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.
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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.
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