So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
Lord Byron was one of the most popular poets involved in the Romantic era. He young, famed poet who later died an early death in attempt to help the Greeks fight for their independence against the Greeks. Often he is related to the character Heathcliffe from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, as an exile and a dark hero. If any would imagine the late poet to be so, this very poem of his can might as well also describe him as the legendary Don Juan.
Yes, the three-stanza poem does appear so to be a love poem, but focusing on the given-up attempt of a gentleman- in this case, Lord Byron- to court a lady. He hides the fact that he’s given up on swaying the lady he lusts for into his bedchamber by writing a romantic, love poem, in which he says that they will no longer be in love and show affection. One word in each line is actually coded with Byron’s true motive, and is camouflaged within the other words.
To put it in other words, say a man hangs out with a woman, and the two somehow are in romance. He tells her that he loves her and to have her know it so. Yet the man’s real intention is nothing more than a natural (and religiously unnatural) penetration into her. She finally breaks up with him because of normal reasons, and so he writes her a poem paraphrase as “Alright…so that means we won’t be romantically together in love. I must consent because I love you and love you was all I ever did. I enjoyed your presence with me, from walking together to hanging out in the movies. But since we’re broken up, there won’t be anymore of that. Just so you know, I was with you out of love.” That was the cover-up translation, where as the real translation goes as following, “Alright, if you want to leave me, fine. I just wanted to flower you as soon as possible. You’re cute, you’re attractive, you’re everything; whenever I hanged out with you, all I thought of was seducing you. But now since your gone, it is impossible for me to do so anymore.”
With the upcoming selected words and evidence to prove that Byron meant such a confession, this poem was nothing more than the truth covered by romantic poetry and wording. If a man back then had been as brutally as honest a that, society would never have approve of Byron…and yet, like Heathcliffe he was avoided by society- unlike Heathcliffe, Byron is also human, thus merciful and not vengeful…and like Don Juan, his only interest was sleeping with women- unlike Byron, his obsession brought him to his own demise when he raped a girl, where he later ended up in Hell.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Our Mind's Frontier
"No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjust; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the form of European, of English literature will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities."- T.S. Eliot
Based upon this paragraph, an intellectual who knows their works of art and literature can agree with the passage. If not, a strong defense is in order. The old works and styles of art and literature exist for their modification, hence the birth of new styles for literature and art. Let us focus on art, for instance, in the field of architecture: the Romanesque styles of churches were later modified artistically and architecturally into Gothic. Now in paint-wise, Minoan frescoes were modified into Greek frescoes which then the Romans modified the Greek style into the Roman style. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church (founded and influenced by the Roman culture) modified those Roman-styled paintings (the Byzantine Empire also modified Roman frescoes into their own style) into vast generations of styles of paintings, from illuminated manuscripts to Renaissance art, beginning with the help of masters from that era, such as Giotto and Masaccio. Renaissance art slowly evolved from over five hundred years into different, new styles like Rococo, Realism, Impressionism, Expressionism, Pop Art and finally to the latest modification of art- the art done in our time.
However, a counter example lies in art against the words of the author who wrote the passage. This happens to be Renaissance sculpture, having to have matched the style of Greco-Roman sculpture. Therefore, they were not modified, but rather revived, hence the meaning of the word Renaissance being “rebirth”. Rebirth indeed it was.
In literature, modification occurs as if it were evolution; as civilization advanced, styles modified. Literature transformed into different styles, from epic poems during Greco-Roman to Medieval to Renaissance when it changed to plainly-written stories (such as Geoffrey Chaucer) and onwards to Colonial literature (like Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography), Revolutionary literature, Romantic (Lord Byron or Edgar Allan Poe), Victorian (the acclaimed works of Charles Dickens, like Oliver Twist and Great Expectations), Modernism (Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, etc.) and Post-Modernism, which continues on as of now. In literature, there are the schools of critical thoughts. This list encompasses most of the modern forms:
Deconstruction: Analysis in which the textual meaning is found by difference: a closer look at the literary work, with a message hidden inside.
