrowful and cloyed, ( urning forehead, and a parching tongue. ,ho are these coming to the sacrifice"o what green altar, 1 mysterious priest, 6ead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, (nd all her silken flanks with garlands dressed,hat little town y river or sea shore, 1r mountain+ uilt with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn(nd, little town, thy streets for evermore ,ill silent e; and not a soul to tell ,hy thou art desolate, can e'er return. 1 (ttic shape! Dair attitude! with rede 1f mar le men and maidens overwrought, ,ith forest ranches and the trodden weed; "hou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought (s doth eternity. 3old 0astoral! ,hen old age shall this generation waste, "hou shalt remain, in midst of other woe "han ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, '!eauty is truth, truth eauty'+++that is all Ne know on earth, and all ye need to know. Summary In the first stan)a, the speaker stands efore an ancient 7recian urn and addresses it. He is preoccupied with its depiction of pictures fro)en in time. It is the #still unravish&d ride of *uietness,% the #foster+child of silence and slow time.% He also descri es the urn as a #historian% that can tell a story. He wonders a out the figures on the side of the urn and asks what legend they depict and from where they come. He looks at a picture that seems to depict a group of men pursuing a group of women and wonders what their story could e= #,hat mad pursuit- ,hat struggle to escape- J ,hat pipes and tim rels- ,hat wild ecstasy-% In the second stan)a, the speaker looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man playing a pipe, lying with his lover eneath a glade of trees. "he speaker says that the piper&s #unheard% melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies ecause they are unaffected y time. He tells the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover ecause he is fro)en in time, he should not grieve, ecause her eauty will never fade. In the third stan)a, he looks at the trees surrounding the lovers and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves. He is happy for the piper ecause his songs will e #for ever new,% and happy that the love of the oy and the girl will last forever, unlike mortal love, which lapses into # reathing human passion% and eventually vanishes, leaving ehind only a # urning forehead, and a parching tongue.% In the fourth stan)a, the speaker e2amines another picture on the urn, this one of a group of villagers leading a heifer to e sacrificed. He wonders where they are going E#"o what green altar, 1 mysterious priest...%F and from where they have come. He imagines

their little town, empty of all its citi)ens, and tells it that its streets will #for evermore% e silent, for those who have left it, fro)en on the urn, will never return. In the final stan)a, the speaker again addresses the urn itself, saying that it, like Gternity, #doth tease us out of thought.% He thinks that when his generation is long dead, the urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic lesson= #!eauty is truth, truth eauty.% "he speaker says that that is the only thing the urn knows and the only thing it needs to know. F)rm #1de on a 7recian Arn% follows the same ode+stan)a structure as the #1de on Melancholy,% though it varies more the rhyme scheme of the last three lines of each stan)a. Gach of the five stan)as in #7recian Arn% is ten lines long, metered in a relatively precise iam ic pentameter, and divided into a two part rhyme scheme, the last three lines of which are varia le. "he first seven lines of each stan)a follow an (!(!34G rhyme scheme, ut the second occurrences of the 34G sounds do not follow the same order. In stan)a one, lines seven through ten are rhymed 43G; in stan)a two, 3G4; in stan)as three and four, 34G; and in stan)a five, 43G, /ust as in stan)a one. (s in other odes Eespecially #(utumn% and #Melancholy%F, the two+part rhyme scheme Ethe first part made of (! rhymes, the second of 34G rhymesF creates the sense of a two+part thematic structure as well. "he first four lines of each stan)a roughly define the su /ect of the stan)a, and the last si2 roughly e2plicate or develop it. E(s in other odes, this is only a general rule, true of some stan)as more than others; stan)as such as the fifth do not connect rhyme scheme and thematic structure closely at all.F T/'m'! If the #1de to a Cightingale% portrays Peats&s speaker&s engagement with the fluid e2pressiveness of music, the #1de on a 7recian Arn% portrays his attempt to engage with the static immo ility of sculpture. "he 7recian urn, passed down through countless centuries to the time of the speaker&s viewing, e2ists outside of time in the human sense Mit does not age, it does not die, and indeed it is alien to all such concepts. In the speaker&s meditation, this creates an intriguing parado2 for the human figures carved into the side of the urn= "hey are free from time, ut they are simultaneously fro)en in time. "hey do not have to confront aging and death Etheir love is #for ever young%F, ut neither can they have e2perience Ethe youth can never kiss the maiden; the figures in the procession can never return to their homesF. "he speaker attempts three times to engage with scenes carved into the urn; each time he asks different *uestions of it. In the first stan)a, he e2amines the picture of the #mad pursuit% and wonders what actual story lies ehind the picture= #,hat men or gods are these- ,hat maidens loth-% 1f course, the urn can never tell him the whos, whats, whens, and wheres of the stories it depicts, and the speaker is forced to a andon this line of *uestioning.

In the second and third stan)as, he e2amines the picture of the piper playing to his lover eneath the trees. Here, the speaker tries to imagine what the e2perience of the figures on the urn must e like; he tries to identify with them. He is tempted y their escape from temporality and attracted to the eternal newness of the piper&s unheard song and the eternally unchanging eauty of his lover. He thinks that their love is #far a ove% all transient human passion, which, in its se2ual e2pression, inevita ly leads to an a atement of intensityMwhen passion is satisfied, all that remains is a wearied

physicality= a sorrowful heart, a # urning forehead,% and a #parching tongue.% His recollection of these conditions seems to remind the speaker that he is inescapa ly su /ect to them, and he a andons his attempt to identify with the figures on the urn. In the fourth stan)a, the speaker attempts to think a out the figures on the urn as though they were e2periencing human time, imagining that their procession has an origin Ethe #little town%F and a destination Ethe #green altar%F. !ut all he can think is that the town will forever e deserted= If these people have left their origin, they will never return to it. In this sense he confronts head+on the limits of static art; if it is impossi le to learn from the urn the whos and wheres of the #real story% in the first stan)a, it is impossi lee'er to know the origin and the destination of the figures on the urn in the fourth. It is true that the speaker shows a certain kind of progress in his successive attempts to engage with the urn. His idle curiosity in the first attempt gives way to a more deeply felt identification in the second, and in the third, the speaker leaves his own concerns ehind and thinks of the processional purely on its own terms, thinking of the #little town% with a real and generous feeling. !ut each attempt ultimately ends in failure. "he third attempt fails simply ecause there is nothing more to sayMonce the speaker confronts the silence and eternal emptiness of the little town, he has reached the limit of static art; on this su /ect, at least, there is nothing more the urn can tell him. In the final stan)a, the speaker presents the conclusions drawn from his three attempts to engage with the urn. He is overwhelmed y its e2istence outside of temporal change, with its a ility to #tease% him #out of thought J (s doth eternity.% If human life is a succession of #hungry generations,% as the speaker suggests in #Cightingale,% the urn is a separate and self+contained world. It can e a #friend to man,% as the speaker says, ut it cannot e mortal; the kind of aesthetic connection the speaker e2periences with the urn is ultimately insufficient to human life. "he final two lines, in which the speaker imagines the urn speaking its message to mankindM%!eauty is truth, truth eauty,% have proved among the most difficult to interpret in the Peats canon. (fter the urn utters the enigmatic phrase #!eauty is truth, truth eauty,% no one can say for sure who #speaks% the conclusion, #that is all J Ne know on earth, and all ye need to know.% It could e the speaker addressing the urn, and it could e the urn addressing mankind. If it is the speaker addressing the urn, then it would seem to indicate his awareness of its limitations= "he urn may not need to know anything eyond the e*uation of eauty and truth, ut the complications of human life make it impossi le for such a simple and self+contained phrase to e2press sufficiently anything a out necessary human knowledge. If it is the urn addressing mankind, then the phrase has rather the weight of an important lesson, as though )eyond all the complications of human life, all human eings need to know on earth is that eauty and truth are one and the same. It is largely a matter of personal interpretation which reading to accept

O3E TO AUTUM By KEATS

8. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 3lose osom+friend of the maturing sun; 3onspiring with him how to load and less ,ith fruit the vines that round the thatch+eves run; "o end with apples the moss'd cottage+trees, (nd fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

"o swell the gourd, and plump the ha)el shells ,ith a sweet kernel; to set udding more, (nd still more, later flowers for the ees, Antil they think warm days will never cease, Dor Summer has o'er+ rimm'd their clammy cells. >. ,ho hath not seen thee oft amid thy storeSometimes whoever seeks a road may find "hee sitting careless on a granary floor, "hy hair soft+lifted y the winnowing wind; 1r on a half+reap'd furrow sound asleep, 4rows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the ne2t swath and all its twined flowers= (nd sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a rook; 1r y a cyder+press, with patient look, "hou watchest the last oo)ings hours y hours. ?. ,here are the songs of Spring- (y, where are they"hink not of them, thou hast thy music too,M ,hile arred clouds loom the soft+dying day, (nd touch the stu le+plains with rosy hue; "hen in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn (mong the river sallows, orne aloft 1r sinking as the light wind lives or dies; (nd full+grown lam s loud leat from hilly ourn; Hedge+crickets sing; and now with tre le soft "he red+ reast whistles from a garden+croft; (nd gathering swallows twitter in the skies. Summary Peats&s speaker opens his first stan)a y addressing (utumn, descri ing its a undance and its intimacy with the sun, with whom (utumn ripens fruits and causes the late flowers to loom. In the second stan)a, the speaker descri es the figure of (utumn as a female goddess, often seen sitting on the granary floor, her hair #soft+lifted% y the wind, and often seen sleeping in the fields or watching a cider+press s*uee)ing the /uice from apples. In the third stan)a, the speaker tells (utumn not to wonder where the songs of spring have gone, ut instead to listen to her own music. (t twilight, the #small gnats% hum among the 'the river sallows,' or willow trees, lifted and dropped y the wind, and #full+grown lam s% leat from the hills, crickets sing, ro ins whistle from the garden, and swallows, gathering for their coming migration, sing from the skies. F)rm 6ike the #1de on Melancholy,% #"o (utumn% is written in a three+stan)a structure with a varia le rhyme scheme. Gach stan)a is eleven lines long Eas opposed to ten in #Melancholy%, and each is metered in a relatively precise iam ic pentameter. In terms of oth thematic organi)ation and rhyme scheme, each stan)a is divided roughly into two parts. In each stan)a, the first part is made up of the first four lines of the stan)a, and the second part is made up of the last seven lines. "he first part of each stan)a

follows an (!(! rhyme scheme, the first line rhyming with the third, and the second line rhyming with the fourth. "he second part of each stan)a is longer and varies in rhyme scheme= "he first stan)a is arranged 34G433G, and the second and third stan)as are arranged 34G344G. E"hematically, the first part of each stan)a serves to define the su /ect of the stan)a, and the second part offers room for musing, development, and speculation on that su /ect; however, this thematic division is only very general.F T/'m'! In oth its form and descriptive surface, #"o (utumn% is one of the simplest of Peats&s odes. "here is nothing confusing or comple2 in Peats&s paean to the season of autumn, with its fruitfulness, its flowers, and the song of its swallows gathering for migration. "he e2traordinary achievement of this poem lies in its a ility to suggest, e2plore, and develop a rich a undance of themes without ever ruffling its calm, gentle, and lovely description of autumn. ,here #1de on Melancholy% presents itself as a strenuous heroic *uest, #"o (utumn% is concerned with the much *uieter activity of daily o servation and appreciation. In this *uietude, the gathered themes of the preceding odes find their fullest and most eautiful e2pression. #"o (utumn% takes up where the other odes leave off. 6ike the others, it shows Peats&s speaker paying homage to a particular goddessMin this case, the deified season of (utumn. "he selection of this season implicitly takes up the other odes& themes of temporality, mortality, and change= (utumn in Peats&s ode is a time of warmth and plenty, ut it is perched on the rink of winter&s desolation, as the ees en/oy #later flowers,% the harvest is gathered from the fields, the lam s of spring are now #full grown,% and, in the final line of the poem, the swallows gather for their winter migration. "he understated sense of inevita le loss in that final line makes it one of the most moving moments in all of poetry; it can e read as a simple, uncomplaining summation of the entire human condition. 4espite the coming chill of winter, the late warmth of autumn provides Peats&s speaker with ample eauty to cele rate= the cottage and its surroundings in the first stan)a, the agrarian haunts of the goddess in the second, and the locales of natural creatures in the third. Peats&s speaker is a le to e2perience these eauties in a sincere and meaningful way ecause of the lessons he has learned in the previous odes= He is no longer indolent, no longer committed to the isolated imagination Eas in #0syche%F, no longer attempting to escape the pain of the world through ecstatic rapture Eas in #Cightingale%F, no longer frustrated y the attempt to eternali)e mortal eauty or su /ect eternal eauty to time Eas in #Arn%F, and no longer a le to frame the connection of pleasure and the sorrow of loss only as an imaginary heroic *uest Eas in #Melancholy%F. In #"o (utumn,% the speaker&s e2perience of eauty refers ack to earlier odes Ethe swallows recall the nightingale; the fruit recalls /oy&s grape; the goddess drowsing among the poppies recalls 0syche and 3upid lying in the grassF, ut it also recalls a wealth of earlier poems. Most importantly, the image of (utumn winnowing and harvesting Ein a se*uence of odes often e2plicitly a out creativityF recalls an earlier Peats poem in which the activity of harvesting is an e2plicit metaphor for artistic creation. In his sonnet #,hen I have fears that I may cease to e,% Peats makes this connection directly= When I ha'e fears that I may cease to )e !efore my pen has glean*d my teeming )rain&

!efore high+piled )ooks& in charactry& ,old like rich garners the f#ll ripen*d grain$$$ In this poem, the act of creation is pictured as a kind of self+harvesting; the pen harvests the fields of the rain, and ooks are filled with the resulting #grain.% In #"o (utumn,% the metaphor is developed further; the sense of coming loss that permeates the poem confronts the sorrow underlying the season&s creativity. ,hen (utumn&s harvest is over, the fields will e are, the swaths with their #twined flowers% cut down, the cider+ press dry, the skies empty. !ut the connection of this harvesting to the seasonal cycle softens the edge of the tragedy. In time, spring will come again, the fields will grow again, and the irdsong will return. (s the speaker knew in #Melancholy,% a undance and loss, /oy and sorrow, song and silence are as intimately connected as the twined flowers in the fields. ,hat makes #"o (utumn% eautiful is that it rings an engagement with that connection out of the realm of mythology and fantasy and into the everyday world. "he development the speaker so strongly resisted in #Indolence% is at last complete= He has learned that an acceptance of mortality is not destructive to an appreciation of eauty and has gleaned wisdom y accepting the passage of time.

