GRE Study Guide
1. American Literature (3-94)

Colonial America -- prose and poetry

81th & 19th century -- prose

81th & 19th century -- poetry

Modernist poetry

Modernist novel

Harlem Renaissance

Postmodern & Contemporary poetry

Postmodern & Contemporary novel and drama
2. British Literature (95-316)

Medeival and Early British literature

Renaisance

Shakespeare

Restoration comedy

Restoration Prose & Poetry

17th and 18th Century Poetry

18th and 19th century prose and the novel

British Romanticism

Victorian Poetry

British (and Irish) Modernism

Postmodern & Contemporary British literature
3. Antiquity and "World" Literature (317-344)

Classical Literature
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
Modern "World" Literature
4. Terms, Criticism, and Forms(345-354)

Poetic Forms, Literary Terms, Etc .

Sonnets

Literary Theory
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American Literature :
Colonial America -- prose and poetry
* Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)
•She was first published American woman writer .
1. “Before the Birth of One of Her Children”
All things within this fading world hath end,
Adversity doth still our joyes attend;
No tyes so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,
But with deaths parting blow is sure to meet.
The sentence past is most irrevocable,
A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.
How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend.
How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant, yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when that knot's unty'd that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my days that's due,
What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know I have
Let be interr'd in my oblivious grave,
If any worth or virtue were in me,
Let that live freshly in thy memory
And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harms,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms.
And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains
Look to my little babes my dear remains.
And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me,
These O protect from step Dames injury.
And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honour my absent Herse;
And kiss this paper for thy loves dear sake,
Who with salt tears this last Farewel did take.
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2. “Verses Upon the Burning of Our House ”
In silent night when rest I took,
For sorrow near I did not look,
I waken'd was with thund'ring noise
And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.
That fearful sound of "fire" and "fire,"
Let no man know is my Desire.
I starting up, the light did spy,
And to my God my heart did cry
To straighten me in my Distress
And not to leave me succourless.
Then coming out, behold a space
The flame consume my dwelling place.
And when I could no longer look,
I blest his grace that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.
It was his own; it was not mine.
Far be it that I should repine,
He might of all justly bereft
But yet sufficient for us left.
When by the Ruins oft I past
My sorrowing eyes aside did cast
And here and there the places spy
Where oft I sate and long did lie.
Here stood that Trunk, and there that chest,
There lay that store I counted best,
My pleasant things in ashes lie
And them behold no more shall I.
Under the roof no guest shall sit,
Nor at thy Table eat a bit.
No pleasant talk shall 'ere be told
Nor things recounted done of old.
No Candle 'ere shall shine in Thee,
Nor bridegroom's voice ere heard shall bee.
In silence ever shalt thou lie.
Adieu, Adieu, All's Vanity.
Then straight I 'gin my heart to chide:
And did thy wealth on earth abide,
Didst fix thy hope on mouldring dust,
The arm of flesh didst make thy trust?
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Raise up thy thoughts above the sky
That dunghill mists away may fly.
Thou hast a house on high erect
Fram'd by that mighty Architect,
With glory richly furnished
Stands permanent, though this be fled.
It's purchased and paid for too
By him who hath enough to do.
A price so vast as is unknown,
Yet by his gift is made thine own.
There's wealth enough; I need no more.
Farewell, my pelf; farewell, my store.
The world no longer let me love;
My hope and Treasure lies above.
3. "In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth ” - EXCERPT
No more shall rise or set so glorious sun ,
Untill the heavens great revolution .
If then new things their old forms shall retain ,
Eliza shall rule Albion once again .
HER EPITAPH .
Here sleeps THE Queen, this is the royal Bed
Of th' Damask Rose, sprung from the white and red ,
Whose sweet perfume fills the all-filling Air :
This Rose is wither'd, once so lovely fair .
On neither tree did grow such Rose before ,
The greater was our gain, our loss the more .
Another .
ere lyes the pride of Queens, Pattern of Kings ,
So blaze it Fame, here's feathers for thy wings .
Here lyes the envy'd, yet unparalled Prince ,
Whose living virtues speak, (though dead long since .)
If many worlds, as that Fantastic fram'd ,
In every one be her great glory fam'd.
4. “The Author To Her Book”
Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,
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Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
The visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save homespun cloth i' th' house I find.
In this array 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam.
In critic's hands beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.
5. "In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet”
Farewell, dear babe, my heart's too much content,
Farewell sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye,
Farewell fair flower that for a space was lent,
Then ta'en away unto eternity.
Blest babe, why should I once bewail thy fate,
Or sigh thy days so soon were terminate,
Sith thou art settled in an everlasting state.
By nature trees do rot when they are grown,
And plums and apples throughly ripe do fall,
And corn and grass are in their season mown,
And time brings down what is both strong and tall.
But plants new set to be eradicate,
And buds new blown to have so short a date,
Is by his hand alone that guides nature and fate.
John Edwards
If there is a colonial American man worth knowing anything about, it's Edwards. His own words
probably won't come up on the test, but Robert Lowell's "Mr. Edwards and the Spider," might, so it's
worth knowing the biographical info.
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Edwards was a colonial American Congregational preacher and theologian. He is known as one of
the greatest and most profound American evangelical theologians. His work is very broad in scope,
but he is often associated with his defense of Calvinist theology and the Puritan heritage.
His Personal Narrative is a Puritan autobiography that recounts his spiritual conversion.
"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect,
over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked."
Cotton Mather
A socially and politically-influential "Puritan" minister, prolific author, and pamphleteer. Author of
more than 450 books and pamphlets, Cotton Mather's ubiquitous literary works made him one of
the most influential religious leaders in America. Mather set the nation's "moral tone", and sounded
the call for second and third generation Puritans, whose parents had left England for the New
England colonies of North America to return to the theological roots of Puritanism.
Magnalia Christi Americana is a book written in 1702. Its title is in Latin, and is usually given the
English title The Ecclesiastical History of New England as a translation. It consists of seven "books"
collected into two volumes and details the religious development of Massachusetts, and other
nearby colonies in New England from 1620 to 1698. An excerpt of the book is collected in the widely
respected Norton Anthology which details the works and accomplishments of William Bradford.
Other notable parts of the book are Mather's descriptions of the Salem Witch Trials, in which he
criticizes some of the methods of the court; his complete "catalogus" of all the students that
graduated from Harvard College, and story of the founding of Harvard College itself; and his
assertions that Puritan slaveholders should do more to convert their slaves to Christianity.
Mary Rowlandson (1637-1711)
A colonial American woman, who wrote a description of her three months with Native Americans. A
Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a major piece of the
American literary genre of Captivity Narratives.
"I can remember the time, when I used to sleep quietly without working in my thoughts, whole
nights together, but now it is other wayes with me. When all are fast about me, and no eye open,
but his who ever waketh, my thoughts are upon things past, upon the awfull dispensation of the
Lord towards us; upon his wonderfull power and might, in carrying of us through so many
difficulties, in returning us in safety, and suffering none to hurt us. I remember in the night season,
how the other day I was in the midst of thousands of enemies, and nothing but death before me; It
is then hard work to perswade my self, that ever I should be satisfied with bread again. “But now we
are fed with the finest of the Wheat, and, as I may say, With honey out of the rock.”
* Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
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Wheatley is most notable because she was a child prodigy and slave who, having learned to read,
wrote remarkable--mostly pious--poetry. She is known to use three different elements to create
make her poetry meaningful: Christianity, classicism, and hierophantic solar worship.
In 1770 she wrote a poetic tribute on the death of the Calvinist George Whitefield that received
widespread acclaim in Boston. Her poetry was praised by many of the leading figures of the
American Revolution, including George Washington, who personally thanked her for a poem she
wrote in his honor. However, this praise was not universal. For example, Thomas Jefferson was
among the harshest critics of her poetry, writing "The heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules
to the author of that poem."
Because many white people found it hard to believe that a black woman could be so intelligent as to
write poetry, in 1772 Wheatley had to defend her literary ability in court. She was examined by a
group of Boston luminaries including John Erving, Rev. Charles Chauncey, John Hancock, Thomas
Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts, and his Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver. They
concluded that she had in fact written the poems ascribed to her and signed an attestation which
was published in the preface to her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral published
in Aldgate, London in 1773. The book was published in London because publishers in Boston had
refused to publish the text. Phillis and her master's son, Nathanial Wheatley, went to London, where
Selina, Countess of Huntingdon and the Earl of Dartmouth helped with the publication.
Some critics cite Wheatley's successful defense of her poetry in court and the publication of her
book as the first official recognition of African American literature.
Her works include:
"An Elegy, Sacred to the Memory of the Great Divine, the Reverend and Learned Dr. Samuel Cooper,
Who Departed This Life December 29, 1783"
"To His Excellency George Washington"
“On Being Brought from Africa to America”
'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd and join th'angelic train.
“To the University of Cambridge in New England”
'WHILE an intrinsic ardor prompts to write,
The muses promise to assist my pen;
'Twas not long since I left my native shore
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The land of errors, and Egyptain gloom:
Father of mercy, 'twas thy gracious hand
Brought me in safety from those dark abodes.
Students, to you 'tis giv'n to scan the heights
Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
And mark the systems of revolving worlds.
Still more, ye sons of science ye receive
The blissful news by messengers from heav'n,
How Jesus' blood for your redemption flows.
See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;
Immense compassion in his bosom glows;
He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:
What matchless mercy in the Son of God!
When the whole human race by sin had fall'n,
He deign'd to die that they might rise again,
And share with him in the sublimest skies,
Life without death, and glory without end.
Improve your privileges while they stay,
Ye pupils, and each hour redeem, that bears
Or good or bad report of you to heav'n.
Let sin, that baneful evil to the soul,
By you be shun'd, nor once remit your guard;
Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg.
Ye blooming plants of human race divine,
An Ethiop tells you 'tis your greatest foe;
Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain,
And in immense perdition sinks the soul
John Winthrop (1587-1649)
Elected governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629 and on 8 April 1630 he led a large party from
England for the New World.
Winthrop was extremely religious and ascribed fervently to the Puritan belief that the Anglican
Church had to be cleansed of Catholic ritual. Winthrop was convinced that God would punish
England for its heresy, and believed that English Puritans needed a shelter away from England where
they could remain safe during the time of God's wrath.
His only work of nots is his Journal, which is a Puritan chronicle of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
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John Woolman (1720-1772)
an itinerant Quaker preacher, traveling throughout the American colonies, advocating against
conscription, taxation, and particularly slavery.
A major tale in his journal deals with a turning point in his life in which he happened upon a robin's
nest with hatchlings in it. Woolman began throwing rocks at the mother robin just to see if he could
hit her. He ended up killing the mother bird, but then remorse filled him as he thought of the baby
birds who had no chance of surviving without her. He got the nest down from the tree and quickly
killed the hatchlings, believing it to be the most merciful thing to do. This experience weighed on his
heart, and inspired in him a love and protectiveness for all living things from then on.
At age 23 his employer asked him to write a bill of sale for a slave. He told his employer that he
thought that slavekeeping was inconsistent with the Christian religion. Many Friends believed that
slavery was bad--even a sin--but there was not a universal condemnation of it among Friends. Some
Friends bought slaves from other people in order to treat them humanely and educate them. Other
