Reading 'THE RAPE OF THE LOCK' by Alexander Pope, Part-I

INTRODUCTION:

   On the request of his friend, John Caryll, Alexander Pope wrote ‘The Rape of the Lock’ (1712) with the intention to bring about reconciliation between the two noble families of London which had grown enmity over a trivial incident. One Lord Petre, after being rejected in love, had offended a Miss Arabella Fermor by cutting off a lock of her hair, and a bitter feeling resulted between the two families. Caryll thought that the unpleasantness might be ended if Pope would turn the whole affair into friendly ridicule. But Pope’s undertaking of the trivial incident turned out into a dainty piece of mock-epic. No more brilliant, witty and amusing mock-heroic poem can be found in English literature than ‘The Rape of the Lock’. The poem is loosely modelled after two foreign satires: the French, Boileau’s ‘Le Lutrin’ (The Reading Desk), a satire on a French clergy who raised a huge quarrel over the location of a lectern; and the Italian, ‘La Secchia Raptia’ (The Stolen Bucket). ‘The Rape of the Lock’ presents a drift combination of the serious and the trifling. Pope uses the heroic couplet and follows the other epic conventions, like Invocation and machinery, in the poem, and applies all of them to a miniature scale in order to make them appear ridiculous. But beneath the apparent nonsense, lies a serious criticism of the false vanities and idle life of the eighteenth century upper class. Pope’s mastery of satire is obvious in such parts as the descriptions of Belinda’s toilet, the game of cards, the cutting off of Belinda’s lock, the gnome’s visit to the Cave of Spleen, and the various activities of the sylphs, especially Ariel.

   Pope opens with a statement announcing the topic of his poem: A gentleman–a lord, in fact–has committed a terrible outrage against a gentlewoman, causing her to reject him. What was this offense? Why did it incite such anger in the lady?

   The woman in question is named Belinda. She is sleeping late one day in her London home when a sylph–a dainty spirit that inhabits the air–warns her that “I saw, alas! some dread Event impend.” The sylph, named Ariel, does not know what this event is or where or how it will manifest itself. But he does tell Belinda to be on guard against the machinations of men. 

   Belinda rises and prepares herself for a social gathering, sitting before a mirror and prettying herself with “puffs and powders” and scenting herself with “all Arabia.” Afterward, she travels up the Thames River to the site of the social festivities, Hampton Court, the great palace on the north bank of the river that in earlier times was home to King Henry VIII. As she sits in the boat, “Fair Nymphs, and well-drest Youths around her shone, / But ev'ry Eye was fix'd on her alone.” In other words, she was beautiful beyond measure. She smiled at everyone equally, and her eyes–bright suns–radiated goodwill. Especially endearing to anyone who looked upon her were her wondrous tresses:

This Nymph, to the Destruction of Mankind,

Nourish'd two Locks which graceful hung behind

In equal Curls, and well conspir'd to deck

With shining Ringlets the smooth Iv'ry Neck.

   Among Belinda’s admirers is a young baron at Hampton Court awaiting her arrival. He has resolved to snip off a lock of her hair as the trophy of trophies. Before dawn, before even the sun god Phoebus Apollo arose, the Baron had been planning the theft of a lock of Belinda's hair. To win the favor of the gods, he had lighted an altar fire and, lying face down before it, prayed for success. 

   After Belinda arrives at Hampton Court with her company of friends, the partygoers play Ombre, a popular card game in which only 40 of the 52 cards are dealt--the eights, nines, and tens are held back. It appears that the Baron will win the game after his knave of diamonds captures her queen of hearts. However, Belinda yet has hope, even after the Baron plays an ace of hearts: 

The King unseen

Lurk'd in her Hand, and mourn'd his captive Queen.

He springs to Vengeance with an eager Pace,

And falls like Thunder on the prostrate Ace

The Nymph exulting fills with Shouts the Sky;

The Walls, the Woods, and long Canals reply.

