Rise and Shine

Wordsworth wrote “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” on his way to France with his sister Dorothy. In simpler words, Dorothy also wrote about the beautiful scene in her journal:

"It was a beautiful morning. The city, St. Paul's, with the river, and a multitude of little boats, made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not overhung by their cloud of smoke, and they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone so brightly, with such a fierce light; that there was something like the purity of one of nature's own grand spectacles."

It must have been a magnificent view for even Wordsworth, who is known for his love for nature to think of it as “A sight so touching in its majesty” (3). The peacefulness of dawn, when the sun – the only part of nature in the city – is the first to awake while all the other man-made parts “seem asleep” (13), is the main reason why Wordsworth was so enchanted by the view. He finds this rare moment of the city that is lack of human activities and flooded with sunbeam even more beautiful than sunrises he has seen over “valley, rock, or hill” (10).

I’ve seen sunrises a few times, but only twice on purpose, both on a mountain top. The closest experience I got with Wordsworth’s was when I stayed up all night studying or working at home, and I would go out to my balcony at dawn to watch the sun rises from the sea. It was nice to be the only one around wide awake, there’s a sense of calmness and privacy. Then more buses and cars started to go on the road, and the silence of the night is broken. Men started to emerge everywhere, school buses started coming around, newspapers started to be delivered, and alarm clocks started ringing. Then it all just fell back to an ordinary day.

The Ladies

Lady Mary Chudleigh

For centuries the society had considered women’s role only in the household, their ultimate goal in life was to get married, and their duty was to just stay that way. It is no surprise that married women were supposed to be inferior to their husbands, in “To the Ladies”, Lady Mary Chudleigh even saw the relationship the same as that of a master and a servant. Marriage in her eyes was nothing but a “fatal knot” (3) and a “nuptial contract” (12), under which the wives had no freedom “to look, to laugh, or speak” (11). We are lucky enough to live in today’s society where women’s rights and sexual equality have come a long way since Chudleigh’s time. However, I think that there is still an underlying belief that marriage is absolutely essential to a satisfying life. I recently read an article about how being single is still such a big deal in society’s eyes and I think it is very thought-provoking.

Sex and the Single Girl: Why American culture is still so scared by single people

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

In Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s “An Answer to a Love-Letter in Verse”, the speaker is refusing the pursuit of a married man and chastising the man for being so vile and unfaithful with love and marriage. Marriage back then were often not based on love, and as suggested in “To the Ladies,” men were superior to their wives who could not ask for a divorce, therefore wooing another woman was not a big deal for married men. The speaker condemns the man for not being “bound by vows, and unrestrained by shame” (15) when he decides to write her a love letter not because of her charm but because she is “new” (6). She then insinuates that the man will soon be moving on and wooing other women – soon some other nymph inflict the pain” (31), further stressing on men’s fickleness. 

Hannah More

Hannah More’s “Slavery, a Poem” is a poem about banning slave trade in the British colonies and outlawing slavery itself. More criticized the British for feeling so superior over people with “casual colour of the skin” (6) and having a double standard due to this prejudice. She said that the same feeling of national pride was “In Afric scourged, in Rome deified” (24). Why should the British be glorified as hero for conquering the “sabled race” (2), taking away their freedoms and possessions, killing the ones who didn’t obey? More made a firm accusation of the British being “White Savage” (25) who sugar-coated their immoral and illiberal enforcement of slavery – “Conquest is pillage with a nobler name” (40). 

Lit is everywhere!

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, my iTunes was on shuffle and songs that I haven't listened to for years kept coming up. There was an interesting one that I didn't quite remember, so I looked up its lyrics and the first two stanzas were....

Anne Boleyn she kept a tin,

Which all her hopes and dreams were in,
She plans to run away with him, forever (never to be seen again)
Leaves a note and starts to choke,
Can feel the lump that's in her throat,
It's raining and she leaves her coat in silence.

We're sorry but we disagree
The boy is vermin, can't you see?
We'll drown his sins and misery
And rip him out of history

(Transylvania   -by McFly)

From the music video

Though I didn't know who exactly the man in this song is, but having read "Whoso List to Hunt," I somehow fantasized that he is Wyatt. At that moment I felt like I was "behind the scene" knowing all the secrets and details behind the song - so cool!

Dear Diary, it's me again

“A Journal of the Plague Year” is a fictional diary written by Daniel Defoe. Writing diary is about recording keeping track of one’s encounter of events and his feelings and opinions towards them, therefore faking one must be a tough task. Defoe did a great deal of extensive research and interviewed survivors from the plague in order to portray the tragic event as realistically as possible. Through the perspective of the narrator H.F., Defoe was able to incorporate many details of the happenings at the time including the escape of the Royals and the rich, the locking up of an entire family because one person was infected, and the public measures taken by the Magistrates.