Friends seemed to have no conviction against slavery whatsoever.
His only work of notes is his Journal which is a Quarker spiritual autobiography.
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18th & 19th Century American Prose
Kate Chopin (1850-1904)
Katherine O'Flaherty known by her married name Kate Chopin, was an American author of short
stories and novels
"The Awakening"
Names to associate with The Awakening:
* Edna Pontellier
* Robert Lebrun
Published in 1899. The novel examines the smothering effects of late 19th-century social
structures upon a woman whose simple desire is to fulfill her own potential and live her own life.
It is a story of both courage and defeat, lyrically written and boldly poignant.
Edna Pontellier, the wife of a successful New Orleans business man and the mother of two,
vacations with her family at a seaside resort. She spends a lot of time with Robert Lebrun, a
romantic young man who has decided to attach himself to Edna for the summer. After many
intimate conversations, boating excursions, and moonlit walks, they both realize that they are
developing romantic feelings for each other. Edna realizes that there is much within herself that
has remained dormant throughout her adult life.
When vacation ends and the Pontelliers return to New Orleans, Edna frees herself from the
trappings of her old life, including her social position, her role as a mother, and her role as a
wife. Moving out of her husband's house, she establishes herself in a cottage and hopes that
Robert Lebrun will return soon from an extended business trip.
Upon Robert's return, Edna discovers that he is unable to come to grips with her newfound
freedom. Indeed, he seems hopelessly bound by the traditional values of the French Creole
community. Simultaneously, she discovers that her husband has set in motion a plan that will
essentially force her to move back into his house.
Edna thereupon returns to the seaside resort in the off-season. She makes arrangements for a
lunch to take with her to the beach, and carries along a towel for drying off as well. Unable to
resist the lure of the water, she swims out as far as she can and, having exhausted herself,
drowns. Most readers interpret this final passage as a deliberate attempt at suicide.
"Story of an Hour"
Names and phrases to associate with "Story of an Hour":
1. Mrs. Millard
2. Josephine
3. "Free! Body and soul free!"
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This short story is about an hour in the life of the main character, Mrs. Millard. She is afflicted with a
heart problem. Bad news has come about that her husband has died in a train accident. Her sister
Josephine and Richard who is her husband's friend has to break the horrifying news to her as gently
as possible. They both were concerned that the news might somehow put her in great danger with
her health. Ironically, Mrs. Millard reacts to the news with excitement. Even though the news is
heartbreaking she is finally free from the depressing life she was living. She keeps whispering "Free!
Body and soul free!". She now is happy because she doesn't have to live for anyone but herself now.
At the end of the story, Mr. Millard opens the door and is surprised by Josephine's cry. Mr. Millard
didn't have a faintest idea about the accident. With a quick motion, Richard tried to block Mr.
Millard's view of his wife but it was too late. The doctors said she died of a heart disease. The story
ends with a short phrase "of joy that kills"
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)
He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels
known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Among his most famous
works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece
“On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has travelled far and
seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and the history that most abounds in important
incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity.”
“We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise
can be true, though, happily, for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man
has been fashioned are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating if not excusing its
crimes.”
In this book the hero is just arriving at manhood with the freshness of feeling that belongs to that
interesting period of life, and with the power to please that properly characterizes youth. As a
consequence he is loved; and, what denotes the real waywardness of humanity, more than it
corresponds with theories and moral propositions, he is loved by one full of art, vanity and
weakness, and loved principally for his sincerity, his modesty, and his unerring truth and probity.
--the preface which details the attraction between Judith and Natty.
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
His first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Crane released the book under a pseudonym and paid
for the publishing himself. It was not a commercial success, though it was praised by several critics of
the time.
This was followed by The Red Badge of Courage 1895, a powerful tale of the American Civil War. The
book won international acclaim for its realism and psychological depth in telling the story of a young
soldier facing the horrors and triumphs of war for the first time. Crane never experienced battle
personally, but conducted interviews with a number of veterans, some of whom may have suffered
from what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder. Because his depiction of the psychological as
well as military aspect of war was so accurate, he was hired by a number of newspapers as a
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correspondent during the Greco-Turkish 1897 and Spanish-American wars 1898. In 1896 the boat in
which he accompanied an American expedition to Cuba was wrecked, leaving Crane adrift for
fourteen days. A result of the incident was Crane's development of tuberculosis, which would
eventually become fatal. He recounted these experiences in The Open Boat and Other Tales 1898. In
1897, Crane settled in England, where he befriended writers Joseph Conrad and Henry James.
Shortly before his death, he released Whilomville Stories 1900, the most commercially successful of
the twelve books he wrote. Crane died of tuberculosis, aged only 28, in Badenweiler, Germany.
"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets"
Names and phrases to associate with Maggie:
1. Maggie
2. Jimmie
3. Pete
As the novel opens, Jimmie, a young boy, is leading a street fight against a troop of youngsters from
another part of New York City's impoverished Bowery neighborhood. Jimmie is rescued by Pete, a
teenager who seems to be a casual acquaintance of his. They encounter Jimmie's offhandedly brutal
father, who brings Jimmie home, where we are introduced to his timid older sister Maggie and little
brother Tommie, and to Mary, the family's drunken, vicious matriarch. The evening that follows
seems typical: the father goes to bars to drink himself into oblivion while the mother stays home and
rages until she, too, drops off into a drunken stupor. The children huddle in a corner, terrified.
As time passes, both the father and Tommie die. Jimmie hardens into a sneering, aggressive, cynical
youth. He gets a job as a teamster. Maggie, by contrast, seems somehow immune to the corrupting
influence of abject poverty; underneath the grime, she is physically beautiful and, even more
surprising, both hopeful and naïve. When Pete--now a bartender--makes his return to the scene, he
entrances Maggie with his bravado and show of bourgeois trappings. Pete senses easy prey, and
they begin dating; she is taken--and taken in--by his relative worldliness and his ostentatious displays
of confidence. She sees in him the promise of wealth and culture, an escape from the misery of her
childhood.
Theodore Dresier (1871-1945)
An American naturalist author known for dealing with the gritty reality of life.
"Sister Carrie"
Names to associate with Sister Carrie:
1. Caroline (Carrie) Meeber
2. Hurstwood
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Sister Carrie (1900 ) is a novel about a young country girl who moves to the big city where she starts
realizing American Dream by embarking on a life of sin rather than by hard work and perseverance.
Leaving her rural Wisconsin home, 18 year-old Caroline Meeber heads for Chicago, Illinois , where
she wants to live with her older sister's family. Soon, however, Carrie finds out that working in a
sweatshop and living in a squalid and overcrowded apartment is not what she wants. When she
meets a man named Drouet, a travelling salesman whose acquaintance she already made on the
train to Chicago, she readily leaves behind her family—they never see "Sister Carrie" again—when
he offers to look after her. Drouet installs her in a much larger apartment in return for her favours.
Through Drouet, Carrie meets Hurstwood, the manager of a respectable bar. From the moment he
sets eyes on her, Hurstwood is infatuated with the young girl, whereas for Carrie, Hurstwood is just a
wealthy man past the prime of his life. Before long they start an affair, communicating and meeting
secretly in the expanding, anonymous city. Although Hurstwood has a family and Carrie might
conclude that he does, the lovers never talk about it and it never seems to occur to Carrie to ask.
One night, at his job, Hurstwood is presented with the opportunity to embezzle a large sum of
money. He succumbs to the temptation and decides, on the spur of the moment, to leave everything
behind and start a new life with Carrie. Under a pretext, he lures Carrie onto a northbound train and
escapes with her to Canada . After a while, his guilty conscience makes him pay back most of the
money, but there is no way he could return to his former life so the couple eventually decide to
move to the East coast.
The second part of the book is set in New York City . Hurstwood and Carrie rent a flat where they live
as man and wife under an assumed name. Gradually, Hurstwood realizes that finding a new job is
not easy at all. As his money is slowly running out, the couple have to start economizing, which
Carrie does not like at all. She starts looking for a job herself and finds employment at one of the
many theatres. Her rise to stardom is sharply contrasted with Hurstwood's downfall: she leaves him,
and the rapidly ageing Hurstwood, overwhelmed by apathy, is left all alone, without a job and
without any money. At one point, during a strike , he even works as a scab driving a Brooklyn
streetcar . He joins the homeless of New York and finally, in a cheap hotel, puts an end to his life.
"An American Tragedy"
Names to associate with An American Tragedy:
1. Clyde Griffiths
2. Robert Alden
3. Sondra Finchley
An American Tragedy (1925) is a famous American novel, by Theodore Dreiser. Written in 1925, the
book is the story of a young man Clyde Griffiths, whose troubles with women and the law take him
from his religious upbringing in Kansas City to the fictional town of Lycurgus ,New York . Among
Clyde's love interests are the materialistic Hortense Briggs, the charming farmer's daughter Roberta
Alden and the aristocratic Sondra Finchley. The book is naturalistic in style, containing subject matter
such as religion, capital punishment and abortion, and attempting to shed light on societal evils.
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Clyde's downfall begins when he takes a job as a bell-boy at a local hotel. The boys he meets are
much more liberal than he, and they introduce Clyde to the world of alcohol and prostitution. Clyde
enjoys his new lifestyle, and does everything in his power to win the affections of the flirtatious
Hortense Briggs. But Clyde's life is forever changed when a stolen car he is travelling in with friends
kills a young child. Clyde is forced to flee Kansas City , and after a brief stay in Chicago , he
reestablishes himself at the collar factory of his uncle in Lycurgus ,New York .
Although Clyde vows not to give in to women in the way that caused his Kansas City downfall, he
quickly succumbs to the charms of Roberta Alden , a poor girl working under him at the factory.
While Clyde initially feels fulfilled by Roberta, his ambition forces him to realize that he could never
marry her. He dreams of the aristocratic Sondra Finchley , the daughter of a wealthy Lycurgus man,
and a family friend of his uncle's. As developments between him and Sondra begin to look
promising, Roberta discovers that she is pregnant.
Trying unsuccessfully to secure an abortion of the child, Clyde procrastinates the decision while his
relationship with Sondra continues to mature. As he realizes that he has a wonderful opportunity to
marry into such an aristocratic family, Clyde hatches a diabolic scheme to drown Roberta in a
manner that seems accidental.
Upon taking Roberta for a canoe ride in one of the Finger Lakes in upstate New York , Clyde loses the
nerve to murder her -- however, Roberta accidentally falls out of the boat and drowns, Clyde being
too cowardly to save her. The trail of circumstantial evidence points to murder, and the local
authorities are only too eager to convict Clyde. Following a sensational trial before an unsympathetic
audience, and with no legal support from his wealthy relatives, Clyde is found guilty and sentenced
to death. The jailhouse scenes and the correspondence between Clyde and his mother stand out as
an exemplar of pathos in modern literature.
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
Dunbar is largely noteworthy (at least in his literary career) as a forerunner to the Harlem
Renaissance, which ETS does stress.
Dunbar was a seminal African-American poet in the late 19th and early 20th century. Dunbar gained
national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life. Born in Dayton, Ohio to parents who had
escaped from slavery, Dunbar died from tuberculosis at 34.
His first collection of poetry, Oak and Ivy was published in 1892 and attracted the attention of James
Whitcomb Riley, the popular "Hoosier Poet". Both Riley and Dunbar wrote poems in both standard
English and dialect. His second book, Majors and Minors (1895) brought him national fame and the
patronage of William Dean Howells, the novelist and critic and editor of Harper's Weekly. He was
closely associated with Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.
He wrote a dozen books of poetry, four books of short stories, and five novels and a play. His essays
and poems were published widely in the leading journals of the day. During his life, considerable
emphasis was laid on the fact that Dunbar was of pure black descent, with no white ancestors.
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Dunbar's work is known for its colorful language and use of dialect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister in a famous line of