   Belinda wins! Coffee is served, the vapors of which go to the Baron’s brain and embolden him to carry out his assault on Belinda’s hair. Clarissa, a lady who fancies the Baron, withdraws scissors from a case and arms him with the weapon. When he closes in behind Belinda, she bends over her coffee, exposing a magnificent lock. But a thousand sprites come to her aid, using their wings to blow hair over the lock. They also tug at one of her diamond earrings to alert her to the danger. Three times they warn her and three times she looks around. But all is for naught. The Baron opens wide his weapon, closes it around the lock, and cuts. The rape of her lock enrages Belinda:

Then flash'd the living Lightnings from her Eyes,

And Screams of Horror rend th' affrighted Skies.

Not louder Shrieks to pitying Heav'n are cast,

When Husbands, or when Lapdogs breathe their last,

Or when rich China Vessels, fal'n from high,

In glitt'ring Dust and painted Fragments lie!

   A gnome named Umbriel descends to the Underworld on Belinda’s behalf and obtains a bag of sighs and a vial of tears from the Queen of Spleen. With these magical gifts, he means to comfort poor Belinda. First, he empties the bag on her. A gentleman named Sir Plume--prompted by his belle, Thalestris, a friend of Belinda--then roundly scolds the Baron for his grave offense. But the Baron is unrepentant. Umbriel then empties the vial on Belinda. Grief overcomes her as her eyes half-drown in tears and her head droops upon her bosom. She says:

For ever curs'd be this detested Day,

Which snatch'd my best, my fav'rite Curl away!

Happy! ah ten times happy had I been,

If Hampton-Court these Eyes had never seen!

   Clarissa tries to mollify Belinda in a long speech, but fails. A bit of a melee ensues when Belinda attempts to retrieve her lost lock. “Fans clap, Silks russle, and tough Whalebones crack.” Belinda proves a fierce combatant. She attacks the Baron “with more than usual Lightning in her Eyes” and throws a handful of snuff from Sir Plume's box up his nose. But, alas, when the battle ends, the lock is nowhere to be found. 

   However, the poem ends on a happy note for Belinda, Pope says, because the trimmed lock of her golden hair has risen to the heavens, there to become a shining star.

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

CANTO I

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,

What mighty contests rise from trivial things,

I sing--This verse to CARYL, Muse [1]! is due:

This, ev'n Belinda [2] may vouchsafe to view:

Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,

If She inspire, and He approve my lays.

Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel

A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle [3]?

O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,

Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?

In tasks so bold, can little men engage,

And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty Rage?

Sol [4] thro' white curtains shot a tim'rous ray,

And oped those eyes that must eclipse the day:

Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake,

And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake:

Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground,

And the press'd watch return'd a silver sound.

Belinda still her downy pillow prest,

Her guardian SYLPH [5] prolong'd the balmy rest:

'Twas He had summon'd to her silent bed

The morning-dream that hover'd o'er her head;

A Youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau [6],

(That ev'n in slumber caus'd her cheek to glow)

Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay,

And thus in whispers said, or seem'd to say.

Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish'd care

Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air!

If e'er one vision touch.'d thy infant thought,

Of all the Nurse and all the Priest have taught;

Of airy Elves by moonlight shadows seen,

The silver token, and the circled green,

Or virgins visited by Angel-pow'rs,

With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs;

Hear and believe! thy own importance know,

Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.

Some secret truths, from learned pride conceal'd,

To Maids alone and Children are reveal'd:

What tho' no credit doubting Wits may give?

The Fair and Innocent shall still believe.

Know, then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly,

The light Militia of the lower sky:

These, tho' unseen, are ever on the wing,

Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring.

Think what an equipage thou hast in Air,

And view with scorn two Pages and a Chair.

As now your own, our beings were of old,

And once inclos'd in Woman's beauteous mould;

Thence, by a soft transition, we repair

From earthly Vehicles to these of air.

Think not, when Woman's transient breath is fled

That all her vanities at once are dead;

Succeeding vanities she still regards,

And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards.

Her joy in gilded Chariots, when alive,

And love of Ombre [7], after death survive.

For when the Fair in all their pride expire,

To their first Elements their Souls retire:

The Sprites of fiery Termagants [8] in Flame

Mount up, and take a Salamander's [9] name.

Soft yielding minds to Water glide away,

And sip, with Nymphs [10], their elemental Tea.

The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome [11],

In search of mischief still on Earth to roam.

The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,

And sport and flutter in the fields of Air.

