Wordsworth! thou are not living at this time:
Merced is in need of thee: she is a lost
In stagnant swamps: undrained, lied-to and double-crossed,
Wildfires, ignited populace at its prime,
Rain through student belief in a torrential shower
Of hopeful change. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up in your words, return to us again;
And expose the answers we seek through political power
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst art whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
And as you travelled on life’s common way,
Divided as us, though to impart
The questions that we have today.
For the blog post next Wednesday (4/24), students will rewrite ONE of the following poems for a contemporary audience: William Blake’s “London,” William Wordsworth’s “London, 1802,” or Percy Shelley’s “England in 1819.” The goal of this mini creative writing assignment is to mirror or recreate the poem’s formal elements as much as the content, but written for the modern world and its modern readers (your peers as well as the wider online audience). However, you should also remember that all parodies and imitations pay homage (in a negative or positive way) to an earlier historical and literary moment, and your work should convey the sense of its engagement with another time and place.
Title your recreated poem according to a city or town you’re familiar with, followed by “2019.” Be daring, creative, and, of course, politically provocative!!!
Please categorize your post under “The French Revolution” and don’t forget to create specific and relevant tags. The post is due by 9:30am Wednesday (4/24). And please sign your posts so that your TA and I know who wrote what.
Warning: students who don’t submit their post on time or edit their blog post after the submission deadline, will not receive a grade (a “0”).
“Beneath her foot-stool, Science groans in Chains, And Wit dreads Exile, Penalties and Pains. There foam’d rebellious Logic, gagg’d and bound, There, stript, fair Rhet’ric languish’d on the ground; His blunted Arms by Sophistryare born, And shameless Billingsgate her Robes adorn. Morality, by her false Guardians drawn, Chicane in Furs, and Casuistry in Lawn, Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord, And dies, when Dulness gives her Page the word.”
A response to Image 2
Alexander Pope was heavily criticized by many writers of his time-period, the Enlightenment. In Image 2, he is represented as a mutation between a rat and a monkey with his recently published work at the time, The Dunciad. These verses represent the image because Pope claimed that being dull was praised and thus, people, mainly authors and artists, were offended by Pope’s accusation which resulted in the photo. Although the mocking images of Pope are inappropriate and unprofessional, one must not forget that The Dunciad is filled with slander of other authors. After Pope anonymously published the book in response to Theobald’s criticism of his Shakespeare edition, a childish back and forth slander between Pope and his criticizers began. While it may be easy to side with Pope because he was not afraid to criticize other writers of lacking skill, therefore ruining literature, he abuses his authorship. Not every piece of literature, whether it be in the form of books, essays, articles, magazines, blog posts, etc. we read is going to be enjoyable for us. However, that does not mean it is unacceptable and cannot be published. Why? Because of free speech. There are quite a few books and especially posts (i.e. Facebook or Twitter) that advocate immoral values, such as racism, but every person is entitled to their own opinion and can express it in their own way. There was nothing wrong in Theobald criticizing Pope. Pope took it too personally and began the back and forth name-calling and degrading between him and the writers of his time. In fact, he should not have been surprised that these pictures of him were created in order to ridicule him.
In Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad, Pope criticizes the writers of his time who (in his eyes) were stupid, unoriginal, and dull. Within his poem, Pope writes,
“None need a guide, by sure Attraction led,
And strong impulsive gravity of Head”.
Though the poem was difficult to understand, Pope may be stating that the Sons of Dulness rule themselves and they need no instructors because they consider themselves to be right in every path they take. Therefore, since they are self-ruled, they are unable to see their own flaws. The second image of Pope, where he is portrayed as a monkey or rat type of creature with his head and a crown illuminates this verse. Similar to what Pope insinuates about the Sons of Dulness, Pope’s critics put an actual crown on Pope’s head. The crown atop his head is like the crown of the actual church Pope, portraying the idea that Pope thinks of himself as superior in his writing. While Pope is saying that those individuals can’t see past their own flaws, Pope’s critics are portraying the same thing about him. Pope continues his satirical criticism as he presents a flipped world where actual intelligence is looked down upon and stupidity is praised. Pope continues,
“Who false to Ph bus, bow the knee to Baal;
Or impious, preach his Word without a call.
Patrons, who sneak from living worth to dead,
With-hold the pension, and set up the head;
Or vest dull Flatt’ry in the sacred Gown;
Or give from fool to fool the Laurel crown.
And (last and worst) with all the cant of wit,
Without the soul, the Muse’s Hypocrit.”
Baal was the enemy of the Israelites, or the children of light, because he was a false god in the Old Testament. The connection between Baal and the individuals in Pope’s poem create the possible idea that Pope might be suggesting that like this false god, the new Whigs and political leaders are the true enemy of the people and ultimately, a threat to original, honest forms of literature (since plagiarism was also occurring during this time). These new political and cultural individuals who began to rise with the changing times Pope witnessed brought forth “cant of wit” – or emptiness/lack of interest.
The image is a retaliation to Pope’s satire, but instead of criticizing his work, his bullies criticize his physical traits by illustrating his body as an animal’s. In the sketch, there are words that mean “know thyself”, which criticize Pope for criticizing others. Before going on to suggest that the writers around him were unoriginal and dull and that the changing times were going downhill, Pope’s bullies are sending the message that one should be completely aware of their own work and their own flaws before they go and criticize the works of others. The verses provide insight on how one should interpret the images because the call for criticism is more clear. When reading Pope’s satirical work and noticing his criticism, there is more understanding as to why Pope’s bullies decided to illustrate those images and why they were so offended. The specific verses illuminate the small details within the image. While Pope’s satire is embedded into a form of literature, his bullies integrate their satirization of Pope into a publicated drawing so that anyone who came across the image could see that Pope was a fool. The verses also provide insight on how the images should be interpreted because they hold political and cultural criticism. When there is an attack on politicians, leaders, and individuals of large communities, it can be expected that the retalliation will not always be so subtle and that is demonstrated. Once Pope made his criticisms clear, his bullies criticized him back in a bigger manner. While Pope’s writing couldn’t be accessed or understood by everyone, the satirical image of Pope that was published was able to reach bigger audiences and anyone could see that it was offensive (even if they were not familar with Pope’s The Dunciad).
