Romantic reflection

The above images are taken from J.M.W. Turner and Philippe de Loutherbourg, respectively. These two portraits visualize differences in perception. The same location offers a familiar, but ultimately different set of feelings and emotions for both artists. Despite the differences in their paintings, neither is incorrect in their vision. The same idea can be applied to Romantic poetry. Each Romantic relayed memories that were relative to the individual. 

Throughout the course, we have discussed how many Romantic poets focused their work on memories and emotions. In terms of memory, many Romantics attempted characterized these memories in terms of nature, history, and the individual themselves. Romantic poets such as John Clare, Charlotte Smith, and especially William Wordsworth relied on the use of reflection to explore this topic. They suggested that enlightenment, knowledge and personal growth stem from reflection upon memories. A common trend among these writers was the exploration of this phenomenon thorough childhood. More specifically, they explored the process of reflection in relation to childhood memories. These memories hold power over the individual and have the ability to shape and define one’s self. Ultimately, as the texts will show, the same process is used to come to different results. Clare, Smith and Wordsworth all understood how reflection and childhood related to the individual. 

To understand how Romantic poets attempted to explain the importance of memories, it is important to understand how individual memories offer differentiating points-of-view. One can witness this occurrence before the Romantic period. From early on, we saw how memories affected non-Romantic writers with the Endeavor journals. For example, look at any one journal entry here and you can see the difference from person to person. “Fullmetal Marinna” points out in her post, “The entries of this voyage are nothing more than collections of memories and experiences. What each author chooses to divulge and how he chooses to communicate it is highly indicative of their positions.” This idea is important to understanding how memories operate to each respected poet. The most prolific poet that attempted to theorize this idea with poetry was Wordsworth. 

Romantic poets had an intimate relationship with memories. Beth Lau explains in her article “Wordsworth and Current Memory Research,” that “many of [Wordsworth’s] best-known poems, such as ‘Tintern Abbey’ and the ‘Intimations Ode,’ directly explore the workings of memory as the speaker in each compares his present self to an earlier self and struggles to come to terms with what has been lost and what gained with the passage of time.” Wordsworth was fascinated by memories and based a majority of his writing on this idea. He thought poetry and memories functioned as one, as he explains in the preface of the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads:

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, similar to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. (Wordsworth 183)

Wordsworth hypothesizes that poetry derives from reflection of memories. Reflection is the key to understanding emotions. This theory is best reflected in Wordsworth’s poem “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.”

From the very first few lines (lines 1-2) in “Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth signals that this poem is a reflection: “Five years have passed; five summers, with the length of five long winters!” This gives the poem poignancy throughout, as Wordsworth is essentially reliving these emotions all over again. These emotions come to ahead in lines 138-142, where Wordsworth confesses that “…in after years/When these wild ecstasies shall be matured/Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind/Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms/Thy memory be as a dwelling place/For all sweet sounds and harmonies..." As “Ali Cat” explains: “I felt as if I was looking through a filter at Tintern Abbey, and it was beautiful. Everything becomes more clear when you are able to visualize it from the distance.” The filter here represents reflection, or in Wordsworth words, the point after “tranquility gradually disappears.”  Through “Tintern Abbey” we are able to visualize Wordsworth relaying Tintern Abbey through nature, history and himself and produce an emotional memory. As we will see in the next three poems, memories play a different role when reflecting upon childhood. 

In John Clare’s “Recollections after a Ramble,” Clare “rambles” through feelings while recollecting nature. However, it is only towards the end where the audience can begin to see Clare’s point. One particular sonnet (lines 225-232) bares closer examination. Clare, who grew up in a rural surrounding, uses nature to unlock his memories. This particular sonnet starts by introducing Clare in retrospection, “signed and smild/musing ‘tween a joy and pain” (Clare, lines 226-227). His simple, yet grammatically-incorrect sentences were not an editing error. By going back to a time before he was educated, Clare is inviting the audience into his mind. These feelings and experiences Clare felt were beyond words at this particular moment in time. As “Fullmetal Marina” states in her post, “There is a child-like wonder about the life (life other than humans) Nature holds in Clare's poems.” Upon looking back at how he “acted when a child” (line 228), Clare compares his falling into the brooks like falling “direct to heaven” (lines 231-232). Nature had a positive effect on Clare, despite his feelings ranging between joy and pain. Clare suggests that reflecting upon childhood and nature can be a positive experience. 

