Ode on a Grecian URL

Laura, in section 302, wrote the following investigation of "Michael." Pay attention to how she limits her discussion of the poem and how she incorporates that discussion into the larger framework of Wordsworth's poetic project:

Wordsworth’s poem “Michael” is a clear example of the effect the poet hoped to achieve with his audience through his experimental volume of verse. The text addresses a familiar “you” that places every reader in a spot around Wordsworth’s fireside. In this way Wordsworth provokes us to see the wonder in everyday existence.

The first stanza of “Michael” is a very personal invitation to the audience as individual readers. Wordsworth speaks as he would to an acquaintance or friend. This form of beginning is highly effective as a means to draw the reader into Wordsworth’s own feelings and appreciation for hardworking Michael’s simple but profound history.

In relating this provincial tale, Wordsworth is asking us to appreciate the power to be found in every human’s heart, whether they are a famous poet or a simple shepherd. We are to look up to and be guided by Michael’s family as our own “morning star,” just as the family’s peers did; through Michael’s love of nature and his devotion for his son, we are being shown a model of how to cherish the ordinary things in life.

On reading such a story, how can we help but be sympathetic? Wordsworth knew that his audience would see the beauty and depth of Michael’s life and legacy.

Through his poem “Michael,” Wordsworth asks us to appreciate his poetic experiment of making the ordinary experiences of life extraordinary. Michael fully invested his soul in the common objects that surrounded him, from the striking landscape he inhabited to his simple family life, with a son whose place in Michael’s heart was always secure. Even the heartache of the ending is beautiful in that it serves to further the reader’s awareness of the magnificence of the human soul. A poem that feels personal to each reader, “Michael” certainly persuades the audience to adopt Wordsworth’s ideas about poetry as their own.

Laura begins her first paragraph with the broadest level of her hebdomadal's investigation by immediately introducing her intent to read the poem within the context of Wordsworth's poetics. In the second sentence she details this context somewhat by reading the "you" of the first stanza of "Michael" in the light of the poet's commune with his audience. She follows this up, in the second paragraph, by pointing (generally) to instances of "you" in the first stanza.

By the end of the third paragraph, she has identified a reason local to the poem that Wordsworth calls on the second person pronoun. In the fifth paragraph, then, Laura synthesizes the ideas from her first and third paragraphs into a reading that positions "Michael" clearly within Wordsworth's larger poetics.

This is not to say that this hebdomadal is flawless - I would have really liked for her to have engaged a little more closely with the text: she could have supported her claims about the character of the first stanza with a quotation of a line or two of Wordsworth's text, which she could then have subjected to slightly more concrete analysis.

Moreover, like most writers first entering into a new genre, Laura's prose is slightly prone to cliche, repetition and summary. I understand that it's difficult to write about poetry unpoetically, but the last paragraph here is just a touch maudlin.

Evie, from section 301, gives us an interesting model of the kind of conversational prose possible within a hebdomadal:

In a rather preachy, religious way Wordsworth does present an “us” in Ode. In fact, he directly says “us” and other such words which refer to said “us”. Though he is speaking of his personal experience it is clear that, in Wordsworth’s opinion, all men naturally experience the cyclical existence he describes throughout Ode... or at least if they are as fabulous as Wordsworth is they do.

[...]

I [...] took it to be insinuated that the only way to return to this position of knowing heavenly truth/immortality is by death. Wordsworth was probably a pretty religious fellow, or at least pretty effected by religion as were most others at this time, and it seems pretty likely most hoped or believed they would return to heaven upon death. This brings a bit of exclusivity to Wordsworth’s “us”. This seems to entail that the “us” is only those of the righteous religious life. Clearly this leaves out all uncivilized, non-Christian heathens. Also, Wordsworth draws in a little exclusivity in that he has a rather pompous and conceited way of writing that gives me the lurking feeling that it is not just anyone who has the strength to, in old age, remember these bright, glorious moments of youth, though we all have them. Only those with the poetic and imaginative skills of someone like Wordsworth can have that, excluding many of more laymen like thinking.

However, for the most part, I think we can say we are all included in the smarty-pants part of Wordsworth’s “us”. We are all taking English 167... Clearly this require a certain amount of imaginative brains.

It sounds for all the world that Evie is just having a conversation with the poet.

For all that Evie's prose differs from Laura's, you can probably observe that both keep high above both poems. After they identify the contextual purpose of their selected pronouns, both devote a paragraph to discussing how that purpose fits into the larger project of the poem and then the larger project of the poet.

These are not the only ways to write hebdomadals; however, they illustrate the sorts of analysis I am looking for. Though, as I hope came across on Friday, I don't object to a closer reading of the words themselves. If Laura or Evie had pulled out a list of words, or a particular line, and subjected them to close analysis - well, that would have been even better.

Other ways of answering hebdomadal questions include

• analyzing lists (of words, of themes, of rhymes)
• asking more detailed questions
• comparing poets
• identifying the key line(s) of a poem and discussing them as synecdochically representative of the whole.

Be creative! Be personal! Hebdomadals are your space to interact aggressively with the reading and the lectures; I'd love to see you explore extremes.