10 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2020
    1. in order entirely to enjoy the Poetry which I am recommending, it would be necessary to give up much of what is ordinarily enjoyed. But, would my limits have permitted me to point out how this pleasure is produced, I might have removed many obstacles, and assisted my Reader in perceiving that the powers of language are not so limited as he may suppose; and that it is possible that poetry may give other enjoyments, of a purer, more lasting, and more exquisite nature.

      Why does the author specifically say poetry requires giving up other enjoyments? Is this a clear opinion or is there some truth in it?

    2. By the foregoing quotation I have shewn that the language of Prose may yet be well adapted to Poetry; and I have previously asserted that a large portion of the language of every good poem can in no respect differ from that of good Prose. I will go further. I do not doubt that it may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition. We are fond of tracing the resemblance between Poetry and Painting, and,  accordingly, we call them Sisters: but where shall we find bonds of connection sufficiently strict to typify the affinity betwixt metrical and prose composition? They both speak by and to the same organs; the bodies in which both of them are clothed may be said to be of the same substance, their affections are kindred and almost  identical, not necessarily differing even in degree; Poetry [NOTE] sheds no tears "such as Angels weep," but natural and human tears; she can boast of no celestial  Ichor that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose; the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both.  

      The difference between Prose and Poetry lies in the metrical aspect of Poetry. Prose simply lacks the need for that aspect and I do agree with Wordsworth because that is the only difference between the two. To write a poem is to write prose, but while taking into account the rhythm and the rhyming at some point in the piece, although not necessarily throughout the entire piece. Without that metrical aspect, it would simply be prose that looks odd.

    3. They are, indeed, a figure of speech occasionally prompted by passion, and I have made use of them as such; but I have endeavoured utterly to reject them as a  mechanical device of style, or as a family language which Writers in metre seem to lay claim to by prescription. I have wished to keep my Reader in the company of  flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall interest him.

      ?

    4. The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to chuse incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language;

      The principal object or aim of Wordsworth's poems is to present everyday life in writing using language that seems natural and not contrived. The aim is also to link the situations to nature and focus on the lack of influence from outside forces other than the natural forces.

  2. Sep 2020
    1. The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

      Marx does in fact give sufficient evidence on his claim by explaining the trend and cycle. His explanation of how the bourgeoisie and the proletariat drive each other through a cycle of collapse and the revolutionization of society makes perfect sense in my head when looking at any example that I can think of.

    2. The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation.

      ?

    3. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie

      Why would the bourgeoisie be the involuntary promoter of industry advancements? Would they not be voluntary promoters to acquire more wealth and power?

    4. The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

      The bourgeois controls production, which eventually forces everyone to adopt the same quickly evolving system. That system is what oppresses the proletariat, not themselves as Marx alludes to multiple times. Everywhere Marx mentions the bourgeoisie doing this and that, and never does mention the proletariat even being able to do anything. Through that constantly changing system, the proletariat are thrown under what their role would normally be in a steady system and lose everything.

    5. Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land.

      America paved the way for these modern bourgeois through new opportunities for trade, commerce, and giving them someone new to take advantage of, and through that the bourgeois were established.

    6. The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

      The bourgeoisie's constant reliance on modern "instruments of production" forces them to revolutionize and change production constantly. That change doesn't allow industrial classes settle in the current system of production, and destroys their consistent living conditions.