Monthly Archives: February 2015

The World is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth

Reading Response,

With all the excessive advances in technology in the past decade, specifically in the social media like Facebook and Twitter, there have been a lot of concerns about us losing touch with the real world. Interestingly enough, even though “The World is too Much with Us” was published over two centuries ago, its theme is synonymous with the same idea of losing touch with nature. Right from the beginning the poet, William Wordsworth, is straightforward about his message. “The world is too much with us” he says “late and soon” (line 1). He points out that it is not just the problem of his time. With “late” he implies that this has happened before; adding on “soon” implicating that it will continue to happen in the future, and evidently, two hundred years later as we can see, he was right.

One way that Wordsworth portrays his sadness about how things are in the present and how they will be in the future is by consistently referencing the past. He uses his imagination and talks about the Greek gods Proteus rising from the sea and Triton blowing his shell horn. With these last two lines of the poem, Wordsworth accomplishes so many things. He draws an image of a simpler time where everyone was so in tuned with nature, such as, a god who controlled the sea and also the people that believed in that god. In doing so, Wordsworth himself is becoming one with nature as he looks across the sea.

Wordsworth does not ignore the fact that the theme of the poem, man versus nature, is probably very unpopular. In fact he acknowledges it. He easily says that he would “rather be a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn” emphasizing how terrible the times are now (lines 9 and 10). Although, I agree with Wordsworth, it is after reading his poem that I’ve changed my mind on this issue. I used to think that technology is the reason why we have lost touch with nature, but as we can see from this poem, we have had this problem even before all of these new inventions and ideas. I think what Wordsworth is trying to say is that the cause of this problem is not any worldly thing, but “us” ourselves.

Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Reading Response

In “Frost at Midnight,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poet uses the imagery of nature throughout the poem to compare the different parts of nature that is visible in the country side, to the city. For example, “This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,” would be the ocean, mountains, and trees that you would see in the country side (line 11), but in the city the only parts of nature you would see are the sky, and stars. Coleridge seems to be in love with nature, and because of his love for nature he wants his child to grow up in a place that offers more than just the sky and stars (line 54-58). As a child, Coleridge had an horrible experience growing up in the city. He did nothing but dream, and when he is in school, he would try to look for someone that he knows because he had nothing better to do (line 39-41). He does not want his child to go through the kind of childhood he had to go through. The experiences that his child will go through allows him to live the life that he dreamt  of., through his child. This  seems selfish in a way, but he wants to spare his child from the boredom that life in a city would bring.

Coleridge has grown to hate the city, and started to love the countryside, but would this change if he did not grow up in the city. His love towards nature makes him seem like he hates the city, which leads to the whole idea of urbanization, and how he is probably against it. In the poem he does not mention much about his childhood, but he does talk about the beauty of nature that could only be experienced outside of the city. His experiences in the city must have been a lot worst than what he has mentioned because you don’t make the decision of moving out the city just because of the boring childhood he had.

I could see how Coleridge fell in love with the environment of the countryside because it is an magnificent sight, but the city has its own kind of beauty as well. I am not convinced that being bored made him want to move out of the city.

Life of a Sensuous Woman – Ihara Saikaku

Uncategorized, , ,

In this series of tales a hermit woman reveals to two passionate men, the question of “Why did this woman live the way she did?” is raised. Who or what caused her to live this sensual life? Was it the outside factors, or herself?

In the “Life of a Sensuous Woman”, the old female hermit says “I followed my desires  wherever they went – and I ruined myself. The water will never be clear again. There’s no use regretting it now though (p.596 top).” This realization seems to have come later when this woman has attained a certain epiphany. This water that has been infested with the desires of sensuality seemed to have been awakened by an instance when she was the age of thirteen. The hermit woman says “Whenever I saw women and men lying together, Id feel excited, and when I’d hear them in the dark, my heart pounded (p.595).” This was the spark that set the fire of sensuality into a burning desire. This culture where children are exposed to the sexual influences of society will obviously reap its fruits of disastrous lives.

While this hermit woman was in youth, she had many encounters of love. The fact that she went through many relationships shows how much Japanese culture revolved around passion and sensuality. Also looking at the time when she had an affair with the monk while remaining prisoner, there was one instance where it shows that her lifestyle is nothing unique in that Japanese time period. While the woman was trapped inside of the locked temple, she met another grave looking woman who claims she too, had been living the pledge the hermit woman was experiencing (p.602). This further proves the point of the fault society has in hand.

The reason that the hermit woman was led to this state of sexual worship is because of the society she lived in. If there had been even a stable effort to stop the societal influence of burning passion for sex, there would have been many lives with less unfortunate outcome.