ministers; Emerson was later to become a Unitarian minister himself. He gradually drifted from the
doctrines of his peers, then formulated and first expressed the philosophy of Transcendentalism in
his essay Nature.
"Nature"
An essay published anonymously in 1836. It is in this essay where the foundation of
transcendentalism is put forth, a belief system that espouses a non-traditional vision of nature.
Building on his early lectures, Emerson defines nature as an all-encompassing divine entity
inherently known to us in our unfettered innocence, rather than as merely a component of a world
ruled by a divine, separate being learned by us through passed-on teachings in our experience.
* Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories,
and criticism. The foregoing generation beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes.
Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe. Why should not we have a poetry
and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history
of theirs?
* Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the
perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has
awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every man's condition is a solution in
hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth.
* If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and
preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!
* Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose
his curiosity by finding out all her perfection.
* The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of a child.
* Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite
space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the
currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.
* Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.
* Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.
* We are, like Nebuchadnezzar, dethroned, bereft of reason, and eating grass like an ox.
* A man is a god in ruins.
"Poet"
It is not about "men of poetical talents, or of industry and skill in meter, but of the true poet."
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The final lines in the essay are, "Wherever snow falls or water flows or birds fly, wherever day and
night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds or sown with stars, wherever are
forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger,
and awe, and love,--there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest
walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble."
"Self Reliance"
In the essay he formulates his philosophy of self-reliance an essential part of which is to trust in
one's present thoughts and impressions rather than those of other people or of one's past self. This
culminates in the quote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."He stresses
originality, believing in one's own genius and living from within. From this springs the quote: "Envy is
ignorance, imitation is suicide."
"Two Rivers"
Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
Repeats the music of the rain;
But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
Through thee, as thou through the Concord Plain.
Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
The stream I love unbounded goes
Through flood and sea and firmament;
Through light, through life, it forward flows.
I see the inundation sweet,
I hear the spending of the steam
Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,
Through love and thought, through power and dream.
Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
They lose their grief who hear his song,
And where he winds is the day of day.
So forth and brighter fares my stream,-Who drink it shall not thirst again;
No darkness taints its equal gleam,
And ages drop in it like rain.
"Brahma"
If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
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Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.
They recon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
I am the hymn the Brahmin sings.
The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
"The Dial"
You probably don't need to know too much about Transcendentalism to ace all the questions that
might pop up on the GRE, but you should know about The Dial, which was a Transcendentalist
periodical. Ohter names you should associate with the movement and the periodical are:
Henry David Thoreau
Margaret Fuller
Jones Very
Harriet Jacobs
In 1861, she published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl under the pseudonym Linda Brent.
Jacobs was one of many escaped slaves who wrote autobiographical narratives in an effort to shape
opinion in the Northern states concerning the "peculiar instiution" of slavery. She appealed mainly
to middle-class white Christian women in the north, through her descriptions of slavery destroying
the virtue of women through harassment and rape.
She criticized the religion of the South as being un-Christian, and as emphasizing the value of money
("If I am going to hell, bury my money with me," says a particularly brutal and uneducated
slaveholder). She described another slaveholder with the sentence, "He boasted the name and
standing of a Christian, though Satan never had a truer follower." Jacobs argued that these men
were not exceptions to the general rule. The cruelty of slavery destroyed the virtue of an entire
society, and "is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks".
Much of "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" is devoted to the protagonist's struggle to free her two
children (born out of wedlock through a consensual relationship with a white man who wasn't her
master), after she runs away herself. She spends seven years trapped in a tiny space built into her
grandmother's barn to occasionally see and hear the voices of her children.
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*Herman Melville (1819-1891)
"Moby Dick"
"Call me Ishmael," Moby-Dick begins, in one of the most recognizable opening lines in Western
literature.[25] The narrator, an observant young man setting out from Manhattan, has experience in
the merchant marine but has recently decided his next voyage will be on a whaling ship. On a cold,
gloomy night in December, he arrives at the Spouter-Inn in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and agrees
to share a bed with a then-absent stranger. When his bunk mate, a heavily tattooed Polynesian
harpooner named Queequeg, returns very late and discovers Ishmael beneath his covers, both men
are alarmed, but the two quickly become close friends and decide to sail together from Nantucket,
Massachusetts on a whaling voyage.
In Nantucket, the pair signs on with the Pequod, a whaling ship that is soon to leave port. The ship’s
captain, Ahab, is nowhere to be seen; nevertheless, they are told of him — a "grand, ungodly,
godlike man,"[26] who has "been in colleges as well as 'mong the cannibals," according to one of the
owners. The two friends encounter a mysterious man named Elijah on the dock after they sign their
papers and he hints at troubles to come with Ahab. The mystery grows on Christmas morning when
Ishmael spots dark figures in the mist, apparently boarding the Pequod shortly before it sets sail that
day.
The ship’s officers direct the early voyage while Ahab stays in his cabin. The chief mate is Starbuck, a
serious, sincere Quaker and fine leader; second mate is Stubb, happy-go-lucky and cheerful and
always smoking his pipe; the third mate is Flask, short and stout but thoroughly reliable. Each mate
is responsible for a whaling boat, and each whaling boat of the Pequod has its own pagan
harpooneer assigned to it. Some time after sailing, Ahab finally appears on the quarter-deck one
morning, an imposing, frightening figure whose haunted visage sends shivers over the narrator. One
of his legs is missing from the knee down and has been replaced by a prosthesis fashioned from a
sperm whale's jawbone.
He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the
limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness...
Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny
scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly
whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great
tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels
and grooves out the bark from top to bottom ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still
greenly alive, but branded. —Moby-Dick, Ch. 28
Soon gathering the crewmen together, with a rousing speech Ahab secures their support for his
single, secret purpose for this voyage: hunting down and killing Moby Dick, an old, very large sperm
whale, with a snow-white hump and mottled skin, that crippled Ahab on his last whaling voyage.
Only Starbuck shows any sign of resistance to the charismatic but monomaniacal captain. The first
mate argues repeatedly that the ship’s purpose should be to hunt whales for their oil, with luck
returning home profitably, safely, and quickly, but not to seek out and kill Moby Dick in particular —
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and especially not for revenge. Eventually even Starbuck acquiesces to Ahab's will, though harboring
misgivings.
The mystery of the dark figures seen before the Pequod set sail is explained during the voyage's first
lowering for whales. Ahab has secretly brought along his own boat crew, including a mysterious
harpooneer named Fedallah (also referred to as 'the Parsee'), an inscrutable figure with a sinister
influence over Ahab. Later, while watching one night over a captured whale carcass, Fedallah gives
dark prophecies to Ahab regarding their twin deaths.
The novel describes numerous "gams," social meetings of two ships on the open sea. Crews normally
visit each other during a gam, captains on one vessel and chief mates on the other. Mail may be
exchanged and the men talk of whale sightings or other news. For Ahab, however, there is but one
relevant question to ask of another ship: “Hast seen the White Whale?” After meeting several other
whaling ships, which have their own peculiar stories, the Pequod enters the Pacific Ocean.
Queequeg becomes deathly ill and requests that a coffin be built for him by the ship’s carpenter. Just
as everyone has given up hope, Queequeg changes his mind, deciding to live after all, and recovers
quickly. His coffin becomes his sea chest, and is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequod's
life buoy.
Soon word is heard from other whalers of Moby Dick. The jolly Captain Boomer of the Samuel
Enderby has lost an arm to the whale, and is stunned at Ahab's burning need for revenge. Next they
meet the Rachel, which has seen Moby Dick very recently. As a result of the encounter, one of its
boats is missing; the captain’s youngest son had been aboard. The Rachel's captain begs Ahab to aid
in the search for the missing boat, but Ahab is resolute; the Pequod is very near the White Whale
now and will not stop to help. Finally the Delight is met, even as its captain buries a sailor who had
been killed by Moby Dick. Starbuck begs Ahab one final time to reconsider his thirst for vengeance,
but to no avail.
The next day, the Pequod meets Moby Dick. For two days, the Pequod's crew pursues the whale,
which wreaks widespread destruction, including the disappearance of Fedallah. On the third day,
Moby Dick rises up to reveal Fedallah tied to him by harpoon ropes, clearly dead. Even after the
initial battle on the third day, it is clear that while Ahab is a vengeful whale-hunter, Moby-Dick, while
dangerous and fearless, is not motivated to hunt humans. As he swims away from the Pequod,
Starbuck exhorts Ahab one last time to desist, observing that:
"Moby-Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!". —Moby-Dick, Ch. 135
Ahab ignores this voice of reason and continues with his ill-fated chase. As the three boats sail out to
hunt him, Moby Dick damages two of them, forcing them to go back to the ship and leaving only
Ahab's vessel intact. Ahab harpoons the whale, but the harpoon-line breaks. Moby Dick then rams
the Pequod itself, which begins to sink. As Ahab harpoons the whale again, the unfolding harpoonline catches him around his neck and he is dragged into the depths of the sea by the diving Moby
Dick. The boat is caught up in the whirlpool of the sinking ship, which takes almost all the crew to
their deaths. Only Ishmael survives, clinging to Queequeg’s coffin-turned-life buoy for an entire day
and night before the Rachel rescues him.
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"Billy Bud"
The plot follows Billy Budd, a seaman pressed into service aboard the HMS Bellipotent in the year
1797, when the British Navy was reeling from two major mutinies and was threatened by Napoleon's
military ambitions. Billy, suffused with innocence, openness, and natural charisma, is adored by the
crew, but for unexplainable reasons arouses the antagonism of the ship's Master-at-Arms, John
Claggart, who falsely accuses Billy of conspiracy to mutiny. Brought before the Captain Edward
Fairfax "Starry" Vere to answer to the charges, Billy is unable to find the words to respond, and
lashes out seemingly involuntarily at Claggart, killing him with a single blow. Vere, an eminently
thoughtful man whose name recalls the Latin words "veritas" (truth) and "vir" (man), is convinced of
Billy's innocence before God but insists on following the letter of the Mutiny Act and sentencing Billy
to death, arguing that any appearance of weakness in the officers and failure to enforce discipline
could stir the already-turbulent waters of mutiny throughout the British fleet. Condemned to be
hanged from the ship's yardarm at dawn the morning after the killing, Billy's final words are, "God
bless Captain Vere!"
"Bartleby the Scribner"
The narrator of the story is an unnamed lawyer with offices on Wall Street in New York City. He
describes himself as doing "a snug business among rich men's bonds and mortgages and titledeeds." He has three employees: "First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut," each of whom is
described. He advertises for a fourth, and Bartleby appears, "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable,
incurably forlorn!"
At first Bartleby appears to be a competent worker, but later he refuses to work when requested,
repeatedly uttering the phrase "I would prefer not to." He is also found to be living in the lawyer's
office. Bartleby refuses to explain his behavior, and also refuses to leave when dismissed. The lawyer
moves offices to avoid any further confrontation, and Bartleby is taken away. At the end of the story,
Bartleby slowly starves in prison, finally expiring during a visit by the lawyer.
H.L. Mencken
A twentieth century journalist, satirist and social critic, a cynic and a freethinker, known as the "Sage
of Baltimore" and the "American Nietzsche". He is often regarded as one of the most influential
American writers of the early 20th century.