"Know further yet; whoever fair and chaste

Rejects mankind, is by some Sylph embrac'd:

For Spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease

Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.

What guards the purity of melting Maids,

In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,

Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark [12],

The glance by day, the whisper in the dark,

When kind occasion prompts their warm desires,

When music softens, and when dancing fires?

'Tis but their Sylph, the wise Celestials know,

Tho' Honour is the word with Men below.

Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face,

For life predestin'd to the Gnomes' embrace.

These swell their prospects and exalt their pride,

When offers are disdain'd, and love deny'd:

Then gay Ideas crowd the vacant brain,

While Peers, and Dukes, and all their sweeping train,

And Garters, Stars, and Coronets [13] appear,

And in soft sounds, Your Grace salutes their ear.

'T is these that early taint the female soul,

Instruct the eyes of young Coquettes to roll,

Teach Infant-cheeks a bidden blush to know,

And little hearts to flutter at a Beau.

Oft, when the world imagine women stray,

The Sylphs thro' mystic mazes guide their way,

Thro' all the giddy circle they pursue,

And old impertinence expel by new.

What tender maid but must a victim fall

To one man's treat, but for another's ball?

When Florio [14] speaks what virgin could withstand,

If gentle Damon [15] did not squeeze her hand?

With varying vanities, from ev'ry part,

They shift the moving Toyshop of their heart;

Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive,

Beaux [16] banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive.

This erring mortals Levity may call;

Oh blind to truth! the Sylphs contrive it all.

Of these am I [17], who thy protection claim,

A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name.

Late, as I rang'd the crystal wilds of air,

In the clear Mirror of thy ruling Star

I saw, alas! some dread event impend,

Ere to the main this morning sun descend,

But heav'n reveals not what, or how, or where:

Warn'd by the Sylph, oh pious maid, beware!

This to disclose is all thy guardian can:

Beware of all, but most beware of Man!"

He said; when Shock [18], who thought she slept too long,

Leap'd up, and wak'd his mistress with his tongue.

'T was then, Belinda, if report say true,

Thy eyes first open'd on a Billet-doux [19];

Wounds, Charms, and Ardors were no sooner read,

But all the Vision vanish'd from thy head.

And now, unveil'd, the Toilet [20] stands display'd,

Each silver Vase in mystic order laid.

First, rob'd in white, the Nymph intent adores,

With head uncover'd, the Cosmetic pow'rs.

A heav'nly image in the glass appears,

To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;

Th' inferior Priestess [21], at her altar's side,

Trembling begins the sacred rites of Pride.

Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here

The various off'rings of the world appear;

From each she nicely culls with curious toil,

And decks the Goddess with the glitt'ring spoil.

This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,

And all Arabia [22] breathes from yonder box.

The Tortoise [23] here and Elephant [24] unite,

Transformed to combs, the speckled, and the white.

Here files of pins extend their shining rows,

Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles [25], Billet-doux.

Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms;

The fair each moment rises in her charms,

Repairs her smiles, awakens ev'ry grace,

And calls forth all the wonders of her face;

Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,

And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.

The busy Sylphs surround their darling care,

These set the head, and those divide the hair,

Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown:

And Betty's prais'd for labours not her own.

[Footnote 1 : Pope’s friend, John Caryl, whom Pope addresses as the Muse, i.e., god of poetry. An acquaintance of Caryl, Lord Petre, cut off a lock of hair of a young lady, Miss Arabella Fermor which erupted a quarrel between the families. Caryl requested Pope to write a poem to point up the silliness of the quarrel.

Footnote 2 : fictitious name for Miss Arabella Fermor

Footnote 3 : (French) young lady

Footnote 4 : the Sun

Footnote 5 : airy spirit

Footnote 6 : (French) handsome young man

Footnote 7 : A popular card game for three players in which only 40 of the 52 cards are dealt--the eights, nines, and tens are held back.

Footnote 8 : quarrelsome, overbearing women

Footnote 9 : in myth, a lizard-like reptile that lived in fire

Footnote 10 : fairies which live in water

Footnote 11 : Earth-spirits

Footnote 12 : a bold gentleman

Footnote 13 : the badges and other insignia of persons of high rank

Footnotes 14 & 15 : Names commonly used in poetry in Pope's time the way we use Tom, Dick, and Harry today. They do not refer to a specific person but to men in general. 

