Difference in Descriptions

Keats describes Lamia with contradictions. She is not just one color but variations of colors. She has characteristics of a zebra but also that of a leopard. The moons are dissolv’d or shine bright. In line 53 lustres contradicts the connotation given in the word gloomier. In lines 55 and 56 she is a lady elf, as wells as a demon’s mistress or a demon’s self. Keats description prepares for the idea that Lamia is not what she seems and although she appears in a certain state and manner it is a deception. The description makes the reader wary of this deception. Coleridge, however, describes Geraldine in correlating terms. She is a damsel bright in white silken robes. She is stately and glitters with gems in her hair. Geraldine is surprising because of her exceeding beauty. In lines 146-170 Lamia is somewhat exposed. She is described in negative words that bring about the typical image of a serpent. The mixed colors and animal images from before are replaced here with the picture of pain scarlet, yellow, and hot. 

Coleridge, De Quincey, and Opium Presentation Info

Cooke, Michael G. “De Quincey, Coleridge, and the Formal Uses of Intoxication.” Yale French Studies 50 (1974) : 26-40. Print.

De Quincey, Thomas. Coleridge and Opium-eating ; and Other Writings. Endinburgh: A. and C. Black, 1885. Print.

Hayter, Alethea. Opium and the Romantic Imagination. Berkeley: University of California, 1968. Print.

Blog post about Xanadu

Coleridge's Pains of Sleep

Fears and Regrets

In John Keats' poem "When I have fears...", he discusses two things that make him stick out in our hearts, and connect on a different level with him; he discusses fear and regret. We all have some fear or fears, and he isn't too afraid to admit that he is afraid: he is afraid of death, of dying at such a young age, and he is afraid of missing opportunities. The opportunities he has already missed make him regret that he never pursued them. How many people can say "I have no regret?", and truly, madly, mean it? There are next to none who can. I personally cannot say that. But what was Keats really trying to tell us, underneath all of this fear and anguish and regret from this poem? Maybe he was telling us exactly what could happen, if you just stop being afraid, and take the leap of faith. Or maybe he's trying to warn us NOT to take that leap, because it could lead to regret and remorse.

Keats, Confessional Literature, Lyric Poetry, Reputation Presentation

John Keats

• Born in London on the 31st of October, 1975
• Educated at John Clarke's school in Einfield, which had both a more liberal outlook and a more modern curriculum compared to schools like Eton and Harrow
• Was interested in History and the Classics as a student, which would greatly influence his poetry
• After studying to become a doctor and receiving his apothecary license, which meant he could practice as a surgeon or a physician, Keats decided he wanted to become a poet

Confessional Literature

• Keats approached the relations among experience, imagination, art, and illusion with penetrating thoughtfulness, with neither sentimentality nor cynicism but with a delight in the ways in which beauty, in its own subtle and often surprising ways, reveals the truth.
• His art’s very form seems to embody and interpret the conflicts of mortality and desire.
• The urgency of this poetry has always appeared greater to his readers for his intense love of beauty and his tragically short life.
• "When I Have Fears" is a very personal confession of an emotion that intruded itself into the fabric of Keats' existence from at least 1816 on, the fear of an early death. In the poem, the existence of this fear annihilates both the poet's fame, which Keats ardently longed for, and the love that is so important in his poetry and in his life.

Lyric Poetry

• Romantic lyric poetry consists of 1^st person accounts of the thoughts and feelings of a specific moment
• Feelings are extreme, but personal
• Dissatisfied with the pressure of most lyric forms toward quick, neat solution, Keat’s new ode form satisfied him because it was sufficiently confining to challenge his conscience as a craftsman.
• In a letter to his brother Keats explained his new ode form: "I have been endeavoring to discover a better Sonnet stanza than we have. The legitimate does not suit the language well, from the pouncing rhymes; the other appears too elegaic [songlike, tuneful], and the couplet at the end of it has seldom a pleasing effect. I do not pretend to have succeeded. It will explain itself.”