Perhaps Mencken's most important contribution to American letters is his satirical style. Mencken,
influenced heavily by Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift, believed the lampoon was more powerful
than the lament; his hilariously overwrought indictments of nearly every subject (and more than a
couple that were unmentionable at the time) are certainly worth reading as examples of fine
craftsmanship.
The Mencken style influenced many writers; American author Richard Wright described the power
of Mencken's technique (his exposure to Mencken would inspire him to become a writer himself). In
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his autobiographical Black Boy, Wright recalls his reaction to A Book of Prefaces and one of the
volumes of the Prejudices series:
“I was jarred and shocked by the clear, clean, sweeping sentences ... Why did he write like that? I
pictured the man as a raging demon, slashing with his pen ... denouncing everything American ...
laughing ... mocking God, authority ... This man was fighting, fighting with words. He was using
words as a weapon, using them as one would use a club ... I read on and what amazed me was not
what he said, but how on earth anybody had the courage to say it.”
"The American Language"
The American Language is H. L. Mencken's 1919 book about changes Americans had made to the
English Language.
Mencken was inspired by "the argot of the colored waiters" in Washington, as well as one of his
favourite authors, Mark Twain, and his experiences on the streets of Baltimore. In 1902, Mencken
remarked on the "queer words which go into the making of 'United Statese.'" The book was
preceded by several columns in The Evening Sun. Mencken eventually asked "Why doesn't some
painstaking pundit attempt a grammar of the American language... English, that is, as spoken by the
great masses of the plain people of this fair land?" It would appear that he answered his own
question.
In the tradition of Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary, Mencken wanted to
defend "Americanisms" against the English, whom he increasingly detested.
The book discusses the beginnings of American variations from English, the spread of these
variations, American names and slang over the course of its 374 pages. According to Mencken,
American English was more colourful, vivid, and creative than its British counterpart.
Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
"The Murders on the Rue Morgue"
A short story from 1841 which features the brilliant deductions of Auguste Dupin and is one of the
first detective stories (“The Purloined Letter” and “The Mystery of Marie Roget” also feature Dupin).
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is almost certainly the first locked room mystery (a story in which
the reader is presented with a puzzle and encouraged to solve it before finishing the story and being
told the solution).
The detective Auguste Dupin investigates a series of baffling murders, whose victims are brutally
killed in apparently inaccessible rooms along the rue Morgue, a street in Paris. Dupin reaches the
astounding conclusion that killings were not murder per se but were carried out by a wild "OurangOutang," (orangutan) the escaped pet of a sailor.
"Annabel Lee"/1849
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Annabel Lee is Poe's last poem. Written in 1849, it was not published until shortly after his death
that same year, appearing in two newspapers. Like Poe's The Raven it tells of a man mourning a
dead lover. It is unclear whether the character referred to a real person. Some say it for his wife, or a
lover, and others that it was the product of Poe's gloomy imagination. Annabel Lee is six stanzas,
three with six lines and three with eight, with the rhyme pattern differing slightly in each one. The
poem begins as if from a storyteller's point of view, where Poe begins to explain the couple's love,
which dates from their growing up together.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than loveI and my Annabel LeeAnnabel Lee dies because "the angels" envied the couple's great love.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
Born Harriet Elizabeth Beecher, an abolitionist, and writer of more than 10 books, the most famous
being Uncle Tom's Cabin which describes life in slavery, and which was first published in serial form
from 1851 to 1852 in an abolitionist organ, the National Era, edited by Gamaliel Bailey. Her second
novel was Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, another anti-slavery novel.
When Stowe met Abraham Lincoln in 1862 (during the Civil War), he allegedly greeted her, "So
you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"
"Uncle Tom's Cabin"
Names to associate with Uncle Tom's Cabin:
1. Uncle Tom
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2. Shelby family
3. Eliza
4. Tom Loker
5. Cassy
The book opens with a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby about to lose his farm due to massive
debts. Even though he and his wife (Emily Shelby) believe they have a benevolent relationship with
their slaves, Shelby decides to raise money by selling two of his slaves — Uncle Tom, a middle-aged
man with a wife and child, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby’s maid Eliza — to a slave trader. Emily
Shelby hates to do this because she had promised Eliza that Shelby would not sell her son, while her
son, George Shelby, hates to see Tom go because he considers the slave to be his friend.
When Eliza overhears a conversation between the slave trader and his wife, she warns Uncle Tom,
then takes Harry and flees to the North. The slave trader, Mr. Haley, pursues Eliza but she escapes
capture by crossing into the free state of Ohio, so Haley hires a slave hunter named Tom Loker to
bring Eliza and Harry back to Kentucky. Meanwhile, Eliza and Harry arrive in a safe Quaker
settlement, where they are joined by Eliza's husband George, who had escaped earlier. He agrees to
go with his wife and child to Canada, via the Underground Railroad.
While all of this is happening, Uncle Tom is sold and taken down the Mississippi River by the slave
trader to a slave market. On the boat, Tom meets a young white girl named Eva, who quickly
befriends him. When Eva falls into the river, Tom saves her. In gratitude, Eva's father, Augustine St.
Clare, buys Tom from Haley and take him with the family to their home in New Orleans.
As George and Eliza attempt to reach Canada, they are cornered by Loker and his men, causing
George to shoot Loker. Worried that Loker may die, Eliza convinces George and the Quakers to bring
the slave hunter to a nearby Quaker settlement for medical treatment. Meanwhile, in New Orleans,
St. Clare debates slavery with his cousin Ophelia, who opposes slavery but also hates black people.
St. Clare, by contrast, says he feels no hostility against blacks but tolerates slavery because he is
powerless to change it. To help Ophelia overcome her bigotry, he buys Topsy, a young black girl who
was abused by her past master, and asks Ophelia to educate her.
After Tom has lived with the St. Clares for two years, Eva grows very ill. She eventually dies, but not
before she has a vision of heaven, which she shares with the people around her. Her death has a
profound effect on everyone. Ophelia resolves to love her slaves, Topsy says she will learn to trust
others, and St. Clare decides to set Tom free as he promised to his daughter before her death.
However, before he can do so St. Clare gets stabbed to death while trying to end a fight.
St. Clare’s cruel wife, Marie, sells Tom to a vicious plantation owner named Simon Legree. Tom is
taken to rural Louisiana with other new slaves such as Emmeline, whom Legree purchased as a sex
slave. Legree takes a strong dislike to Tom when he refuses Legree's order to whip a fellow slave.
Tom receives a severe beating, and Legree resolves to crush Tom's faith in God. While at the
plantation, Tom meets Cassy, who was Legree's previous sex slave. Casey was previously separated
from her daughter by slavery. When she became pregnant again she killed her child to save the child
from the same fate.
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At this time Tom Loker returns to the story. Loker is now a changed man after being healed by the
Quakers. In addition, George, Eliza, and Harry obtained their freedom after they cross over into
Canada. In Louisiana, Tom almost loses his faith in God due to the hardships of the plantation.
However, he has two visions — one of Jesus and one of Eva — which renew his strength and faith.
He encourages Cassy to escape, which she does so, taking Emmeline with her. When Tom refuses to
tell Legree where Cassy and Emmeline have gone, the cruel master had him beaten to near death. As
Tom is dying, he forgives Legree and Legree's overseers. George Shelby (Authur Shelby's son) arrives
with money in hand to buy Tom’s freedom, but he is too late. He can only watch as Tom dies a
martyr’s death.
On their boat ride to freedom, Cassy and Emmeline meet George Harris’s sister and travel with her
to Canada, where Cassy realizes that Eliza is her long-lost daughter. The newly reunited family travel
to France and eventually Liberia, the African nation created for former American slaves. George
Shelby returns to the Kentucky farm, where, after his father’s death, he sets all the slaves free in
honor of Tom’s memory. Before they go, he tells them to remember Tom’s sacrifice every time they
look at his cabin and to lead a pious Christian life, just as Tom did.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
An American author, development critic, naturalist, transcendentalist, pacifist, tax resister and
philosopher who is famous for Walden, on simple living amongst nature, and Civil Disobedience, on
resistance to civil government and many other articles and essays. He was a lifelong abolitionist,
delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips
and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on
natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and
environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
"Walden"
Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's life for two years, two months, and two days in secondgrowth forest around the shores of Walden Pond, not far from his friends and family in Concord,
Massachusetts. Walden was written so that the stay appears to be a year, with expressed seasonal
divisions. Thoreau called it an experiment in simple living.
Walden is neither a novel nor a true autobiography, but a social critique of the Western World, with
each chapter heralding some aspect of humanity that needed to be either renounced or praised.
Along with his critique of the civilized world, Thoreau examines other issues afflicting man in society,
ranging from economy (the first chapter of the book) and reading to solitude and higher laws. He
also takes time to talk about the experience at Walden Pond itself, commenting on the animals and
the way people treated him for living there, using those experiences to bring out his philosophical
positions. This extended commentary on nature has often been interpreted as a strong statement to
the natural religion that transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emerson were preaching.
"Civil Disobedience"
Civil Disobedience is an essay published in 1849 under the title Resistance to Civil Government, it
expressed Thoreau’s belief that people should not allow governments to overrule or atrophy their
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consciences, and that people have a duty both to avoid doing injustice directly and to avoid allowing
their acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was
motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War.
One of the most famous quotes often mistakenly attributed to either Thomas Jefferson or Thomas
Paine, "That government is best which governs least", actually came from Thoreau in this essay.
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18th & 19th Century American Poetry
* Emily Dickenson (1830-1886)
“Because I could not stop for Death”
Because I could not stop for Death -He kindly stopped for me -The Carriage held but just Ourselves -And Immortality.
We slowly drove -- He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility -We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess -- in the Ring -We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain -We passed the Setting Sun -Or rather -- He passed Us -The Dews drew quivering and chill -For only Gossamer, my Gown -My Tippet -- only Tulle -We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground -The Roof was scarcely visible -The Cornice -- in the Ground -Since then -- 'tis Centuries -- and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –
"I reason earth is short"
I reason, Earth is short -And Anguish -- absolute -And many hurt,
But, what of that?
I reason, we could die -The best Vitality
Cannot excel Decay,
But, what of that?
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I reason, that in Heaven -Somehow, it will be even -Some new Equation, given -But, what of that?
"If I can stop one heart from breaking"
If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.
"That after Horror—that ‘twas us"
That after Horror -- that 'twas us -That passed the mouldering Pier -Just as the Granite Crumb let go -Our Savior, by a Hair -A second more, had dropped too deep
For Fisherman to plumb -The very profile of the Thought
Puts Recollection numb -The possibility -- to pass
Without a Moment's Bell -Into Conjecture's presence -Is like a Face of Steel -That suddenly looks into ours
With a metallic grin -The Cordiality of Death -Who drills his Welcome in –
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
was a physician by profession but achieved fame as a writer; he was one of the best regarded
American poets of the 19th century. He first attained national prominence with his poem "Old
Ironsides" about the 18th century battleship USS Constitution, which was to be broken up for scrap;
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the poem generated public sentiment that resulted in the historic ship being preserved as a
monument. One of his most popular works was The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.
In 1846, in a letter to William T. G. Morton, the dentist who was the first practicioner to publicly
demonstrate the use of ether during surgery, Holmes coined the word anæsthesia.
"THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS"
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sail the unshadowed main,-The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,-Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:-Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
29
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
William Dean Howells (1837-1920)
For the sake of the GRE, you need only know that Howells was a late 19th, and early 20th century