Similarly, Charlotte Smith uses childhood as the bases for her sonnet “The glow-worm.” Like Clare, she uses language to lure the audience into a child’s perspective. The words “balmy-breathing” in the first line turn into simpler words (“to whom the world is new”) in the second line (lines 1-2). This transition to from complex and descriptive alliteration to an arguable overly-wordy sentence marks the change of perception. Smith continues to allow readers to experience childlike emotions in the subsequent lines. Lines such as “The brilliant Glow-worm, like a meteor, shine/On the turd-bank;— amazed, and pleased he cries/ ‘Star of the dewy grass!—I make thee mine!” (6-8) direct the audience to feel the child’s excitement. However, Smith snatches away this excitement by the sonnet’s conclusion. As the aforementioned glow-worm lays dead, the child’s “lucid treasure, rayless as the dust!/—So turn the world’s bright joys to cold and blank disgust” (13-14), this sonnet takes a dark turn. Clare does not share the idea that childhood reflection is a positive experience.  One cannot ignore the fact that childhood sometimes contains grim moments. Smith lures her audience in with expectations of nostalgia, and snatches it away just as quickly. As her sonnet claims, reality is not a place of “musing ‘tween a joy and pain.” For Smith, there is no use finding happiness in earlier times.

And yet, as Wordsworth suggest, there is room for both theories to be correct. Eric Gidal in his article “Wordsworth’s Art of Memory” explains that when Wordsworth “turns to his autobiographical identity, exhibiting his very memory itself as a formal structure, guidebook and museum are joined and the dialogue between complaint and amelioration moves from a means of discursive existence to a production of the very form itself.” “The Prelude” was the introduction to Wordsworth’s never-fully-realized “Recluse.” In the 1800 edition of “The Prelude” (see page viii here), Wordsworth explains that he intended to “compose a philosophical Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society…as having for its principal subject, the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.” So why would a poet so focused on creating a philosophical poem dedicate a good portion of the text to his own childhood?

From early on (lines 12-14), Wordsworth brings together poignancy with consequences. Wordsworth states: “To more than infant softness, giving me/Among the fretful dwelling of mankind/A knowledge, a dim earnest of the calm/Which Nature breathes among the field and groves?” “Zombie Princess” suggests on her post that Wordsworth “seems to say that children, who are full of innocence, see the good in the things that occur but even when things go bad and are ‘fretful,’ nature is a place to escape that will help. The power of memory and the effect nature can have on it remains a strong theme for Wordsworth.”  Much like Clare, Wordsworth’s reflects nature and childhood as a place of solace and growth. However, much like Smith, a child’s mind can be a place of darkness as well. Wordsworth continues on and describes how in act of doing something bad, “I heard among the solitary hills/Low breathings coming after me, and sounds/Of undistinguishable motion, steps/Almost as silent as the turf they trod” (lines 46-49). Nature, a place once revered as innocent as a child, is now given terrifying personification. The specific detail of the hills “stepping,” or in a sense, chasing Wordsworth seemed to stay in his memory. That is not to say that nature has lost all its innocence, but it’s now revered as a force of authority. These particular lines set the tone for the rest of the poem. Putting these lines at the beginning of this philosophical epic is intentional. Not only do they, set up the tone for the rest of the poem, but they set the tone for the rest of Wordsworth’s life. 

Much like Clare’s recollection of nature or the death of the glow-worm, Wordsworth understands that personal growth requires both the light and the dark. You cannot have one extreme without the other. While the results are vastly different, there is really no wrong answer to this question. The beauty of Romanticism is that all these theories are correct, depending on how one views them. An overly optimistic view is necessary for Clare; a more pessimistic perspective is needed for Smith; while a little of both is needed for Wordsworth. However, all three poets would agree that perception, reflection, and childhood are all invariably connected. We still look to the past to learn about the present and the future. If Romanticism teaches anything, it is that the power of nostalgia cannot be denied.

