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Theme 7 : the Natural and the Fantastic

Group 9 : Cindy F, Nadia A, Renata M, Ridho B

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Contents

• Theme 7 : the Natural and the Fantastic– Before you read William Blake's Poetry

• "A Poison Tree"• "The Lamb"

– Media Connection– Before you read : Meet Mary Wollstonecraft

• "A Vindication of The Rights of Woman"» Responding to literature

– Before you read William Wodsworth's Poetry• "The World Is Too Much With Us"• "My Heart Leaps Up"

» Responding to Literature

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the Natural and the Fantastic

A hideous monster, feverish reveries, and impassioned arguments, as well as some of the less dramatic moments of daily life. Although these works range from dramatic to dreamlike to down-toearth, all of them capture powerful feelings.

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INTRO • BINGUNG MAU DIISI APA, MUNGKIN PENJELASA NATURAL FANTASTIC ITU APA DULU ????/

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In the beginning of the poem, the speaker tells of his anger toward a friend and a foe and how each differed. With his friend, he expressed his anger and was relieved of it, but with his foe, he did not express it, which fed his fury.

Blake’s speaker continues, describing how he emotionally nourished his wrath, or tree, until an apple grew from it, which his enemy took although he knew it was his. In the end of the poem, the speaker has killed his opponent, and he is not only unremorseful, but also happy and proud. Blake uses a confident and assertive tone, which makes the speaker sound all-powerful and merciless, two ideas feared when combined

Symbolically, the speaker represents God, the foe and garden represent Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the tree represents the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis. If this analogy is true, it shows God rejoicing in killing his enemies, which most people think the God they know would never do.

A Poison Tree Summary

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A Poison Tree : Analysis1st Stanza : He was mad at his friend so he told him why he was mad and his anger disappeared. When he was angry with his foe and he didn't say why he was angry he got more angry at himself.

2nd Stanza : His anecdote to cure his wrath or anger was tears. He cried night and day morning and night. But he didn't want his foe thinking that anything was out of the norm so he sunned it with smiles.

3rd Stanza: And it grew both day and night meaning that the fake smiles continued until it became apparent to both of them what he was doing. And my foe beheld its shine and he knew that it was mine meaning that the foe looked right through his transparent and fake smiles.

4th Stanza : Reveals the end result of the foe sneaking into the speaker’s “garden” to take the apple from the poison tree. In the end, the apple, the fruit of speaker’s wrath, takes the life of the foe. The speaker is victorious over the foe but at a high cost. Blake says that the speaker is “glad” to see the foe “outstretched beneath the tree.” These last lines have a sense of unease. No matter what the anger-poisoned speaker may believe, this is not a victory.

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The speaker, identifying himself as a child, asks a series of questions of a little lamb, and then answers the questions for the lamb. He asks if the lamb knows who made it, who provides it food to eat, or who gives it warm wool and a pleasant voice.The speaker then tells the lamb that the one who made it is also called “the Lamb” and is the creator of both the lamb and the speaker. He goes on to explain that this Creator is meek and mild, and Himself became a little child. The speaker finishes by blessing the lamb in God’s name.

The Lamb Summary

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The Lamb : Analysis• The poem is a child’s song, in the form of a question and answer. The

first stanza is rural and descriptive, while the second focuses on abstract

spiritual matters and contains explanation and analogy. The child’s

question is both naive and profound. The question (“who made thee?”) is

a simple one, and yet the child is also tapping into the deep and timeless

questions that all human beings have, about their own origins and the

nature of creation.

• The poem’s apostrophic form contributes to the effect of naiveté, since

the situation of a child talking to an animal is a believable one, and not

simply a literary contrivance. The answer is presented as a puzzle or

riddle, and even though it is an easy one—child’s play—this also

contributes to an underlying sense of ironic knowingness or artifice in the

poem. The child’s answer, however, reveals his confidence in his simple

Christian faith and his innocent acceptance of its teachings.

• The lamb of symbolizes Jesus. The traditional image of Jesus as a lamb

underscores the Christian values of gentleness, meekness, and peace.

The image of the child is also associated with Jesus: in the Gospel, Jesus

displays a special solicitude for children, and the Bible’s depiction of Jesus

in his childhood shows him as guileless and vulnerable. These are also the

characteristics from which the child-speaker approaches the ideas of

nature and of God. This poem, like many of the Songs of Innocence,

accepts what Blake saw as the more positive aspects of conventional

Christian belief.

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Line 1

Little lamb, who made thee?

• The speaker addresses the lamb and asks, "Who made thee?"

• The speaker is not someone who takes things as they are. He wants

to know where they come from. He sounds genuinely curious, but

he also places himself above the lamb by calling it "little."

Line 2

Does thou know who made thee,

• The speaker repeats his question in a slightly different way. He's all

about using those old-sounding English words like "dost" and

"thee."

• Unlike in line 1, where the speaker seems curious, here he sounds

like he knows the answer to the question – "Who made thee?" – and

is quizzing the lamb. We get the sense that we're going to learn the

answer before too long.

Lines 3-4

Gave thee life, and bid thee feed

By the stream and o'er the mead;

• These lines extend the question of "Who?"

• The speaker wants to know who gave the lamb life and that

voracious appetite for greenery that leads it to travel by streams

and over meadows, or "mead."

• In other words, the lamb didn't create its own desires and appetites.

They come from a higher power.

Lines 5-6

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing, woolly, bright;

• The lamb has a creator who gave it "clothing of delight," which

sounds like the next high-end fashion line. This clothing is

advertised as "the softest" and "wooly bright."

• The speaker doesn't seem to mind the redundancy of describing

lamb's wool as "wooly." That's like calling someone's hair "hairy."

Not too helpful.

• The wool looks "bright" because it gleams in the sun.

