Ode on a Grecian URL

Because I have so many essays on my plate, it is probably best to make this hebdomadal optional. If you choose to write one this week,

1. don't expect a response from me for a couple weeks--my primary goal is to get your papers read;
2. you can skip a future hebdomadal of your choice, although you need to inform me at the time that you are doing so (a quick "I'm skipping this week's heb because I wrote the optional one" email will suffice);
3. alternatively, you can use this hebdomadal to erase a less successful past or future hebdomadal from your record.

Topic 1: Pleasure.

You may have noticed that one of the things Prof. Ortiz-Robles does in lecture is pick out and address the sheer delightfulness of the texts we read. This hebdomadal is to give you an opportunity to do that yourself, and to think a little bit about the pleasure that texts give us.

Pick the poem or passage from Middlemarch you like the most of all those we've read so far this semester--try to avoid things that we have marveled over in lecture or discussion. Comment on just what you find so delightful and delicious in the passage you've selected and use your answers to the following questions to put together a larger argument about the relationship of pleasure (enjoyment) and Pleasure (enlightenment).

• Why do you like this poem?
• Why is it important for a reader to like a poem?
• How does the experience of liking a poem change your reading of it? How do you read a poem differently if you don't like it?

Topic 2: Images.

Find an image that illustrates a fairly unique, identifiable object described in one of the poems or chapters of Middlemarch that we've read so far this semester. (Objects like Eolian harps or Grecian urns or specific landscapes are fair game; more common objects, like mirrors and fire grates, are not. You might consult blog posts about objects in Keats and Wordsworth.)

• How does the author describe the object? What features of the object does s/he accentuate or ignore?
• How does s/he move from description of the material object into a discussion of more theoretical, or moral, or aesthetic features?
• What value does a description of a unique, recognizable physical object add to our reading of a poem or Middlemarch chapter that we would not have had otherwise? Why, in other words, would an author include a particular landscape or artwork in his or her own artwork?

Photograph of Mont Blanc by ldanderson.

Topic 3: Stretching It.

Give an example from lecture or discussion where Prof. Ortiz-Robles or I or one of your classmates offered a reading of a poem that struck you as going too far. How can you tell that this reading was divorced from the author's intent? Is it important that our analysis fit into the author's original intent for a piece? What should be our goal as sensitive readers? Consider this common argument: If the value of a text rests entirely with the author's intent, why don't authors just lay out all their ideas in an unambiguous manifesto like Wordsworth's "Preface"? What is the point of all the artistry and uncertainty that we find in poems like "Ode on a Grecian Urn"?

Alternatively, look at a short (sonnet-length) poem that you've written--it should be a poem that you've put some care into, not a limerick you've dashed off quickly. Give an example of a correct reading of the poem and an example of a reading that goes too far. Would it be possible for a reader to see meaningful images or ideas in your poem that you didn't put there intentionally? Can you give an example? What are the limits of the reader's authority?