UNITS <-=
0$ARLOTTE BRONT> ?#AYNE EYRE@
0)n.'1. 3 H(B61""G !B1C"X ,(S !1BC IC N1BPSHIBG, Gngland on (pril >8, 8<8Hto Maria !ranwell and 0atrick !rontT. !ecause 3harlotte&s mother died when 3harlotte was five years old, 3harlotte&s aunt, a devout Methodist, helped her rother+in+law raise his children. In 8<>; 3harlotte and three of her sistersMMaria, Gli)a eth, and GmilyMwere sent to 3owan !ridge, a school for clergymen&s daughters. ,hen an out reak of tu erculosis killed Maria and Gli)a eth, 3harlotte and Gmily were rought home. Several years later, 3harlotte returned to school, this time in Boe Head, Gngland. She ecame a teacher at the school in 8<?K ut decided after several years to ecome a private governess instead. She was hired to live with and tutor the children of the wealthy Sidgewick family in 8<?:, ut the /o was a misery to her and she soon left it. 1nce 3harlotte recogni)ed that her dream of starting her own school was not immediately reali)a le, however, she returned to working as a governess, this time for a different family. Dinding herself e*ually disappointed with governess work the second time around, 3harlotte recruited her sisters to /oin her in more serious preparation for the esta lishment of a school. (lthough the !rontTs& school was unsuccessful, their literary pro/ects flourished. (t a young age, the children created a fictional world they named (ngria, and their many stories, poems, and plays were early predictors of shared writing talent that eventually led Gmily, (nne, and 3harlotte to careers as novelists. (s adults, 3harlotte suggested that she, (nne, and Gmily colla orate on a ook of poems. "he three sisters pu lished under male pseudonyms= 3harlotte&s was 3urrer !ell, while Gmily and (nne wrote as Gllis and (cton !ell, respectively. ,hen the poetry volume received little pu lic notice, the sisters decided to work on separate novels ut retained the same pseudonyms. (nne

and Gmily produced their masterpieces in 8<;9, ut 3harlotte&s first ook, The -rofessor& never found a willing pu lisher during her lifetime. 3harlotte wrote "ane Eyre later that year. "he ook, a criti*ue of Oictorian assumptions a out gender and social class, ecame one of the most successful novels of its era, oth critically and commercially. (uto iographical elements are recogni)a le throughout "ane Eyre. $ane&s e2perience at 6owood School, where her dearest friend dies of tu erculosis, recalls the death of 3harlotte&s sisters at 3owan !ridge. "he hypocritical religious fervor of the headmaster, Mr. !rocklehurst, is ased in part on that of the Beverend 3arus ,ilson, the Gvangelical minister who ran 3owan !ridge. 3harlotte took revenge upon the school that treated her so poorly y using it as the asis for the fictional 6owood. $ane&s friend Helen !urns&s tragic death from tu erculosis recalls the deaths of two of 3harlotte&s sisters, Maria and Gli)a eth, who succum ed to the same disease during their time at 3owan !ridge. (dditionally, $ohn Beed&s decline into alcoholism and dissolution is most likely modeled upon the life of 3harlotte !rontT&s rother !ranwell, who slid into opium and alcohol addictions in the years preceding his death. Dinally, like 3harlotte, $ane ecomes a governessMa neutral vantage point from which to o serve and descri e the oppressive social ideas and practices of nineteenth+century Oictorian society. "he plot of "ane Eyre follows the form of a !ildungsroman, which is a novel that tells the story of a child&s maturation and focuses on the emotions and e2periences that accompany and incite his or her growth to adulthood. In"ane Eyre& there are five distinct stages of development, each linked to a particular place= $ane&s childhood at 7ateshead, her education at the 6owood School, her time as (dUle&s governess at "hornfield, her time with the Bivers family at Morton and at Marsh Gnd Ealso called Moor HouseF, and her reunion with and marriage to Bochester at Derndean. Drom these e2periences, $ane ecomes the mature woman who narrates the novel retrospectively. !ut the !ildungsroman plot of "ane Eyre& and the ook&s element of social criticism, are filtered through a third literary traditionMthat of the 7othic horror story. 6ike the !ildungsroman, the 7othic genre originated in 7ermany. It ecame popular in Gngland in the late eighteenth century, and it generally descri es supernatural e2periences, remote landscapes, and mysterious occurrences, all of which are intended to create an atmosphere of suspense and fear. $ane&s encounters with ghosts, dark secrets, and sinister plots add a potent and lingering sense of fantasy and mystery to the novel. (fter the success of "ane Eyre& 3harlotte revealed her identity to her pu lisher and went on to write several other novels, most nota ly Shirley in 8<;:. In the years that followed, she ecame a respected mem er of 6ondon&s literary set. !ut the deaths of si lings Gmily and !ranwell in 8<;<, and of (nne in8<;:, left her feeling de/ected and emotionally isolated. In 8<K;, she wed the Beverend (rthur Cicholls, despite the fact that she did not love him. She died of pneumonia, while pregnant, the following year P ). OA'rA"'4 $ (CG GNBG IS ( N1AC7 1B0H(C eing raised y Mrs. Beed, her cruel, wealthy aunt. ( servant named !essie provides $ane with some of the few kindnesses she receives, telling her stories and singing songs to her. 1ne day, as punishment for fighting with her ullying cousin $ohn Beed, $ane&s aunt imprisons $ane in the red+room, the room in which $ane&s Ancle Beed died. ,hile locked in, $ane, elieving that she sees her uncle&s ghost, screams and faints. She wakes to find herself in the care of !essie and the kindly apothecary Mr. 6loyd, who suggests to Mrs. Beed that $ane e sent away to school. "o $ane&s delight, Mrs. Beed concurs.

1nce at the 6owood School, $ane finds that her life is far from idyllic. "he school&s headmaster is Mr. !rocklehurst, a cruel, hypocritical, and a usive man. !rocklehurst preaches a doctrine of poverty and privation to his students while using the school&s funds to provide a wealthy and opulent lifestyle for his own family. (t 6owood, $ane efriends a young girl named Helen !urns, whose strong, martyrlike attitude toward the school&s miseries is oth helpful and displeasing to $ane. ( massive typhus epidemic sweeps 6owood, and Helen dies of consumption. "he epidemic also results in the departure of Mr. !rocklehurst y attracting attention to the insalu rious conditions at 6owood. (fter a group of more sympathetic gentlemen takes !rocklehurst&s place, $ane&s life improves dramatically. She spends eight more years at 6owood, si2 as a student and two as a teacher. (fter teaching for two years, $ane yearns for new e2periences. She accepts a governess position at a manor called "hornfield, where she teaches a lively Drench girl named (dUle. "he distinguished housekeeper Mrs. Dairfa2 presides over the estate. $ane&s employer at "hornfield is a dark, impassioned man named Bochester, with whom $ane finds herself falling secretly in love. She saves Bochester from a fire one night, which he claims was started y a drunken servant named 7race 0oole. !ut ecause 7race 0oole continues to work at "hornfield, $ane concludes that she has not een told the entire story. $ane sinks into despondency when Bochester rings home a eautiful ut vicious woman named !lanche Ingram. $ane e2pects Bochester to propose to !lanche. !ut Bochester instead proposes to $ane, who accepts almost dis elievingly. "he wedding day arrives, and as $ane and Mr. Bochester prepare to e2change their vows, the voice of Mr. Mason cries out that Bochester already has a wife. Mason introduces himself as the rother of that wifeMa woman named !ertha. Mr. Mason testifies that !ertha, whom Bochester married when he was a young man in $amaica, is still alive. Bochester does not deny Mason&s claims, ut he e2plains that !ertha has gone mad. He takes the wedding party ack to "hornfield, where they witness the insane !ertha Mason scurrying around on all fours and growling like an animal. Bochester keeps !ertha hidden on the third story of "hornfield and pays 7race 0oole to keep his wife under control. !ertha was the real cause of the mysterious fire earlier in the story. Pnowing that it is impossi le for her to e with Bochester, $ane flees "hornfield. 0enniless and hungry, $ane is forced to sleep outdoors and eg for food. (t last, three si lings who live in a manor alternatively called Marsh Gnd and Moor House take her in. "heir names are Mary, 4iana, and St. $ohn Epronounced #Sin/in%F Bivers, and $ane *uickly ecomes friends with them. St. $ohn is a clergyman, and he finds $ane a /o teaching at a charity school in Morton. He surprises her one day y declaring that her uncle, $ohn Gyre, has died and left her a large fortune= >L,LLL pounds. ,hen $ane asks how he received this news, he shocks her further y declaring that her uncle was also his uncle= $ane and the Biverses are cousins. $ane immediately decides to share her inheritance e*ually with her three newfound relatives. St. $ohn decides to travel to India as a missionary, and he urges $ane to accompany him Mas his wife. $ane agrees to go to India ut refuses to marry her cousin ecause she does not love him. St. $ohn pressures her to reconsider, and she nearly gives in. However, she reali)es that she cannot a andon forever the man she truly loves when one night she hears Bochester&s voice calling her name over the moors. $ane immediately hurries ack to "hornfield and finds that it has een urned to the ground y !ertha Mason, who lost her life in the fire. Bochester saved the servants ut lost his

eyesight and one of his hands. $ane travels on to Bochester&s new residence, Derndean, where he lives with two servants named $ohn and Mary. (t Derndean, Bochester and $ane re uild their relationship and soon marry. (t the end of her story, $ane writes that she has een married for ten lissful years and that she and Bochester en/oy perfect e*uality in their life together. She says that after two years of lindness, Bochester regained sight in one eye and was a le to ehold their first son at his irth. 0/ara-.'r L"!. #an' Eyr' + "he protagonist and narrator of the novel, $ane is an intelligent, honest, plain+featured young girl forced to contend with oppression, ine*uality, and hardship. (lthough she meets with a series of individuals who threaten her autonomy, $ane repeatedly succeeds at asserting herself and maintains her principles of /ustice, human dignity, and morality. She also values intellectual and emotional fulfillment. Her strong elief in gender and social e*uality challenges the Oictorian pre/udices against women and the poor. E+4ar+ R)-/'!.'r + $ane&s employer and the master of "hornfield, Bochester is a wealthy, passionate man with a dark secret that provides much of the novel&s suspense. Bochester is unconventional, ready to set aside polite manners, propriety, and consideration of social class in order to interact with $ane frankly and directly. He is rash and impetuous and has spent much of his adult life roaming a out Gurope in an attempt to avoid the conse*uences of his youthful indiscretions. His pro lems are partly the result of his own recklessness, ut he is a sympathetic figure ecause he has suffered for so long as a result of his early marriage to !ertha. S.5 #)/n R"A'r! + (long with his sisters, Mary and 4iana, St. $ohn Epronounced #Sin/in%F serves as $ane&s enefactor after she runs away from "hornfield, giving her food and shelter. "he minister at Morton, St. $ohn is cold, reserved, and often controlling in his interactions with others. !ecause he is entirely alienated from his feelings and devoted solely to an austere am ition, St. $ohn serves as a foil to Gdward Bochester. Mr!5 R''+ + Mrs. Beed is $ane&s cruel aunt, who raises her at 7ateshead Hall until $ane is sent away to school at age ten. 6ater in her life, $ane attempts reconciliation with her aunt, ut the old woman continues to resent her ecause her hus and had always loved $ane more than his own children. B'!!"' L'' + "he maid at 7ateshead, !essie is the only figure in $ane&s childhood who regularly treats her kindly, telling her stories and singing her songs. !essie later marries Bo ert 6eaven, the Beeds& coachman. Mr5 L )y+ + Mr. 6loyd is the Beeds& apothecary, who suggests that $ane e sent away to school. (lways kind to $ane, Mr. 6loyd writes a letter to Miss "emple confirming $ane&s story a out her childhood and clearing $ane of Mrs. Beed&s charge that she is a liar. %')r2"ana R''+ + 7eorgiana Beed is $ane&s cousin and one of Mrs. Beed&s two daughters. "he eautiful 7eorgiana treats $ane cruelly when they are children, ut later in their lives she efriends her cousin and confides in her. 7eorgiana attempts to elope with a man named 6ord Gdwin Oere, ut her sister, Gli)a, alerts Mrs. Beed of the arrangement and sa otages the plan. (fter Mrs. Beed dies, 7eorgiana marries a wealthy man. E "Ba R''+ + Gli)a Beed is $ane&s cousin and one of Mrs. Beed&s two daughters Ealong with her sister, 7eorgianaF. Cot as eautiful as her sister, Gli)a devotes herself

somewhat self+righteously to the church and eventually goes to a convent in Drance where she ecomes the Mother Superior. #)/n R''+ + $ohn Beed is $ane&s cousin, Mrs. Beed&s son, and rother to Gli)a and 7eorgiana. $ohn treats $ane with appalling cruelty during their childhood and later falls into a life of drinking and gam ling. $ohn commits suicide midway through the novel when his mother ceases to pay his de ts for him. $' 'n Burn! + Helen !urns is $ane&s close friend at the 6owood School. She endures her misera le life there with a passive dignity that $ane cannot understand. Helen dies of consumption in $ane&s arms. Mr5 Br)-& '/ur!. + "he cruel, hypocritical master of the 6owood School, Mr. !rocklehurst preaches a doctrine of privation, while stealing from the school to support his lu2urious lifestyle. (fter a typhus epidemic sweeps 6owood, !rocklehurst&s shifty and dishonest practices are rought to light and he is pu licly discredited. Mar"a T'm( ' + Maria "emple is a kind teacher at 6owood, who treats $ane and Helen with respect and compassion. (long with !essie 6ee, she serves as one of $ane&s first positive female role models. Miss "emple helps clear $ane of Mrs. Beed&s accusations against her. M"!! S-a.-/'r+ + $ane&s sour and vicious teacher at 6owood, Miss Scatcherd ehaves with particular cruelty toward Helen. A "-' Fa"r*a1 + (lice Dairfa2 is the housekeeper at "hornfield Hall. She is the first to tell $ane that the mysterious laughter often heard echoing through the halls is, in fact, the laughter of 7race 0ooleMa lie that Bochester himself often repeats. B'r./a Ma!)n + Bochester&s clandestine wife, !ertha Mason is a formerly eautiful and wealthy 3reole woman who has ecome insane, violent, and estial. She lives locked in a secret room on the third story of "hornfield and is guarded y 7race 0oole, whose occasional outs of ine riation sometimes ena le !ertha to escape. !ertha eventually urns down "hornfield, plunging to her death in the flames. %ra-' P)) ' + 7race 0oole is !ertha Mason&s keeper at "hornfield, whose drunken carelessness fre*uently allows !ertha to escape. ,hen $ane first arrives at "hornfield, Mrs. Dairfa2 attri utes to 7race all evidence of !ertha&s misdeeds. A+C ' Dar'n! + $ane&s pupil at "hornfield, (dUle Oarens is a lively though somewhat spoiled child from Drance. Bochester rought her to "hornfield after her mother, 3eline, a andoned her. (lthough 3eline was once Bochester&s mistress, he does not elieve himself to e (dUle&s father. 0' "n' Dar'n! + 3eline Oarens is a Drench opera dancer with whom Bochester once had an affair. (lthough Bochester does not elieve 3eline&s claims that he fathered her daughter (dUle, he nonetheless rought the girl to Gngland when 3eline a andoned her. Bochester had roken off his relationship with 3eline after learning that 3eline was unfaithful to him and interested only in his money. S)(/"' + Sophie is (dUle&s Drench nurse at "hornfield. R"-/ar+ Ma!)n + Bichard Mason is !ertha&s rother. 4uring a visit to "hornfield, he is in/ured y his mad sister. (fter learning of Bochester&s intent to marry $ane, Mason arrives with the solicitor !riggs in order to thwart the wedding and reveal the truth of Bochester&s prior marriage. Mr5 Br"22! + $ohn Gyre&s attorney, Mr. !riggs helps Bichard Mason prevent $ane&s wedding to Bochester when he learns of the e2istence of !ertha Mason, Bochester&s wife. (fter $ohn Gyre&s death, !riggs searches for $ane in order to give her her inheritance. B an-/' In2ram + !lanche Ingram is a eautiful socialite who despises $ane and hopes to marry Bochester for his money.

