Even I am starting to wear down from everything! I finally got my paper done for Senior Seminar but, I’m afraid I didn’t make my point. The point that I finally settled on this week was whether William Carlos Williams could be considered a Romanticist like William Wordsworth. I was unable to put it into words until today when I received an e-mail from Dr. Gates. Thank you for the thump on the head, I think I was trying to hard and couldn’t remember what I actually needed to do to meet my goal. Am I the only one who ever runs into dead ends like that? Now I just need to get my presentation done and I think I’m excited about that because there are all kinds of ideas bouncing around in my head. (Somebody grab that ball, please).

Really though, it has been a fun semester, even with this quarantine thing. I probably didn’t feel it as bad as you ladies (and Aaron) did because of my work but it has been stressful at time. Thank you Dr. Gates for all your guidance and you patience with me. I can be a hand full at times, I know. Just ask my husband and son! Que siempre seas feliz y fructífero! or for the French majors: Puissiez-vous toujours être heureux et fructueux.

Here’s to you, Sara, I am just going to write until I can come up with something for my blog. I thought I might get more of my paper done, but things are not going the way that I need them to. Two papers to write, a final exam that I need to spend a week studying for if I’m going to do well on and a thousand other things which keep popping up. Then, of course, there is always work. Well, instead of crying over milk that might get spilled, I think that I will try to take it one thing at a time.

Senior Seminar– This paper compares two poets, one from the Romanticism Era and the other from the Modernism period in America! I have my sources, now I just need to write. Haven’t got an introduction yet, but I can do that afterward when I see what I have done. This way, I can write an introduction which actually explains what my paper is all about. Next step, make sure that I digress from my subject. Hey everyone, sounds like your topics are really cool, but mine seems to be really lame. I will still do it because I am interested in William Wordsworth and I love William Carlos Williams! Their poetry is outstanding.

They are nature lovers and seem to be concerned about the common things in our world. In Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, he uses personification, similes, and imagery to compare nature and human involvement in natural beauty. In comparing these, he points to another theme, the impact of nature upon the human. William Carlos Williams uses personification, imagery, ambiguity, (in the case of the plums in his poem, “This is Just To Say”). When these poets write, there is a common thread and I would like to explore this more.

This is a question I seem to be asking myself the closer we get to the end of the semester. If I concentrate on what I need to do, then maybe I will get it done. Then, along comes someone or something which not only breaks my concentration, but manages to side-track me. Fanny, as she waits at Portsmouth to come home to Mansfield Park, is anxious for her time away to be over. She hears from Mary Clark, Henry Clark shows up (she doesn’t really want anything to do with him) and it takes a while for Edmund to write to her but when he does, her days are spent waiting for the post to come in. Fanny has found her place in life and when taken away from it, she makes do and gets some good done like getting closer to her sister, Susan. When she finally goes back to Mansfield Park, she sees to it that her sister gets a little help in finding her place in the world too. Susan takes Fanny’s place by their aunt Bertram. Fanny has had the correct vision of the Clark’s (that they were selfish and only interested in what they felt was good for them) from the time she met them, but being considered “not high class” makes it difficult to get others to see the truth behind it.

Fanny waits it all out, supposedly with patience, but deep down, I believe she was truly heart-broken that her cousins could have their pick of the husbands but she had to settle for Henry, who was detestable in her eyes. In the end though, Fanny gets what she desired most the whole time, Edmund. Austen tells us through this story that there are many things wrong in the world, but with perseverance and patience, wrongs can be righted. Not all things work out as they should, because of the different decisions that are made by others, but social class and racism can be overcome.

Each of the characters in this book are asking “What do I want?” As Fanny waits to return to Mansfield Park, I’m sure there were times that she asked, “What do I do?” Throughout the book, there are echos of “What should I do?” from Fanny. She holds many of her tears, as she sees everyone else getting what they want, but do they deserve it? A prime example of that would be the situation with Julia and Mr. Rushworth. She wanted to marry him because he had money, then she tires of him and meets Mr. Yates. She runs off with Mr. Yates and forsakes her husband! In my opinion, that was not smart.