Periodical Review

• In an 1817 article, John Wilson Croker attacked John Keats in a review of his work for his association with Leigh Hunt and the so-called "Cockney School" of poetry.
• Keats, for example, was accused of "low diction" for rhyming "thorns/fawns" in "Sleep and Poetry" and other rhymes which suggested a working class speech.
• One of the things that Keats is now most celebrated for is his use of language, particularly the sensuality of it. Most important to the poem is its concentration on imagery and allusion in its evocation of nature. The liveliness of the words he uses only enhance the feelings behind his poem. In “To Autumn” he uses sensual language to describe a scene of a lively autumn, using words that are full of the senses, such as touch, sight, and sound. In the first stanza he uses words such as “load”, “fill”, “ripeness”, “swell”, “plump”, ”sweet”, “budding”, which all aid in Keats description of the beauty in nature at the perfect end of a summer and the beginning of autumn, right before everything begins to rot, and eventually, die. Surprisingly, contemporary reviews considered Keats’ word choice to reflect his low class speech.
• John Gibson Lockhart wrote in Blackwoods Magazine that Keats was a member of “The Cockney School of Poetry” (Lockhart 519), a dismissive term to describe Keats and some of his contemporary poets who did not attend Eton or Oxford or Cambridge and were not from upper class backgrounds. The comment was dismissive in both a political and a literary sense, aimed at working class young writers deemed unworthy of the title of “poet” for their non-formal rhyming.
  The term, Cockney School of Poetry, was both a dismissive take of their aesthetics and an attack on their upbringing. Reviewers thought that there was no room for these poets among the greats of the era, especially considering the political revolutionary tone to many of Keats’s contemporaries.
• Contemporary critics immediately understood, and condemned, his radical associations, the political, reformist agenda and the democratic ideology of the cultural and class background of the authors being introduced as a mechanism of reform.

• Percy Shelley was accused of being similarly offensive politically, but the reviewers excused him for his genius (and, of course, his high birth).

 Reputation

• While largely criticized, with Lockhart going as far as to call Keats’s poetry “imperturbable driveling idiocy” (Lockhart 519)  Keats’s ability and talent was widely acknowledged and admired by several influential contemporaries such as Shelley and Hunt. They praised him for his quick thinking and his style; both beautiful and lively in it’s sensualities. When Keats died, Shelley proclaimed that his death had occurred because of bad reviews in the Quarterly Review. Shelley wrote about Keats’ death, referring to him as “the loveliest and the last, The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit.” Keats’s sensual language, fanciful ideas, and simple rhyme scheme were some of the biggest reasons for his poor reception, but they are now a few of the most important reasons why he is such a beloved and such a widely read poet of today. He lived his life afraid of death and the finality of it, assuming the end of his life would also mean the end of his works circulation. In the years after his death and up until now, his genius has been widely proclaimed.

"I have left no immortal work behind me - nothing to make my friends proud of my memory - but I have lov'd the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered." 

--Keats in a letter to Fanny Brawne before his death

Lockhart, John Gibson. “The Cockney School of Poetry No. IV” Blackwood’s Magazine August 1818

Evil before good

In Keats Epistle to John H. Reynolds he attempts to cheer up his friend by mocking the views of society in how they treat people according to social classes. He refers to great philosophers, poets, and artists as “Making the best of ways towards Soho”(Epistle to John :line 12),meaning that even the greatest of people go through social alienation and are miserable at first in order to achieve great admiration. “Things cannot to the will be settled, but they tease us out of thought; Or is it that imagination brought beyond its proper bound, yet still confin’d lost in a sort of purgatory blind” (E to J 76-80) & “In happiness, to see beyond our bourn it forces us in summer skies to mourn” (E to J 83-84) both of this confirm Keats view of how first you must go through unhappiness in order to be happy. This can be compared to Elizabeth Hamilton’s, Translation of the letters of a Hindoo Rajah and her outside view into the Hindu religion. According to the Hindu religion people are born into their social classes and can never be reversed or altered but none of them hate or envy one another. They are conformed and content to their class because” They believe that the human soul must be purified by suffering, and that it is not till after having undergone this expiatory discipline through a series of different bodies, that it becomes worthy of admission to eternal happiness.”(Letters of Hinddo Rajah). By Keats choosing to end the poem to his friend with a quote from the twelfth night he left the decision to John Reynolds to think about how his illness is the worst part and soon happiness will come “ thou art made, if thou desir’st to be so”.  

Love and Death and This Living Hand

"This Living Hand" presents rather as a conundrum; it's listed as a fragment by the Broadview text, which also notes that there is no context for it. It could be so many different things its difficult to see how this fits into the confessional context that its headed under. The only way I'm able to shoehorn it in there is as perhaps being part of a love poem. The central theme of giving one's life to bring this once living hand back to life is easily identifiable and is a bit of a signpost there. It's a little too short to be a proper sonnet, and the form doesn't follow traditional sonnet formula; at the same time there is a bit of a sonnet-esque tone to the writing.