Works Cited:

Clare, John. Major Works. Ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
Gidal, Eric. "Wordsworth's Art of Memory." Studies in Romanticism 37.3 (1998): 445-75. Print.

Lau, Beth. "Wordsworth and Current Memory Research." SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 42.4 (2002): 675-92. Print.

Smith, Charlotte. The Poems of Charlotte Smith. Ed. Stuart Curran. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. Print.

Wordsworth, William, and Jonathan Wordsworth. The Prelude 1799, 1805, 1950. [S.l.]: Norton, 1979. Print.

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

What if?

It seems to me that Wordsworth's "Prelude" and the never-realized "Recluse," was supposed to be the culmination of everything we've studied in class this semester. In his (seemingly) ultimate project, Wordsworth desired to recall himself as a poet in terms of nature, history, and his own sense of being. The publication history in itself is fascinating. In the 1850 introduction, he claims that he wanted "to compose a philosophical Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society, and to be entitled the Recluse; as having for its principal subject, the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement." This project shadowed Wordsworth since he was in his 20s, and still was never fully finished. It's hard to imagine what the completed work would have been like. Yet we are only left a fraction of the bigger picture. While that fraction is a somewhat culmination of what we have discussed all year round, we readers can definitely tell that bigger plans were at work. 

Childhood and Nature

“To more than infant softness, giving me, /Among the fretful dwelling of mankind. /A knowledge, a dim earnest of the calm/Which nature breathes among the field and groves?” (11-15).

Wordsworth begins the poem discussing childhood and the memories connected with it. In the quote above he seems to say that children, who are full of innocence, see the good in the things that occur but even when things go bad and are "fretful" nature is a place to escape that will help. The power of memory and the effect nature can have on it remains a strong theme for Wordsworth (think Tintern Abbey).

The power of not only remembering but of making the memory is quite important to Wordsworth. In this work he is remembering his childhood in the Lake District of England.

"And ye that are familiars of the lakes/And of the standing pools, I may not think/A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed/Such ministry"
As when he recalled the hill above Tintern Abbey here he is using his memory of the lake to make his life/situation better. Can nature really help ease the trials of life? Can a memory of some place you've been make a grey day better? I guess it all depends on where you've been and if you've any memories that are that strong.

I am not the biggest fan of this poem. I appreciate it a little more after the discussion in class on Tuesday--the way Byron used the breaks in the poem is absolutely clever and fascinating. What I have a hard time relating to is the heavy emphasis on historical context. I don't know why, but this poem was one of the first ones that I felt was never intended for me to read or really understand, like some esoteric anachronism that is somewhat beheld because of the emphasis on Byron's name. I don't know if I'm making any sense (I took the GRE today and I completely useless now), but this poem felt dense, but not in the, "OH MY GOSH, there is some hidden meaning in the poem and I just got it and now everything makes sense" sense. More heavy than dense, like the implications of the three roles and their corresponding countries of origin (which I'm interested to hear more about tomorrow), and the obvious, but complicated context that weighs the poem down. Since we're in the section on collecting the poet, I'm really interested to see how "The Giaour" corresponds to Byron's life. 
This poem reminded me a lot about a component in Aristotle's aesthetic argument where he claims that poetry is more philosophical and serious than history because poetry deals with universals while history deals with particulars. In his "Poetics," he also nullifies any poetry to be even labeled as poetry when it deals with history. I felt that sense while reading "The Giaour." It didn't feel like a poem to me. It had the same mood/tone as that one Charlotte Smith poem that we read, the one that was laced with historical references (which I did not enjoy). I think that may be in part to my lack of knowledge in the world of poetry, but that was my initial reaction. Like I said earlier, I'm interested to hear more about it. I can always count on the lectures to completely change my initial dislike for certain poems. 