Footnote 16 : plural form of ‘beau’

Footnote 17 : Ariel, the guardian-sylph of Belinda, who commands other sylphs to protect the lady’s chastity.

Footnote 18 : the name of Belinda’s lap-dog

Footnote 19 : (French) love-letter

Footnote 20 : dressing room of aristocratic ladies

Footnote 21 : Belinda’s maid-servant, Betty

Footnote 22 : perfume made in Arab

Footnote 23 : the shell of tortoise used in making combs

Footnote 24 : ivory

Footnote 25 : Small Bibles were fashionable accessories on ladies' dressing tables.]

                                                                                                                                  [to be continued]

'Of Studies' (Essay) by Francis Bacon

   Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning, by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores [Studies pass into and influence manners]. Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores [splitters of hairs]. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers’ cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

What I Feel:

   The English essay truly took birth in the hands Francis Bacon. Among hundreds of Bacon's essays 'Of Studies' is perhaps his most well-known. In this essay Bacon points out some of his personal prejudices about study and knowledge. But such is the value of his personal judgements that they achieve universal appeal. The main focus of Bacon's essay is laid on bringing out the importance of knowledge, achieved chiefly through study, in terms of its practical application to the individual and his society. Bacon's ideas incorporated in his essay are still relevant today. And, Bacon's aphoristic, lucid prose style and his Latinism can well be traced in 'Of Studies'. 

Blake's Symbolism : 'The Lamb' & 'The Tyger'

   Symbolism is a seer's art of representing something indirectly, through another, often deceptively simple object. But symbolism does not aim at merely substituting an object for another one. Symbolism is the art of evoking the essence of an object gradually to reveal a mood or emotion or some mysterious region of human psyche. It may also tend to reveal a matter of universal significance.

   William Blake is one of the greatest symbolist poets of the world. The greatness of his poetry lies in the sweep of his imagination and symbolic dimension it acquires after every fresh reading. Blake is unique because of his ability to communicate beyond immediate context and space. Blake gave the doctrine that “all had originally one language and one religion”. It implies that the similarities between myths, rituals and doctrines of various religions are more significant that their disparities. Blake wants to suggest that a study of comparative religions, morphology of myths, rituals and theology can lead us to a single visionary conception, a vision of the fallen and created world, which has been redeemed by divine sacrifice and is progressing towards regeneration.

   By postulating the world of imagination higher than that of reality Blake suggests a way of closing the gap, which is completed by identifying God with human imagination. In ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’ Blake wrote: “Man is All Imagination. God is Man and exists in us and we in Him.” In his creative activity, an artist expresses the creative activity of God; as all men are in God, so all creators are in the creator. The “divine image” and the “human abstract” apart from signifying oneness of man and God, also forms the basis of Blake’s theory of good and evil. Civilization is in more than one sense supernatural and in its evolution and development man’s superiority over nature has been proved. The central symbol in all of Blake’s works is the city. Of all the animals, man is the most maladjusted to Nature, that is why he outdistances the animals and it is the triumph of his imagination that he creates a world of his own dreams.

   In his poems Blake does not present ordinary events common men see and understand them, rather describes spiritual events which have to be portrayed symbolically in order to render them intelligible. Blake uses the familiar figures of the Shepherd and the Lamb, which can be easily understood. In ‘Songs of Innocence’ all desires are innocent, even discipline is innocent and is a source of happiness. The poems in the book reveal childlike simplicity. The innocence is replaced by ferocity, ruthlessness, pain and corruption in ‘Songs of Experience’ in which many poems are set as a contrast to those of ‘Songs of Innocence’. Note the contrast between these two most frequently antholized poems of Blake--

THE LAMB

   Little Lamb, who made thee

   Dost thou know who made thee,

Gave thee life, and bid thee feed

By the stream and o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing, woolly, bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice?

   Little Lamb, who made thee?

   Dost thou know who made thee?

   Little Lamb, I'll tell thee;

   Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:

He is called by thy name,

For He calls Himself a Lamb[1]

He is meek, and He is mild,

He became a little child.

I a child, and thou a lamb,

We are called by His name.

   Little Lamb, God bless thee!

