In The Heath Anthology of American Literature I'm still reading selections from Anne Bradstreet's work. Last week, I read "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666," and I was surprised that the anthology didn't provide footnotes for the Biblical references Bradstreet put in the poem. While I don't really have anything very literary to write about the poem itself, I thought I could at least catalogue her Biblical references.
Bradstreet's "I blest His name that gave and took" (line 14) echoes Job's "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21). Despite their losses, both Job and Bradstreet bless God.
"Adieu, Adieu, all's vanity" (line 36) is a quote from Ecclesiastes. "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity" (Ecclesiastes 1:2). The next verse in Ecclesiastes reflects on the transience of life: "What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?" From this, Bradstreet shifts her focus to Heaven, which she calls "an house on high erect, / Framed by that mighty Architect" (lines 43-44). She asks herself, "And did thy wealth on earth abide? / Didst fix thy hope on mold'ring dust?" (lines 37-38) Her self-examination seems to be spurred by Matthew 6:19-21: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Along with the similarity in these views, there's some resemblance between Bradstreet's "mold'ring dust" and the Biblical "moth and rust destroy" (initial M and D, and the -ust of dust and rust). At the end of the poem, she expresses the same view presented in Matthew: "The world no longer let me love, / My hope and treasure lies above" (lines 53-54).
"Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough / Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades / For ever and for ever when I move."
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Anne Bradstreet's "In Reference to Her Children, 23 June 1659"
As part of my Anthology Odyssey project, I've been reading some Anne Bradstreet poems in The Heath Anthology of American Literature. I recently read and noticed something about "In Reference to Her Children, 23 June 1659."
In the poem, Bradstreet portrays herself as a mother bird worried about her young. She writes:
I've been reading the Bible since July 2014 (and plan to continue to cycle through it, just re-starting when I've finished), and earlier this year, I found this same image of the fowler's snare twice in the Psalms: "For he [God] will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler" (Psalm 91:3-4) and "Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped!" (Psalm 124: 6-7). The bird imagery in Psalm 91's "he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge" is also echoed in Bradstreet's "Long did I keep you soft and warm, / And with my wings kept off all harm" (lines 57-58).
Some of the other Bradstreet poems in this anthology, like "Contemplations" and "The Flesh and the Spirit" have very obvious Biblical references that evidence Bradstreet's familiarity with the Bible so it seems very likely that she would also have been familiar with the fowler image in the Psalms and used it in "In Reference to Her Children."
In the poem, Bradstreet portrays herself as a mother bird worried about her young. She writes:
If birds could weep, then would my tearsThis anthology includes a footnote for "fowler," explaining only that "fowler is a term for bird-catcher." When I saw the superscript number that indicated a footnote, a mere definition of the term was not what I expected to find because I think this specific image in Bradstreet's metaphor is a Biblical allusion.
Let others know what are my fears
Lest this my brood some harm should catch,
And be surpris'd for want of watch,
Whilst pecking corn, and void of care
They fall un'wares in fowler's snare (lines 41-46)
I've been reading the Bible since July 2014 (and plan to continue to cycle through it, just re-starting when I've finished), and earlier this year, I found this same image of the fowler's snare twice in the Psalms: "For he [God] will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler" (Psalm 91:3-4) and "Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped!" (Psalm 124: 6-7). The bird imagery in Psalm 91's "he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge" is also echoed in Bradstreet's "Long did I keep you soft and warm, / And with my wings kept off all harm" (lines 57-58).
Some of the other Bradstreet poems in this anthology, like "Contemplations" and "The Flesh and the Spirit" have very obvious Biblical references that evidence Bradstreet's familiarity with the Bible so it seems very likely that she would also have been familiar with the fowler image in the Psalms and used it in "In Reference to Her Children."
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Enoch Arden"
This post contains spoilers.
Last week I finished reading Tennyson's "Enoch Arden." I noticed an extremely small thing about a line in this part:
But that H sound is also present in "him." The haunting and harassing thought has infected him, and this thought gives Enoch life. When he does see Annie (who's now married to Philip) and his children, their happiness moves him to keep his distance. He thinks that his return will be "a blast of doom" that "would shatter all the happiness of the hearth" (lines 765, 766). He prays to God, "Help me not to break in upon her peace" (line 783). He works for himself, "Yet since he did but labor for himself, / Work without hope, there was not life in it [and]... a languor came / Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually / Weakening the man, till he could do no more" (lines 815-816, 819-821). The thought of seeing Annie again keeps him alive throughout his years at sea and his being shipwrecked, but once he resolves himself against seeing her so that he can preserve her happiness, he has nothing left to live for and slowly fades into death.
All of this is illustrated in the infecting alliteration in those few words: "the thought / Haunted and harass'd him."
