One of the things which stuck with me from Professor Schoenfield’s lecture was a statement about how we experience the seasons. He said something to the effect of we don’t experience the changing of seasons directly, but rather as the conditions of today relate to those of our memory. We only know it’s getting to be winter because it is colder today than it was last week. In the long stanza from lines 167 to 254 about the man and his family, I don’t know whether I see this. While we hear quite a bit about the seasons as they influence the family’s life, I don’t know whether we see this sort of inclination in the poem. Does anyone see this?
However, the few stanzas from 117 to 166 brought something else to my mind. Perhaps we can apply Professor Schoenfield’s statement about the seasons to places. Perhaps we have no direct way of accessing the past, and the present only contains tastes of the past. The speaker discusses the history of the place, including Norman conquest and the shaming of the English navy. The speaker’s experience of the present conditions of this place are influenced by her memories of the past, as well as “that mass of ruin” (123) which remains on the landscape. Maybe it’s too much of a stretch?
"How gladly the reflecting mind returns
ReplyDeleteTo simple scenes of peace and industry"(L 168-169)
I don't have an answer to your above questions although they were quite insightful. The quote, "reflecting mind returns", illustrates another interesting point about memory. We tend to glorify that which has already occurred. It always seems simpler and thus more attractive/elegant than our current state. While I don't want to return to high school presently, it does seem like a much simpler time (i.e. the goal was fixed, go to college, vs. the myriad options that are available upon graduating from VU).
Perhaps the past goes both ways; we both take parts of the present and connect it with the past (nostalgia) and we project the past forward in sort of a goal seeking way (we want the present to be simple like the past; or perhaps less simple depending on who you are). I don't know if this theory holds but nevertheless, the poem has brought up a lot of questions surrounding the purpose of memory as it pertains to the present.
I agree that in life we often glorify the simpler past of our memories, but I don't think this is Smith's goal in this section of Beachy Head. The lines "How gladly the reflecting mind returns / To simple scenes of peace and industry" come after Smith has described England's war torn past. The "simple scenes" are those of the present, and she argues that even though England’s citizens brought glory to their country in the conquering other nations, a peaceful rural life is much more rewarding, "more happy is the hind, / Who, with his own hands rears on some black moor, / Or turbary, his independent hut / Cover'd with heather," She claims that even if you achieve glory through war in your lifetime, you will be no more likely to be remembered than a simple swain. She describes, "see where tread / The in numerous hoofs of flocks above the works / by which the warrior sought to register / His glory, and immortalize his name--/ The pirate, / Dane, who from his circular camp / Bore in destructive robbery, fire and sword / Down thro' the vale, sleeps unremember'd here; / And here, beneath the green sward, rests alike / The savage native, who his acorn meal / Shar'd with the herds.
ReplyDelete