Author: Chazz Michael Michaels

Upon looking over my primary sources for going towards my senior thesis, something that caught my attention was the consistent presence of Grecian antiquity(ies) throughout romantic poetry. As Romantic poetry is typically seen as a response or contradiction to Neoclassical poetry, poetry focused on logic and reason, Romanticism focuses on raw emotion: emotion that cannot easily be described. Aside from the sensual verbiage and language that works to illuminate the sublime, Romantic poetry commonly features Greek gods, such as Proteus and his triton in Wordsworth’s “The World is Too Much with Us”, or Keats famous “Ode to a Grecian Urn.” Interestingly, as these are all poems I am using to examine the use of ekphrasis, I was left with one major question- what is it about Greek art that intrigues/inspires Romantic poets, particularly European Romantic poets so much? The obvious seems to be that Greek art was highly focused on the aesthetics, but I think there is likely more to it.

As I previously mentioned, while neoclassical poetry involves logic and reason, it also involves an admiration for visual arts and literature (mainly inspired or found in Roman and Greek antiquity). Perhaps then, the two eras have a fair amount in common and Romanticism may have merely been an addition to Neoclassicism rather than a response to it. To go back to the Keats poem I had previously mentioned, “Ode to a Grecian Urn” and its ekphrastic nature involves many neoclassicist concepts. As the neoclassic approach is concerned with visual art, so is the narrator, as he remains preoccupied on the antique urn that gives him a sort of idealism about life. Though, while using these concepts, the narrator does take a very Romantic approach towards the art in appreciating how art can contribute to the sublime- how interpretating these antiquities can involve complex emotions that logic or reason cannot necessarily explain.

 

Works Cited

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Romanticism”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Oct. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/art/Romanticism. Accessed 11 November 2024.

Irwin, David. “Neoclassical art”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Sep. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/art/Neoclassicism. Accessed 11 November 2024.

Keats, John. “Ode to a Grecian Urn.” Chicago Review, vol. 8, no. 1, Jan. 1954, p. 76. https://doi.org/10.2307/25293011.

 

Before focusing on Wordsworth and rereading his works in preparation for my thesis, before recently, I had not read Wordsworth for a couple of years. One of the pioneers of the Romantic Era of poetry, his romanticist poetry was filled with emotion and sensuality, along with a deep level of sensibility that distinguished itself from former eras of poetry.

Recently, I had reread one of my favorite Wordsworth pieces, “Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont.” As the name states, this poem takes the form of an elegy- a form of poetry that expresses or represents grief or sadness, particularly lament of grief of the passing of a loved one. Interestingly, though the poem defines itself as an elegy, the tone and mood of the poem are unique to most elegiac poems. Rather than coming off as mournful and sad, the poem is more nostalgic. “How perfect was the calm”, the author claims, as they state that “So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! So like, so very like, was day to day!” Here, the narrator reminisces on the beautiful landscapes that hold certain memories of the past, memories of both joy and pain.

When I had originally read the poem, I had really only noticed this bittersweet nostalgia outlined by the narrator. The admiration of nature and the use of words such as “perfect” and “calm” work to distract the reader, as in my case, myself, from the real sadness and grief the narrator is feeling during the poem. This situation is fitting for Romantic poetry and makes sense once you think of the tropes and concepts that make up the genre. Poets such as Wordsworth were encapsulated by the natural world, but not in a way that escapes from our reality. Rather, Romantic poets such as Wordsworth used nature as a commentary on our own reality, and were focused on how nature impacted our understanding of humanity. Thus, the only way our romantic narrator can truly express himself is through interactions with nature. For the narrator, when the person they lost was in their life, they served as a sort of stability. Now, this is gone, and they are left with reminiscing on the safe feeling around them. They state, “Whene’er I looked, thy Image still was there; It trembled, but it never passed away.” For the narrator, the person they lost could make ‘pure’ the sky and make the air ‘quiet’. The narrator also describes this stability as “A Picture had it been of lasting ease.” Though, in this case of ekphrasis, where the ‘image’ in question is George Beaumont’s “Peele Castle in a Storm”, the picture is ultimately not real. Perhaps the land that inspired the painting was real, but the geography in the painting is not literal. This possibly adds another layer of grief that the narrator is working with as the narrator is simply left with memories of the person he loves and struggles with a saddening question: which of our memories our truly real, and which do we frame in a picture that we’d like to remember?

