She was a Phantom of Delight Analysis

She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleam’d upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death:
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly plann’d
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

Just to get it out of the way, there is an AB rhyme scheme throughout the poem. And now on to the stuff that's important. This poem is pretty much about the spirit of some woman. The speaker notices this spirit and vividly describes her as being very graceful and free, as most spirits are. The first stanza gives the audience some detailed imagery about what this spirit looks like, dusky hair and her eyes like stars. In the second stanza, the speaker gets a closer look at the spirit and notices that she is a woman of liberty. Which I think means that this spirit does what it wants. Because of the second line in the last stanza, I don't know what to think about this poem. The mention of this woman spirit having the pulse of a machine disuades me from thinking that she is a spirit and more tied down and can't do what she wants to. Another interpretation of this poem could be the type of woman that Wordsworth wants to get to know.
As for romantic elements, I think the most obvious is the solitude and solemness of the spirit. It is the lone subject of the poem and is the only thing that the speaker concentrates on. THe last line of the second stanza mentions actions that go with certain emotions such as love, happiness and sadness. Those three emotions could be what the spirit causes. The last line of the first stanza further reinforces that notion because it says this dancing shape haunts startles and waylays. I've given it my best shot and I hope that I was close. I think that I might have been over thinking this one.

Preface to Lyrical Ballads Analysis

When I first saw this wall of text, I thought, "Oh man, more extremely difficult junk to understand." But, interestingly enough I found this wall of text to be somewhat enjoyable to read. I had to reread a few paragraphs because I zoned out, but other than that I enjoyed learning one man's opinions on other men from the same time period.
At first, Wordsworth writes about how the first volume of poems was released as an experiment. I believe that his was trying to figure out what made a good poem and what people enjoyed reading. Following that short statement, Wordsworth begins to explain how his friends helped him in learning about poetry. "...I was induced to request the assistance of a Friend, who furnished me with the Poems of..." What Wordsworth means is that he asked his Friends opinion's on what made a good poem. They then gave him a few examples. I believe that after reading those poems, Wordsworth realized that his Friends gave him poems with the exact same style as his own poetry. It really didn't cause any variety to form in his own style. This is when we get to see the first glimpse of self-admiration by Wordsworth. It occurs throughout the preface. Another interesting observation is that Wordsworth capitalized poetry and Friends. I think this might be to show respect for his friends but I really don't have a clue. It could be a typo, who knows.
Following Wordsworth realization that his friend's poems do not add variety to his own style, the reader gets to see Wordsworth critique a fellow poets poem. The poem was written by Thomas Gray, and Wordsworth doesn't think much of it. He writes, "It will easily be perceived that the only part of this Sonnet which is of any value is the lines printed in Italics: it is equally obvious, that, except in the rhyme, and in the use of the single word "fruitless" for fruitlessly, which is so far a defect, the language of these lines does in no respect differ from that of prose." From this quote, we can see that Wordsworth believes that Gray's poetry is really no different than prose. He believes that only a few lines are truly poetic and add style to the poem.
After Wordsworth is done criticizing Gray, he moves on to say that poetic language on a whole is bad. I really don't understand why he would say this after he got done trying to find ways to add variety to his own style. But nonetheless, it was interesting to read what he had to say about how the author must dictate mood and his own personal style. I really think that the main point of this preface was to emphasize the importance of a unique and personal style for every poet. Without that, Wordsworth would probably think the poem was awful.

Essay Correction Blog

I didn't do very well on this essay, I got an 81, so there is a lot for me to fix. Probably my main problem was that I did not have enough commentary supported by quotes. Furthermore,I used furthermore way to many times. I also changed many words that I thought sounded choppy or words that did not flow very well. For example, I wrote "...because it evokes the most distinct emotions." I changed that sentence to say, "...because it is reminiscent of recongizable emotions." I thought that reminiscent was a better word to use than evokes. It kind of portrays the same emotion as evokes, but it sounds a whole lot better. Another example of using better word choice is in my fourth paragraph when I say, " That characterization instills in the audience the idea of power,..." Instead of instills, I used inculcates which gives the reader much more information about the thoughts that I am trying to get across. My biggest correction happened when I am talking about The Wife of Bath. At first I said, "Here, the knight gives her the power which in turn transforms her into the perfect woman. The knight saved her from a life of poverty. The heroes in this tale are not as clear as Beowulf or Perceval, but they are still present even though they are less apparent. Then I changed this to say, "Here, Chaucer argues that if women are in control of relationships, the two people in the relationship will be much happier together. In other words, relationships are on a whole more succesful if women have control of the situation." I thought that this was much better because it analyzed more than it restated, which was a main problem of mine throughout the entire paper.