Copyrights remain with the artists and authors The responsibility for the content in this publication remains with the artists and authors The content does not reflect the opinions of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council (AHSC) or the University Students‘ Council (USC)
Vice President Publications
Chahat Ghuman
Associate Vice President Publications
Kaylee Jade Dunn
Creative Managing Editor
Tanya Matviyiva
Academic Managing Editor
Karen Wen
Layout Editor
Zoe Port
Cover Designer
Emma Hardy
Copy Editors
Alyssa Abou Naoum
Nicole Hennigar
Asher Gris
Alumni Relations Commissioner
Jenna Greenspoon
WHAT WE’RE ABOUT
Symposium and Semicolon are the official publications of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council at Western University, published bi-annually. To view previous editions or for more information about our publications, please contact us at the AHSC Council Office in room 2135 at University College. Publications can also be viewed virtually at issuu.com/ahscpubs.
Semicolon is the academic journal for the AHSC It accepts outstanding A-level submissions written in any Arts and Humanities undergraduate course.
R’S LETTER
The past few months of this semester have been marked by a flurry of activity at Pubs. From team meetings to editing submissions, reviewing covers and layouts to coordinating stickers, it has been a whirlwind of effort at AHSC Publications. Our team has worked diligently to bring you this semester's editions of Semicolon and Symposium. We are thrilled to finally present these copies for your enjoyment!
The talented students of the Arts & Humanities faculty dedicate considerable time and effort to crafting a wide range of creative and academic works throughout the year. At AHSC Pubs, our mission is to provide these students with the opportunity to share their exceptional work with a wider audience
The compilation of works before you is a testament to the dedication of this year's team. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my exceptional team for their tireless efforts in bringing these publications to life. A special thank you to Karen and Tanya, our managing editors: to our copy editors, Alyssa Abou Naoum, Nicole Hennigar, and Asher Gris: to our talented cover and layout designers, Emma Hardy and Zoe Port; to Jenna, our Alumni Relations Commissioner; and, of course, to Jade, our associate vice president, whose support has been invaluable
Lots
of love, Chahat Ghuman
Table of Contents
22-24
25-27
28-30
Corporate Art Washing: Examining Graffiti Artists and the Struggle for Authenticity by Emma Hardy
Understanding Loss Through Jeff Buckley’s “Lover You Should’ve Come Over” by Darby MacArthur.
“Prongs rode again last night”: Reclaiming Traumatic Narratives in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and The Old Nurse’s Story by Mabel Zhao
The Stammering Sound of Suffocation: A Sensory Analysis of "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Nicole Godlewski Hennigar.
“A Vial of Light”: Music and the Tolkien-Mitchell Correspondence by Georgia Craven
Collage as Couture: How Dada Reshapes Gender in Fashion by Zoe Port.
Perception's Betrayal of the Pentangle Knight by Tanya Matviyiva.
The Journey of an Artist: Venus Verticordia and Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Progression in Art by Katie Walden.
Worlds Within Beds: The Immortalisation of Love Through Metaphor in Carol Ann Duffy’s “Anne Hathaway” and John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” by Jay Gardner
Accuracy, Honour, and Ends: Advertisers’ Obligations of Engagement by Margaret Gleed.
To Spare or not to Spare: Analyzing Milton’s Interpretive Crux by Reeghan Denommee
Glossary
Corporate Art Washing: Examining Graffiti Artists and the Struggle for Authenticity
AH 2646F: Contemporary Art
Written by Emma Hardy (She/Her)
Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat both began as graffiti artists who used public spaces as unlicensed canvases for their artwork and sites for sparking social commentary on issues such as race, politics, poverty, or the AIDS epidemic, amongst other topics (Phillips 2003; Yetikyel 2020) The combination of this art form being already infamous in the public sphere, widely accessible, and produced by artists who had/have a major influence on pop culture makes street art or graffiti a perfect target for companies to incorporate into their brand designs, thus evolving into art washing The commercialization, mass production, and profiting of this art form lessens its impact, as the resulting product is removed from the artist and the original significance. Graffiti art is site-specific to the communities it represents, and disregards physical boundaries and legal limitations to establish a social connection through the accessibility and dissemination of art. Therefore, there is a distinct relationship between corporations using these artworks in their branding and towards gentrification, thus transforming the site-specificity of graffiti to a detached commercial realm separated from its original cultural framework, such as in the cases of the late Haring and Basquiat
Figure 1: Models Wearing the Merchandise from the Official Keith Haring Foundation x H&M Collaboration (H&M,. n.d.).
Professor Amanda White
Miwon Kwon (2004) in “One Place After Another” discusses the importance of site-specificity and the art world’s complex power dynamic over the site Whereas the site was originally thought to be physically inseparable from the work, it can also exist in a more ephemeral realm, not limited to one physical location (Kwon 2004) However, the significance of the social and institutional circumstances still impacts the reception of the work, as Kwon writes, “The chance to conceive the site as something more than a place as repressed ethnic history, a political cause, a disenfranchised social group is an important conceptual leap in redefining the public role of art and artists” (Kwon 2004, 30) This relates to Pritchard’s discussion of the artist’s role in “art washing” described as the phenomenon of urban developers employing an artistic practice, which is instrumental in making a community more aestheticized and available for gentrification (Pritchard 2020). Art washing can be applied to many contexts such as veiling the impacts of displacement, tranquilizing community concerns, acting as a marketing tool, or appropriating a sub-culture to improve relatability (Pritchard 2020) which impact the phenomenological, social/institutional, and discursive paradigms of site-specificity (Kwon 2004) According to Pritchard, the artist acts as a “pioneer” for infiltrating and exploiting cultural spaces as “they are frequently able to earn the trust of the local people and community groups” (Pritchard 2020, 180) Urban gentrification often operates under the guise of “renewal” or “rejuvenation,” using public art projects to mask the reality of displacing communities (Pritchard 2020) Graffiti is most often seen in low-income areas, on public transit, or at abandoned sites, therefore its use in art campaigns creates a perfect smokescreen of advancement, relatability, and connectedness to the community while paradoxically extricating that same community or their ideals. This shift can be observed in physical spaces (such as the neighbourhoods of Bushwick, New York; Boyle Heights, Los Angeles; or Chelsea, London) (Billard 2017) or commercial spaces (such as the Haring Foundation x H&M collab, or Basquiat x Coach) (H&M, n.d.; Yetikyel 2020), which disestablishes the significance of an artistic movement meant to represent or enshrine the values of a particular identity or set of identities.
Although the mass produced artwork created by these widespread, international corporations is technically more physically available (not residing in a specific site like a subway station), it also lies behind a paywall. Anyone with thirty dollars to spare can easily buy a Keith Haring branded T-shirt from Uniqlo or H&M the profits from which do not go to the actual hands working on the garments but rather return to the pockets of manufacturers and investors (Livingston 2022). Kwon mentions that “sitespecific art once defied commodification by insisting on immobility, it now seems to espouse fluid mobility and nomadism for the same purpose” (Kwon 2004, 31), implying that graffiti has been transposed from street art to the commercial sphere as a form of site-specificity While commercialized artwork is available to everyone, it is also removed from the original site-specific context it was intended to exist in, which represented distinct communities and causes Notorious fast fashion brands such as H&M and Uniqlo have collaborated in recent years with both the Haring and Basquiat foundations, and this subjects the pieces they make to rapidly-cycling fashion trends (Cochrane 2022) After all, the hallmarks of “fast fashion” are that it is cheaply made, easily bought, and easily thrown out in favour of a newer, more stylish item Therefore, formerly immortal works of art are passed down to a thrift store, or relinquished to an ever-increasing pile of textile waste, thus reducing their life cycles to only a few months at most as they die out in public interest. Although Haring in particular was not afraid of his art being largely accessible to raise public consciousness (Phillips 2003), we cannot extend this principle to the context of the current day in which the artwork lies behind a paywall and unethical practices of corporations
When negotiating brand collaborations, the Haring and Basquiat estates are mediated by Artestar, a company that acts as an intermediary between corporations and artists (Cochrane 2022) They are responsible for several wellknown commercial collaborations with names such as Crocs, Pandora, Converse, MAC Cosmetics, Coach, and Dr Martens covering a range of products anywhere from nail polish to ice cream It is apparent, however, that Artestar attempts to market these artists in the most brandfriendly and least controversial manner possible For example, Haring’s biography on Artestar has no mention of his work fighting AIDS taboo and his death from AIDS, nor the fact that he was a gay man (Artestar, n d ) Furthermore, Artestar describes Basquiat’s artistic style as “primitivism” (Artestar, n.d.), which perpetuates offensive racist stereotypes and is tone-deaf as Basquiat is regarded as a trailblazer for Black artists. This ignores a crucial element of the artwork, as partners may not be as comfortable publicizing someone outside of the social
“norm” despite wanting to put forward an image of being down-to-earth and inclusive Many corporations, particularly H&M, seem to implement art washing as a way to distract from controversy, namely allegations of racism (Blanchard 2019), unethical labour practices, and greenwashing (Sierra 2022) The shimmery veneer of social relatability, and appearing sympathetic or “down to earth” to consumers, therefore pacifies concerns about the brand because its popularity skyrockets in the cultural zeitgeist as art “washing serves to mask the exploitation of people and property, underwriting the accumulation of capital by dispossession” (Pritchard 2020, 183). Therefore, the adoption of street art in the commercial sphere contributes to art washing by using these collaborations to pacify concerns about the company, while ignoring opportunities to discuss social concerns by maximizing the marketability of artists.
Thus, the evolution of site-specific art in a commercial context, particularly its detachment from a fixed physical location and its embrace of discursive sites, sets a stage for corporate art washing. The original ideals and marginalized communities represented in the art are no longer specific to the work due to its mass production and removal from a specific context. Furthermore, the activism and difficult conversations originally derived from these artworks are washed over reducing a significant symbol or social movement to a stylized logo on a T-shirt Graffiti art in a commercial space is removed from its intended cultural context and placed behind a paywall, diminishing its impact as “artists involved in art washing do not only collect, or ‘harvest,’ people’s stories, they also collect objects from communities awaiting or undergoing displacement” (Pritchard 2020, 184) In the context of artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, street art was born in public spaces and rooted in social commentary, however, art washing displaces the representation of marginalized communities, thus altering the site-specificity and accessibility of the works
Figure 2: A graphic of Jean-Michel Basquiat next to his Coach collaboration merchandise (Chen 2020)
Understanding Loss Through Jeff Buckley’s “Lover
You Should’ve Come Over”
Writing3402G:SongLyricWriting
Written by Darby MacArthur
There is an inexplicable moment of pain in losing a loved one, a wave of internal torture that swallows the mind and body with all things they could have or should have done. Through physical death or loss via the ending of a relationship, that anguish of what-if? must turn into acceptance that they are gone, no matter how much one tortures themselves These instances differ drastically, yet they share the loss of love in a profound and visceral way, unlike any other experience Jeff Buckley, in his song, “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” explores this exact intermixed emotion in a uniquely raw, ethereal, and introspective way Jeff Buckley (1966-1997) was an American singersongwriter who grew his career with performances at the Sin-é café in New York’s East Village, where he recorded his live EP, Live at Sin-é (1993) The album featured the song “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” which was included in his first studio album, Grace, released a year later in 1994. “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” stands out among his discography, expressing the unexplainable vulnerability and complexity of grief in losing a loved one. This grief is endured through Buckley’s presentation of intentionally destabilizing musical elements, reflective imagery, and thought-provoking symbolic metaphors, allowing us to mourn alongside him.