   Little Lamb, God bless thee!

NOTE: In this simple poem Blake presents a pleasant description of a lamb with a child’s natural affection for it, and the child’s simple understanding of God. He reminds the lamb of the benevolence of the Creator bestowed on it. God who made the lamb is called lamb himself because of his gentleness and meekness. The child is also called by God’s name as He became a little child at the Incarnation.

THE TYGER

Tyger, tyger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire[2]?

And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And, when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

NOTE: This poem is written in contrast to ‘The Lamb’. The child who loved lamb is overwhelmed by the cruel beauty and ferocity of tiger (the spelling ‘tyger’ emphasizes it). He wonders what devices or instruments have the Creator employed to create it. The poem focuses on the fact that gentleness and peacefulness exist along with terror and ferociousness in this mundane world.

[Footnote 1 : For his child-like innocence and chastity, Christ is called a 'Lamb'. Again, the Jews and the Hindus sacrifice lamb in certain religious occasions; Christ also sacrificed his life for the sake of mankind. This is another reason of Christ's being compared to a lamb.

Footnote 2 : Seizing the fire hints at the daring act of stealing the fire from Heaven by Prometheus. He stole the fire and gave it to mankind, as a result he was punished by Zeus.]

Reading 'STRANGE MEETING' by Wilfred Owen

Strange Meeting

It seemed that out of the battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,

And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.

"Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."

"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,

The hopelessness.  Whatever hope is yours,

Was my life also; I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world,

Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,

But mocks the steady running of the hour,

And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.

For by my glee might many men have laughed,

And of my weeping something has been left,

Which must die now.  I mean the truth untold,

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

Now men will go content with what we spoiled.

Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.

They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery;

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;

To miss the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,

Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.

I would have poured my spirit without stint

But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now . . ."

What I Feel:

   Owen was the most famous poet of the World War I who depicted the pity of soldiers in war. In this remarkable poem he condemns war as a brutal act which forbids the entry of human beings into the path of progress. Here the poet imagines that escaping the battlefield he meets a dead soldier in a dark tunnel which proves to be hell. The dead soldier (a German) tells him that it was he who killed him in the action yesterday, and thus all his youthful dreams were shattered. He further says that war destroys all the finer things of life, and also deprives the world of the useful contributions the soldiers might have given to the progress of the world if they were alive. 

Reading 'MY LAST DUCHESS' by Robert Browning

My Last Duchess

FERRARA[1]

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's[2] hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will't please you[3] sit and look at her? I said

"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not

Her husband's presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess' cheek; perhaps

Frà Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps

Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat"; such stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast, 

The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace--all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 

Or blush, at least. She thanked men--good! but thanked

Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name[4]

With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill 

In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark"--and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,

--E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands[5];

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count[6] your master's known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretense

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed

At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune[7], though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

[Footnote 1 : The Duke, identified as "Ferrara" in the poem's speech prefix, is negotiating for his next Duchess. By Ferrara, most likely, Browning intended Alfonso II (1533-1598), fifth duke of Ferrara, in northern Italy, from 1559 to 1597, and the last member of the Este family. He married his first wife, 14-year-old Lucrezia, a daughter of the Cosimo I de' Medici, in 1558 and three days later left her for a two-year period. She died, 17 years old, in what some thought suspicious circumstances. Alfonso contrived to meet his second to-be spouse, Barbara of Austria, in Innsbruck in July 1565. Nikolaus Mardruz, who took orders from Ferdinand II, count of Tyrol, led Barbara's entourage then. This source was discovered by Louis S. Friedland and published in "Ferrara and My Last Duchess," ‘Studies in Philology’ (1936).

Footnote 2 : A painter not recorded in history, Frà Pandolf may be a fictitious character. No known painting has been linked to Browning's poem.

Footnote 3 : Presumably Browning had in mind Nikolaus Mardruz.

Footnote 4 : Lucruzia's family, the Medici, had their recent origin in merchants, but the Este family went back 650 years.

Footnote 5 : When asked what this meant, Browning said first, "I meant that the commands were that she should be put to death," but then continued, "with a characteristic dash of expression, and as if the thought had just started in his mind, he might have had her shut up in a convent".

