Professor Borges - A Course on English Literature

Thomas Quincey (1785–1859), known as De Quincey, British writer.
3. Borges is probably remembering lines 238–68 of
The Recluse, Part First, Book First, Home at Grasmere
. Wordsworth writes: “... But two are missing, two, a lonely pair / Of milk-white Swans; wherefore are they not seen / Partaking this day’s pleasure,” then offers the explanation of the Dalesmen’s tube as a possible explanation.
4. The sonnet is titled “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” from September 3, 1802. “Earth has not anything to show more fair: / Dull would he be of soul who could pass by / A sight so touching in its majesty: / This City now doth, like a garment, wear / The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, / Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie / Open unto the fields, and to the sky; / All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. / Never did sun more beautifully steep / In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; / Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! / The river glideth at his own sweet will: / Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; /
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
”
5. The untitled sonnet begins with the line, “With shops the sea was sprinkled far and nigh.” Borges quotes from this poem again toward the end of the class. See note 13 for the entire sonnet.
6. The poem was composed between 1802 and 1806 and first published in 1807. Borges quotes from the fourth line, which actually reads “The glory and the freshness of a dream,” inadvertently changing the order of the words. We mustn’t forget that he is speaking from memory, without notes.
7. The passage is in the fifth, not second book.
8. Borges does not finish the sentence.
9. The title of the poem is “The Solitary Reaper,” and was written between 1803 and 1805 and published in 1807. The text reads as follows: “Behold her, single in the field, / Yon solitary Highland Lass! / Reaping and singing by herself; / Stop here, or gently pass! / Alone she cuts and binds the grain, / And sings a melancholy strain; / O listen! for the Vale profound / Is overflowing with the sound. // No Nightingale did ever chaunt / More welcome notes to weary bands / Of travellers in some shady haunt, / Among Arabian sands: / A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard / In springtime from the Cuckoo-bird, / Breaking the silence of the seas / Among the farthest Hebrides. // Will no one tell me what she sings?— / Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow / For old, unhappy, far-off things, / And battles long ago: / Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? / Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, / That has been, and may be again? // Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang / As if her song could have no ending; / I saw her singing at her work, / And o’er the sickle bending;— / I listened, motionless and still; / And, as I mounted up the hill / The music in my heart I bore, / Long after it was heard no more.”
10. The sonnet, titled “November, 1806,” was written in 1806 and published the following year. It reads as follows: “Another year!—another deadly blow! / Another mighty Empire overthrown! / And We are left, or shall be left, alone / The last that dare to struggle with the Foes. / ‘Tis well! from this day forward we shall know / That in ourselves our safety must be sought; / That by our own right hands it must be wrought; / That we must stand un propped, or be laid low. / O dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer! / We shall exult, if they who rule the land / Be men who hold its many blessings dear, / Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band, / Who are to judge of danger which they fear, / And honour which they do not understand.”
11. Borges is remembering lines 58–63 of “Book Third” of
The Prelude
: “And from my pillow, looking forth by light / Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold / The antechapel where the statue stood / Of Newton with his prism and silent face, / The marble index of a mind for ever / Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.”
12. See note 1.
13. This line comes from Wordsworth’s untitled sonnet mentioned in note 7 in this same class: “With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh, / Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed; / Some lying fast at anchor in the road, / Some veering up and down, one knew not why. / A goodly Vessel did I then espy / Come like a Giant from a haven broad; / And lustily along the bay she strode, / Her tackling rich, and of apparel high. / The