Tragedy or Comedy? -Hanna A.

            The Beggar’s Opera, by John Gay, is a work that has many elements of both a classic comedy as well as a tragedy. However, in a debate between the narrators (the Beggar and the Player) at the end of the play, the choice is made to make it ultimately a comedy by ending the opera in marriage. However, much of the play is quite tragic in a miserably amusing way. And if the opera had ended with Macheath’s death, rather than his saving and marriage to Polly, the play would have gained much in depth and meaning, rather than drifting off into meaninglessness.

            With Macheath being saved rather than killed, Polly and Lucy learn nothing, and the cycle of depravity depicted at the beginning of the play is forced to continue on. There is no moral, no poetic realization from any of the characters, and the only real movement is that Macheath gives up his adulterous ways and chooses just one wife. He sings, “Though willing to all, with but one he retires” (Act 3, scene 17, 2833). Even this choice is not for any particular moral reason, but just because it is easier for him since Polly is the only person he is legally married to. And none of the women see what a scoundrel he is, but instead accept his decision as both just and right. 

            What makes even less sense is that Lucy, who would have given her very life to save Macheath, does not put up a fight at all when he chooses to marry Polly. Though Polly is the only person he is actually legally married to, it seems strange that there is no fight between the women even after all the bickering that took place earlier in the play. Even stranger is that the depravity that is constant throughout the play is never addressed, resolved, or even worsened. What was bad continues to be bad and no one ever changes.

            So, though there are many comedic elements in the play with making fun of the institution of marriage and making thievery funny, it seems that the play is fundamentally rather tragic. It is all about how humans never change and how whatever is easiest is the best choice no matter the future consequences. Whatever the perks of choosing not to kill off Macheath at the end, the value of the work as whole could have been increased with his death because then some sort of change, moral, or new element of true regret or grief could have been introduced. Without it, the opera continues on in superficiality with no end in sight.

The Deserted Village

I could really connect with Goldsmith's reminiscing of how things used to be, especially because I grew up in a small town that was much like the "Sweet Auburn!" Goldsmith describes. Both my parents were born and raised in this small town as well, and my dad's parents grew up there as well, so I'm the third generation of this family to grow up in a town with a population of less than 1,200. Lake Chelan, more specifically Manson, used to be a small orchard town. The entire valley was covered in apple orchards, and everyone who lived there was either a teacher, worked for the city, or was an orchardist. However, the apple market crashed and the orchards started to go away and are now replaced with vineyards, instead of apple country we are now wine country.

I don't mind it, it's all I know, but sometimes I hear my dad pining for days past when everything was green and simple and slow paced. Much like Goldsmith's line "These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these, with sweet succession, taught even toil to please" (33-34) if my dad were to read this poem, and told to relate it back to his life, he would probably tell you that he see's "the tyrant's hand" mentioned in line 37 as people who come from the west side of the state to our valley in the summer. Though the tourists keep our local economy afloat, they can be quite annoying.  

A Modest Proposal and Savage Americans

I thought at first it was funny how Swift compared American settlers to savages who eat children, and also kind of ironic because of how the settlers were doing the same thing to the Native Americans, but it has kind of stuck in my mind and made me think how true it actually could be. Not the whole baby eating business, but how uncultured, self-centered, and undistinguished we can be seen by the rest of the world.

I'm going to be spending some time in New Zealand nannying for a family there, and the three kids (all under the age of 10) already know English, French, and some Spanish. I'm looking at my little brothers thinking that at age 5 my parents were proud if they could actually make it to the toilet on time. Also, the fact that all three of my younger siblings are so under-educated in things like geography, current world issues, cultural differences, and other super relevant topics. I'm an education major, so whenever topics like these get brought up the discussion immediately goes to Common Core, State Testing, NCLB and other education related acronyms. However, while I do think that these tests and other things do have influence, I also think that some of the responsibility needs to be put on families and parents to teach their children how to be globally aware.

