Appunti Letteratura Inglese 1 - De Rinaldis Unisalento, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Appunti Letteratura Inglese 1 - De Rinaldis Unisalento e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Romance vs Novel Romance: Stories have unrealistic elements such as strange creatures, knighthood and magic. Novel: Stories are told in a realistic way. (Persuasion, Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist, Silas Marner). The term “novel” itself means new. There is no more a scheme of elements but the story of a single character. Romance The Tempest - William Shakespeare • Performed at court in 1611, is the last of Shakespeare's works. It has been linked to some plays and separated by the others. This work may have relations with Macbeth, King Lear, so it's a problem to categorize it. Shakespeare plays were performed in theaters, such as The Globe and open air theaters but also in private places like the courts. The public of the open air theaters was made of common people, people who didn't work, thieves, prostitutes and the public of the court was completely different. • The figure of Prospero - In 1612 the King James I wrote about demonology and witchcraft and also some works about the way to become a good politician. He possibly influenced Shakespeare in building the character of Prospero. - There is a parallelism between Prospero and King James I but also a parallelism between Prospero and the author himself: Shakespeare wrote The Tempest when he was quite old at the end of his career. Prospero renunciation to magic is related to Shakespeare's adieu to his art. • Culture vs Nature = Control against instinct The man in control (Prospero) can civilize the savage (Caliban). In this way the author introduces the idea of exploration, conquest. At the end, the idea of the man who can control everything (typical of Renaissance) falls down. This renunciation destroys the happy ending in the play. 1 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 • Positive vs Negative = White Magic vs Black Magic - White magic: used by Prospero - Black magic: used by Sycorax, Caliban's mother (Caliban is a semi-devil, son of Sycorax and the Devil). - Aerial, who is Prospero's helper, can be seen as a connection between black and white magic. In the beginning Aerial was Sycorax's servant but she tortures him and imprisons him in a tree. Prospero sets him free and so he becomes his servant. The myth of the New World The island is a land full of possibilities when you can find somebody to civilize. This is the core of an utopistic message in the play: when Gonzalo arrives on the island he says “I' the commonwealth I would by contraries execute all things; for no kind of traffic. All things in common, nature should produce. Without sweat or endeavor: treason, felony...I would with such perfection govern…”. This is an ironic passage in the play cause in the end the idea of the civilized man falls down. There's no difference between the educated men and Caliban. Caliban stays savage and uncontrolled, so it's the failure of the idea of civilization. Prospero’s Double In the end Prospero says “This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine”: it means that this darkness is within him, so Caliban can be considered as a double for Prospero. Caliban represents the major of Prospero's failure, (it can be the meaning of his renunciation to his art). A Play about Making Plays Prospero at the end of the play says to the audience “Set me free”: this means that he is a character of a play and the public has the power to create and destroy him. But Prospero is also the director of the whole play. Everything that happens on the stage is set up by him. During the masque, a dance to propitiate a good harvest, Prospero stops the dancers and says he has to deal with Caliban who is plotting to kill him. 2 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Plot The story is about a man who committed something wrong and so he has to be punished for it: his guilt is that he decides to travel and this represent an important sign of detachment from his family and his privileges. He belongs to the middle class, but he decides to refuse the privileges of his condition and to risk. Movement and dynamism are crucial in the novel. 5 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Gothic Revival • Gothic Revival = Revolution In England, in the first decades of the 18th century there was a Gothic Revival, an important link between literature, architecture and visual-arts, a kind of inter- artistic connection but also a double revolution: • Psychological: fears re-evoked by French Revolution • Historical: Industrial Revolution and social changes Gothic spaces CASTEL - ABBEY - FOREST • The function of the ruins The ruins are linked to a sense of mystery and terror.They evoke a terrifying atmosphere and, most of all, the idea of decay, also in a metaphorical meaning (political, social, moral decay). • The function of the Castle - The castle is feudal, mysterious, isolated from the world. This aspect is completely different from the Medieval vision of the castle: the castle was the centre of economic life. So the gothic castle subverts society and its laws. - The contrast between inside and outside is crucial. It is a mirror for the relationship between Nature and Culture. Nature embodies innocence, purity. This order is violated in the Castle through usurpation and murder. - A gothic castle was rich in secret passages and labyrinth. Labyrinth implies fear, sense of imprisonment (no entrance and no exit, exit is negated). Also time is imprisoning cause is not measurable. Heroes (mostly heroines) try to escape from a persecutor. So the model is of fight, of conflict inside the castle, totally distant from what it’s outside. - Communication between the castle and what’s outside is difficult: the castle is a place on his own. That implies the difficulty to make these two worlds, which are separated, to communicate and to integrate with each other. The gothic novel gives expression of the difficulty to integrate, both on a personal and on a social- political level: anxiety of self identity and fear of desegregation between social classes. 6 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 • Beautiful and Sublime The emotional quality of the gothic has to be connected with a theoretical work by Edmund Burke in which the concept of sublime is analyzed. The idea of beautiful is associated with something good, with pleasure; The sublime is connected with pain: pain is never voluntary. Pain is always given by a superior power, because we don't submit to pain willingly. • The drama of Nature With gothic we are going away from an enlightenment cultural context: we pass from rationalistic esthetic to an emotional esthetic. The drama of nature, the dramatic spectacle of nature was already proposed in paintings and architecture. 7 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Romantic Esthetic There are two key words to define romantic esthetic: sentimental and moral. Emotions can be sentimental but they must have a link to moral attitude. • Before Romantic Revolution he idea of a moral attitude was expressed through reason. In the first phase of the Romantic Revolution, emotions are linked to morality which expressed itself through emotions. • The ideology of emotions, hedonism, sentimentalism needs a form of control: poets give a shape to this expression of the emotions. Poetry controls the sentimental, emotional attitude. • During the Enlightenment there was a kind of disenchantment: in the ave of reason there was a neutral shape which leads to a disenchantment to the external world (physical) and enchantment to the inside (psychic). • Period of changes: at the end of 19th century. These are crucial years in Romanticism: young writers, like Wordsworth and Coleridge, experienced this period of great changes in Europe and began to be fascinated by the French Revolution which had a great appeal on young generations (the ideals of freedom and equality). But then the Revolution became terror and despotism (in 1790 it started a war against England). Both W. and C. experienced a first phase of fascination of the revolution and then they moved to conservative ideals: in England those who were supporters of the French Revolution, being the French potential enemies of the state, were labeled as traitors, so after 1790 radicals were spied by the government and in danger. W. and C. moved to the countryside, a very conservative place. • The place in which all emotions are located is the self. Romanticism is the relationship between the self and the way we look at the external from within.
