Although only a small sample of a poetic oeuvre rich in displays of potentially vibrant exchange between human and nonhuman worlds, these two sonnets convey vividly some of Hopkins's freshest ecological insights: First, despite humanity's claim to ethical privilege by virtue of its soul, our failure to exercise soul's free will for the greater good is evidence of our equally powerful inclination to favor the ephemerality and
inconsequence of material self-interest.
Peg lounged in a lawn chair, glass of tea in hand, while I rambled on about things of
inconsequence; I'm sure she zoned me out a lot.
While it was not clear if all protests had actually ended, the movement appeared to have faded into
inconsequence by the time of the Pasdar claim.
When Radha states further that she wants to tell her husband directly that she is leaving him, not for Sita, not for anything she has done "wrong," but for herself, she directly challenges understandings of female same-sex desire as requiring a name and a setting apart, which would make such desire what Annemarie Jagose calls "secondary an inconsequential" (
Inconsequence x).
The reason I ask is because of your story about a drug mule having a relationship with a person of equal
inconsequence.
Furthermore, the Mariner's unusual experiences are somewhat beyond the work-a-day atmosphere of ordinary happenings to the extent that he does not go into the debate that dreams could reveal something relevant to waking life of the dreamer but only relates them to the
inconsequence of the poem (71-2).
(113) But this confuses acquired
inconsequence with initial
inconsequence: "[E]ven if we assume that the authors of [constitutional] rules expect those rules to have applications, it would be a mistake to ...
inconsequence like the bright dust that circulates in sunlight.
The dealer's description of diamond cutting, for instance, nicely evokes the larger theme of intention's
inconsequence: "Once the first facet is cut there can be no going back.
He does not hesitate to admire Hamilton, Madison, and Washington; neither does he hesitate to scoff at John Adams, Washington's self-important vice president, as the man who "established a lasting template for vice-presidential
inconsequence." And anyone, as Bordewich says, who imagined that the First Congress would behave like a "solemn conclave of classical philosophers rather than politicians" would soon be disabused by the roaring tirades of Georgia's James Jackson, by the pointless truculence of Elbridge Gerry, or by George Washington's coldly furious determination, when the Senate refused to endorse his negotiations with the Creeks, that "he would be damned if ever he went there again." (And he never did--nor has any president since.)
(King Lear, I.iv.17-19) thus underlying Lear's
inconsequence: he does not realize he no longer has any right to the representation of his regality (Carpi, 2010).