Opium the key to the subconsciousness

In the confessions of opium eater on of the interesting aspects of the story which it crosses is the boundary between reality and fantasy. The main character in the story explores what is created for him in his subconscious from his desires to the fears he has. One thing to note is that drugs of any sort that enters the body affect the brain and sometimes changes the whole functionality of the brain. With this in mind, the drugs seem to unlock a further truth inside himself in which he didn't realize without the drug. Therefore, his desire to seek the higher truth makes him want it more and eventually becomes the addiction. The opium in the story could be represented as a key to the subconscious mind the main character ignored. Often times the story goes in to the perceptive of what most drug uses in our time face, not the law, but themselves. 

Keats' Obsession

"When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be" by Keats is a poem of missed opportunity.  Fame, love, and life are all beyond his reach and power to control.  He believes death will prevent all of his desires from coming true.  His fear of the lack of fame, "before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain" is a lifelong struggle for him.  This is something that is actually quite justified since he was not received well critically during his lifetime.  His fear of the lack of love is due to the female subject of the poem.  He saw a woman one day at an amusement park, never spoke to her, and yet idealized her for years afterward.  His lack of action and subsequent obsession with her helps his idea of love being another thing he did not accomplish...even though he became engaged to Fanny Brawne later.  Life is the final element he can not control.  He sees death approaching.  His family history pretty much guarantees his early death.  He knows he cannot fight it.  Love and fame are both gone with his life. "Till live and fame to nothingness do sink."

Kuble Khan is Hotel California

While I was reading "Kubla Khan" the song, "Hotel California," by The Eagles came to mind.  There is something reminiscent about the melancholy acceptance of the dangerous desire of Kubla Khan that feels similar to Hotel California.  Coleridge's vision of the garden is very similar to the etherial feeling of the hotel.  Both are places the writer desires in a very frantic way, but both know it is not healthy for them.  The realization of the personal destruction of the writer from these two places is both lifesaving and helpful to the reader, but the feeling of longing to return is always in the air.  When I hear Hotel California I always wonder why a person would leave such a lovely place, but then the actual meaning of the words kick in and I can understand both his desire to be there and his reluctance to leave.  The garden of Kubla Khan is a wonderfully, enticingly, mesmerizing place that draws you in and dares you to leave, just like the hotel.

Love as Subject to Time; Keats "When I Have Fears"

I think that one of the most interesting things about Keats' poem 'When I Have Fears...' is that fact that not only does it deal with large ideas of love, accomplishment, and time... It also seems to embrace the idea that there may not be anything wrong with not accomplishing all. The concern with time is supported throughout, especially with the repeated use of the word "when"- but it is his emphasis on love as subject to time that strikes me as interesting. Love is referred to in brief terms- his love is the "fair creature of the hour", and in fact- this stanza is more compressed than the others, suggesting that it (like love) is short-lived. It seems that by the end of the poem Keats has accepted the fact that in death, one is essentially alone ("I stand alone", in contrast to "the wide world"). This solitude places him in a position of reflection regarding his own emotions, and leads him to reach a point of acceptance. This crossing over, if it can be called that, seems to be represented in the imagery of the shore. As a place where two separate worlds collide (the sea and the land) the shore acts as a bridge between Keats initial desire for love and fame, to an acceptance of their unimportance upon time of death; an end to his endless fear of not having done enough or been enough.

Dreams and Reality: Separate but Equal?

I know this is a bit retrospective, but this didn't really occur to me until class. Dreams are something that, in our Post-Modern world, are again seen as an important literary subject of study. The difference, however, between the Romantic view on dreams and the Post-Modern view is the separation between dreams and reality. The Romantics try to establish a very clear difference between the two, keeping them as two different worlds which, while they coincide, are still separate. The Post-Modern period is often identified, by contrast, with the advent of Magical Realism, which weaves reality and dreams together to a point where they are often inseparable. The question then is which view makes the most sense or appeals the most to you? They both have credibility, as dreams clearly operate separately from reality, but equally, dreams and reality hold equal sway in many cases, and both are merely different shades of perspective. So which opinion on dreams do you all prefer?