 So there was a deep Interest in exploring and understanding the self: it is a cultural elaboration, The self becomes a new linguistic, semantic field, and a lot of news terms where introduced as a consequence: self-consciousness firstly introduces by Coleridge but also many other (self-pity, etc). 
 So there were introduced many words to express the way we look at the outside from the inside. The novelty of Romanticism is that the self it’s what mediate our approach to reality (so there are many different approaches to reality). 10 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Preface to the Lyrical Ballads - William Wordsworth The 1st edition of the Lyrical Ballads was published in 1798. The 2nd one in 1800, in which Wordsworth included the Preface . He needed a New poetic language and a New political discourse: the disillusionment about the French Revolution makes him abandon the radicalism, cause the Revolution became blood and tyranny and also because England was in fight with France due to their Imperialistic Policy: France in 1797 invaded Switzerland. • Aim Describe the everyday life with a language used by common men - to give charm of novelty to things of everyday - because the Poet is a Man speaking to Men thanks to his sensibility • Reasons why of “Rustic Life” According to Wordsworth, the human mind can be excited without the use of violent stimulant, from which writers are thrilled (national events such as colonialism and slavery) • Esthetic of Absence It is a form of Modern Hedonism, maybe well the capability of give pleasure from nothing real. The poet doesn’t need real things to write, he can derive material from whatever he wants. • Esthetic of the After vs Esthetic of the moment Instead of representing the moment (Virginia Woolf, James Joyce), the romantic poets rework moments through memory, after they lived the moment. That’s Wordsworth RECOLLECTION IN TRANQUILLITY. 11 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth Gendered Poetry: Feminine figures are used as a symbol and the poet uses their voices in a period in which women were confined in a contest of domesticity and sensitivity. Women are music and the poet is the musician. He often describes women who get mad, who are deranged for the loss of a child or husband. Of course in his life he has many examples of intellectual women, first of all his sister, but he still represents women adhering to the codes of his own time. So the feminist criticism point out this aspects in W's women. The Solitary Reaper • 4 stanzas • a solitary reaper singing (without voice, she’s is a symbol) and working into the field I) There’s an invitation to those who pass to look at this girl, alone in the field II) The poet produces two mental images. He compares the singing of the girl to the singing of a bird (spacial dislocation) III) Series of interrogatives about what she is singing. The poet assumes she is singing about something bad as battles (temporal dislocation) IV) Same scene of the first stanza. The song is endless as poetry and circle of life. The girl is no more in front of the poet. He describes her by his memory (poetry of absence) Poem: Behold her, single in the field,  Yon solitary Highland Lass!  Reaping and singing by herself;  Stop here, or gently pass!  Alone she cuts and binds the grain,  And sings a melancholy strain;  O listen! for the Vale profound  Is overflowing with the sound.  No Nightingale did ever chaunt  More welcome notes to weary bands  Of travellers in some shady haunt,  Among Arabian sands:  12 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 The Thorn 
 At all times of the day and night This wretched woman thither goes, And she is known to every star, And every wind that blows; And there beside the thorn she sits When the blue day-light’s in the skies, And when the whirlwind’s on the hill, Or frosty air is keen and still, And to herself she cries, 
 “Oh misery! Oh misery!