Buckley uses musical elements in his song such as instrumentation, tonality, rhythmic function, and vocal techniques, to construct the internal consumption of slow, agonizing, and melancholic grief The song begins with an eerily familiar pastoral organ, which feels radiant and relaxing, much like a church hymn heard at a funeral (Grace 0:05) This distinctive sound alienates us from the Alt-Rock genre the song suggests as it progresses. This destabilizing transition makes us enter the song detached from reality, mirroring the perspective of the grieving speaker. The ungrounded approach is solidified through Buckley’s use of tonality and rhythmic structure. The song is in the key D Mixolydian, a major key with a lowered seventh scale degree, which makes the listener feel relaxed with a sense of
Professor David Barrick
underlying tension, instigating mental contemplation to locate this uneasiness. Furthering this anxiety, the song uses a desolate and slow time signature of 3/4, yet a strong and agonizing allegro tempo of 120
bpm, which creates a conflicting listening experience. Lastly, Buckley’s striking technique of vocal wailing allows the song to provoke the unexplainable aspects of grief In the last chorus, Buckley vocally wails and weeps, exposing vulnerability to the listener (Grace 5:10) This unconventional element affirms the incomprehensible, entrenched pain that comes with loss Buckley’s unexpected applications of genre instrumentation, tonality and rhythmic functions, and vocal techniques allow the listener to examine their interpretation of grief through inner reflection
In addition to these foundational musical elements, the imagery in Buckley’s song creates a space and setting for internal reflection An example of this imagery appears through a funeral setting in the first verse when Buckley states, “Looking out the door I see the rain / Fall upon the funeral mourners” (Grace 0:54) These lyrics strengthen the grieving speaker’s perspective by directly inducing the picture of witnessing loss, the moment that love is constrained. The subsequent lines to this picture, “Parading in a wake of sad relations / As their shoes fill up with water,” also portray the emotional ungrounding, which was triggered by the organ beforehand, constructing an image of wading in water, a slow and thoughtful moment of contemplation. Another piercing image that Buckley creates is of restlessness, stressing his desire to understand loss: “My body turns / And yearns for a sleep that won’t ever come” (Grace 3:53) These images of a funeral, wading, and restless sleep illustrate the exhausting, torturous, and uneasy feeling that comes with trying to explain the unexplainable, much like the fixating contemplation of losing a lover
Symbolic metaphors are entrenched in the imagery of this song, allowing Buckley to share his experience viscerally, beyond the setting that imagery can depict An example of these metaphors is the rain at the funeral, resembling
the speaker’s desired acceptance of loss In the funeral imagery previously dissected, we can conclude that the speaker is only watching the rain wash over the funeral mourners, not being rained on himself Rain is commonly associated with serenity, solace, and rejuvenation, making its interpretation critical to understand why this absence occurs The line that says, “The open window lets the rain in” (Grace 3:32), in the context of rain as serenity, reflects that an unburdening of grief can occur by opening oneself to the acceptance of loss Yet, the speaker, who is burning “in the corner” (Grace 3:39), is unable to accept his loss, unable to be renewed by the rain This untouched peace is emphasized in extended lyrics from Buckley’s earlier version of Live at Sin-é:
And the rain
I wanna come down fast like kisses on my skin
But it passed me by
And it left me dry (Sin-é 2:45)
This metaphor reveals that the speaker longs for this tranquility of the mind, but cannot achieve it in his destabilized state. The rain metaphor extends into Buckley’s “burning” metaphor, showcasing the contrast between water and fire. Fire is associated with destruction, loss, and anger, much like the anguish and grief suffered by the speaker. This fire metaphor for his inner turmoil is distinctive in the lines, “So, I’ll wait for you, love / And I’ll burn,” solidifying this damaging, unchanging attitude to hold onto someone that will not return (Grace 2:50). The speaker’s yearning is also emphasized by the symbolic metaphor in the line, “She is the tear that hangs inside my soul forever” (Grace 4:42), illustrating this slow, burning pain as never-ending an expression of his everlasting grief In exploring Buckley’s strategic use of symbolic metaphors rain as renewal, fire as devastation, and lingering tears as eternal pain a listener can interpret loss through their own understanding and experience
Love is one of the most complicated emotions to understand or explain, and losing it is just as difficult to comprehend Whether through death or heartbreak, loss of a loved one creates unimaginable pain, a pain so profound that it detaches us from reality Jeff Buckley’s song, “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” examines this pain in a provocative retelling of its inexplicability through his use of disorienting musical elements, introspective imagery, and expressive symbolic metaphors, showing us that it is possible to convey something that cannot be explained
“Prongs rode again last
night”: Reclaiming Traumatic Narratives in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and The Old Nurse’s Story
English2092F:TheManyFacesof HarryPotter
WrittenbyMabelZhao
From Sigmund Freud’s “talking cure” to modern-day psychotherapy, it is generally recognized that the stories we tell about our trauma can be an important tool for recovery (Pederson 97). Reclaiming the narratives around a traumatic event is particularly powerful because, as Hanna Meretoja asserts, trauma fundamentally shapes one’s self-narrative and robs the victim of their sense of agency (27). Likewise, as our minds often attempt to repress the traumatic memories of our past, the construction of narrative is an effective method for acknowledgement and self-reckoning (Arnold-de Simine 143) The process of constructing and reclaiming traumatic narratives can be seen in the character arcs of Harry Potter from J K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Miss Grace Furnivall in Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Old Nurse’s Story Both characters grapple with a traumatic event in their past: for Harry, it’s his parents’ murder, and for Miss Furnivall, it’s her involvement in the deaths of her sister and niece Both consciously or unconsciously repress these traumatic memories but are then forced to relive them as they manifest into the present through supernatural means, whether that be in the form of the dementors swarming the grounds of Hogwarts or the ghosts haunting the Furnivall Manor House. While Harry is able to reclaim his traumatic narrative by establishing a healthier connection to his past through his Patronus, Miss Furnivall remains paralyzed in fear and regret. As such, a comparative analysis of Harry and Miss Furnivall’s trauma reveals that while a traumatic past inevitably shapes the present, true recovery lies in the assertion of agency over one’s traumatic narrative.
In The Old Nurse’s Story, Gaskell concludes with Miss Furnivall muttering her dying words: “What is done in youth can never be undone in age!” Here, Miss Furnivall accepts a key argument of both texts: the boundary between past and present is porous, with trauma acting as a transgressive force that carries the impact of past actions into the present Gaskell highlights the transgressive nature of Miss Furnivall’s trauma by embodying it in the form of ghosts a force The ghost of Miss Furnivall’s niece, whose death she
was indirectly responsible for, haunts the grounds as a reminder of the inescapable nature of the past And Miss Furnivall, as a perpetrator of her own trauma, fears and resents her past while attempting to suppress it through denial and avoidance. The housekeeping staff are instructed to “shut the back-kitchen door” and “bolt it well” (Gaskell 25) to deny the ghostly girl access to the manor, while Miss Furnivall’s longtime companion Mrs. Stark tells Hester to stay away from the ghostly girl because she is a “wicked, naughty child” that will “lure [Miss Rosamond] to her death” (23). The east wing, where Miss Furnivall’s sister, Maude, once resided and is now yet another reminder of her trauma, is also “always locked” (20) These locks and bolts are Miss Furnivall’s attempts to assert agency over the ghosts of her past and her trauma These attempts are futile, however, and it is apparent that her past continues to affect her Hester describes her as having “sad, heavy eyes” (19) and she pleads with the ghosts to “have mercy” and asks, “wilt thou never forgive?” (23) as they, and her trauma, continue to haunt her And at the end of The Old Nurse’s Story, the barricades between past and present are broken as the ghosts of her family rush out of the East Wing and force Miss Furnivall to relive her traumatic experiences At this moment, Miss Furnivall has no agency over her story. This fact is made apparent as she pleads in vain for the phantom of her father to “spare the little innocent child!” (31). Instead, she faces the full force of her shame and regret as she watches her younger self look on with “relentless hate and triumphal scorn” at the banishment of her sister and niece (31). Consumed by her trauma and robbed of any agency to redefine and make amends for her past, Miss Furnivall falls to the ground “death stricken” from the ordeal (31). She then dies, never able to recover from that terrible winter so many years ago
While Miss Furnivall’s trauma is intertwined with remorse, Harry, who was barely a toddler when his traumatic event occurred, is purely a victim of circumstance. Harry’s trauma is an example of what Arnold-de Simine describes as an “unclaimed experience, ”where the sufferer becomes haunted by an event because they cannot develop a memory of it (144). Nevertheless, Harry’s trauma refuses to remain buried, neither in the past nor in his unconscious.
Professor Gabrielle Ceraldi
Instead, he is also forced to confront it as it manifests through a supernatural creature The dementors, “cloaked figures” (Rowling 88) who’s foul presence can even be felt by Muggles, evoke the same sense of fear for Harry as the ghostly girl does for Miss Furnivall They are also transgressive agents, crossing the boundary between the conscious and unconscious mind to dredge up the “worst experiences” of someone’s life (197) For Harry, reliving his repressed trauma is a destabilizing experience While the dementor-induced flashbacks disrupt his present-day life including knocking him off his broom during a Quidditch match, they also serve as a rare connection to his past and his parents. This is a connection that Harry deeply desires. He finds himself feeling guilty “about his secret desire to hear his parents’ voice again” (260), but is also aware that “they’re dead” and chastises himself that “listening to echoes of them won’t bring them back” (258). So, while Miss Furnivall tries to forget the past, Harry is deeply drawn to it and struggles with his desire to access the past through the dementors. The Patronus charm, which Professor Lupin teaches Harry as a defence against the dementors, comes to symbolize a healthier way Harry can connect with his past and with his father James Harry’s experience with the dementors is the first time he hears his father’s voice, which Rowling describes as “shouting” and “panicked” as he attempted to protect his family from Voldemort (255) When Harry successfully casts his Patronus by the lake, not only does he save himself and Sirius from the Dementor’s Kiss, but he also forms a new bond with his father A connection that is no longer rooted in reliving the trauma of the worst moments in both his, and likely James’s life Like the phantoms of Furnivall Manor or the ghost-like dementors, apparitions of the dead and supernatural elements make another symbolic appearance here First, Harry mistakenly interprets the future version of himself casting the Patronus as James, which Hermione then suggests may have been his ghost (432). Then, when this future version of Harry casts his Patronus, the stag is described as a “dazzling silver animal” that galloped “silently away from him” with hooves that “made no mark on the soft ground” (437). Harry’s Patronus shares several physical traits with the ghostly girl in The Old Nurse’s Story, who is also described as making “no sound” even while she is crying, wailing, and putting “forth all her force” into battering the manor window (24) The stag also shares traits with the dementors, who are ghost-like creatures that “glided” rather than walked (90) Yet, unlike ghosts or dementors, the Patronus is a manifestation of happy memories and the protective spirit of Harry’s father, embodying the triumph of hope over trauma Although it too serves as a transgressive force, blurring the boundaries between past and present, the Patronus differs because it is a supernatural creature summoned by Harry rather than one
that haunts him This then gives him the agency to redefine his connection to his past instead of forcing him to relive its most painful moments
An argument can be made that Miss Furnivall was never given the opportunity to reclaim her traumatic narrative; there is no magical stag at Furnivall House that grants her the chance to make amends with the people she has wronged Yet Meretoja’s assertion that post-traumatic recovery starts from the recovery of agency underlines one key concept: the past, despite its seeming omnipresence, cannot be changed But it is our choices in the present the agency we have over how we process our trauma that determines the outcome of our recovery. While his stag is a physical manifestation of Harry’s agency, his persistence in seeking out Patronus lessons and his choice to carry on his father’s legacy by sparing Peter Pettigrew that night are all steps he takes to redefine his connection with his past. Steps that Miss Furnivall, who both dwells on and attempts to repress her past mistakes, never takes. In this way, Harry is following the advice of Professor Dumbledore; it is through his choices that he has overcome the adversity of his past and displayed his strength of character And it is the result of these choices that, as Dumbledore so poetically said, “Prongs rode again last night” (454)
The Stammering Sound of Suffocation: A
Sensory Analysis of "Dulce et Decorum Est"
ENGLISH2301E
WittenbyNicoleGodlewskiHennigar
World War I was unprecedented in its time as it spanned globally, stretching across oceans and over multiple continents which is why it is also known as the Great War At the war’s onset, Britain had a smaller army than other nations because their army was comprised of volunteers (“World War I”) To encourage enlistment, propaganda was employed, particularly in advertisements such as Alfred Leete’s Lord Kitchener Wants You, the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee’s Britain Needs You at Once, and E.J. Kealey’s Women of Britain Say - “Go!” among others. These advertisements promoted and glorified the war; Lord Kitchener called out men directly, Britain Needs You idealized fighting on the frontlines, and Women of Britain appealed to masculinity as through enlisting, men would protect their families. This type of propaganda contributed to the romanticized notion of war that lived in people’s minds that the men would leave to serve their country. They would fight off Britain’s enemies, defend their homeland and loved ones, and then return in glory as war heroes; a kind of knight-in-shining-armor paragon This, however, was far from the truth as Wilfred Owen highlights Owen was key to dismantling the idealized concept of war that existed in people’s minds through his poetry which he was able to produce because of his first-hand experience in the trenches, along with the shell shock he sustained as a result Through the employment of vivid, graphic imagery and atypical poetic sound, “Dulce et Decorum Est” was able to produce such a shocking effect because it presents the truth of World War I in an invasive manner on a sensory level It induced a dreadful revelation in many as it addressed the lies and misconceptions surrounding the war and presented World War I in its ghastly reality.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” is so invasive to the senses because, through its imagery, it details the experience of a soldier under a chlorine gas attack a new and revolutionary turn in warfare along with the devastating trauma sustained from the event Thus, the theme of suffocation and drowning is hauntingly prevalent in the poem The first stanza introduces this theme with the soldiers “coughing like hags” due to the gas shells that fall around them (Owen 2).
