Week 2 blog – Vivian
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Important words from Montagu’s:
wisdom and merit
Wisdom is used throughout the poem. Normally, we see wisdom as a desirable trait. But here, Montagu seems to be decreasing the value of wisdom. In the beginning, she says that the Doctor tries using his wisdom and wit to joke and charm his way to the lady but that the lady takes no notice of it. What does win the lady over is gold. Later she writes “With learning mad, with wisdom blind!”–that the wise think that they’re always right when they’re not. Then she writes that she’s telling this story “to show the wise in some things fail.” Because this poem was an attack on Swift’s poem, I feel like Montagu wanted to show her audience that though Swift is supposedly wise, there are things that he fails in and that he wrote his poem out of spite and embarrassment of his failure.
I chose merit because merit refers to something that deserves respect or praise, so it is something of value. What was valuable in a man back then (I’m assuming) was status and money. And back then, it seemed like wisdom, good-looks, and religion came with high status. But Montagu writes, “None strive to know their proper merit/But strain for wisdom, beauty, spirit,/And lose the praise that is their due/While they’ve th’impossible in view.” This makes me believe that she did not want to portray any trait that Swift had as meritable, and her view of what was meritable is different from the common view as well as our current one.
I chose wisdom and merit because wisdom is usually a trait that can earn you merit. But Montagu seems to believe else wise and so her view on both differs from the norm.
Wisdom is funny in Montagu’s poem because she’s saying that Swift (or other men) don’t have any wisdom. It’s used kind of sarcastically, along with merit. I like the quotation you chose–Montagu points out that people like to view themselves as better than they actually are.
Merit is an interesting word to choose because it’s also a word that’s associated with earning something — a merit scholarship is one that you get through your skills/intellect/talent, rather than because of financial need, right? So, when Montagu says that Swift won’t strive to know his proper merit, but keeps on straining for more, she’s making a criticism of him as an economic individual. (BTW, nice use of textual evidence — this is exactly the right way to use a text.) There’s another interesting point that I’d love to see you write further on. Montagu says that Swift is both blind with wisdom, and that he strains to have more of it than he deserves. That sounds like a contradiction. What do you think that Montagu means?
I’d have to agree that wisdom is used fairly sarcastically in this poem, though I liked how you pointed out that wisdom often leads to a smug sense of self worth, which in turn lends more weight to sarcasm.
I like both of your word choses and I think it’s interesting how both terms were intended to give the opposite affect of their meaning.
Now that we’ve talked about it in class, I feel like I understand this poem a lot more than when I wrote this post and I’d have to agree that yes, wisdom is used sarcastically.
To answer your question, I’m not really sure but I would infer that it means that Swift believes he is wiser and greater than he really is. And because of this smug blindness, he believes he should have a lot more than he deserves?