 “Oh woe is me! Oh misery!” • Woman: she sing with no voice like most woman of Wordsworth poems feminine figure. Prelude A meditation rose in me that night upon the lonely mountain where the scene had passed away, and it appeared to me the perfect image of a mighty mind, 
 of one that feeds upon infinity, 
 that is exalted by an under-presence, the sense of God [...] • Myth of the poet as a God • Beautiful (small and feminine) and Sublime (strong and masculine) [...] and he whose soul hath risen
 up to the height of feeling intellect shall want no humbler tenderness; his heart be tender as a nursing mother's heart; of female softness shall his life be full, 
 of little loves and delicate desires, mild interests and gentlest sympaties [...] • Feminine figures not to give voice but to use them 15 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Dorothy Wordsworth • She started the diaries when she was living with Wordsworth and Coleridge. • Help: Dorothy registered things in prose and William and Coleridge picked up those things to compose poems. There was a kind of intellectual community. • Contradictory woman: she is described as having wild eyes and this transmits a sense of vitality; but at the same time she is checked and controlled: so she is a passionate woman but she feels like she has to behave like a woman of her time, this contradiction is inscribed in her texts. • Nature: - Female point of view: nature has a life on its own, made by independent elements - Male point of view: poet has connection with nature • Virginia Woolf: wrote many essays on writers and also about Dorothy Wordsworth underlining Dorothy's different approach to nature, to the external world. So, while W.W. projects his inner sensibility on the external world, D.W recognizes the otherness of the world and she uses no syntax, which is a male form of composition. Also V. Woolf tried to find a non-masculine way to express the nature, the external world, so D.W anticipates a modernist and feminine way of writing. • The mediation of the self: Dorothy’ s works shows less mediation of the self. W.W reconstructs memories and so he mediates through his self. Dorothy's works gave much space to objects, not to subjects: she focuses on things that are there, not to recollections of memories. • Link to Keats: Dorothy's perspective is less egoistic than W's. In this way she agrees with Keats's idea that the poet is selfless (the deletion, the annulment of the ego). Hers is still a poetry of the inside, but she has a different way of expressing the self. 16 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Floating Island Described the power of the wind outside (this wind will never destroy this house) • Myth of the home: the house becomes a place of shelter, of protection: here we can see one of the main theme in her production, the. She lived with her brother and also with Coleridge, so William and Samuel reconstructed the sense of family for her. The house becomes a place of security, it is all her world and separates her from emotional life. • Sense of exclusion: She never got married and lived in the shade of her genius brother: being unmarried, she was frustrated, in a sense outside of sexual reality and she experienced a very limited social life. Poem: Harmonious Powers with Nature work  On sky, earth, river, lake, and sea:  Sunshine and storm, whirlwind and breeze  All in one duteous task agree.  Once did I see a slip of earth,  By throbbing waves long undermined,  Loosed from its hold; — how no one knew  But all might see it float, obedient to the wind.  Might see it, from the mossy shore  Dissevered float upon the Lake,  Float, with its crest of trees adorned  On which the warbling birds their pastime take.  Food, shelter, safety there they find  There berries ripen, flowerets bloom;  There insects live their lives — and die:  A peopled world it is; in size a tiny room.  And thus through many seasons’ space  This little Island may survive  But Nature, though we mark her not,  Will take away — may cease to give.  17 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Fears in Solitude From east to west
 A groan of accusation pierces Heaven! The wretched plead against us; multitudes Countless and vehement, the sons of God, Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on, Steamed up from Cairo’s swamps of pestilence, Even so, my countrymen! Have se gone forth And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs, And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint With slow perdition murders the whole man, His body and his soul! (45-53) • Critic to England Foreign Policy: a modern and enlightened country brought to pain and sorrow to the colonies. He uses a quite strong lexicon. A modern country as England doesn’t diffuse civilization and progress but pangs and vices. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner • Ballad: divided in 7 parts with simple rhymes • Literary model: Travel Literature & Royal Society (linked to the progress of sciences) • Characters: Ancient Mariner = model of the great traveller but in negative; Wedding Guest • 3 Interpretation: - Allegorical: the Albatross as a figure of Christ who is sacrificed for the rest of the people. So the Albatross as a part of the creation, a creature of God and the Killing brings a kind of misfortune to the ship. - Meta-poetical: the poem is a reflection about poetry itself. The Albatross represents poetry so the Killing of the Bird is the opposition of Neoclassical and Romantic poetic (contrast between rational and non-rational). So the murder represents the change in literature. - Psychoanalytical: he scheme for this narrative is crime-guilt-desire to overcome the trauma. The Mariner can overcome the sense of guilt he feels after what he has done, only by telling his story again and again. • External framework: The narrative framework is a situation linked to common life (three guests are going to a wedding feast). This kind of scheme could be linked to other works in Italian literature, such as Boccaccio’s Decameron, or in English Literature, such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. 20 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 • Rhythm: the ballad is rich in rhymes, so the rhythm is oral, rural. • Ending: the story finishes with an act of love. Love is the solution to free from power, unconscious love is the solution in order to abandon psychological enslavement. Plot: An old mariner, who is returned from a long sea voyage, stops a wedding guest to tell him his story. He killed an Albatross. The mariner’s speeches are a form of redemption for his sins. At the beginning the wedding guest was confused but at the end he was impatient. The bird drove the ship through out the storm but the mariner killed him irrationally. The murder is a symbolic act because he committed a crime against life. Because of his sin, the ship-crew is condemned to death. The mariner is the only one who survived because he had to live to pay for his crime, living an eternal regret. The pattern is killing - expiation - harmony reestablished. PART I It is an ancient Mariner,  And he stoppeth one of three.  'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,  Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?  The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,  And I am next of kin;  The guests are met, the feast is set:  May'st hear the merry din.'  He holds him with his skinny hand,  'There was a ship,' quoth he.  'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'  Eftsoons his hand dropt he.  