Wordsworth's Method

I’m a philosophy major, so excuse me for brining this up…but…Wordsworth’s approach to spontaneity is strikingly similar to Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological program. I’m pretty new to phenomenology, but, the general idea, as I understand it, is to focus on a phenomenon, which could be anything, and painstakingly describe the reciprocal relationship it has with human consciousness, the goal being to deduce the most fundamental essence of that phenomenon. According to Husserl, this is the only way for us to know anything with certainty. It reduces things down to their concrete existences, their concrete essences. Wordsworth seems to be aiming at the very same goal, only with respect to our emotional experiences rather than external phenomenon. I assume Wordsworth’s desire is to take his readers back to the very phenomenon of experience through this hyper analytic methodology.

I like my poetry, and my writing, as unclouded as possible. In other words, I think accessible writing is generally good writing. This doesn’t preclude depth. Dostoyevsky’s style is accessible and easy to follow, but thematically, his novels push the envelope quite far. So I naturally think Wordsworth’s approach is more than a little forced. 

"The Preface" is counter-productive

After re-reading the preface, I feel like exploring Wordsworth's supposed "process of composition," since it was the hardest for me to pinpoint what his process actually entails. From what I could gather, it consists of 4 parts: perception/inspiration, recollection, analyzing that recollection and finally writing about that perception. According to Wordsworth, it's during this recollection phase that you can analyze your inspiration and realize the emotion you felt, but by doing this, doesn't that take away from the spontaneous aspect of emotion? If you sit and contemplate your emotions before writing about them, the end result is probably different from that of the original one. This brings up numerous inquiries, such as how spontaneous is Wordsworth experience at Tinturn Abbey if he sat and pondered this emotion for several hours, maybe even days? How accurate is the emotion he felt in that moment at Tinturn Abbey if he had to put his emotions into context? It's like waking up from a dream and attempting to recollect it later on: chances are, if you don't write down what you just experienced as you awoke, you're going to miss some key elements. And that's how I feel reading now reading the Lyrical Ballads with the preface.

Preface and "True Meaning"

Often, when I tell people about what I'm studying, they immediately begin complaining about that one English teacher in high school who bugged them all about "what the author really meant here." For once, with Wordsworth's preface, this is something that we can actually revert to when we are lost on what a poem or a passage "really means." I am of the firm belief that more often than not, people (myself included) tend to read further into something than is actually necessary. While we may glean new and exciting information or theories about our subject, it may not always be pertinent to the author's original intent. For once, that engineer that lives a few doors down could be right in saying, "What if the author just meant exactly what he said?" With Wordsworth's Preface, we have so much more insight than with most other major works and it allows us to move in a more positive direction than usual.

Keats and the phenomenon of feelings

John Keats, much like Wordsworth and other Romantic writers, is masterful in describing the suddenness of epiphanies. It's hard to explain true emotions in their most purest form, yet somehow Keats is able to effectively show how great art can move an individual, whether that be positive or negative. It's also revealing how so much can pass through one's mind and emotions in a matter of seconds. How writers like Keats are able to capture this moment in such an eloquent matter is beyond my comprehension. Mortality is a hard realization for any person to truly accept, and it's almost heartbreaking to see Keats reaction. Yet how ironic is it to read Keats' work today, with it still being relevant and revered, and see ideas, like fears of being forgotten, become conquered.

Smith's "Beachy Head"

It seems as though Smith is experimenting with her writing style a bit with "Beachy Head"- it differs quite a bit from her sonnets by using a narrative technique. I think the fragmentation and thus the notion of wandering is well established and by using this fragmented style, Smith frees herself from the bounds of time. I love the description of the cliff and the "chalky clefts"-I think portrays the sublime really well. I thought, and maybe I'm wrong, that Smith plays with reality and the ornamental and extravagant (what is actually there and what is made-up memory). The stanza below further establishes the idea of wandering, because not only is the reader wandering through a sublime setting, but also a mind that wanders. 

"...the floating clouds
Suspended, move upon the evening gale,
And gathering round his orb, as if to shade
The insufferable brightness, they resign
Their gauzy whiteness; and more warm’d assume
All hues of purple. There, transparent gold
Mingles with ruby tints, and sapphire gleams,
And colours, such as Nature through her works
Shew only in the ethereal canopy."

Presentation on John Clare and "The Rural Muse"

Who was John Clare?