Last week I finished reading Tennyson's "Enoch Arden." I noticed an extremely small thing about a line in this part:
But Enoch yearn'd to see her [Annie's] face again:What I noticed is the alliteration in line 716: "Haunted and harass'd him." The alliteration between the two verbs further emphasizes their meaning. The beginning H is present in both just like the thought that haunts and harasses Enoch is constantly before him.
"If I might look on her sweet face again,
And know that she is happy." So the thought
Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth,
At evening when the dull November day
Was growing duller twilight, to the hill. (lines 713-718)
But that H sound is also present in "him." The haunting and harassing thought has infected him, and this thought gives Enoch life. When he does see Annie (who's now married to Philip) and his children, their happiness moves him to keep his distance. He thinks that his return will be "a blast of doom" that "would shatter all the happiness of the hearth" (lines 765, 766). He prays to God, "Help me not to break in upon her peace" (line 783). He works for himself, "Yet since he did but labor for himself, / Work without hope, there was not life in it [and]... a languor came / Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually / Weakening the man, till he could do no more" (lines 815-816, 819-821). The thought of seeing Annie again keeps him alive throughout his years at sea and his being shipwrecked, but once he resolves himself against seeing her so that he can preserve her happiness, he has nothing left to live for and slowly fades into death.
All of this is illustrated in the infecting alliteration in those few words: "the thought / Haunted and harass'd him."
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Extra-Textual Stories: The Odyssey
A couple times in the past year or two, I remembered my Extra-Textual Stories project, for which I've done only one book so far (F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby). The idea behind the project is to appreciate the story of a book as a physical object, aside from the story contained in the text on the pages. Since 10 March is to-morrow, I felt I should restart this project with The Odyssey (for reasons that will become clear later on).
I'm pretty sure I got my copy of The Odyssey (or, I should say, my first copy of The Odyssey) at a Half Price Books in southern Iowa sometime in the early 2000s (I think 2002 or 2003). I'd heard of The Odyssey, but I didn't really know anything about it, so essentially I got it because I felt I should have been familiar with it but wasn't (although it would still be something like ten years before I actually read it).
I don't remember how much it cost, but I do remember that it was in the Penguin Classics section, which was incentive enough to get it because the Penguin Classics always lookt really impressive lined up on a shelf.
I first read this in college (during the spring 2013 semester, I believe), but I didn't really read it for college. I was taking a class on James Joyce's Ulysses, in which there are references to The Odyssey, but since I hadn't read The Odyssey, I didn't understand a lot of them. So I read the book in order to understand the allusions to it.
By this time, I'd also acquired a second copy of The Odyssey (Chapman's verse translation, which I decided to get completely based on Keats' recommendation of it in his "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"). I decided to read this Penguins Classics edition because it was a prose translation (by E.V. Rieu), which I felt would be easier to understand than a verse translation.
When I started reading it, I noticed an inscription in the front cover:
I'd been oblivious to this for as long as I'd owned the book. The prices on the back cover (with the odd exception of the cost in the U.K.) had been scratched out (after an apparently unsuccessful attempt to obscure them with blue pen), which should have been some indication that this was a gift.
So now when it's 10 March, I sometimes think of the Ken to whom my copy of The Odyssey is inscribed and wonder whatever happened to him (and what sort of person he was to sell a book that was given to him as a birthday present with a lovely inscription in the front cover).
I'm pretty sure I got my copy of The Odyssey (or, I should say, my first copy of The Odyssey) at a Half Price Books in southern Iowa sometime in the early 2000s (I think 2002 or 2003). I'd heard of The Odyssey, but I didn't really know anything about it, so essentially I got it because I felt I should have been familiar with it but wasn't (although it would still be something like ten years before I actually read it).
I don't remember how much it cost, but I do remember that it was in the Penguin Classics section, which was incentive enough to get it because the Penguin Classics always lookt really impressive lined up on a shelf.
I first read this in college (during the spring 2013 semester, I believe), but I didn't really read it for college. I was taking a class on James Joyce's Ulysses, in which there are references to The Odyssey, but since I hadn't read The Odyssey, I didn't understand a lot of them. So I read the book in order to understand the allusions to it.
By this time, I'd also acquired a second copy of The Odyssey (Chapman's verse translation, which I decided to get completely based on Keats' recommendation of it in his "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"). I decided to read this Penguins Classics edition because it was a prose translation (by E.V. Rieu), which I felt would be easier to understand than a verse translation.
 |
| Apparently, I have the 1978 printing. |
 |
| March 10th, 1979 Happy Birthday, Ken! Love, Cynthia + Scott |
So now when it's 10 March, I sometimes think of the Ken to whom my copy of The Odyssey is inscribed and wonder whatever happened to him (and what sort of person he was to sell a book that was given to him as a birthday present with a lovely inscription in the front cover).