He holds him with his glittering eye—  The Wedding-Guest stood still,  And listens like a three years' child:  The Mariner hath his will.  The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:  He cannot choose but hear;  And thus spake on that ancient man,  The bright-eyed Mariner.  21 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,  Merrily did we drop  Below the kirk, below the hill,  Below the lighthouse top.  The Sun came up upon the left,  Out of the sea came he!  And he shone bright, and on the right  Went down into the sea.  Higher and higher every day,  Till over the mast at noon—'  The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,  For he heard the loud bassoon.  The bride hath paced into the hall,  Red as a rose is she;  Nodding their heads before her goes  The merry minstrelsy.  The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,  Yet he cannot choose but hear;  And thus spake on that ancient man,  The bright-eyed Mariner.  And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he  Was tyrannous and strong:  He struck with his o'ertaking wings,  And chased us south along.  With sloping masts and dipping prow,  As who pursued with yell and blow  Still treads the shadow of his foe,  And forward bends his head,  The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,  And southward aye we fled.  And now there came both mist and snow,  And it grew wondrous cold:  And ice, mast-high, came floating by,  As green as emerald.  And through the drifts the snowy clifts  Did send a dismal sheen:  22 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 About, about, in reel and rout  The death-fires danced at night;  The water, like a witch's oils,  Burnt green, and blue and white.  And some in dreams assurèd were  Of the Spirit that plagued us so;  Nine fathom deep he had followed us  From the land of mist and snow.  And every tongue, through utter drought,  Was withered at the root;  We could not speak, no more than if  We had been choked with soot.  Ah! well a-day! what evil looks  Had I from old and young!  Instead of the cross, the Albatross  About my neck was hung.  PART III  There passed a weary time. Each throat  Was parched, and glazed each eye.  A weary time! a weary time!  How glazed each weary eye,  When looking westward, I beheld  A something in the sky.  At first it seemed a little speck,  And then it seemed a mist;  It moved and moved, and took at last  A certain shape, I wist.  A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!  And still it neared and neared:  As if it dodged a water-sprite,  It plunged and tacked and veered.  With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,  We could nor laugh nor wail;  Through utter drought all dumb we stood!  I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,  And cried, A sail! a sail!  25 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,  Agape they heard me call:  Gramercy! they for joy did grin,  And all at once their breath drew in.  As they were drinking all.  See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!  Hither to work us weal;  Without a breeze, without a tide,  She steadies with upright keel!  The western wave was all a-flame.  The day was well nigh done!  Almost upon the western wave  Rested the broad bright Sun;  When that strange shape drove suddenly  Betwixt us and the Sun.  And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,  (Heaven's Mother send us grace!)  As if through a dungeon-grate he peered  With broad and burning face.  Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)  How fast she nears and nears!  Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,  Like restless gossameres?  Are those her ribs through which the Sun  Did peer, as through a grate?  And is that Woman all her crew?  Is that a DEATH? and are there two?  Is DEATH that woman's mate?  Her lips were red, her looks were free,  Her locks were yellow as gold:  Her skin was as white as leprosy,  The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,  Who thicks man's blood with cold.  The naked hulk alongside came,  And the twain were casting dice;  'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'  Quoth she, and whistles thrice.  26 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out;  At one stride comes the dark;  With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,  Off shot the spectre-bark.  We listened and looked sideways up!  Fear at my heart, as at a cup,  My life-blood seemed to sip!  The stars were dim, and thick the night,  The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;  From the sails the dew did drip—  Till clomb above the eastern bar  The hornèd Moon, with one bright star  Within the nether tip.  One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,  Too quick for groan or sigh,  Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,  And cursed me with his eye.  Four times fifty living men,  (And I heard nor sigh nor groan)  With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,  They dropped down one by one.  The souls did from their bodies fly,—  They fled to bliss or woe!  And every soul, it passed me by,  Like the whizz of my cross-bow!  PART IV  'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!  I fear thy skinny hand!  And thou art long, and lank, and brown,  As is the ribbed sea-sand.  I fear thee and thy glittering eye,  And thy skinny hand, so brown.'—  Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!  This body dropt not down.  Alone, alone, all, all alone,  Alone on a wide wide sea!  And never a saint took pity on  My soul in agony.  27 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 And soon I heard a roaring wind:  It did not come anear;  But with its sound it shook the sails,  That were so thin and sere.  The upper air burst into life!  And a hundred fire-flags sheen,  To and fro they were hurried about!  And to and fro, and in and out,  The wan stars danced between.  And the coming wind did roar more loud,  And the sails did sigh like sedge,  And the rain poured down from one black cloud;  The Moon was at its edge.  The thick black cloud was cleft, and still  The Moon was at its side:  Like waters shot from some high crag,  The lightning fell with never a jag,  A river steep and wide.  The loud wind never reached the ship,  Yet now the ship moved on!  Beneath the lightning and the Moon  The dead men gave a groan.  They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,  Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;  It had been strange, even in a dream,  To have seen those dead men rise.  The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;  Yet never a breeze up-blew;  The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,  Where they were wont to do;  They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—  We were a ghastly crew.  The body of my brother's son  Stood by me, knee to knee:  The body and I pulled at one rope,  But he said nought to me.  30 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'  Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!  'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,  Which to their corses came again,  But a troop of spirits blest:  For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,  And clustered round the mast;  Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,  And from their bodies passed.  Around, around, flew each sweet sound,  Then darted to the Sun;  Slowly the sounds came back again,  Now mixed, now one by one.  Sometimes a-dropping from the sky  I heard the sky-lark sing;  Sometimes all little birds that are,  How they seemed to fill the sea and air  With their sweet jargoning!  