The Poet and The Fall of the House of Usher
December 7, 2007
Two of America’s greatest writers are considered to be Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe. This is because they were able to express different emotions into their writings. Each writer, born and raised in different backgrounds, lived lives that would not mirror each other.
Emerson lived the more religious life, whether it was as a preacher, or leading the movement of transcendentalism; while Poe lived a life of depression haunted by the deaths of his loved ones. Poe lived a very wealthy life, inheriting money from the death of his wife. To understand their views in each other writings, "The Poet" and "The Fall of the House of Usher," it helps to see the perspectives from which each viewed life. Emerson’s idealized Poet and Poe’s Roderick Usher are on opposite sides of the spectrum, but do share some similarities. Emerson’s "The Poet" is a very optimistic view of life and poetry, while Poe’s "The Fall of the House of Usher" is more pessimistic and gloomy. The Poet and Roderick Usher share an appreciation of the arts and their thoughts of whom they represent, yet differ in the Poet’s optimistic views that feed his ego and Usher’s pessimistic look on life.
Roderick Usher suffers from an illness that leaves him extremely weak, yet when his friend visits him, still has enough time to paint and play the guitar. Even with all that surrounds him such as his illness, his sister’s body, and his dilapidated mansion, Usher was still able to enjoy an artistic side. The Poet, as Emerson writes, discusses that creativity needs to be an essential part of a poet’s life. Emerson writes, "Those who are esteemed umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual". In this quote Emerson is pointing out that although these people may have taste, they have no substance. This creativity helps boost the already optimistic Poet that Emerson describes, and seems to be the only light that shines through Roderick Usher’s dark and gloomy life. Poe writes, "We painted and read together –or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar".
The house of Usher becomes a character of its own as its shabby look takes on the appearance of its master, Roderick Usher. Poe describes Usher as having large, luminous eyes, a molded chin, thin lips and a delicate nose. Usher is weak from his illness, and lives in the mansion that his family has lived in for generations. Since Usher hasn’t left the house in sometime, the mansion begins to rot. Usher’s state of mind makes him think that he is a representative of the house, as it slowly begins to crumble and die. Usher says in describing the house, ". . . an influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit – an effect which physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence". The Poet, as well as Usher, believes that he is representing something – this time, man. Emerson writes, "The breadth of the problem is great, for the poet is representative. He stands among partial men for the complete man, and apprises us not of his wealth, but of the commonwealth". The Poet believes he represents man, and he feels he is what man should be. While the Poet and Usher represent two completely different ideas, they are bonded by that feeling of representing something.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s "The Poet" expresses a great deal of optimistic behavior to everything life hands him. The Poet believes that the love for truth, good, and beauty are equal and essential to live his life. This optimistic view of life by the Poet is only feeding his ever growing ego. The Poet thinks of himself as a teacher, or in Emerson’s words, a doctor. The Poet may not be a doctor or teacher, and deep down, he has to know that, but to refer to himself as that, is only inflating his self-image. Another ego booster for the Poet is that he says he is able to connect with nature and every artificial thing and bring them together, something that God cannot do. While the Poet is extremely optimistic and has quite the ego, Roderick Usher is very different. Poe writes, "And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom".
The Poet and Roderick Usher share some similarities and differences but there is no doubt that these two are heading in two directions. The Poet is about the true poet and not about men of poetic talents or of industry and skill meter. Roderick Usher was a defeated man, but he was able to still enjoy a few artistic things. While they could be considered poets on the rise, Emerson’s "The Poet" and Poe’s "The Fall of the House of Usher" showcase some similarities and differences.
Anne Bradstreet’s Use of Religious Doctrine in Her Poetry
December 7, 2007
Anne Bradstreet accepted the tenets of Puritanism and was a very religious person. Anti-Puritan themes are, however, to be found in her poetry in terms of her religious doubts, and her expression of personal emotions and thoughts. She did not write to preach or teach, as Puritan writers were instructed to, but to express herself. It is this personal expression that forms the basis of the heretical elements in her poetry.
To understand why personal expression may be considered heretical, the society in which Bradstreet lived and wrote must be examined in order to comprehend what kinds of human activities and behaviors were acceptable and how Bradstreet deviated from these behaviors.
Bradstreet was not truly unorthodox in that she did not dissent from accepted beliefs and doctrine. She was a woman of the 17th Century and lived in a male dominated, intensely religious society. She lived within the limitations not only of the beliefs and standards of her society, but of her sex. A woman’s place was definitely in the home in Colonial America. The experiences of women were considered narrow and trivial in comparison with men’s.
