Thursday 29 January 2009

Powers of Humanity

I am responding to the question in prompt #4.

I think that "powers" could be interpreted in many different ways. One meaning is the power of the mind. But it could be deeper than that. It could mean the power of the mind to think, ponder and imagine. The mind is a very powerful tool. Take some psychological disorders for instance, some can create a completely different reality for the person. Romantically speaking, power of the mind would most likely be the power of imagination. It could mean just simply pondering the world around you, not only the natural world but the human society around you.

Another meaning of "powers" could be that emotions are powers that we are laying waste to. He says in the same line that we are "Getting and Spending", what kind of emotion leads man to "getting and spending"? It could be the need to always have more and than thinking that it will make you happy, then it is spent, then the cycle of needing more, gettiing it and spending it starts over. I think Wordsworth is trying to say how much of an exhausting waste of emotion(s) that is. Then he tries to get the point across that the "power" of the emotions is just being wasted. You could have other emotions (powers) that will benefit you and others more in the long run. One can assume that those emotions are pretty much opposite of the emotions it takes for "getting and spending" (greed, envy). The less wasteful emotions that could do more for you could include compassion, love, and appreciation of nature.

1 comment:

  1. Becca, I liked how you said that "Powers" could be intepreted in many different ways. I think this applies not only with how Wordsworth writes and his thoughts on so called "powers" but it makes us take a glance again at ourselves, and how we might interpret what true power means. I don't know if you read " I griev'd for Buonaparte"(p.451) but it backs up your theory that true power lies in "compassion, love and appreciation of nature" here are a few lines from it "Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood. Wisdom doth live with children round her knees...By which true sway doth mount; this is the stalk True Power doth grow on; and her rights are these."

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