As a poetic device, ekphrasis constantly interacts with this question, but does not necessarily provide a definitive answer. This concept is something that I will continue with and expand upon in my thesis.

 

 

Works Cited:

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “elegy”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Oct. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/art/elegy. Accessed 29 October 2024.

Wordsworth, William. “VI Elegiac Stanzas: suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, painted by Sir George Beaumont.” Poetry Foundation, Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of… | The Poetry Foundation

 

 

 

As I am interested in studying the concepts of ekphrasis and the sublime particularly in romantic poetry, I will certainly be including works of famous romantic poet William Wordsworth in my research.

Wordsworth had started his poetic career early, getting into writing at a young age in grammar school in Cockermouth, England, where he recalled his education in several of his poems. He later attended Hawkshead Grammar School, where he began composing verse and his love of nature and senses become integrated into his poetry. Wordsworth also held a great appreciation for the ‘common’ man and what it meant to politically represent people of multiple social statuses through literature. To this, Wordsworth poetry famously utilized simple verse that could be of value to people with a more casual appreciation to poetry and average literacy,

The poet also adopted some strong political beliefs that stemmed from this empathy and passion towards the ‘common’ man. Wordsworth spent time on trips in Switzerland and France, adopting ideas supportive of democracy and anti-tyrannical. Particularly in France, exposure to revolutionary ardor and beautiful natural scenes of the countryside simultaneously formed a personality for Wordsworth as a poet and literary figure.

Though, the poet’s identity would change throughout the years. After having a child with a woman he was not married to, he was ultimately barred from joining any churches in his local area, mainly to save the embarrassment from his relatives in the churches. Ironically, Wordsworth had gotten into the works of atheist William Godwin anyway and had become strongly influenced by the piece.

This biographical context of Wordsworth is essential to fully understanding the poet’s use of ekphrasis and exploration of the sublime. With a love of nature, particularly scenes and images of nature, the poet transformed this love to his poetry through ekphrasis. With background on the poet’s religious beliefs, this context contributes to discourse surrounding Wordsworth’s infatuation with the sublime, given the strong atheist influence in his life.

 

Citations:

“William Wordsworth: 1170-1850”, The Poetry Foundation. Accessed October 7th, 2024. William Wordsworth | The Poetry Foundation

Reading List 

Summary:  

I have chosen to use the concepts of the sublime and ekphrasis as my guiding terms because these concepts have always been of interest to me throughout my time as an English major. I think the concept of describing visual art in poetry and literature as a whole is interesting given that it provides a metaphysical analysis of art, forcing the reader to find what terms and literary elements help depict an image. A lot of ekphrasis that has always intrigued me is how visual art can inspire other artists and transcend their work. I have noticed that particularly in the Romantic Era, many poetic works involved ekphrasis. Poems of Keats and Wordsworth took inspiration from separate forms of visual art and involved ekphrasis to illuminate a deeper meaning that could not be achieved without the device. Currently, I am interested in studying ekphrasis in the Romantic Era, involving concepts of the sublime and how these sensory devices worked with create deeper meanings in poetry. I am still looking for a journal to use, and once I find one, I plan to use it in conversation with my reading list, applying an aesthetic lens. 

