T. S. Eliot – Journey of the Magi

Eliot’s poem, “Journey of the Magi,” is based on the journey of the Three Wise Men to see Christ in the book of Matthew. The first part of the poem tells about how hard the journey is—“’A cold coming we had of it, / Just the worst time of the year / For a journey, and such a long journey: / The ways deep and the weather sharp, / The very dead of winter.’” Even the camels are unhappy. The kings are used to “summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, / And the silken girls bringing sherbet.” The men they hired to keep the camels didn’t want to work, they wanted “their liquor and women” instead. They were never warm, and had no shelter; the cities were unfriendly. Eventually the men just traveled all night because it was easier that way. They had “voices singing in our ears, saying / That this was all folly.” The voices are telling them that they are going through all of this hardship for nothing.

Then at last, they “came down to a temperate valley, / Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation, / With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness / And three trees on the low sky. / And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.” At last they are getting somewhere! After they got to their destination, they went back to their kingdoms—“We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, / But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, / With an alien people clutching their gods. / I should be glad of another death.” After they have seen Christ, they are no longer at ease in their palaces, and their people who worship different gods seem as aliens. The kings have seen the way they are supposed to live, and no longer feel comfortable in this life. “I should be glad of another death,” implies that they want to be with Christ, in the afterlife.

Robert Browning – Porphyria’s Lover

Browning’s poem, “Porphyria’s Lover,” is about one lover not ever wanting to be without Porphyria, and I mean literally. Porphyria comes to visit her lover one stormy night, and never leaves again. She comes into the cottage filled with trust and love—“And, last, she sat down by my side / And called me. When no voice replied, / She put my arm about her waist, / And made her smooth white shoulder bare, / And all her yellow hair displaced, / And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, / And spread, o’er all, her yellow hair, / Murmuring how she loved me.” She came through the storm to see her lover—no amount of bad weather could keep her away. The lovers had a perfect night, and Porphyria’s lover—the narrator—did not want the moment to end. The narrator was surprised at the love of Porphyria and how she worshipped him. “at last I knew / Porphyria worshipped me; surprise / Made my heart swell, and still it grew / While I debated what to do. / That moment she was mine, mine, fair, / Perfectly pure and good.” He did not want to lose that moment! Not then, not ever. In the next few lines, the narrator tells how he strangled Porphyria with her own hair! He tries to convince himself that she didn’t feel any pain—“No pain felt she; / I am quite sure she felt no pain.” He says it twice as if he doesn’t quite believe the first time.

The narrator opens Porphyria’s eyes after death, and fancies that they are laughing, and that her cheeks blush again when he loosens the hair from her neck. He is acting like she is not dead and that everything will remain in the perfect moment forever—“I propped her head up as before, / Only, this time my shoulder bore / Her head, which droops upon it still: / The smiling rosy little head, / So glad it has its utmost will, / That all is scorned at once is fled, / And I, its love, am gained instead!” He has convinced himself that this is what Porphyria wanted—to be dead and be with him. “she guessed not how / Her darling one wish would be heard. / And thus we sit together now, / And all night long we have not stirred, / And yet God has not said a word!” He sat with her all night, content to be with her, and thinking everything is okay.

John Keats – La Belle Dame sans Mercy

In Keats’ “La Belle Dame sans Mercy,” the woman in the story is a “femme fatale,” which is a temptress whose seduction proves fatal. The poem begins with the narrator asking himself, “Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, / Alone and palely loitering; / The sedge is wither’d from the lake, / And no birds sing. / Ah, what can ail thee wretched wight,/ So haggard and so woe-begone?” The fourth stanza seems to begin answering this question as the narrator falls victim to the Lady’s charms and fancies himself in love with her. He tells of the day they spent together—“I met a Lady in the meads / Full beautiful, a fairy’s child; / Her hair was long, her foot was light, / And her eyes were wild. / I set her on my pacing steed, / and nothing else saw all day long; / For sideways she would lean, and sing / A fairy’s song.” He noticed her beauty immediately, and could not keep his eyes off of her the entire day. They fell in love, and the narrator has to suffer the consequences. In the third stanza, he introduces the traditional emblems of love and death. He writes, “I see a lily on thy brow, / With anguish moist and fever dew; / And on they cheeks a fading rose / Fast withereth too.” The lily symbolizes death, and the rose symbolizes love. He has death on his brow and the love that was so new is fading fast.

After he spends the day with the Lady, he fell asleep and dreamed of “pale kings, and princes too, / Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; / Who cry’d—“La Belle Dame sans mercy / Hath thee in thrall!” These dream figures had experienced her love before, and that’s why they were as pale as the narrator. They were foreshadowers, and sure enough, the narrator woke up alone—“Alone and palely loitering, / Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake, / And no birds sing.” The poem ends as it starts out, reiterating his heartbreak.

James Joyce- Clay

What I enjoyed most about this piece of work what is simpilicity. I do enjoy works that make me have to think but its nice when one can keep my interest without stressing me out. This poem definitely possessed a shock factor, one minutes Maria was a “veritable peace-maker” and then turns out she is a prostitute. To my knowledge prostitutes are usually a source trouble, not peace. I don’t know if Maria is a peace-makes but she is ignorant. Maria works in a kitchen in a place for ex-prostitutes and recovering alcoholics. After work one night she attends a party at Joe’s, a man she was the nurse to when he was a boy. This is an odd scene to me at first because I could not understand what Joe would want with her exactly. Then as I continued to read I saw that he “had his way with her, and then they lay by the fire” (1136). This was disturbing to me, I cannot even comprehend the age difference, but that is beside the point. During a game at the party, Maria chooses “clay” This is a significant because the people believed that this meant that she would die soon. She does not understand the significance of her choice.

