Thomas Hardy

It is very interesting how Hardy as described on pg. 1073, "built up his words into complicated structure, lines, and stanzas," his poetic energy seems to come from his business profession as an architect. To invision a buliding, than turn it into something readable as his poems.

After Hardy's passing, I'm trying to visualize his heart being buried with his 1st wife. How is this done? Was the heart put in formalidhyde and his grave opened up, and place with his remains? I have never heard to this before.

In Hardy's poem "On the Departure Platform," pg. 1074, Is this an imaginary women that he see's from a far and hoping she would notice him in a crowd?

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hopkins poem's were a little hard to comprehend. In reading about his concept of inscape, I still was not able to understand. Sound like Hopkins was very eccentric. In the poem Spring and Fall- to a yound child pg. 776, there wasn't much to understand. Was this suppose to be about the five nuns who drowned in his work, The Wreck of the Deutshland?

Victorian Ladies and Gentlemen

This era sounds much like today, regardless of conduct, the rich were considered ladies and gentlemen. For example, Paris Hilton and Hugh Grant fit this way of thinking perfectly. What were the people who worked in fields and factories called, morans? Being a governess or a schoolteacher sounds just as bad as being a factory worker. No respect, always humiliated, and put down, what a shame.

With George Eliot, you see modern day relationship in her story, "live openly with a married man." In our day the woman would be called a Mistress and in this era she is called the "fallen woman." Already labeled as an outcast, George is really a woman, who had to use a male name in order for her works to be published because of relationship with a married man. Women today still date married men and think nothing of it. Are they considered ignorant,? No, just a lack of self-esteem in my opinion.

Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft both tribute to woman's rights, but have slightly different views of the woman's role with men.

Robert Browning- My Last Duchess

This poem is about how his wife acts with other men, which causes him to be very jealous. "She looked on, and her looks went everywhere", pg 664, suggest her unfaithfulness. The Duke in my opinion was arrogant, egotistical and controlling, but he could not control his wife's wondering ways.

Did the Duke kill his wife? "I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands." pg 664. or did he have her killed? This poem indicates extreme example of jealousy and the Duke would rather do whatever it took to save his ego from being crushed with shame or embarrassment. Throughout the peom he only talks about himself, so how dare she take the spotlight off of him. He is the one in control always. Good poem, but sad.

John Stuart Mill

I liked the readings of Mill's. He deals with a whole range of issues especially in the The Subjection of Women that include, equality in political soceity, their place in hisotry and the place of women, men, and children within the family.

I am glad to see Mill's stand up for women and their equality. In his remarks on The Subjection of women pg. 525, "The most favourable case which a man can generally have for studing the character of a woman, is that of his own wife: for the opportunities are greater, and the cases of completed sympathy not so unspeakably rare. and in fact, this is the source from which any knowledge worth having on the subject has, I believe, generally come." Mill's gives a sense of how he felt about his own relationship with Harriet.

After Harriet died, his relationship with his stepdaughter I would imagine, caused some controversy about that relationship and the works that came after Harriet's death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Browning made her way once she left the shackles of her father. It's nice to hear of very sucessful women in this era. Laureateship, I'm assuming this is like the prestige honor of holding the Noble Peace Prize. I enjoyed reading Sonnets from the Portuguese. It marks a point in the developing relationship between her and husband. It also reflects her emotions as she moves through sorrow, fear, passion, and thoughts of her own death.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1) pg. 530, "I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. I think this depicts Browning as an invalid lying in bed grieving her past.

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle opposed the new industrial society, especially in Past and Present pg. 477. "England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, supply for human want in every kind; yet England is dying of inanition." I believe what Carlyle is saying is that we have people who are unemployed, yet the rich continue to enjoy. The poor stay poor and the rich get richer. He blames the British leadership for the shape that his country is in.

Carlyle started out to be a preacher (really for his parents), but soon realized that pursuing a dream for others, he would fail himself. He became a rebel in his own right. His sense of religion was his belief of a friendly ruler of an orderly universe.