These sections of Arcadia contain many of the same elements that stuck me reading the first two acts. The dialogue is of particular interest to me. It’s both humorous and fast paced as I believe many pointed out in class on Tuesday. I like the way the dialogue feels light despite the fact that there is a lot of rather heavy intellectual context and many of the references made within the play are a little involved. The way in which the characters interact reminds me very much of the way in which Vivian addressed the audience within the play Wit.

Also much like Wit there is a tension between intellectuality and emotion within this play. The characters of Thomasina and Hannah are most like Vivian in the fact that they both apparently reject emotion in favor of intellectual pursuits.  On page 42 Thomasina declares that she hates Cleopatra because “everything is turned to love with her.” Her method of creating a “feedback method” as a means of generating natural forms via mathematics seems to be another way of forgoing emotion, irrationality or unpredictability. Or maybe it is a way of bringing the two together.

I’m quite interested to see the way in which this play reconciles these two facets (emotion and reason). It does not reveal its ending in the way Wit did, which makes me anxious to see the resolution.

I actually read the biographical context for this poem previous to reading the poem itself. In reading that bit, the word “melancholy” stood out to me. I could not figure as to why Arnold would write a poem with a melancholy tone under the circumstances which he found himself in during the time period when the poem was allegedly written. Arnold had recently married a woman who he seems to have loved dearly, and who he had been prevented from marrying up until this point. Under such circumstances it stands to reason that the tone of the poem would be anything but melancholy.

The notes on the biographical context of this poem suggest that a draft of the poem was possibly written on a previous trip to Dover, three months previous to the honeymoon. I kept this in mind as I was reading the poem. Regardless of whether or not the poem was drafted previous to the honeymoon I do not know. However, it is readily apparent that the last stanza marks an important shift within the poem.

The first three stanza give the impression of solitude, and the references to the past (Sophocles line 15) and to large physical feature, specifically large bodies of water (“the sea”, “the straits”, “the bays”… “the Aegean” etc.) both further the impression of isolation and give the sense of being very small and insignificant. References to things like “human misery” and “melancholy” sounds definitely contribute to the melancholy tone the biographical information mentioned.

However, in the final stanza the speaker begins to mention his love while not forsaking the melancholy that has dominated the poems direction thus far. In my opinion, this serves only to enhance the impression the strength of the relationship between Arnold and his beloved. The main point of this poem seems to be, in a very simplified way, “we are very small in a big messed up world, so let’s be the good in the world for each other.”

I’m not exactly sure what to make of this novel. Personally, from reading it I can’t seem to determine whether or not it want to be a sort of critique of the Novel as a form of literature or not. The female protagonist does not seem to exhibit any strong personality traits that would separate her substantially from the swooning, timid subjects that were presented in the readings for Tuesday. In fact, she actually seems a little bit dull at points, especially in her lack of understanding of the initial attraction between James and Isabella.

It is the male, Henry, that is the source of most of the ironic/mocking type dialogue that exists within the novel in the beginning. It seems as though he is not as invested in society as Catherine seems to be. Perhaps he will change Catherine’s attitude regarding life and society.

One thing I did find particularly interesting was the bit in chapter five where the novel as a form of literature is defended by the author. While it makes sense that a writer of novels should not have her protagonist express disdain for the form  in which she is writing, it does seem a bit odd considering the impression I got of the type of novels Catherine read was that they were more akin to the writings were read for Tuesday.

I can definitely see why the romantics resonate with so many young artistic types. The reason for this identification is particularly evident in the case of John Keats. Perhaps this is because of the fact that Keats was so young himself when his body of work was written.

Ode to melancholy, for example, absolutely wreaks of adolescent angst. In particular line 10: "And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul." caught my eye. I attended an art school for half the day in high school and was then and still am friends with many a hopeful writer, artist or musician. I've seen sentiments similar to this echoed over and over in many a sketchbook, poem or lyric to the point it is almost entirely played out. But it is trite because it is part of an almost universal experience of being young and creative. The stereotype of the tortured artist is a stereotype for a reason. I've actually had a friend say to me that they somewhat missed being depressed because it was then that they produced the most writing and visual works, even though not all of those works referenced their depression.


Ode to melancholy, to me, dredges up the feelings I used to have during nights of insomnia, sitting outside in the 3am quiet, feeling very small and very young. I think it's his references to mythology and nature both that give me this sense, both of which are very old and in the case of nature, very vast. While I don't identify with the romantics on the level that I'm sure some have. I can see why someone might feel as if they had found "their people" after stumbling across the romantics.