critic.
Howells was an American realist author. He wrote for various magazines, including Atlantic Monthly
and Harper's Magazine. He wrote his first novel, The Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his career took
off with his first realist novel, A Modern Instance. His most famous novel is The Rise of Silas Lapham.
Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik
Ibsen and Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputation in the United States. Nevertheless,
Howells's own reputation in American literature has waned somewhat, with his novels being
considered "prudish." According to him, the vast majority of people who would read his works were
women and he wrote in a way that would not offend them. He believed that literature was
potentially injurious and devoid of thought.
Today, Howells is most famous for his literary criticism and his editorial support of authors like Mark
Twain, Thorstein Veblen and Henry James.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
an American poet who wrote many poems that are still famous today, including The Song of
Hiawatha, "Paul Revere's Ride" and Evangeline. He also wrote the first American translation of Dante
Alighieri's Inferno. Longfellow is not a popular GRE poet, but his sonnet on Keats is a good one to
know.
"Keats"
The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep;
The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!
The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold
To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
The nightingale is singing from the steep;
It is midsummer, but the air is cold;
Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold
A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep.
Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white,
On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name
Was writ in water." And was this the meed
Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write
"The smoking flax before it burst to flame
Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed."
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"Paul Revere's Ride"
a longish poem, it begins:
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
"Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie"
Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie is a poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It
describes the betrothal of an Acadian peasant girl named Evangeline to her lover, Gabriel, and their
separation as the British deport the Acadians from Canada in the Great Expulsion. The poem then
follows Evangeline across the landscapes of America as she spends years in a search for him. Finally
she settles in Philadelphia and, as an old woman, works as a nurse among the poor. While tending
the dying during an epidemic she finds Gabriel among the sick, and he dies in her arms.
The prelude begins:
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
The first part begins:
In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,Distant, secluded, still, the little village of
Grand-Pre Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
"The Song of Hiawatha"
The Song of Hiawatha is an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow based on the legends of the
Ojibway Indians. Longfellow credited as his source the work of pioneering ethnographer Henry Rowe
SchoolcraftA short extract of 94 lines from the poem was and still is frequently anthologized under
the title Hiawatha's Childhood (which is also the title of the longer 234-line section from which the
extract is taken). This short extract is the most familiar portion of the poem. It is this short extract
that begins with the famous lines:
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By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
For many, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson stand as the two giants of 19th-century American
poetry. Whitman's poetry seems more quintessentially American; the poet exposed common
America and spoke with a distinctly American voice, stemming from a distinct American
consciousness. The power of Whitman's poetry seems to come from the spontaneous sharing of
high emotion he presented. American poets in the 20th century (and now, the 21st) must come to
terms with Whitman's voice, insofar as it essentially defined democratic America in poetic language.
Whitman utilized creative repetition to produce a hypnotic quality that creates the force in his
poetry, inspiring as it informs. Thus, his poetry is best read aloud to experience the full message.
"Song of Myself"
it begins:
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
"Pioners! O Pioneers"
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1
COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!
2
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, 5
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!
3
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers
4
Have the elder races halted? 10
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!
5
All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers! 15
6
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!
pioneers.
“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
a long poem, it begins:
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When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.
"Democratic Vistas"
Whitman did write prose, and if his prose shows up on the GRE, it will likely come from here:
In this essay, Whitman justly criticizes America for its "mighty, many-threaded wealth and industry"
that mask an underlying "dry and flat Sahara" of soul. He calls for a new kind of literature to revive
the American population ("Not the book needs so much to be the complete thing, but the reader of
the book does").
It ends: "We see our land, America, her literature, esthetics, &c., as, substantially, the getting in
form, or effusement and statement, of deepest basic elements and loftiest final meanings, of history
and man -- and the portrayal, (under the eternal laws and conditions of beauty,) of our own
physiognomy, the subjective tie and expression of the objective, as from our own combination,
continuation, and points of view -- and the deposit and record of the national mentality, character,
appeals, heroism, wars, and even liberties -- where these, and all, culminate in native literary and
artistic formulation, to be perpetuated; and not having which native, first-class formulation, she will
flounder about, and her other, however imposing, eminent greatness, prove merely a passing gleam;
but truly having which, she will understand herself, live nobly, nobly contribute, emanate, and,
swinging, poised safely on herself, illumin'd and illuming, become a full-form'd world, and divine
Mother not only of material but spiritual worlds, in ceaseless succession through time -- the main
thing being the average, the bodily, the concrete, the democratic, the popular, on which all the
superstructures of the future are to permanently rest."
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Modernist Poetry
e. e. Cummings (1894-1962)
Edward Estlin Cummings, typically abbreviated E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, painter,
essayist, and playwright. Though a representation not endorsed by him, his publishers often
mirrored his atypical syntax by writing his name in lower case, e. e. cummings.
Cummings, like Emily Dickenson, is probably best known for the unusual style used in many of his
poems, which includes unorthodox usage of both capitalization and punctuation, in which
unexpected and seemingly misplaced punctuation sometimes interrupt sentences and even
individual words. Several of his poems are also typeset on a page in an unusual fashion, and appear
to make little sense until read aloud.
Cummings' poetry often deals with themes of love and nature, as well as satire and the relationship
of the individual to the masses and to the world.
While some of his poetry is free verse (with no concern for rhyme and scansion), many of his poems
have a recognizable sonnet structure of 14 lines, with an intricate rhyme scheme. A number of his
poems feature a typographically exuberant style, with words, parts of words, or punctuation
symbols scattered across the page, often making little sense until read aloud—at which point the
meaning and emotion become clear. As a painter, Cummings understood the importance of
presentation, and used typography to "paint a picture" with some of his poems.[3]
In addition, a number of Cummings' poems feature in part or in whole intentional misspellings;
several feature phonetic spellings intended to represent particular dialects. Cummings also made
use of inventive formations of compound words, as in "in Just-", which features words such as "mudlucious" and "puddle-wonderful".
Many of Cummings' poems address social issues and satirize society, but have an equal or even
stronger bias toward romanticism: time and again his poems celebrate love, sex and spring. His
talent extended to children's books, novels, and painting. A notable example of his versatility is an
Introduction he wrote for a collection of the comic strip Krazy Kat.
An example of Cummings' unorthodox typographical style can be seen in his poems "the sky was
candy luminous..." and "a leaf falls on loneliness”.
"a salesman is an it that stinks Excuse "
a salesman is an it that stinks Excuse
Me whether it's president of the you were say
or a jennelman name misder finger isn't
important whether it's millions of other punks
or just a handful doesn't
matter and whether it's in lonjewray
or shrouds is immaterial it stinks
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a salesman is an it that stinks to please
but whether to please itself or someone else
makes no more difference than if it sells
hate condoms education snakeoil vac
uumcleaners terror strawberries democ
ra(caveat emptor)cy superfluous hair
or Think We've Met subhuman rights Before
Cummings' drama:
It is pretty unlikely that any of this would appear on the GRE, but knowing that he did write drama,
and having a sense of what type of drama it was, might come in handy.
"Anthropos, or the Future of Art"
a short, one-act play that Cummings contributed to the anthology Whither, Whither or After Sex,
What? A Symposium to End Symposiums . The play consists of dialogue between Man, the main
character, and three "infrahumans", or inferior beings. The word anthropos is the Greek word for
"man", in the sense of "mankind".
"Tom, A Ballet"
based on Harriet Beecher Stowe 's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin . The ballet is detailed in a "synopsis" as
well as descriptions of four "episodes", which were published by Cummings in 1935. It has never
been performed.
"Santa Claus, A Morality"
Probably Cummings' most successful play. It is an allegorical Christmas fantasy presented in one act
of five scenes. The play was inspired by his daughter Nancy, whom he was reunited with in 1946.
The play's main characters are Santa Claus, his family (Woman and Child), Death, and Mob. At the
outset of the play, Santa Claus' family has disintegrated due to their lust for knowledge (Science).
After a series of events, however, Santa Claus' faith in love and his rejection of the materialism and
disappointment he associates with Science are reaffirmed, and he is reunited with Woman and
Child.
H.D. (1886-1961)
Hilda Doolittle, prominently known only by her initials H.D., was an American poet, novelist and
memoirist. She is best known for her association with the key early 20th-century avant-garde Imagist
group of poets, although her later writing represents a move away from the Imagist model and
towards a distinctly feminine version of modernist poetry and prose.
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Doolittle was one of the leading figures in the bohemian culture of London in the early decades of
the century. Her work is noted for its use of classical models and its exploration of the conflict
between lesbian and heterosexual attraction and love that closely resembled her own life. Her later
poetry also explores traditional epic themes, such as violence and war, from a feminist perspective.
“Oread”
Whirl up, sea—
Whirl your pointed pines.
Splash your great pines
On our rocks.
Hurl your green over us—
Cover us with your pools of fir.
“Never more will the wind”
Never more will the wind
cherish you again,
never more will the rain.
Never more
shall we find you bright
in the snow and wind.
The snow is melted,
the snow is gone,
and you are flown:
Like a bird out of our hand,
like a light out of our heart,
you are gone.
"Helen"
All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the luster as of olives
where she stands,
And the white hands.
All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.
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Greece sees unmoved,
God’s daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the main,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.
“Stars wheel in purple”
Stars wheel in purple, yours is not so rare
as Hesperus, nor yet so great a star
as bright Aldeboran or Sirius,
nor yet the stained and brilliant one of War;
stars turn in purple, glorious to the sight;
yours is not gracious as the Pleiads are
nor as Orion's sapphires, luminous;
yet disenchanted, cold, imperious face,
when all the others blighted, reel and fall,
your star, steel-set, keeps lone and frigid tryst
to freighted ships, baffled in wind and blast.
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
Eliot was another American who lived in exile in Europe during the first half of the 20th century. He
is important as both a poet and a critic. His "The Waste Land" is considered the poem of the
Modernist canon, and his work as a New Historicist critic is no less noteworthy.
"The Waste Land"
"The Lovesong of J. Alfred Proofrock"
Eliot's criticism
Objective Correlative (1919): A term introduced by T.S Eliot in his essay “Hamlet and His Problems”
and defined as the set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which will set of a specific emotion in
the reader.
Another important essay of Eliot's is "Tradition and the Individual Talent."
"Four Quartets"
Four Quartets is the name given to four related poems by T. S. Eliot, collected and republished in
book form in 1943. They had been published individually from 1935 to 1942. Their titles are Burnt
Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding.
38
The Four Quartets is considered by Eliot himself to be his masterpiece. It draws upon his study, over
three decades, of mysticism and philosophy. Christian imagery and symbolism in the poems is
abundant: he had converted to Anglicanism in 1927, and was a devout Christian. There are also
numerous references to Hindu symbols and traditions, with which he had been familiar since his
student days.
The first verses are the best summary of the poem:
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