3"ana R"A'r! + 4iana Bivers is $ane&s cousin, and the sister of St. $ohn and Mary. 4iana is a kind and intelligent person, and she urges $ane not to go to India with St. $ohn. She serves as a model for $ane of an intellectually gifted and independent woman. Mary R"A'r! + Mary Bivers is $ane&s cousin, the sister of St. $ohn and 4iana. Mary is a kind and intelligent young woman who is forced to work as a governess after her father loses his fortune. 6ike her sister, she serves as a model for $ane of an independent woman who is also a le to maintain close relationships with others and a sense of meaning in her life. R)!am)n+ O "A'r + Bosamond is the eautiful daughter of Mr. 1liver, Morton&s wealthiest inha itant. Bosamond gives money to the school in Morton where $ane works. (lthough she is in love with St. $ohn, she ecomes engaged to the wealthy Mr. 7ran y. #)/n Eyr' + $ohn Gyre is $ane&s uncle, who leaves her his vast fortune of>L,LLL pounds. Un- ' R''+ + Ancle Beed is Mrs. Beed&s late hus and. In her childhood, $ane elieves that she feels the presence of his ghost. !ecause he was always fond of $ane and her mother Ehis sisterF, Ancle Beed made his wife promise that she would raise $ane as her own child. It is a promise that Mrs. Beed does not keep Ana y!"! )* MaE)r 0/ara-.'r! #an' Eyr' "he development of $ane Gyre&s character is central to the novel. Drom the eginning, $ane possesses a sense of her self+worth and dignity, a commitment to /ustice and principle, a trust in 7od, and a passionate disposition. Her integrity is continually tested over the course of the novel, and $ane must learn to alance the fre*uently conflicting aspects of herself so as to find contentment. (n orphan since early childhood, $ane feels e2iled and ostraci)ed at the eginning of the novel, and the cruel treatment she receives from her (unt Beed and her cousins only e2acer ates her feeling of alienation. (fraid that she will never find a true sense of home or community, $ane feels the need to elong somewhere, to find #kin,% or at least #kindred spirits.% "his desire tempers her e*ually intense need for autonomy and freedom. In her search for freedom, $ane also struggles with the *uestion of what type of freedom she wants. ,hile Bochester initially offers $ane a chance to li erate her passions, $ane comes to reali)e that such freedom could also mean enslavementM y living as Bochester&s mistress, she would e sacrificing her dignity and integrity for the sake of her feelings. St. $ohn Bivers offers $ane another kind of freedom= the freedom to act unreservedly on her principles. He opens to $ane the possi ility of e2ercising her talents fully y working and living with him in India. $ane eventually reali)es, though, that this freedom would also constitute a form of imprisonment, ecause she would e forced to keep her true feelings and her true passions always in check. 3harlotte !rontT may have created the character of $ane Gyre as a means of coming to terms with elements of her own life. Much evidence suggests that !rontT, too, struggled to find a alance etween love and freedom and to find others who understood her. (t many points in the ook, $ane voices the author&s then+radical opinions on religion, social class, and gender.

E+4ar+ R)-/'!.'r 4espite his stern manner and not particularly handsome appearance, Gdward Bochester wins $ane&s heart, ecause she feels they are kindred spirits, and ecause he is the first person in the novel to offer $ane lasting love and a real home. (lthough Bochester is $ane&s social and economic superior, and although men were widely considered to e naturally superior to women in the Oictorian period, $ane is Bochester&s intellectual e*ual. Moreover, after their marriage is interrupted y the disclosure that Bochester is already married to !ertha Mason, $ane is proven to e Bochester&s moral superior. Bochester regrets his former li ertinism and lustfulness; nevertheless, he has proven himself to e weaker in many ways than $ane. $ane feels that living with Bochester as his mistress would mean the loss of her dignity. Altimately, she would ecome degraded and dependent upon Bochester for love, while unprotected y any true marriage ond. $ane will only enter into marriage with Bochester after she has gained a fortune and a family, and after she has een on the verge of a andoning passion altogether. She waits until she is not unduly influenced y her own poverty, loneliness, psychological vulnera ility, or passion. (dditionally, ecause Bochester has een linded y the fire and has lost his manor house at the end of the novel, he has ecome weaker while $ane has grown in strengthM$ane claims that they are e*uals, ut the marriage dynamic has actually tipped in her favor. S.5 #)/n R"A'r! St. $ohn Bivers is a foil to Gdward Bochester. ,hereas Bochester is passionate, St. $ohn is austere and am itious. $ane often descri es Bochester&s eyes as flashing and flaming, whereas she constantly associates St. $ohn with rock, ice, and snow. Marriage with Bochester represents the a andonment of principle for the consummation of passion, ut marriage to St. $ohn would mean sacrificing passion for principle. ,hen he invites her to come to India with him as a missionary, St. $ohn offers $ane the chance to make a more meaningful contri ution to society than she would as a housewife. (t the same time, life with St. $ohn would mean life without true love, in which $ane&s need for spiritual solace would e filled only y retreat into the recesses of her own soul. Independence would e accompanied y loneliness, and /oining St. $ohn would re*uire $ane to neglect her own legitimate needs for love and emotional support. Her consideration of St. $ohn&s proposal leads $ane to understand that, parado2ically, a large part of one&s personal freedom is found in a relationship of mutual emotional dependence. $' 'n Burn! $' 'n Burn!: #an'F! *r"'n+ a. L)4))+ S-/)) : !'rA'! a! a *)" .) Mr5 Br)-& '/ur!. a! 4' a! .) #an'5 W/" ' Mr5 Br)-& '/ur!. 'm,)+"'! an 'Aan2' "-a *)rm )* r' "2")n ./a. !''&! .) !.r"( )./'r! )* ./'"r '1-'!!"A' (r"+' )r )* ./'"r a," ".y .) .a&' ( 'a!ur' "n 4)r + y ./"n2!: $' 'n r'(r'!'n.! a m)+' )* 0/r"!."an".y ./a. !.r'!!'! .) 'ran-' an+ a--'(.an-'5 Br)-& '/ur!. u!'! r' "2")n .) 2a"n ()4'r an+ .) -)n.r) )./'r!G $' 'n a!-'."-a y .ru!.! /'r )4n *a"./ an+ .urn! ./' )./'r -/''& .) L)4))+F! /ar!/ () "-"'!5 (lthough Helen manifests a certain strength and intellectual maturity, her efforts involve self+negation rather than self+assertion, and Helen&s su missive and ascetic nature highlights $ane&s more headstrong character. 6ike $ane, Helen is an orphan who longs for a home, ut Helen elieves that she will find this home in Heaven rather than Corthern Gngland. (nd while Helen is not o livious to the in/ustices the girls suffer at 6owood, she elieves that /ustice will e found in 7od&s ultimate /udgmentM7od will

reward the good and punish the evil. $ane, on the other hand, is una le to have such lind faith. Her *uest is for love and happiness in this world. Cevertheless, she counts on 7od for support and guidance in her search T/'m'!: M)."*! 9 Sym,) ! T/'m'! Themes are the f#ndamental and often #ni'ersal ideas explored in a literary work$ Love Versus Autonomy "ane Eyre is very much the story of a *uest to e loved. $ane searches, not /ust for romantic love, ut also for a sense of eing valued, of elonging. "hus $ane says to Helen !urns= #to gain some real affection from you, or Miss "emple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly su mit to have the one of my arm roken, or to let a ull toss me, or to stand ehind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest% E3hapter <F. Net, over the course of the ook, $ane must learn how to gain love witho#t sacrificing and harming herself in the process. Her fear of losing her autonomy motivates her refusal of Bochester&s marriage proposal. $ane elieves that #marrying% Bochester while he remains legally tied to !ertha would mean rendering herself a mistress and sacrificing her own integrity for the sake of emotional gratification. 1n the other hand, her life at Moor House tests her in the opposite manner. "here, she en/oys economic independence and engages in worthwhile and useful work, teaching the poor; yet she lacks emotional sustenance. (lthough St. $ohn proposes marriage, offering her a partnership uilt around a common purpose, $ane knows their marriage would remain loveless. Conetheless, the events of $ane&s stay at Moor House are necessary tests of $ane&s autonomy. 1nly after proving her self+sufficiency to herself can she marry Bochester and not e asymmetrically dependent upon him as her #master.% "he marriage can e one etween e*uals. (s $ane says= #I am my hus and&s life as fully as he is mine. . . . "o e together is for us to e at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. . . . ,e are precisely suited in characterMperfect concord is the result% E3hapter ?<F. Religion "hroughout the novel, $ane struggles to find the right alance etween moral duty and earthly pleasure, etween o ligation to her spirit and attention to her ody. She encounters three main religious figures= Mr. !rocklehurst, Helen !urns, and St. $ohn Bivers. Gach represents a model of religion that $ane ultimately re/ects as she forms her own ideas a out faith and principle, and their practical conse*uences. Mr. !rocklehurst illustrates the dangers and hypocrisies that 3harlotte !rontT perceived in the nineteenth+century Gvangelical movement. Mr. !rocklehurst adopts the rhetoric of Gvangelicalism when he claims to e purging his students of pride, ut his method of su /ecting them to various privations and humiliations, like when he orders that the naturally curly hair of one of $ane&s classmates e cut so as to lie straight, is entirely un+ 3hristian. 1f course, !rocklehurst&s proscriptions are difficult to follow, and his hypocritical support of his own lu2uriously wealthy family at the e2pense of the 6owood students shows !rontT&s wariness of the Gvangelical movement. Helen !urns&s meek and for earing mode of 3hristianity, on the other hand, is too passive for $ane to adopt as her own, although she loves and admires Helen for it.

Many chapters later, St. $ohn Bivers provides another model of 3hristian ehavior. His is a 3hristianity of am ition, glory, and e2treme self+importance. St. $ohn urges $ane to sacrifice her emotional deeds for the fulfillment of her moral duty, offering her a way of life that would re*uire her to e disloyal to her own self. (lthough $ane ends up re/ecting all three models of religion, she does not a andon morality, spiritualism, or a elief in a 3hristian 7od. ,hen her wedding is interrupted, she prays to 7od for solace E3hapter>HF. (s she wanders the heath, poor and starving, she puts her survival in the hands of 7od E3hapter ><F. She strongly o /ects to Bochester&s lustful immorality, and she refuses to consider living with him while church and state still deem him married to another woman. Gven so, $ane can arely ring herself to leave the only love she has ever known. She credits 7od with helping her to escape what she knows would have een an immoral life E3hapter >9F. $ane ultimately finds a comforta le middle ground. Her spiritual understanding is not hateful and oppressive like !rocklehurst&s, nor does it re*uire retreat from the everyday world as Helen&s and St. $ohn&s religions do. Dor $ane, religion helps cur immoderate passions, and it spurs one on to worldly efforts and achievements. "hese achievements include full self+knowledge and complete faith in 7od. Social Class "ane Eyre is critical of Oictorian Gngland&s strict social hierarchy. !rontT&s e2ploration of the complicated social position of governesses is perhaps the novel&s most important treatment of this theme. 6ike Heathcliff in W#thering ,eights& $ane is a figure of am iguous class standing and, conse*uently, a source of e2treme tension for the characters around her. $ane&s manners, sophistication, and education are those of an aristocrat, ecause Oictorian governesses, who tutored children in eti*uette as well as academics, were e2pected to possess the #culture% of the aristocracy. Net, as paid employees, they were more or less treated as servants; thus, $ane remains penniless and powerless while at "hornfield. $ane&s understanding of the dou le standard crystalli)es when she ecomes aware of her feelings for Bochester; she is his intellectual, ut not his social, e*ual. Gven efore the crisis surrounding !ertha Mason, $ane is hesitant to marry Bochester ecause she senses that she would feel inde ted to him for #condescending% to marry her. $ane&s distress, which appears most strongly in 3hapter 89, seems to e !rontT&s criti*ue of Oictorian class attitudes. $ane herself speaks out against class pre/udice at certain moments in the ook. Dor e2ample, in 3hapter >? she chastises Bochester= #4o you think, ecause I am poor, o scure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless- Nou think wrong!MI have as much soul as youMand full as much heart! (nd if 7od had gifted me with some eauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.% However, it is also important to note that nowhere in "ane Eyre are society&s oundaries ent. Altimately, $ane is only a le to marry Bochester as his e*ual ecause she has almost magically come into her own inheritance from her uncle. Gender Relations $ane struggles continually to achieve e*uality and to overcome oppression. In addition to class hierarchy, she must fight against patriarchal dominationMagainst those who elieve women to e inferior to men and try to treat them as such. "hree central male figures threaten her desire for e*uality and dignity= Mr. !rocklehurst, Gdward Bochester, and St. $ohn Bivers. (ll three are misogynistic on some level. Gach tries to keep $ane in a su missive position, where she is una le to e2press her own thoughts and feelings. In her *uest for independence and self+knowledge, $ane must escape

