- Joseph Warton's "The Dying Indian" (a largely forgotten C18 work by a representative literary figure, but one that neatly exemplifies several of the claims in Northrop Frye's essay on later C18 poetry)
- Gray's Elegy (which many of you had already encountered: a high-literary work entrenched in the canon, but increasingly inaccessible to modern readers due to its arcane vocabulary and latinate sentence structure)
- Mary Leapor's Epistle to Artimesia (increasingly part of the revisionist C18 canon, due to its exploration of gender issues and the poetic vocation as experienced by a laboring class woman)
- Mary Jones's Holt Waters (off the map of known literature of the later C18 and of dubious literary merit, but in its way representative of the quantities of verse penned, published, read, and valued in the later C18)
- Frye's essay, which outlines some of the challenges of categorizing this period and identifies some key characteristics that apply to some (but not necessarily all) of the poetry of this period.
- Your work on ECCO
Respond with answers to whichever of those questions seems most pressing.
Deadline: Monday (2/7), 1pm. Posts before midnight Saturday (2/5) will count towards Week 3; posts after midnight Saturday (2/5) will count towards Week 4.
7 comments:
Since this class seems to focus heavily on poetry, I wonder what other types of literature were like during the 18th century. Were there plays, novels, essays, and short stories written during this time? If so, why are they not as "popular" as the poetry of this century? I say "popular" in quotations because as we discussed in class, most of this poetry is overlooked in core English classes. But the majority of works I've found on ECCO are poems. If there were other types of literature, what happened to them?
Honestly, I've come into every class confused about the poem but I leave with a clear understanding after discussion. I am hopeful that after more practice, I will improve when it comes to deciphering later C18 poetry. Frye's essay was a step forward in my learning process though: Since now I know a prominent feature is "poetry of process" I am starting to recognize it in other works. In fact, my assignment was a pivotal point! For the first time, I feel like I joined the author on her emotional journey when she unfolded her thoughts in the poem. Slowly, it is turning in a habit to mentally rearrange the sentence structure when I read. My current thoughts surrounding this literature is focused on about sharing thought processes and inviting the reader to join. Actually, it somewhat makes me think about the class itself- we are on an intellectual journey too and the authors are "drivers". However, Mary Holt's poem threw me off track because it was humorous. (After I finally understood it, it makes a witty story I'd read again!) How does it fit in later C18 poetry? Also, when we track the white bear, is the ultimate goal to have ample understanding of C18 literature? The ability to unfold thoughts? I'm still fuzzy on the social and literary values now that you mentioned it in your earlier post: "but my poem has no redeeming social or literary values!". Do we need more information about society during this time?
Like 217, I have also come to class confused about the poem assigned for that particular day, I'll have the basics down (for the most part) but when we talk about the poem in class and other students share their interpretations, it really helps a lot. As we get closer to the class presentations, I'm wondering if I'm ever going to be able to fully understand C18 poetry and prose. It seems that just when I think I have the hang of it, there is something else that throws me off. A good example of this was Mary Jones's poem. My interpretation of the poem was completely different from what it was actually about.
I think what I've learned most through these assigned readings is that you have to be patient. When I get home at night from work, I'm pretty tired and I just want to get my homework done and go to bed. But C18 literature isn't something you can just read through once and understand every detail. I've discovered that you have to break the poem down, dissect the vocabulary, do some rearranging, and piece the puzzle together. Sometimes I still don't even completely understand everything after that. It's very time consuming, especially if the poem is long, but it's rewarding in the end when you finally put all of the pieces together and come to some sort of conclusion about the poem's message.
I feel the work we have done in class has helped me begin to understand how to approach 18C poetry. The main thing I took away was to stop looking for deeper meaning.
While reading Elegy I found myself completely clueless as to what was going on. After working through each poem though, I became more and more comfortable. I was actually able to understand what actually happened in Holt Waters before we discussed it in our groups. Hearing the poetry read outloud also helped me understand the works a lot more.
While I was reading my poem I found in the ECCO I was very surprised at how much simplier it seemed to understand than previous poems. While the poem itself wasn't drastically simplier, I think it was just more I was finally a bit used to the style.
I believe that Frye's reading has helped a lot in my understanding of C18 poetry. I find that when I read these poems I often second guess myself, which I probably shouldn't seeing as though my assumptions usually lead me on the right path. I think that the problem that I am encountering is that I have been constantly taught to search for the deeper meanings in things instead of stepping back and let the literary work stand alone. There are a lot of words that I find myself looking up, because I never know if some had different meanings from those they currently have today. I (like many of my peers) love the class discussions, because they often support my way of thinking, and if they don't then I am still amazed about what I missed in the reading or better yet what overaching theme takes precedence. I even like when my way of thinking differs from my peers before it forces that element of having confidence and relying on evidence supported directly from the text
I still sadly feel like I haven't learned as much as I wanted to by this point in the class. I honestly must admit that I do not like poetry because it is very hard to understand and relies so much on the interpretation of the reader. I really liked when we analyzed Gray's Elegy as a class because everyone's input really helped. I'm trying so hard to unlock the meaning of poetry and have it "click" in my mind.
This assignment on ECCO helped my understaning a little because it allowed me to investigate all the unknown words and metaphors on my own terms and come to my own conclusions. I chose the poem I did because it is the topic for my group project. But, it really solidified a reference point for me about print culture and how the Press made more documents available for a wide aray of people. I also enjoyed this assignment because I felt confident in my analysis based on how I chose to footnote the poem. It was a beneficial assignment for me because I didn't have to compete for the correct meaning with other scholars/students. Not that I'm saying my interpretation is correct, very doubtful haha. But, at least I know I gave it my best shot and I feel more confident about analyzing poetry because this assignment was so thorough (in making us not only analyze but provide footnotes,too.)
During my time researching ECCO I have learned a great deal about the variety of poetry written during C18. For instance, I focused my first paper on a poem about Robin Hood that was itself an updated version of an even older work. It also hadn't occurred to me that the themes of the original Robin Hood stories could be translated so effectively for a C18 audience and THEN re-worked for a C21 audience without losing too much value. Before working with ECCO my understanding of C18 literature was heavily limited. Tools like ECCO that allow you to study C18 in such depth are invaluable when it comes to enriching your understanding of a period and its works.
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