Voicesyesvoices

~ There's a Certain Slant of Light  In this poem, what is the poet’s relation to light? How does she experience this light? First, it’s appearance: We spoke in class about the strange quality of winter afternoons –– how the sun, low at the horizon, cuts the earth in severe spears of light, enlarging the shadows of everything, in stark contrast to the brightness of the light.   In addition, the presence of cathedral tunes in the next line of the first stanza places one’s perspective in a church. There, too, I imagine light pouring in from the windows, taking a piercing line to the pews. Frankincense, too, might waft through the the shaft of light, intensifying it. Outside, light can be ambient, even during the late afternoons; it molds itself around objects, embracing things in a general touch. However, when light from the outside enters into a darker space, that light is sharpened by the presence of darkness, and the hue of darkness deepens.   Either outside or inside, we...

Some ramblings on the poetic -- Miz Eustice Poetry seems to be borne of and to live more in the realm of imagination than reason if the mind can be so generally categorized. Or perhaps it should be said that it is some mixture of heart and brain. I’m not sure. Sometimes I think it's divine.   I’m not sure where else its strange greatness could come from. I’m not even sure how to describe what poetry is. It is not just its form, its sounds, it is more than the sum of its parts. I read somewhere once that poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.   Poetry is not like reason, it is not a power exercised by the will. Perhaps one can will oneself to write poetry, but not great poetry. It is more within the general grasp to reason correctly than to make something beautiful. I can only imagine what it is like to do such a thing. Creation seems mysterious, and there is something almost seraphic in it—something invisible and intangible and temperamental that rises from within in an o...

Of Bronze — and Blaze — The North — tonight — So adequate — it forms — So preconcerted with itself — So distant — to alarms — An Unconcern so sovereign To Universe, or me — Infects my simple spirit With Taints of Majesty — Till I take vaster attitudes — And strut upon my stem — Disdaining Men, and Oxygen, For Arrogance of them — My Splendors, are Menagerie — But their Compete-less Show Will entertain the Centuries When I, am long ago, An Island in dishonored Grass — Whom none but Daisies — know. I find this poem an anthem of human pride and self-awareness.  In the first part, although the author spends half of it acclaiming the North’s beauty, she describes it to be composed of both bronze and blaze. They shouldn’t go together because bronze not only never shines like a blaze but also conducts heat the lowest out of common metals. Therefore, the combination of bronze and fire is a sarcastic expression that the North is beautiful in the utmost disharmony, as contrasted to its adequa...

       It is often secretly felt: one hears of another's death--perhaps even of a loved one--and does not immediately know how to react. There is the urge to cry, but also to laugh. Why is there the urge to laugh?      I happened upon  this question after reading the poem, I heard a fly buzz-when I died, by Emily Dickinson. In imagining the fly buzz around a people gathered in solemnity during one's deathbed, I could not help but find the whole image somewhat comical: People trying to be serious and pay their respects--meanwhile, a fly aimlessly buzzing about and making a sound similar to that of a high-pitched fart. I thought this was so funny.      I imagined that if I were in that situation, I'd very much want to laugh. But not in a mean or disrespectful way. I'm just acknowledging that I would have the urge, despite the seriousness of the moment. That is why I want to q...

 What does it mean to live? If our struggles are truly laid upon us by a divine force, we would naturally expect some form of justice in one way or another, yet we see that life on its very own is not justified merely by its being. What does it mean to suffer then, in the face of all this hopelessness? Perhaps then the best way to look at being is not through the lenses of our eyes but rather through an entirely different world. A fly buzzes; it lives, and it dies without the regard of the entire world. Yet its being in its entirety is no less meaningful than the lives of any other living being on this earth, yet it persists, as "...the stillness of the air between the heaves of storm", its end merely determined by the windows "...between the light and me and then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see"

After great pain, a formal feeling comes – The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs – The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’ And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’? The Feet, mechanical, go round – A Wooden way Of Ground, or Air, or Ought – Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone – This is the Hour of Lead – Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow – First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go – --------------------------------------------- I find this poem really heavy and sad. The theme of it is already very heavy: the pain and suffering we experience turn into a kind of formal feeling that renders our nerves and hearts ceremonious and stiff. However, what strikes me most about this poem is the uncertainty that is emphasized throughout--the uncertainty of time (yesterday, or centuries before), of destination (the feet, mechanical, go round), and perhaps of other things (a wooden way of ground, or air, or ought. I don't really unde...