Patriotic Love

After studying Elizabeth's era and her ruling tactics/interactions with the court, and realizing just how good she was at manipulating those around her into doing what she pleased, I'm wondering just how much those around her actually liked her. From the modern viewpoint, I can't think of any politician that was loved by everyone, and I would assume that there was a group that was less than thrilled with Queen Elizabeth as well, but we never read anything from their point of view. There is nothing that we saw that condemned Elizabeth's political decisions, even thought there was plenty of things to question. Things like massacring Catholics or remaining unmarried, these controversial topics receive no attention. 

One reason I can think of for these topics to remain taboo is fear of Elizabeth. Knowing that if someone was to speak out against the Queen, they could be the next ones sent to prison or beheaded. Which, going on Elizabeth's tract record, would be a legitimate fear. Also, maybe people did think about these controversies; however, the great condition of their country lead them to keep quiet. England was having it's finest hour, it was the Golden Age; if people saw the prosperity of their country they would be more inclined to accept whatever 'faults' they deemed Elizabeth to have. I would suggest that if England hadn't been in such great shape during Elizabeth's time, there would probably be more negative literature about her from that time period.     

Faustus, Satan, and the Pride of Falling -Hanna A.

Milton quite brilliantly uses rhetoric to show the progression of the fall throughout Paradise Lost. As we discussed in class, Satan himself slowly degenerates into more and more muddled streams of thought as he progressively becomes more and more depraved. It seems that there could be a parallel drawn between Milton’s characterization of Satan, and Dr. Faustus.

            Just as Faustus slowly degenerates throughout the play, starting by selling his soul to the devil, performing for the emperor, and then slowly losing traction and performing for less and less important people and entering into less and less intelligent pranks, Satan himself continuously loses renown and position throughout Paradise Lost. He first impersonates an angel of heaven, then a lion, and finally a snake. He literally ends up crawling on his belly reduced to almost nothing. So, just as his rhetoric degenerates, he himself becomes less and less impressive throughout the epic.

            However, what is interesting about both of these characters is that it seems to always be possible to repent and be brought back into redemption, until it is too late. Both characters hit a point at the end of the work where redemption is no longer possible, all because of the pride before that moment. Pride then becomes the ultimate sin. Just as Eve falls in Paradise Lost to flattery and a sense of vanity, Satan falls because he thinks he ought to have been given everything the Son of God was given. He should have been given a place in the Trinity. And for Faustus it was all about status, money, and fame. All of these things boil down to pride as the ultimate sin, which bars people from heaven.

            Interestingly enough, Milton himself has the pride to believe he is actually writing what happened in the Garden of Eden. His version, according to himself, is more accurate than even the Bible. His pride, perhaps even his own small “fall,” shows itself in how he accidentally makes Satan the hero of the story, rather than the Son of God, God, or even Adam.  So it seems that as Satan degenerates throughout the epic, Milton also does, as he cannot help but make Satan the tragic hero. In Faustus, it is clear that Faustus is not the hero, and so perhaps Marlowe, unlike Milton, was not writing out of pride but out of a genuine desire to portray the brokenness of desiring too much of the world.

Milton's Commentary on Love

Although Milton’s  plot in Paradise Lost follows the biblical story basics on the fall of humanity, it is interesting to further analyze Milton’s portrayal of the fall and dive into the argument he is making against married love. The fall of humanity, as stated in Paradise Lost goes:

            “…he scrupled not to eat / against his better knowledge, not deceived, / but fondly over come with female charm. / Earth trembled from her entrails, as again in pangs, and nature gave a second groan; / sky loured, and muttering thunder, some sad drops / wept at completing of the mortal sin Original…”    (Book 9.997-1004). 

In this passage, Adam falls to temptation, eats the forbidden fruit, and thus becomes the cause of original sin.  The rhetorical argument made by Milton’s in this scene is that Adam fell and ate the fruit because he was “over come with female charm,” evidently leading to the creation of original sin (Book 9.999).  This claim is a very profound and provocative statement regarding Adam’s decision to eat the forbidden fruit. 