Professor Mark McDayter
In the second stanza, one soldier cannot put his helmet on fast enough and Owen says, “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning” (14) In the third stanza, Owen says the soldier “plunges at [him], guttering, choking, drowning” (16) Then, the fourth stanza directly addresses the reader regarding “smothering dreams,” and if only they could understand the traumatic images from a first-hand perspective to “hear, at every jolt, the blood / Come gargling from [the soldier’s] froth-corrupted lungs” (17, 21-22) This suffocating imagery is so jarring because it articulates as close to a war experience as most civilians would or will ever get. The theme of suffocation alone disrupts three sensory systems visual, tactile, and auditory. Not only is the poem visualized through the drowning soldier plunging forward, but it is also felt through the narrator’s painful cough, and heard through the sound of the drowning soldier’s suffocation the blood gargling from his corpse. That this poem draws a shocking emotional response through graphic imagery is indicative of its ability to engage with the senses on such an intimate level
The Oxford Handbook of British & Irish War Poetry says the “trench experience was one of the most sustained and systematic shattering of the human sensorium: it stripped man of the protective layers of civilization and thrust his naked, fragile body between the ravages of industrial modernity, on the one hand, and the chaos of formless matter, on the other” (Das 74) In one of Owen’s letters to Siegfried Sassoon, he admits to experiencing this shattering as he says, “Can you photograph the crimson-hot iron as it cools from the smelting? This is what [my servant] Jones’s blood looked like, and felt like My senses are charred” (74) In a similar way that the trenches shattered soldiers’ emotional fortifications and left them defenceless under the war’s sensory onslaught, “Dulce et Decorum Est” shatters the readers’ fortifications and thrusts them into a position of discomfort amid this dreadful experience. Though most would not truly understand the full extent of trench horror, the poem depicts drowning one of many nightmarish facets as best it can through imagery. Because those sans connection to war are unaccustomed to these graphic themes, they can be shocking to their sensory systems. The vividness in which they are depicted leads to sensory overload, thus mimicking on a smaller scale the shattering and charring experienced by Owen himself, along with other soldiers who share similar experiences
The distress “Dulce et Decorum Est” places on the senses is also evident in the structure of the poem, particularly the two major elements of its sound stressed syllables and rhyme The stressed syllables in this poem are inconsistent and cacophonous in the context of traditional metre and poetic rhythm The poem does not sound lyrical to the ear, nor does it “taste” agreeable on the tongue it is rather difficult to read aloud because of the turbulent phonemes In the first line, for example, the stressed syllables are labial sounds in “[b]ent double,” and “beggars” (Owen 1) The second line stresses coronal and plosive sounds with “[k]nock-kneed,” and “coughing like hags, we cursed,” respectively (2) Although this poem has an alliterative component, it lacks consistency in stressed syllables. This creates a kind of snagging or stuttering sensation as the mouth’s articulators work through each phoneme. In this way, not only does the poem engage with the senses on a mental plane, but it also engages with the senses physically when read aloud. The stammering effect, perhaps, could reflect a manifestation of post-traumatic stress disorder in some soldiers. According to “‘By Degrees Regain[ing] Cool Peaceful Air in Wonder’: Wilfred Owen’s War Poetry as Psychological Therapy,” in “June 1917, Owen was admitted to Craiglockhart Hydropathic Hospital Establishment, a healing ground for shell-shocked officers [ ] His most noticeable symptom was a stammer, displaying his inability to speak fully about the war or anything else” (Hipp 27) Owen himself developed a stutter, and “Dulce et Decorum Est” might have been a way for him to work through his shell shock to highlight this psychological byproduct of the war by lingering on the subject and weaving it throughout the poem
Coinciding with the poem’s cacophonous syllables, there is an element of consistency in the rhyme scheme The first stanza of the poem is as follows:
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind (Owen 1-8)
“Dulce et Decorum Est” uses an alternate rhyme scheme throughout the poem Each stanza consists of an ABAB CDCD rhyme pattern, which is highlighted in the last word of each line; sacks, sludge, backs, trudge, then boots, blind, hoots, and behind, for example This rhyme scheme establishes a punctuated beat in the poem’s rhythm it acts as a constant among the haphazard sounds The dichotomy between the two stressed syllables and rhyme produces a sound effect that reflects one of the poem’s central themes, a soldier’s experience in the trenches The inconsistent stressed syllables and atypical combination of phonemes are representative of the exhausted, painful state the soldiers experience As one stumbles through the syllables, the soldiers stumble through the trenches, detailed in the lines that say, “And toward our distant rest began to trudge. / Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, / But limped on, blood-shod” (4-6). At the same time, the consistency of the rhyme scheme reflects the steady beat of the war, that the soldiers are drunk “with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots / Of gas-shells dropping softly behind” (7-8). The sound of exploding artillery shells is such a common occurrence in this setting that the soldiers who experience debilitating exhaustion have become desensitized to them The contents of the poem disrupt the auditory and tactile systems of the soldiers depicted, but the sounds that comprise the poem’s structure disrupt the auditory and tactile systems of the readers as they hear and feel the way each line is spoken Thus, the two elements of the poem’s sound, cacophonous phonemes and consistent rhyme, reflect the soldiers’ weary movement against the relentless beat of the war a horror beyond their control
The combination of sound and imagery that overloads the senses is encapsulated in the last stanza of the poem, when it says the blood expelled from the gas-exposed soldier’s lungs is obscene “as cancer, bitter as the cud / Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues” (Owen 23-24) Cud is a byproduct of the food digestion process in a group of animals called ruminants these include cattle, goats, and deer, among others. These ruminants chew on cud, which is a bitter, acidic substance regurgitated several times in the rumination process. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term rumination as the “action of chewing the cud; the chewing by a herbivorous animal of partially digested food from the rumen,” and a “medical condition in which food is regurgitated after a short period in the stomach, and is then either swallowed again (with or without re-chewing) or spat out,” but also as the “action of revolving something in one’s mind; meditation, contemplation” (“Rumination” 2 a , 2 b , 1 a ) These three definitions support the purpose and sensory effect of
“Dulce et Decorum Est” because the poem hinges on rumination. As definition 2.a. states, herbivorous animals ruminate on their food; in a similar way, the readers ruminate on the poem. Definition 2.b. suggests the physical process of rumination occurs in humans as well, though in the case of “Dulce et Decorum Est,” it is not food that is regurgitated, but rather the words of the poem. As ruminants chew the cud, readers “chew” the poem figuratively, through the cerebral rumination on its themes, but also physically in a sense as the mouth moves and the articulators stumble through the poem’s sounds It is then that definition 1 a amplifies the effect of the poem because each time the poem is read each time the themes are contemplated the imagery and sound render an experience that attacks the senses, which in turn produces such a jarring effect
The horror of war the truth of war is revealed as the soldier’s story unfolds, and the poem concludes by highlighting the “old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori” (Owen 27-28) These lines quote the Odes of Horace and suggest it is sweet and proper to die for the fatherland (Horace III 2 13) This notion can be found throughout World War I propaganda (as exemplified in Lord Kitchener, Britain Needs You, and Women of Britain), and because it was so deeply entrenched in the minds of the people, experiencing “Dulce et Decorum Est” was a revelation of sorts as it presents the truth of war in a manner that is bitter and vile and accurately so. Therefore, the truth is “bitter as the cud,” and causes “vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,” because the civilians who were subjected to propaganda became overwhelmingly aware of the truth through the sensory overload in the rumination of “Dulce et Decorum Est” (Owen 23, 24). Once the vile truth is learned, it cannot be unlearned, thus it is incurable like the sores to which Owen refers.
Overall, the invasive sensory barrage of graphic imagery and distinct sound through which the themes in “Dulce et Decorum Est” are depicted produce such a strong response because they present the truth in an unfiltered light that dismantles World War I propaganda. Through the sensory imagery of suffocation and the combination of inconsistent and consistent sounds, the poem becomes as close to an authentic trench experience as most civilians would or ever will get and even this indirect brush with war is enough to induce discomfort The vividness of Owen’s descriptions is attributed to his firsthand experience in the trenches, which gives the poem a unique, profound nuance Even in a modern context, with the breadth of current knowledge regarding the war, it is quite unsettling to read “Dulce et Decorum Est ”
Despite the knowledge we possess, the poem still evokes an emotional response. This same response situated almost one hundred years prior would have been amplified enormously as World War I was an unprecedented event. The people believed what they were told to believe a lie strategically curated to appeal to the masses. Even those who were educated on the subject matter could not have understood the complete magnitude of the war as they were kept at a distance. When the basis upon which one establishes their beliefs is undermined and proven to be an undeniable lie, it can be disquieting; “Dulce et Decorum Est” is the undermining force that produced this effect in many Though its current effect may not amount to the degree of response it produced upon its release, it still serves as a haunting reminder of the lamentable proceedings of war along with its repercussions
“A Vial of Light”: Music and the TolkienMitchell Correspondence
ENGLISH2337F:JRR
Tolkien, C.S.Lewis,andFriends
Written by Georgia Craven (she/her)
Since the publication of its first volume in 1954, J R R Tolkien’s epic fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings, has had a major impact on popular culture (Rosenbury 2) In response to The Lord of the Rings, many people corresponded with Tolkien during his lifetime to share with him how his work influenced them both personally and creatively (McIlwaine 88). Some of Tolkien’s correspondents eventually became great writers and artists in their own right. One group Tolkien had a particular impact on was songwriters, particularly rock and folk musicians of the 1960s and 1970s (Rosenbury 193). Two musicians inspired by Tolkien during this time were Chuck and Joni Mitchell, who began corresponding with Tolkien in the mid-1960s (McIlwaine 100). Joni Mitchell eventually went on to become a multi-award-winning singersongwriter, and was called “one of the greatest songwriters ever” by David Wild in a 2002 article for Rolling Stone Magazine (Wild) Tolkien and his writing had a lasting impact on Joni Mitchell and her music In this essay, I will examine the correspondence between J R R Tolkien and the Mitchells and how his work influenced the Mitchell couple First, I will explore the history of Tolkien’s influence on rock and folk musicians in the 1960s and 1970s I will then analyse a selection of letters written to Tolkien by Mitchell and her former husband Chuck Mitchell Then, I will examine how Tolkien’s novel The Lord of the Rings influenced Joni Mitchell’s song “I Think I Understand” and look at similarities between the content and themes of Tolkien’s novel and Mitchell’s song. I will finish with a discussion of why Tolkien and his works have been influential and appealing to rock and folk musicians. The evidence presented in this essay will show how Tolkien’s correspondence and relationship with the Mitchell couple is indicative of his influence on countercultural musicians.
Tolkien’s influence on musicians and songwriters should not be surprising, however, the genre the musicians worked in and the values they held may seem incongruent with those found in Tolkien and his writings
Professor James Doelman
According to Catherine McIlwaine’s book Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth, Tolkien was a very “traditional” man He was a lifelong Roman Catholic and enjoyed immersing himself in the subjects of philology, history, and the ancient legends and myths of European cultures like those of the Norse and the Anglo Saxons (McIlwaine 16) He also was a devoted family man, raising four children with his wife Edith (McIlwaine 15). Nevertheless, he had a lasting impact on writers and musicians who were part of the countercultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The values of the countercultural movement, and those who were part of it, seem to be directly opposed to Tolkien’s values. At first glance, it may be difficult to see why this is the case. In his article, “Music with Rocks in it,” Mike Johnson explores Tolkien’s impact on rock musicians and why Tolkien appeals to them. Johnson writes, “The link between rock music and The Lord of the Rings has always been strong Those who appreciate the ancient, mythical aspect of rock music, usually have the imagination to fully immerse themselves in Tolkien’s world” (Johnson 10) The immersive quality of Tolkien’s work and The Lord of the Rings in particular has influenced Led Zeppelin, an English hard rock and heavy metal band This is seen in their songs “Ramble On,” “The Battle of Evermore,” “Misty-Mountain Hop,” and “Over the Hills and Far Away,” all of which refers to various places, events, and themes present in The Lord of the Rings The Canadian rock band, Rush, also released a song titled “Rivendell” in 1975 (Eden) Tolkien’s influence on rock music continued well into the late 1990s and early 2000s The English hard rock band Magnum’s third studio album, “Mirador,” is a concept album based on The Lord of the Rings, featuring songs “inspired by the story” (Johnson 11). When asked in an interview why rock musicians find Tolkien’s work so appealing, musician Gary Hughes of Magnum stated that Tolkien “brings out the artistic side in anyone… it’s all about creating and adding to it. But without detracting from it” (11). Later, he spoke of the “comradery of the fellowship, the feeling that they’ve endured the task together to the unknowing there’s all manner of things It’s like Remembrance Day; it triggers emotions,” (12) Tolkien’s continual appeal to rock musicians is a testament to the enduring influence of his work, as will be seen in the Mitchell couple’s letters to Tolkien
At first glance, Tolkien and Joni Mitchell seem to have very little in common. J.R.R. Tolkien was born in what is now South Africa in 1892, and lived in England for most of his life (McIlwaine 10). Joni Mitchell was born in Fort MacLeod, Alberta, Canada in 1943 She moved back and forth between Canada and the United States (Wild) More than fifty years and an entire ocean separate the two Tolkien was an esteemed philology professor at Oxford (McIlwaine 16) Joni Mitchell was a struggling musician and a high school dropout (Crowe) Both, however, were talented and creative individuals who had a major impact and influence in their respective fields Tolkien is viewed as the author who made fantasy a respectable genre As a singer-songwriter, Joni Mitchell brought a confessional aspect to her music and explored emotions in her lyrics in a revolutionary way (Wild)
Joni Mitchell was introduced to Tolkien’s work by her then-husband, Chuck, who first read The Lord of the Rings sometime around 1965. At the time, the Mitchell couple were musicians living in Detroit, struggling to get by on meagre wages. Chuck sought ways to protect their music, and wanted to create both a recording company and a publishing company to do so (McIlwaine 100). According to a blog post written by Chuck Mitchell, he and Joni “liked Tolkien’s magic” (Mitchell, Chuck), and turned to Tolkien for inspiration for their publishing and recording companies Chuck Mitchell describes how he had been reading The Lord of the Rings in the early days of their marriage, and he had introduced the work to Joni (Mitchell, Chuck) Chuck wrote in a letter to Tolkien dated March 20th, 1966, that he and Joni “stumbled upon, ventured into and loved the world which [Tolkien] (and [he hesitates] here) created Perhaps ‘revealed’ is more correct,” (Mitchell, Charles, “First Letter”) The Tolkien-Mitchell correspondence mainly concerned the use of names from The Lord of the Rings for their publishing and recording companies Chuck wrote to Tolkien saying, “Our request is simple: we would like to call the recording company Lorien and the publishing company Strider” (Mitchell, Charles, “First Letter”). To the couple’s delight, the request was granted by Tolkien and his publishers (McIlwaine 100).