And now 'twas like all instruments,  Now like a lonely flute;  And now it is an angel's song,  That makes the heavens be mute.  It ceased; yet still the sails made on  A pleasant noise till noon,  A noise like of a hidden brook  In the leafy month of June,  That to the sleeping woods all night  Singeth a quiet tune.  Till noon we quietly sailed on,  Yet never a breeze did breathe:  Slowly and smoothly went the ship,  Moved onward from beneath.  Under the keel nine fathom deep,  From the land of mist and snow,  The spirit slid: and it was he  That made the ship to go.  The sails at noon left off their tune,  And the ship stood still also.  31 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 The Sun, right up above the mast,  Had fixed her to the ocean:  But in a minute she 'gan stir,  With a short uneasy motion—  Backwards and forwards half her length  With a short uneasy motion.  Then like a pawing horse let go,  She made a sudden bound:  It flung the blood into my head,  And I fell down in a swound.  How long in that same fit I lay,  I have not to declare;  But ere my living life returned,  I heard and in my soul discerned  Two voices in the air.  'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?  By him who died on cross,  With his cruel bow he laid full low  The harmless Albatross.  The spirit who bideth by himself  In the land of mist and snow,  He loved the bird that loved the man  Who shot him with his bow.'  The other was a softer voice,  As soft as honey-dew:  Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,  And penance more will do.'  PART VI First Voice 'But tell me, tell me! speak again,  Thy soft response renewing—  What makes that ship drive on so fast?  What is the ocean doing?'  32 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 And the bay was white with silent light,  Till rising from the same,  Full many shapes, that shadows were,  In crimson colours came.  A little distance from the prow  Those crimson shadows were:  I turned my eyes upon the deck—  Oh, Christ! what saw I there!  Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,  And, by the holy rood!  A man all light, a seraph-man,  On every corse there stood.  This seraph-band, each waved his hand:  It was a heavenly sight!  They stood as signals to the land,  Each one a lovely light;  This seraph-band, each waved his hand,  No voice did they impart—  No voice; but oh! the silence sank  Like music on my heart.  But soon I heard the dash of oars,  I heard the Pilot's cheer;  My head was turned perforce away  And I saw a boat appear.  The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,  I heard them coming fast:  Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy  The dead men could not blast.  I saw a third—I heard his voice:  It is the Hermit good!  He singeth loud his godly hymns  That he makes in the wood.  He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away  The Albatross's blood.  35 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 PART VII  This Hermit good lives in that wood  Which slopes down to the sea.  How loudly his sweet voice he rears!  He loves to talk with marineres  That come from a far countree.  He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—  He hath a cushion plump:  It is the moss that wholly hides  The rotted old oak-stump.  The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,  'Why, this is strange, I trow!  Where are those lights so many and fair,  That signal made but now?'  'Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said—  'And they answered not our cheer!  The planks looked warped! and see those sails,  How thin they are and sere!  I never saw aught like to them,  Unless perchance it were  Brown skeletons of leaves that lag  My forest-brook along;  When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,  And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,  That eats the she-wolf's young.'  'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—  (The Pilot made reply)  I am a-feared'—'Push on, push on!'  Said the Hermit cheerily.  The boat came closer to the ship,  But I nor spake nor stirred;  The boat came close beneath the ship,  And straight a sound was heard.  Under the water it rumbled on,  Still louder and more dread:  It reached the ship, it split the bay;  The ship went down like lead.  36 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,  Which sky and ocean smote,  Like one that hath been seven days drowned  My body lay afloat;  But swift as dreams, myself I found  Within the Pilot's boat.  Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,  The boat spun round and round;  And all was still, save that the hill  Was telling of the sound.  I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked  And fell down in a fit;  The holy Hermit raised his eyes,  And prayed where he did sit.  I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,  Who now doth crazy go,  Laughed loud and long, and all the while  His eyes went to and fro.  'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,  The Devil knows how to row.'  And now, all in my own countree,  I stood on the firm land!  The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,  And scarcely he could stand.  'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!'  The Hermit crossed his brow.  'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say—  What manner of man art thou?'  Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched  With a woful agony,  Which forced me to begin my tale;  And then it left me free.  Since then, at an uncertain hour,  That agony returns:  And till my ghastly tale is told,  This heart within me burns.  37 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 211: The crew dies cursing the mariner with eyes 215: “four times fifty living men” : the poet uses numbers to give a realistic sense to something unrealistic. PART 4 223-229: The wedding guest is frightened and the mariner tries to convince that he isn’t a dead man. 231-232: Sense of stressed solitude 243: The mariner tried to pray but a wicked whisper came every time 251: The corps of the crew surrounded the mariner and this brings agony 256-261: The mariner had his dead crew around for 7 days and night but he couldn’t physically die. 271: Around him water snakes moved in tracks of shining moon. The mariner recognize things and appreciates the beauty of life. 283: “a spring of love gushed from my heart”: psychological turning point by act of love. 287: The mariner could pray getting rid of the albatross death hanging on his head PART 5 327-330: The ship kept on moving again and the corps rose to help the mariner 338: The crew was like a group of lifeless instruments 340: The mariner had a dead body near to him. The barrier between life and death is broken. PART 6 445: status of the mariner: surrounded by a sinister atmosphere. He isn’t a heroic traveller. He walks haunted by the devil. 40 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 PART 7 540-575: a boat went close to the ship. When the mariner woke up the pilot fell down, his son got mad and the hermit began to pray. He asked to the mariner what kind of man he was and the mariner told him his story. 589: back to reality: the bride sings while the bell rings. 609: the mariner says goodbye to the wedding guest and leaves him with a moral teaching: “a real man with faith loves all creatures”. The guest is wiser and sadder than before. NO END BECAUSE OF THE CYCLICALITY OF THE STORY. COLERIDGE WAS REFRACTORY TO ANY IDEA OF CONCLUSION.