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Paulette Giles' "Paper Matches"
About two weeks ago, I read Paulette Giles' "Paper Matches" in The Norton Introduction to Literature, 5th edition (which I'm still reading as part of my Anthology Odyssey project). I don't know if I'd read it before, but it seemed sort of familiar. Anyway, I noticed something about the metaphor Giles uses.
The narrator makes a distinction between the aunts washing dishes inside and the uncles who are goofing around outside. Then she says that "Written on me was a message, / 'At Your Service' like a book of / paper matches" (lines 9-11). Later lines are sort of ambiguous in that they could have a meaning within that metaphor or apart from it.
Immediately after that metaphor about matches is introduced, the narrator says, "One by one we were / taken out and struck." (lines 11-12). Within the matches metaphor, it means that the women are used up individually, just as singular matches are "taken out" of a pack of matches and "struck" for their illumination. However, since the inside/outside distinction between the women and men has already been established, there can also be a literal interpretation of those lines - that the women are "taken out" from the kitchen where they're washing dishes to the yard and "struck" in the sense of physically assaulted.
Next, there's "We come bearing supper. / our heads on fire." (lines 13-14). Within the metaphor of matches, the women are again being used. Like matches, they've been "struck," and now they're providing a service ("bearing supper") in the same way that matches bear light. The "heads of fire" indicates that service within the match metaphor, but it also recalls "the rages that small animals have" from line 7. "our heads on fire" indicates the anger and fury that the women have because of how they're being used.
The narrator makes a distinction between the aunts washing dishes inside and the uncles who are goofing around outside. Then she says that "Written on me was a message, / 'At Your Service' like a book of / paper matches" (lines 9-11). Later lines are sort of ambiguous in that they could have a meaning within that metaphor or apart from it.
Immediately after that metaphor about matches is introduced, the narrator says, "One by one we were / taken out and struck." (lines 11-12). Within the matches metaphor, it means that the women are used up individually, just as singular matches are "taken out" of a pack of matches and "struck" for their illumination. However, since the inside/outside distinction between the women and men has already been established, there can also be a literal interpretation of those lines - that the women are "taken out" from the kitchen where they're washing dishes to the yard and "struck" in the sense of physically assaulted.
Next, there's "We come bearing supper. / our heads on fire." (lines 13-14). Within the metaphor of matches, the women are again being used. Like matches, they've been "struck," and now they're providing a service ("bearing supper") in the same way that matches bear light. The "heads of fire" indicates that service within the match metaphor, but it also recalls "the rages that small animals have" from line 7. "our heads on fire" indicates the anger and fury that the women have because of how they're being used.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Final Battle
When I started writing about The Chronicles of Narnia after re-reading it, I hadn't really intended it to turn into a series of posts, but nevertheless it has. Here's the last one, on The Final Battle.
In the first chapter, an ape and a donkey find a lion's skin. The ape, Shift, creates a coat for the donkey, Puzzle, out of the skin, and then Shift has the idea to tell people that Puzzle is Aslan. There's a similar premise in one of Aesop's Fables, "The Ass in the Lion's Skin":
In Chapter Seven, Tirian frees a company of dwarfs from some Calormene soldiers. However, they don't join his side and don't even thank him for their freedom. Tirian and his friends walk away, but then one dwarf - Poggin - comes back to join them. "Everyone crowded round him and welcomed him and praised him and slapped him on the back. Of course one single Dwarf could not make a very great difference, but it was somehow very cheering to have even one. The whole party brightened up." I think there are two Biblical references here. The first is Jesus' healing of ten lepers. "When he saw them he said to them, 'Go and show yourselves to the priests.' And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice..." (Luke 17:14-15). Jesus heals all ten lepers, but only one returns to thank Him; Tirian frees the whole company of dwarfs, but only one returns to join him. Both also have their faith in common. To the one leper who returned, Jesus says, "Your faith has made you well" (verse 19), and Poggin the Dwarf tells Tirian, "I'm on your side, Sire; and on Aslan's." Since Aslan is the Christ-like figure in The Chronicles of Narnia, the faith of both the one returning leper and the one returning dwarf is the same.
The second Biblical story I think this event references is The Parable of the Lost Sheep. Jesus tells a group of people about a man who has one hundred sheep, and after he loses one, he leaves the ninety-nine to look for the one. "And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance" (Luke 15:5-7). The like one sheep that was found, there's Poggin, the one dwarf to return. Similar to the "rejoicing" and "joy" in the parable, Poggin's return is "very cheering" and the party "brighten[s] up."
The rest of the things I noticed are all Biblical references and are all in Chapter Fourteen (Night Falls on Narnia). First, Father Time rises up and blows a horn, ushering in the end of Narnia. In Revelation chapters 8 and 9, the end of the world is also ushered in with trumpets.