•  “The son of Parker and Ann Stimson Clare, both impoverished farm laborers, Clare was born on July 13, 1793, in the rural village of Helpston, Northamptonshire, England, approximately eighty miles north of London.
 

Seriously! I <3 thatched roof cottages!!!

 

•  Because he had to work on the farm to help support his family, Clare attended school only three months a year, he attended school in Glinton church until he was twelve.

•  Pot-boy in the Blue Bell public house
•  Gardner at Burghley house 
• Enlisted in the militia
•  Tried camp life with Gypsies 
• Worked in Pickworth as a lime burner
•  Before writing he was forced to accept parish relief

This is the asylum Clare was a  patient at

Later Life and Death

•  In July 1837 Clare admitted himself to Dr. Matthew Allen’s private asylum High Beach
•  During his first few years Clare re-wrote famous poems and sonnets by Lord Byron. He also took credit for Shakespeare’s plays. He told a newspaper editor “I’m John Clare now. I was Byron and Shakespeare formerly.” 
•  Released in 1841 but sometime between Christmas and New Year was committed to the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum (now St. Andrew’s Hospital)
•  On the intake paperwork when asked “Was the insanity preceded by any severe or long-continued mental emotion or exertion? The doctor entered: “After years of poetical prosing.”
•  He died on May 20, 1864 at the age of 70

Clare and Captain Jean Luc!

Poetry

•   After purchasing a copy of Thomson’s Seasons Clare began to write sonnets which he offered for sale to a local bookseller named Edward Drury
•  Drury sent this to his cousin, John Taylor of the publishing firm Taylor & Hessey
•  First book of poetry Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery in 1820
•  This book was highly praised and Village Minstrel and other Poems was published the next year.
• Clare was known as “the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet”
•  Many poems use local dialect ex. ‘pooty’ (snail), ‘ladycow’ (ladybug), ‘crizzle’ (to crisp), and ‘throstle’ (song thrush)
•  Early work deals mostly with nature and the cycle of the year.
•  He often used sonnets and rhyming couplets
•  “His knowledge of the natural world went far beyond that of the major Romantic poets. [Some of his] poems… show a metaphysical depth on a par with his contemporary poets.”

The Rural Muse (1835)

• Clare’s last work
•  While noticed favorably by Christopher North and other reviewer it was still not enough to support his wife and seven children

Context

•  The early 19th Century was a period of rough economic times for publishers and authors alike because of “the great panic of 1825.”
• The cost of books rose to the highest it had ever been.
•  Competition in the market forced many authors to provide their own funding for their works or to publish on commission.
•   The publication of poetry dwindled after the turn of the century due to the increasing popularity of novels.
•  The market for “new verse” was virtually nonexistent Few poets published second editions during this time.

Publication and Reception

•   Published in 1835 by Whittaker and Company (London)
•  Published with punctuation despite Clare's wishes.
• The Rural Muse sold poorly like much of Clare's other work. 
•  “The season has been a very bad one for new books, and I am afraid the time has passed away in which poetry will answer...”

The largest collection of original manuscripts are located at the Peterborough Museum

Websites used for information
 http://johnclaresociety.blogspot.com/
 http://www.poemhunter.com/john-clare/

I found John Clare's poems very relatable. Like Wordsworth, Clare speaks (prominently in "Reccolections after a Ramble") of revisiting a place from the past. I don't know if I missed something or not, but I felt like Clare's poetry wasn't as dense. I read it and I understood it. I don't want to come across as unappreciative of Clare's work (because I felt there was a certain beauty to the poems and his wonderful diction), but the poems felt very physical and very surface, with not many retrospective philosophical components. This felt like what Wordsworth was doing, but to a different audience. Perhaps a lower, less educated class? Perhaps someone who experiences the same Nature, but doesn't necessarily think about the rain or the forest in the particular way Clare describes it in "Reccolections after a Ramble." Because the one thing that makes me think it could be for a higher educational level audience was his diction, but I don't think that this is a fair assumption; I don't know what words lower class people in Clare's time knew. Another thing I found interesting was Clare's complete lack of punctuation in all of his poems. I found myself creating my own sentences and my own rhythm. I'm wondering if this was intentional. Because unlike Bowles, Clare's lack of punctuation between stanzas (and frankly, in them as well) wasn't awkward.