!rocklehurst, re/ect St. $ohn, and come to Bochester only after ensuring that they may marry as e*uals. "his last condition is met once $ane proves herself a le to function, through the time she spends at Moor House, in a community and in a family. She will not depend solely on Bochester for love and she can e financially independent. Durthermore, Bochester is lind at the novel&s end and thus dependent upon $ane to e his #prop and guide.% In 3hapter 8>, $ane articulates what was for her time a radically feminist philosophy= Women are s#pposed to )e 'ery calm generally. )#t women feel /#st as men feel0 they need exercise for their fac#lties& and a field for their efforts as m#ch as their )rothers do0 they s#ffer from too rigid a restraint& too a)sol#te a stagnation& precisely as men wo#ld s#ffer0 and it is narrow+minded in their more pri'ileged fellow+creat#res to say that they o#ght to confine themsel'es to making p#ddings and knitting stockings& to playing on the piano and em)roidering )ags$ It is tho#ghtless to condemn them& or la#gh at them& if they seek to do more or learn more than c#stom has prono#nced necessary for their sex$ M)."*! Motifs are rec#rring str#ct#res& contrasts& and literary de'ices that can help to de'elop and inform the text*s ma/or themes$ Fire and Ice Dire and ice appear throughout "ane Eyre. "he former represents $ane&s passions, anger, and spirit, while the latter sym oli)es the oppressive forces trying to e2tinguish $ane&s vitality. Dire is also a metaphor for $ane, as the narrative repeatedly associates her with images of fire, rightness, and warmth. In 3hapter ;, she likens her mind to #a ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring.% ,e can recogni)e $ane&s kindred spirits y their similar links to fire; thus we read of Bochester&s #flaming and flashing% eyes E3hapter>HF. (fter he has een linded, his face is compared to #a lamp *uenched, waiting to e relit% E3hapter ?9F. Images of ice and cold, often appearing in association with arren landscapes or seascapes, sym oli)e emotional desolation, loneliness, or even death. "he #death+white realms% of the arctic that !ewick descri es in his ,istory of !ritish !irds parallel $ane&s physical and spiritual isolation at 7ateshead E3hapter 8F. 6owood&s free)ing temperaturesMfor e2ample, the fro)en pitchers of water that greet the girls each morningMmirror $ane&s sense of psychological e2ile. (fter the interrupted wedding to Bochester, $ane descri es her state of mind= #( 3hristmas frost had come at mid+ summer= a white 4ecem er storm had whirled over $une; ice gla)ed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the lowing roses; on hay+field and corn+field lay a fro)en shroud . . . and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and fragrant as groves etween the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine+forests in wintry Corway. My hopes were all dead. . . .% E3hapter >HF. Dinally, at Moor House, St. $ohn&s frigidity and stiffness are esta lished through comparisons with ice and cold rock. $ane writes= #!y degrees, he ac*uired a certain influence over me that took away my li erty of mind. . . . I fell under a free)ing spell% E3hapter ?;F. ,hen St. $ohn proposes marriage to $ane, she concludes that #YaZs his curate, his comrade, all would e right. . . . !ut as his wifeMat his side always, and always restrained, and always checkedMforced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to urn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vitalMthis would e unendura le% E3hapter ?;F. Substitute Mothers

0oet and critic (drienne Bich has noted that $ane encounters a series of nurturing and strong women on whom she can model herself, or to whom she can look for comfort and guidance= these women serve as mother+figures to the orphaned $ane. "he first such figure that $ane encounters is the servant !essie, who soothes $ane after her trauma in the red+room and teaches her to find comfort in stories and songs. (t 6owood, $ane meets Miss "emple, who has no power in the world at large, ut possesses great spiritual strength and charm. Cot only does she shelter $ane from pain, she also encourages her intellectual development. 1f Miss "emple, $ane writes= #she had stood y me in the stead of mother, governess, and latterly, companion% E3hapter 8LF. $ane also finds a comforting model in Helen !urns, whose lessons in stamina teach $ane a out self+worth and the power of faith. (fter $ane and Bochester&s wedding is cancelled, $ane finds comfort in the moon, which appears to her in a dream as a sym ol of the matriarchal spirit. $ane sees the moon as #a white human form% shining in the sky, #inclining a glorious row earthward.% She tells us= #It spoke to my spirit= immeasura ly distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my heartM#My daughter, flee temptation.% $ane answers, #Mother, I will% E3hapter >9F. ,aking from the dream, $ane leaves "hornfield. $ane finds two additional mother+figures in the characters of 4iana and Mary Bivers. Bich points out that the sisters ear the names of the pagan and 3hristian versions of #the 7reat 7oddess%= 4iana, the Oirgin huntress, and Mary, the Oirgin Mother. Anmarried and independent, the Bivers sisters love learning and reciting poetry and live as intellectual e*uals with their rother St. $ohn. Sym,) ! Sym)ols are o)/ects& characters& fig#res& and colors #sed to represent a)stract ideas or concepts$ ertha Mason !ertha Mason is a comple2 presence in "ane Eyre. She impedes $ane&s happiness, ut she also catalyses the growth of $ane&s self+understanding. "he mystery surrounding !ertha esta lishes suspense and terror to the plot and the atmosphere. Durther, !ertha serves as a remnant and reminder of Bochester&s youthful li ertinism. Net !ertha can also e interpreted as a sym ol. Some critics have read her as a statement a out the way !ritain feared and psychologically #locked away% the other cultures it encountered at the height of its imperialism. 1thers have seen her as a sym olic representation of the #trapped% Oictorian wife, who is e2pected never to travel or work outside the house and ecomes ever more fren)ied as she finds no outlet for her frustration and an2iety. ,ithin the story, then, !ertha&s insanity could serve as a warning to $ane of what complete surrender to Bochester could ring a out. 1ne could also see !ertha as a manifestation of $ane&s su conscious feelingsM specifically, of her rage against oppressive social and gender norms. $ane declares her love for Bochester, ut she also secretly fears marriage to him and feels the need to rage against the imprisonment it could ecome for her. $ane never manifests this fear or anger, ut !ertha does. "hus !ertha tears up the ridal veil, and it is !ertha&s e2istence that indeed stops the wedding from going forth. (nd, when "hornfield comes to represent a state of servitude and su mission for $ane, !ertha urns it to the ground. "hroughout the novel, $ane descri es her inner spirit as fiery, her inner landscape as a #ridge of lighted heath% E3hapter ;F. !ertha seems to e the outward manifestation of $ane&s interior fire. !ertha e2presses the feelings that $ane must keep in check.

!he Red"Room "he red+room can e viewed as a sym ol of what $ane must overcome in her struggles to find freedom, happiness, and a sense of elonging. In the red+room, $ane&s position of e2ile and imprisonment first ecomes clear. (lthough $ane is eventually freed from the room, she continues to e socially ostraci)ed, financially trapped, and e2cluded from love; her sense of independence and her freedom of self+e2pression are constantly threatened. "he red+room&s importance as a sym ol continues throughout the novel. It reappears as a memory whenever $ane makes a connection etween her current situation and that first feeling of eing ridiculed. "hus she recalls the room when she is humiliated at 6owood. She also thinks of the room on the night that she decides to leave "hornfield after Bochester has tried to convince her to ecome an undignified mistress. Her destitute condition upon her departure from "hornfield also threatens emotional and intellectual imprisonment, as does St. $ohn&s marriage proposal. 1nly after $ane has asserted herself, gained financial independence, and found a spiritual familyMwhich turns out to e her real familyMcan she wed Bochester and find freedom in and through marriage.

T$E MILL ON T$E FLOSS By %5 ELIOT

TENSE [ 0ast SETTIN% (TIME) [ SETTIN% (PLA0E)

8<>:I8<?: [ St. 1gg's in Gnglish midlands Ereal life model for the Dloss was the "rent in 6incolnshireF PROTA%ONIST [ Maggie "ulliver MA#OR 0ONFLI0T [ Maggie must choose etween her inner desire toward passion and sensuous life and her impulse towards moral responsi ility and the need for her rother's approval and love. RISIN% A0TION [ Incurious "om is sent to school, while Maggie is held 'uncanny' for her intelligence. Mr. "ulliver's pride and ina ility to adapt to the changing economic world causes him to lose his property in a lawsuit against 6awyer ,akem and eventually die as the result of his fury toward ,akem. "o "om's dismay, Maggie ecomes secretly close to ,akem's sensitive crippled son, 0hilip. 0LIMAX [ (t the age of nineteen, Maggie visits her cousin 6ucy and ecomes hopelessly attracted to 6ucy's wealthy and polished suitor, Stephen 7uest, and he to her. Stephen and Maggie are inadvertently left to themselves for a oatride. Stephen rows them further down river than planned and tries to convince Maggie to elope with him. FALLIN% A0TION [ Maggie parts with Stephen, arguing that they each cannot ignore the claims that 6ucy and 0hilip have on them. Maggie returns to St. 1gg's several days later and is met with repudiation from the entire town and from "om. 0hilip and 6ucy contact Maggie and forgive her. "he Dloss floods, and Maggie sei)es a oat and rows to the Mill to save "om. "heir oat is capsi)ed y floating machinery, "om and Maggie drown in each other's arms. T$EMES [ "he claim of the past upon present identity; "he effect of society upon the individual; "he importance of sympathy; 0ractical knowledge versus ookish knowledge MOTIFS [ "he disparity etween the 4odsons and the "ullivers; Music; (nimal imagery; 4ark and light women SYMBOLS [ "he Dloss; St. 1gg; Maggie's eyes FORES$A3OWIN% [ (s the story is eing told in the past tense, the narrator often alludes to future circumstances when descri ing the present moment. (n e2ample of

this is the narration of the figure of Maggie at the St. 1gg's a)aar in 3hapter I\ of !ook Si2th, when the narrator alludes to the future attitudes of the women of St. 1gg's toward Maggie in light of her 'su se*uent conduct.' "he use of the Dloss to sym oli)e Maggie's destiny throughout the novel also foreshadows her eventual drowning.

IC"B14A3"I1C The Mill on the 1loss, pu lished in 8<HL, marks the end of what could e called the first stage of 7eorge Gliot's work as an artist. It was an attempt at a realistic #history of unfashiona le families%. "his ook was set in a past, not very remote, and covered y the memories of the author herself, or of her family. It drew on people and places from ,arwickshire although The Mill on the 1loss is set in 6incolnshire, where she had traveled to find suita le rivers for her catastrophic flood, 4orlcote Mill closely resem les (r ury Mill, where Mary (nn Gvans played as a child, and the attic where Maggie "ulliver angs her fetish's head on the eams is the attic of 7riff House, where she spent her first twenty+two years. !y 8<K:, when she egan The Mill on the 1loss& she had already had some worrying repercussions from people who thought they recogni)ed themselves, in the works of the anonymous #7eorge Gliot%. The Mill on the 1loss does contain material from her remote past, ut it is, as that in the earlier ooks was not personalmaterial. "he relationship etween "om and Maggie "ulliver as children resem les very closely that etween Mary (nn and her rother Isaac; like "om, Isaac /udged his sister's passionate a errations from conventional ehaviour harshly. "here are good historical and intellectual reason why 7eorge Gliot should, as it were, have used her own people and past as typical e2amples of the pieties, culture and development or rural Gnglish society. !ut the peculiarly tense and gloomy character of parts of The Mill on the 1loss must derive from the parado2ical fact that she was using an artistic re+creation of her own life partly to #teach% that strong and deep roots make good men, that morality is derived from the development of particular family and local affections into a stract conceptions of duty and piety, whilst her own search for happiness in love and a wider intellectual world had effectively severed her from her roots. !I17B(0HN. 7G1B7G G6I1" M(BN (CC EM(BI(CF GO(CS was orn in ,arwickshire. She attended schools in Cuneaton and 3oventry, coming under the influence of evangelical teachers and clergymen. In 8<?H her mother died and Marian ecame her father's housekeeper, educating herself in her spare time. In 8<;8 she moved to 3oventry, and met 3harles and 3aroline !ray, local progressive intellectuals. "hrough them she was commissioned to translate Strauss' ife of "es#s and met the radical pu lisher $ohn 3hapman, who, when he purchased the Westminster Re'iew in 8<K8, made her his managing editor. Having lost her 3hristina faith and there y alienated her family, she moved to 6ondon where she met Her ert Spencer and the versatile man+of+letters 7eorge Henry 6ewes. 6ewes was separated from his wife, ut with no possi ility of divorce. In 8<K; he and Marian decide to live together, and did so until 6ewes' death in 8<9<. It was he who encouraged her to turn from philosophy and /ournalism to fiction and she su se*uently wrote, under the name of 7eorge Gliot, Scenes of (lerical life234546& Adam !ede 234576& The Mill on the 1loss 234896& Silas Marner 234836& Romola& 1elix ,olt 234886&

Middlemarch 234:3+:;6 and Daniel Derona 234:86, as well as numerous essays, articles and reviews. 7eorge Gliot died in 8<<L, only a few months after marrying $.,. 3ross, an old friend and admirer, who ecame her first iographer. She was uried eside 6ewes at Highgate. 061" It is a vivid portrayal of childhood and adolescence in rural Gngland. "om and Maggie "ulliver constitute the center of The Mill on the 1loss and their difficult relationship is the ase of the novel; their lives are totally united to the anti*ue and solid society that they are in. "hat society is represented in a magisterial form y "he 4odson family, heir and guardian of many old rural values, one of them is a tremendous feeling of solidarity , which make that they can around their family in case of any e2terior threat. "hese families have little curiosity a out whatever happens out of his region, and, in the own words of the author # They li'e in an epoch were the ignorance res#lts more comforta)le than in o#r days<$ (round "he "ulliver and "he 4odson there are a series of characters well o served and well positioned in the role of each one inside of that anti*ue and carefully structured society= "he 7uest and "he 4eanne, sailors and merchants, prosperous eneficiaries of the river; "he lawyer ,aken and 4octor Penn; "he preacher Stealling, form well family and few economic ways, that is o ligated to educate the local urgess' children; the lively !o $akin, e2pert in the manage of rats and ferrets and in unsocia le woman too. "hese people come to complete the ackground of this ig rural picture. "his the reality where Maggie "ulliver lives, she is the central figure Enear her rotherF of the story. Her life pass in front of our eyes, we can see her happiness, sadness, trou les] step y step we go inside her world, she is capa le of holding our attention and we cannot stopping read. 3H(B(3"GBS "1M "A66IOGB He is one of the main characters; he is a lond hair oy, with pale grey eyes. He looks like his mother's family. He has no le nature and a great sense of honour; he never goes ack a out a decision. His father's illness make him mature faster ut this has contri uted to the formation of his character, while he grows his principles make stronger and comple2 although he has the de ility of /udge the people lightly. M(77IG "A66IOGB She is the main character; She looks like her father's family, she has a dark hair, impossi le to curl, and lack eyes. (s the same as her rother she has no le nature ut a little it more contradictory, she will always want make the contrary of what she does. Her great imagination is a *uality that many times helps her to go out of a difficult situation. She wants to e independent and this will cause her, in the future, some trou les. In the other hand, her great love to her rother is one of her igger conflicts. Mr. "A66IOGB

He is a rude man with strong principles and ig itterness. He is the father of "om and Maggie Ewho is his preferredF, and he is good with his family. He tries to help his sister in all the ways he can. He is a little un/ust with his preliminary /udgments ut is firm in his decisions. Mrs. "A66IOGB She is mem er of "he 4odson family. She is the mother of "om and Maggie, is nice, very agreea le with her hus and ut a little it strict with her children, a ove all with Maggie. She feels predilection for her sisters and has tendency to fail in a difficult situation. Mr. (nd Mrs. 0A66G" Mrs. 0ullet is Mrs. "ulliver's sister. "hey are nice person and constitute an influence over Mrs. "ulliver. Mr. (nd Mrs. 76G77 Mrs. 7legg is Mrs. "ulliver's sister and is the greatest influence over her. She is a strong woman with strong moral values and a few strict. She can e a little it disgusting ut is a good help when is needed. Mr. 7legg supports "om in his incursion inside usiness. Mr. (nd Mrs. 4G(CG Mrs. 4eane is Mrs. "ulliver's sister and died young. Mr. 4eane is who more support "om in every moment. He looked for "om's first /o and is like a protector. "hey daughter 6A3N 4G(CG is a great friend of Maggie. More lately, when they are adolescents they have some pro lems ecause Maggie doesn't want cause any pain to 6ucy ecause of her relationship with Stephen. DG6I0G ,(PGM He is lawyer ,aken's son. He was the partner of "om in Mr. Stealling classes. He is a shy oy ecause is discriminated ecause of his deformity, which com ats with painting and drawing. He is love with Maggie from the first time he saw here and makes all possi le to make her happy. S"G0HGC 7AGS" He is 6ucy's engaged ut he falls in love with Maggie and takes her to a situation of pu lic humiliation. !1! $(PIC He is "om's friend from their childhood; he would help "om every time he need. He will e the precursor and partner of "om in their usiness, and will give refuge to Maggie in one of hr worse moments.