Formalism: Diction-based literary analysis, thus focusing on certain words within the work. Gender Studies: Literary analysis based on the role of gender within the literary work.
Historicism: Relation and connection of literary works to historical occurrences or figures. A reliance on historical precedents in the practice of art, architecture, music, etc.
Marxism: Literary analysis of comparison between the selected work and Marxist principles.
Psychoanalysis: Psychoanalytical approach of interpreting a literary work, based loosely on the works of Freud and Jung.
Racial Studies: Literary analysis based on the role of race in the written work.
Reader’s Response: A self interpretational analysis of a literary work.
Structuralism: Text-based literary analysis, focusing only on the syntax of the written work.
These schools of thoughts can be applied to any one of these styles of literature, as long as they’re well-analyzed and supported through the text. Styles in literature are nothing more than reports of how life was during the times from when the work was written; when times change, so does literature; literature modifies itself automatically, just like art, as daily reports on lifestyles in the past. The following essays are examples to help you understand and know the use of analytical school of critical thought, as well as thematic analysis.
Based upon this paragraph, an intellectual who knows their works of art and literature can agree with the passage. If not, a strong defense is in order. The old works and styles of art and literature exist for their modification, hence the birth of new styles for literature and art. Let us focus on art, for instance, in the field of architecture: the Romanesque styles of churches were later modified artistically and architecturally into Gothic. Now in paint-wise, Minoan frescoes were modified into Greek frescoes which then the Romans modified the Greek style into the Roman style. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church (founded and influenced by the Roman culture) modified those Roman-styled paintings (the Byzantine Empire also modified Roman frescoes into their own style) into vast generations of styles of paintings, from illuminated manuscripts to Renaissance art, beginning with the help of masters from that era, such as Giotto and Masaccio. Renaissance art slowly evolved from over five hundred years into different, new styles like Rococo, Realism, Impressionism, Expressionism, Pop Art and finally to the latest modification of art- the art done in our time.
However, a counter example lies in art against the words of the author who wrote the passage. This happens to be Renaissance sculpture, having to have matched the style of Greco-Roman sculpture. Therefore, they were not modified, but rather revived, hence the meaning of the word Renaissance being “rebirth”. Rebirth indeed it was.
In literature, modification occurs as if it were evolution; as civilization advanced, styles modified. Literature transformed into different styles, from epic poems during Greco-Roman to Medieval to Renaissance when it changed to plainly-written stories (such as Geoffrey Chaucer) and onwards to Colonial literature (like Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography), Revolutionary literature, Romantic (Lord Byron or Edgar Allan Poe), Victorian (the acclaimed works of Charles Dickens, like Oliver Twist and Great Expectations), Modernism (Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, etc.) and Post-Modernism, which continues on as of now. In literature, there are the schools of critical thoughts. This list encompasses most of the modern forms:
Deconstruction: Analysis in which the textual meaning is found by difference: a closer look at the literary work, with a message hidden inside.
Formalism: Diction-based literary analysis, thus focusing on certain words within the work. Gender Studies: Literary analysis based on the role of gender within the literary work.
Historicism: Relation and connection of literary works to historical occurrences or figures. A reliance on historical precedents in the practice of art, architecture, music, etc.
Marxism: Literary analysis of comparison between the selected work and Marxist principles.
Psychoanalysis: Psychoanalytical approach of interpreting a literary work, based loosely on the works of Freud and Jung.
Racial Studies: Literary analysis based on the role of race in the written work.
Reader’s Response: A self interpretational analysis of a literary work.
Structuralism: Text-based literary analysis, focusing only on the syntax of the written work.
These schools of thoughts can be applied to any one of these styles of literature, as long as they’re well-analyzed and supported through the text. Styles in literature are nothing more than reports of how life was during the times from when the work was written; when times change, so does literature; literature modifies itself automatically, just like art, as daily reports on lifestyles in the past. The following essays are examples to help you understand and know the use of analytical school of critical thought, as well as thematic analysis.
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