 41 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Romantic poets First vs Second generation 1st GENERATION: • WORDSWORTH • COLERIDGE • SOUTHEY 2nd GENERATION • KEATS • BYRON • SHELLEY Keats • Poet: 1ST MIDDLE CLASS POET so he had to build himself the role of poet through a process • Man: - of Power= Individuality - of Genius= NO Individuality (Shakespeare) • Negative capability: is the poet mood, a man who can bear mystery and doubt. He had lack of relationship with society • Poetic of OTHERNESS: there is NO SELF but just what’s around the poet • Detachment from the self • Inspiration: - Role model = Shakespeare - Pagan culture = Saffo, Orazio 42 - From REVOLUTIONARY IDEALS TO CONSERVATISM - Young poets inspired by Fr.Rev, let down by it - SENSE of CHANGE - Linked each other for the common opposition to 1st generation - Young poets with no ideals to believe in - NO CULTURAL IDENTITY - NO COUNTRYSIDE - NEGATIVITY expressed through the EROS/THANATOS Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Who are these coming to the sacrifice?          To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,          And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore,          Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,                 Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore          Will silent be; and not a soul to tell                 Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede          Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed;          Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!          When old age shall this generation waste,                 Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,          "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all                 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." 45 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Ode to a Nightingale • Long Poem: in 8 stanzas • State of Negative Capability • Fellowship with Essence: contact with other beings Plot: The poet feels half asleep ( poetry condition ) and disconnected from listening to a nightingale singing. He feels a bittersweet happiness thinking about nightingale’s freedom. He wishes he had wine distilled from earth and also to disappear in the forest with the bird to escape all his worries. The poet thought that it won’t be bad to die at night in the forest with no one around but the nightingale singing. The night is immortal thanks to the bird singing. When the bird flies away he feels abandoned. This experience left him shaken, unable to remember if he was awake or asleep. Poem: My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains           My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,  Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains           One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:  'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,           But being too happy in thine happiness,—                  That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees                          In some melodious plot           Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,                  Singest of summer in full-throated ease.  O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been           Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,  Tasting of Flora and the country green,           Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!  O for a beaker full of the warm South,           Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,                  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:  46 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 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.  Away! away! for I will fly to thee,           Not charioted by Bacchus 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.  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;                  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.  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.  47 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Victorian Novel • Function: Novel is the literary form for excellence in this period and it was used to inform the readers about the problems of society. • Topic: Novelists try to suggest the necessity of Social Reforms. - Social criticism and the situation of the different social classes: There was the aristocracy and the middle class which was emerging. In the middle class we have to distinguish from lower and upper middle class. The aristocracy is a parasites class. The new riches are bankers, financiers and industrialists. The richest class was the middle class but in this class we have also shop keepers, clerks and professional men such as lawyers, doctors, a new professional group which is emerging and starting to encode the rules of their professions. In the middle class there are also people of the show business, detectives, artists, journalists. Many writers belong to the middle class, such as Dickens who belongs to the lower middle class. - The condition of Women in Society: Women were excluded from this money-making world, they were considered inferior. The women from the upper classes were useless, mainly decorative and no productive. They were mostly devoted to charity, they had no education or an education which was completely different from men’s education. They could attend classes in Oxford and Cambridge, with specific curricula, but they can’t graduate till 1881. The professions open to women were nurse, governess, teacher (as Jane Eyre), farmer (as Tess of the d'Umbervilles); there were also intellectuals and artists. In a divorce, women couldn’t have the children custody and all the properties was given to the husband till 1870. John Stuart Mill wrote The subjection of women in 1869. Between the last decades of the century it will develop a new model of womanhood, called The New Woman (Tess of the d'Umbervilles embodies the new woman). • Authors: - Victorian novelists: the Brontë sisters, George Elliot, Hardy, Dickens, Stevenson, Wilde, Conan Doyle - Victorian poets: Tennyson, Browning, Hopkins and Arnold. Ulysses by Tennyson is a dramatic monologue. Some of these characters who speak for themselves without interlocutors are often taken from the Italian Renaissance. In My last duchess by Browning the main character, the duke, kills his last duchess and then confess his crime to the audience in a direct way. The effect is creating in the readers a sense of sympathy for the murder and to establish an intimate contact between the character and the reader. 50 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 • Characters 
 The working class life was described by a particular genre: the Industrial Novel which characterized the ‘40s and the ‘50s and also a small phase between ‘80s and ‘90s. Industrial novels were mostly based on the conflicts in the working class (Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell are the main authors of this genre). It was in a sense problematic and dangerous to make the working class the main character of these novels so the authors had to mediate between the expression of these conflicts and the establishment: they never openly express their own position but stayed quietly in between. • Places: - The place in which we see directly the poverty of the lower classes were towns. In towns there were masses of people living in slums, built with the purpose to contain as many people as possible in a minimum of space (with 2-3 families in a single room), with the obvious consequences of hygiene problems, epidemics, malnutrition, vices. - The Railway: A kind of patriotic symbol of the Nation is the Railway, that in the ‘40s becomes a social problem for the management of political life: through the railway people could easily reach places of aggregation and arrange revolts. So the railway had a disturbing function against the establishment. The railway puts in contact far centers that now could be easily reached by everyone during a stroke for example (as we can see in Dickens). So the railway was a myth for the Nation but also a disturbing element for the cohesion cause it could reinforce single social groups. - Country and cities: During the victorian period there was a quick change in the landscape, as a consequence of Industrialization that had a huge impact on English landscape and, of course, on the people. No other city in Europe were changed as London was, nor Rome, nor Berlin, nor Paris. London and the majority of English towns were totally changed also in human terms: in this context of deep changes, they had to adjust themselves to a new way of living and a new landscape. So soon develops a dichotomy Country/City with the country representing the rural tradition and the city as a place of ferment, of novelty, of progress. 