Something which may come as a surprise while going through Mary Rowlandson’s narrative piece about her time in Algonquian captivity, are the many ways in which the native people and herself get along, even with her being an English colonizer, she was treated with humanity and even made relationships with some of the natives themselves. The narrative itself acts as a journal of her time in captivity, and this becomes one of the few examples of an “accurately” portrayed relationship which goes beyond the war in which the Algonquian people found themselves in with the English colonizers, due to their abhorrent lack of respect and dignity.
Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits in the classic formulation. The question, in brief, is…this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival.”
― Noam Chomsky
However, that being said, the themes of genocide and sexism raised in Thomas Pham’s earlier blog post portrays almost entirely too well the reality in which we are in today, where the ignorance, misconstruction, or a purely imaginative version of history is easier for future generations to digest, therefore the watered down versions are given platforms to explain the past, and a whole generation of people are remembering and learning history based on entirely false accusations. This was how the American public would grapple with the many atrocities they placed onto innocent people, and how we currently allow ourselves in the age of technology to believe falsehoods because they are simply easier to deal with. Going to war with another group of people merely for something as quintessentially useless as power and land is the history of the world post-Anthropocene.
No matter how much easier it is to paint a perfectly sweet story about the” city upon a hill”, corroborated by evidence among the likes of Mary Rowlandson’s narrative, the history itself should not be erased, glossed over, or romanticized. As depicted in Dryden and Winthrop’s pieces as well, we see this manufactured folksy image reappear as if to show just how tolerant the natives were upon getting colonized, this is unsurprisingly a complete exaggeration of the facts which accurately define how Indigenous and English colonials treated one another. more people saw the success the false narrative genre was receiving and capitalized on said phenomenon. What is equally as successful is the number of counternarratives we see today which push past the propaganda like this and tell a story earnestly and honestly, but this “accuracy” has sadly become so muddled, most of it is subjective, but we believe what we want to believe, nonetheless.
There is this state in the United States called Arizona, you know the Grand Canyon State. Along with desert and cacti, there are so many Indian Reservations here, and something was going on with water, but we haven’t had trouble getting water. Of course my father understand how much I need to be hydrated. Anyways it’s so amazing, were staying in Phoenix of course. It’s so hot here, but I can take some credit for that, I mean I am a sight to behold how could the weather not change based on my presence? One day as I was sitting on South Mountain above the city of Phoenix, I spotted by my glorious eyes, my bae. As he stepped out his Jaguar, he was dazzling, he had on some Ray Bans the aviator ones of course, that black Ralph Lauren shirt I got him a few days ago, and some Versace boots. As I read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” How could my bae not be rich, he needs to buy me expensive things, I am a queen and should be treated as such. Of course you are one too, but you know I’m in the U.S. Remember Arabella, “Diamonds are a girls best friend.” Did I tell you he was on the cover of Forbes magazine this month?
Anyways we have already been here for a few days, my dads being going to countless business meetings, he keeps talking about reservations and water. The colossal buildings in downtown Phoenix are truly a sight to behold, I mean besides me. At night the dazzling and flashing lights accommodate my selfies for Snapchat and Instagram, not Facebook cause you know that’s for old people. I don’t want my dad commenting how beautiful I am, I hear it enough on a daily basis. I just want to be a simple girl in the world, you know? Of course Arabella if you ever come down over here, I assure you you must stay on the bright side of Phoenix, you may get lost if you go on the sides with boarded up houses, trash on the streets, it’s so dark there. I don’t understand how hard it is to pick up after yourself, apparently they didn’t have the right resources to get the job done. Truly its such a simple fix. We only drove through to get to the Downtown area.
Oh Arabella, I wish you could feel and see the beauty here. There are countless of glittering, radiant geodes, the luscious lavender color looks gorgeous in the sunlight. The cacti, the crystals, Himalayan salt relaxing lamps, bracelets, and earnings! Oh! and by the way the turquoise looks great on my skin, maybe I’ll send you some.
Remember Arabella, life is always good!
Your’s
S. G
Review:
For my creative assignment, I really wanted to focus on important class and political actions we constantly face in our society. Hartly House, Calcutta is a great representation of many problems that although we may not pay attention to still exist today. As we know the protagonist was very egotistical, I rally wanted to recreate that with a sort of materialism that really demonstrated the class gaps. This past March, I was able to visit my grandpa in Phoenix, Arizona one of the main things I noticed as were passing around the downtown area, is on one side there is a major poverty line, and not the other side there is so much wealth. There is a lot of reservation problems, Native Americans are being persecuted because of their land. Sometimes they aren’t even allowed proper access to water. Phoenix is very popular with the tourist despise the fact there are many dangerous areas. Even though I am not from Phoenix, we visit quite often, and we know how the ropes go as if we already live there. Arizona is well known for its gems and rocks, many times people only go for what they can buy. Hartly House, Calcutta really inspired me to take the route of what is really going on. Just like Sophie I only lightly touched on the problems, but at the end of it leaves one with questions about Native Americans and the water situations. There are more important things to talk about besides materialism. As we seen in Sophie’s letters, she was obsessed with the materialistic world , and always failed to see what was really important. This is so relevant to today, it’s pretty disturbing how much people actually don’t care about others besides themselves.
English Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century (1660-1837) Gone Global 