With everything going on around me, my two BIG papers which have to be written by the last week of the semester (2 weeks maybe?), changes at work (again), and the fact that 2 or 3 patients with COVID-19 have gone home from the hospital, I’m not sure what my response is to it all. The prediction is that we will soon be on the downhill slide with this pandemic, so I’m looking forward to getting back to something normal.

Now that Fanny has finally gotten back to Portsmouth, she thought she would be happy. Things didn’t work out the way she thought and it seems as if she is alienated from her parents and her siblings. Her father embarrasses her very much and her mother seems “more worn and faded”, except for on Sunday. (p. 409). Her brothers and sisters are combative, but they have grown up with each other and have not been separated as Fanny has. It is my opinion that Fanny needs to return to Mansfield Park. As she looks around her and listens to the noise of her mother’s house, when she sees the changes in her siblings, and the discomfort of the house, Fanny yearns to be back with her aunt and uncle at Mansfield Park. She has been gone from there almost a month and the news she gets from there, via Miss Clark, seems to cause her stress. Getting closer to her sister, Susan, will be beneficial to both girls. Fanny will be able to take her mind off of Edmund and Mary, and Susan will gain from the experience of her older sister.

The unwelcome arrival of Henry Clark did not help to ease the strain of missing her life with her aunt and uncle, but I thought it very interesting that Fanny did not go into any great introductions of him to her mother other than, “William’s friend” (p. 401) when he showed up at her mother’s house.

Fanny is a very organized girl, but she doesn’t have a lot of confidence in herself. I wonder what she would do or say if she were facing this coronavirus crisis that we are now facing? I would venture to say that she would probably be the one tending the sick patients because that seems to be the one thing that she is confident about. Would she make a good nurse?

I found another article for my final paper and it explains Wordsworth’s feeling on the pastoral genre. Wordsworth, in writing this ballad, saw the possible decline or loss of “independent domestic life” (Page, p. 626) which had connections to family and love of family and home. Wordsworth uses language, diction, syntax, and meter to support the values described in his pastoral poems and ballads. The article states that he did not adopt the archaic diction or dialect because he wanted his language to be original. Wordsworth shows proof that the English Bible uses original and universal language, “…its idiomatic strength was unimpaired by excess of technical distinctions and conventional refinements; (Page, p. 630). Wordsworth thought that the Bible was accurate and was a universally recognized standard of language. So by using language similar to the Bible in his pastoral poems and ballads, he was showing a description of a people in their true form. Toward the end of the ballad, Wordsworth brings out another Biblical device, the language of Prophecy:

Meantime Luke began/To slacken in his duty; and, at length,/He in the dissolute city gave himself/ To evil courses: ignominy and shame/ Fell to him, so that he was driven at last/ To seek a hiding-place beyond the seas. (lines 442-447). This follows two similar stories, one from the Bible; The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) and Silas Marner by George Eliot. Other language devices that Wordsworth uses in Michael are balanced, alliterative phrasing and “fairly even grammatical units” (Page, p. 632). Further along in my paper, I plan to show that William Carlos Williams uses many of the same devices that Wordsworth uses, but in some ways they seem to be different. This difference could be caused from the fact that Williams is an American poet in the Modernist times.

I am finding that this book is actually an easier read than The Victim of Prejudice. When Fanny first comes to Mansfield Park, she is shy and backward. Her aunts are actually not really excited about Fanny coming to live with them. Mrs. Norris doesn’t help anything, she actually scares Fanny more. I really haven’t figured out why she even suggested it, because Mrs. Norris had no intention of supporting her. When “Sir Thomas expected his sister-in-law to claim her share in their niece” ( p.34) after five years, Mrs. Norris begins to reveal her intentions, not so much in words, but in the excuses she comes up with against Fanny moving in with her. Mrs. Norris seems to like to use other peoples money, and does not hesitate to make suggestions and inferences on where they should spend it. She is not as high-class as she would like to be.

