Theses: K.S. Anthony (Kal)

K.S. Anthony

ENGL W3001 Literary Texts, Critical Methods

Poetry Comparison Paper: 18 October 2011

The Long, Dark Night: The Language of Hope and Despair in Milton and Hopkins

            John Milton's Sonnet XIX and Gerard Manley Hopkins' "I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark Not Day" both address depression and darkness, literally and metaphorically, in Petrarchan sonnets. Although both deal with despair and question God's role in suffering while using ostensibly identical forms, the language and punctuation couple with the content to lead the reader to very different conclusions. Milton's darkness is a road to hope, while Hopkins darkness signals a descent into despair. I shall examine the similarities and differences between the two texts, paying particular attention to the way that they utilize word choice, tone via punctuation, and the Petrarchan form.

K.S. Anthony
W3001 Literary Texts, Critical Methods

Prof. Julie Crawford
TA: Olivia Moy

22 October 2011: OED Assignment: A Massive Emptiness: the Vacuitie of Hell in Paradise Lost

            The word "vacuitie" appears only once in John Milton's Paradise Lost. The line in which it appears is one of the shortest in Book 2-- just five words--in a scene that baffles Satan as he seeks escape from Hell. He spreads his wings and begins to fly "Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets/ A vast vacuitie: all unawares/ Fluttring his pennons vain plumb down he drops" (931-933). The meaning here seems simple enough: Satan takes flight, daring the heavens once again, but suddenly hits an air pocket--turbulence--and begins a spiraling plummet while beating his wings in vain against its force until being fired back into hobbled flight and a new direction by a thundercloud (935-950, not quoted here in the interest of space). The word "vacuitie" evokes the word "vacuum" in the modern mind and it's easy to gloss over the line without really probing its full meaning. I shall explore the depth of Milton's use of the word here as a powerful negation that, like "darkness visible" (1:63), serves to create an image of Hell that is, paradoxically, unimaginable. In "A vast vacuitie" Milton creates a vision of emptiness that is far more powerful than anything that could be described loco-descriptively. This is what Hell is: it is space empty of God, the absolute and total absence of God, paradise not simply lost but negated and unreachable.

K.S. Anthony

ENGL W3001 Literary Texts, Critical Methods
Metrical Analysis Essay: 30 September 2011
A Darkness Visible: Surveying The Sights of Hell Through Meter

In Book One of Paradise Lost, Satan has been cast out of Heaven and is surveying Hell. In lines 56-69, John Milton describes in blank verse the landscape that is to be Satan's kingdom. Milton shows the unrest in both Satan's visual and emotional experience of Hell through the unexpected use of trochaic and spondaic substitution that enhance his sparing imagery that follow the subtle and dramatic transitions created by hard and soft enjambments. The nightmare landscape does not demand visceral images. Indeed, Milton's depictions of Hell are sparse and vague: this vacuum of imagery paves the way for form to effect mood. This essay shall illustrate how by simply altering tone, meter, and rhythm, Milton engulfs the reader in the vastness of Satan's "darkness visible." 

In Book One of Paradise Lost, Satan has been cast out of Heaven and is surveying Hell. In lines 56-69, John Milton describes in blank verse the landscape that is to be Satan's kingdom. Milton shows the unrest in both Satan's visual and emotional experience of Hell through the unexpected use of trochaic and spondaic substitution that enhance his sparing imagery that follow the subtle and dramatic transitions created by hard and soft enjambments. The nightmare landscape does not demand visceral images. Indeed, Milton's depictions of Hell are sparse and vague: this vacuum of imagery paves the way for form to effect mood. This essay shall illustrate how by simply altering tone, meter, and rhythm, Milton engulfs the reader in the vastness of Satan's "darkness visible."