Elizabeth Barrett Browning

            On Wednesday morning I finished working out the chords to the first verse and the first chorus of “Mozart avec nous” (Mozart Is With Us) by Boris Vian and I started on the second verse, which has a different rhythm than the first but seems to use the same chords.

            I worked out all the chords for “Le velours des vierges” (The Velvet Virgins) by Serge Gainsbourg except for one instrumental break before the last verse. 

            At noon I logged on for my Brit Lit 2 tutorial. 

            Our TA Carson is writing his dissertation on depression in literature. 

            There is still no info on our second assignment even though we have less than two weeks to hand it in. 

            Some of the questions in this week’s reading quiz were ambiguous and so the professor will be bumping up the grades. 

            We spent the whole session on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Curse for a Nation.” 

            Browning lived from 1806-1861. She was thirteen years old when she published her first volume of poetry. Her father didn’t want any of his eleven children to get married. She lived in seclusion until the age of thirty nine when she eloped with Robert Browning and went to Italy. Her father was pissed off and they never reconciled. 

            The Victorian period is understood in a material way because of urbanization and land enclosure. Feudalism versus capitalism. Common lands were being bought for agricultural businesses, especially in this era. The poor were forced to sell their labour. Factories were always in danger of being bought out and so they were desperate and ruthless. 

            Curse for a Nation” was published in 1861, just before the US civil war. 

            The angel represents a higher moral necessity. 

            We each read a stanza of the curse and analyzed as we went along. 

            What is being branded and whipped is more than just bodies but souls. 

            I ask, when she says “Write” at the end of each stanza, is she urging herself on? 

            The task itself is a curse. 

            I said that she is pointing out the irony of the US at the time being considered as a beacon of freedom. 

            She mentions strangled martyrs and I wondered if she might refer to the hanging of Catholic priests but then doubted that because this is about slavery. Carson thought it might refer to John Brown’s hanging. 

            She may be also cursing the US for not speaking against the atrocities committed by England.

            She addresses religious and learned hypocrisy. 

            I suggested that Bob Dylan’s final stanza in “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” in which he speaks of action as in “I’m going ,,,” may have been inspired by the final stanza of Curse for a Nation where she makes a call to action with “Go”. 

            I had crackers with peanut butter for lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. It was very warm outside and there were lots of puddles from melted snow. But because it was so warm a lot of people that were outside seemed to have also come outside of themselves with relief. For example women were semi-flirtatiously looking at me more. 

            I got a notice that everyone had their mark bumped up for this week’s Brit Lit 2 reading quiz. So since I scored 7 out of 8, it was changed to 8 out of 8. 

            I sent an email to Carson to argue for a higher mark on my assignment:

           Of my paragraph: “He understands that the power of the moment appears when one is unencumbered by angst over time and yet he apprehends the future and thereby curbs his enchantment (11-12).” Carson commented: “This is an interesting observation about the poem in general, but it's not yet clear how it relates to lines 11-12 in particular.” I pointed out that in lines 11 and 12 of “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be” Keats says: “Never have relish in the faery power of unreflecting love …” These lines show that “unreflecting love” which he recognizes to have “faery power” and therefore enchantment is the power of the moment. To be unreflecting is to be unencumbered by angst over time. He apprehends the future and curbs his enchantment when he declares “Never.” 

            I re-read “Our Casuarina Tree,” Toru Dutt a couple of times. 

            For dinner I added the rest of the bland coconut, carrot, cauliflower puree to a small can of baked beans and had it with two pieces of toast while watching the first episode of the third season of The Andy Griffith Show. 

            In this story Opie tells his father that he met a Mr McBeevee in the woods and that he lives in the trees, wears a silver hat, he jingles when he walks and he can make smoke come out of his ears. Andy thinks that McBeevee is an imaginary friend and he’s fine with that until Opie brings home a hatchet that he says McBeevee gave him. Andy thinks Opie must have gotten it from somewhere he shouldn't have and he makes him take it back. When Opie goes to the woods we see that Mr. McBeevee is real. He’s a line-man with a steel helmet and a tool belt holding tools that jingle when he walks. He also does a trick when he’s smoking to make it look like smoke comes out of his ear. McBeevee gives Opie a quarter for bringing him some berries but when Opie shows his father the quarter and insists that McBeevee gave it to him Andy begins to think Opie is turning into a liar. There’s a very dark moment when Andy sends Opie to his room and tells Bee that he has no choice but to give Opie a whipping. But when Andy tells Opie what is going to happen and that all he has to do to prevent it is to admit Mr McBeevee is make believe, Opie looks at his father sincerely and tells him that he can't say the man isn't real if he is. Andy says he believes him and walks away. He tells Barney that he doesn’t believe there's a Mr McBeevee but he believes in Opie. Andy goes to the woods to reflect on all this and when out of frustration he says the name, “Mr McBeevee” a voice in a tree above him answers. McBeevee climbs down and Andy is very glad to meet him. When later Andy tells Barney that he met Mr McBeevee and that he’s coming over for dinner, Barney tells him he’s been working too hard and calls the doctor. Then the phone rings and Mr McBeevee tells Barney to his shock to tell Andy he’ll be over for dinner. 

            Mr McBeevee was played with an Irish accent by Brooklyn born Karl Swenson who was known as “the man of a thousand voices." He played lumber mill owner Lars Hanson on “Little House On The Prairie."