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"'But we must live, and not act our lives:
pursuing the shadow,
I lost the reality--now I renounce both'" (153).
M. Shelley's The Last Man (1826)
1. what role does memory play in this poem?
2. why does the narrator prefer rural to urban spaces?
3. does Coleridge's description of that divine power behind Nature accord with Mary Shelley's description of the divinity of Nature in The Last Man?
1. what metrical form does Wordsworth employ here, and do you think it more appropriate than a singsongy rhyme scheme?
2. is Nature, as described in the opening stanza, carefully controlled by human intervention?
3. in the first stanza, what subject matter does Wordsworth (in this poem, author & narrator are one) make romantic that might otherwise seem socially undesirable to a middle-class audience?
4.what have Wordsworth’s memories of Nature provided him while recently living in urban spaces?
5. what does Wordsworth mean by the claim that Nature has provided him “feelings too of unremembered pleasure”?
6. do you agree with Wordsworth’s suggestion that recollections of Nature can shape our moral development (ll.31-35)?
7. what do you imagine Wordsworth means by “the burthen of the mystery” (l.38), and how is Nature supposed to alleviate it?
8. in what way does Wordsworth's youthful experience of Nature (ll.66-85) differ from the manner with which he now responds to it (ll.86-102).
9. does the narrator's high appreciation of Nature in lines 93-111 approach a form of idolatrous worship, or does Wordsworth consider Nature primarily as a conduit to something greater/deeper than Nature itself?
10. how might we “half create” (l.106) what we perceive with our senses?
11. does Wordsworth make it clear whether his companion, his sister Dorothy, is younger or older than himself?
12. in what way does Nature serve as a “guardian of [the] heart” (l.110)?
13. what does Wordsworth hope his sister will recall about the present moment in years yet to come?
14. as construed by Wordsworth in the poem's final section, does the most profound type of communion with Nature require solitude, or the presence of others?
15. whose voice utters these closing words? “[T]hese steep woods and lofty cliffs, / And this green pastoral landscape, were to me / More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!” (ll.157-59).
1. how does Lionel's posture towards and opinion of Raymond shift around and change, and is the reader supposed to feel the same as Lionel?
2. is Raymond justified in his censure of Perdita’s imagination and the assumptions she has made about his infidelity?
3. does Adrian ever manifest any kind of faults of character flaws?
4. does Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley join her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, in decrying the inferior social position of women in patriarchal societies? [sec 02: Andres M-A]
5. a recurring question: does this novel contain events, ideas, and emotions that are too intense to be the mere imaginings of a creative novelist? That is, are there moments where one feels that one is reading about an emotion or incident that Mary Shelley herself had experienced—something she was so close to that she has difficulty maintaining an objective distance from her narrative?
6. within the confines of this novel, does the natural world prove itself an ally or antagonist to the characters? Is Nature itself friend or foe to those in need? [sec 01: Roshan Dominic]
7. as the reader sifts among the radically diverging opinions of the various characters, does it become clear what greater power Mary Shelley intends to hold sway in this novel? Does capricious Fate shape humanity’s destiny, or is some sort of monotheistic God in control? If the latter, is this God benevolent, capricious, or indifferent? What role does Nature play? Is Nature personified, or is it a mindless force of the universe? [sec 02: Tyler Opazo]
8. distinguish among the main characters' differing attitudes towards war. [sec 01: Helen Dubee]
9. does the wartime dynamic established between the Greek and Turkish forces echo the color and shape of the conflict we have witnessed in the Middle East in our own time?
10. consider the benefits and liabilities of Lionel's new artistic sensibility and perspective--his new insight into the "internal principles of action" of those surrounding him (157, 174). [sec 03: Michael Gloner]
Constantinople (1873-74)
James Webb
Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu