Oct 04
Kevin Paredes One piece that resonated with me was the irony of the Temple of Dendur. Technically, the temple itself is not a traditional piece, rather, it was constructed by the Romans. It stands strong and is very stable in nature, which is amazing for a structure over 2000 years old, but what made me …
Sep 29
Ode to the West Wind by Percy Shelley (Stanza 2; lines 15 – 20) “Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion, Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine a{:e}ry …
Sep 29
Percy Shelley “Mutability” “We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon; How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly! Yet soon Night closes round, and they are lost for ever…” (1-4) As Burke detailed the Sublime, he explained that the passions stirred by it are related to Astonishment. This struck …
Sep 28
Writer Alison Kinney, in her essay “A FILTHY PROCESS IN WHICH I WAS ENGAGED”: REVISING FRANKENSTEIN“A FILTHY PROCESS IN WHICH I WAS ENGAGED”: REVISING FRANKENSTEIN, considers both the changes Mary Shelley made in revising her novel and the reasons she may have downplayed the those revisions. Not only does the essay offer insights into the context in which …
Sep 28
“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand” ….. “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” The sublime is described by Burke in terms of vastness, terror, and beauty. He defines it as …
Sep 27
“They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise.” Lines 331-334 from Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Burke defines vastness in terms of dimension. The ocean, for instance, might be considered sublime in …
Sep 27
Angels of rain and lightning, there are spread On the blue surface of thine aery surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith’s height, The locks of the approaching storm. Burke likens the sublime to things that cause or …
Sep 27
Ode to a Nightingale “To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— To thy high requiem become a sod.” (Lines 56-60) Edmund Burke defines the literary term, sublime as the idea of …
Sep 27
“The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, ….” This opening lyric from Percy Shelleys Mont Blanc expresses passion for the vastness of both nature and the human mind. “Everlasting,” as an adjective is redundant when describing the known universe, however its definition as a noun gives it an …
Sep 27
” Oh! Lift me as a wave, a leaf a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.” From Ode to the West Wind by Percy Shelley Burke makes a very clear distinction between what …