Ode on a Grecian URL

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Some sample exam answers

Past identifying the author and title of the passages on the exam, there are no correct or incorrect answers: there are only correct or incorrect ways of reading. I am posting the nine answers below not because they are inherently correct, but because they all read the texts correctly. All of these answers received full credit.

This passage can be found in the very conclusion of Percy Shelley’s “Defence of Poetry.” In it, Shelley expresses his belief that poetry is capable of bringing about great change in the world – political change. He does this specifically by calling forth “gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon present.” While orthodox legislators are most concerned w/ the present, Shelley uses this phrase to illustrate that the poets’ immortal feelings, expressed through words, are relevant for both present and future, and should thus be heeded. The images of trumpets, battle express the poets’ stance – ready to bring about change.

a) Keats – Ode on a Grecian Urn
b) In these final lines of the Ode, Keats describes the figures’ destiny to forever be engraved in the side of urn, unable to progress, change & grow
c) Because the figures will always be stuck within the urn’s confinements, time will pass them by keeping them younger & aesthetic: “When old age shall this generation waste / Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe.” Because they cannot be used for any purpose besides their pure & innocent beauty, Keats tells the reader that beauty, in fact, “is all / ye know on Earth, & all ye need to know.” When Keats tells us that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” he tells the reader that the aesthetic aspects of life are sometimes more enriching & important than the intellectual factors of life.

1.) “Michael” by W. Wordsworth

2.) Michael is speaking to his son about his planned departure to London. This occurs towards the end of the poem, or the end of the middle, actually. Michael refers to the stone enclosure he must now build alone without his son.

3.) The stone enclosure referred to is a symbol of the pact between father + son. Ironically, it is never constructed, and the son breaks his pact as well and never returns home, having been changed by the industrial city. Themes of the purity of nature vs. dehumanizing cities, unkept promises.
- Blank verse, outward vs. inward imagination.

Middlemarch by George Eliot.
- This is a description of Rosamond Vincy. The narrator is the speaker. This is one of the introductory descriptions given of Rosamond.
- This passage is significant in that it shows / tells of Rosamond as she actually is. It does NOT dwell greatly on how others see her on think of her. The passage merely states what the general consensus is of her true self, one of a “rare compound of beauty, cleverness + amiability”
However, before that closing line by using words like falsehood, light + intended to please Eliot creates the impression that Rosamond’s nature is something she (Rosamond) has crafted to appeal to others (the community) but not actually herself (the individual.)

“Tintern Abbey” – William Wordsworth
- In this passage W. W. is reflecting on how the beautiful landscape of the country along the Wye river has often soothed his mind when he has meditated on it while in the hustle of the City. This passage occurs near the beginning of the poem, after the initial descriptions of the countryside.
- W. W. compares the winding Wye river to the flowing veins in his body, and how just as a river refreshes the land around it, the remembrance of that beauty refreshes his body and is “felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.” This ties into W. W.’s greater purpose of showing the reciprocity between nature and imagination.

Mary Shelley – Frankenstein
This passage is from the dream Victor has after bringing his creation to life. He awakes to it entering his room, and flees.
One suggestion Professor O-R made was that this passage could relate to VY usurping woman’s reproductive role. I see it as tying into the ‘invention of man’ quote from earlier in the semester and ‘man’ as male. Also, it is the invention of Victor’s tormentor and (in a sense) nemesis. The transformation of Elizabeth from health to death can also be seen as a foreshadowing of the real destruction by that which her lover has just created.

This passage is from George Eliot’s Middlemarch. This metaphor for Mrs. Cadwallader’s match-making comes after she finds out that Dorothea is engaged to Casaubon and not Sir James. The image of the microscope echoes a larger theme of the book – Eliot’s own experiment of looking through a lens at a sample of English society from a specific time period.

“Mont Blanc” – written by Percy Sheley
This passage occurs at the end of the poem. It is a wrap up of all the events of the poem and shows the power and vacancy of the mountain.

The significance of this passage is showing the true sublime powers of the mountain. The mountain is awe inspiring and completely “vacant.” The last line ties the poet’s mind to the features of the vacant mountain. The mind is a vast and open space, just like the mountain, but the mind does not have to remain silent and void. While looking upon the mountain, the mind of the poet becomes vast and wide as if struck by the power and sublime features of the mountain.

“The Rime of the Ancient Marinerr” Coleridge
This passage is from the middle of the poem. It occurs after the Albatross is shot, and after a curse is cast onto all of the men aboard the ship. The passage is describing how all of the men pass by the mariner as they are “ascending” to heaven. However, the mariner is left behind to deal with his consequences of shooting the Albatross. A religious theme can be exposed here with the words, souls, soul, or cross. Also, if we think of the bodies flying up, and their souls passing on to heaven, there’s a sense of religion.