Monday, February 4, 2008

Lord Chandos

Lord Chandos is upset because he has lost his ability to express himself. This starts out as him not being able to speak or write or think in the manner that he is used to. It is clear from the letter that he has not lost the ability to write or his ability to use language. Yet, he has lost his ability to use language in the way that he most desires to use it, to write poetry. I think that this is mostly an ethical problem for Chandos, but as well as a psychological one. Ethically because he cannot write poetry anymore in the same way that he used to and if he were to continue to write it would be a "lie". His poetry would not be true to his heart anymore and he would be faking the poetry that he would be able to conjure up. Since Chandos would be no longer be able to write poetry in a way to truely express himself, any poetry he did write would not be true, and therefore a lie. I think if you look at this as a slightly less deep subject you can see a psychological point of view as well. He explains how he cannot keep a single thought together to the point that he cannot form a sentence. Everything jumbles together in his mind, he cannot focus and the things that he is able to focus on for a sort moment of time are, to him, not things to be focused on, for example being one with a bucket. To me, this seems like a psychological problem and would cause his inability to write any poetry and the rambling that his letter is.

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