Footnote 6 : presumably Ferdinand II, count of Tyrol, who led the negotiations for the marriage of Alfonso II and Barbara of Austria

Footnote 7 : the Roman God of the sea, whose chariot is often shown pulled by sea-horses

Footnote 8 : A painter not recorded historically, from an Italian city, renowned for its sculpture. He might be, like Frà Pandolf, a fictitious character.]

What I Feel:

   Robert Browning was the master of a special form of poetry called ‘dramatic monologue’. Such a poem consists of the utterances of a single person (monologue) who reveals his mind in a particular state of crisis to a listener whose presence is only hinted at. Browning’s dramatic monologues present deep psychological analysis of characters, especially they bring out diseased mental condition as in ‘My Last Duchess’ or ‘Porpherya’s Lover’.

   In ‘My Last Duchess’ Browning subtly delineates the temperament of the Duke of Ferrara in the course of his utterings before the messenger of the Count whose daughter is going to be the next Duchess. The Duke presents himself as a connoisseur of art who shows the portrait of his last Duchess done by the famous painter, Frà Pandolf, to the messenger. But he is in reality an egoist, hypocrite and tyrant whose highly inflated sense of dignity prevented him from appreciating the goodness, simplicity and gentle nature of the Duchess. He ordered his people to kill the Duchess because she was pleased by trivial things and behaved politely to everyone which made the Duke angry. He felt that the Duchess was humiliating his noble pedigree. The Duke after the talk of dowry shows the messenger a bronze cast of Neptune, the sea-God, taming a horse which highlights the mean character of the Duke, who believes in taming wives. 

Reading 'ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE' by John Keats

Ode to a Nightingale

I

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock[1] I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards[2] had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,--

That thou, light-winged Dryad[3] of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

II

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora[4] and the country green,

Dance, and Provencal song[5], and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South[6],

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene[7],

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

III

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

IV

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus[8] and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

V

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine[9];

Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

VI

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--

To thy high requiem become a sod.

VII

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth[10], when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

VIII

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?

[Footnote 1: a poisonous plant which produces death by paralysis

Footnote 2: In Greek mythology, Lethe was a river of the underworld which the dead men had to cross to reach to Hell. The water of Lethe induced forgetfulness. The dead were supposed to have drunk water from it to forget their past life.

Footnote 3: In Greek mythology, Dryad was a wood-nymph.

Footnote 4: the Roman Goddess of flowers; here used for flowers themselves

Footnote 5: In the early Middle Ages the poets of southern France, the troubadours of Provence, were particularly famous for their love lyrics.

Footnote 6: wine manufactured in the warm Southern countries of Europe

Footnote 7: Keats identifies bright red wine with the water of Hippocrene (a fountain on Mount Helicon in Greece which was the haunt of the muses) because he looks upon wine as a powerful source of poetic inspiration.

Footnote 8: Bacchus was the God of wine in Greek mythology whose chariot was pulled by lions or leopards.

Footnote 9: Eglantine is properly the sweet-briar, though popularly applied to various varieties of the wild rose. "Pastoral" presumably because often referred to in pastoral poetry.

Footnote 10: Ruth, the famous Biblical character, was a Moabite woman, who after the death of her husband migrated with her mother-in-law, Naomi, to Judah. There she gleaned corn in the field of Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi. Her heart, paining for home, was soothed by the song of the nightingale.]

What I Feel:

   Keats listened to the song of the nightingale which transported the poet from the human world full of sorrows and sufferings to the bird’s world of eternal joy. The poet, being a human being with limited potential, at first seek inspiration from wine to share the bird’s happiness, but soon leaves the idea and relies on the power of poetic imagination to do so. But his personal despondencies—death of his brother Tom, departure of his brother George and his wife to America, the severe criticism of his poems by reviewers, his own sufferings from consumption and his sad affair with Fanny—remind him of his unhappy state of which the bird is never affected. So finally he bids adieu to poetic fancy because it can not keep him confined to the bird’s world for ever.

   The subject of the ode is not the nightingale but as aspiration towards a life of ideal beauty beyond this mortal world.

Reading 'ODE TO THE WEST WIND' by P. B. Shelley

Ode to the West Wind

I

O wild WestWind, thou breath of Autumn's being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, [1]

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the Spring [2] shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

With living hues and odors plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver [3]; hear, oh, hear!