Puritanism was more than a religious belief; it was a way of life. Aside from a literal belief in the Bible, Puritans wholly accepted the doctrines of
John Calvin and his stern legalistic theology. The Puritans held that religion should permeate every phase of living. The purpose of life was to do God’s will; everything else was subordinate to this basic doctrine. New England was founded at a time when almost everyone who could read at all, read poetry, and many attempted to write it. Poetry in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, like other manifestations of intellectual life in the 17th Century, was dominated by religion.
Unlike most young women, Anne Bradstreet was well educated. At age 16 she married Simon Bradstreet, a graduate of Emmanuel College. Two years later, the Bradstreets and Dudleys came to Massachusetts with John Winthrop and other prominent settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne’s husband became a magistrate, and later a Governor as did her father.
Soon after arriving in Massachusetts, Anne wrote: "I changed my condition ad was married, and came into this Country, where I found a new world and new manners, at which my heart rose. But after I was convinced it was the way of God".
The Bradstreets had eight children, and Anne was a devoted wife and mother as well as a busy one. From the start, however, she made the time to write poetry. Typically, Anne Bradstreet did not seek to have her poetry published as a male poet would have. Her early poems were published, however, when her brother-in-law, John Woordbridge, took a manuscript of her poems to London and had them printed in 1650. The edition contained many errors, and was the inspiration for a poem on the subject by Bradstreet.
Bradstreet’s poems reveal that she valued herself as a woman, as a wife and mother. She wrote of daily experiences, her love for her children and husband, the beautiful New England landscape, the small pleasures of life and domesticity. Religion was a dominant theme in her work, including her religious doubts. A feminine consciousness can also be found in her work. As she wrote in The Prologue:
I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A poet’s pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits:
If what I do prove well, it won’t advance,
They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance.
The heretical themes in Bradstreet’s poetry, however, spring from her domestic poems which reveal passionate love for her husband, Simon, maternal devotion and pleasure in worldly goods, and from her religious poems, which reveal her conflicts and doubts.
Many of Bradstreet’s poems reveal that she could not accept in entire submissiveness the sterner aspects of New England Puritanism. The last stanza of her poem on the death of Elizabeth Bradstreet, her grandchild, illustrates this:
By nature trees do rot when they are grown,
And plums and apples thoroughly ripe do fall,
And corn and grass are in their season mown,
And time brings down what is both strong and tall.
But plants new set to be eradicate,
And buds new blown, to have so short a date,
Is by His hand alone that guides nature and fate.
Bradstreet writes with apparent emotion using imagery as an explanation of the situation at hand until it seems that suddenly she realizes that she is perilously close to writing rebelliously against God’s decrees and then pulls herself up at the very end. This seems to not be her true feeling but rather deference to the orthodox doctrine of the day.
For the pioneer Colonists, home was a refuge from the often harsh, new environment. For Anne Bradstreet, the burning of her home (in "Verses upon the Burning of Our House") and belongings in July, 1666 was a great loss for someone so devoted to her family and domestic pleasures. The poem, however, contains no self-pitying elements. Instead, Bradstreet uses the personal loss to reconcile it with her belief in the wisdom of God’s will.
There are two homes referred to in this poem, "my dwelling place," and the "house on high erect, Framed by that mighty Architect." In the poem, Bradstreet states that both homes are God’s.
The first five stanzas of the poem relate the pleasant things - a trunk, a chest, and a table - that the poet enjoyed in her home. The pleasure is evident. In the sixth stanza, the tone changes as the poet accepts the fire as the will of God, acknowledging that earthly objects are vanity, that her wealth on earth had no real meaning, and that real wealth lies with God. The poem ends:
Farewell, my pelf, farewell my store.
The world no longer let me love,
My hope and treasure lies above.
The poem can easily be read in two lights, what the poet should feel, she does feel. Yet, upon re-reading the poem there is a sense of conflict; the expression of domestic pleasures are rooted in genuine feeling. It is these private feelings, and enjoyment of domestic details that give the poem its heretical tone. The doctrine seems to be accepted more intellectually than emotionally.
Anne Bradstreet felt that her love of the pleasant things of life was unchristian. This conflict is clearly presented in "The Flesh and The Spirit". The Spirit is the victor, but the Flesh even though vanquished, reasserted again and again its claims.
Flesh is the unsettled, questioning heart, while Spirit is the settled heart. Flesh and Spirit are personified by two sisters:
One Flesh was called, who had her eye
On worldly wealth and vanity;
The other Spirit, who did rear
Her thoughts unto a higher sphere:
Although Bradstreet presents the correct dogma in her poem, its purpose is not to instruct but, again, to express her personal feelings. It is the personal feelings that provides the heretical aspects.