There's a wonderful and immense website called The Emily Dickinson Archive, in which you will find photographs of all the manuscript versions of every poem, as well as a Dickinson lexicon: edickinson.org Here is one manuscript of "There's a certain slant of light": Can you read it? Regarding the word "slant," the lexicon has some interesting shadings: Some of you already know this famous Dickinson poem featuring the word "slant": Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind — -- suggestions of "surprisingly," "subtly," "cleverly," "wittily," "hintingly..."? Our "slant of light" is also "certain," as in "particular," "determinate but inexpressible," and also "absol...

 Is That The Sea, My Love? By Maxfield Fleishman Is that the sea, my love? That yonder sheet of metal blue  And white which glimmers on the crest? Does that mean, my love, that sand Will warm my heart and hands again? Say it's so, my dearest love, That I may don the frilly waves Which in my youth bespeckled me. We left the waves... Why did we scorn them? Some earnest dream I used to have which  Left no room for waves, nor froth, nor sand  To warm my heart and hands,  Dreams like these, You had them too, my love.  They swept us both away Into another land where waves could reach us not, Where earth grows hot and green recedes Away from desert sands.  You promised me, and I did you, That when we could we'd recompense This lack of sea, "Make for the coast! With haste!" we said. But years progressed in land-locked pride, Forever barred, we felt, from smelling Salty air and fanning waves.  A life we lived, so far away From Neptune's briny post.  N...

In Chapter XI of Part One, Mrs. Ramsey thought to herself, "It will end it will end...It will come it will come...We are in the hands of the Lord. But instantly she was annoyed with herself for saying that. Who had said it? Not she; she had been trapped into saying something she did not mean." (63) In this passage, one understands where Mrs. Ramsey stands in her beliefs: she is atheist. Yet, there is an impulse in her to think of God; to hope, perhaps, that all "are in the hands of the Lord." What is happening here? What is this middle ground between faith and disbelief?  In the last two chapters of the book, one finds a strange juxtaposition of sentiments that seem similar to this middle-ground faith. In Chapter XII, Woolf writes that "[Mr. Ramsey] rose and stood in the bow of the boat, very straight and tall, for all the world, James thought, as if he were saying, 'There is no God'" (207). Thus, James also has an atheistic sentiment that seems to...

  In my last blog-post I compared Tolstoy and Woolf in how they represent “reality”. I suggested that Tolstoy does not reflect experience, but instead represents the external “reality” which experience is directed toward, whereas Woolf reflects experience directly. I claimed that Tolstoy is “realistic” if you assume a discoverable external reality, whereas Woolf is realistic if you do not. The case, however, is more complicated than this (as Mr. Fleishman pointed out in his comment to my previous post). Woolf’s narrative is not solipsistic. There are genuine relations to nature and between characters; there is shared experience and a shared reality. Tolstoy, conversely, does not ignore the psychological aspect and employs the subjective lens of characters. Are Tolstoy and Woolf then following the same assumptions about representing reality? Would they agree that external reality is that which our experience is geared towards but that our experience in itself deserves consideratio...