It would actually seem as if no one except maybe Edmund really cares about Fanny. She is in much the same boat as Mary Raymond was in. Her father was low-class and only had enough money to buy alcohol for himself. She was considered low class and because of that , a marriage to someone of high ‘quality’ would be unthinkable, and everyone figures she is stupid on top of it. She was not lucky enough to have an education, like her cousins. Mrs. Norris decides to take a hand in getting her nieces married to well-to-do gentlemen, but the last niece she thinks about (in a secondhand manner) is Fanny.

The class system is very much in appearance in this book. Fanny doesn’t want a lot of attention, that might be why she stays with Mrs. Bertram when everyone goes out. Maybe part of the reason for this is that her birth was considered not of quality. So everyone she has to deal with at Mansfield Park looks down their nose at her and do not expect much from her. I don’t really understand what Miss Crawford was referring to asking, “Pray, is she out, or is she not?” (p. 76). Perhaps she was referring to Fanny’s social class status? At this point in the book, the social class girls all think of marrying well and making themselves and their immediate environments attractive. I tend to call that conceited and short-sited. What will they do if their intended husbands should pass away or be seriously injured. Like Mrs. Norris, when they no longer have someone to support them and their lavish habits, how will they fare?

After finishing the story of Mary, who was well-educated and then reading Letters and Essays, The importance of education is very important. In Mary’s troubles, she still had her mind to figure things out. When she had to find a way to pay for her lodging and needs in London, she used her talent of drawing, she worked as a tutor to children, she was ingenious in finding ways to afford her bills. That is until Sir Peter figures out where she was and decided to stick his nose into the situation. How many times did that guy show up? Too many! I don’t think that he ever really got the idea that he was not wanted by Mary. Or could it be that he just wanted to make sure that Mary did not become respected? After raping her and then spreading it all over London, he had ruined her life already!

A love of books is what Mary Hays is wanting for young minds. I get the impression from her letters and essays that it doesn’t really matter what type of books, just books which share information valuable to the world. If a young mind is not indulged when they are young, after growing up and having children of their own, “How shall she train them to virtues, to which she herself is a stranger or to any kind of merit of which she has no idea?” (pp.237-238). Without education, it is hard to continue passing knowledge on to future generations. Learned information gives creativity and self-confidence. Society benefits from education also. Societies with high rates of education completion have lower crime, better overall health, and civic involvement. A good education makes an individual develop personally, socially as well as economically.

Okay, I am at a loss as to what I want to put in my blog. So I guess I will just start writing and see if I can get a line on something. I think that most of the male characters in the book are all jerks. Mary sacrifices herself for them but, they don’t seem to be reciprocating. William is not quite as bad as Sir Peter (who is beyond villain). William, I believe has grown up around his father and he is a real doozy. Not knowing that much about Edmund Pelham, it would be hard to find something in his character that would say he was alright except for his aspirations for William. What happened to the younger son, Edmund, I think? Pelham Sr. is wealthy, conceited, and a big snob. Why does William have to marry an upper-class girl; William feels that he is in love with Mary but it is only a very temporary infatuation. His proposal of relief for Mary later in the book (p. 127) is tasteless and serves to sully Mary’s name some more. In this request, he is no better than Sir Peter! I can see a little good in Mr. Raymond but, it can also be sort of selfish. His unrequited love for Mary’s mother was a blow to his manhood. As a parent, I see where he is doing his best to raise Mary but it is only so that he can let her know that she is not high enough in class to have anybody as a husband that would be somewhere close to comfortable financially.

Sir Peter is snobbish just like Mr. Pelham is. He feels that his money will get him whatever he wants but, he runs into Mary and decides he wants her. Guess what? She doesn’t want him and she does give him a run for his money. Unfortunately, in 18th century England, Mary did not have any weapons except her temper and strength of will. So Sir Peter gets what he wants and then decides that she ain’t worth it? He does show a little tickle of remorse for the rape but, the optimum word here is ‘show’. The offer to marry her after he has already raped her; that’s all it was, a pretense to use her as a sex slave.