"To My Dear and Loving Husband" is a passionate love poem that is lovely, human, and simple. It is also free of any religious dogma. For this reason, it may be considered to have the most heretical elements of any of her poems. The poem is universal as it can be read as a modern one, as well as one from early America. It is openly passionate:
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
… My love is such that Rivers cannot quench.
The only reference to religion is to pray the heavens reward her husband, hardly a Puritan prayer.
Anne Bradstreet loved her husband and her children and God with a troubled realization that she fell short of God’s, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart". Anne Bradstreet’s poetry shows a merging of the private life with the religious life, but also a rebellious, inquiring spirit. The heretical themes in her poetry stem from this spirit and her need for self-expression.
The Scarlet Letter
December 7, 2007
One of the reasons the Scarlet Letters has become such a timeless story is because of its use of symbolism and the important role that it plays in the story. Symbolism is the applied use of any iconic representations, which carry particular conventional meanings. Within The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporates symbolism to expose a deeper meaning in the story. The first and most obvious symbol that Hawthorne displays is the embroidery of the letter "A" given to Hester to wear as a reminder to the town of her adultery. Another symbol is revealed in Chapter XII, when a meteor in the form of a letter "A" lights up the night sky. Also, Hawthorne reveals symbolism in the scaffold, where many of the important plot points take place.
The Letter "A" is the most obvious form of symbolism within The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne establishes that Hester receives an embroidered letter "A" to mark her as an adulterer. The letter’s meaning shifts as time passes. At first, the "A" is a symbol of shame, but as the story progresses, the shameful "A" becomes her powerful identity. The community started to form a different meaning for the scarlet letter, like ability. In the thirteenth chapter, Hawthorne comes out in the third person and states, "The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her, so much power to do, and power to sympathize, that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength." The letter’s meaning clearly changes when the Native Americans come to watch the Election Day pageant, and think the "A"e; marks Hester as a person of importance. The scarlet letter, in conclusion, was ineffective and "had not done its office."
While Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl in Chapter XII, a meteor outlines the letter "A" in the night sky. In response to the meteor sighting, "There stands the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself as a symbol, and the connecting link between those two." Dimmesdale believes that the "A" in the sky is a message from God telling him to wear a mark of shame just as Hester does. This revelation causes Dimmesdale to place his hand firmly over his heart. The meteor is interpreted differently by the townspeople of the Salem community. The community feels that the "A" in the sky stands for "Angel," and marks Governor Winthrop’s entry into heaven.
The scaffold is a platform where criminals are punished before all the townspeople. In this case, the criminal is Hester Prynne and the crowd has gathered to witness her shame. The first scene at the ominous platform is Hester’s first public appearance with the child and the scarlet letter. Hawthorne implies to the reader that the scaffold symbolizes punishment and public humiliation. The scaffold and scarlet letter’s meanings coincide. The scaffold also outlines Hester’s strength. In the first scaffold scene, Hester lifts her eyes towards the balcony and grows pale and trembles. When Hester is at the third scaffold scene, she is much more comfortable and less ashamed of the "A" on her chest. Finally, the scaffold proves ineffective in its purpose to punish and publicly humiliate Hester.
Hawthorne’s use of symbolism within the Scarlet Letter adds abstract ideas or concepts to seemingly meaningless objects that are found within the story. It is because of its abundant use of symbolism that this story can relate to every reader and why it has become the timeless work that it has.
Errata in Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography
December 7, 2007
Benjamin Franklin recounts in his Autobiography that he started an apprenticeship with his brother James in his brother’s printing business. When James gets in trouble with the authorities, James ends Benjamin’s apprenticeship officially (so that Benjamin may take over the newspaper legally) while drawing up secret paper which would continue his apprenticeship as it was before. Later a disagreement arises and Benjamin decides to leave his brother knowing full well that James will not bring up the secret papers for fear of incriminating himself. As Benjamin Franklin tells us, "It was not fair in me to take this Advantage, and this I therefore reckon one of the first Errata of my life". This is the first of many "errata" he recalls in this story of his life.
The word errata is the plural of erratum, a Latin word used primarily in the printing business, with which Benjamin is very familiar. Its definition is an error in printing or writing, especially such an error noted in a list of corrections and bound into a book. This is an excellent use of the word especially when considering it is within the autobiography of such a great writer and publisher. Benjamin is reflecting on his life, with and attempting to help his son learn some of the lessons that took a lifetime for Benjamin Franklin to learn. The term errata especially applies here since the errors of his life are "noted in a list of corrections at the end" in his recollection of it. This exemplifies the main purpose of his beginning his Autobiography in the first place – that he may teach others the many lessons that he has learned over the course of his eventful life by noting his errata.