Besides Maria ignorance, I want to know how one goes from being a nanny to a prostitute and vice versa? She took care of Joe as a child and not she has slept with him. He got her drunk and then slept with her (1136). Joyce shocked and disturbed me, but I did enjoy how he simply put it, he writes, “so Maria let him have his way and they say by the fire talking over old time…” He wasn’t graphic yet I was still disturbed, in fact I had to read it twice because it was presented so non-chantilly, but once I grasped it I couldn’t stop reading it. It was like a car horrible car wreck that I could not pry my arms away from.

The French Revolution and Helen Williams

The French and the English have never gotten along, at least there are virtually no records of it in history. Her writings were surprisingly civil. She was a competent individual, and Englishwoman but she was not unpleasant. Her letters were pleasant, they shared her journeys and views of France, and surprisingly enough they were not negative. Her letters brought something very interesting to my attention, is ones nationality based on birth or based on love for a country? My grandparents on my Father’s side are full Mexican, they moved her about 50 years ago, they don’t speak English very well, they only eat at Mexican restarunts and are as traditional as they come, we even eat tamales on “Feliez Navidad.” My grandparents on my mother’s side are full Scottish. They also came to the United States about 50 years ago. Granted it was probably a lot easier for them to adjust, I see them embracing American culture but still being respectful of where they came form. Does there love for America make them American? My mother has lived her since she was 2 but she is a “naturalized citizen” something about that sounds very capitalistic. For some reasons these letters made me think about nationality, Williams’ letters wer not what I expected for writing of the French revolution, they were not hateful, I don’t know any Englishmen or women, I don’t even know Scottish men or women, that would speak kindly of the French. Thus, I am intrigued by the thought that ones love for a country could out weigh the importance of their birthplace.

William Butler Yeats- "No Second Troy"

W.B. Yeats poem “No Second Troy” is a poem of rejection and heartbreak He compares Maud to Helen of Troy. I am not sure if this is meant to be a compliment or not. On the one hand she was a very attractive woman, but she also smashed the entire country. Maud enchanted him in the way the Helen of Troy enchanted the people of Troy, yet in the end no amount of beauty can make up for destruction. In his poem he writes, “Why should I blame her that she filled my days with misery” It’s as if he came to the realization that he was only miserable because he allowed her to make him feel that way. This opening line reminded me of a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I can relate this poem to this quote because they are both talking about allowing other people to control how you feel. Keats is basically kicking himself for allowing Maud to make him feel miserable, he realizes that she could only make him feel that way because he allowed her to.

Going to back to Helen of Troy, she was a political figurehead, a ruler. She was to be loved by all, yet she causes chaos and destroyed a country. Keats uses the comparison of Helen of Troy to show the great destructive power women have. At the end of the poem he writes, “With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?” Again the comparison is evident, but when he asks if there was another Troy for her to burn I am not really sure what he means. It could be a variety of things; he could be wondering if his was the only heart scorned by her love? He could also be wondering, if there are more countries that will be destroyed by women with too much beauty and power? I do not know exactly, but I do like even if it depicts women as the cause of wars and destruction, because it can also be seen that men are easily manipulated by love.

Ode to Virginia Woolf

The writing style of Woolf is modern, and she is perhaps the greatest female wrighter of the 20th century. She also had connections such as James Joyce and T.S Elliot. She had a great mind a witty mind. In her essay The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection. Her humor can be admired, and her style makes for an interesting read. In this essay she uses a looking glass as a vice for examining another woman, Isabella Tyson’s life (1225). This peculiar because a looking glass is a mirror, and one would usually use that to examine ones own life. This leads the reader to wonder to if the woman is not a representation of Woolf herself. Perhaps a mirror image or an alternate ego of herself is who she is describing. She is describing herself; she is the lady in the looking glass. What is also amusing about her story is the very first line “People should not leave a looking-glass hanging around their rooms any more than they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime” (1224). She is condemning people having household mirrors. She alludes to it being dangerous and self-destructive. This is humorous because what is dangerous about a mirror? It is also meaningful on a deeper level, like self-examination is a destructive behavior. She is saying that examining one’s self is dangerous because you might not like what you find out.

This looking glass can also be said to be a method of uncovering levels of character. She writes “But, outside, the looking-glass reflected the hall table, the sunflowers, the garden path so accurately, and so fixed that they seemed held there in their reality unescapably” (1225). She uses that mirror to examine the outside of the house; she is describing the external self. She is showing the self that is, well in her time, unchangeable. She describes this garden path as a type of constant, it fixed. It leads is only one path, unchangeable, the directing of the path the size of the path has been set literally in stone. This is the external body, the one thing that is constant, appearance. She then describes the interior of the house, which would be the deep interior of the self. The inner and outer images of the self are very different, just as the image the people present to others and attempt to maintain in themselves is very different. The narrator of the story examines Tyson through her looks, her dinner conversation, and faces about her life. Then Woolf examines her “larger and larger in the looking glass” (1228). This could mean that she is seeing the complete and whole person not just layers. Woolf is truly an ingenious woman; she combines Tyson, the narrator and herself and throws them into her story “The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A reflection”.