51 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 • Philosophical Movements: Utilitarianism and Evangelicalism. - Utilitarianism is the ideology of the Middle class and typical of the entrepreneur mentality with the sense of producing the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. So the centre was in the value of self-interest. The main aims, the main achievements are pleasure and the need to avoid pain, so it's a hedonistic mentality: the application of formulas and theoretical models to human behaviors, building a sort of scientific method to guide human behavior. Utilitarianism was attacked by lots of writers cause within this self-interest theory, there was the pressure to include in the productive system also the lower classes. The work houses were created in this period, an institution founded for the lazy, for those who were not working. Everyone had to work and to follow a strict morality: they believe that behind poverty there was only laziness. Poverty was the measure of social worth and citizenship, it was the index of social value. In 1859 Charles Darwin published The Origin of species, rich in rhetorical images taken from Nature (spider webs) which express the sense of change, of metamorphosis, so the idea of men's instability. And lots of writers were deeply inspired by Darwin's evolutionism. - Evangelicalism was important from 1790s and 1830s. This movement reacts to a certain kind of religion, introducing a sort of emotionality in the relationship with the divine. According to this theory, every common life act is crucial to the salvation of the soul, so it's easy to understands how this movement had a deep impact on every-day life. From 1775 and on, this movement defines a moral tone to the society and this is exactly the Victorian moral code we react against nowadays. Also in the following centuries there was a reaction in order to be disengaged from such strictness. According to a protestant ethic, work is always the value to fulfill your own destiny on Earth (it's the work ethic typical of Puritanism), work as the basis for success. And there was a series of restrictions: frugality, self-denial, virtues adapted to the new social context (always pay your debt and be honest). Prudential morality and the myth of the self-made man were crucial. If the emphasis is on the morality of the single, the whole society is under this code. Respectability means consensus, through thrift: in this period it was common to be sent in jail for debts. Cleanliness in houses, good manners, seriousness, honestly in business, chastity, prudery were common values. And the idea of strict morality becomes fanatic also in lexicon choices (all the terms related to body were rejected, such as legs for example, they were considered inappropriate). Censorship in publishing was common: the novelists had to follow the orders of editors and adapted their own stories in order to be in line with the codes of strict morality, with all these cultural constraints (that sometimes were satire targets). Evangelicalism put an accent to what is moral and 52 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Wordsworth's method was the recollection of emotions in tranquillity, without the presence of the objects. Here in imaginary portraits there is an act of memory but in the presence of the object. Contamination with painting was common in this period: literature touches other form of art in an inter-artistic process. The canon of linearity (subject, verb, object) is abandoned. The non-linearity of painting starts to change the form of writing, it is absorbed by writing. There was a group of intellectuals, the Pre-Raphaelites Brotherhood who combined contradictory themes together: ancient/modern, exceptional/everyday, beautiful/ugly, religious/mundane. They proposed a kind of revolutionary aesthetics of antithesis and contradiction. Rossetti translated Dante and produced also pictures. Millet painted “The death of Ofelia”, inspired by Shakespeare's character. 55 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 Denys l'Auxerrois • Short story based on the myth of Dionysus and the legend of the returning gods: the pagan gods were banished from the Olympus by Christianity. • Also Nietzsche published a pagan culture based story: “The Birth of Tragedy”, a fundamental text for modern culture, based on the dichotomy Apollonian/ Dionysian. • Modern in Victorian Age: Denys is a modern character that brings disorder in the victorian age. It's a 20th century's vision of the individual as ambivalent and ambiguous: a new sense of self and identity, a duality inside the individual and a new sense of sacredness more linked to a human dimension. • Denys first impressions: in this first phase of the story, Denys is seen as someone who produce a sense of freedom and disorder, he brings disorder in the town, he disturbs the well-established system. He is a disturbing element. • Denys l'Auxerrois: he is part of the community, he belongs to the town, he is within the community. Everybody are fond of him and admire him, they look for him: so in this first phase, Denys is central and perfectly integrated in the community. He has power over the people around him; women idle for him and people try to understand his strange powers. He is a charming figure and everyone wants to decipher his mystery. • Political Renewal = Denys arrival: it could be established a kind of parallel between the arrival of Denys in Auxerrois and the political renewal of the city. The transformation of the character coincides with the political changes in Auxerre: in the town there was the liberation of the communes. So Denys is a subversive character, who provokes change. And this change is conceived as the return to a golden age, a past splendor. But this past is associated with something not pure: the flask is associated with impurity. Paganism associated with impurity. • Religious system: Denys is a god, he embodies the sacred, but a different sacred, a modern sacred: a sacred associated with impurity, so more human than divine. The religious system was weak in Pater's time and the compensation for this loss of the sense of sacred is art. Art becomes the expression of the new sacredness. In 1860s there were many anthropological studies in England focused on the notion of holiness. In the ancient religions it was not an ethical concept. Holy was something prohibited. Also women after child-birth were considered taboo or men who touched corpses were considered untouchables. Denys himself deals with dead bodies and bones: he wants to find a new place for his mother rests. So he is associated with supernatural and unclearness and people starts to avoid him, to consider him as a tabooed man. 56 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 • Parallelism between Denys and Silas Marner: while in the first phase of the story he was central and integrated in the community, in the end he became marginal. He was cut off the community, he wasn't really part of it. In the end the community reduces him into pieces, he becomes the cursed man, the outcast. And the golden age becomes black indeed. He was considered strange. the use of the latin word “sacer” describes him like a cursed man, the outcast. Sacer was a figure in roman law, it was someone who committed something unfair and is left to gods' judgements. With those two gods of art, Apollo and Dionysus, we establish our recognition that in the Greek world there exists a huge contrast, in origin and purposes, between the visual arts, the Apollonian, and the non-visual art of music, the Dionysian. There's a dynamic relationship between Apollonian and Dionysian and this relationship is the core of Pater's interest in ancient myths. Dionysus is embodied by his character Denys. Certainly, for picturesque expression it is the most memorable of a distinguished group of three in these parts,--Auxerre, Sens, Troyes,--each gathered, as if with deliberate aim at such effect, about the central mass of a huge grey cathedral. 
