(Week 7) Whispers of Modernism

I have always been a fan of Browning but this week I read a new poem by him, and saw a different side of him! "The Last Duchess" was a much darker poem then others I have read. They were usually love poems, but this one is very different. I enjoyed reading it very much and it shows(to me) how talented Browning is! I went to wikipedia.org where the site had an audio clip-hearing the poem out loud is amazing! I can really hear the emotion of Browning.

I also enjoyed the poem by Matthew Arnold, The Forsaken Merman. I like the symbolism of the poem and what Arnold was writing between the lines! I felt this weeks reading had hints of modernism, it shows many people where thinking of change.

(Week 6) The Victorian Age

The Victorian Age is one of my favorite literary periods. It includes some of my favorite authors such as Charles Dickens, the Bronte sisters, and Thomas Hardy. This week I have really enjoyed reading about Elizabeth Barrett Browning, she is a favorite author of mine along with her husband. I love the history surrounding the Brownings, for example how they met and keeping their relationship a secret.
My group for the website have been discussing and have come up with a theme for our website project; it is husband/wife authors of the English lit. since 1800. My couple is Virginia and Leonard Woolf. I’m excited about researching them, I already know a bit about her life, but there is always more to learn!

(Week 5) Poor, Helpless, Miserable Wretch

Poor, Helpless, Miserable Wretch

"But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me. . . . What was I?"
The Monster
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818

Mary Shelley gave her monster feelings and intelligence. Fatherless and motherless, the monster struggles to find his place in human society, struggles with the most fundamental questions of identity and personal history. Alone, he learns to speak, to read, and to ponder "his accursed origins." All the while, he suffers from the loneliness of never seeing anyone resembling himself. (from www.nlm.nih.gov/.../frank_modern_2.html)



Image: Madness, or A Man Bound with Chains
Artist unknown

(Week 4) Frankenstein

I have been reading Frankenstein and enjoying it. My fiancé however read the excerpt about social class and didn’t like Shelley’s writing style, claiming she was trying to hard to sound intelligent or scholarly. I didn’t think that when I read, but after hearing him read it out loud, he was right. Regardless, I am still enjoying the story, and I told Chase (my fiancé) that she was pretty young when she wrote Frankenstein and it was a first novel. After this discussion, I have become interested in Shelley’s other works, so I will see if her writings grew with her, which I don’t doubt.