"Journey of the Maji"
The poem was written after Eliot's conversion to Christianity and confirmation in the Church of
England in 1927 and published in Ariel Poems in 1930. The poem is an account of the journey from
the point of view of one of the magi. It picks up Eliot's consistent theme of alienation and a feeling of
powerlessness in a world that has changed. In this regard, with a speaker who laments outliving his
world, the poem recalls Arnold's "Dover Beach", as well as a number of Eliot's own works. The poem
is, instead of a celebration of the wonders of the journey, largely a complaint about a journey that
was painful, tedious, and seemingly pointless. The speaker says that a voice was always whispering
in their ears as they went that "this was all folly". The magus seems generally unimpressed by the
infant, and yet he realizes that the incarnation has changed everything.
The birth of the Christ was the death of his world of magic, astrology, and paganism. The speaker,
recalling his journey in old age, says that after that birth his world had died, and he had little left to
do but wait for his own end.
dramatic monologue
the poem has a number of symbolist elements, where an entire philosophical position is summed up
by the manifestation of a single image. For example, the narrator says that on the journey they saw
"three trees against a low sky"; the single image of the three trees implies the historical future (the
crucifixion) and the spiritual truth of the future
'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
39
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial
speech.[1] His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth
century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes.
“Mending Wall’ *
40
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
41
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."
"Design"*
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?-If design govern in a thing so small.
“Meeting and passing”
As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less that two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.
And all the time we talked you seemed to see
Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met and you what I had passed.
"Mowing"
There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound-And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
42
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labour knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
“Spring Pools”
These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods -Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.
Marianne Moore (1887-1972)
Her most famous poem is perhaps the one entitled, appropriately, "Poetry," in which she hopes for
poets who can produce "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." It also expressed her idea that
poetry is not written in meter, but in more natural forms. She composed hers in "syllabics".
Robinson Jeffers likewise disavowed meter as a natural part of poetry. Moore went even further
than Jeffers, wholly denying meter.
"Poetry"
I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
43
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
that feels a flea, the baseball fan, the statistician-nor is it valid
to discriminate against "business documents and
school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make
a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
"literalists of
the imagination"—above
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them,"
shall we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
While he is most known for his work The Cantos, chances are that less famous work like "The Lake
Isle," which parrodies Yeats, will appear on the GRE. It is also worth knowing that Pound translated
the Old English work Seafarer
The Cantos
The Cantos by Ezra Pound is a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a canto. Most
of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the
44
early cantos, as finally published, date from 1922 onwards. It is a book-length work, widely
considered to present formidable difficulties to the reader. Strong claims have been made for it as
one of the most significant works of modernist poetry of the twentieth century. As in Pound's prose
writing, the themes of economics, governance, and culture are integral to its content.
The most striking feature of the text, to a casual browser, is the inclusion of Chinese characters as
well as quotations in European languages other than English. Recourse to scholarly commentaries is
almost inevitable for a close reader. The range of allusion to historical events is very broad, and
abrupt changes occur with the minimum of stage directions.
There is also a wide geographical spread; Pound added to his earlier interests in the classical
Mediterranean culture and East Asia selective topics from medieval and early modern Italy and
Provence, the beginnings of the United States, England of the seventeenth century, and details from
Africa he had obtained from Leo Frobenius. References left without explanation abound.
“Hugh Selwyn Mauberley”
Ezra Pound’s 1920 poem “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” is a landmark in the career of the great
American modernist poet. In the poem, Pound uses two alter egos to discuss the first twelve years of
his career, a period during which aesthetic and literary concerns fully engaged Pound’s attention.
The poem reconstructs literary London of the Edwardian period, recreating the dominant feeling
about what literature should be and also describing Pound’s own rebellious aesthetic beliefs. The
poem also takes us to the catastrophe of the early twentieth century, World War I, and bluntly
illustrates its effects on the literary world. The poem then proceeds to an “envoi,” or a send-off, and
then to five poems told through the eyes of a second alter ego.
In the first section of the poem, Pound portrays himself as “E. P.,” a typical turn-of-the-century
aesthete, and then in the second he becomes “Mauberley,” an aesthete of a different kind. Both E.
P. and Mauberley are facets of Pound’s own character that, in a sense, the poem is meant to
exorcise.
It begins:
E. P. ODE POUR L'ELECTION DE SON SEPULCHRE
For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start -No, hardly, but, seeing he had been born
In a half savage country, out of date;
Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn;
Capaneus; trout for factitious bait:
"The Lake Isle"
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This poem is a mile parody of W.B. Yeats' "The lake Isle of Innisfree"
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop,
With the little bright boxes
piled up neatly upon the shelves
And the loose fragment Cavendish
and the shag,
And the bright Virginia
loose under the bright glass cases,
And a pair of scales
not too greasy,
And the votailles dropping in for a word or two in passing,
For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit.
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,
or install me in any profession
Save this damn'd profession of writing,
where one needs one's brains all the time.
“The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
"In a Station of the Metro"
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With "The Lake Isle," this is a very good candidate for the GRE. It is modelled on the haiku structure,
and Pound's interest in the Orient is also a noteworthy character of his work. The title is part of the
poem.
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Carl Sandberg (1878-1967)
Much of his poetry, such as "Chicago", focused on Chicago, Illinois, where he spent time as a
reporter for the Chicago Daily News. His most famous description of the city is as "Hog Butcher for
the World/Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat/Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight
Handler,/Stormy, Husky, Brawling, City of the Big Shoulders."
Sandburg moved to Chicago in 1912, after living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he had served as
secretary to Emil Seidel, Milwaukee's Socialist mayor. Harriet Monroe, a fellow resident of Chicago,
had recently founded Poetry at around this time. Monroe liked and encouraged Sandburg's plainspeaking free verse style, strongly reminiscent of Walt Whitman. The 1916 Chicago Poems
established Sandburg as a major figure in contemporary literature.
The Chicago Poems, and its follow-up volumes of verse, Cornhuskers (1918) and Smoke and Steel
(1920) represent Sandburg's attempts to found a U.S. version of social realism, writing expansive
verse in praise of American agriculture and industry. All of these tendencies are manifest in Chicago
itself. Then, as now, Chicago was a hub of commodities trading, and a key financial center for
agricultural markets. The city was also a center of the meat-packing industry, and an important
railroad hub; these industries are also mentioned in the poem.
"Chicago"
HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas
lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free
to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the
marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back
the sneer and say to them:
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Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong
and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against
the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
“The Fog”
THE fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
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III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man
and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
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X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
*“Anecdote of the Jar”
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
“The Emperor of Ice-Cream”
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
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Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
“The Snow Man”
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Gertrude Stein
After moving to Paris in 1903 she started to write in earnest: novels, plays, stories, librettos and
poems. Increasingly, she developed her own highly idiosyncratic, playful, sometimes repetitive and
sometimes humorous style. Typical quotes are
"Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose."
and
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"Out of kindness comes redness and out of rudeness comes rapid same question, out of an eye
comes research, out of selection comes painful cattle."
as well as
"The change of color is likely and a difference a very little difference is prepared. Sugar is not a
vegetable."
These stream-of-consciousness experiments, rhythmical word-paintings or "portraits", were
designed to evoke "the excitingness of pure being" and can be seen as an answer to Cubism in
literature. Many of the experimental works such as Tender Buttons have since been interpreted by
critics as a feminist reworking of partiarchal language. These works were loved by the avant-garde,
but mainstream success initially remained elusive.
Her first published book, Three Lives (1909), the stories of three working-class women, has been
called a minor masterpiece. The three stories are "The Good Anna," "Melanchtha," and "The Gentle
Lena."
"Stanzas in Meditation"
Part I, Stanza XIII
She may count three little saisies very well
By multiplying to either six nine or fourteen
Or she can be well mentioned as twelve
Which they may like which they can like soon
Or more than ever which they wish as a button
Just as much as they arrange which they wish
Or they can attire where they need as which say
Can they call a hat or a hat a day
Made merry because it is so.
Part V, Stanza XXXVIII
Which I wish to say is this
There is no beginning to an end
But there is a beginning and an end
To beginning.
Why yes of course.
Any one can learn that north of course
Is not only north but north as north
Why were they worried.
What I wish to say is this.
Yes of course.
William Carlos Williams
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Many of his earlier poems are influenced by Dadaist and Surrealist principles. In general, he found
modern art very inspiring. While Williams disliked Ezra Pound's and especially T.S. Eliot's (see The
Waste Land) frequent use of allusions to foreign languages, religion, history or art, Williams drew his
themes from what he called "the local." He coined the expression "No ideas but in things", his
famous summation of his poetic method. What he meant is that poets should leave traditional
poetic forms and unnecessary literary allusions aside and try to see the world through the eyes of an
ordinary person. Williams wrote in "plain American which cats and dogs can read", to use a phrase
of Marianne Moore, another doubter of poetic meter. He was concerned with writing poetry in a
recognizably American idiom.
Williams is best known for his poem “The Red Wheelbarrow,” which is considered the model
example of the Imagist movement's style and principles (see also “This Is Just To Say”). He also
coined the Imagist motto "no ideas but in things." However, Williams did not personally subscribe to
Imagist ideas, which were more a product of Ezra Pound and H.D.. Williams is more strongly
associated with the American Modernist movement in literature, which rejected European
influences in poetry in favor of regional dialogues and influences. In particular, his call for more
regionalism in American literature came on the heels of his brief collaboration with Ezra Pound in
editing an early draft of T.S. Eliot's epic poem The Waste Land.
“Spring and All”
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vinesLifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approachesThey enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar windNow the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are definedIt quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
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entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
From “Aspodel, that greeny flower”
Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
like a buttercup
upon its branching stemsave that it's green and woodenI come, my sweet,
to sing to you.
We lived long together
a life filled,
if you will,
with flowers. So that
I was cheered
when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
in hell.
“Landscape With The Fall of Icarus”
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax
insignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
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From: “Tract”
I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral-for you have it over a troop
of artists-unless one should scour the world-you have the ground sense necessary.