3r5 #'&y an+ Mr5 $y+' By R),'r. L)u"! S.'A'n!)n

0)n.'1. B 1!GB" 61AIS S"GOGCS1C, 1CG 1D "HG M(S"GBS 1D the Oictorian adventure story, was orn in Gdin urgh, Scotland, on Covem er 8?, 8<KL. He was a sickly child, and respiratory trou les plagued him throughout his life. (s a young man, he traveled through Gurope, leading a ohemian lifestyle and penning his first two ooks, oth travel narratives. In 8<9H, he met a married woman, Danny Oan de 7rift 1s ourne, and

fell in love with her. Mrs. 1s ourne eventually divorced her hus and, and she and Stevenson were married. Stevenson returned to 6ondon with his ride and wrote prolifically over the ne2t decade, in spite of his terri le health. He won widespread admiration withTreas#re Island&written in 8<<?, and followed it with =idnapped in8<<H; oth were adventure stories, the former a pirate tale set on the high seas and the latter a historical novel set in Stevenson&s native Scotland. Dr$ "ekyll and Mr$ ,yde&which Stevenson descri ed as a #fine ogey tale,% also came out in 8<<H. It met with tremendous success, selling ;L,LLL copies in si2 months and ensuring Stevenson&s fame as a writer. In its narrative of a respecta le doctor who transforms himself into a savage murderer, Dr$ "ekyll and Mr$ ,yde tapped directly into the an2ieties of Stevenson&s age. "he Oictorian era, named for Vueen Oictoria, who ruled Gngland for most of the nineteenth century, was a time of unprecedented technological progress and an age in which Guropean nations carved up the world with their empires. !y the end of the century, however, many people were eginning to call into *uestion the ideals of progress and civili)ation that had defined the era, and a growing sense of pessimism and decline pervaded artistic circles. Many felt that the end of the century was also witnessing a twilight of ,estern culture. ,ith the notion of a single ody containing oth the erudite 4r. $ekyll and the depraved Mr. Hyde, Stevenson&s novel imagines an ine2trica le link etween civili)ation and savagery, good and evil. $ekyll&s attraction to the freedom from restraint that Hyde en/oys mirrors Oictorian Gngland&s secret attraction to allegedly savage non+,estern cultures, even as Gurope claimed superiority over them. "his attraction also informs such ooks as $oseph 3onrad&s,eart of Darkness$ Dor, as the ,estern world came in contact with other peoples and ways of life, it found aspects of these cultures within itself, and oth desired and feared to indulge them. "hese aspects included open sensuality, physicality, and other so+called irrational tendencies. Gven as Oictorian Gngland sought to assert its civili)ation over and against these instinctual sides of life, it found them secretly fascinating. Indeed, society&s repression of its darker side only increased the fascination. (s a product of this society, Dr$ "ekyll and Mr$ ,yde manifests this fascination; yet, as a work of art, it also *uestions this interest. !y the late 8<<LS, Stevenson had ecome one of the leading lights of Gnglish literature. !ut even after garnering fame, he led a somewhat trou led life. He traveled often, seeking to find a climate more amena le to the tu erculosis that haunted his later days. Gventually he settled in Samoa, and there Stevenson died suddenly in 8<:;, at the age of forty+four P ). OA'rA"'4 1 C "HGIB ,GGP6N ,(6P, an eminently sensi le, trustworthy lawyer named Mr. Atterson listens as his friend Gnfield tells a gruesome tale of assault. "he tale descri es a sinister figure named Mr. Hyde who tramples a young girl, disappears into a door on the street, and reemerges to pay off her relatives with a check signed y a respecta le gentleman. Since oth Atterson and Gnfield disapprove of gossip, they agree to speak no further of the matter. It happens, however, that one of Atterson&s clients and close friends, 4r. $ekyll, has written a will transferring all of his property to this same Mr. Hyde. Soon, Atterson egins having dreams in which a faceless figure stalks through a nightmarish version of 6ondon. 0u))led, the lawyer visits $ekyll and their mutual friend 4r. 6anyon to try to learn more. 6anyon reports that he no longer sees much of $ekyll, since they had a dispute over the

course of $ekyll&s research, which 6anyon calls #unscientific alderdash.% 3urious, Atterson stakes out a uilding that Hyde visitsMwhich, it turns out, is a la oratory attached to the ack of $ekyll&s home. Gncountering Hyde, Atterson is ama)ed y how undefina ly ugly the man seems, as if deformed, though Atterson cannot say e2actly how. Much to Atterson&s surprise, Hyde willingly offers Atterson his address. $ekyll tells Atterson not to concern himself with the matter of Hyde. ( year passes uneventfully. "hen, one night, a servant girl witnesses Hyde rutally eat to death an old man named Sir 4anvers 3arew, a mem er of 0arliament and a client of Atterson. "he police contact Atterson, and Atterson suspects Hyde as the murderer. He leads the officers to Hyde&s apartment, feeling a sense of fore oding amid the eerie weatherMthe morning is dark and wreathed in fog. ,hen they arrive at the apartment, the murderer has vanished, and police searches prove futile. Shortly thereafter, Atterson again visits $ekyll, who now claims to have ended all relations with Hyde; he shows Atterson a note, allegedly written to $ekyll y Hyde, apologi)ing for the trou le he has caused him and saying good ye. "hat night, however, Atterson&s clerk points out that Hyde&s handwriting ears a remarka le similarity to $ekyll&s own. Dor a few months, $ekyll acts especially friendly and socia le, as if a weight has een lifted from his shoulders. !ut then $ekyll suddenly egins to refuse visitors, and 6anyon dies from some kind of shock he received in connection with $ekyll. !efore dying, however, 6anyon gives Atterson a letter, with instructions that he not open it until after $ekyll&s death. Meanwhile, Atterson goes out walking with Gnfield, and they see $ekyll at a window of his la oratory; the three men egin to converse, ut a look of horror comes over $ekyll&s face, and he slams the window and disappears. Soon afterward, $ekyll&s utler, Mr. 0oole, visits Atterson in a state of desperation= $ekyll has secluded himself in his la oratory for several weeks, and now the voice that comes from the room sounds nothing like the doctor&s. Atterson and 0oole travel to $ekyll&s house through empty, windswept, sinister streets; once there, they find the servants huddled together in fear. (fter arguing for a time, the two of them resolve to reak into $ekyll&s la oratory. Inside, they find the ody of Hyde, wearing $ekyll&s clothes and apparently dead y suicideMand a letter from $ekyll to Atterson promising to e2plain everything. Atterson takes the document home, where first he reads 6anyon&s letter; it reveals that 6anyon&s deterioration and eventual death were caused y the shock of seeing Mr. Hyde take a potion and metamorphose into 4r. $ekyll. "he second letter constitutes a testament y $ekyll. It e2plains how $ekyll, seeking to separate his good side from his darker impulses, discovered a way to transform himself periodically into a deformed monster free of conscienceMMr. Hyde. (t first, $ekyll reports, he delighted in ecoming Hyde and re/oiced in the moral freedom that the creature possessed. Gventually, however, he found that he was turning into Hyde involuntarily in his sleep, even without taking the potion. (t this point, $ekyll resolved to cease ecoming Hyde. 1ne night, however, the urge gripped him too strongly, and after the transformation he immediately rushed out and violently killed Sir 4anvers 3arew. Horrified, $ekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations, and for a time he proved successful; one day, however, while sitting in a park, he suddenly turned into Hyde, the first time that an involuntary metamorphosis had happened while he was awake. "he letter continues descri ing $ekyll&s cry for help. Dar from his la oratory and hunted y the police as a murderer, Hyde needed 6anyon&s help to get his potions and ecome $ekyll againM ut when he undertook the transformation in 6anyon&s presence, the shock of the sight instigated 6anyon&s deterioration and death. Meanwhile, $ekyll returned to his home, only to find himself ever more helpless and trapped as the

transformations increased in fre*uency and necessitated even larger doses of potion in order to reverse themselves. It was the onset of one of these spontaneous metamorphoses that caused $ekyll to slam his la oratory window shut in the middle of his conversation with Gnfield and Atterson. Gventually, the potion egan to run out, and $ekyll was una le to find a key ingredient to make more. His a ility to change ack from Hyde into $ekyll slowly vanished. $ekyll writes that even as he composes his letter he knows that he will soon ecome Hyde permanently, and he wonders if Hyde will face e2ecution for his crimes or choose to kill himself. $ekyll notes that, in any case, the end of his letter marks the end of the life of 4r. $ekyll. ,ith these words, oth the document and the novel come to a close. Ana y!"! )* MaE)r 0/ara-.'r! 3r5 #'&y 9 Mr5 $y+' 1ne might *uestion the e2tent to which 4r. $ekyll and Mr. Hyde are in fact a single character. Antil the end of the novel, the two personas seem nothing alikeMthe well+ liked, respecta le doctor and the hideous, depraved Hyde are almost opposite in type and personality. Stevenson uses this marked contrast to make his point= every human eing contains opposite forces within him or her, an alter ego that hides ehind one's polite facade. 3orrespondingly, to understand fully the significance of either $ekyll or Hyde, we must ultimately consider the two as constituting one single character. Indeed, taken alone, neither is a very interesting personality; it is the nature of their interrelationship that gives the novel its power. 4espite the seeming diametric opposition etween 4r. $ekyll and Mr. Hyde, their relationship in fact involves a complicated dynamic. ,hile it is true that $ekyll largely appears as moral and decent, engaging in charity work and en/oying a reputation as a courteous and genial man, he in fact never fully em odies virtue in the way that Hyde em odies evil. (lthough $ekyll undertakes his e2periments with the intent of purifying his good side from his ad and vice versa, he ends up separating the ad alone, while leaving his former self, his $ekyll+self, as mi2ed as efore. $ekyll succeeds in li erating his darker side, freeing it from the onds of conscience, yet as $ekyll he never li erates himself from this darkness. $ekyll's partial success in his endeavors warrants much analysis. $ekyll himself ascri es his lopsided results to his state of mind when first taking the potion. He says that he was motivated y dark urges such as am ition and pride when he first drank the li*uid and that these allowed for the emergence of Hyde. He seems to imply that, had he entered the e2periment with pure motives, an angelic eing would have emerged. However, one must consider the su se*uent events in the novel efore ac*uitting $ekyll of any lame. Dor, once released, Hyde gradually comes to dominate oth personas, until $ekyll takes Hyde&s shape more often than his own. Indeed, y the very end of the novel, $ekyll himself no longer e2ists and only Hyde remains. Hyde seems to possess a force more powerful than $ekyll originally elieved. "he fact that Hyde, rather than some eatific creature, emerged from $ekyll&s e2periments seems more than a chance event, su /ect to an ar itrary state of mind. Bather, $ekyll&s drinking of the potion seems almost to have afforded Hyde the opportunity to assert himself. It is as if Hyde, ut no compara le virtuous essence, was lying in wait. "his dominance of HydeMfirst as a latent force within $ekyll, then as a tyrannical e2ternal force su verting $ekyllMholds various implications for our understanding of human nature. ,e egin to wonder whether any aspect of human nature in fact stands as

a counter to an individual&s Hyde+like side. ,e may recall that Hyde is descri ed as resem ling a #troglodyte,% or a primitive creature; perhaps Hyde is actually the original, authentic nature of man, which has een repressed ut not destroyed y the accumulated weight of civili)ation, conscience, and societal norms. 0erhaps man doesn&t have two natures ut rather a single, primitive, amoral one that remains /ust arely constrained y the onds of civili)ation. Moreover, the novel suggests that once those onds are roken, it ecomes impossi le to reesta lish them; the genie cannot e put ack into the ottle, and eventually Hyde will permanently replace $ekyllMas he finally does. Gven in Oictorian GnglandMwhich considered itself the height of ,estern civili)ationM Stevenson suggests that the dark, instinctual side of man remains strong enough to devour anyone who, like $ekyll, proves foolish enough to unleash it. Mr5 %a,r"' #)/n U..'r!)n (lthough Atterson witnesses a string of shocking events, Atterson himself is a largely une2citing character and is clearly not a man of strong passions or sensi ilities. Indeed, Stevenson intends for him to come across in this way= from the first page of the novel, the te2t notes that Atterson has a face that is #never lighted y a smile,% that he speaks very little, and that he seems #lean, long, dusty, YandZ dreary.% Net, somehow, he is also #lova le,% and dull and proper though he may e, he has many friends. His lova ility may stem from the only interesting *uality that Stevenson gives himMnamely, his willingness to remain friends with someone whose reputation has suffered. "his loyalty leads him to plum the mystery that surrounds $ekyll. Atterson represents the perfect Oictorian gentleman. He consistently seeks to preserve order and decorum, does not gossip, and guards his friends& reputations as though they were his own. Gven when he suspects his friend $ekyll of criminal activities such as lackmail or the sheltering of a murderer, he prefers to sweep what he has learnedMor what he thinks he has learnedMunder the rug rather than ring ruin upon his good friend.

