[ttha-potm] Dead Creeds.

[Barbara Gates]

I am sure that Gossin discusses this.
Barbara Gates
University of Delaware
>
>> I recall somewhere, perhaps in Gossin, that Hardy knew of Herschel 
>> and the new nineteenth-century experiments in light (and astronomy) 
>> but I can't think how or where right now. I love it that "lit" and 
>> light" play in various "spectrum" (spectral) forms throught this poem 
>> (thanks Bill). I also think it a "cautiously optimistic" (great 
>> phrase)  poem. I had earlier come up with light/enlightenment -- but 
>> I can't really remember why. Maybe a lingering idea at the back of my 
>> mind - but it befits the lit/light/bright sense of the poem and 
>> perhaps TH also had a sort of back-of-his mind idea of this when he 
>> wrote given that The Enlightment proper was a relatively recent 
>> period in his own history -- with its aspirations to freedom for 
>> common people, their natural rights, natural law, scientific law as 
>> opposed to the old creeds promoted by the ancient theocracies and 
>> oligarchies. (He was born, after all, only 50 years or so after the 
>> two great Revolutions for Independence and all that jazz)
>
> Cheers
> Rosemarie
>
>> I think this is a cautiously optimistic poem. I certainly didn't 
>> think so as I read the title. Yet the unworried opening phrase, "I 
>> lit", (neatly ambiguous),  radiates through the whole poem and 
>> perhaps carries a reminder of how scientists so often work 
>> adventitiously with amazing results.
>>
>> Bill
>
>
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