See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake not black-nor white either--and not polished!
Let it be weathered--like a farm wagon-with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough dray to drag over the ground.
"The Red Wheelbarrow"
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Modernist Novel
Willa Cather (1873-1947)
"My Ántonia"
My Ántonia (first published 1918) is considered the greatest novel by American writer Willa Cather.
My Ántonia - pronounced with the accent on the first syllable of "Ántonia" - is the final book of the
"prairie trilogy" of novels by Cather, a list that also includes O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark.
My Ántonia tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start
new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest
daughter is named Ántonia. The book's narrator, Jim Burden, arrives in the fictional town of Black
Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas, as he goes to live with his grandparents after
his parents have died. Jim develops strong feelings for Ántonia, something between a crush and a
filial bond, and the reader views Ántonia's life, including its attendant struggles and triumphs,
through that lens.
"Death Comes for the Archbishop"
It concerns the attempts of a Catholic bishop and a priest to establish a diocese in New Mexico
Territory. It is based on the careers of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy and Father Joseph
Machebeuf.
The primary character is Bishop Jean Marie Latour, who travels alone from Cincinnati to New Mexico
to take charge of the newly established diocese of New Mexico, which has only just become a
territory of the United States. He is later assisted by his childhood friend Father Joseph Vaillant. At
the time of his departure, Cincinnati is the end of the railway line west, so Latour must travel by
riverboat to the Gulf of Mexico, and thence overland to New Mexico, a journey which takes an entire
year. He spends the rest of his life establishing the Roman Catholic church in New Mexico, where he
dies in old age. The novel is notable for its portrayal of two well-meaning and devout French priests
who encounter a well-entrenched Spanish-Mexican clergy they are sent to supplant when the
United States acquired New Mexico and the Vatican, in turn, remapped its dioceses. Several of these
entrenched priests are depicted in classic manner as exempla of greed, avarice and gluttony, while
others live simple, abstemious lives among the Indians. Cather portrays the Hopi and Arapaho
sympathetically, and her characters express the near futility of overlaying their religion on a
millennia-old Native culture. Cather's vivid landscape descriptions are also memorable.
William Faulkner (1897-1963)
Faulkner is likely to appear on the GRE because of his distinctive style. Also, if you ever see the
names Quentin Compson, of if you see the surname Snopes, you're looking at Faulkner. I won't put
a summary for all Faulkner's works here, but know that the most likely candidates for the GRE are
The Sound and the Fury, and the short story "A Rose for Emily."
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"Sound and the Fury"
The four parts of the novel relate many of the same episodes, each from a different point of view
and therefore with emphasis on different themes and events. This interweaving and nonlinear
structure makes any true synopsis of the novel difficult, especially since the narrators are all
unreliable in their own way, making their accounts not necessarily trustworthy at all times.
The general outline of the story is the decline of the Compson family, a once noble southern family
descended from civil war hero General Compson. The family falls victim to those vices which
Faulkner believed were responsible for the problems in the reconstructed South: racism, greed,
selfishness and, ultimately, psychological impotence. Especially in regard to the latter, the novel has
been often described as having the thematic structure of a Greek tragedy. Over the course of the
thirty years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and
the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically.
A famous passage that may appear on the GRE, it is narrated by Quentin:
“When the shadow of the sash appeared in the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and
then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he
said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciatingly apt that you will use it
to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better
than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might
forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.”
**The title of the novel is taken from Macbeth's soliloquy in act 5, scene 5 of William Shakespeare's
Macbeth:
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
''Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing..."
"A Light in August"
The narrative structure consists of three connected plot-strands. The first strand tells the story of
Lena Grove, a young pregnant woman who is trying to find the father, Lucas Burch, of her unborn
child. With that purpose she leaves her home town and walks several hundred miles afoot to
Jefferson, a town in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha county. There she is supported by Byron
Bunch, an employee in the planing mill who falls in love with Lena and hopes to marry her. Bunch
keeps secret that Lucas Burch is hiding in town under the alias Joe Brown. Lena is a simple child of
57
nature, representing positive human qualities like innocence and endurance. Her journey in August
and the birth of her child are symbolic of the eternal cycle of nature.
The narrative plot of Lena's story is also circular; it builds a framework around the two other plotstrands. One of these is the story of the enigmatic character Joe Christmas.
One day he comes to the planing mill in Jefferson and asks for a job. The work at the planing mill is
just a cover up for his illegal alcohol business. He has a sexual relationship with Joanna Burden, who
is descended from a formerly powerful abolitionist family. She lets Joe live in the cabin behind her
house. Joanna Burden’s brother and grandfather, two civil right activists, were both gunned down at
daylight. Joanna Burden continues her ancestors' struggle for Black emancipation, which makes her
an outsider in the society of Jefferson, much like Christmas.
Her relationship with Christmas begins rather disturbingly, with an ambiguous episode in which
sexual abuse is suggested, and it ends in disaster. As a result of sexual frustration and the beginning
of menopause, she turns to religion. At the climax of her relation to Christmas, she tries to force him,
by threatening him with a gun, to admit publicly his black ancestry and to join a black law firm. But
the old gun jams and Christmas gets away. Joanna Burden is murdered soon thereafter. Her throat is
slit and she is nearly decapitated. Her body is carried outside and her house is set on fire. The
murder was presumably committed by Joe Christmas, but this is not explicitly narrated; one could
argue that Burch murdered her. It appears that Lucas Burch/Joe Brown may have at least set the
house on fire.
Thanks to a tip-off by Lucas Burch/Joe Brown, Christmas' previous business partner in the moonshining venture and the father of Lena's child, Christmas is caught. During his unsuccessful escape
attempt, Christmas is shot and castrated by a national Guardsman named Percy Grimm.
The third plot strand tells the story of Reverend Gail Hightower. He is obsessed by the past
adventures of his Confederate grandfather, who was killed while stealing a few chickens from a
farmer's shed. Hightower's community dislikes him because of his sermons about his dead
grandfather, and because of the scandal surrounding his personal life: his wife committed adultery,
and later killed herself, turning the town's community against Hightower and effectively turning him
into a pariah. The only character who does not turn his back on the Reverend is Byron Bunch, who
visits Hightower from time to time. Bunch also tries to convince the Reverend to give the imprisoned
Christmas an alibi, but Hightower initially refuses. When Christmas escapes from police custody he
runs to Hightower's house where and tries to hide. Hightower then accepts Byron's suggestion, but it
is too late as Percy Grimm is close behind.
At the end of the novel, the Reverend helps Lena to deliver her baby, a circumstance that helps him
break his inner isolation and makes him feel his approaching death.
"A Rose for Emily"
A Rose for Emily is the story of an eccentric spinster, Emily Grierson. An unnamed narrator details
the strange circumstances of Emily’s life and her odd relationships with her father who controlled
and manipulated her, her lover Homer Barron, the townspeople of Jefferson who gossip about her,
and her horrible secret. In her upstairs room, she hides Barron's corpse, which explains the horrid
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stench that emits from Miss Emily's house. The story’s subtle complexities continue to inspire critics
while casual readers find it one of Faulkner’s most accessible works. The popularity of the story is
due in no small part to its gruesome ending. The story explores many themes, including the society
of the South at that time, the role of women in the South, and extreme psychosis.
In the story, the townspeople's points of views on Emily actually reflect the society's value at that
moment to some extent. Although the townspeople don't have direct contact with Emily, their views
on her and her family greatly affect her life. Their praises and admiration influence her father to
keep her sheltered longer than she actually needs to be. Her father controls her thoughts and
lifestyle. Emily feels that she is released when her father is dead. She dives into love with Homer and
neglects people's judgments on her. When she realizes that Homer intends to leave her again, she
makes sure that he would always be with her, whether he is alive or not. In his death Emily finds
eternal love which is something no one could ever take away from her.
A famous quote about Emily and her father:
We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background,
her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the
two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single,
we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have
turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940)
Fitzgerald is regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. In his own
age, Fitzgerald was the self-styled spokesman of the "Lost Generation", or the Americans born in the
1890s who came of age during World War I. He crafted five novels and dozens of short stories that
treat themes of youth, despair, and age. Many admire what they consider his remarkable emotional
honesty. His heroes — handsome, confident, and doomed — blaze brilliantly before exploding, and
his heroines are typically beautiful, intricate, and alluring.
"The Great Gatsby"
Jay Gatsby is a young millionaire with a dubious and somewhat notorious past. He has no ties to the
society of the rich in which he circulates, and no one quite knows how he made his fortune. Some
believe he is a bootlegger. Rumors circulate of his "killing a man", or being a German spy during the
Great War and the possibility of his being a cousin of contemporaneous German ruler Kaiser
Wilhelm. However, despite the glamorous parties he throws, with their countless gatecrashers
whom he generously tolerates, Gatsby is a lonely man. All he really wants is to "repeat the past" – to
be reunited with the love of his life and golden girl, Daisy. That's why he was up to getting rich, not
only, that he wouldn't end like his father, a farmer, but also to regain Daisy. But Daisy is now Daisy
Buchanan, married to the staid, respectable millionaire and famous polo player Tom Buchanan, and
the couple now has a young child. For Gatsby, though, Daisy's new status as mother and wife hardly
constitutes an obstacle in conquering his love for her; and Daisy, feeling trapped and bored in her
marriage with the unfaithful Tom, is flattered by the return of Gatsby's attention.
59
The narrator of the novel is Nick Carraway, a young Wall Street trader at the height of the rising
financial market in the 1920s, who is also Daisy's cousin. Carraway has moved into the small
bungalow next to a mansion owned by the millionaire Gatsby (a "factual imitation of some Hotel de
Ville in Normandy"). Eventually, Carraway cynically realizes that the rich, as respectable as they may
seem superficially, are indeed "careless people," and Tom and Daisy are no exception. Tom has a
mistress, Myrtle, the wife of the gas station owner in the wasteland of ashes between the fabulous
mansions on Long Island and New York City, located somewhere around present day Flushing,
Queens, New York. Nick meets and quickly makes friends with Gatsby, though, and becomes his
liaison with Daisy. One afternoon, after a confrontation between Tom and Gatsby over Daisy, Daisy
runs over Myrtle while driving back from the city. Tom misleads Myrtle's heartbroken husband
George unintentionally, implying that the accident was Gatsby's fault, and Gatsby is consequently
shot by George Wilson. Wilson commits suicide immediately afterward. Hardly anyone, and not even
Daisy, comes out to Gatsby's funeral, and Nick, Gatsby's sole remaining friend, must attend it alone,
where he meets Gatsby's father, a poor farmer. Gatsby is buried with the same mystery in which he
suddenly appeared.
**The famous closing lines are: “He believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by
year recedes before us. It eluted us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster,
stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning – So we beat on, boats against the current,
borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
"Babylon Revisited”
Fitzgerald's most renowned and most considered work of short fiction. A work that intimates the
times as well as revealing a personal tragedy, the short story is his most often anthologized.
Fitzgerald wrote the story amidst the turmoil of his own life, and that life is in many ways drawn out
in "Babylon Revisited." Fitzgerald's consideration of the story as intensely personal cannot be
doubted; that he evolved it into something universal makes it a masterful work.
It features the characters Charlie Wales and Helen Wales. It is the story of a father’s attempt to
regain the custody of his daughter after recovering from the deathof his wife and his own
alcoholism.
"This Side of Paradise (1920)"
The debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I
youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is a wealthy and attractive Princeton University student who
dabbles in literature and has a series of romances.
