does the rose regret The day she did her armour on?
I feel like armour is normally associated with masculinity, and thus maybe this questions whether love is the female equivalent of a military/physical battle/fight. There seems to be an acknowledgment of the danger of love for women and that this causes some women to be reluctant of dating/marriage etc. whilst noting an almost dualistic desire to be in love whilst actively being combative against it
From my five arms and all my hands, From all my white sins forgiven, they feed,
the narrator seems to be offering himself up so that the lion can be fed and some sort of revolution/change can occur, ideas of self-sacrifice and what should be offered up (and by who) to bring about real change
unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it
Both works focus on questions however Du Bois questions the world from a more societal context whereas Adams questions the world with a more scientific lens. For Adams there is not an issue with finding his voice and having the wherewithal to ask questions - he feels out of place but time is a greater obstacle to him than society - however Du Bois notes how not everyone has the societal 'privilege' to be inquisitive which is indicative of the overall themes of Du Bois' work.
But dry sterile thunder without rain
Wet/Dry motif being used to emphasise some subversion in nature.
Asked me in demotic French To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Polyglossia: here instead of using a different language in his text, Eliot says someone else did, implying there was polyglossia in society at the time, and not just something unique to this work.
the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank
Fragment: the leaf is in fragments, broken and desperately clutching into the wet bank. Nature is in fragments, and perhaps reflects upon the broken nature of society.
ships at Mylae
he seems to be mixing time periods? Mylae presumably refers to a Roman-Carthage conflict yet the setting is post-war London
Hofgarten
the references to foreign places and use of German makes it feel like the narrator is almost showing off how well-travelled he is/knowledgeable
April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.
This feels like a subversion of what you'd normally think. Normally April/ Spring represents life, and vitality; "spring rain" "lilacs" are both normally positive images so it seems weird that he'd subvert them into symbols of April being "the cruellest month"
Not a plan bow.
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/media/english/fullsize/b/bow/bows_/bows_2.png
"Bow" has so many variations ^ this image doesn't even include "bow" within the meaning of "take a bow".
Argonauts
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f6/8a/2b/f68a2b66e33236b9be2d11ce7f431eca.jpg
This made me think of the image on my copy of this book. I think it's almost impossible to hear Argonauts now and not think of Jason and the Argonauts.
So great so great Emily. Sew grate sew grate Emily.
https://ekaterina-alexeeva.ru/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/American_accent_1.jpg
This just made me thing of how different accents can sometimes sound like a different language
No one
this line is shorter than the first lines of all the other stanzas and the monosyllabic words "no one" really place emphasis on concepts of emptiness/isolation
expressing with broken brain the truth about us
I wonder whether the syntax here being so disjointed, with themes and sentences running from stanza to stanza, is to reflect the "broken"ness of America. This stanza in particular emphatically places "broken" at the end of the stanza perhaps to make us dwell on that word, and to not limit our comparisons of it by solely linking it to "brain".
addressed to cheap jewelry and rich young men with fine eyes as if the earth under our feet were an excrement of some sky
this seems to be addressing America becoming more materialistic and how this leads to people ignoring natural beauty in favour of "cheap jewelry". Describing the earth as "excrement" is particularly vivid imagery which further juxtaposes the the cheap jewellery and the earth and thus materialism or conspicuous consumption (which was prevalent in the 1920s) with nature.
In that the foul supplants the fair,
It's interesting the factual way in which this is said, as if it is just nature that "foul supplants the fair"; it's a pessimistic world view, not even saying that both co-exist, but that foul "supplants"/replaces fairness - to what extent can this be true because at some point if "foul" does indeed "supplant... fair" then eventually there will be no "fair" to "supplant", interesting to consider the limitations or nature & love in this context
the sea, That falls incessant on the empty shore,
the sibilance here (and throughout the poem) really aids the water imagery, particularly mimicking the "incessant" sea; even though no one mourns this man the sea still does and this grief is lasting - perhaps in respect for the impressiveness of the man
Here lies, and none to mourn him but the sea,
subverts the expected by not putting a name after "here lies", makes the clause seem uncompleted which then emphasises the following part where we learn nobody mourns "him", as we become included in not being able to mourn him due to his anonymity
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
There's an unexpected potential mystical/magical element to this story which is interesting yet the narrator doesn't delve into it, he just accepts it and doesn't question it - i.e. the "something" that doesn't love the wall. Whilst the use of "spell" here likely doesn't refer to anything magical it reminds the reader of a potential mystic element, without truly addressing it.