Mary throughout the book is self-sacrificing and before the rape, she is naive. Maybe she doesn’t believe that the terrible things in life can touch her but after she begins to see the world as it is, she accepts her destiny: “With a mind, a resolution, yet unimpaired, I do not, indeed I do not, yield to despair.” (p. 128) The fact that he gives her a ten-pound note can easily be misconstrued by anyone seeing the exchange as payment for service. Her letter of the next morning tells the reader that Mary is ready to cut all ties: “to confide in the heart of man is to lay up stores for sorrow…” (p. 130). Mary Hays does a great job of pointing out the unequal rights between men and women. The lesson I learn from Mary’s trials and tribulations is that having an education is a special privilege but, it is how you use that education which will help you to be successful or end up without anything, Mary still had her pride and her education, even though she had lost her virtue and everything else in life. It is sad that she was unable to do anything with her education.

In all four of the articles for Tuesday, equality for women is the subject here. A great institution, marriage, was nothing more than a form of oppression, or in at least two of those articles, slavery. This, of course, was right around the early 18th century. One of the equalities mentioned was education. Mary Robinson’s A Letter to the Women of England (1799) is a radical response to the rampant anti-feminist sentiment of the late 1790s. In this work, Robinson encourages her female contemporaries to throw off the “glittering shackles” (p. 219) of custom and to claim their rightful places as the social and intellectual equals of men.

While reading these articles, especially Mary Robinson’s, I am reminded of an article by Mary Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the advancement of their True and Greatest Interest and An Academy for Women by Daniel Dafoe. Both of these articles suggest building a school or type of seminary for women to go and educate themselves. Robinson tells us “she whose enjoyments are limited, whose education, knowledge, and actions are circumscribed by the potent rule of prejudice,” (p. 218). Later in the article, she says that she would build a university for women where their studies should be “proportioned to their mental powers” (p. 219). It is difficult to place myself in an 18th century woman’s shoes, but the restriction of learning would be a great encumbrance to any female who wished to be able to converse with learned persons, whether they be male or female.

I’m really glad that the customs of 18th century England do not apply nowadays for just that reason and more. A woman’s mind is just as powerful and flexible as a man’s. Perhaps that is the reason why ladies today do have freedom and equality; men were willing to listen to women and give them the same opportunities that they enjoyed.

I still believe that in order for a written work, poem, prose, etc., it needs to evoke an emotion in the reader. Upon reading this travel log, I can see where it might be considered literary, but literature it is not! I prefer a plot of some kind and I do not see a plot in Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. According to the back cover of the book, “A Short Residence is her own travel memoir.” (Back cover of Letters…). In my opinion, a travel log, is just an account of where the person had gone, what they had done and the sites and things that person had seen or experienced. This simply reminds me of a travel flyer. It is very impersonal and not very interesting.

Now I will try to decide how it might be literary. “Literary” books are those that are more about ideas than narrative. Mary Wollstonecraft explains what takes place and using her descriptions of nature, and allusions to other writers, such as Jonathon Swift. She does reference Shakespeare, “Spirits unseen seemed to walk abroad, and flit from cliff to cliff, to sooth my soul to peace.” (p. 119). In my research of Mary Hays, I found that Hays and Wollstonecraft became friends after Hays wrote to Wollstonecraft “admiringly” (Wikipedia). So maybe in that respect, this might be considered “literary”. Wollstonecraft was an influence for Hays and other writers.

This book could be called literature because it is a written work, the instructions to fix a toilet, I guess, might be called literature in that respect. The Oxford English Dictionary has the word as pointing to “written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit”. (Jonathon Gibbs). Using language in ways that differ from ordinary usage would make it literature. I do have to say, “Listening to this book, it does have some wording in it that requires me to look up the words”.

Jonathon Gibbs. What counts as Literature. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/what-counts-as-literature/.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. ed. by Ingrid Horrocks. Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark”. Broadview Press, 2013.