Lines 7-8

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice?

• Line 7 is the third in this stanza to begin with the word "Gave."

• This is one lucky little lamb. As if its fancy clothing weren't enough,

it also has a voice so "tender" that it makes the valleys happy as its

baa-ing echoes through them.

• A "vale" is just a word for valley. When the lamb speaks, the valleys

seem to reply with the same joyful voice.

Lines 9-10

Little lamb, who made thee?

Does thou know who made thee?

• These lines repeat word for word the first two lines of the poem.

Everybody sing along now.

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Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is a declaration of the rights of women to equality of education and to civil

opportunities. The book-length essay, written in simple and direct language, was the first great feminist treatise. In it Wollstonecraft

argues that true freedom necessitates equality of the sexes; claims that intellect, or reason, is superior to emotion, or passion; seeks to

persuade women to acquire strength of mind and body; and aims to convince women that what had traditionally been regarded as soft,

“womanly” virtues are synonymous with weakness. Wollstonecraft advocates education as the key for women to achieve a sense of

self-respect and a new self-image that can enable them to live to their full capabilities. The work attacks Enlightenment thinkers such as

Jean Jacques Rousseau who, even while espousing the revolutionary notion that men should not have power over each other, denied

women the basic rights claimed for men. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman created an uproar upon its publication but was then

largely ignored until the latter part of the twentieth century. Today it is regarded as one of the foundational texts of liberal feminism.

a Vindication of the Right's of Women : Overview

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a Vindication of the Right's of Woman : Analysis

• Key Concepts:– women are weaker than men but ought to be educated to be morally responsible

in their degree– women's current inferiority stems from faulty education– middle classes are the most natural state– women's artificial weakness leads to tyranny– women trained only to get husbands will make poor wives– neglected wife makes a good mother– current education of women makes them creatures of sensibility and not

intellect.

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Media Connection

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Angrily, the speaker accuses the modern age of having lost its connection to nature and to everything meaningful: “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: / Little we see in Nature that is ours; / We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” He says that even when the sea “bares her bosom to the moon” and the winds howl, humanity is still out of tune, and looks on uncaringly at the spectacle of the storm. The speaker wishes that he were a pagan raised according to a different vision of the world, so that, “standing on this pleasant lea,” he might see images of ancient gods rising from the waves, a sight that would cheer him greatly. He imagines “Proteus rising from the sea,” and Triton “blowing his wreathed horn.”

The World Is Too Much With Us : Summary

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The World Is Too Much With Us : Analysis

• It's a sonnet; consists of 14 lines• “The world is too much with us” takes the form of a Petrarchan sonnet. • It is divided into two parts, an octave (the first eight lines of the poem) and

a sestet (the final six lines). • The rhyme scheme of this sonnet is somewhat variable; in this case, the

octave follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, • and the sestet follows a rhyme scheme of CDCDCD. • In most Petrarchan sonnets, the octave proposes a question or an idea that

the sestet answers, comments upon, or criticizes.• On the whole, this sonnet offers an angry summation of the familiar

Wordsworthian theme of communion with nature, and states precisely how far the early nineteenth century was from living out the Wordsworthian ideal

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References

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William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

• One of the poets in the romanticism era• He insisted that poetry should express

deep feelings about everyday experiences; an art that engages the heart more than the mind; it should be spontaneous rather than calculated, and emotional rather than witty

• When he was 28 years old, his reputation as a leading young poet was established with the publication of Lyrical Ballads, a collection that included his poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” and Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

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• When he was 73 years old, he was named poet laureate of England

• His masterpiece The Prelude, a long autobiographical poem, was published after his death

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My Heart Leaps Up

My heart leaps up when I beholdA rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old, 5Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to beBound each to each by natural piety.°9

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Summary

• The speaker is telling us about the feeling he gets, has always gotten, and will always get when he sees a rainbow in the sky: his heart rejoices. He says that if he were ever to stop feeling this joy, he would want to die

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Analysis

• Line 1:- Shows us that the poem is going to be

about something that makes the speaker's heart leap up, presumably from joy

- Personification: from the word “leap” itself. The heart has no legs (it’s impossible for it to literally leap on its own)

• Line 2:- We find out what makes the speaker's

heart leap up: a rainbow- Ends with a colon: this means that what

follows is probably related to it

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• Line 3:- The speaker has had this feeling about

rainbows ever since his life began (it means since his childhood) -> creates a sense of time

• Line 4:- The speaker still gets excited by the sight

of a rainbow, even as a mature adult• Line 5-6:- The speaker is sure that when he grows

old, he will still be thrilled at the sight of a rainbow

- He stated that if he ever lost this thrill, he would want to die

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- “Or let me die!” -> Whom is he talking to? Whomever he is addressing, they are not around in the poem. It also ends with an exclamation point -> to emphasize

- For him, life without the capacity to appreciate nature's beauty would not be worth living

• Line 7:- “The Child is father of the Man;” ->

paradox (contradictory statement)- The speaker has shown us how important

it is that something that thrilled him when he was young continues to thrill him when he grows old -> his childhood formed who he is as an adult

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- The speaker treasures the fact that he still has a childlike capacity for wonder

- The capitalization of the words "Child" and "Man“ -> a way to draw attention to the general truth of the line (it is meant to have a wider meaning than just in the speaker's life)

• Line 8-9:- The speaker now expresses that he hopes

nature will tie his days together forever

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- The glue, or rope, between these days is "natural piety” -> a religion that is natural, or not forced (piety normally has a religious connotation). Natural here can also means genuine or sincere

- These two lines sort of put the rest of the poem in context. The rainbow, which thrills the speaker throughout his life, is an example of a form of natural piety, his sense of joy and wonder at the natural world. That sense is what he hopes to experience for the rest of his days, his time on earth