The Recluse Essay -- Literary Analysis

Wordsworth suffers solitude, even as he celebrates it. Alone, the poet can explore his own consciousness; it exists at both poles of the notion of ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’, and is the dominant developmental mode of Wordsworth’s childhood as depicted in The Prelude (1805). Independence is what is exalted in his introduction to that poem: he greets the ‘gentle breeze’ as a ‘captive†¦ set free’ from the ‘vast city’ which has been as a ‘prison’ to his spirit. The oppression of city living is alleviated in this opening reacquisition of isolation; the relief is evident: ‘I breathe again’, ‘that burthen of my own unnatural self [is shaken off], /The heavy weight of many a weary day/ Not mine, and such as were not made for me’. In this, the commencing statement of his autobiography, the independence of solitude is represented as the essential quality of his poetic felicity. T he ‘egoistical sublime’ observed by Keats is manifest in this poetry in a separation from other men, rather than in that of a Byron, whose narrators’ egotisms are evinced by their social interactions. Wordsworth’s company is nature; his sister, his wife, his children exist as assimilations rather than relationships. The sister of Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, is conjured into independence in the final paragraph, so as to exist as a previous self: ‘For thou are with me’, he suddenly reveals, ‘and in thy voice I catch/ The language of my former heart’. She is externalised when poetically useful; and it is by this externalisation that Wordsworth is able to avert and diminish his poem’s undercurrent doubts. ‘This prayer I make/ Knowing that Nature never did betray/ The heart that loved her’, has a contrary traction as a plea intimating des... ...this as his essential condition, but it is worth observing that ‘recluse’ does not imply total isolation. Wordsworth’s solitude, as he left childhood, was never again to be absolute; for as consciousness developed, so did his capacity to apprehend himself, in language, so even alone he could not be alone without self-intercourse, mediated by language. His solitude was necessary for his vocation, but his vocation trespassed on that solitude; for to be a poet is to cast experience away from the self: even in egotism, isolation is disrupted by the projection of an audience. Works Cited Gil, Stephen ed. William Wordsworth: The Major Works (OUP 1984) Hartman, Geoffrey Wordsworth’s Poetry 1787-1814 (Yale University Press 1971) Morgan, Monique R. ‘Narrative Means to Lyric Ends in Wordsworth’s Prelude’ (Narrative, Volume 16, Number 3, October 2008, pp. 298-330)

Mrs. Aesop by Carol Ann Duffy by Andrew Banks Essay

1. The poem â€Å"† is part of Carol Ann Duffy’s collection of poems, titled â€Å"The World’s Wife†. In this collection, Duffy wishes to highlight the fact that women have long been ignored and silenced throughout history. This is why all the poems in the collection are written from a female perspective. Duffy has created a literal version of an old saying, â€Å"behind every great man there is an even greater woman†. One of the poems in the collection, ‘Mrs. Aesop’, tells the story of a wife who is tired of her sermonizing, tedious husband, known as Aesop. Aesop was a storyteller who lived around the sixth century BC, in Greece. Many historical details surrounding him are missing, but it is thought that he was first a slave on the island of Samos and his fables came to be in a collection known as â€Å"Aesopica.† â€Å"Mrs. Aesop† draws on the fables to describe Aesop’s wife’s discontent and unhappiness, the p oem emasculating her husband. The major theme of this poem is to make apparent Mrs. Aesop’s transformation from the classic recessive wife with a dominant husband, to an empowered and confident woman that was able to have the last word. This is shown by lines such as, â€Å"That shut him up. I laughed last, longest.† This appears in the poem after Mrs. Aesop has mocked her husband’s impotence, with lines like â€Å"I gave him a fable one night/ about a little cock that wouldn’t crow†¦Ã¢â‚¬  mocking his masculinity whilst clearly referring to his genitalia. 2. Allusions are some of the many literary devices Duffy includes in her works to better deliver the messages of the female protagonists in â€Å"The World’s Wife.† An allusion is a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance. For example, one would be making a literary allusion when stating, â€Å"I do not approve of such a quixotic idea.† Quixotic takes on the meaning of foolish and impractical, derived from Cervantes’s â€Å"Don Quixote†, a story about the misadventures of a doltish night and his cohort Sancho Panza. Many allusions are ones we use in our daily speech, such as Achilles’ heel – A weakness a person may have. Achilles was invulnerable excepting his heel or Achilles tendon. Pygmalion – Someone who tries to fashion someone else into the person he desires, originating from a myth adapted into a play by George Bernard Shaw. Casanova – a man who is amorous to women, based on the Italian adventurer.McCarthyism – modern witch hunt, the practice of publicizing accusations without evidence, made after Joseph McCarthy. Some allusions in the literature include when the character Horatio from Shakespeare’s â€Å"Hamlet† said â€Å"A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye. In the highest and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (I.i.111-115) Here, Horatio is making a reference to the historical figure of Julius Caesar, in addition to one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays titled â€Å"Julius Caesar.† Another time when allusions are used are in songs, such as when Nirvana made their classic, â€Å"Scentless Apprentice†: Like most babies smell like butter His smell smelled like no other. He was born scentless and senseless He was born a scentless apprentice. this allusion is to Patrick Sà ¼skind’s literary work Perfume. The scent Nirvana is alluding to is actually the blood of the protagonist’s twenty killing victims. 3. When Duffy uses allusions in Mrs. Aesop, she mainly uses them in the text to show Mrs. Aesop’s unhappiness with her husband In the first line, Mrs. Aesop says â€Å"By Christ, he could bore for Purgatory†. This is an allusion to Christianity, with purgatory being the place after death where souls go to be cleansed of their sins. The implication here is that Aesop could make this experience even worse. Later in the first stanza, Duffy alludes to one of Aesop’s fables, when Mrs. Aesop puts her own twist on the lineâ€Å"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush† changing it to â€Å"the bird in his hand that on his sleeve.† By adding to his work in such a way, Mrs. Aesop is disrespecting both her husband and his work, revealing the emotion she had kept bottled up for some time. Lines such as â€Å"a tortoise, somebody’s pet,/ creeping, slow as marriage, up the road,† are a clear allusion to the tale of the Tortoise and the Hare. Mrs. Aesop uses the tortoise and hare to describe the agony of her marriage. With her cynical view Mrs. Aesop shows to her, the fable is nothing more than the reflection of a terrible marriage. When Mrs. Aesop says â€Å"I’ll cut off your tail, all right, I said, to save my face.† this is another reference to her own suppression by her husband and many other wives. This is so because the line alludes to an incident in America in 1993 when a frustrated wife sliced off her husband’s genitals in a moment of crazed revenge. Mrs. Aesop takes on a similar path to gain the upper hand on her husband, by disrespecting and revealing her true feelings about her husband. Allusions are a key literary device used to show Mrs. Aesop’s transition from a â€Å"traditional† oppressed wife to a dominant, independent woman.