Keats & Time

In “Confessions of An Opium Eater” the autobiographical aspect of the piece brings a specific perspective to the work. In the same way Keats’ “When I Have Fears” is a very personal confession of the poet’s worries. I have always loved this poem and I think it is because it’s so easy to relate to. As a young adult the thought that I may die before I accomplish something is scary. Keats seems to be a little obsessed with this idea, though. Or he is at least more than a little focused on time. In Ode on a Grecian Urn he freezes time with his flowery words and expressions to draw the reader’s attention to the idea that time is fleeting. The two lovers can at least be comforted by the thought that they will be frozen in time; the woman will never grow old. The “fair creature” in “When I Have Fears” is a momentary character in Keats’ life. The phrases “of an hour”, “never look upon thee more”, and “Never have relish in the fairy power” all give the idea of a moment that can be lost. 

Keats and "When I Have Fears..."

It seems to me that in “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be”, Keats is not afraid of death, but what he may miss by dying. I am sure by being trained as a medical doctor, Keats was well acquainted with death. Seeing people go before their time can cause a person to reflect on his or her own life. Keats seems to be reflecting on what he has, and does not have. He is nervous to die without experiencing everything he wants to experience. I think this is important because it is a common theme for many people. Nobody wants to die before their time and before they get to truly live. I think Keats is expressing a common fear for people in a way they can relate to.

What Does This Living Hand Represent?

I think in the poem "This Living Hand," Keats uses this image of a hand to symbolize life and death. The "warm and capable hand" invokes a happy and calm emotion contrasting with the "cold" and "icy silence" which give the image of death. Keats also uses the word "if" suggesting that the hand is still alive and capable of loving since in the line, "so haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights" could possibly suggest that even those that have died are still with those living. In the final line, "hold it towards you" suggests by taking the hand, you are not embracing life or death but acknowledging it.

Romance of the Forest

Opinions of legal system -
Higher status people (aristocracy) had sole power. No substantial evidence is required or obtained. Basically their word must be taken as proof or as true. The legal system is very random.

Absentee of law - law circulatory outside of characters and readers knowledge.

Why would the people stand by and accept or tolerate this kind of legal system? Overall there is no real order or sense of law or justice.

Narration change similar to legal system -
It is very jumpy, random, and drastic. Just as the legal system makes known their power, Radcliffe does a similar thing with the narration change; it is more direct and authoritative, she telling you what to do or what is to be done just as the legal system does; what they say goes. Total control.

Why does Radcliffe choose to construct the narration in this way? What purpose does it serve?

Use of poems in Radcliffe

 The poetic introductions to chapters seem to be more vague or pertaining to the abstract while the verses inside are almost always aesthetic or emotional such as the various sonnets and  page 7. description of Adeline's eyes. Verse inside the chapter is impulsive such as page 262 where the "scenery inspired" this verse "soothing each gust of passion into peace/ All but the swelling of the soften'd heart/ That waken, not disturb, the tranquil mind". The sonnets often time convey a very real emotion of one of the characters while the meaning of the poetic quotations at the beginning of the chapter tend to be uncovered gradually as the chapter progresses. I liked the begining of Chapter V "A suprise-An adventure- A mystery" which is actually pretty descriptive of the chapter. The suprise being La Motte's paranoia of his creditors and the adventure would be Adeline going to the town while the mystery is the stranger's identity.

literature the bridge to friendship

Other than all of the depressing themes in the story, one positive scene I saw in the story that stood out was how Maria had read the books that was available to her and then help her lead up to the man Darnford and Jemima. After some conversations with each other, all three characters begin to open up with each other. It is sort of strange how the whole destiny of their meetings were triggered by the books. However, the content of the books which started the whole thing was unique because the story itself refers to Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dryden’s Fables. Some of these works are very influential for the time as is today. However, one could say that the books themselves took an identity in which guided all the characters to meet. Books themselves present people with the transfer of knowledge, but could they be also a guide for people to meet with others with the same understanding of the story itself? Nevertheless, Maria had found some escapism of the world around her in the books and found some moment of peace with the idea of what the books presented.  

Reference Points

It seems to me that Radcliffe uses the excerpts of poems as introductions to foreshadow and set the tone of the chapter ahead. An obvious example of this is the introduction to chapter 4:

“Full of, unknowing and unknown,

He wore his endless noons alone,

Amid th’ autumnal wood:

Oft was he wont in hasty fit.

Abrupt the social board to quit.”

This excerpt literally describes La Motte’s behaviour during the following chapter. I think these excerpts are a reliable way to frame the reader’s mind for what is about to happen. I don’t think they are necessary for the story but they are definitely a welcome addition. I wonder if Radcliffe searched for excerpts that fit her story or based the story on the excerpts.

