ARTHUR HIGH CLOUGH

Arthur Hugh Clough 1819-1861

Our textbook describes Clough as “clever, witty, and ironic.” Clough was humorous in his writings as he began to write early in his career. Clough was a Christian and was concerned that Christianity was starting to lose its ground. Clough wrote about this when he wrote Epi-staruss-ium.
In Epi-strauss-ium, Clough used his irony early on. When he wrote:
Matthew and Mark and Luke and holy John

evanished all and gone!

I believe that Clough is saying that Christianity is gone. I believe that he is saying that the Gospels talked about in the Bible is not true or no one believes in them anymore. As this writing continues, Clough writes:

The place of worship the meantime with light

Is, if less richly, more sincerely bright,

and in blue skies the Orb is manifest to sight

and based on this, Clough is continuing to say that Christianity is no longer.

He continues through this writing, making references that Christianity is not alive and money is now the target of people’s thoughts. In the second part of this writing Clough writes:

Thou shalt one God only; who

Would be at the expense of two?

No graven images may be

Worshipped, except for the currency.

I believe in this part that Clough is making reference that in the society of that time, people had started cherishing two gods, the one in heaven, and the currency here on Earth. I believe he says this in the next section.
Clough makes reference to another commandment when he writes:

Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive

I believe that he is believing that without killing, one cannot strive. I believe that he is making reference here that killing is a natural part of making the function of human.
Finally Clough writes in his ironic way and says;

The sum of all is, thou shalt love,

If anybody, God above:

At any rate shall never labour

More than thyself to love thy neighbour.

This is what some people would say was a snide answer to an end. In the beginning I believed that Clough was trying to say that Christianity was ending and it was the people’s fault when they were not following The Ten Commandments. In this last part, if you love one another, you will prosper.
Clough was very ironic in his writing and this was a good example of his irony. If a person was only to read the first part of this poem, one might just believe that Christianity is dying, but Clough was only showing how during this era, people were getting away from traditional Christian beliefs.

JOHN KEATS

JOHN KEATS 1795-1821

John Keats has been labeled as one of the leading poets of the English Romantic era. Keats did not live a very long life, but in his 26 years he wrote some of the leading poems during this time. After reading several of his odes, I seen where he used very elaborate words to describe the visual imagery that he wanted the reader to imagine.
In one of Keats writings, To Autumn, simple as it may be Keats used the elaborate words I spoke of to describe the coming of the season of Autumn. In this poem Keats wrote:
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells…

In this passage Keats uses elaborate words to paint an extraordinary picture of the end of summer. I think Keats uses the exaggeration that the fruit on the vines are over run, the tree bend because the apples are weighing them down, all of the fruit is fully ripened, and the gourds are ready to be picked, are all elaborate ways Keats use to let the readers know that autumn is coming.
In John Keats “Ode to a Nightingale” he opens this writging up with a personal heartache. He wrote this in the first two lines when he wrote:
MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk

I believe that Keats is writing about how he is feeling so down that he would want to drink hemlock to help him deal with his heartache. Keats never made reference to any flying until the 31st line of the ode when he writes:

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards

Keats again uses elaborate words to help paint the visual imagery of what he is trying to say.
Keats uses these words to help him set himself apart from other poets of this time. Keats dies at a very young age but in his 26 years of life, he made a mark on poetry during this era.

ANNE BRONTE

ANNE BRONTE AKA ACTON BELL

Anne Bronte was the youngest of the Bronte sisters. She was born on January 17, 1820, and died about 29 years later in May 1849. She wrote under the name of Acton Bell when she wrote her novels and poetry.
Anne wrote several poems and novel, which in the in my opinion did not refer to the gender of who the writer was. I read a couple of chapters of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and was not able to identify the gender of the writer. I felt that in the novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne was calling for a world where males and females were equal to each other. I believe that in Anne’s writing in this novel that a person must be moral and should embrace both the feminine and masculine characteristics of their being. The individuals, regardless of their gender, can achieve both.
Anne wrote the following passage in her Novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:
Rest without toil I would not ask:
I would not shun the hardest task;
Toil is my glory- Grief my gain,
If God’s approval they obtain.
Could I but hear my Saviour say,-
“I know thy patience and thy love;
How thou has held the narrow way,
For my laboured night and day,
And watched, and striven with them that strove:…
I believe that Anne’s several references to labor and duties were to be assumed and then performed without looking for your own pleasure. I think her references to God and Saviour, refers to the labor and duties being performed without pleasure, and God performed his labor and duties to the people of the world saving them in hopes of providing them an eternal home in his father house.
After reading Anne’s poem titled The Narrow Way when it was published after she died. Bronte wrote :
Believe not those who say
The upward path is smooth,
Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way
And faint before the truth…
I believed she is talking about a duty here also. I believe that she is trying to relay that it is your duty to listen to what people say about the preparation to make it to heaven and be prepared to stumble in your walk in life. It is your duty to stumble in your walk toward heaven and if you believe that the path is smooth, it would be your duty to dispute those who say “…the path is smooth…”