Summary and Background on The Vagina Monologues

A night of theater can be much more than getting dressed up to watch a Rodgers and Hammerstein revival for the umpteenth time. Theater can be a voice for change and a call to action. Case in point: The Vagina Monologues. Playwright and performance artist Eve Ensler interviewed over 200 women from a wide range of ages and cultural backgrounds, many of whom bared their proverbial souls by responding to questions like, What would your vagina say if it could talk? and, If you could dress your vagina, what would it wear? Origins and V-Day In 1996, The Vagina Monologues began as a one-woman show, a series of character-driven pieces. Almost like poetry, each soliloquy reveals a different womans experience with topics like  sex, love, tenderness, embarrassment, cruelty, pain, and pleasure. As the show gained popularity, it was performed by an ensemble of actresses. Politically active theaters and college campuses began staging productions of the monologues, which helped launch a global movement known as  V-Day. What Is V-Day? V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls. Anti-Male Sentiments? When college students are asked to raise their hands if they are feminists, often  only one or two students raise their hands. The women students who dont raise their hands misguidedly explain that they dont hate men, whereas many uninformed men believe that a necessary prerequisite for membership in feminism is womanhood. Sadly, while feminism is understood to mean equality for the sexes or the empowerment of women, it seems that many believe feminism is anti-male. With that in mind, it is easy to see why many assume that The Vagina Monologues is an angry rant of naughty words and feverish male-bashing. But Ensler is clearly raging against violence and oppression rather than men in general. V-Men, a digital section of V-Day where male writers and activists speak out against misogynist violence, is further proof that Enslers work is man-friendly. Powerful Moments The Flood: This monologue, based on a conversation with a 72-year old woman, combines humorously erotic dream imagery with the pragmatic, worldly views of a tough, outspoken old gal. Picture your elderly great Aunt talking about down there, and youll get an idea of this monologues potential. During her HBO special, Ensler has great fun with this character.My Village Was My Vagina: Powerful, sad, and all-too-relevant, this is absolutely the most haunting of the monologues. This piece is in honor of the thousands of victims from rape camps in Bosnia and Kosovo. The monologue alternates between peaceful, rural memories and images of torture and sexual abuse.I Was in the Room: Based on Enslers personal experience watching the birth of her grandchild, this is arguably the most touching and optimistic monologue. This scene captures the joy and mystery of labor, in all its glorious and graphic detail. The Controversial Monologue Sure, the whole show is controversial. Theres shock value simply in the title. Still, one particular monologue involves two accounts of molestation. The first incident occurs when the character is 10. In that account, she is raped by an adult male. Later in the monologue, she describes a sexual experience with an adult woman when  the speaker is only 16. This monologue upsets many viewers and critics because it presents a double standard. The first case of molestation is accurately nightmarish, whereas the second case is portrayed as a positive experience. In an earlier version, the lesbian encounter took place at the age of 13, but Ensler decided to adjust the age. Because she generated the monologues from real-life interviews, it makes sense to display what she learned from her subject. However, considering the mission statement of V-Day, its hard to fault directors or performers for omitting—or perhaps revising—this particular monologue. Other Ensler Plays Although The Vagina Monologues is her most famous work, Ensler has penned other powerful works for the stage. Necessary Targets: A gripping drama that depicts two American women journeying to Europe to help Bosnian women share their tragic stories with the world.The Treatment: Enslers most recent work delves into the moral questions of torture, power, and the politics of modern warfare.