Although they had permission to use the names Lorien and Strider for their companies, the Mitchell couple ran into difficulties registering these names with the agency Broadcast Music Incorporated The name
“Strider” was deemed too similar to “Stride Publishing,” another client of the agency Their second choice for a name, “Aragorn,” was also rejected as it was too similar to the company “Aragon.” The pair settled on the name “Gandalf Publishing,” which was finally accepted (McIlwaine 100).
Chuck remarked on this in a follow-up letter to Tolkien and his publishers, writing, “Seems that they have nothing quite like Gandalf in their listings” (Mitchell, Charles, Second Letter).
Tolkien’s influence on the Mitchell couple proved to be lasting. Later in his blog post, Chuck Mitchell writes, “When Joni and I split up, which was a year or so before we actually got divorced, all of Gandalf's holdings of Joni Mitchell songs were transferred to Joni's publishing company Siquomb, which was part of her legendarium that she invented at some point after (or maybe before, it depends on who’s telling the story) she stumbled on, and then out, of Middle Earth” (Mitchell, Chuck) This use of the term “legendarium” to describe Joni’s collection of songs is also a marker of Tolkien’s influence, as his group of writings on Middle Earth are titled “The Legendarium ”
In a letter dated 26 August, 1966, Chuck Mitchell expressed his and Joni’s gratitude to Tolkien and his publishers for permission to use the names. As a “thank-you” gift, Chuck sent Tolkien a copy of the lyrics to Joni’s new song, “I Think I Understand” (McIlwaine 100). In the letter, Chuck writes, “I’ve started my second trip through Middle-earth, looking at lyrics, and Joni had just finished her first (reading). Before she began reading, she wrote a little song which somehow sounds as if it were written after she had read the trilogy” (Mitchell, Charles, “Second Letter”) On the copy of the lyrics the Mitchells sent to Tolkien, Chuck explained that Joni “was working with (the word) ‘wilderness,’ but needed the rhyme, and found wilderland in her head” (McIlwaine 101) “Wilderland” is the name in Hobbit-speech for the land of Rhovanion, a heavily forested region in Middle Earth (Hammond, Schull) Chuck remarks that the word seems to have been invented by both Tolkien and Mitchell independently, saying “(Joni) hadn’t read the trilogy and I don’t think I mentioned the word to her, so I think it was a happy accident” (Mitchell, Charles, “Second Letter”)
It is also interesting to note that Tolkien and his publishers gave permission to the Mitchells to use the names of characters and places from The Lord of the Rings In contrast, Tolkien denied The Beatles permission to make a film version of The Lord of the Rings in 1969 (O’Dell 92) This may be because the Mitchell couple were only requesting to use the names for their recording and publishing companies, not trying to adapt the entire work in a way Tolkien may not have wished it to be adapted. Another reason could be that the Mitchell couple were not “mainstream” musicians, in the way a band like The Beatles
would have been, when their correspondence began in 1966 (McIlwaine 100) The Mitchell couple’s honest appreciation of Tolkien’s work and their humility in writing to him may have appealed to Tolkien’s sympathies
“I Think I Understand” was eventually included as a track on Joni’s second album, Clouds, released on May 1, 1969 (Mitchell, Joni) Joni performed this song at the Mississippi River Festival held at the Southern Illinois University Campus in Edwardsville, Illinois on July 7, 1969 (Mitchell, Joni) Before the performance, Joni introduced the song to the crowd, saying, “A few years ago I read a trilogy by an Englishman named Tolkien. It left a big impression on me because there are so many different ways that you can read your own things into it... and get your own hope and light and everything from it” (Mitchell, Joni). Joni also noted that her favourite character from the work was Galadriel, saying that “when the travelers came to her kingdom before they had to venture off into very dangerous places and everything, she gave them a vial of light and she said ‘take this vial and whenever you’re in a dark place take it out’” (Mitchell, Joni) Her statement about her inspiration for the word “wilderland,” however, seems to contradict with the explanation given by Chuck in his letters to Tolkien At the festival, she states:
“Well, being into metaphors a lot myself I decided that what (Galadriel) probably was giving them was a memory of a beautiful time and with that interpretation and her hope and her memory, well I borrowed a phrase from him ‘the wilderland’ which was a place they had to go through And the wilderland is just like it sounded, it’s a wilderness and full of all kinds of hoary monsters and things Just like life ” (Mitchell, Joni)
The lyrics to “I Think I Understand” connect thematically to The Lord of the Rings This is seen in the lyrics of the first verse:
“Daylight falls upon the path The forest’s far behind Today, I am not prey to dark uncertainty The shadow trembles in its wrath I’ve robbed its blackness blind And tasted sunlight as my fear came clear to me ” (McIlwaine 101)
These lyrics connect to the concepts of fear, despair, and hope, which are present in The Lord of the Rings
In spite of his hopeless task, Frodo continues on his journey to destroy the One Ring, with support from the other members of the Fellowship and their allies (Tolkien 284).
The second verse contains the lyrics: “It’s there I’ll take my thirsty fill of friendship over wine / Forgetting fear but never disregarding her” These lyrics are reminiscent of the closeness of the Fellowship and the relief they feel when they take their rest in Lothlórien (Tolkien 348). As previously stated by Joni, this part of the work greatly influenced her.
Tolkien’s popularity with the Rock and Folk Musicians of the 1960s and 1970s may seem odd, and contradictory in some ways. Nevertheless, Tolkien’s innovative, immersive worldbuilding and groundbreaking work as a fantasy writer had a profound influence on these musicians Tolkien’s work is based on ancient legends, myths, and stories that European and Western readers would have been long familiar with (Eden) Yet, the work reflected the concerns and anxieties of the twentieth century This blend of “old” stories with contemporary concerns may have appealed to rock musicians The use of an “innocent,” pastoral setting in The Lord of the Rings in conjunction with the work’s reactionary tone may also have appealed to figures of the countercultural movement The sincerity of The Lord of the Rings may have appealed to Joni Mitchell, who herself is sincere, emotionally open and vulnerable in her songwriting (Wild)
Tolkien’s popularity with the Rock and Folk Musicians of the 1960s and 1970s may seem odd, and contradictory in some ways Nevertheless, Tolkien’s innovative, immersive worldbuilding and groundbreaking work as a fantasy writer had a profound influence on these musicians. Tolkien’s work is based on ancient legends, myths, and stories that European and Western readers would have been long familiar with (Eden). Yet, the work reflected the concerns and anxieties of the twentieth century. This blend of “old” stories with contemporary concerns may have appealed to rock musicians. The use of an “innocent,” pastoral setting in The Lord of the Rings in conjunction with the work’s reactionary tone may also have appealed to figures of the countercultural movement The sincerity of The Lord of the Rings may have appealed to Joni Mitchell, who herself is sincere, emotionally open and vulnerable in her songwriting (Wild)
Tolkien’s work, The Lord of the Rings, showed twentieth century readers what fantasy could convey and accomplish as a storytelling genre In turn, musicians used Tolkien’s work as inspiration for their own songs The Lord of the Rings and the Mitchell couple’s correspondence to Tolkien influenced Joni Mitchell’s songwriting, contributing richly to the song “I Think I Understand ” The fully-realized worldbuilding of Tolkien’s work, as well as its blend of both familiar storytelling elements and contemporary concerns, have allowed many musicians like Joni Mitchell to take up “the vial of light” (Mitchell, Joni), allowing The Lord of the Rings to resonate with new generations
Collage as Couture: How Dada Reshapes
Gender in Fashion.
AH 3690F
Written by Zoe Port (she/her)
The Dada practice of collage and assemblage challenged conventional boundaries, rigid categorizations, and questioned societal norms These experimental methods deeply influenced fashion, inspiring designers to incorporate mixed media and deconstruct traditional expectations of gender. By breaking down binaries and promoting fluidity, Dadainspired fashion became an instrument for critiquing societal expectations and reimagining identity. Dada’s reach extended beyond art into fashion and design, where figures like Lilly Reich, Hannah Höch, and John Heartfield used these techniques to disrupt norms and inspire modern creativity. Reich’s functional and progressive critiques of fashion, Höch’s photomontages and their interactions with gender roles, and Heartfield’s politically charged assemblages all embrace Dada’s resistance to conformity Contemporary designers like Vivienne Westwood and Rick Owens have further adopted and transformed these methods, using layering, unconventional materials, and deconstructed silhouettes to challenge rigid notions of masculinity and femininity Incorporating Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity which posits that gender is not a fixed identity but rather a series of enacted behaviours these designs reconstruct gender in fashion Clothing itself has become a collage of identities, combining textures, forms, and gendered signifiers to subvert traditional categories and reflect Butler’s idea of gender as fluid and constructed. The techniques of collage and assemblage have influenced fashion trends that reject traditional gender binaries and embrace experimentalism.
Berlin Dada is a pivotal chapter in the history of the Dada movement, particularly in its embrace of the assemblage technique The Berlin Dadaists were deeply influenced by the socio-political upheavals of their time, especially the challenges posed by the Weimar Republic’s instability Unlike the Zurich Dadaists, who were more focused on intellectualism and visual abstraction, the Berlin Dadaists were intensely political, incorporating the collage and assemblage techniques to critique consumerism, militarism, and ]
Professor John Hatch
bourgeois society Hannah Höch and John Heartfield were pivotal figures in the Berlin Dada movement, and both used the assemblage technique to explore societal and political issues Höch’s work stands out due to “her interest in the allegorical uses of montage to represent society, gender roles, and modernity” (Lavin 1993, 16). In works like “The Beautiful Girl” (1919-20), Höch used photomontage to blend fragments of advertisements, photographs, and industrial elements to challenge the commodified image of femininity and expose the societal pressures faced by women. This 35 x 29 cm work further embodies Dada’s embrace of chaos and rejection of conformity, positioning Höch as a key figure in challenging the portrayal of femininity in consumer culture. Her fragmented depictions of women disrupted traditional portrayals of beauty, presenting a complex commentary on identity and gender in the post-war landscape (Lavin 1993, 16) Similarly, Heartfield’s photomontages, such as “The Meaning of the Hitler Salute: Little Man Asks for Big Gifts” (1932), used the assemblage technique to critique the rise of fascism By combining fascist imagery with agitating language, Heartfield parodied Hitler’s most iconic poses, gestures and symbols to undermine the impact of authoritarian regimes His work blended industrial and political motifs to create satirical statements against militarism and the mechanisation of politics (MoMA 2024) Both Höch and Heartfield used assemblage not just as a formal technique but as a medium of social and political resistance. Through their manipulation of materials and imagery, they transformed the fragmented, chaotic nature of Dada into a vehicle for confronting modern societal structures. Berlin Dada’s use of assemblage resonated beyond aesthetics, shaping contemporary understandings of art, politics, and identity.
The influence of Dada’s assemblage techniques can be traced through the development of fashion, particularly in the use of layering, mixed textures, and use of unconventional materials These elements, which blur the lines between clothing and art, have become central to avant-garde and punk-inspired fashion. In modern fashion, designers have appropriated these Dadaist methods, adapting them in ways that push the boundaries of identity, function, and expression. Just as Dada artists utilised everyday objects, fragmented imagery, and materials that defied traditional artistic boundaries, fashion designers have incorporated similar approaches to challenge
the norms of garment creation The combination of disparate textures leather, mesh, rubber, and even plastic reflects Dada’s ethos of disrupting conventional aesthetics and embracing chaos and experimentation Designers like Vivienne Westwood have famously embodied this aesthetic, with her punkinspired garments in the 1970s, which often featured collage-like patterns and unorthodox materials Westwood’s designs, especially in her early collections, engaged with the idea of “anti-fashion,” interrogates not only the standard notion of beauty but also the expectations of bourgeois society by embracing raw, deconstructed materials and chaotic layers (Arena Martínez 2020).
During World War I, as women entered maledominated industries to support the war effort, practical and functional clothing such as uniforms, overalls, and trousers became increasingly common This shift in attire marked a departure from the traditional clothing of the past, and it played a significant role in the evolution of women’s fashion in the 1920s The flapper and tomboy styles of the 1920s were, in part, a continuation of this trend toward simplicity and practicality, influenced by the social and economic changes of the post-war period These styles reflected a desire for greater independence and freedom, both in terms of women’s roles in society and their clothing choices. The adoption of trousers, initially for wartime labour, became a symbol of women’s increasing presence in the workforce and their demand for more functional, comfortable clothing. This shift towards simpler, more practical fashion during and after the war is also reflected in the work of designers like Coco Chanel, who embraced a more androgynous, streamlined aesthetic in her collections, marking a significant departure from the corseted looks of earlier decades (Steele 2001, 67)
This shift in fashion parallels Dada’s rejection of rigid structures, including gender binaries, and its embrace of subversion and fluidity. Just as Dada artists like Hannah Höch and John Heartfield disrupted conventional artistic forms and societal norms through collage and assemblage, fashion designers in the postwar period began to break down the boundaries between men’s and women’s attire. Through Dada, artists’ critique of traditional categories of gender and identity mirrors the gender-fluid styles seen in contemporary fashion, where designers intentionally blur the lines between menswear and womenswear By embracing these ambiguous forms, designers challenge the binary constructs of masculinity and femininity,
much like Dadaists questioned societal constraints through their art The intersection of these movements demonstrates how the rejection of traditional norms, whether in art or fashion, empowered new forms of self-expression and social change
Designers like Lilly Reich responded to the changing social landscape by advocating for a more functional and progressive approach to clothing design, one that transcended the limitations of traditional gendered attire. Reich’s “Questions of Fashion,” published in the “Die Form” journal, directly challenged the prevailing norms of fashion by criticising imitative materials and the superficiality of mass-produced clothing. As Reich argued, fashion needed to reflect the modern age’s spirit one that was not constrained by outdated conventions or subservient adherence to Parisian trends, but instead embraced a more organic and self-assured development that could be both attractive and functional (Schuldenfrei 2012, 110) Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity provides a framework to understand these shifts in fashion According to Butler, gender is not an inherent identity but rather a set of practices and performances that individuals engage in, suggesting that the boundaries between masculine and feminine are not fixed but socially constructed and fluid (Butler 1999, 214) This perspective aligns with Dada’s rejection of establishment, as it allows for a more inclusive and flexible approach to identity, particularly in the context of fashion. Butler’s work echoes Reich’s critique of the “slave of supply and demand” (Schuldenfrei 2012, 110) mentality in fashion, advocating for an approach that resists rigid categorizations and instead encourages a more dynamic, individualistic expression of identity. Both Butler and Reich’s ideas intersect in their call for a new understanding of gender and fashion. An understanding that rejects the constraints imposed by society’s traditional norms.