If I were to write about a plague, I would probably choose to write about SARS. Like Defoe, I experienced the incident but only at a young age, so I would need to do a lot researches. I was nine years old during the outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong which traumatized the entire city. I remember seeing the number of cases and deaths going up every day, then very soon all the schools were closed and I was thrilled for a short moment until teachers started emailing us homework. My mom made me and my sister carry hand sanitizers everywhere we went, and masks became part of everyday life, magazines started teaching people how to make masks into a fashionable item. The streets were quiet, cinemas were empty, door handles and elevator buttons were covered in plastics that were changed hourly. People never fully walked out of the shadow of this pandemic. In 2009, when a swine flu case was reported in a tourist, the fear of another plague like SARS led the government to quarantine the entire hotel for a week. 

   

Dear Diary

I've always thought of keeping a diary. I started one in grade 7 when I went to England for two weeks because it was my first time travelling without my family. But then I got lazy and that was it. Although there weren't any big secrets in my attempt of a diary, I wouldn't want anyone reading it because, after all, diaries are meant to be personal. However I doubt if Pepys would agree, with his published diary enjoying such huge success even until today.

I think the main reason why his diary is still read after a few centuries is that, in the form of a diary, he captured and recreated the daily life of his time. It is filled with vivid imagery and interesting details that make the readers feel like they are in that time period by Pepys’s side witnessing everything together with him. Moreover, the diary entries are quite lengthy, making them more like short stories gathered in a book. I cannot imagine writing that much every night before going to bed, but then I’ve never witnessed a fire or an execution, phew!

Of the three important events he recorded in his diary, the London Fire is my favourite. I can picture the incident in my head just like a movie as I’m reading it. It first started with Pepys being informed of the fire but, thinking that it was far away, not showing much concern. Later when he realized how powerful the fire was, he toured around London and made observations to what was happening around. He also carried information to the king and organized fire fighting teams. These all became historically significant evidence that’d be helpful for people learning about the great fire. Besides, I find the part about him safeguarding his possessions very realistic and interesting. 

Sir, the Baby is Served

If Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is a modest proposal, I don’t think I understand the word modest anymore. Of course I’m being ironic, to go with the theme. Quite frankly, though I understand that this is a reputable satire essay, I’m not exactly thrilled with all the gruesome imageries depicted. But still one cannot deny the power of Swift’s words in terms of attacking the two groups of people in his essay: the English government and the Irish people themselves. The full title “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick” clearly states the contents and purpose of the essay as well as establishing the insensitive, straight-faced tone that makes the essay even more satirical.

Swift proposes that the children of poor people should be fatten up and then fed to the rich. They should be sold into meat markets at the age of one, when their meat is the most fresh, as a way to solve the problems of unemployment and overpopulation and sparing the poor parents the expense of child-rearing. He extensively uses understatement such as parents wouldn’t care if their children would be eaten and eating children would save pig’s life. He further suggests the beneficial outcomes of his proposal by saying that eating babies would improve the culinary experience of the rich people. Here he uses techniques like overstatement with all the different cooking methods, and irony with the idea of serving children at weddings and christening. Talk about sending shivers down my spine!

RESTORE THE LOCK!!!

Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock is considered one of the best mock-epic ever published and I guess the reason is pretty obvious. Based on the event that occurred to Arabella Fermer, it is about the trivial event of a Baron cutting the young woman Belinda’s one little lock of hair. To satirize the vanity of high society and how people make a big deal out of nothing important, Pope coats the story with epic characteristics – Belinda is equivalent to the epic hero, the scissors and hairpins are the weapons of the hero, the card game, the actual cutting of the hair, and the fight at the end are depicted as the epic battles. The title of this mock-epic also has its significance, not only does it catches the readers’ attention immediately, the use of the strong, violent word “rape” is such an overstatement for a cut of the hair, which once again serves the purpose to satirize the high society’s idleness and sole emphasis on appearance. 

When we think about it, the problem of emphasizing on physical appearance actually still remains in today’s society, especially with the media’s portrayal of a certain standardized beauty of many models and celebrities getting more and more accessible to the general public. Pope makes Belinda’s reaction really exaggerated to a ridiculous extent in order to make his point, which reminds me of some of the crying girls in the makeover episodes of the reality show “America’s Next Top Model” when they are given a haircut. But just to be fair, I would probably be pretty mad too if someone just cut my hair for no reason. Not letting this happen!!