Notes of Intention

Over the course of this semester we all came into contact with a wide variety of footnotes attached to a number of the texts we read. Many students in the class found the footnotes to be outlandishly distracting and even counterproductive while others found them to be interesting and useful. Whether the notes were, in fact, unnecessary or not, they were added to the text by the author with a specific intention and purpose. An author may include a footnote to supplement a text or include some sort of historical background, but most importantly he or she found them to be of use and therefore, one must respect their presence.

The Loves of Plants by Erasmus Darwin was a text with perhaps the most numerous and lengthy footnotes of our assigned readings this semester. Early into the text (already on page 5), Darwin has two rather large paragraphs of footnotes to supplement the 6 lines of poetry on the page. As you continue on through the text, the notes can undoubtedly become distracting as the notes are usually far longer than the poetry, but upon reading them you can understand their significance. In footnote 1.75 Darwin states, “The males and females are on different plants. There are many instances on record, where female plants have been impregnated at very distance from their male…” He then adds later in the paragraph, “These plants resemble some insects, as the ants, and cochineal insect, of which the males have wing but not the female.” The scientific knowledge integrated into the poem is obvious and important in and of itself, but it gives a deeper meaning to the personification of plants. Darwin is reinforcing the gender stereotypes that were believed of women as shy virgins, shameless harlots, or vengeful menaces. He draws parallels between the hierarchies of men over women; males in the plant world often outnumber and outrank the females.  On the other hand, if a female plant dominates a male, it is portrayed as a manipulative and vicious. “And, if she smiles, with rival raptures burn.” (ll. 100) The poem itself is powerful and one can derive much meaning from it, but the footnotes give scientific qualities and traits of the plants that further add to the personification. The notes allow the reader to see similarities between humanity and the plant world, and this furthers Darwin’s meaning behind the poem.

Charlotte Smith makes good use of footnotes in her poem, “To the Fire-Fly of Jamaica, Seen in a Collection”.  This poem is slightly difficult to understand, but Smith utilizes her footnotes in a similar fashion to Erasmus Darwin in that she comments on scientific plant life specific to her work. On the first page, she has small footnotes that give the scientific names of plants she spoke of and then describes exactly what said plants are. She creates an atmosphere for the reader by expanding on her poem in the footnotes, which provides a vivid description of Jamaica. On the following page, she supplements the poem by describing a slave’s serious despair, “The wretched Negro, fearing punishment, or driven to despair by continual labour, often secretes himself in these obscure recesses, and preys in his turn on his oppressor at the hazard of his life.” (page 205) With a clear picture of Jamaica painted into the reader’s mind, one can feel the pain and misery of the slave. Without this information provided in the footnote, the reader would not be entirely sure of Smith’s intention in writing the poem. In line 27 she mentions “the sighing Slave”, but without the notes, the severity of the slave’s downtrodden condition is not made entirely clear. Smith continues to incorporate scientific notes about Jamaica, making a distinct connection between animals such as the bat and the slave. She writes, “broods the giant bat, on dark funereal wing.” (ll. 24) Her note on the bat informs the reader that this bat can be found in gullies or caverns, a dark secluded area hidden from the rest of the world. Like the slave, this bat is large in size, but despite his supposed power, he must hide away in the dark. It is with the assistance of footnotes that the reader can truly grasp the author’s intention.

Robert Southey is another author that relies on the inclusion of footnotes in a work of literature. In Thalaba the Destroyer, Southey goes above and beyond in regards to footnotes, as there are many pages with a mere one line of poetry and three paragraphs of notes. One might argue that Southey perhaps outdid himself here, and with the inclusion of such extensive notes, he really took away from the poem itself. While there may be some truth to this argument, we must remember that the author provides footnotes in an attempt to write a more complete and full text. Shari Benstock in an essay on footnotes states, “The notes allow the writer to anticipate the readers’ needs, to answer potential questions, to hedge whatever bets the critical discourse may have made. They allow the writer to step outside the critical discourse and comment on it from a perspective that may be different from (and in a voice that may be separate from) that established in the text.” Thalaba is a text that Southey wrote with the intention to describe various myths and superstitions that are prevalent in the Islamic culture. It is an epic poem of magical and fantastical elements, but it is also a somewhat historical poem in that Southey informs the reader of myths that are a reality to those of the Islamic faith. In the class presentation about Southey, the presenters informed the class of the poor reception Thalaba received. Critics believed the incorporation of the Islamic myths complicated the poem and hindered it from flowing, as a well-written poem should. The footnotes may slightly get in the way of the poem, but you must remember that the author included the extensive notes for a reason. Without the notes, readers would not be aware of the particular myths or superstitions that Southey is referencing and the entire meaning of the poem would be vastly different.

The “Preface” written by Wordsworth does not have extensive footnotes, but it was written with similar intentions of footnotes- to further explain the purpose for writing, and to connect with the reader on a level of intention. The “Preface” is included in the Lyrical Ballads as a sort of clarifier and in depth look into the mind of William Wordsworth. He doesn’t include scientific facts or myths like Darwin, Smith or Southey, but he does give insight into his intentions for writing which helps the reader better understand his poetry. Many have argued that the “Preface” is far too lengthy and really doesn’t assist one in the reading of Wordsworth, but it seems to me to be an excellent resource in the deciphering of a large collection of poetry. It is interesting to hear directly from the poet his theory and beliefs on writing the very poetry you are reading. “I have said that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it take its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquility gradually disappears…” (page 183) The “Preface” acts as a seventeen-page footnote to the entire book of the Lyrical Ballads. It intends to clear up questions about certain poems in the book and expands on Wordsworth’s own philosophy behind writing poetry.

The footnotes in the texts we have read during this semester played a major part in the way we discussed and understood the texts. Footnotes are a chance to look directly into the mind of an author, to better comprehend what the author was hoping to express in his or her literature.  “Footnotes in a literary work highlight the interplay between author and subject, text and reader, that is always at work in fiction, giving us occasion to speculate on self-reflective narration as an aspect of textual authority.” (Benstock 204) Without the long and exhaustive footnotes of Southey, Darwin, and the wordy Wordsworth, we would have a far more difficult and less accurate time analyzing literature.

I included the portraits of Darwin and Southey because they both looked so contemplative, as if they were pondering what to include in the actual text and what to supplement it with in the footnotes. Darwin appears daunting with his quill as if he is about to write some perverted botany poem. Southey looks almost depressed like he might be torn between how much myth and superstition he should include in his poem.

Works Cited

Smith, Charlotte. "To the Fire-Fly of Jamaica, Seen in a Collection." The Poems of Charlotte Smith. Ed. Stuart Curran. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. 204-07. Print.

Wordsworth, William, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads 1798 and 1800. Ed. Dahlia Porter and Michael Gamer. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2008. Print.

Darwin, Erasmus. "The Botanic Garden: The Loves of Plants." Google Books.  Web. 9 Dec. 2012.

Southey, Robert. "Thalaba the Destroyer." Google Books. Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, Web. 9 Dec. 2012.

Benstock, Shari. "At the Margin of Discourse: Footnotes in the Fictional Text." PMLA 98.2 (1983): 204-25. Print.

"Footnotes." The Burlington Magazine 108.759 (1966): 285. Print.