Student Journal Spotlight

Each student participating in the Kiplin Hall program must keep a journal of poetic insights and personal reflections. The following entries represent the nature and content of the written work.

6/19/01

Being in the countryside inhabited by sheep and other ruminant animals, the only sign of human impression upon the landscape are the clatted slate walls that are hundreds of years old, the landmark of an archaic agrarian society. Thus removed from the artificial progeny of modern society, one begins to feel enveloped by the sensation of all that is long ago and far away until a companion points out "Isn't it nice to get away from technology and the products and byproducts of civilization?" At that point the realization shatters the fantasy of escapement, although the realization in all likelihood is merely a reminder of thoughts oppressed by the desire to be transported to another reality that is more pleasing than one's own in its overabundance of simplicity and natural austerity.

Unharnessed from the detachment of a technological society, one immediately returns to the disappointment that the earth is not unscathed, that it has been shaped and reshaped into something altogether unnatural. It is disenchanting when the idea of an unsullied planet, inspired by immersion in a natural setting, is robbed of its idyllic qualities. Thereafter, one appreciates the aesthetic value of the landscape but cannot realistically imagine that he is in another time because of the lingering comparison to modern society.

6/20/01

Reading Wordsworth I am torn between inspiration and discouragement. His diction and metaphors emblazon the narrative context with the fervor of a genius, a literary prodigy whom I admire but doubt I will begin to near equality in written form and artistic merit. However, I am uplifted and particularly captivated by his segments in "The Prelude" that touch his thoughts on writing and the role of the writer. I take comfort in the moments when he expresses insecurities about his composition, for it humanizes him more in my mind and gives me hope that I also may succeed in literary endeavors despite his seemingly confident use of language. Wordsworth claims to write "with fond and feeble tongue," connoting a love of words so powerful he feels unable to do them justice. This also is how I feel, except I am disheartened by the proclivity with which he writes--a talent infinitely superior to my own.

While I sympathize and identify with his journey through the creative process, the product of his efforts exceeds mine so greatly that I cannot help feeling that his alleged struggle with langue is merely a ploy to enhance the grandeur of his poetry.

6/25/01

What better way to study Romantic poetry than by immersing oneself in the landscape that inspired its creation? This experiential approach to education is by far more effective and memorable than the traditional classroom setting, which often makes learning a chore instead of an adventure.

Perhaps what I am most amazed by is the universality of Wordsworth's writing enchanced by the locality of his subjects. Thus far I'm thrilled with the visits to villages, mountains, and homes that evoke a mindset conducive to experiencing the language. Climbing inside the carcasses of abbeys and skirting around bogs induces an eruption of creative freedom amplified by the thrill of being in another culture--unleashing restraints from intellect and intuition. The Kiplin Hall experience is incredible; my only regret is that it cannot last longer.

6/27/01

In "Kubla Khan" Coleridge does something wonderful: he digresses from the subject of the poems with lines themselves that suggest digression. The poem opens "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree: / Where Alph the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea." The lines beginning to describe the river Alph undermine the initial movement of the poem just as the river literally undermines the kingdom of Xanadu with perpetual movement and change.

Thereafter, the reader is aware of a constant turmoil unseen to the residents of Xanadu and its leader who is even more unaware than his subjects that the blissful kingdom is founded on a raging undercurrent of change. The only indication of the forboding conflict is visible in the sinuous rills that pump water from the river Alph through the structural base of the kingdom, which ironically allows the earth to be fertile and sustain human life.

As the poem progresses the reader witnesses the river erupt through a chasm throwing fragments of sediment into the air, a larger demonstration of the power latent beneath the aforementioned rills. The chasm perpetually hurls rocks with sporadically sudden movements, the illustration of mellifluous change and promise of conflict that is present on the river Alph. From the dependency of the organic on the rampant inorganic water and movement of the earth, Kubla Khan discerns something "ancestral," or deeply contained within all life dependent on inorganic substances, a train of though that may be traced to the most primal instincts of humans. The ancestral throught pertains to war, perhaps the greatest possible human conflict as predicated by the network of water movement beneath Xanadu.