 Updates:

Over the past few weeks as I have reviewed my list, I have decided to involve Keats in my analysis of ekphrastic poetry. The Irish poet is a famous user of ekphrasis in poetry, and his descriptions and inspirations from visual art are both similar and very different than Wordsworth’s. Most of my favorite Keats’ poems are ones where he incorporates art as a way of understanding temporality, and even broader concepts such as life and death. These poems include Ode to Immortality, Ode to a Grecian Urn, and Ode to a Nightingale.

Key Terms: The Sublime, Ekphrasis, Poetics, Romanticism, Art History,

 

 Primary Sources:

Keats, John. “Ode to a Grecian Urn.” Chicago Review, vol. 8, no. 1, Jan. 1954, p. 76. https://doi.org/10.2307/25293011.

Keats John. “Ode on Melancholy.” Poetry Foundation. Ode on Melancholy | The Poetry Foundation

Wordsworth, William. “VI Elegiac Stanzas: suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, painted by Sir George Beaumont.” Oxford University Press eBooks, 1807, pp. 259–60. https://doi.org/10.1093/oseo/instance.00081630.

Wordsworth, William. “The World is Too Much with Us.” Poetry Foundation. The World Is Too Much With Us | The Poetry Foundation

 

 

3-5 Secondary or Theoretical Works: 

Carelse, Michael. “Unique Forms of Ekphrasis: The Keepsake and the Illustrative Poetry of the Literary Annuals.” Victorian Poetry, vol. 61, no. 3, Sept. 2023, pp. 301–35. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1353/vp.2023.a915653. 

Burwick, F. (1996). Ekphrasis and the Mimetic Crisis of Romanticism. In Icons, texts, iconotexts : essays on ekphrasis and intermediality / (pp. 78–104). W. de Gruyter. PeterWagner_1996_EkphrasisandtheMimeti_Icons-Texts-Iconotext.pdf 

Toikkanen, Jarkko. “Intermedial Experience and Ekphrasis in Wordsworth’s ‘Slumber.’” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas, vol. 17, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 107–24. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=821eba48-1748-376a-852e-c144d95235cc. https://research.ebsco.com/c/rd5flh/viewer/pdf/afzyz3xjwj 

In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, memory and trauma or two of the most recurring motifs throughout the novel. These motifs stood out to me particularly in reading the section we have read so far given that these two concepts are illustrated in such different ways. More specifically, these motifs mean such different things to each of the characters despite having somewhat mainly shared experiences.

A scene that I think of when I think of memory in Beloved is the conversation between Paul and Sethe in chapter 7, when Paul tells a story of him and Halle together after the boys had ‘taken Sethe’s milk’. Paul describes Halle working churning butter and himself with a bit around his mouth, preventing him from speaking to Halle. Paul also recalls the roosters roaming around freely while he stood with the bit in his mouth, illuminating a shame of being almost lesser than an animal.

Interestingly, the way this conversation even gets brought up is when Paul confronts Sethe and Denver about his distrust towards Beloved. Ultimately, Beloved starts this conversation, which is strange because she has nothing to do with what Paul later talks about. This seems to be a pattern involved with the motif of memory throughout the novel in that Beloved seems to bring out memories in people.

Another example of this is when she asks Sethe about the crystal earrings she received from Mrs. Gardner as a gift of marrying Halle. She continues into her past, as she tells of her mother and the branding on her chest Sethe could not see as she died hanging.

Here, Beloved encourages memory and remembrance more directly. With these two instances, it seems as though her character provides a way for both Sethe and Paul to become more comfortable with the past and acknowledge its existence.

After a night out last weekend with my roommates, we decided to ‘post-game’ by watching something on TV before the Domino’s we had ordered had gotten too stale to really eat anymore and we all went to bed. We looked through a couple of shows- then stumbled across a perfect mix of casual viewing, nostalgia, and low-stakes entertainment: SpongeBob SquarePants.

The show was my favorite as a kid, and it’s one of those rare exceptions where re-watching it at an older age doesn’t really change your understanding of it much- with a few exceptions. Ironically enough, these exceptions would hit me soon into watching a couple of random episodes: episodes that all maintained an interesting pattern of gender and gender roles.