Atterson&s status as the epitome of Oictorian norms also stems from his devotion to reason and common sense. He investigates what ecomes a supernatural se*uence of events ut never allows himself to even entertain the notion that something uncanny may e going on. He considers that misdeeds may e occurring ut not that the mystical or metaphysical might e afoot. "hus, even at the end, when he is summoned y 0oole to $ekyll&s home and all the servants are gathered frightened in the hallway, Atterson continues to look for an e2planation that preserves reason. He desperately searches for e2cuses not to take any drastic steps to interfere with $ekyll&s life. In Atterson&s devotion to oth decorum and reason, Stevenson depicts Oictorian society&s general attempt to maintain the authority of civili)ation over and against humanity&s darker side. Stevenson suggests that /ust as Atterson prefers the suppression or avoidance of revelations to the scandal or chaos that the truth might unleash, so too does Oictorian society prefer to repress and deny the e2istence of an uncivili)ed or savage element of humanity, no matter how intrinsic that element may e. Net, even as Atterson adheres rigidly to order and rationality, he does not fail to notice the uncanny *uality of the events he investigates. Indeed, ecause we see the novel through Atterson&s eyes, Stevenson cannot allow Atterson to e too unimaginativeM otherwise the novel&s eerie mood would suffer. 3orrespondingly, Stevenson attri utes nightmares to Atterson and grants him ominous premonitions as he moves through the city at nightMneither of which seem to suit the lawyer&s normally reasona le

personality, which is rarely given to flights of fancy. 0erhaps, the novel suggests, the chilling presence of Hyde in 6ondon is strong enough to penetrate even the rigidly rational shell that surrounds Atterson, planting a seed of supernatural dread. 3r5 $a!."' Lany)n 6anyon plays only a minor role in the novel&s plot, ut his thematic significance e2tends eyond his rief appearances. ,hen we first encounter him, he speaks dismissively of $ekyll&s e2periments, referring to them as #unscientific alderdash.% His scientific skepticism renders him, to an even greater e2tent than Atterson, an em odiment of rationalism and a proponent of materialist e2planations. (s such, he functions as a kind of foil for $ekyll. !oth men are doctors, well respected and successful, ut they have chosen divergent paths. Drom 6anyon&s early remarks, we learn that $ekyll shared some of his research with 6anyon, and one may even imagine that they were partners at one point. !ut 6anyon chooses to engage in rational, materialist science, while $ekyll prefers to pursue what might e called mystical or metaphysical science. It is appropriate, then, that 6anyon is the first person to see $ekyll enact his transformationsMthe great advocate of material causes is witness to undenia le proof of a metaphysical, physically impossi le phenomenon. Having spent his life as a rationalist and a skeptic, 6anyon cannot deal with the world that $ekyll&s e2periments have revealed. 4eep within himself, 6anyon prefers to die rather than go on living in a universe that, from his point of view, has een turned upside down. (fter his cataclysmic e2perience, 6anyon, who has spent his life pursuing knowledge, e2plicitly re/ects the latest knowledge he has gained. #I sometimes think if we knew all,% he tells Atterson, #we should e more glad to get away.% ,ith these words, 6anyon departs from the novel, his uncompromising rationalism ceding to the ine2plica le reality of $ekyll. T/'m'!: M)."*! 9 Sym,) ! T/'m'! Themes are the f#ndamental and often #ni'ersal ideas explored in a literary work$ !he #uality o$ %uman &ature Dr$ "ekyll and Mr$ ,yde centers upon a conception of humanity as dual in nature, although the theme does not emerge fully until the last chapter, when the complete story of the $ekyll+Hyde relationship is revealed. "herefore, we confront the theory of a dual human nature e2plicitly only after having witnessed all of the events of the novel, including Hyde&s crimes and his ultimate eclipsing of $ekyll. "he te2t not only posits the duality of human nature as its central theme ut forces us to ponder the properties of this duality and to consider each of the novel&s episodes as we weigh various theories. $ekyll asserts that #man is not truly one, ut truly two,% and he imagines the human soul as the attleground for an #angel% and a #fiend,% each struggling for mastery. !ut his potion, which he hoped would separate and purify each element, succeeds only in ringing the dark side into eingMHyde emerges, ut he has no angelic counterpart. 1nce unleashed, Hyde slowly takes over, until $ekyll ceases to e2ist. If man is half angel and half fiend, one wonders what happens to the #angel% at the end of the novel. 0erhaps the angel gives way permanently to $ekyll&s devil. 1r perhaps $ekyll is simply mistaken= man is not #truly two% ut is first and foremost the primitive creature em odied in Hyde, rought under tentative control y civili)ation, law, and conscience.

(ccording to this theory, the potion simply strips away the civili)ed veneer, e2posing man&s essential nature. 3ertainly, the novel goes out of its way to paint Hyde as animalisticMhe is hairy and ugly; he conducts himself according to instinct rather than reason; Atterson descri es him as a #troglodyte,% or primitive creature. Net if Hyde were /ust an animal, we would not e2pect him to take such delightin crime. Indeed, he seems to commit violent acts against innocents for no reason e2cept the /oy of itMsomething that no animal would do. He appears deli erately and happily immoral rather than amoral; he knows the moral law and asks in his reach of it. Dor an animalistic creature, furthermore, Hyde seems oddly at home in the ur an landscape. (ll of these o servations imply that perhaps civili)ation, too, has its dark side. Altimately, while Stevenson clearly asserts human nature as possessing two aspects, he leaves open the *uestion of what these aspects constitute. 0erhaps they consist of evil and virtue; perhaps they represent one&s inner animal and the veneer that civili)ation has imposed. Stevenson enhances the richness of the novel y leaving us to look within ourselves to find the answers. !he Importance o$ Reputation Dor the characters in Dr$ "ekyll and Mr$ ,yde& preserving one&s reputation emerges as all important. "he prevalence of this value system is evident in the way that upright men such as Atterson and Gnfield avoid gossip at all costs; they see gossip as a great destroyer of reputation. Similarly, when Atterson suspects $ekyll first of eing lackmailed and then of sheltering Hyde from the police, he does not make his suspicions known; part of eing $ekyll&s good friend is a willingness to keep his secrets and not ruin his respecta ility. "he importance of reputation in the novel also reflects the importance of appearances, facades, and surfaces, which often hide a sordid underside. In many instances in the novel, Atterson, true to his Oictorian society, adamantly wishes not only to preserve $ekyll&s reputation ut also to preserve the appearance of order and decorum, even as he senses a vile truth lurking underneath. M)."*! Motifs are rec#rring str#ct#res& contrasts& or literary de'ices that can help to de'elop and inform the text*s ma/or themes$ Violence Against Innocents "he te2t repeatedly depicts Hyde as a creature of great evil and countless vices. (lthough the reader learns the details of only two of Hyde&s crimes, the nature of oth underlines his depravity. !oth involve violence directed against innocents in particular. In the first instance, the victim of Hyde&s violence is a small, female child whom he tramples; in the second instance, it is a gentle and much+ eloved old man. "he fact that Hyde in/ures a girl and ruthlessly murders a man, neither of which has done anything to provoke his rage or to deserve death, emphasi)es the e2treme immorality of $ekyll&s dark side unleashed. Hyde&s rand of evil constitutes not /ust a lapse from good ut an outright attack on it. Silence Bepeatedly in the novel, characters fail or refuse to articulate themselves. Gither they seem una le to descri e a horrifying perception, such as the physical characteristics of Hyde, or they deli erately a ort or avoid certain conversations. Gnfield and Atterson cut off their discussion of Hyde in the first chapter out of a distaste for gossip; Atterson

refuses to share his suspicions a out $ekyll throughout his investigation of his client&s predicament. Moreover, neither $ekyll in his final confession nor the third+person narrator in the rest of the novel ever provides any details of Hyde&s sordid ehavior and secret vices. It is unclear whether these narrative silences owe to a failure of language or a refusal to use it. Altimately, the two kinds of silence in the novel indicate two different notions a out the interaction of the rational and the irrational. "he characters& refusals to discuss the sordid indicate an attri ute of the Oictorian society in which they live. "his society pri)es decorum and reputation a ove all and prefers to repress or even deny the truth if that truth threatens to upset the conventionally ordered worldview. Daced with the irrational, Oictorian society and its inha itants prefer not to acknowledge its presence and not to grant it the legitimacy of a name. Involuntary silences, on the other hand, imply something a out language itself. 6anguage is y nature rational and logical, a method y which we map and delineate our world. 0erhaps when confronted with the irrational and the mystical, language itself simply reaks down. 0erhaps something a out ver al e2pression stands at odds with the supernatural. Interestingly, certain parts of the novel suggest that, in the clash etween language and the uncanny, the uncanny need not always win. 1ne can interpret Stevenson&s reticence on the topic of $ekyll&s and Hyde&s crimes as a conscious choice not to defuse their chilling aura with descriptions that might only dull them. 'rban !error "hroughout the novel, Stevenson goes out of his way to esta lish a link etween the ur an landscape of Oictorian 6ondon and the dark events surrounding Hyde. He achieves his desired effect through the use of nightmarish imagery, in which dark streets twist and coil, or lie draped in fog, forming a sinister landscape efitting the crimes that take place there. 3hilling visions of the city appear in Atterson&s nightmares as well, and the te2t notes that ,e wo#ld )e aware of the great field of lamps of a noct#rnal city$ $ $ $ The fig#re >of ,yde? $ $ $ ha#nted the lawyer all night0 and if at any time he do%ed o'er& it was )#t to see it glide more stealthily thro#gh sleeping ho#ses& or mo'e the more swiftly $ $ $ thro#gh wider la)yrinths of lamp+lighted city& and at e'ery street corner cr#sh a child and lea'e her screaming$ In such images, Stevenson paints Hyde as an ur an creature, utterly at home in the darkness of 6ondonMwhere countless crimes take place, the novel suggests, without anyone knowing. Sym,) ! Sym)ols are o)/ects& characters& fig#res& or colors #sed to represent a)stract ideas or concepts$ (e)yll*s %ouse and Laboratory 4r. $ekyll lives in a well+appointed home, characteri)ed y Stevenson as having #a great air of wealth and comfort.% His la oratory is descri ed as #a certain sinister lock of uilding ] YwhichZ ore in every feature the marks of profound and sordid negligence.% ,ith its decaying facade and air of neglect, the la oratory *uite neatly sym oli)es the corrupt and perverse Hyde. 3orrespondingly, the respecta le, prosperous+looking main house sym oli)es the respecta le, upright $ekyll. Moreover, the connection etween the uildings similarly corresponds to the connection etween the personas they represent. "he uildings are ad/oined ut look out on two different streets. !ecause of the

convoluted layout of the streets in the area, the casual o server cannot detect that the structures are two parts of a whole, /ust as he or she would e una le to detect the relationship etween $ekyll and Hyde. %yde*s +hysical Appearance (ccording to the indefinite remarks made y his overwhelmed o servers, Hyde appears repulsively ugly and deformed, small, shrunken, and hairy. His physical ugliness and deformity sym oli)es his moral hideousness and warped ethics. Indeed, for the audience of Stevenson&s time, the connection etween such ugliness and Hyde&s wickedness might have een seen as more than sym olic. Many people elieved in the science of physiognomy, which held that one could identify a criminal y physical appearance. (dditionally, Hyde&s small stature may represent the fact that, as $ekyll&s dark side, he has een repressed for years, prevented from growing and flourishing. His hairiness may indicate that he is not so much an evil side of $ekyll as the em odiment of $ekyll&s instincts, the animalistic core eneath $ekyll&s polished e2terior.

UNITS H-IJ
?Mar"ana@ T'nny!)n
@Mariana in the moated grange$* AMeas#re for Meas#re$ With )lackest moss the flower+plots Were thickly cr#sted& one and all. The r#sted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the ga)le+wall$ The )roken sheds look*d sad and strange. Bnlifted was the clinking latch0 Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Bpon the lonely moated grange$ She only said& @My life is dreary& ,e cometh not&* she said0 She said& @I am aweary& aweary& I wo#ld that I were deadC* ,er tears fell with the dews at e'en0 ,er tears fell ere the dews were dried0 She co#ld not look on the sweet hea'en& Either at morn or e'entide$ After the flitting of the )ats& When thickest dark did trance the sky& She drew her casement+c#rtain )y& And glanced athwart the glooming flats$ She only said& @The night is dreary& ,e cometh not&* she said0 She said& @I am aweary& aweary& I wo#ld that I were deadC* Bpon the middle of the night& Waking she heard the night+fowl crow. The cock s#ng o#t an ho#r ere light. 1rom the dark fen the oxen*s low

(ame to her. witho#t hope of change& In sleep she seem*d to walk forlorn& Till cold winds woke the gray+eyed morn A)o#t the lonely moated grange$ She only said& @The day is dreary& ,e cometh not&* she said0 She said& @I am aweary& aweary& I wo#ld that I were deadC* A)o#t a stone+cast from the wall A sl#ice with )lacken*d waters slept& And o*er it many& ro#nd and small& The cl#ster*d marish+mosses crept$ ,ard )y a poplar shook alway& All sil'er+green with gnarled )ark. 1or leag#es no other tree did mark The le'el waste& the ro#nding gray$ She only said& @My life is dreary& ,e cometh not&* she said0 She said& @I am aweary& aweary& I wo#ld that I were deadC* And e'er when the moon was low& And the shrill winds were #p and away& In the white c#rtain& to and fro& She saw the g#sty shadow sway$ !#t when the moon was 'ery low& And wild winds )o#nd within their cell& The shadow of the poplar fell Bpon her )ed& across her )row$ She only said& @The night is dreary& ,e cometh not&* she said0 She said& @I am aweary& aweary& I wo#ld that I were deadC* All day within the dreamy ho#se& The doors #pon their hinges creak*d0 The )l#e fly s#ng in the pane0 the mo#se !ehind the mo#ldering wainscot shriek*d& Dr from the cre'ice peer*d a)o#t$ Dld faces glimmer*d thro* the doors& Dld footsteps trod the #pper floors& Dld 'oices called her from witho#t$ She only said& @My life is dreary& ,e cometh not&* she said0 She said& @I am aweary& aweary& I wo#ld that I were deadC* The sparrow*s chirr#p on the roof& The slow clock ticking& and the so#nd Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made& did all confo#nd ,er sense0 )#t most she loathed the ho#r When the thick+moted s#n)eam lay Athwart the cham)ers& and the day

