“How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot
The world forgetting, by the world forgot
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned”
This is a quote by Alexander Pope. It takes a while to absorb the essence of this quote. I was blown away the first time I read it. I felt like an enchanted spell was being cast on me and my mind was being altered and healed somehow. It is hard to find material this forceful and beautiful at the same time. Some of the lines are very ambiguous and the different meanings strike new ideas in our thought process.
The beginning is referring to a vestal or chaste woman with a happy lot, which may refer to a garden. A virgin woman, hard to find in my neighborhood, is a symbol of purity and chastity valued by all. Pure happiness as many of you know is a mirage. The things we try to achieve rarely make us as happy as we had expected during its quest. Pope here offers a simple example of true happiness which for most us only exists in our imagination.
Second line is quite puzzling and it’s open to individual interpretations. To give an idea what meaning I found from this line I will try to describe it. The “world forgot” is a noun here; this world that has been forgotten is still forgetting itself. This can refer to how the human psyche functions. Pessimists tend to remember negative events and optimists do the opposite. We do not have the mental capacity to know entire histories of civilizations; a lot of information is being lost no matter how hard we try to preserve it.
Third line talks about a pure mind. “Eternal Sunshine,” this term gives resulting feelings of peace and calmness. A pure mind free of stress, guilt and pain is forever under a bright light.
In my experience some of my prayers were unanswered, I bet a lot of people can related to this. The line here opens our minds to sort of a paradise. The last word of the fourth line “resigned,” has its own flavor and has the most ambiguity in the whole quote. From this poem and idea of calmness comes to mind. For one moment, try to forget the past and stop worrying about the future. Live this moment for itself, and you will get a sense of my standpoint about this quote.
