Final Blog Post

As times change, so has society and those that take part in its various parts, particularly with the spread of education from just the higher white male class to the lower class, females, and non-whites. Because of this, writers have changed from mainly white nobles to almost anyone. Skill and prominence with the pen is not connected with one's birth anymore. The difference in viewpoints and personal writing aesthetics becomes clear between these two groups, particularly in terms of class. This is blatantly seen when comparing the neoclassical and some of the Romantic Era writers to the Late 20th Century writer, Johnson, and his work, "Inglan is a Bitch" written heavily in African-American English dialect and finding disgust in "Inglan" throughout the entire work. While others have spoken up against certain parts of England before him, none have done it, in what many back then would consider, an uneducated way and with such contempt for England as a whole. Percy Shelley, in his “Song to the Men of England”, indeed spoke up against English corruption and the misfortunes his fellow Englishmen suffer, but he wrote in such a way that the problems with England were certain men and that his fellow Englishmen should band together against the plots of such men. Johnson did not speak of camaraderie with his fellow Englishmen and was a solitary negative viewpoint towards all of England. 

That being said, it was not a straight procession from the high class to the lower class and everyone. Some of the middle class and lower echelons of the higher class were accepted, sometimes with dispute, into the society of writers before the lower class ever did. John Keats was not originally welcomed as a writer by all, receiving harsh criticisms of his work and of those who were willing to accept him. Even Wordsworth and Coleridge were at first hesitant and asked of their readers to be patient and give their viewpoint towards writing a chance. They even tried to appeal to the common rural Englishman, with a focus on nature and the common man in such works as "Lucy Gray", "Nutting", and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". This would become much more common later as the common man became the writer, which would lead to the production of works such as "Digging" by Heaney or "This will be the Verse" by Larkin.

Ironically, with the increase of freedom and equality, women's works for women have lost some prominence as women in first world country societies tend to be all but true equals with men and did not suffer such horrible indignities and lack of rights as did women before them. Works such as Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the rights of Woman" will not be commonly found today in first world countries. Still, Women's rights has been a slow process and in Virginia Woolf's time, they were still in the process of making accomplishments. Accomplishments had been made though, and one can see the difference in Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway"which details a rich and high class woman acting on her own. The problem is because of her high class, she has never done anything properly for herself and is a fool at times, as shown through her thought processes. This story is not empowering for women despite showing the main character as doing something something, or at least attempting to, by herself and of being high class. It just follows a foolish woman and her idiocies with no attempt to sugarcoat or make her look better than she is.