Was sloping toward his western )ower$ Then& said she& @I am 'ery dreary& ,e will not come&* she said0 She wept& @I am aweary& aweary& Dh Eod& that I were deadC* Summary "his poem egins with the description of an a andoned farmhouse, or grange, in which the flower+pots are covered in overgrown moss and an ornamental pear tree hangs from rusty nails on the wall. "he sheds stand a andoned and roken, and the straw E#thatch%F covering the roof of the farmhouse is worn and full of weeds. ( woman, presuma ly standing in the vicinity of the farmhouse, is descri ed in a four+line refrain that recursM with slight modificationsMas the last lines of each of the poem&s stan)as= #She only said, ^My life is dreary J He cometh not,& she said; J She said, ^I am aweary, aweary, J I would that I were dead!&% "he woman&s tears fall with the dew in the evening and then fall again in the morning, efore the dew has dispersed. In oth the morning and the evening, she is una le to look to the #sweet heaven.% (t night, when the ats have come and gone, and the sky is dark, she opens her window curtain and looks out at the e2panse of land. She comments that #"he night is dreary% and repeats her death+wish refrain. In the middle of the night, the woman wakes up to the sound of the crow, and stays up until the cock calls out an hour efore dawn. She hears the lowing of the o2en and seemingly walks in her sleep until the cold winds of the morning come. She repeats the death+wish refrain e2actly as in the first stan)a, e2cept that this time it is #the day% and not #my life% that is dreary. ,ithin a stone&s throw from the wall lies an artificial passage for water filled with lack waters and lumps of moss. ( silver+green poplar tree shakes ack and forth and serves as the only reak in an otherwise flat, level, gray landscape. "he woman repeats the refrain of the first stan)a. ,hen the moon lies low at night, the woman looks to her white window curtain, where she sees the shadow of the poplar swaying in the wind. !ut when the moon is very low and the winds e2ceptionally strong, the shadow of the poplar falls not on the curtain ut on her ed and across her forehead. "he woman says that #the night is dreary% and wishes once again that she were dead. 4uring the day, the doors creak on their hinges, the fly sings in the window pane, and the mouse cries out or peers from ehind the lining of the wall. "he farmhouse is haunted y old faces, old footsteps, and old voices, and the woman repeats the refrain e2actly as it appears in the first and fourth stan)as. "he woman is confused and distur ed y the sounds of the sparrow chirping on the roof, the clock ticking slowly, and the wind lowing through the poplar. Most of all, she hates the early evening hour when the sun egins to set and a sun eam lies across her ed cham er. "he woman recites an emphatic variation on the death+wish refrain; now it is not #the day,% or even her #life% that is dreary; rather, we read= #"hen said she, ^I am very dreary, J He will not come,& she said; J She wept, ^I am aweary, aweary,J 1h 7od, that I were dead!&%

F)rm #Mariana% takes the form of seven twelve+line stan)as, each of which is divided into three four+line rhyme units according to the pattern A!A! (DD( E1E1$ "he lines ending in E and 1 remain essentially the same in every stan)a and thus serve as a ewitching, chant+like refrain throughout the poem. (ll of the poem&s lines fall into iam ic tetrameter, with the e2ception of the trimeter of the tenth and twelfth lines. 0)mm'n.ary "he su /ect of this poem is drawn from a line in Shakespeare&s play Meas#re for Meas#re = #Mariana in the moated grange.% "his line descri es a young woman waiting for her lover (ngelo, who has a andoned her upon the loss of her dowry. $ust as the epigraph from Shakespeare contains no ver , the poem, too, lacks all action or narrative movement. Instead, the entire poem serves as an e2tended visual depiction of melancholy isolation. 1ne of the most important sym ols in the poem is the poplar tree descri ed in the fourth and fifth stan)as. 1n one level, the poplar can e interpreted as a sort of phallic sym ol= it provides the only reak in an otherwise flat and even landscape E#Dor leagues no other tree did mark J the level waste% Ylines ;?+;;ZF; and the shadow of the poplar falls on Mariana&s ed when she is lovesick at night, suggesting her se2ual hunger for the a sent lover. 1n another level, however, the poplar is an important image from classical mythology= in his Metamorphoses& 1vid descri es how 1enone, deserted y 0aris, addresses the poplar on which 0aris has carved his promise not to desert her. "hus the poplar has come to stand as a classic sym ol of the renegade lover and his roken promise. "he first, fourth, and si2th stan)as can e grouped together, not only ecause they all share the e2act same refrain, ut also ecause they are the only stan)as that take place in the daytime. In themselves, each of these stan)as portrays an unending present without any sense of the passage of time or the play of light and darkness. "hese stan)as alternate with the descriptions of forlorn and restless nights in which Mariana neither sleeps nor wakes ut inha its a dreamy, in+ etween state= Mariana cries in the morning and evening alike Elines 8?+8;F and awakens in the middle of the night Elines >K+>HF; sleeping and waking meld. "he effect of this alternation etween flat day and sleepless night is to create a sense of a tormented, confused time, unordered y patterns of natural cycles of life. Gven though the poem as a whole involves no action or progression, it nonetheless reaches a sort of clima2 in the final stan)a. "his stan)a egins with a triple su /ect Echirrup, ticking, soundF, which creates a mounting intensity as the ver is pushed farther ack into the sentence. "he predicate, #did all confound J Her sense% Elines 9H+ 99F, is en/am ed over two lines, there y enacting the very confounding of sense that it descri es= oth Mariana&s mind and the logic of the sentence ecome confused, for at first it seems that the o /ect of #confound% is #all.% "his predicate is then followed y a caesura and then the sudden, active force of the climactic superlative phrase # ut most she loathed.% (t this point, the setting shifts again to the early evening as the recurrent cycle of day and night once more enacts Mariana&s alternating hope and disappointment. "he stan)a ends with a dramatic yet su tle shift in the refrain from #He cometh not% to the decisive and peremptory #He will not come.% "he refrain of the poem functions like an incantation, which contri utes to the atmosphere of enchantment. "he a andoned grange seems to e under a spell or curse; Mariana is locked in a state of perpetual, introverted rooding. Her consciousness paces

a cell of melancholy; she can perceive the world only through her de/ection. "hus, all of the poet&s descriptions of the physical world serve as primarily psychological categories; it is not the grange, ut the person, who has een a andonedMso, too, has this woman&s mind een a andoned y her sense. "his is an e2ample of the #pathetic fallacy.% 3oined y the nineteenth+century writer $ohn Buskin, this phrase refers to our tendency to attri ute our emotional and psychological states to the natural world. "hus, ecause Mariana is so forlorn, her farmhouse, too, although o viously incapa le of emotion, seems de/ected, depressed; when the narrator descri es her walls he is seeing not the indifferent white of the paint, ut rather focuses on the dark shadows there. ,hile Buskin considered the e2cessive use of the fallacy to e the mark of an inferior poet, later poets Esuch as ".S. Gliot and G)ra 0oundF would use the pathetic fallacy li erally and to great effect. (rgua ly, "ennyson here also uses the method to create great emotional force.

0$RISTIA ROSSETTI ?WINTER8 MY SE0RET@

0erhaps some day, who knows!ut not today; it fro)e, and lows and snows, (nd you're too curious= fie! Nou want to hear it- well= 1nly, my secret's mine, and I won't tell. 1r, after all, perhaps there's none= Suppose there is no secret after all, !ut only /ust my fun. "oday's a nipping day, a iting day; In which one wants a shawl, ( veil, a cloak, and other wraps= I cannot ope to everyone who taps, (nd let the draughts come whistling thro' my hall; 3ome ounding and surrounding me, 3ome uffeting, astounding me, Cipping and clipping thro' my wraps and all. I wear my mask for warmth= who ever shows His nose to Bussian snows "o e pecked at y every wind that lowsNou would not peck- I thank you for good will, !elieve, ut leave the truth untested still. Spring's an e2pansive time= yet I don't trust March with its peck of dust, Cor (pril with its rain ow+crowned rief showers, Cor even May, whose flowers 1ne frost may wither thro' the sunless hours. 0erhaps some languid summer day, ,Hen drowsy irds sing less and less, (nd golden fruit is ripening to e2cess, If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud, (nd the warm wind is neither still nor loud, 0erhaps my secret I may say, 1r you may guess.

Syn)(!"! ( female speaker Edetermined y the female clothing she alludes toF is addressing an auditor who has asked her to tell her ^secret&. She refuses on the grounds that the day is too cold, that perhaps there is nothing to tell and that she does not want to reveal herself, /ust as she does not want to e e2posed to the cold. "he speaker does not trust the assurances of the auditor that it will e alright, e2plaining that she is cautious even as springtime progresses. She may open up in the warmth of summer ut otherwise the auditor will have to guess the secret. 0)mm'n.ary Bossetti composed Winter. My Secret in 8<K9 and first pu lished among the non+ devotional poetry in her first volume, Eo)lin Market and Dther -oems. "he ^secret& to which the title refers is not specified in the poem. "he teasing tone of the speaker as she threatens to reveal a secret and then decides to keep it concealed from the reader has pu))led readers and critics since the poem&s first pu lication.

?UP-$ILL@ By 0$RISTINA ROSSETTI

4oes the road wind up+hill all the wayNes, to the very end. ,ill the day&s /ourney take the whole long dayDrom morn to night, my friend. !ut is there for the night a resting+place( roof for when the slow dark hours egin. May not the darkness hide it from my faceNou cannot miss that inn. Shall I meet other wayfarers at night"hose who have gone efore. "hen must I knock, or call when /ust in sight"hey will not keep you standing at that door. Shall I find comfort, travel+sore and weak1f la or you shall find the sum. ,ill there e eds for me and all who seekNea, eds for all who come An Ana y!"! )* 7U(/" 7 In the past, sym olism in poetry has een an inspiration to write and has sometimes een the sole purpose of a poem= e2pressing a hidden meaning through an allegory which is a #literary, dramatic, or pictorial device in which characters and events stand for a stract ideas, principles, or forces, so that the literal sense has or suggests a parallel,

deeper sym olic sense%. "his sort of device can e found in 3hristina Bossetti&s poem Aphill, which has an outstanding e2ample. "he allegory itself is uilt over the course of the entire poem rather than /ust having it appear within two lines or so. "hrough each stan)a one can easily find the sym olism appear etween the two speakers= the in*uirer and the one answering the *uestions. "o find the meaning in the poem accurately and to discover whom the two speakers are, one has to go through the piece stan)a y stan)a. "he first stan)a holds the first instance of an ongoing conversation etween two speakers; one asking various *uestions, and the other answering them with reassuring tone and also some warning. "he first *uestion is, #4oes theroad wind uphill all the way-% is answered y #Nes, to the very end.% "his o viously could mean anything, ut a look at the s

?My La!. 3u-/'!!@ By BROWNIN%

That*s my last D#chess painted on the wall& ooking as if she were ali'e$ I call That piece a wonder& now. 1ra -andolf*s hands Worked )#sily a day& and there she stands$ Will*t please yo# sit and look at her? I said F1ra -andolf< )y design& for ne'er read Strangers like yo# that pict#red co#ntenance& The depth and passion of its earnest glance& !#t to myself they t#rned 2since none p#ts )y The c#rtain I ha'e drawn for yo#& )#t I6 And seemed as they wo#ld ask me& if they d#rst& ,ow s#ch a glance came there0 so& not the first Are yo# to t#rn and ask th#s$ Sir& *twas not ,er h#s)and*s presence only& called that spot Df /oy into the D#chess* cheek. perhaps 1ra -andolf chanced to say F,er mantle laps D'er my lady*s wrist too m#ch&< or F-aint M#st ne'er hope to reprod#ce the faint ,alf+fl#sh that dies along her throat<. s#ch st#ff Was co#rtesy& she tho#ght& and ca#se eno#gh 1or calling #p that spot of /oy$ She had A heartAhow shall I say?Atoo soon made glad& Too easily impressed0 she liked whate*er She looked on& and her looks went e'erywhere$ Sir& *twas all oneC My fa'o#r at her )reast& The dropping of the daylight in the West& The )o#gh of cherries some officio#s fool !roke in the orchard for her& the white m#le She rode with ro#nd the terraceAall and each Wo#ld draw from her alike the appro'ing speech& Dr )l#sh& at least$ She thanked men&AgoodC )#t thanked SomehowAI know not howAas if she ranked My gift of a nine+h#ndred+years+old name With any)ody*s gift$ Who*d stoop to )lame

This sort of trifling? E'en had yo# skill In speechA2which I ha'e not6Ato make yo#r will G#ite clear to s#ch an one& and say& F"#st this Dr that in yo# disg#sts me0 here yo# miss& Dr there exceed the mark<Aand if she let ,erself )e lessoned so& nor plainly set ,er wits to yo#rs& forsooth& and made exc#se& AE*en then wo#ld )e some stooping0 and I choose He'er to stoop$ Dh sir& she smiled& no do#)t& Whene*er I passed her0 )#t who passed witho#t M#ch the same smile? This grew0 I ga'e commands0 Then all smiles stopped together$ There she stands As if ali'e$ Will*t please yo# rise? We*ll meet The company )elow& then$ I repeat& The (o#nt yo#r master*s known m#nificence Is ample warrant that no /#st pretence Df mine for dowry will )e disallowed0 Tho#gh his fair da#ghter*s self& as I a'owed At starting& is my o)/ect$ Hay& we*ll go Together down& sir$ Hotice Hept#ne& tho#gh& Taming a sea+horse& tho#ght a rarity& Which (la#s of Inns)r#ck cast in )ron%e for meC Summary "his poem is loosely ased on historical events involving (lfonso, the 4uke of Derrara, who lived in the 8Hth century. "he 4uke is the speaker of the poem, and tells us he is entertaining an emissary who has come to negotiate the 4uke&s marriage Ehe has recently een widowedF to the daughter of another powerful family. (s he shows the visitor through his palace, he stops efore a portrait of the late 4uchess, apparently a young and lovely girl. "he 4uke egins reminiscing a out the portrait sessions, then a out the 4uchess herself. His musings give way to a diatri e on her disgraceful ehavior= he claims she flirted with everyone and did not appreciate his #gift of a nine+ hundred+years+ old name.% (s his monologue continues, the reader reali)es with ever+ more chilling certainty that the 4uke in fact caused the 4uchess&s early demise= when her ehavior escalated, #YheZ gave commands; J "hen all smiles stopped together.% Having made this disclosure, the 4uke returns to the usiness at hand= arranging for another marriage, with another young girl. (s the 4uke and the emissary walk leave the painting ehind, the 4uke points out other nota le artworks in his collection. F)rm #My 6ast 4uchess% comprises rhyming pentameter lines. "he lines do not employ end+ stops; rather, they useen/am)mentMgthat is, sentences and other grammatical units do not necessarily conclude at the end of lines. 3onse*uently, the rhymes do not create a sense of closure when they come, ut rather remain a su tle driving force ehind the 4uke&s compulsive revelations. "he 4uke is *uite a performer= he mimics others& voices, creates hypothetical situations, and uses the force of his personality to make horrifying information seem merely colorful. Indeed, the poem provides a classic e2ample of a dramatic monologue= the speaker is clearly distinct from the poet; an audience is suggested ut never appears in the poem; and the revelation of the 4uke&s character is the poem&s primary aim.