 [...] The cathedral [...] is famous for its almost unrivalled treasure of stained glass, chiefly of a florid, elaborate, later type, with much highly conscious artistic contrivance in design as well as in colour. Denys finds this piece of glass, which was part of a series and starts to search the entire collection. Among them was a large and brilliant fragment of stained glass which might have come from the cathedral itself. Of the very finest quality in colour and design, it presented a figure not exactly conformable to any recognised ecclesiastical type; and it was clearly part of a series. On my eager inquiry for the remainder, the old man replied that no more of it was known, but added that the priest of a neighbouring village was the possessor of an entire set of tapestries, apparently intended for suspension in church, and designed to portray the whole subject of which the figure in the stained glass was a portion. [...] The figure was that of the organ-builder himself, a flaxen and flowery creature, sometimes wellnigh naked among the vine-leaves, sometimes muffled in skins against the cold, sometimes in the dress of a monk, but always with a strong impress of real character and incident from the veritable streets of Auxerre. What is it? Certainly, notwithstanding its grace, and wealth of graceful accessories, a suffering, 57 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 That shocking sight, after a sharp fit as though a demon were going out of him, as he rolled on the turf of the cloister to which he had fled alone from the suffocating church, where the crowd still awaited the Procession of the relics and the Mass De reliquiis quae continentur in Ecclesiis, seemed indeed to have cured the madness of Denys, but certainly did not restore his gaiety. He was left a subdued, silent, melancholy creature. To compensate for his odd conduct, the community decides to unearth the body of the bishop: At last from a little narrow chest, into which the remains had been almost crushed together, the bishop's red-gloved hands drew the dwindled body, shrunken inconceivably, but still with every feature of the face traceable in a sudden oblique ray of ghastly dawn. This is another gothic, macabre image. The contact with death is also evident in Denys wanting to recollect his mother rest that were buried in an unconsecrated ground: so again the motif of the sacred man, the homo sacer who deals with death. 
 In the end of the story he is suspected and hunted. Only, at nightfall, the heart of Denys was brought to him by a stranger, still entire. It must long since have mouldered into dust under the stone, marked with a cross, where he buried it in a dark corner of the cathedral aisle. 
 Denys is an unholy creature but part of him is buried in a holy place: there's an ambiguity between holy and unholy. He is an ambivalent character, included and excluded from the community. He is a mobile character, as Mona Lisa. In Pater the idea of fixity is contested on many levels. 60 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 The Renaissance - Walter Pater In 1873 Pater published The Renaissance, a piece of prose, in which conclusion, he states the theory of Art for art's sake that underlines the fact that there's no way to judge art outside art itself. This conclusion was marked as scandalous and W.P, teacher in Oxford, was isolated and his teaching post was given to Ruskin. In order to come back in line to Christian values, he will write Marius the Epicurean. • No temporal dimension: The sense of a past behind is immediately evident. It's a renaissance portrait but written from a decadent point of view, in the late 19th century. The dichotomy within/without, exteriority/interiority is evident. Every world experiences had left footprints on Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa is an icon, a compressed image of many elements. She is a vampire (a kind of trans- historic image): she died many times, she learned the secrets of the grave. So again the association between Beauty and Death. • Beauty: The beautiful women of ancient greek represent the classical and harmonic beauty but this kind of beauty would be upset by the modern idea of beauty: there's a dichotomy between Apollonian and Dionysian. The Apollonian is the harmony, the Dionysian is the sense of malady, of something non harmonic. • Constant change: which we can see in our physical life and in what is outside. Here in a sense Pater reminds the philosopher Herodotus and his theme of the continuous change and Baudelaire of idea modernity: everything transient and temporary. • Flame: What you get of something is just an image of the external thing: our life is like a flame. The flame is a peculiar image in Pater. A flame is flickering, unstable, temporary, ephemeral. Our physical life is made of forces that collides. In our inward life the flame is even more stronger. It's a series of momentary acts of sight, passion and thought: this is the Aesthetic of the Moment (in V. Woolf and J. Joyce the moment of Epiphanic Revelation) • Decomposed writing: The object is deformed in a series of impressions: it is non-material, a mental object. This shift from exteriority to interiority is the abandonment of the tradition of realism, a decomposition of the reality. Subjectivity is evident. This is the only way to be in contact with the reality. 61 Letteratura Inglese 1 Poems & Novels 24/06/19 "The presence that rose thus so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the mysticism of the middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand experiences, is an old one; and modern philosophy has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea." [233]To regard all things and principles of things as inconstant modes or fashions has more and more become the tendency of modern thought. Let us begin with that which is without–our physical life. Fix upon it in one of its more exquisite intervals, the moment, for instance, of delicious recoil from the flood of water in summer heat. What is the whole physical life in that moment but a combination of natural elements to which science gives their names? But those elements, phosphorus and lime and delicate fibres, are present not in the human body alone: we detect them in places most remote from it. Our physical life is a perpetual motion of them–the passage of the blood, the waste and repairing of the lenses of the eye, [234] the modification of the tissues of the brain under every ray of light and sound– processes which science reduces to simpler and more elementary forces. Like the elements of which we are composed, the action of these forces extends beyond us: it rusts iron and ripens corn. Far out on every side of us those elements are broadcast, driven in many currents; and birth and gesture and death and the springing of violets from the grave are but a few out of ten thousand resultant combinations. Here Pater introduces At first sight experience seems to bury us under a flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp and importunate reality, calling us out of ourselves in a thousand forms of action. But when [235] reflexion begins to play upon these objects they are dissipated under its influence; the cohesive force 62