In Chapter IV of To the Lighthouse , Virginia Woolf is highly clever in using the imagery of a mackerel being caught to expose Cam’s complicated mental world. Seeing the fish lay kicking on the floor, Cam realizes that she is caught up in “this pressure and division of feeling, this extraordinary temptation.” Even though she is aware of how attractive and safety-assuring her father is, as indicated by him calmly opening his book in the middle of the hunting background, she still feels endangered by him. Watching Macalister’s boy tug the hook out of the gills of another fish, Cam remembers her father’s tyranny that “had poisoned her childhood and raised bitter storms.” She completely forgets her father’s beauty. Only her suffering remains. In other words, Cam’s chain of thoughts moves according to the consecutive scenes on the sea. It is passive, follows the mackerel, a part of the sea, and manifests her internal fear. Associating herself with the bleeding fish, Cam deems that she is th...

 I am interested in how the relationship between James and his father evolved from the very beginning of the novel to the very end of the novel. The locations of this description seem to be already saying that it is important.   At first glance, one might say that there's almost no change at all: James had always held a negative and hostile attitude towards his father Mr. Ramsay. It is just this anger and negative attitude turned from something extreme and aggressive ("had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father's breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it. Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr. Ramsay excited in his children's breast by his mere presence") to something milder (it was said that James still had the image of killing his father in mind, but he changed his opinion in thinking that it was perhaps not the father that he was trying to kill but something that lived inside his f...

 “They stood there, isolated from the rest of the world. His immense self pity, his demand for sympathy poured and spread itself in pools at her feet, and all she did, miserable sinner that she was, was to draw her skirts a little closer round her ankles, lest she should get wet. In complete silence she stood there, grasping her paintbrush.” Part 3, chapter 2. 

Landres March 7, 2021 Hinderance to Expression Mrs. Ramsay and Lily are each impeded from telling Mr. Ramsay what he wants to hear, though they clearly discern what he wants them to say to him. In each case he wishes for their sympathy: for Mrs. Ramsay to tell him she loves him, for Lily to say anything regarding him. Neither woman could speak, yet each did feel along with him. Mrs. Ramsay feels love and sympathy, but does not see the possibility of translating her feelings into verbal expression, for which Mr. Ramsay longs. Lily feels Mr. Ramsay’s sorrow and discomfort (a kind of sympathy), but is disabled from comforting him. She feels the suffocating weight of his need and demand of her, and she resents him for this imposition. Yet she resolves that it would be simpler to say to him what he wants, in order to satisfy him and relieve herself of the unrelenting burden. Despite this resolution, “she could say nothing; the whole horizon seemed swept bare of objects to talk about; could ...

Landres March 2, 2021 The Making of Memories To the Lighthouse is evidently composed in steam-of-consciousness(es) narration, yet it can also read like a memory or an anecdote. Most quotations in the book are indirect—often disorientingly so. These quotations arise as if one were vaguely recalling what was said on an occasion, or retelling their memory of that occasion to someone else. Quotations are embedded in prosaic descriptions of the character’s thoughts and undistinguished from them. For example, “She was quite ready to take his word for it, she said” ( To the Lighthouse , 32). This sentence has the form of a direct quotation, except it doesn’t have quotation marks, isn’t offset in its own paragraph, and uses past tense and consistent third-person nouns. The quotation is presented as though it were being thought, not said. That quotations are being remembered or retold by the narrator speaks to the book’s theme of preservation, which is primarily taken up in the form of inquiri...

  “she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and, robbed of colour, she saw things truly…Nothing seemed to have merged. They all sat separate. And the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and creating rested on her.” (83) “It could not last, she knew, but at the moment her eyes were so clear that they seemed to go round the table unveiling each of these people, and their thoughts and their feelings, without effort like a light stealing under water so that its ripples and the reeds in it and the minnows balancing themselves, and the sudden silent trout are all lit up hanging, trembling…for whereas in active life she would be netting and separating one thing from another…she would be urging herself forward; now she said nothing. For the moment, she hung suspended.” (106—7) At the dinner party Mrs. Ramsay has several moments involving a clarity of sight. Removed from the eddy, in the shade, thing are robbed of color and are clearly separ...