0)mm'n.ary !ut !rowning has more in mind than simply creating a colorful character and placing him in a pictures*ue historical scene. Bather, the specific historical setting of the poem har ors much significance= the Italian Benaissance held a particular fascination for !rowning and his contemporaries, for it represented the flowering of the aesthetic and the human alongside, or in some cases in the place of, the religious and the moral. "hus the temporal setting allows !rowning to again e2plore se2, violence, and aesthetics as all entangled, complicating and confusing each other= the lushness of the language elies the fact that the 4uchess was punished for her natural se2uality. "he 4uke&s ravings suggest that most of the supposed transgressions took place only in his mind. 6ike some of !rowning&s fellow Oictorians, the 4uke sees sin lurking in every corner. "he reason the speaker here gives for killing the 4uchess ostensi ly differs from that given y the speaker of #0orphyria&s 6over% for murder 0orphyria; however, oth women are nevertheless victims of a male desire to inscri e and fi2 female se2uality. "he desperate need to do this mirrors the efforts of Oictorian society to mold the ehaviorMgse2ual and otherwiseMgof individuals. Dor people confronted with an increasingly comple2 and anonymous modern world, this impulse comes naturally= to control would seem to e to conserve and sta ili)e. "he Benaissance was a time when morally dissolute men like the 4uke e2ercised a solute power, and as such it is a fascinating study for the Oictorians= works like this imply that, surely, a time that produced magnificent art like the 4uchess&s portrait couldn&t have een entirely evil in its allocation of societal controlMgeven though it put men like the 4uke in power. ( poem like #My 6ast 4uchess% calculatedly engages its readers on a psychological level. !ecause we hear only the 4uke&s musings, we must piece the story together ourselves. !rowning forces his reader to ecome involved in the poem in order to understand it, and this adds to the fun of reading his work. It also forces the reader to *uestion his or her own response to the su /ect portrayed and the method of its portrayal. ,e are forced to consider, ,hich aspect of the poem dominates= the horror of the 4uchess&s fate, or the eauty of the language and the powerful dramatic development- "hus y posing this *uestion the poem firstly tests the Oictorian reader&s response to the modern worldMgit asks, Has everyday life made you num yet-Mgand secondly asks a *uestion that must e asked of all artMgit *ueries, 4oes art have a moral component, or is it merely an aesthetic e2ercise- In these latter considerations !rowning prefigures writers like 3harles !audelaire and 1scar ,ilde.

?%)+F! %ran+'ur@ (I=<<) By $OPKIN%S

The world is charged with the grande#r of Eod$ It will flame o#t& like shining from shook foil0 It gathers to a greatness& like the oo%e of oil (r#shed$ Why do men then now not reck his rod? Eenerations ha'e trod& ha'e trod& ha'e trod0 And all is seared with trade0 )leared& smeared with toil0 And wears man*s sm#dge and shares man*s smell. the soil Is )are now& nor can foot feel& )eing shod$ And for all this& nat#re is ne'er spent0 There li'es the dearest freshness deep down things0 And tho#gh the last lights off the )lack West went Dh& morning& at the )rown )rink eastward& springsA

!eca#se the ,oly Ehost o'er the )ent World )roods with warm )reast and with ahC )right wings$ Summary "he first four lines of the octave Ethe first eight+line stan)a of an Italian sonnetF descri e a natural world through which 7od&s presence runs like an electrical current, ecoming momentarily visi le in flashes like the refracted glintings of light produced y metal foil when rumpled or *uickly moved. (lternatively, 7od&s presence is a rich oil, a kind of sap that wells up #to a greatness% when tapped with a certain kind of patient pressure. 7iven these clear, strong proofs of 7od&s presence in the world, the poet asks how it is that humans fail to heed E#reck%F His divine authority E#his rod%F. "he second *uatrain within the octave descri es the state of contemporary human lifeM the lind repetitiveness of human la or, and the sordidness and stain of #toil% and #trade.% "he landscape in its natural state reflects 7od as its creator; ut industry and the prioriti)ation of the economic over the spiritual have transformed the landscape, and ro ed humans of their sensitivity to the those few eauties of nature still left. "he shoes people wear sever the physical connection etween our feet and the earth they walk on, sym oli)ing an ever+increasing spiritual alienation from nature. "he sestet Ethe final si2 lines of the sonnet, enacting a turn or shift in argumentF asserts that, in spite of the fallenness of Hopkins&s contemporary Oictorian world, nature does not cease offering up its spiritual indices. 0ermeating the world is a deep #freshness% that testifies to the continual renewing power of 7od&s creation. "his power of renewal is seen in the way morning always waits on the other side of dark night. "he source of this constant regeneration is the grace of a 7od who # roods% over a seemingly lifeless world with the patient nurture of a mother hen. "his final image is one of 7od guarding the potential of the world and containing within Himself the power and promise of re irth. ,ith the final e2clamation E#ah! right wings%F Hopkins suggests oth an awed intuition of the eauty of 7od&s grace, and the /oyful suddenness of a hatchling ird emerging out of 7od&s loving incu ation. F)rm "his poem is an Italian sonnetMit contains fourteen lines divided into an octave and a sestet, which are separated y a shift in the argumentative direction of the poem. "he meter here is not the #sprung rhythm% for which Hopkins is so famous, ut it does vary somewhat from the iam ic pentameter lines of the conventional sonnet. Dor e2ample, Hopkins follows stressed sylla le with stressed sylla le in the fourth line of the poem, olstering the urgency of his *uestion= #,hy do men then now not reck his rod-% Similarly, in the ne2t line, the heavy, falling rhythm of #have trod, have trod, have trod,% coming after the *uick lilt of #generations,% recreates the sound of plodding footsteps in striking onomatopoeia. 0)mm'n.ary "he poem egins with the surprising metaphor of 7od&s grandeur as an electric force. "he figure suggests an undercurrent that is not always seen, ut which uilds up a tension or pressure that occasionally flashes out in ways that can e oth rilliant and dangerous. "he optical effect of #shook foil% is one e2ample of this rilliancy. "he image of the oil eing pressed out of an olive represents another kind of richness, where saturation and uilt+up pressure eventually culminate in a salu rious overflow. "he image of electricity makes a su tle return in the fourth line, where the #rod% of 7od&s

punishing power calls to mind the lightning rod in which e2cess electricity in the atmosphere will occasionally #flame out.% Hopkins carefully chooses this comple2 of images to link the secular and scientific to mystery, divinity, and religious tradition. Glectricity was an area of much scientific interest during Hopkins&s day, and is an e2ample of a phenomenon that had long een taken as an indication of divine power ut which was now e2plained in naturalistic, rational terms. Hopkins is defiantly affirmative in his assertion that 7od&s work is still to e seen in nature, if men will only concern themselves to look. Befusing to ignore the discoveries of modern science, he takes them as further evidence of 7od&s grandeur rather than a challenge to it. Hopkins&s awe at the optical effects of a piece of foil attri utes revelatory power to a man+made o /ect; gold+ leaf foil had also een used in recent influential scientific e2periments. "he olive oil, on the other hand, is an ancient sacramental su stance, used for centuries for food, medicine, lamplight, and religious purposes. "his oil thus traditionally appears in all aspects of life, much as 7od suffuses all ranches of the created universe. Moreover, the slowness of its oo)ing contrasts with the *uick electric flash; the method of its e2traction implies such spiritual *ualities as patience and faith. E!y including this description Hopkins may have een implicitly critici)ing the violence and rapaciousness with which his contemporaries drilled petroleum oil to fuel industry.F "hus oth the images of the foil and the olive oil espeak an all+permeating divine presence that reveals itself in intermittent flashes or droplets of rilliance. Hopkins&s *uestion in the fourth line focuses his readers on the present historical moment; in considering why men are no longer 7od+fearing, the emphasis is on #now.% "he answer is a comple2 one. "he second *uatrain contains an indictment of the way a culture&s neglect of 7od translates into a neglect of the environment. !ut it also suggests that the a uses of previous generations are partly to lame; they have soiled and #seared% our world, further hindering our a ility to access the holy. Net the sestet affirms that, in spite of the interdependent deterioration of human eings and the earth, 7od has not withdrawn from either. He possesses an infinite power of renewal, to which the regenerative natural cycles testify. "he poem reflects Hopkins&s conviction that the physical world is like a ook written y 7od, in which the attentive person can always detect signs of a enevolent authorship, and which can help mediate human eings& contemplation of this (uthor.

T$E WIN3$ODER@ BY %ERAR3 MANLEY $OPKINS To (hrist o#r ord I ca#ght this morning morning*s minion& king+ dom of daylight*s da#phin& dapple+dawn+drawn 1alcon& in his riding Df the rolling le'el #nderneath him steady air& and striding ,igh there& how he r#ng #pon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasyC then off& off forth on swing& As a skate*s heel sweeps smooth on a )ow+)end. the h#rl and gliding Re)#ffed the )ig wind$ My heart in hiding Stirred for a )ird&Athe achie'e of& the mastery of the thingC !r#te )ea#ty and 'alo#r and act& oh& air& pride& pl#me& here !#ckleC AHD the fire that )reaks from thee then& a )illion Times told lo'elier& more dangero#s& D my che'alierC

Ho wonder of it. sheer plod makes plo#gh down sillion Shine& and )l#e+)leak em)ers& ah my dear& 1all& gall themsel'es& and gash gold+'ermillion$ Summary "he windhover is a ird with the rare a ility to hover in the air, essentially flying in place while it scans the ground in search of prey. "he poet descri es how he saw Eor #caught%F one of these irds in the midst of its hovering. "he ird strikes the poet as the darling E#minion%F of the morning, the crown prince E#dauphin%F of the kingdom of daylight, drawn y the dappled colors of dawn. It rides the air as if it were on horse ack, moving with steady control like a rider whose hold on the rein is sure and firm. In the poet&s imagination, the windhover sits high and proud, tightly reined in, wings *uivering and tense. Its motion is controlled and suspended in an ecstatic moment of concentrated energy. "hen, in the ne2t moment, the ird is off again, now like an ice skater alancing forces as he makes a turn. "he ird, first matching the wind&s force in order to stay still, now #re uffYsZ the ig wind% with its forward propulsion. (t the same moment, the poet feels his own heart stir, or lurch forward out of #hiding,% as it wereM moved y #the achieve of, the mastery of% the ird&s performance. "he opening of the sestet serves as oth a further ela oration on the ird&s movement and an in/unction to the poet&s own heart. "he # eauty,% #valour,% and #act% Elike #air,% #pride,% and #plume%F #here uckle.% #!uckle% is the ver here; it denotes either a fastening Elike the uckling of a eltF, a coming together of these different parts of a creature&s eing, or an ac*uiescent collapse Elike the # uckling% of the kneesF, in which all parts su ordinate themselves into some larger purpose or cause. In either case, a unification takes place. (t the moment of this integration, a glorious fire issues forth, of the same order as the glory of 3hrist&s life and crucifi2ion, though not as grand. F)rm "he confusing grammatical structures and sentence order in this sonnet contri ute to its difficulty, ut they also represent a masterful use of language. Hopkins lends and confuses ad/ectives, ver s, and su /ects in order to echo his theme of smooth merging= the ird&s perfect immersion in the air, and the fact that his self and his action are insepara le. Cote, too, how important the #+ing% ending is to the poem&s rhyme scheme; it occurs in ver s, ad/ectives, and nouns, linking the different parts of the sentences together in an intense unity. ( great num er of ver s are packed into a short space of lines, as Hopkins tries to nail down with as much descriptive precision as possi le the e2act character of the ird&s motion. #"he ,indhover% is written in #sprung rhythm,% a meter in which the num er of accents in a line are counted ut the num er of sylla les does not matter. "his techni*ue allows Hopkins to vary the speed of his lines so as to capture the ird&s pausing and racing. 6isten to the hovering rhythm of #the rolling level underneath him steady air,% and the arched rightness of #and striding high there.% "he poem slows a ruptly at the end, pausing in awe to reflect on 3hrist. 0)mm'n.ary "his poem follows the pattern of so many of Hopkins&s sonnets, in that a sensuous e2perience or description leads to a set of moral reflections. 0art of the eauty of the poem lies in the way Hopkins integrates his masterful description of a ird&s physical

feat with an account of his own heart&s response at the end of the first stan)a. However, the sestet has pu))led many readers ecause it seems to diverge so widely from the material introduced in the octave. (t line nine, the poem shifts into the present tense, away from the recollection of the ird. "he horse+and+rider metaphor with which Hopkins depicted the windhover&s motion now give way to the phrase #my chevalier%M a traditional Medieval image of 3hrist as a knight on horse ack, to which the poem&s su title Eor dedicationF gives the reader a clue. "he transition etween octave and sestet comes with the statement in lines :+88 that the natural E# rute%F eauty of the ird in flight is ut a spark in comparison with the glory of 3hrist, whose grandeur and spiritual power are #a illion times told lovelier, more dangerous.% "he first sentence of the sestet can read as either descriptive or imperative, or oth. "he idea is that something glorious happens when a eing&s physical ody, will, and action are all rought into accordance with 7od&s will, culminating in the perfect self+ e2pression. Hopkins, reali)ing that his own heart was #in hiding,% or not fully committed to its own purpose, draws inspiration from the ird&s perfectly self+ contained, self+reflecting action. $ust as the hovering is the action most distinctive and self+defining for the windhover, so spiritual striving is man&s most essential aspect. (t moments when humans arrive at the fullness of their moral nature, they achieve something great. !ut that greatness necessarily pales in comparison with the ultimate act of self+sacrifice performed y 3hrist, which nevertheless serves as our model and standard for our own ehavior. "he final tercet within the sestet declares that this phenomenon is not a #wonder,% ut rather an everyday occurrenceMpart of what it means to e human. "his striving, far from e2hausting the individual, serves to ring out his or her inner glowMmuch as the daily use of a metal plow, instead of wearing it down, actually polishes itMcausing it to sparkle and shine. "he suggestion is that there is a glittering, luminous core to every individual, which a concerted religious life can e2pose. "he su se*uent image is of em ers reaking open to reveal a smoldering interior. Hopkins words this image so as to relate the concept ack to the 3rucifi2ion= "he ver #gash% Ewhich dou les for #gush%F suggests the wounding of 3hrist&s ody and the shedding of his #gold+vermilion% lood.