Gender-fluid silhouettes challenge traditional clothing categories, offering designs that disrupt societal expectations of masculinity and femininity. Jean-Paul Gaultier, for example, has been an advocate for gender-inclusive haute couture, famously incorporating both male and female elements in his collections. His iconic Le Male perfume campaign and his runway shows often feature models wearing garments that transcend gender norms, such as skirts and dresses on men, which mirrors Dada’s approach to breaking societal taboos (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco 2012)
In 2017, Rick Owens’ FW17 collection, Glitter, showcased at the Palais de Tokyo and highlighted the designer’s alignment with Dadaist principles through its experimental and provocative approach to fashion. The venue itself, the Paris Museum of Modern Art, underscored the collection’s artistic
significance, situating Owens’ work within a broader dialogue on the intersection of modern art and fashion The collection featured Owens’ signature brutalist silhouettes oversized quilted coats, dramatic layering, and unconventional textures interwoven with elements of détournement Owens uses industrial elements to disrupt aesthetic expectations entirely His use of layering, oversized silhouettes, and unconventional textures aligns with Dada’s embrace of chaos, positioning fashion as a medium of resistance and cultural critique (Petit 2017) Moreover, Owens’ designs are uniquely ungendered, challenging binary notions of masculinity and femininity in fashion. His collections consistently blur the lines between gendered clothing, emphasising oversized, gender-neutral silhouettes that do not conform to conventional ideas of “men’s” or “women’s” fashion. The neutral, often androgynous, forms he creates provide an alternative to rigid gender categorizations, allowing for a fluid expression of identity that aligns with Dada’s broader disruption of societal norms Through this, Owens’ designs offer a critique of traditional gender roles, promoting freedom in self-expression much like Dada’s embrace of ambiguity and resistance to categorization
All of these designers exemplify how the Dada movement’s legacy continues to influence fashion, where the blending of textures, materials, and gender categories reflects the movement’s broader critique of conformity and its embrace of nontraditional, subversive forms In Dada art, everyday materials and absurdist imagery disrupted conventional understandings of art and meaning Similarly, in fashion, clothing becomes a site for dismantling normative expectations around gender and identity This directly correlates with Butler’s argument that gender is constructed and can be deconstructed through acts of defiance or subversion. When designers reject “fixed roles” in their creations, they not only redefine clothing but also provide wearers with tools for performing identities that resist societal constraints. Dada’s emphasis on collage and assemblage mirrors this process. Clothing can function as a “collage” of identities mixing textures, silhouettes, and gendered signifiers to create something that challenges conventional categorization
Perception's Betrayal of the Pentangle Knight.
English 2076G
Tanya Matviyiva (she/her)
The elaborate arming scene of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight heavily lingers on the description of the pentangle painted on Gawain’s shield, the heraldic device setting up a misleading image of a perfect hero It is designed as an endless knot embedding twenty-five interrelated virtues that inherently belong to Gawain and his reputation, which defines a seemingly impenetrable identity The flaws of the pentangle are revealed upon Gawain’s encounter with the Green Chapel, its unknowability blurring the definition of his identity through the knight’s failure to uphold the virtue of perception associated with his symbol.
The heraldic pentangle of Gawain is crucial to understanding the conceived image of his identity, the emblem’s five points symbolic of the perfection he is associated with The convoluted endless knot represents the intertwined knightly virtues that “never failed, / And never swerved to one side or broke asunder” (Sir Gawain, ed Arthur, lines 659-60) Among these qualities, he “was always faultless in his five senses” (line 640), which Peter Whiteford equates to the inner wits, responsible for the comprehension of sensory perception With the manuscript’s original wording of “his fyue wyttez” (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, line 640), the senses are understood as “a bridge between the external senses and the intellect,” which applies common sense, retentive imagination, and the composing imagination to form immediate judgements of the material world (Whiteford 230). Therefore, rather than reading Gawain’s senses as the five basic senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste, the accuracy of the pentangle is determined by his preservation of the associated inner wits
Gawain’s renowned insight, however, fails him when he attempts to identify the Green Chapel. Upon locating the potential oratory, the knight “meandered over to the mound and moved slowly around it” (Sir Gawain, ed. Arthur, line 2178), unsure of what he was seeing. Gawain’s lack of confidence when assessing the structure questions the reliability of his wits, and thus the validity of the pentangle as a source of his identity
His particularly perceptive nature abandons him as he mulls “over in his mind exactly what it might mean” (line 2179), mirroring the stupefied reaction of Arthur’s court when “everyone was marvelling at exactly what [the Green Knight] might mean” (line 233) The parallelism of these encounters equates Gawain’s perception to the rest of Camelot, breaking the behavioural expectations established by the endless knot His failure to preserve this identity continues when “he couldn’t really be / Very clear” (lines 2183-4) in concluding his analysis of the mound, leaving Gawain in a state of ignorance The knight’s inability to comprehend the Green Chapel challenges the accuracy of the overdetermined symbol on his shield in his struggle to maintain control over his five inner wits.
In his eagerness to uphold his ideal identity, Gawain forces himself to promptly impose meaning on the enigmatic Green Chapel, leading him to a rash error of judgment The failure to define the obscure sight severs the truth from his interpretation, his hasty metaphors an unfitting match for the sanctuary Before even considering the possibility of having the wrong location, Gawain immediately concludes that it “might be the Chapel [and that] the Devil along about midnight / Might mumble his matins here” (lines 2186-8) Seeing the chapel as demonic, instead of the magical work of Morgan le Fay, indicates the inaccuracy of his famed perception. Though Gawain’s skepticism is evident with the repetition of “might,” he still exclaims, “Now I’m confident in my five senses that it’s the Fiend / Who arranged this appointment for my undoing here” (lines 2193-4). His certainty attempts to preserve the symbol of himself with the reference to his pentangle, but Gawain’s inner wits falsely accuse the Devil of devising his predicament. The knight not only heralds his beheading, but the connotation of “undoing” also refers to how his pentangle unknots as his reputation shifts with the re-examination of the symbol The understanding of the iconography as a statement of its bearer’s faultlessness weakens with Gawain’s inability to live up to the pentangle, thus demonstrating its unreasonable and overdetermined expectations
Professor Richard Moll
Rather than the failure of Gawain’s perception being the cause of a personal flaw, the fault lies in the absurdness of the Pentangle’s ideals and the unrealistic expectations set on Arthur’s knights Pressures to uphold such virtuous identities compel rash responses that paradoxically reveal inherent human error Gawain’s grim reading of the chapel is a fearful response that shrouds his critical thinking, his overwrought state exposed through the poem’s portrayal of his point of view The hostility of the environment adds to his tension when “the sound of somebody grinding a scythe” (line 2202) verifies his belief of “these goings-on … [being] arranged … as a very royal reception” (lines 2205-7) for him. The threatening scene is a perfect fit for the horrors he was expecting with the approach of his doom. Gawain’s imagination of the weapon being a scythe, rather than the axe, reflects how the prospect of his oncoming death has altered the reliability of his judgement. The expectation of his beheading explains the adversarial association with the demonic as he mutters that the mound is “perfect for the weird person who appears all green / To deal out his devotions in the Devil’s camp” (lines 2191-2) His analysis of the scene forces a reinterpretation of what he expects, which incites a transition from a chivalric game to a demonic confrontation The characterization of the Green Knight as a servant of the Devil poses the encounter as a test of Christianity a consequence he must face for his cheating at Castle Hautdesert The hellish mound thus becomes a place of penitence for Gawain’s failure to adhere to the Christian morality embedded in his shield, illustrating the daunting standards of knightly piety. Assessing Gawain’s identity through his inability to rely on his inner wits does not demonstrate his unrighteous qualities, but rather authenticates his human nature. His inability to simultaneously maintain all the interrelated virtues of the pentangle paints it as a symbol of unattainable human perfection.
Gawain adopts the pentangle as a heraldic symbol of his identity and thus creates an overdetermined set of standards that define his reputation Straying from these expectations, however, results in the questioning of Gawain’s knightly morality and the loss of his individuality. His discovery of the Green Chapel threatens the credibility of his inner wits when the unexpectedness of the structure confuses him, halting his acclaimed perception. In recognition of his faltering wits, Gawain attempts to impose meaning on the sight in front of him and makes a judgment that is based on
the foreboding situation he finds himself in The knight’s seemingly ignorant judgment of the chapel is thus a human response intensified by the belief that he is going to his death, triggering the hellish associations His erroneous inner wits recall his fallible humanity that he is hesitant to accept The examination of Gawain’s thought process when he finds himself at the chapel shows that his ‘failure’ of the senses would have been inevitable due to his human nature, exposing his new pentangle as an unreliable symbol for himself, or any other human
The Journey of an Artist: Venus Verticordia and Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Progression in Art
English 4351F
Katie Walden (she/her)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti is arguably one of the most influential artists in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Most of Rossetti’s early works align with the morals and artistic beliefs of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, however, over his lifetime, his artistic values changed Venus Verticordia is one such painting that defies what the Brotherhood stood for and marks a changing point in this artist’s life Rossetti composed an accompanying poem for the painting entitled “Venus Verticordia (For a Picture) ” When analyzing these pieces in tandem, they demonstrate his evolving relationship with art in comparison to prior works and highlight the complex journey in his life that determined his future values.
Rossetti was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which was established in 1848. Many artists had found themselves revolting against the modern styles of art, after the artist Raphael, and wishing for the return of simplicity and honesty, popularized in the 15th century As Howard Oakley says, the “aim was therefore to become true to nature again Paintings of the Brotherhood used bright colours, had flat surfaces, and included objects and figures which were painted from nature, and not idealised in any way” (Oakley) Although based on realism, the artists themselves were not strict realists, often using heavy religious symbolism in their paintings Their unique interpretation of what art should or should not be caused by Pre-Raphaelite ideals to become both an artistic and social movement, and we can see that in Rossetti’s art. Two paintings come to mind, and they were both made early on when the Brotherhood started: The Girlhood of Mary Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini! (The Annunciation). These paintings, made in 1848-9 and 1849-50 respectively, depict scenes from the Bible containing heavy religious imagery. Everything including the haloes, people’s posture, and plants that were used, has religious meaning behind it. They tell a specific story, and religious followers had insider knowledge on what the symbols meant, such as the dove representing the Holy Spirit Everything was purposeful and rigid with little
Professor David Bentley
to no room for interpretation because each detail had a set meaning attached to it, however, this would not always be the case, as demonstrated in Rossetti’s later works
Not even a decade later, Rossetti stunned the world with paintings quite different from his prior works. These paintings were of beautiful women, often with sexual undertones, and Bocca Baciata is an excellent example of this. It depicts a paleskinned, beautiful woman with bright lips and her hair down, something that some critics called downright pornographic. By “modern standards, it may not appear particularly sensuous or shocking. At the time, her loose hair, unbuttoned garments, and the abundance of flowers and jewellery were seen as marks of the temptress” (Oakley) It had symbolism, but did not depict religious scenes or symbols It rocked the boat, so to speak, and seemingly not in a good way This did not stop Rossetti though; it only fueled his journey towards aestheticism and symbolism According to David Ludley, the viewer “must seek Rossetti’s message by way of the beauty, but, more importantly, beyond it” (Ludley), and that also applies to Venus Verticordia It sought to express a state of mind rather than reality, which does not necessarily apply to the symbolic nature of the painting, but more so the aesthetic aspects The symbolism itself changed from rigid and obvious religious values to more ambiguous and somewhat erotic suggestions at symbols, neither set in stone nor certain Venus Verticordia is not painted from life like the Brotherhood would have wanted. Instead, the model depicted is an amalgamation of two different women. The original model was an unnamed, statuesque young woman. Unfortunately, that version of the painting did not sell, so Rossetti painted over top of the body with the face of his favourite model, Alexa Wilding, which could explain the mismatch in proportions. When examining the painting, the viewer may notice the model’s disproportionately narrow forehead, long, wide neck, and tall chin It meant that Rossetti’s style was changing from the PreRaphaelite way of painting from life and purely religious symbolism to painting visually-appealing and sensual women in an aesthetic and symbolic way This painting is Rossetti’s only nude portrait as well, raising the question of what art meant to him at the time Despite being an aesthetic portrait, it is full of suggested symbols, so which category could it fall into?