Next, the Narnian creatures come up to Aslan and turn either to his left (those who look at him with "fear and hatred") or his right (those who "looked in the face of Aslan and loved him"). There's the same left-or-right separation - the same final judgement - in Matthew 25: "And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left" (Matthew 25:33). One of those who go to Aslan's right is "one of those very Dwarfs who had helped to shoot the Horses." Earlier, Eustace was indignant about this, but now "he had not time to wonder about that sort of thing... for a great joy put everything else out of his head." This, even more so than the return of Poggin the Dwarf, is the "joy in heaven over one sinner who repents."
Finally, there's the comparison between blood and the sun and the moon:
Clearly, the end of Narnia was inspired by the end of the world as described in the Bible.
In the first chapter, an ape and a donkey find a lion's skin. The ape, Shift, creates a coat for the donkey, Puzzle, out of the skin, and then Shift has the idea to tell people that Puzzle is Aslan. There's a similar premise in one of Aesop's Fables, "The Ass in the Lion's Skin":
An ass found a lion's skin, and dressed himself up in it. Then he went about frightening everyone he met, for they all took him to be a lion, men and beasts alike, and took to their heels when they saw him coming. Elated by the success of his trick, he loudly brayed in triumph. The fox heard him, and recognized him at once for the ass he was, and said to him, "Oho, my friend, it's you, is it? I, too, should have been afraid if I hadn't heard your voice."There's a difference in motivation (in The Final Battle, the donkey is coaxed into the lion's skin where the donkey in Aesop's fable does it of his own volition), but the two are similar. Lewis seems to have used fairy tales in The Chronicles (I wrote about a Grimm fairy tale he seems to use in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader a few weeks ago), so it's likely that he knew and used this element from Aesop too.
In Chapter Seven, Tirian frees a company of dwarfs from some Calormene soldiers. However, they don't join his side and don't even thank him for their freedom. Tirian and his friends walk away, but then one dwarf - Poggin - comes back to join them. "Everyone crowded round him and welcomed him and praised him and slapped him on the back. Of course one single Dwarf could not make a very great difference, but it was somehow very cheering to have even one. The whole party brightened up." I think there are two Biblical references here. The first is Jesus' healing of ten lepers. "When he saw them he said to them, 'Go and show yourselves to the priests.' And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice..." (Luke 17:14-15). Jesus heals all ten lepers, but only one returns to thank Him; Tirian frees the whole company of dwarfs, but only one returns to join him. Both also have their faith in common. To the one leper who returned, Jesus says, "Your faith has made you well" (verse 19), and Poggin the Dwarf tells Tirian, "I'm on your side, Sire; and on Aslan's." Since Aslan is the Christ-like figure in The Chronicles of Narnia, the faith of both the one returning leper and the one returning dwarf is the same.
The second Biblical story I think this event references is The Parable of the Lost Sheep. Jesus tells a group of people about a man who has one hundred sheep, and after he loses one, he leaves the ninety-nine to look for the one. "And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance" (Luke 15:5-7). The like one sheep that was found, there's Poggin, the one dwarf to return. Similar to the "rejoicing" and "joy" in the parable, Poggin's return is "very cheering" and the party "brighten[s] up."
The rest of the things I noticed are all Biblical references and are all in Chapter Fourteen (Night Falls on Narnia). First, Father Time rises up and blows a horn, ushering in the end of Narnia. In Revelation chapters 8 and 9, the end of the world is also ushered in with trumpets.
Next, the Narnian creatures come up to Aslan and turn either to his left (those who look at him with "fear and hatred") or his right (those who "looked in the face of Aslan and loved him"). There's the same left-or-right separation - the same final judgement - in Matthew 25: "And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left" (Matthew 25:33). One of those who go to Aslan's right is "one of those very Dwarfs who had helped to shoot the Horses." Earlier, Eustace was indignant about this, but now "he had not time to wonder about that sort of thing... for a great joy put everything else out of his head." This, even more so than the return of Poggin the Dwarf, is the "joy in heaven over one sinner who repents."
Finally, there's the comparison between blood and the sun and the moon:
[The sun] was three times - twenty times - as big as it out to be, and very dark red. ... in the reflection of that sun the whole waste of shoreless waters looked like blood.Similar descriptions are in Revelation 6, at the end of the world: "the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale" (Revelation 6:12). After Father Time blows his horn in Narnia, there's a shower of falling stars: "these were dozens, and then scores, and then hundreds, till it was like silver rain: and it went on and on."
Then the Moon came up, quite in her wrong position, very close to the sun, and she also looked red.
Clearly, the end of Narnia was inspired by the end of the world as described in the Bible.
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