Class Discussion Notes: 10.6.2005

 

  • (Thomas) the mystery- “everything is but nobody knows what it is or how it came to be”; Hopkins felt the mystery- the janitor at school thought he was retarded

 

  • Bump chose nature to study because it was “his mother”—at first he was going to study Wordsworth, but then he decided on Hopkins

 

  • terrifying for an Englishman to think of religious conversion for political reasons---Catholicism enforced more strongly the “real presence”—bread and wine

 

  • how would it change you to go through everyday feeling everything is sacred?  it would be a radical transformation of your perspective and feelings—literature can put us in the place of people from different places and times which can set you free

 

  • live in the moment

 

  • (Rachel) “experience itself is the end”—move out of adolescence—cultivate finer senses—be able to look at the world and really see it

 

  • what is eternity?  what is infinity?

 

  • what is an epiphany? 
    • a revelation
    • moment of clarity
    • in greek- “manifestation of a divinity”