To the Lilly

On pg. 75 we get the “Sonnet to the Lilly” which Adeline sings while she is sitting in the forest. She has been feeling sad because she has lost Madame’s affection and she doesn’t know why. However, this morning nature calls to her and she finds herself in a picturesque scene. The paragraph leading into the poem describes how the scene make Adeline feel better. 

Radcliffe actually wrote this poem for the novel, so unlike the epigraphs at the start of each chapter that set the scene, the poem is consistent with the character and expresses Adeline’s emotions. The poem expresses a very Romantic idea of finding comfort in nature. A few paragraphs before Adeline lamented the state of her relationship with Madame LaMotte saying, “I have lost that affection which was my only comfort.” However, in this beautiful environment she is able find comfort and hope. 

Placing a poem in the middle of prose also changes the pace of the chapter. Up till this point, Adeline hasn’t said much. The narrator tells us what she is feeling, but in the poem we get to see her emotions fully expressed, even if it is through song. It reveals a certain amount of innocence to Adeline. I remember in Catholic school being told that lilies represent virtue and purity and I think the lily represents the purity and innocence of Adeline. I think you have to have quite a bit of innocence in you to be able to be moved to hope by nature when everyone you care about seems to be turning away from you. She does not harden her heart; she opens it to other things.

Mystery & Sanity

"Hence, horrible shadow!

Unreal mockery, hence!" 

These lines are spoken by Macbeth upon seeing Banquo's ghost, an event that symbolizes Macbeth's descent into madness. Lady Macbeth begins to lose trust in her husband and his sanity at this point. Similar, this quote begins a chapter in which many of the characters continue to lose trust in La Motte. His wife still believes that he is having an affair with Adeline, and his private meetings with the Marquis leave the rest of the inhabitants of the abbey uneasy. La Motte's behavior becomes increasingly mysterious throughout the chapter, specifically in his encounters with the Marquis, leaving both Adeline and Madame La Motte worried for his well being. Adeline suffers from "anxiety for the welfare of La Motte" in the same way that Lady Macbeth does during her husband's insane outburst at the banquet. Madame La Motte views "the mysterious conduct of La Motte" with "a pang of self-accusation," and feels guilt similar to Lady Macbeth's guilt over planning the murder of the king. Quoting this specific act from Macbeth makes the reader skeptical of La Motte's sanity and intents as well, and adds to the mystery of the novel. The quote also lends a gothic tone to the chapter by referencing such a well known scene with supernatural elements.

Macbeth and La Motte

I chose the opening excerpt from Macbeth on page 85

"'Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!'
                   Macbeth"        

I think this excerpt serves as a comparison to the way La Motte feels like he's constantly being pursued.  First, he feels pursued by the officers of justice.  Then there is the state of horror that La Motte cannot escape,  "The same image has pursued me in my midnight dream..."  (pg.88-89).  The 'mockery' could be applied to Madame who is unable to get a direct answer out of La Motte or to how La Motte feels about Marquis who is unshakable and perhaps not exactly what he appears to be.

Overall the frantic, paranoid nature of the excerpt matches La Motte's inner voice perfectly and gives the rest of the chapter the same frantic feel. It also makes the reader compare La Motte to Macbeth.  The two are not the same, but there are some characteristics both characters share, (obsessive paranoia being one of them).

Story of a Girl

Odes of Passion (page 172)

"And Hope enchanted smil’d, and wav’d her golden hair;

And longer had she sung-but with a frown,

Revenge impatient rose…’"

It’s only three lines, three small lines, but those three lines describe so much about that girl, the one girl who is gorgeous beyond simple world but carries on too much in the world. As I read it, that was the pressing thought in my mind. I seem to have a pressing thought for every text that we read (which I suppose is the main point of doing these readings in the first place). It also reminded me of the song “Story of a Girl” because that is the entirety of the song, it is a story of a girl who cried a river and drowned the whole world, but while she looked so sad in photographs, I absolutely loved her, when she smiled (and I digress). Seriously, you all should listen to the song if you haven’t already. That is the song of my childhood.