More specifically, throughout the show, Spongebob, is constantly put in situations that not only diminish any sort of masculinity he has but work to feminize the character. He is rarely depicted as a masculine figure, and often when paired with other characters resembles a more feminine version. For example, in the episode, “Rock-A-Bye Bivalve”, Spongebob and Patrick play a married couple that raise a baby clam. Patrick plays a stereotypical working man, coming home from his ‘job’ in a shirt and a tie, barely helping raise the child and clean the house- jobs that have typically not been assigned to men under the patriarchy. Spongebob, on the other hand, plays a woman who takes on these roles of raising the child and working at the house. At the surface, this looks like a funny gaff put into a children’s show to put Spongebob in a dress and get a laugh, and to this, I encourage the classic question: “so what?”

To explore an answer to this question, I’d like to go back to our class discussion regarding phallocentrism in film and media. As a class, we came to the consensus that it is difficult to find examples of films/tv shows that are not phallocentric. This scenario provides a unique response to this consensus, given that as we know it, Spongebob is a male character depicting a woman, so for me this begs the question whether it reduces any sort of phallocentrism, or rather, exacerbates it.

To this, we must understand why Spongebob is put in these situations himself. Why is Spongebob the one character whose masculinity is constantly disregarded. There are plenty of other examples of Spongebob ‘playing’ a woman by wearing feminine clothes. In fact, it’s quite often. So, why does this happen so often compared to other characters?

These questions have complicated answers, but a key concept in understanding Spongebob’s gender agency resides in a major recurring motif of the show: youth. He is the youngest of the main characters, and his youth is preserved by several factors. One of which, and ultimately the most important, is that he does not have his boating or (drivers) license. For most of us in the real world, this is a freedom that comes with aging and adulthood. To own or drive a car is a symbol of freedom resembling our maturity/ respect gained from the law due to our age and knowledge. For Spongebob, he cannot enjoy these freedoms, and given that he never passes his driver’s test, he is forever a boy. Because of this, Spongebob’s masculinity is severly limited. After all, he is just a boy, and so his masculinity can only go so far.

This motif of youth ultimately serves as a way to justify Spongebob’s femininity throughout the show, and the recurring pattern we see of him dressing up as a woman or even playing a spouse.

 

Walter Benjamin’s piece, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” stood out to me in a number of ways, neither his comments about the interactions between art and Marxism or attaching theory to “revolutionary demands in the politics of art” caught my attention the same way that his comments about Art and originality did.

In the second section of his piece, Benjamin discusses the reproduction of art throughout history, and how humans have valued reproduced or redistributed art in different ways. He begins the section with a bold assertion: “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be” (714). At the surface this makes sense, and even in 2024, has some truth to it. If you find the Mona Lisa on Google Images, it is a much different experience than seeing the real thing with your own eyes. Rather, where I assess this claim as bold requires us to pay attention to the Benjamin’s word choice in his assertion.

Firstly, Benjamin’s vague generalization of ‘art’ is immediately problematic- particularly when adding judgement statements such as “perfect” or “lacking”. While “perfect” is technically attributed to the reproduction of art, it implies that one piece of reproduced art can be more “perfect” or simply better than another. Benjamin could have chosen to say, “more accurate” or “more precise” rather than “perfect”, but the author chose to attach a judgement to these claims. I find this decision not only significant, but revealing of the author’s biases towards what defines appropriately reproduced art.

To this, Benjamin also uses the word “unique” upon describing the “existence” of an original art piece. Ultimately, he asserts that these “perfect” representations lack one thing: uniqueness. I find this claim to be somewhat contradictory.

While a work of reproduced art is ultimately the same has the original, Benjamin argues that it is not- all the while claiming that this reproduced, different work of art is not unique. If an original piece of art is “unique” in its existence, so too must a reproduction be unique in its difference from the original.