To understand Venus Verticordia, it is best to start with the accompanying poem: “Venus Verticordia (For a Picture) ” This poem is a sonnet and thus contains fourteen lines of iambic pentameter The title ‘Venus Verticordia’ literally translates to ‘Venus who turns hearts’ This makes sense considering Venus is known in mythology as the goddess of love, sex, and beauty The Russell-Cotes art gallery notes that the title “describes one of Venus’ attributes as being able to assist Roman women to turn their hearts towards virtue and modesty This does seem somewhat contradictory for such a heavily sensual and sexual image, but perhaps it is a warning of the dangers of sexual obsession” (Russell-Cotes). Another interpretation of the title is that she turns hearts to the indulgence of the senses in a sensual manner, which matches Rossetti’s interpretation in the poem. The content of the poem is heavily focused on events before the Battle of Troy. It alludes to Venus being the key figure that sets the Trojan War in motion. After all, she was the goddess who assisted Paris in getting Helen to elope with him in Troy Venus herself had destined Helen to be with Paris, sparking the issue in the first place “Venus Verticordia (For a Picture)” parallels the fall of Adam and Eve and humanity thereafter from the Garden of Eden, and has similarities to the idea of the ‘Fallen Woman’ because of her temptresslike nature and descriptions The poem says that “her glance is still and coy” (Rossetti 9), emphasizing her eyes more importantly her gaze and her potential intentions Her desires and the links between the sonnet and the temptation of Adam and Eve become clearer in line ten, which shows her hesitant goal to “give the fruit that works her spell” (10). Venus in this sense becomes a figure of temptation and desire, despite the hesitation described earlier on, the fact she “hath the apple in her hand for thee, / Yet almost in her heart would hold it back” (1-2). This proves that she likely knows what she is doing may be wrong, but there is still that push to keep going. This clash of desires somewhat matches the clash of intentions in the painting Venus Verticordia.
This beautiful yet confusing piece seems to lie somewhere between aestheticism and symbolism, and is difficult to pin to either movement. It has many aesthetic qualities to it. An example of this can be seen with the woman’s skin the paleness and plainness of her exposed skin create a nice contrast to the flowers that surround her and draw your eye to the middle of the painting In a sense, it almost draws you closer to
Venus herself by keeping your eyes on her There is a heavy use of warm toned colours, like the auburn colour of her hair, the pinkish red flowers, her bright red lips, the vibrant fruit, and the many yellow butterflies that encircle her head and hand These qualities make a scene that a viewer would want to look at; it’s a beautiful woman surrounded by nature, plants and wildlife alike Putting the sonnet aside, Venus Verticordia is a stunning painting to look at for the sake of art itself
Before diving into the symbolic qualities the painting possesses, it is worth noting that the following observations are merely speculative and cannot pin a specific meaning to anything because of the ambiguous nature of the symbolism Despite this, there are a few symbols that are worth trying to understand. There are two types of flowers that appear in the painting, surrounding the figure of Venus: roses, which could represent love or passion; and honeysuckle, which could represent female sexuality and lust. This is quite different from the specific symbolic imagery from Rossetti’s earlier works, for example, how the lilies in The Girlhood of Mary Virgin were painted for the direct purpose of representing Mary’s purity. The ambiguity creates a confusing but alluring contrast to Rossetti’s previous ideals There appears to be a halo behind the head of Venus, which is rather confusing because halos
are typically found on saints Why would it belong in such a sensual image? Does it contradict it on purpose? This is a similar problem to the butterflies around her Butterflies are symbolic of the soul, perhaps representing the soulful kind of love as opposed to the carnal love the painting might suggest, contrasting the ideas of pure sex That is, unless they mean something else The two butterflies, on the arrow and apple, respectively, seem to be highlighted Perhaps they could represent Adam and Eve, or male and female desire or temptation Speaking of the arrow and apple, the arrow is pointed directly to her chest, likely representing Cupid’s arrow, and maybe showing how she can use it against other people. The apple could be interpreted as one of two things (or a purposefully ambiguous combination of both): the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, or the apple of discord from Greek myth. The forbidden fruit is what tempted Eve and Adam, causing their downfall, and the apple of discord is involved in the Judgment of Paris when he gave the golden apple to Venus instead of Juno or Minerva Both cases involve tempting fruit in the hands of a woman leading to the downfall of man Going back to the image of Venus’ eyes as described earlier in the aesthetic portion of the analysis, they are very piercing She is potentially looking at a male viewer, alluding to the male gaze As written on Byron’s Muse, an art blog, “[w]hen I look into the eyes of this redhead Venus,” there is a “look of indifference and power in their eyes, a certain awareness of their beauty and dominance, and they are confident about their inevitable success in love matters It is a gaze that brings doom to a man who gazes back at it” (Byron’s Muse) It further ties in ideas of temptation and a dark future The blue bird in the corner, a cool colour that sticks out like a sore thumb among the warmth of the flowers, emerges from the shadows. It seems to be crying a warning, as described in the poem, which says that “her bird’s strained throat the woe foretell” (Rossetti 12). Because it’s in the background in the shady area, it’s almost like a distant cry for help or an afterthought like a voice trying to wake you from a dream, or in this case, a potential nightmare On a different note, one of the more striking features of the painting is the colour of the Venus figure’s hair It is a reddish colour, one of the rarest there is Russell-Cotes notes that “her hair is long and flaming red A hair colouring favoured by Rossetti, he other PreRaphaelites and their followers Red hair was chosen because of its rarity, and associations with excessive emotions for example sexual desire” (Russell-Cotes) It amplifies not only her worth, but also the symbolic associations with a sexual nature The whole image created by the Rossetti was received rather poorly by
the public The painting “left no one speechless when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy Art critic and writer John Ruskin found the painting tasteless to put it lightly” (Byron’s Muse) The nudity, the sexual nature, the Greek imagery, and the ties to the ‘fallen woman’, left a bad taste in the mouths of artists and other critics It went rogue, so to speak, and in a way not many people liked or appreciated
That being said, is Venus Verticordia aesthetic or symbolic? And if it can be defined, why does it matter? I argue that it could be interpreted as a mixture of both However, I lean more towards symbolic because of the accompanying sonnet creating a specific scene for the context, and the blatant imagery and symbolism This is similar to how artist James McNeill Whistler referred to his paintings as symphonies because they were considered as music for the eyes and purely for visual enjoyment While Rossetti’s painting is purposefully ambiguous and may not align with the original ideals of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, there are still traces of symbolism that weave together the oil painting and sonnet like a tapestry of temptation. One can only guess the meanings behind the symbols in this painting, which paves the way for Rossetti’s later views, which seem to align with the views of agnosticism. Shortly after finishing Venus
Verticordia, in 1869, agnosticism was first publicly coined Much like symbolism, it mirrors the uncertainty towards both life itself, and what may or may not come after In that sense, it’s like Rossetti’s internal views toward art began to reflect his later ideas and relationship to religion. Only being able to guess is what both symbolism and agnosticism are all about, and connect in a beautiful way that other artists at the time may not have been able to see.
Through the various paintings that Dante Gabriel Rossetti created throughout his career, including works such as The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, Bocca Baciata, and Venus Verticordia, there is a visible shift in his relationship to both art and religion, in the way that he frames his paintings and his use of symbolism. Despite being raised with religion, his artistic journey leads his painting and religious values to align closer to symbolism and agnosticism. Oddly, as soon as Rossetti moved away from religious symbols, his art seemed to flourish and take on a life of its own, with more vibrant colours and sensual undertones It seems ironic how, despite being one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Rossetti strayed from the values that had initially brought the group together instead of painting religious works from life, he began to create beautiful works from his own mind with his own abstract symbols Perhaps it was to make the viewers as lost as he was in a world he could not fully comprehend In all, I think that Venus Verticordia and its accompanying sonnet are but a stepping stone in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s career as an artist and showcase his changing views towards both art and religion
Worlds Within Beds: The Immortalisation of Love Through
Metaphor in Carol Ann Duffy’s “Anne Hathaway” and John Donne’s “The Sun Rising”
English 4320F
Written by Jay Gardner (she/they)
Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “Anne Hathaway,” written in 1999, is meant to be a reflection on the overwhelming love and passion between William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway John Donne’s poem “The Sun Rising,” written in 1633, is about a woman who has no confirmed identity but is revered by her lover with great passion Both poems explore the expansive power of love and intimacy, but this essay will compare and contrast the metaphors used to describe love’s expansive abilities and the immortalisation of passionate love stories Duffy’s descriptors can be likened to a metaphor for art; the bed likened to a stage, and the love the inspiration for Shakespeare’s poetry. There are also lines that can be interpreted as Anne Hathaway herself being the world described in Duffy’s poem. Donne, however, likens the passion between the lovers to the universe; the speaker’s lover being the sun, the bed the expanse of the universe, for nothing exists outside their love. Donne’s poem contrasts Duffy’s by depicting the love between lovers as superior, giving it a sense of rebellion, whereas the lovers in Duffy’s poem follow a quieter, more conventional form of reverence for each other, while also having more evident sexual connotations than “The Sun Rising ” This essay will compare and contrast Duffy’s artistic and stage play metaphors for love, and Donne’s hyperbolic cosmic imagery and celestial reverence of a lover, to create an allencompassing, loving devotion to one’s lover
“Anne Hathaway,” titled after the wife of William Shakespeare, explores the possibility that the love and intimacy between the couple was the inspiration for Shakespeare’s poetry. Duffy provides a vivid image in comparing the bed and lovemaking to another world. The lines that say, “The bed we loved in was a spinning world / of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-tops, seas / where he would dive for pearls,” paint a fantastical story filled with wonder and amazement conjured by the act of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway making love (lines 1-3). Duffy describes the couple’s bed as a spinning world, providing a direct link between the bed and a new world, instead of comparing a fantastical world and the bed, which
Professor John Leonard
illustrates the transformative power of love and indicates it was a wonderful experience Duffy calling the bed the spinning world likens the bed to a stage, with the intimacies shared translated into fantastical stories filled with forests and castles similar to stories told by Shakespeare such as Macbeth or Hamlet, for example The act of lovemaking can therefore be interpreted as the inspiration for any magical storyline filled with desire that Shakespeare created in his lifetime, grounding the transformative power of love in the artistic aspect of their relationship
Moreover, the spinning of the bed can indicate the transformative power of love and intercourse. This spinning can be compared to the dramatic build of events in Shakespeare’s plays. The spinning increases with the pleasure of the couple, similar to the rise of tensions found in Shakespearean plays that involve a climax often in the third act, and the resolution in the final act of the play This resembles the build up of tension during intercourse before the climax, with the come down being the final resolution that stops the spinning, returning to the real world and abandoning the fantasies conjured in the lustful, uninhibited minds of those engaged in sexual acts, in their hormonally driven haze The similarities between the plot of Shakespearean plays and intercourse illustrate the possibility that Shakespeare and Hathaway’s intimate acts are the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s plays, with Hathaway being the focal point for his inspiration as both his world and his muse Additionally, it further grounds the work in the world of art as a realistic inspirational act that inspires great art
The act of lovemaking as an inspiration for Shakespeare’s written work is further supported by the use of literary devices to describe actions taken while the couple are engaging in intercourse Her body is “now a softer rhyme” due “to his, now echo, assonance; his touch,” with assonance being the repetition of vowels, and in this context, likely representative of pleasure-filled moans, the echoed repetitions of their moans and touches (Duffy, lines 5-6). Furthermore, the speaker says, a“verb dancing in the centre of a noun,” and as nouns refer to a person, place, or thing, it likely refers to Hathaway, with the verb being the action of penetrating the centre of the noun Anne Hathaway (Duffy, line 7). The use of the literary devices to describe the act of coitus provides evidence to the couple’s activities inspiring the poetry and prose of Shakespeare’s early
works, with his wife as his muse Their love is described as though it were already part of one of Shakespeare’s great works, a transformative and expansive love that breaks the boundaries of boring reality to insinuate itself into a fantastical world The descriptive words additionally create a multisensory experience of reading the poem to deepen the realism of the description of the lovemaking, allowing readers to experience it on a deeper level