The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.
I feel like this subverts expectations with the description of "easy wind" because often settings like this (dark nights in isolated woodlands) are more indicative of danger or even the horror genre. Normally wind can act as an auditory device to increase suspense and make the reader & narrator nervous, but here it's depicted as "easy".
Too many fall from great and good For you to doubt the likelihood.
It should be surprising that the "witch" used to be the "pride" of Hollywood, yet at the same time it should be expected as many people "fall" or have social declines; Frost both encourages the ignorance of the reader (to make the reveal noteworthy) and expects the knowledge of the reader.
Alone, as if enduring to the end A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn. He stood there in the middle of the road Like Roland’s ghost winding a silent horn.
Mr Flood becomes isolated within the town to the point where he feels like he becomes removed from it and feels like a ghost haunting the new inhabitants of the town. For Mr Flood time passing has made him feel like a foreigner within his own hometown and struggles mentally to adapt to this new world.
I did not think that I should find them there When I came back again; but there they stood,
This seems to show how even with time passing, people aging and changing and the world transforming around them, things don't change completely and some things remain the same. There's always two groups of people, some who go with the changing of time and others who try and reject it - as with Adams where different scientists were willing to accept different advancements as it suited their agendas or ideas.
The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished; And what is love but a rose that fades?
Everything changes - or fades into something new - but that doesn't mean that there isn't beauty to be found in it, or in the memory of it.
I’m really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.
Does she consider the paper "horrid" because it represents herself and at the beginning of the passage she wants to get well - thus dislikes her disposition - whereas at the end as she devolves she becomes increasingly infatuated by the wallpaper and as she accepts that she becomes imprisoned by the wallpaper / her mind and illness so chooses to go back behind the pattern/wallpaper becomes she's devolved to the point where she wants to be imprisoned.
At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.
This shows how the woman becomes imprisoned at night, though it is still not entirely clear how the woman becomes un-imprisoned at daylight. As she says at the end that she will have to get back behind the pattern that suggests she is voluntarily - though likely out of fear of John and others' perceptions of her - imprisoning herself behind bars at night. This demonstrates how she hides her true self from others, but it's interesting that she feels imprisoned at night when before she's hidden during the day by pretending to be asleep, and has had more freedom at night.
I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!
The way she says this implies that she's gotten back behind the pattern before even though the narrative indicates that this is the first time she's peeled off the wallpaper and been in this situation.
we are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts; we cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of education, since we must always cook and serve?
This emphasises the differences in perceptions towards education and how Adams takes education for granted.
Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?
Where Adams strayed away from talking about the more emotional aspects of his life - i.e. his wife's suicide - Du Bois seems more willing to engage with his concerns and hardships
The force of the Virgin was still felt at Lourdes, and seemed to be as potent as X-rays; but in America neither Venus nor Virgin ever had value as force–at most as sentiment. No American had ever been truly afraid of either.
Does this suggest that in France(/Europe) women - regardless of sexuality - had more power? If Americans aren't afraid of either "Venus nor Virgin" is that because they don't think that women have power enough that someone should fear them?
Langley seemed to be worried by the same trouble, for he constantly repeated that the new forces were anarchical, and especially that he was not responsible for the new rays, that were little short of parricidal in their wicked spirit towards science
Conflict between science and religion to the point that science can only be allowed to advance to the point where it doesn't contradict religion/God?
occult
What sort of connotations did "Occult" have at the time? How would society have perceived these things? In the past there was stigma/persecution towards things which were 'supernatural'; to what extent has society's perspective on this changed since the seventeenth century?