            The analyst Fredson Bowers, from the University of Virginia, explains that in Paradise Lost, Adam “cannot bear the thought of life without her, and will not be parted from her in bliss or in woe,” (Bowers 272).  Additionally, Bowers explains that this attachment and passion of Eve is what ultimately drives his discretion. This analyst argues that “Under the stress of his personal emotion, and hard on the heels of the most eloquent defense of reason, he turns his back on what he knows to be right judgment,” (Bowers 273). This statement shows that, according to Milton, because of Adam’s passionate connection to Eve, he evidently chooses to follow Eve’s fallen state instead of forever remaining alone. Thus, humanity fell because Adam, “…allowed passion to influence his judgment,” (Bowers 272). 

            By portraying the fall of humanity in this light, Milton is making the overall argument that reason and truth lead people to God, while passion and love drive people away from God.  Milton is, in the end, opposes the idea of and warns against passionate love and married love in society by showing that Adam’s love for Eve is what cause the fall of humanity to occur.        

Work Cited:

Bowers, Fredson. "Adam, Eve and the Fall in Paradise Lost." JSTOR. Modern    Language Association, Mar. 1969. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

Gender Tension in "Working Class Geniuses"

            Upon reading the section “Working Class Geniuses,” for my presentation, I found it interesting that there was underlying tension between men and women within working class writers.   

            Just to review, during the era in which public print exploded, commoners and people from laborious classes began to publish literary works.  This time period allowed for the working class to be heard and better respected among high ranked societies. However, within this time period of commoner publishing, tension between genders was exposed through the writing of different authors.

            This tension, according to our Norton Anthology, was clearly revealed through the works of Stephen Duck and Mary Collier.  Even though both authors addressed the daily hardships and labors of field-workers, each author represented the perspective of their own gender—Stephen Duck portrayed the male experience in labor, and Mary Collier displayed the hardships of a female field-worker and countrywoman. What is most interesting, however, is the negative banter that goes on between the genders.  Stephen Duck wrote comments about women that Collier took offensively an evidently served as motivation to write her work (“Working Class Geniuses”).  The tension and competition between the writings is even seen through the titles of the works, Duck’s Thresher’s Labor followed by Collier’s The Woman’s Labor.

             In Collier’s work, she directly combats the claims of Stephen Duck against women. Specifically, Collier argues in contradiction of Duck's claim that women are lazy laborers ("Working Class Geniuses"). She first exclaims that women do their work whole heartedly, "But in the work we freely bear a part, and what we can, perform with all our hearts," to argue against Duck's claim that women are lazy (Collier 91-92). Collier also explains the struggle to balance both motherhood and fieldwork, and shows that women take on both loads at once by carrying their babies with them while they tend the fields (94-102). Lastly, collier says that men have it easier because while they get to lay down to sleep for the night, women " little sleep can have, because our forward children cry and rave,” showing their constant duty toward the family and enduring labor despite the lack of rest (Collier 113-114).  Here, Collier is doing all she can to defend hard-working women, and she is trying to convince Duck, as well as her readers, that women do actually playa significant role in labor, and perhaps have an even harder burden to carry with the addition of kids. 
            Collier’s opposition to Duck’s claims clearly reveals an underlying tension between men and women within the working class.  It is very interesting to analyze these tensions through these specific works, however I am sure that many works of this era and of this genre show similar evidence.

Works Cited:

 

Collier, Mary. The Woman’s Labor. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt, George H. Logan, Katharine E. Maus,     and Barbara K. Lewalski. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ninth ed. Vol. C. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.

"Working Class Geniuses." Ed. Stephen Greenblatt, George H. Logan, Katharine E. Maus, and Barbara K. Lewalski. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ninth ed. Vol. C. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.