Life of A Sensuous Woman – Ihara Saikaku

Uncategorized

By Catharina Berg

In a Life of a Sensuous Woman, by Ihara Saikaku, the author prefaces the first story in the novel with the statement, “A beautiful woman, many ages have agreed, is an ax that cuts down a man’s life” (Saikaku, 593). The author portrays the life route of an old lady and her romantic involvements, beginning as a young, physically attractive woman, and the obstacles found during her attempt to find love during her aging years. The emphasis in the work is strongly set on the aesthetic definition of women, which is portrayed as the essential element in order to satisfy a woman’s desire for love, vitality and eroticism.

One can draw a strong connection between the story-lines “A Stylish Woman Who Brought Disaster” and “Mistress of a Domain Lord”, as the woman is portrayed as a second priority, and a woman to fulfill her husband’s desires for sexual temptation rather than the desire of love. The novel overall emphasizes the conceptual idea of objectification of women, due to advantages of physical attributions, as well as gender roles and men’s dominating position within the society; the men who are higher ranked in form of well-respected positions in society are desired by attractive women, and vice verse. Even though the woman in the story was not grown up in poverty, her family situation was rather from the society’s middle class, the author places an idealistic standard of women, using physical advantages in order to satisfy the desire of a pleasing relationship based on the sake of prosperity rather than love.

The reflection of the novel’s essential context of sexism, power, and wealth could strongly be acknowledged in our contemporary society, in which we live in a world where beautiful women are commonly portrayed as objective prosperity, while the women themselves receive a route to wealth. Life of a Sensuous Woman demonstrates the role of women within the Japanese Edo time period, where the meaning of love is rather defined as contemporary happiness, based on an exchange of beauty and fortune.

 

Ihara Saikaku–Life Of A Sensuous Woman

Reading Response

by Tien Dang

The story is such a great piece of literature that upon reading it I find so many thoughts and ideas for discussion running through my head. However, the one topic that I choose to discuss will be, as the underlying theme of the story is promiscuity, can the cause justify the effect?

The old woman first told the story of her libertine younger years by an account of her affair with a samurai when she was 11, an affair which devastated her, had her family horribly shaken and ended the samurai’s life. Following the event are numerous stories of her having affairs with other man. However, Sakaiku seems to draw the audience’s attention to the woman’s harsh life situations with few or even no choice for her at all. First she was born into a high class family, then lost her privilege and her life just spiraled downwards, to the most despised occupations and lowest social status, with little to no financial or personal security to herself.

It can easily be said that her harsh life situations, as aforementioned, ensnare her into sleeping with so many men for a living, and even for her own sensuous self. However, upon closer inspection I find that her promiscuous youth, though could understandably be initiated first by ignorance and inexperience, is ultimately her own choice.

The woman even admitted to her overindulgent lifestyle when she just went whenever the flow takes her. Over the course of the story, she voluntarily slept with ten thousand men, as she claimed, to satiate her amorous and sensuous self.

Hence, I don’t find the justification for the woman’s promiscuity as a product of the environment very convincing, because ten thousand men are simply to many to blame the vicissitudes of life.

The cause doesn’t justify the effect, apparently, in this case.

Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party”

Further Reading, , , ,

Today in class we looked at Mary Wollstonecraft’s place setting from Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party.”

Judy Chicago: The Dinner Party – Detail Mary Wollstonecraft Placesetting

I highly recommend checking it out in person if you get a chance–its pretty awesome to see in person, and its on permanent display at the Brooklyn Museum (admission is suggested donation, so pay-what-you-can).

You can read more about the whole project here: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/home.php

Browse the various place settings (a few of the other writers we’ll read this semester have place settings too): http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/browse.php

“Crafting the Dinner Party”: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/blog/crafting-dinner-party

Dinner Party

On ” A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” Wollstonecraft

Reading Response,

(Post by Nadia Rodriguez)

In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft emphasizes the significance of “order” in women’s educational development to gain equality to men because without it one is simply resting on life experience and, as she states, a “negligent kind of guess-work” to form judgments and assessments that are inherently flawed because of the inadequate method of deduction used. The only education provided to women was one of acquiring traits and mannerisms that would make them suitable wives. As such, their only true value in society is provided by man, weakening their character and maintaining them in a state of subordination. For women to be able to enter the male public sphere, women must first have access to the same knowledge that men are privy to so that they may too use educated methods of logic and reason to deduce and come to informed conclusions.

In the text, Wollstonecraft is not merely stating that aristocratic privilege and patriarchal rule have similarities, but that they are intrinsically one in the same. A hierarchal system which ranks the educated male above all others, and subjugates the female.

However, the author also emphasizes that the value the rich put on artificial refinement and vanity render them helpless and undermine the “foundation of virtue” that she claims is imperative to “influence on general practice”. In other words, because the aristocratic are transfixed on frivolity they cannot have an overall worthy participation and influence on matters common to all. This notion can also be applied to womankind; who in their misfortune have been limited to an education based on such superficial notions in reference to their societal participation.