While Duffy grounds her work in the world of realism and artistic imagery depicted and inspired via lovemaking, Donne employs hyperbole and cosmic metaphors to elevate his lover and their bed to the centre of the universe The lover described is said to be “all states, and all princes,” an exaggerated description to define the importance of his lover, for she is the only matter of importance to him (Donne, line 21). When they are together in bed, they are all that exists; the external world becomes irrelevant in the face of their passionate, expansive love for one another. The line, “In that the world contracted thus,” implies that the speaker believes the world outside of his shared bed has ceased to exist, and the world has contracted to fit only their bed, but still holds the expansive power of the entire universe in their small, shared space (Donne, line 26) The lack of external forces can be attributed to the all-consuming power of the love between the speaker and his lover, but can also be interpreted as a sort of arrogance, believing that their love is the most important and all-consuming in the world, even when compared to others and their own love experiences For the speaker of “The Sun Rising,” nothing else matters except him and his lover
While Donne describes his lover as the centre of the universe, there is an additional possibility for comparison between Anne Hathaway being the world itself in Duffy’s poem The line depicting diving for pearls is likely a reference to oral sex, comparing Hathaway’s clitoris to a pearl that her husband is searching for to bring her pleasure, therefore making Hathaway’s body the sea into which her husband would dive, exploring her depths to reach her beauty (Duffy, line 3) Her beauty is not only found in her physicality, but also in her reactions to her husband’s ministrations, that likely left her head feeling as though it were spinning, similar to how Duffy describes the world as spinning in the first line of the poem Hathaway as the world brings a new understanding to the poem; if she is the fantasy world described, then she herself is responsible for the inspiration behind
Shakespeare’s poetry and prose, making Hathaway a muse for her husband Her beauty combined with the emotions felt between the married couple when they make love is the driving force behind any of the lustrous and desire-filled literature produced by Shakespeare In this interpretation, Duffy is depicting the bond between the married couple as sensuous and unbreakable, for she is his world that he delights in making spin with pleasure This contrasts the depiction of the lover in Donne’s poem, likened to the centre of the universe, because the world does not merely revolve around Hathaway, she is the entire world
The inclusion and personification of the universe is also used by Donne to describe the overwhelming power and joy that the lovers’ shared bed brings to them, believing thou “sun, art half as happy as we,” for it cannot begin to encapsulate their emotions (Donne, line 25). The sun can be used as a symbol of power and vitality, but in this case, the source of all power and vitality is the speaker’s lover, because she is his source of warmth and power in their microcosm of the universe; their bed The speaker acknowledges the power of the sun early on in the poem in the line that says, “Thy beams, so reverend and strong,” but questions its superiority, for “Why shouldst thou think,” which implies the power of their love is beyond the control of the sun (Donne, lines 11-12) The speaker claims that his lover allows him to render the sun powerless, for she is the ultimate source of warmth and power for him, and he “could eclipse and cloud them [the sun’s power] with a wink” but refrains from doing so, because “I would not lose her sight so long,” not wanting to lose sight of his lover (Donne, lines 13-14). The comparison between the speaker’s lover and the sun is indicative of the expansive power of love between the lovers, for it is powerful enough to overpower the cosmos and become the centre of their universe. It also speaks to the devotion the speaker has for his lover, for she is the source of his strength, indicating a reliance on her for her power. Humans cannot exist without the sun, so if he describes her as the sun at the centre of his universe, he claims he cannot live without her brightening his days and giving him power and support to move forward
In addition to depicting his lover as the centre of the universe by likening her force to the sun, and the bed the only thing in existence by saying “all here in one bed lay,” the speaker of Donne’s poem takes on a more self-centred and rebellious force to describe the love shared with his lover (Donne, line 20). The refusal to accept that external forces such as the sun have any power differs from the perspective of the lovers in Duffy’s poem, in which the speaker acknowledges external forces In “the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, / dribbling their prose,” which, although is not given much
importance when compared to the existence of the bed the lovers occupy, still acknowledges its existence (Duffy, lines 11-12) This creates a sense that the world that exists only in the bed shared by Hathaway and Shakespeare is merely an extension of the already existing universe, and does not overtake the power of what already exists Therefore, Donne’s poem has a more rebellious and superior sense of love in comparison to the quiet, private love shared in Duffy’s “Anne Hathaway ”
Furthermore, Duffy’s poem contrasts the rebelliousness and sense of superiority in Donne’s poem by inferring that their love will be read by the masses when it says, “Some nights I dreamed he’d written me, the bed / a page beneath his writer’s hands,” which immortalizes their love in the prose and poetry written by Shakesepare to share with the world (Duffy, lines 8-9). In “The Sun Rising” the cosmic depiction of the lovers is already given a sense of immortality, for they are the never-ending universe There is no need for them to be immortalised by others because they are the only two that exist in their microcosm of the universe, where she is the celestial being resembling the sun and he her loyal devotee In “Anne Hathaway,” however, their immortalization will come from their story being enjoyed by others in the form of the written word, allowing the greatness and expense of their love to capture the attention, reverence, and perhaps even envy, of those that did not experience their love for themselves
The usage of cosmic metaphors to describe the speaker’s lover as the sun in Donne’s poem further contrasts the language in Duffy’s “Anne Hathaway” by not only painting the speaker’s lover as his muse, but also using additional metaphors to paint the lover as an all-powerful sovereign While the relationship between Hathaway and Shakespeare in Duffy’s poem is depicted in a symbiotic light, her receiving pleasure from his ministrations and he finding inspiration for his writing in their time spent together, the speaker in “The Sun Rising” receives no obvious benefits. For him, merely being in his lover’s presence is enough, connecting back to the line, “She’s all states, and all princes,” again, as well as the final line in the poem (Donne, line 21) The last line says, “This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere,” ending the poem with a note of finality and certainty that the speaker’s lover is the sun, the centre of the universe that is their bed (Donne, line 30) The speaker’s world revolves around his lover, with the description depicting his
devotion closer to a type of worship This is vastly different from the reverence given to Anne Hathaway by Duffy, acknowledging their bed as more of an extension of the world, their own little, private sanctuary that in the moment encapsulates their world, but does not surpass the power of the cosmos
In conclusion, both Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “Anne Hathaway” and John Donne’s poem “The Sun Rising” explore the expansive powers of love through the use of metaphor, however, each poem approaches the topic from a different perspective. Duffy uses metaphors to liken the love between Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare to a transformative and inspiring act that paints Hathaway as the muse for Shakespeare’s poetry and prose. Their love is a quiet and private reverence, despite the extensive sexual connotations of the poem. Their love is immortalised in Shakespeare’s literature that was inspired by his lovemaking with Hathaway, that influenced his art. Donne’s poem, in contrast, uses cosmic hyperboles to liken the speaker’s lover to the sun, revering her as though she were a deity and he her most loyal disciple To the speaker, the love between him and his lover is superior, creating a rebellious tone that immortalizes the power of their love by depicting the woman as a god-like figure, the centre of her own universe that exists without attachment to reality, and placing themselves above the cosmic order They do not need their love written in prose to be remembered, because for them, nothing else matters outside of the microcosmic universe that is their bed Duffy and Donne’s vastly different approaches to depicting love through metaphor offer two insightful perspectives on the expansive and timeless aspects of love
Accuracy, Honour, and Ends: Advertisers’ Obligations of Engagement
PHILOSOP 2740F
Margaret Gleed (she/her)
Advertisers serve to inform the public of relevant information pertaining to their product or service
Relevant being an abstract term, advertising can verge between creative and deceptive as marketing departments can freely determine what is relevant for the consumer to know about their product or service When left to their own judgment, however, marketing and advertising teams seek to engage consumers for the pursuit of profit from the overall volume of sales
In this paper, I argue that advertisers have three obligations when choosing how to engage and sell their products and services. First, advertisers are obligated to provide consumers with accurate information regarding how a product or service will affect their daily lives. Second, advertisers are obligated to honour the trust consumers place in the advertisements they observe and the additional sales tactics they experience. Third, advertisers are obligated not to treat consumers as a means to an end in their pursuit of profits. To defend these obligations, I will utilize the arguments made in papers by Tibon Machan, Albert Carr, and Robert Arrington, and outline how they are misguided in their defences of advertisers’ lies of omission, bluffing, and “puffery” in the pursuit of a sale I will use real-world examples to justify how the mistreatment of consumers and the inability to meet these obligations leads to long-term harm and distrust in consumers, which in turn negatively impacts the respective businesses and negates any immediate benefit from deceptive advertising
Before outlining the three obligations of advertisers, we must define the difference between advertising, marketing, and selling These three terms are often mixed or confused, but, in the corporate sector, they have three very distinct purposes. Marketing develops the mediums and messages used by advertisers to introduce a product or service. Individuals working in marketing analyze previous sales, determine the best target demographics for the company’s product or service, and identify how to best appeal to those demographics through surveys and test groups. Advertising is the material that is produced to draw consumer attention to the product or service. After
Professor Dean Proessel
marketing teams determine the best mediums, messages, and demographics for the product, they send the information to advertising for development into the final media consumers see Sales teams take the same information provided by the marketing team, and the material produced by the advertising team, and utilize both sets of data to convince the consumers to purchase the products being advertised When I set obligations for advertisers, I also intend them for sales teams as they are an extension of advertising, just through an inperson approach Both advertisers and sales teams are responsible for taking the information provided by marketing departments and leveraging it to make the product appealing to the end consumer, without jeopardizing the consumer’s wellbeing, trust, or status as an end rather than a means. In this paper, I also make the assumption that the primary consumers are individual people rather than other businesses. There are different standards for business-to-business sales that cannot be applied to business-to-consumer sales, and those are not relevant to this paper.
The first obligation, to not minimize or over-inflate the potential impacts of a product on the consumer’s daily life, is a response to Tibor Machan’s paper, “Advertising: The Whole or Only Some of the Truth?” and Robert Arrington’s paper, “Advertising and Behaviour Control ” Both authors agree that flat-out lying to consumers is morally wrong, but concealing information on the basis of “if they don’t ask, don’t tell,” or embellishing the truth with puffery, are permissible acts for advertisers to partake in Machan follows the belief that it is the salesperson’s job to have all the available information and to answer any questions the consumer has when making a purchase If the answer leads the consumer away from the salesperson’s product, however, then they do not have to answer Or if the consumer doesn’t ask the right questions that hone in on the crucial information, the salesperson does not have to go out of their way to bring it to their attention if it could influence the consumer to purchase the item elsewhere. In Arrington’s paper, he questions whether advertisements infringe on consumers’ autonomy and manipulate their purchasing decisions by targeting subconscious desires with subliminal messaging. He believes that advertising doesn’t intentionally infringe on consumer autonomy, or invoke specific consumer behaviour, but that advertisements may have unintended consequences for which businesses cannot be held
accountable Arrington describes puffery as “the practice by a seller of making exaggerated, highly fanciful or suggestive claims about a product or service” (Arrington 2017) Examples of puffery include equating buying Old Charter Bourbon Whiskey to securing higher social status, how using a new perfume will transform you from a troll into a Victoria Secret model, or how your favourite celebrity uses a product and if you purchase it as well, you are one step closer to being like your idol While these are not flat-out lies, they obscure the truth enough to hide potential deterrents from individuals purchasing the product. I understand that advertisers cannot simply say, “Our product is exactly the same as our competitors, but you should still choose us over them,” as that would not encourage sales, but to over-embellish the truth is still a lie of sorts. Puffery of products can be compared to catfishing on the internet, where strangers pretend to be someone else to meet people through dating services, or steal money, by posing as someone else to attract their victim Both of these beliefs, Machan’s and Arrington’s, promote that consumers should not be privy to the whole truth surrounding their purchase While there may be some details consumers do not need, like entire operations history or the research done to inform the manufacturing of the product, if there is an element of the product on a quantitative or qualitative level that affects the user’s daily life, they deserve to know While it is not expected for a salesperson to know the daily life of a consumer, the types of questions asked during a sale will provide a good indication as to the types of concerns the consumer has towards their purchase and inferences as to daily life can be made based on those questions.