There is a child-like wonder about the life (life other than humans) Nature holds in Clare's poems. This makes me think that the poems were intended for someone in the lower class, someone who has a desire to commune with Nature and goes about it in this way. The poems don't speak of extravagant trips or faraway lands. They explore the beauty of the everyday, the rain, a nightingale and her nest, the forest, all places that everyone has access to, but places that only people who don't have money to entertain themselves otherwise.

Another thing I noticed was that the speaker of the poems always entered the poem at a very surprising time and seemed ill-fitting, like they didn't belong there--much like the fact that human life doesn't seem to quite fit in with Nature. This is particularly evident in "The Badger," where men are mentioned more, but only kill the badger, a part of Nature.

But I really liked Clare, especially "The Nightingales Nest."

P.S. Is it just me or did every link on the blog change to an assaulting shade of blue? I like blue, but the shade makes the titles impossible to read; they won't focus and they hurt my eyes (as petty as that sounds, haha). It could just be my computer, but I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this.

The Beauty of Nostalgia

I think that the most resounding element of this poem is the reality of nostalgia. Personally, I feel as if every time I look back at something through the filter of time, even if it was bad, I can see it with a somewhat positive mindset. In "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey" we are reminded of the beauty of the romantic period through the reminiscence of Wordsworth. The imagery in this poem paints a picture that completely immerses the reader into the setting of the poem, and just like someone looking back on a memory, I felt as if I was looking through a filter at Tintern Abbey, and it was beautiful. Everything because more clear when you are able to visualize it from the distance. 

Bittersweet Memory

The theme of nature as beneficial influence seems to be very present in Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey". It seems as if Wordsworth uses nature in his poems to evoke emotions, desires, memories, etc. from human kind. This being said, the speaker in "Tintern Abbey" alleviates his pain and loneliness through his memories of nature. Wordsworth writes:
   "Thy memory be as a dwelling place
    For all sweet sounds and harmonies."

The speaker is first in agreement with nature and its purity as a child. Adulthood brings forth a different kind of communion, however. Nature is looked upon in relation to mankind and human life-its almost bittersweet. Nature and the memory of nature throughout the speaker's childhood is still dear to the him because it holds his purest thoughts and the basis of his morality. 

Wordsworths and the idea of powerful memories

A particular quote that stuck out to me while reading Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" comes from lines 138-142:

"...and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies..."

From all the texts we have read so far, we've seen authors turn nature personified, sexualized, and exaggerated to get across their appreciation for nature, and the relationship it shares with human beings. Yet the author's feelings in all of those texts were never as explicit or as passionate as it was here in Wordsworth's poem. Here, the poem is not even particularly about nature itself, but how it's profound beauty has affected Wordsworth. The particular quote stuck out to me, because Wordsworth is absolutely right about strong feelings standing the test of time in one's mind. In life, only the greatest of feelings--good or bad--pass the test of time and carry on with you for the rest of your life. Wordsworth's poignant experience probably lingered with him for the rest of his life. More than 200 years later, his beautiful writing has allowed readers to be taken directly into his mind and his heart.

A theme I saw in the readings for today (Tuesday, September 11th) is how personal passion ultimately affects the significance of a collection. The entries of this voyage are nothing more than collections of memories and experiences. What each author chooses to divulge and how he chooses to communicate it is highly indicative of their positions. For example, Captain James Cook's entries were all reflective of his role; he wrote about the things that directly affected him. His entries were highly numerical and were littered with short-handed code for cardinal directions and off-handed descriptions of weather, all things a captain should be concerned with. For Banks, his entries were highly descriptive and focused more on the aesthetic quality of the trip; replacing Cook’s numbers were Latin names for plants and romantic, flowing descriptions of the landscape. Lastly, in Parkinson’s journal, there is a similarity with Banks, but there is more of an anthropologic focus. I found it extremely significant that for these three men, their journey becomes their collection. Their perception and what they choose to be significant are what eventually composes their individual collections, collections that each gathered from the same trip and that are ultimately significant only to each individual author.