Cynical perceptions

• Introduction (I) - 'And I made a rural pen/ And I stained the water clear’ 


  • pen stains the stream - once innocence is recorded it is no longer pure but mediated by language & interpretation
  • by writing in a book, information can be controlled/ owned/ misused - gives institutions opportunity to control & limit free thought
  • joy in moment of creation is diminished and dissipated when it's written down
  • this moment highlights the dangers of innocent single vision - means living without noticing reality & allowing yourself to be controlled - need dual perception in order to make progress
• A Dream - 'Oh my children! Do they cry?'

  •  imagining negative emotions of someone else - not there to witness distress, imagines it
  • Experienced perception of ant mother = dark, expecting disaster
• The Little Girl Lost - 'How can Lyca sleep,/ If her mother weep?' 


  • only reason for distress is because parents are distressed
  • parents worried because they perceive world as full of threat - they perpetuate this perception & the suffering it causes onto Lyca
  • fear & anxiety are learned behaviours
  • parental anxiety imposes fear instead of nurturing freedom - parents restrictive
  • but are acting out of love, unknowingly perpetuating fear because they themselves were conditioned by church to see world as dangerous - cycle of fear (can only be broken by rejecting oppressive teachings)
• The Little Girl Found - 'Tired and woe-begone,/ Hoarse with making moan' 


  • although experiences in fallen world do create misery, here they are ultimately creating their own misery
  • scared because they see threats everywhere as this has been enforced
  • seeking to find daughter to return her to 'safety' of society - really they are bringing her back to the repressive society she has escaped - parents internalise teachings of church & perpetuate them onto their children
• The Little Girl Found - 'The fancied image strays,/ Famished, weeping, weak' 


  • fear of her straying - reflects how fear of independence that is taught by church leads parents to be over protective & controlling
  • cynical perception - they see child as weak, famished & easy to exploit
  • hypocrisy of them imagining & worrying about her suffering yet if they restore her to repressive society w repressive authority figures she will be stuck in this state of suffering