At first glance, this poem evidently is meant to show something about the female main character Adeline. That seems simple enough, and the ode itself does present that. Standing by itself, I would have just assumed that it was meant for any normal girl because for every girl, and every person for that matter, has been through something that makes them a rose stuck in a bushel of thorns. Put before the chapter however, the “Ode to the Passions” leads the reader into this belief that its placement is obviously of some significance. Similar to a post that I read before, the ode acts as the music before a battle or love scene in a musical or movie before it leads into the actual actions, focusing the audience on that raw emotion to help intertwine them with the story and the characters. It is meant to draw attention to Adeline and her beauty that took Theodore’s heart, which is exactly what the following two paragraphs tell of. It describes the encounters that Theodore had with Adeline and his thoughts on her, how her presence had touched it along with his remembrance of another poem that too describes beauty.

“Oh! Have you seen, bath’d in the morning dew,

The budding rose its infant bloom display;

When first its virgin tints unfold to view,

It shrinks and scarely trusts the blaze of day?

SO soft, so delicate, so sweet she came,

Youth’s damask glow just dawning on her cheek.

I gaz’d, I sigh’d, I caught the tender flame,

Felt the fond pang, and droop’d with passion weak.”

The different poems both resemble each other in that regards, showing painted words of beauty and comparing the girl to a sweet rose. The third paragraph following the second poem though, continues on the second part of the ode, telling why Adeline was “but with a frown, revenge impatient rose” because it is here that Theodore realizes about how Adeline has been hurt, how this entire situation had marred her, leaving her but a delicate rose on the outside and a very impatient, hurt, and scarred by thorns of circumstances. True the second poem serves to amplify Theodore’s initial view on Adeline and her beauty; however, the ode shows us more than her superficial characteristics. It shows us the state of her heart. What stuck out to me even more is that the chapters coordinate with the three lines of the ode, first of her beauty, then of her unrest, and lastly of her brokenness. 

Deserved comeuppance

"Drag forth the legal monster into light,
Wrench from his hand Oppression's iron rod,
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give."

This quote at the beginning of chapter 22 tells us what is going to happen next. Line 1 means that deads of the Marquis de Montalt will be identified and laid out for all to see what he has done and that happens with the testimony of Du Bosse and La Motte. With this he is arrested and can no longer go after Adeline. Line 2 means that his ability to have power over others and adversely affect their lives has been taken away with his arrest for trying to kill Adeline who is now out of his reach. Line 3 voices the hope that he have to feel and experience the cruelty and hardship that which he made everyone else have to go through in his mission to kill his daughter because he did not want to recognize her or deal with the fall out of people finding out he had a child with her mother. This poem like many in the book when in place at the beginning of a chapter if read carefully can give you insight into what will happen, it helps move the story along and gives you a preview. This use of poems as a way to move the story and tie together ideas makes for a very interesting read because it is a different way to follow the story that I have not experienced before.

Identity and Radcliffe

Throughout the novel Adeline is horrified by the actions of her father and is terrified at the fact of being sent back to him and she is terrified at the prospects of her future due to her background. Throughout the novel this sense of melancholy over her sense of identity is changed in that she is adopted by Luc who is unknown to the audience Theodore's father, making the two lovers related. This fact makes a a very complicated problem for Theodore and Adeline adding to the Gothic feel of the novel. The most important identity reveal is that the Marquis who was said to be a relation of Adeline is a fraud which adds to the mystery of whether or not her family that she was raised with actually was her family. When the fake marquis is revealed Adeline gets all the wealth making her seemingly to forget her feelings of inadequacy and live a happy life.  I think that this a big flaw in the novel in that I wish Adeline had faced her fear of her father and received some closer in this because it's a big problem for her throughout the novel and for her family identity to not be closed just seems like too big of a plot hole to leave open.

Poems of Love and Irony

Throughout reading this book I found it ironic how many of the poems portray love as something that should be avoided, ignored, or something to be wary of, and throughout the events of the story love is something that causes Theodore to be almost killed, Adeline to nearly go insane from, and for every other character, misery. In "Ode To The Passions" the character of Hope is holding a rose of revenge. I thought it was pretty ironic in relation to the plot in that Adeline's inability to hope for a good future for herself causes her to fall into despair and her lack of hope for Theodore when he's faced with the death penalty causes her to go nearly crazy, causing her to be easily manipulated into the Marquis plans of revenge. Reading the novel without the poems I think would take away a lot of the tension in the novel in that when you read them they give a sense of weight to the plot and the characters decisions that because you can't see inside their heads, and just have to believe that their sincere, the poems kind of ground the book in a more real world sense that just because you love someone doesn't mean that circumstances aren't going to turn out badly or that it won't lead to the characters death.