As we have established, advertisers have an obligation not to mislead the consumer, and we must establish the obligation not to break the trust of the consumer when entering a relationship with the seller The second obligation is one of mutual trust between the consumer and the advertiser, that the YouTube commercials, radio blurbs, or magazine ads, are not intended to deceive the consumer as they evaluate their decision, nor are the sales people intentionally misguiding consumers by feeding them information that promotes their product to make the sale This obligation is derived from Albert Carr’s paper “Is Business Bluffing Ethical?” In his paper, Carr discusses the Poker Analogy, where he equates the skills one needs to play poker to the skills needed to do business and make sales He refers to advertising as a game with special
ethics where participants can bluff so long as they behave within the rules of the game Carr also believes that the golden rule, to do to others what you would have them do to you, is to be forgotten because someone will take advantage of an opportunity without regard for how it affects others He also believes that so long as you are acting within the law, you are free to behave as you see fit, and that business decisions must be impersonal because it is not in the business’ interest to protect the personal ethics of all its employees The premise of a game is that two parties enter the game willingly, knowing the rules and having somewhat of a grasp of what they are willing to lose in the pursuit of success. When consumers engage with advertisers and salespeople, they may have an idea that they have to protect their own interests, but they do not know the same rules as the salesperson, and therefore, they are not entering “the game” willingly. If the consumer engages in the game unwillingly and uninformed, then once the game is over and they discover they have been played, they could blame the salesperson, the advertisements, and the business, and create a negative reaction to the behaviours of the business that take advantage of the trust consumers have for “experts” and trusted representatives
In addition to trust and honesty, if businesses view advertisements as a way to hook consumers and consumers as vehicles of profit, then they are viewing consumers as a means to an end, which introduces the third obligation: to consciously treat consumers as an end rather than a means. According to Immanuel Kant, treating human beings as means is unethical according to his deontological theories. Specifically, in Kant’s formula of humanity, he says to “act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means” (Salazar 2017) In this statement, he means that people have an unconditional worth that cannot be exchanged or capitalized on for their own benefit or, in our case, that of the business Consumers are treated as a means when the overall objective is to make a profit by completing a sale The consumer is only a mark the advertiser needs to hook, and the salesperson needs to close their mark in their pursuit of profit
To be treated as ends, advertisers and salespersons need to evaluate their tactics to engage and retain consumers on the basis of respect They have a mutually beneficial relationship which cannot be overlooked If the advertiser conveys information that accurately informs the consumer of the benefits of the product without minimizing the risks or incompatible elements to the consumer’s needs, then the consumer will be more likely to trust the salesperson they meet. If the salesperson is honest with the consumer about the product and its compatibility with the consumer’s daily life, they are more likely to close the sale. If the consumer feels
valued and respected, and that they were sold the product they were effectively advertised, they will convey that to their connections, and all parties benefit
To Machan, Carr, and Arrington, my opinions on advertiser obligations may seem overly optimistic and unlikely to benefit businesses in a positive way They would all argue that businesses do not exist to protect the consumer and that in fulfilling these obligations, businesses are more likely to drive consumers to other businesses and lose profit However, they underestimate the loyalty consumers have to a brand they can trust and who shows them respect For example, Dove is a favourite soap brand not because it has the best product or the lowest prices but because of its advertising and its orientation towards the consumer as an end rather than a means They focus their advertising on body positivity without promising consumers the body type of their dreams (Griffin 2023). Another example is Purdue Pharma and its Oxycodone (Mystal 2023). They advertised to the consumer that their product would let them live painfree, and they neglected to inform users that the substance was highly addictive, and they would live pain-free until they experienced withdrawal. Purdue Pharma is now subject to numerous lawsuits and has declared bankruptcy as a result
Advertisers and salespeople have three obligations to their consumers: (1) they are obligated to provide accurate information relevant to the consumer’s decision, (2) advertisers are obligated to respect the mutually beneficial trust consumers have in the information they distribute, and (3) advertisers are obligated to consciously treat consumers as ends rather than a means to an end For businesses, specifically advertising and sales teams, neglecting the interests of consumers means disserving the business by jeopardizing the relationship with consumers and disrupting their brand loyalty In ignoring these obligations, businesses may see success or seem more “realistic,” but in an adapting society, treating people as a means of collective profit is a bad business decision
To Spare or not to Spare: Analyzing Milton’s Interpretive Crux
English 4320F
Reeghan Denommee (she/her)
Sonnet 17, “Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,” by John Milton, details the importance of leisure, companionship and moderation Written in the seventeenth century, an era of both Renaissance humanist ideals and Puritan methods, this sonnet reflects Milton’s own judgement of the appropriate balance between work and play While a seemingly straightforward sonnet, the penultimate line contains an interpretative crux, ultimately leaving the meaning up to a single word, “spare ” This word has caused controversy amongst critics with some viewing it to mean “refrain from,” and others arguing that it means “make time for.” Through a close analysis of the historical context of Milton and his work, the sonnet itself and a grammatical evaluation of the word “spare,” this essay will prove that the word “spare” represents “to make time for.” This sonnet was written to encourage Milton’s young friend to continue to seek out the enjoyment of life while moving into the future, providing a good balance between responsibilities and leisure
Part of the “refrain from” argument comes from the historical context of the time, and in particular, Milton being a Puritan The Puritans and other past religious societies “have reputations for restrictive views of the pursuit of pleasure” (Daniels 7) In fact, for “over four centuries ‘puritan’ has been a synonym for dour, joyless, repressed behaviour,” which has led to the assumption that Puritans live a lackluster life filled with religious guidelines and no individuality (Daniels 7). While literature such as Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter paints a vivid picture of the heartless Puritans in mind, Perry Miller, who wrote The New England Mind in the Seventeenth Century, paints a very different picture of Puritan life (Daniels 9). Miller specifically “argued that joy, leisure and recreation had a legitimate place in a Puritan cosmology,” contradicting the other descriptions of Puritan life we have (Daniels 10) Of these joys was alcohol, which was not prohibited, and instead “a church parish providing poor relief for some of its members listed ‘malt and wine’ as among the necessities of life” (Daniels 10) With this being said, Puritans were not as
Professor John Leonard
miserable and dreary as perceived to be, they lived a life of occasional pleasure and experienced the joys of recreation and alcohol Although this life of amusement and minor indulgence was not encapsulated by every Puritan or Puritan society, it is proof that some even, if not many, could lead a Puritan life with these pleasures Returning to Milton being a Puritan and the “refrain from” pleasures being more favored, it is clear that this argument does not take in all aspects of Puritan life and has ignored the very possibility that Milton led a life of recreation and enjoyment
An explanation of Milton’s beliefs about the balance of work and play will further aid the argument that recreation and enjoyment were not restricted from his life. “L’Allegro,” by John Milton, encapsulates his celebration and appreciation for life and all it has to offer, reflecting his beliefs “L’Allegro” was written and published before the sonnet, “Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,” making it an accurate representation of what Milton believed before and during the writing of his sonnet The poem welcomes spring and all it has to offer, which will be revisited later in Milton’s sonnet It features a celebration of joy and mirth: “but come thou goddess fair and free, / In heav’n yclep’d Euphrosyne, / And by men, heart-easing Mirth” (Milton lines 11-13) Milton’s capitalization of the word “Mirth” personifies it as a “goddess fair and free,” celebrating Mirth for who she is and what she stands for rejoicing (OED) This celebration evokes Mirth as the central figure of the poem, directly setting the tone for the lines to follow. Furthering this appreciation for life and all it has to offer, including nature, Milton uses repetition of the word ‘and’ to represent this: “Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee / Jest and youthful Jollity, / Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles, / Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles” (Milton lines 25-28). Milton asks the goddess he has evoked, Mirth, to bring all these wonderful things with her to be rejoiced in, representing the never-ending extents of joy that Milton knows there is in life. Overall, this poem portrays Milton as one to emphasize the joys in life, dwelling far from the four interpretations of Puritan life
Although in “L’Allegro” Milton portrays life to be constantly celebrated and rejoiced in, he highlights the need to keep balance using moderation something he strongly believed in The last line solidifies my interpretation of the poem as Milton aligns himself with Mirth stating, “These delights if thou canst
give, / Mirth, with thee I mean to live” (Milton lines 151-52) Milton is committing to living a life of enrichment and joy even if he himself must be the one to implement it It simultaneously features a need for balance as even though he welcomes Mirth and decides to live with her, he does so in a way where he does not lose his other values, such as hard work Milton’s beliefs align with a balance between work and play, and without this, the poem suggests that balance in one’s life can be lost Too much work will lead to sullen, joyless days, and too much play will lead to meaningless indulgence taking away our purpose in society. As the title states, “L’Allegro” translates to “happy man” in Italian, further concluding that all these qualities of life, pleasure and enjoyment, in moderation lead to being a happy man. These ideas were preached in Milton’s earlier poems as seen in “L’Allegro,” and I argue he has carried these same beliefs with him when advising his young friend in Sonnet 17, “Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son ”
Sonnet 17 presents itself as a letter to Mr Lawrence, understood by critics to be Edward Lawrence, son of Sir Henry Lawrence, who Milton was friends with Thinking highly of Edward and his father, he addresses them equally as “virtuous” (Milton line 1) The sonnet then follows with descriptions of winter, wishing and waiting for “Favonis [to] re-inspire” (Milton 6) Favonis is “the west wind Zephyr,” the God of wind in mythology who typically makes his presence known with a spring breeze (OED) The hopes for the end of the winter season are coupled with the appreciation of the present moment and making the most of time, regardless of the season. Milton writes “that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,” bringing attention to the dampened winter weather and with this, the path of life being filled with hardship and struggle, like a winter depression. The word “mire” represents the struggle of life in these moments and compares them to “an area of swampy ground; a boggy place, esp. one in which a person may be engulfed or become stuck fast” (OED). During these times Milton emphasizes the importance of creating moments to connect: “sometimes meet by the fire / [and] help waste a sullen day” (Milton lines 34) Milton acknowledges the act of ‘making time for’ connection, especially during periods of hardship, which foreshadows the later meaning of “spare ” “Help waste a sullen day” is a direct invitation to get together and connect (Milton line 4) These ideas are reiterated in the discussion of “the frozen earth,” where it not only symbolizes the dormancy of winter, but
perhaps periods of stagnant creativity or roadblocks of thought (Milton line 7) These times of struggle need balance, and as Milton suggests leisure and human connection are not indulgent acts but instead essential for navigating life’s challenges Just as winter will soon pass, hardship and troubles will too, establishing a shared hope Through this half of the sonnet, Milton ingrains into the reader the importance of making time for connection, discussion and leisure, during all times in life, further pushing the “spare time for” argument
The second half of the sonnet delves into the luxuries of feasting, which has led critics to argue that Milton would not encourage these indulgences: “John S Smart felt that ‘spare’ meant ‘refrain,’ reading the sentence as ‘refrain from interposing them oft,’ which infers that Milton disapproved of man’s indulgence in festivity” (Vance 32) However, the “indulgences” Milton speaks about are humble in nature: “what neat repast shall feast us, light and choice” (Milton line 9). The word “neat” highlights the type of feast they will have, one that is clean, delicate, refined, a meal of nothing more and nothing less. The phrase “light and choice” confirms the feast is not to be indulgent but instead selected with thought and nourishment in mind. This type of feast invokes themes of moderation and balance, found in Milton’s other works such as the previously examined “L’Allegro ” If it were an “indulgent” feast described, it would make sense to assume that the later use of the word “spare” would be used to inform those to “refrain from” such unnecessary luxuries, but that is not what Milton is advocating for The feast is not intended to represent anything more than what is needed to nourish their bodies and minds
The differing understanding of the word “Attic” further complicates the type of feast to be held Milton continues to describe the feast as “of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise” (Milton line 10) Attic, as defined by the OED, refers to having “characteristics peculiarly Athenian; hence, of literary style, etc : Marked by simple and refined elegance, pure, classical” (OED) The word represents the elegance of the feast and its refined selective nature It is a pure meal; one of sophistication, meaning one of thought, not a feast to spoil oneself However, it could also mean an Athenian feast which was not necessarily small but rather large and festive. This point is used to argue against the “spare time for” interpretation, in attempts to prove that the feast was indulgent. The issue with this is the initial descriptions of the feast; it is described as a “neat” feast of “light and choice.” Milton’s description therefore counters the interpretation of an extravagant Athenian feast. If we examine the rest of the line, “with wine” may appear to be aligning with the argument of an Athenian party, but as we have read previously, Miller proved that wine was listed among necessities provided by a church at
the time (Daniels 10) Wine and alcohol were not seen as overly indulgent and on occasion, as Milton suggests, can be enjoyed The end of the line further alludes to a light feast: “whence we may rise” (Milton line 10) This line signals that the feast will not take them to the point of excess, where they will be too full to get up afterwards After partaking in this attic repast, one will rise, feeling restored in the body as well as the mind By advocating for a balance of enjoyment and self-discipline, Milton highlights the importance of a purposeful restoration of oneself This interpretation aligns with the “spare time for” argument and further alludes to Milton’s passion for balance.
The lines that have caused all this controversy appear at the end of the sonnet: “he who of those delights can judge, and spare / To interpose them oft, is not unwise” (Milton lines 13-14) The interpretive crux as it is often referred to, is the word “spare ” This word, as previously mentioned, has been interpreted to mean “afford time for” or “abstain from ” Even more recently, Stanley Fish labelled it as an ambiguous word left up to the reader’s interpretation Fish claims when examining the use of the word spare, we should not try “to solve it but to make it signify” (Fish 468). What Fish argues it signifies is “that meanings can be specified independently of the activity of reading” (Fish 468). His argument revolves around reader response theory, which focuses solely on the response of the reader to the literary work and does not involve any intentions of the author. While Fish puts forth a compelling argument, it does not make sense for Milton to paint such a precise picture of a thoughtful feast if he did not wish to get the point across that we are to partake in these festivities If Milton’s words were less precise, and “neat, attic, light and choice” were omitted, it would be easier to agree and side with Fish Unfortunately, that is not the case and these deliberately hand-selected words by Milton, encourage leisure, further reinforcing the “spare time for” argument over the ambiguity argument
The word “spare” in the Oxford English Dictionary has only worsened the controversy, as both interpretations of the word spare were used when Milton was writing his sonnet The dictionary aids in the “refrain from” argument by providing the correct context in which the term was used There were limited instances where the term was used correctly in the same context as Milton, for example: “wa wurðe him wurst þat te mest sparie wondreðe to donne” (OED) Although this citation is the correct usage, almost every other citation includes
a word such as “not,” insinuating the use of ‘not affording time ’ Without the term “not” in Milton’s sonnet, the argument becomes far less convincing When the term is most commonly used with a negative connotation, it would not make sense for Milton to follow this same procedure, but he does not When looking at the citation entries for sparing time, section 8c, it seems all citations include a reference to time While not contained in the exact line, Milton’s entire sonnet directly relates to time, specifically time passing When discussing the “hard season,” Milton mentions that “time will run / on smoother,” a direct reference to time (Milton lines 56). Other words in the sonnet, like “day” and “season,” once again directly relate to time. Therefore, any argument of the sonnet lacking the reference to time is null, as it is clear the absence of time from the direct line of the interpretative crux is due to the sonnet content speaking for itself. There would be no reason for Milton to reiterate what he has been enforcing since the sonnet started, the passing of time and how to spend this time.
To conclude, why would Milton write a poem over 150 lines only to write a singular sonnet that completely contradicts everything he preached in his poem? The answer is he did not. Instead, Sonnet 17, “Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,” uses the word “spare” to encourage making time for life’s little pleasures like food and drink, all in moderation In addressing the sonnet to his young friend Edward, Milton teaches the importance of a work-life balance as Edward heads into manhood His wise words promote everything in moderation, even the things that one would assume Puritans looked down upon Through an analysis of Milton’s previous work, the structure of the sonnet and an evaluation of “spare” in the Oxford English Dictionary, it is evident that the purpose of the word “spare” is to signal “making time for” rather than “refraining from ” As it should be, Milton’s feast is one of thoughtful articulation and welcomes occasional enjoyment of what life has to offer With this interpretation, the sonnet harnesses Milton’s belief in moderation as a marking of a welllived and experienced life.
Glossary
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