This unit has enabled me to reflect on the similarities and differences between
human experience in the 19th and 21st centuries.
Throughout this semester we have been keeping a blog to add to our understanding of the vast wealth of literature found in the 19th centuries. Through several blogs and peer review entries I feel that my understanding and appreciation of the exceptional writers from the 19th century has grown exponentially. I find using visual stimulation such as images in my blog posts added more depth and created a theme unique to that post to ensure whoever may read the blog can appreciate 19th century literature at its best. Looking back at the numerous poems and texts we studied from the 19th century literature I realised how different our human experiences were between back then and now in the 21st century. The biggest difference of note is our disconnection from nature due to the ever increasing speed our lives take in a digitalized world we forget to stop and immerse ourselves in nature from time to time to absorb the transformative power nature has on the human spirit.
I started off my 19th century blogging adventure with a critical blog about Tintern Abbey and how it inspired Wordsworth so much he came back many years later and write his famous poem “Tintern Abbey”. I too was moved by the raw beauty nature has when it melds with civilization which Wordsworth believed that its curative abilities can bring the viewer through a road of awareness and introspection that leaves me with a strong sense of hope for the future through change and natures power over the mind. As I stated earlier about the speed our lives are taking in the 21st century we forget to stop and appreciate nature fully and this poem was what brought me back down to earth and allowed me to fully appreciate what Wordsworth was experiencing back in the 19th century.
My second blog post was also a critical post on our visit to the NSW Art Gallery which I unfortunately missed due to illness. However, this didn’t stop me from enjoying the art online through the internet. I chose to base my blog post off the 1781 painting ‘An extensive landscape near Paris’ by Hubert Robbert. I sought to understand how Literature and art can be linked to one another especially in the romantic period. One thing I felt about this blog is while there are vast differences between the 19th and 21st centuries it is through the appreciation of art in both centuries that similarities can be found. In our time we have a vast wealth of art spanning centuries that we can appreciate kept safe in art galleries spanning the world accessible to almost everyone who wishes to appreciate it.
For my third blog I changed my usual critical posts to a more creative and exciting blog post. I chose to write about myself as a 19th century Victorian man describing things I value most in life. I think this blog post is also my best blog post as I thoroughly enjoyed writing as a person from the 19th century and enabling me to think as a man from that time period. I realised that what I value now in the 21st century is vastly different to what a 19th century version of myself would value. I find in the 21st century we often forget proper language and mannerisms with the world becoming so digitalized how we speak is becoming simple and shortened compared to the elegance of language and ones appearance in the 19th century. For my fourth and final blog. My fourth and final blog post was also a creative piece writing about my final moments trapped in a snow storm in the Siberian tundra. While this post took a dark turn I particularly enjoyed writing about nature itself and its destructive beauty that comes in the form of violent weather such as snow storms. This brings to my mind the idea of how nature transforms things and the floods and storms it creates are the arbiters of these transformations.
Daniel Whites ACU Literature Blog 