EN 4573 Study Guide - Final Guide: Psychomachia, Gothic Revival Architecture, Spiritualism
16 Oct 2011
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
A world that postulated god is not the centre of the universe. Belief in evolutionary meliorism-- this so-called faith in evolutionism, in science as opposed to religion. The spirits mirroring the entire periods obsession with haunting/the supernatural. Victorian era = progress (scientific progress, empirical progress, victorian prog, etc ) End rhyme - abab, sing-songy (lyrical quality) -- there is also the harshness of sound --> feeds into the harshness of the poem. The bird is aged, frail, gaunt and small ~ a darkling thrush. Strophic -- the stanzas are in 8 lines. It lulls you, almost, into a sense of relaxation. A transition of time, 1899 - on the eve of 1900s. The thrush as an emblem of optimism at a time when it is so pessimistic. She"s not receiving what she wanted when she was alive, nor when she"s dying. A poem not paying tribute to the man.
