I choose this poem by Lord Byron, becuase I have always loved his work. He is a true romantic by the words that he uses. I thought that this poem would fit perfectly with this unit:
"Maid of Athens, Ere We Part" Lord Byron

Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh, give back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

By those tresses unconfined,
Wooed by each Aegean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

By that lip I long to taste;
By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love's alternate joy and woe,
Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

Maid of Athens! I am gone:
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,
Athens holds my heart and soul:
Can I cease to love thee? No!
Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

This was written by Lord Byron in 1810. The poem was about how Byron feel in love with the twelve year old girl, Teresa Marci. Bryon was deeply in love with this girl, but the feelings were not meet. The parts of the romantics that are found throughout this poem are of childhood and human passion and emoiton.

The reason that childhood shows up is becuase Byron has a sort of puppy love for this girl. He considers this girl the world to him and he is fully head over heals for this girl, even though there is an age difference. It just shows how love knows no bounds.

The other part of the is the passion and emotion that is found as a human. This part goes along with the idea of being in a childhood crush. The feelings that he has are deep and pure even though the girl does not recipricate them.

The Enlightenment

Another name for Enlightenment is the “age of reason”. There are actually two different concepts that are thought of through the enlightenment: religious or spiritual enlightenment and secular or intellectual enlightenment. There are a few people in the book that help to prove the philosophy of enlightenment are John Locke, Giambattista Vico, and David Hume.

The first is John Locke who was an English philosopher during the enlightenment. Locke’s ideas were mainly that the mind was a blank slate, and that the only way to define one is through consciousness. In Locke’s mind we construct the world around us through languages (323).

Giambattista Vico expressed much of his feelings through his writings while writing about human thought, language, and culture. He was both a humanist and he also had pedagogic concerns. The reason for Vico’s thinking is because of the assertion he has from the past philologists.

David Hume was an empiricist like John Locke and George Berkeley. Hume also has a skeptical view of aesthetic standards. Hume also believes the religious bigotry which happens to certain works of art. He believes that the poet must be the one that looks at things to see how they really are.

The Later Middle Ages

Many different traditions of Criticism that Habbib talks about in this chapter; Neo-Platonism, Carolingian, and accessus, these are just a few of them. The first one Neo-Platonism promoted poetry and also in esoteric wisdom. Carolingian's mains purposes were commentaries and also emphasized on knowledge. Finally, accessus is an introduction to a curriculum author (172-173). The first section of this chapter goes along to show the different phases throughout the middle ages to show where criticism has changed over the years. The next sections talks of the rhetorical and how they work with poetry. Habbib seems to like the rhetorical thoughts of writings. The next section that goes along with literature and how to look at them is by using logic. Habbib uses St. Augustine in this section along with with Aristotle. Their works seem to fit into the realm of logic, because logic help to develop scholasticism. Which people that that scholastics seemed to think that poetry and literature were not logical, but they then decided to place them with the theology.

Habbib talks of the Transcendentals whose ideas are "one," "true," and "good." These were the main ideas that came from Aquinas. The main aspect of these people were to prove that God was the one, and poetry was considered not one of these because they were not unified. With unity transcendental also talked of the "beauty", which had three things that was required for beauty; integrity, proportion, and splendor of form. It is interesting to find out throughout the section of Allegory and Aquinas, that Aquinas first ideas of what poetry, literary, and allegory are, change so dramatically throughout the years. The way that Aquinas first concluded that poetry had nothing to do with God and that it was against the writings because they use metaphor and many other aspects that promote an unreal type of thinking.

The Early Middle Ages

Christianity was the main thought throughout the early years, but by the third-century people tried to give other ways of thinking. Christianity was thought to be used to go against classical thought. Two men who thought differently were Clement and Origen, they were more of the rationalist. One of the biggest Christian thinkers that the book talks about is St. Augustine who many people have heard of sometime or another. He was a pure theologist, he even stated that he regreted his ways of thinking before he become more involved with God. A few of his different thoughts are that God is the only one who will be able to restore our natural state of being good. He also belived that oringal sin came from pride. Even though he beleived in many of the theologies he still had some ideas that began from Plato (157). St. Augustine seems to be the person that ones thinks of when thinking about Theology. Near the end of the chapter is shows that Augustine actually has a little of both of the different ways of thinking, even though he is thought of when thinking about Theology. Habbib throught this chapter really digs into the different theologists and their thoughts throughts the years. It seems that the main purpose of the Early middle ages were people did not have their own ideas, the believed what was told before them.

Moved Me

There are many things in this world that have moved me. I have a very vivid imagination, I can be sitting there reading a book or even watching a movie and I can just disappear into that place. The one thing that I saw that really moved me was the play "Lion King" at Lancaster Playhouse in London. This play was so beautiful and so artfuly done, that I could not seem to see the things around me. At the beginning at the play I was sitting there with my friend Ashley and the first song "The Circle of Life" came up and the characters came out, it was so breathtaking I started to cry. I had never seen anything that was as fantastic as that. The other time in my life when I was moved was in Westminster Abbey. I was walking around and just looking at all the tombs and also over at the poets corner. I just could not stop thinking about how this cathedral was able to withstand everything that happened and still be able to stand. A movie that also moved me was Pride and Prejudice. Everytime I watch this movie I can help but escaping. I am so in love with the past, and this movie brings me there. I also do love the romance in it, but mostly I love the fact of how people acted toward each other and how they thought to themselves. I love anything that has to do with history. Each one of my favorite movies have histroircal aspects, that are real or not. As long as they get the time period acurate then I am fine. I even read historical novel, my favoirte author is Jodi Thomas. Anything that I can place in front of me and be able to see the past, I am transfered to that place. My favorite song that was and is still a great song is Th Goo Goo Dolls, "Iris". This is one of my favorite songs. Everytime I hear it I get emotional.

Longinus

The chapter speaks greatly of "sublime" and the use of this in poetry and any other form of art. The first few paragraphs talk of what art really comes from, if it comes from a persons genius or from what a person learns and what comes from everthing put together. I think that sublime is really important to this chapter. How can a person figure out how to produce certain aspects of Literature without truly thinking about the process of it. Sublime seems to be the main idea of all different types of litereature, without the "sublime" it would seem hard to actully produce such great works.

Plato

In this chapter I thought it was interesting how Plato uses many different poets and philosophers to explain his theory. The reason that I find this interesting is becuase they seem completely different views, in the fact that poets seem to see things that might be and philosophers see what they know is. Adeimantus states that poetry is the seeing rather than the being, the people see apperance rather than the reality of the world around them. The main theme that is shown greatly throughout the section is that justice was the factor in figuring who are poets and also who are philosphers.