The Longhorns/Mustangs

“The Longhorns” offers a unique narrative that depicts the longhorn as being emancipated from human-created institutions. When the longhorns lived in their natural habitat, “they knew not their masters and would not be led to the slaughter block” (113). Moreover, they “followed the law of the wild, the stark give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death law against tyranny” (113). Most fascinating about this passage is the author’s usage of anthropocentric analogies in order to describe the freedom achieved by animals living in the wild. Rather than being associated with the notion of freedom advocated in liberal democracy (perhaps with a Gandhi or MLK reference), the freedom of the longhorn is associated with political radicalism.

Moreover, another fascinating distinction created by the passage is the agent of resistance against power structures. Diverging from the attempts by PETA and the ALF to protect animals, the author instead describes the longhorns’ freedom from the State and the slaughterhouse as being an autonomous choice made by the animal. No longer dependent on humans to sustain a livelihood, this narrative offers a radical vision of the longhorns’ existence in nature as being analogous to a revolutionary political act. By turning the question of agency on its head, humans are therefore able to notice traits within animals that could reconfigure their own personal convictions and behavior.

One problem that I had with reading all of the assigned pieces, however, was relating to the cultural references. Although I’ve lived in the south the entirety of my life, it has always been within a suburban setting. Cultural narratives about longhorns and mustangs seem like a distant memory from my standpoint. Although Sadie already discussed the statement in “The Mustangs” that “a thing of beauty will never pass into nothingness,” I would like to focus more on the preceding context of that statement. The author draws this conclusion after remembering, “though only through report, the seas of pristine grass that my forefathers rode out upon while the flowing vitality and grace of wild horses were still inherent properties of the earth” (xvi). Dobie’s notion of a memory is initially problematic. How can one remember an event that he or she didn’t directly experience?

Dobie searches through his ancestry to develop a connection with his place of dwelling. I can actually relate to this concept, considering many of my ancestors were farmers in southern America. My blood bond with the soil is formulated through my blood ties rather than my own personal blood and sweat. The faceless figures of my heritage that literally constitute my existence (in a genetic sense) existed only insofar as the environment allowed them to. Facing the Dust Bowl in rural Oklahoma must have epitomized such a chaotic relationship with the environment. By acknowledging that the precarity of my own existence as invested in my ancestors’ (for if they had died, would I be?), I can begin to formulate my own relationship with such inherent properties of the earth and affirm that my very existence prolongs this beauty.

"The Windhover" Part 2

I made this post on the FB group, but just wanted to put it here as well:

I wanted to post again to draw distinctions between the depiction of animals in “The Windhover” and in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. After Alice encounters a clan of animals early in the book, Alice mentions how her pet could eat all of the animals present. In response, “some of the birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking, “I really must be getting home: the night-air doesn’t suit my throat!” and a Canary called out in a trembling voice to its children, “Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in bed!” On various pretexts they all moved off” (Carroll 53). Clearly the birds are portrayed as cowardly and comical, which is vastly different from the “daylight’s dauphin” featured in the Hopkins poem. The majesty associated with the falcon in “The Windhover” (as described in my previous post regarding Christ) shows an entirely different depiction of animals.

"The Windhover" by Gerard Hopkins

Although Allison argued that Hopkins’s use of the word “down” at the beginning of the last stanza describes the direction of the bird’s flight, I think it’s useful to consider a different interpretation of the word. Professor English at Franklin Pierce College Nathan Cervo argued that “down” in this context could refer to the soft fluffy feathers that exist “under the ordinary feathers of adult birds” (Cervo 1978, 80). Such a distinction is obviously not mere semantics. Rather, this enhances the meaning of the phrase “makes plough down sillion” because it lends itself to imagery depicting the bird’s feathers being ruffled as it ploughs through the wind. The bird’s mature outward feathers are pushed aside as the “big wind” rebuffs to reveal the soft feathers that covered the bird as a child, further complicating the depiction of the bird.

I like Erik’s deployment of the Christ analogy, and I think that the analogy can be developed further. William Quinn of the University of Arkansas notes the equestrian connotations of line 4 (Quinn 1983, 8-19). The speaker observes “how he run upon the rein of a wimpling wind.” This seems to be a reference to the famed story of Christ entering Jerusalem upon a donkey on Palm Sunday. Such an interpretation also provides further meaning to words such as “chevalier,” which in this context means a knight. I personally agree that “The Windhover” contains a significant amount of Christ metaphors that contribute to the overall meaning of the poem.

Works Cited

Cervo, Nathan. “A Reading of “Plough Down Sillion Shine”.” The Hopkins Quarterly V (1978): 80.

Quinn, William. “The Crux of “The Windhover”.” The Hopkins Quarterly X (1983: 8-19.