II

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread

On the blue surface of thine aery surge,

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad [4], even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith's height,

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapors [5], from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay [6],

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou

For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear! [7]

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed

Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud [8].

V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What if my leaves are falling like its own!

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy [9]! OWind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

[Footnote 1 : The four colours of man. Here it insinuates the suffering humanity. Hectic red refers to the complexion of those suffering from consumption or tuberculosis.

Footnote 2 : the gentle air under clear blue (azure) sky of Spring

Footnote 3 : Perhaps like the Hindu gods Siva the destroyer and Vishnu the preserver, known to Shelley from Edward Moor's ‘Hindu Pantheon’ (London: J. Johnson by T. Bensley, 1810) and the works of Sir William Jones (1746-1794) on Indian mythology.

Footnote 4 : A participant in the rites of Bacchus or Dionysus, Greek god of wine and fertility. When she is intoxicated her locks become disheveled.

Footnote 5 : cloud

Footnote 6 : Baiae is the site of ruined underwater Roman villas. Pumice is lava cooled into a porous, foam-like stone.

Having taken a boat trip from Naples west to the Bay of Baiae on December 8, 1818, Shelley wrote to T. L. Peacock about sailing over a sea "so translucent that you could see the hollow caverns clothed with glaucous sea-moss, and the leaves and branches of those delicate weeds that pave the unequal bottom of the water", and about "passing the Bay of Baiae, and observing the ruins of its antique grandeur standing like rocks in the transparent sea under our boat".  

Footnote 7 : In the words of the poet himself, "The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathises with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it".

Footnote 8 : Shelley used to lead a vigorous, ‘stormy’ life during his youth. He was then called “mad Shelley”.

Footnote 9 : The phrase “trumpet of a prophecy” alludes to the opening of the Book of Revelation of St. John the Divine in the Bible, 1.3-18:

3 Blessed is hee that readeth, and they that heare the words of this prophesie, and keepe those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

4 Iohn to the seuen Churches in Asia, Grace be vnto you, & peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come, and from the seuen spirits which are before his throne:

5 And from Iesus Christ, who is the faithful witnesse, and the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth: vnto him that loued vs, and washed vs from our sinnes in his owne blood,

6 And hath made vs Kings and Priests vnto God and his Father: to him be glory and dominion for euer and euer, Amen.

7 Behold he commeth with clouds, and euery eye shal see him, and they also which pearced him: and all kinreds of the earth shall waile because of him: euen so. Amen.

8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

9 I Iohn, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdome and patience of Iesus Christ, was in the Isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimonie of Iesus Christ.

10 I was in the spirit on the Lords day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

11 Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and what thou seest, write in a booke, and send it vnto the seuen Churches which are in Asia, vnto Ephesus, and vnto Smyrna, and vnto Pergamos, and vnto Thyatira, and vnto Sardis, and Philadelphia, and vnto Laodicea.

12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with mee. And being turned, I saw seuen golden Candlesticks,

13 And in the midst of the seuen candlestickes, one like vnto the Sonne of man, clothed with a garment downe to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.

14 His head, and his haires were white like wooll as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire,

15 And his feet like vnto fine brasse, as if they burned in a furnace: and his voice as the sound of many waters.

16 And hee had in his right hand seuen starres: and out of his mouth went a sharpe two edged sword: and his countenance was as the Sunne shineth in his strength.

17 And when I sawe him, I fell at his feete as dead: and hee laid his right hand vpon me, saying vnto mee, Feare not, I am the first, and the last.

18 I am hee that liueth, and was dead: and behold, I am aliue for euermore, Amen, and haue the keyes of hell and of death.]

What I Feel:

   According to Shelley's note, "this poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions".

   Shelley was a rebel who dreamt of a happy and free world to be resurrected out of the ashes of an old system. He longed to build a regenerated society rolling in the lap of old traditions, obsolete customs, and moral and spiritual inertness. In the West Wind he finds an indomitable spirit and untamed vigour which can reinvigorate his drooping spirit and can carry his unrealized ideals irresistibly to the mankind ‘to quicken a new birth’.