Tuesday, February 13, 2007

(finally) inspired by poetry

i have a confession.

i don't like the whole romantic poetry thing-the classics-that we are studying in british literature right now.

but i was inspired by a piece we read today in class.

keats wrote "the eve of st. agnes" sometime around 1819. i'll admit to not reading the entire poem, but my professor sums it up like this:

madeline lives ina dream world, fantasizing about a dream lover and some perfect life that makes her happy, but doesn't exist. porphyro wants to come along and redeem her from this spell (and sure, he has impure thoughts in his mind as well, ha.) however, in his reality, there is no joy without pain. if you really love somebody, you will have to deal with reality (in the poem, mortality figures heavily.)
it is because of this that my professor calls keats the "romantic realist."
the question he posed was this: " is porphyro doing madeline a favor, or ruining her bliss?"
because, she was happy in her dream world...

*the above stuff, after the colon, came from my notes, just so you all know...*

however...

isn't that what i have said all along?

nothing, and nobody, is ever going to be perfect. you can hope, but things are sometimes hard, and really, in the end, it's how you deal with it that matters.

i've admitted that i'm a dreamer. i have no problem with that. but honestly, the danger of imagination is the disappointment when the world doesn't live up to your dreams. what then? you keep dreaming. reality can definitely live up to it-maybe not when you expect it-but it will. and the great moments live in between ones that may not be so great. it just works that way. you can 't just walk away from something saying, " well, we had some great times, but it wasn't easy enough," thinking something else easier is going to come along and take you by storm. really. maybe it'll just get harder...and it won't be so good. maybe "some" great times will turn into no great times, and then what? but maybe i'm wrong. at this point, i hope i am. wrong. i really, really do.

i woke up painfully early this morning (think 4:45 am) with an idea in my mind. i regret not writing it down, because i went back to sleep and now the idea is kind of lost, but i still have a few echoes of it bouncing around.

i'll admit that it's hard for me to walk away. my life has, thus far, consisted of a lot of "don't look back" decisions (flashback to showing up at the claims office and tossing all my stuff into a box, only stopping to talk on instant messenger for a few minutes...) but when it's not my decision? i'm lost. i'm completely chained down. in my half-asleep reverie, i half-dreamed about walking away...that it's hard, but it just seems easier... i guess the thought i woke up with this morning was that without realizing it, i'm walking, and i have some sort of direction, too.

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