In the second part of to the Lighthouse we see an elapse of time. It seems that for the first two chapters we were still in the night of part one, and then in the third chapter, though still at night, time shifted from the night of part one to the night of the death of Mrs. Ramsay. And then, at the very end of chapter four, it is finally day again. But it is not the day one was expecting.  I find these four chapters to be extremely beautiful and striking. Virginia Woolf spent most of these four chapters describing nature, the house, and how they interact with each other. And there's an eternity in that description; it made me feel like all of these descriptions and movements of nature and the house happened in the night that we ended with in part one.  But no. The narrative tells us otherwise. Mr. Carmichael had finished reading, Mrs Ramsay past away, and the house is now empty. The human world has evolved and become something very different, but the night remains. All of the ...

In Section II, Chapter X, of To the Lighthouse, Woolf's first two sentences are as follow: "Then indeed peace had come. Messages of peace breathed from the sea to the shore." However, before this point, she describes how sea winds destroy the Ramsays' house, and people's lives are turned and twisted so hard over time. If the sea winds convey peace messages, then I deem it reasonable that the winds' destruction of the house symbolizes peace. But why is it so? The first section commences with James' desire disapproved of by his father to go to the Lighthouse while ending up Mrs. Ramsay's silent communication with her husband when she resists telling him that she loves him. In other words, the beginning and end of the first section both induce within me the heavy feelings of emotional imprisonment. It is so hard to witness a son expressing his internal anger so much that he wants to kill his father because the father doesn't give him any reasons for w...

  Gilmour  "For him to gaze as Lily saw him gazing at Mrs. Ramsay was a rapture …" (chapter IX, pg. 47)   Who is being spoken about in this statement? Why might it matter that it isn’t obvious? Woolfe could have written this statement differently: Mr. Bankes gazed at Ms. Ramsay with rapture; Lily noticed Mr. Bankes gazing at Mrs. Ramsay in a rapture, Mr. Bankes’ enraptured gaze at Ms. Ramsay was seen by Lily etc. But Woolfe's formulation doesn't cut the subjects neatly like these statements do. Like Lily's own paintings, Woolfe blurs the reader's sense of subject, of form, and boundary, and forces a blending. On one level, this sentence intends to communicate that Mr. Bankes gazes at Ms. Ramsay. On another level, it communicates that Lily is watching Mr. Bankes gazing at Ms. Ramsay. Yet, more strikingly, when the reader reads, "For him to Gaze as Lily ...", one cannot help but read Bankes’ gaze as inseparable from hers, or, at least, that both o...

  As someone who has not read much modernist literature, it is Virginia Woolf’s narrative style that perplexes me most. At first, I find it unnecessarily difficult. I don’t know who is being talked about, whether a sentence is a description of the scenery or of someone’s thought. Transitions are so seamless, that I can’t tell know where one thing ends, and another begins. I find beautiful and genuine thoughts and descriptions, but I do not understand how these integrate into the overall narrative. Yet reading it over a few times I do manage to piece everything together, and I’m delighted with it. Still, I wonder whether the confusing style is necessary and whether I will get used to it. If it is necessary for what she expresses, how does it aid this expression? This leads me to wonder how her style means to represent reality. Is it supposed to be accurate and realistic? What of reality does it represent? It certainly does not contain absurdities or exaggerations like fairy tale...

  Life: That Old Antagonist Maxfield Fleishman      Mrs. Ramsay says that "she felt alone in the presence of her old antagonist, life." (16) She sits there, dressing, surrounded by her children, yet feels alone with that great enemy, life. What enemy is this?      Every knot in your muscles, every spasm in your mind, each moment of pain, physical or intellectual, comes from the opponent life. A century-or-so-long sparring partner, life jabs one continually, until one's body and mind succumb to its punches. Each person, in this way, eventually cedes to life's victory. The antagonist always wins.      But sitting there now, before the waves, one thinks, is life such an enemy? It thrashes me; it serves me misery; it shows to me the anguish of my children and my parents; but doesn't it now, in these lemon-colored waves, also inspire unbelievable, indescribable joy?      If life is an ocean, one must always be weary of drowning...