Excerpt from the novel (Book 1: The Romantic Egotist, Chapter 1: Amory, Son of Beatrice):
Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made
him worth while. His father, an ineffectual, inarticulate man with a taste for Byron and a habit of
drowsing over the Encyclopedia Britannica, grew wealthy at thirty through the death of two elder
brothers, successful Chicago brokers, and in the first flush of feeling that the world was his, went to
Bar Harbor and met Beatrice O'Hara. In consequence, Stephen Blaine handed down to posterity his
height of just under six feet and his tendency to waver at crucial moments, these two abstractions
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appearing in his son Amory. For many years he hovered in the background of his family's life, an
unassertive figure with a face half-obliterated by lifeless, silky hair, continually occupied in "taking
care" of his wife, continually harassed by the idea that he didn't and couldn't understand her.
"Tender is the Night (1934)"
In 1932, Fitzgerald's wife Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was hospitalized for schizophrenia in Baltimore,
Maryland, and the author rented the "La Paix" estate in the suburb of Towson, Maryland to work on
this book, the story of the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychoanalyst and his wife,
Nicole, who is also one of his patients. It would be his first novel published in nine years, and the last
novel that he would complete.
Ernest Hemmingway (1899-1961)
An American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His distinctive writing style is characterized
by terse minimalism and understatement and had a significant influence on the development of
twentieth century fiction. Hemingway's protagonists are typically stoics, often seen as projections of
his own character–men who must show "grace under pressure." Many of his works are considered
classics in the canon of American literature.
Hemingway, nicknamed "Papa," was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, as described in
his novel A Moveable Feast. Known as part of "the Lost Generation," a name coined and popularized
by Gertrude Stein, he led a turbulent social life, was married four times, and allegedly had various
romantic relationships during his lifetime.
"The Sun Also Rises"
The novel is a powerful exposé of the life and values of the Lost Generation, a generation deeply
scarred by World War I. The main characters are Jake Barnes and Brett Ashley. Barnes suffered an
injury during World War I that makes him unable to consummate his relationship with Brett sexually.
"For Whom the Bell Tolls"
It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an
antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains during the Spanish Civil War. As an expert in the use of
explosives, he is given an assignment to blow up a bridge to accompany a simultaneous attack on
the city of Segovia.
Behind enemy lines, with the guerrilla band of Pablo, he meets María, whose life has been shattered
by the outbreak of the war. It is here that the story develops, as Pablo's unwillingness to commit to
the operation clashes with Jordan's strong sense of duty, and even Jordan's sense of duty clashes
with his newfound love for life caused by the presence of María. A substantial portion of the novel is
told through the thoughts of Robert Jordan, with flashbacks to meetings with Russians in Madrid and
some reflections on his father and grandfather. Another character, Pilar, relates events that
demonstrate the incredible brutality of civil war, in one case by the actions of a revolutionary mob
and in another by those of governmental authorities.
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"A Farewell to Arms"
The novel, a love story, draws heavily on Hemingway's experiences as a young soldier in Italy. It tells
the story of Lieutenant Frederic Henry, a young American ambulance driver serving in the Italian
army during World War I. Henry falls in love with the English nurse Catherine Barkley. After he is
wounded at the front by a trench mortar shell, she tends to him in the hospital during his
recuperation, and their relationship develops. His recuperation and romance with the now pregnant
Catherine ends abruptly when Henry must return to the front. Henry narrowly escapes death at the
hands of fanatical Italian soldiers, who are executing officers separated from their troops during the
Italians' disastrous retreat following the Battle of Caporetto. He finds Catherine, and after a sojourn
in an Italian resort, the couple flees to Switzerland on the eve of Henry's arrest for deserting. In
Switzerland, their child is born dead, and Catherine dies shortly after due to hemorrhages. A
Farewell to Arms is an excellent example of the simple, terse prose style that made Hemingway
famous.
Henry James (1843-1916)
Yes: he is actually American. Don't forget it.
James could easily be pushed out of the "modern" category, but he's sufficiently in-between to
qualify on this site. You can count on James' long, involute syntax to make an appearance on your
exam. He has a lot of testable material, so it's best to focus on knowing A) his style, and B) the
names of his characters. The guidebooks are pretty clear on what James' style looks and feels like.
Note that the most likely candidates for your test are The Beast in the Jungle, Portrait of a Lady,
and The Turn of the Screw.
"The Ambassadors"
Mr. Lambert Strether is from Woollett, Massachusetts and he has come to Europe at the request of
his employer, Mrs. Newsome. Mrs. Newsome's son, Chad, has been in Paris for a long time and the
Newsomes are worried that Chad will never return home. Strether is to bring Chad back home.
Despite the assistance of his old friend, Waymarsh, and his new friend, Maria Gostrey, Strether is
unable to fulfill this task. He is Mrs. Newsome's "ambassador," sent to Paris to protect her interests.
Strether arrives in Paris and his trip becomes a return to his own youth. He enjoys spending time
with Chad's young friends, Miss Barrace and Little John Bilham. Strether is charmed by the Countess,
Madame de Vionnet, a married woman with whom Chad has begun a relationship. Quite impressed
by the Countess, Strether agrees to help her as well - though he does not know how he will be able
to appease both Mrs. Newsome and the Countess. From the very beginning, Strether's plan is
doomed to fail. He hopes to convince Mrs. Newsome that the Countess has been a positive influence
on Chad and that Chad has changed for the better. Waymarsh gives Strether very sound advice:
Strether should either follow his directions from Mrs. Newsome, or give up altogether. Strether
rejects this advice and tries to find the compromise between two conflicting positions. Just when
Chad seems willing to co back home to Woollett, it is Strether who convinces the young man to stay
in Paris for a little while longer.
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Strether's fate quickly runs downhill. Mrs. Newsome sends her daughter, Sarah Pocock (Chad's
sister), to bring Chad home. Sarah arrives with her husband, Jim Pocock, and her sister-in-law,
Mamie Pocock. It is suggested that Chad will return home to marry Mamie Pocock and continue in
the family business: advertising. Unlike Strether, Sarah Pocock is not amused by Society and its
trappings, nor is she impressed with the Countess, nor is she inspired by the architecture and
atmosphere of Paris. Sarah intends to do her job and she does it quickly. It does not take very long
for Chad to get himself ready to leave Paris. His condition to Sarah is that he will agree to return
home if Strether gives him the word. Sarah turns to Strether, considering that the task has been
completed - for how could Strether refuse? This is, however, exactly what Strether does.
Fearing that Chad will return home and live a miserable life in business, Strether looks at his own
miserable life and is unable to condemn Chad to a similar fate. Strether knows that Chad will return
home regardless of what he says. Still, Strether does not want the blot on his conscience. This move
is costly for Strether: he will likely lose his job with the Newsomes. The possibility of his marriage
with Mrs. Newsome is nullified as well. In sum, Strether, a man with very little money, has lost the
opportunity to get a good deal more. In the end of the novel, the only solace that he has is in
knowing that he has been true to his ideals and has gained nothing for himself.
"The Beast in the Jungle"
John Marcher, the protagonist, is re-aquainted with May Bartram, a woman he knew ten years
earlier, who remembers his odd secret- Marcher is seized with the belief that his life is to be defined
by some catastrophic or spectacular event, lying in wait for him like a "beast in the jungle."
May decides to take a flat nearby in London, and to spend her days with Marcher curiously awaiting
what fate has in stall for John. Of course Marcher is a self-centered egoist, believing that he is
precluded from marrying so that he does not subject his wife to his "spectacular fate". So he takes
May to the theatre and invites her to an occasional dinner, while not allowing her to really get close
to him for her own sake. As he sits idly by and allows the best years of his life to pass, he takes May
down as well, until the denouement wherein he learns that the great misfortune of his life was to
throw it away, and to ignore the love of a good woman, based upon his preposterous sense of
foreboding.
"The Golden Bowl"
Adam Verver, a US billionaire in London, dotes on daughter Maggie, an innocent abroad. An
impecunious Italian, Prince Amerigo, marries her even though her best friend, Charlotte Stant, an
alabaster beauty with brains, no money, and a practical and romantic nature, is his lover. She and
Amerigo keep it secret from Maggie that they know each other, so Maggie interests her widowed
father in Charlotte, who is happy with the match because she wants to be close to Amerigo.
Charlotte desires him, the lovers risk discovery, Amerigo longs for Italy, Maggie wants to spare her
father pain, and Adam wants to return to America to build a museum. Amidst lies and artifice, what
fate awaits adulterers?
"The Portrait of a Lady"
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First published in 1881. It is the story of a young female American, Isabel Archer, who inherits a large
amount of money, which left her to the Machiavellan schemings of two European expatriates. Like
many of James' novels, it is set mostly in Europe, notably Italy.
"The Aspern Papers"
A novella about the unsuccessful attempts of the biographer of a famous and long-dead poet
(Jeffrey Aspern) to secure some papers from the poet’s aged former mistress and her homely
daughter. It is set in Venice. The protagonist encourages the daughter’s growing infatuation withhim
in order to get the papers.
"Daisy Miller"
This novella deals with the eponymous American girl and her courtship by Winterbourne, both of
whom are expatriates in Italy and Switzerland. She is overly flirtatious and dies a tragic death.
"Turn of the Screw"
Originally published in 1898, it is a ghost story that has lent itself well to operatic and film
adaptation.
Due to its style, The Turn of the Screw became a favorite text of New Criticism. The reader is
challenged to determine if the protagonist, a nameless governess, is reliably reporting events or
instead is some kind of neurotic with an overheated imagination. To further muddy the waters, her
written account of the experience -- a frame tale -- is being read many years later at a Christmas
house party by someone who claims to have known her.
An unnamed narrator listens to a manuscript read by a male friend from a former governess whom
the latter claimed to know and who is now dead.
A young governess is hired by a man who has found himself responsible for his niece and nephew
after the death of their parents. He lives in London and has no interest whatsoever in the children.
The boy is at a boarding school. The girl, Flora, is living at his country home where she is cared for by
the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. He gives the governess full charge of the children and makes it clear
he never wants to hear from her again regarding them. The governess travels to her new employer's
house and begins her duties. Shortly thereafter, the boy, Miles, turns up after being expelled from
his school. For some mysterious reason, the headmaster feels he is a threat to the other boys.
The governess begins to see and hear strange things. She learns that her predecessor, a Miss Jessel,
and her lover Quint, a clever but abusive man, died under curious circumstances. Gradually, she
becomes convinced that the pair are somehow using the children to continue their relationship from
beyond the grave. The governess takes action against the perceived threat with tragic consequences.
"The Art of Fiction"
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In his classic essay The Art of Fiction, he argued against rigid proscriptions on the novelist's choice of
subject and method of treatment. He maintained that the widest possible freedom in content and
approach would help ensure narrative fiction's continued vitality. James wrote many valuable critical
articles on other novelists; typical is his insightful book-length study of his American predecessor
Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Edith Wharton (1862-1937)
Born Edith Newbold Jones, to a wealthy New York family often associated with the phrase “Keeping
up with the Joneses,” Edith combined her insights into the privileged classes with her natural wit to
write novels and short fiction which are notable for their humor and incisiveness.
The House of Mirth
It is centered around Lily Bart, a New York socialite who attempts to secure a husband and a place in
affluent society.
The title is taken from Ecclesiastes 7:4: "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the
heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” In the Gillian Anderson version, she admits as much to Gus
Trenor at the end of her downward spiral: "I have been such a fool."
Of all of her best-known novels, "House of Mirth" seems the most tragic. The heroine, who is far
from stupid, is so bound-up in her rigid principles, that she flatly refuses to grab hold of the virtual
life-rafts thrown to her. Her lawyer friend, Lawrence Selden, would gladly have married her, but she
thought him not rich enough. When Bertha Dorset's husband asks for her help in a proposed divorce
suit against his wife by reason of infidelity, Lily coldly stands aside, uninvolved. Had the trial gone
forward, she might have become his second wife. A wealthy and doting Mr. Gryce, evidently taken
with her, is impetuously snubbed as she decides not to meet him at church. Compelled by her
reverence for honesty, in a disastrous move she admits her gambling debts to her dour and snippy
Aunt Julia, who then disinherits her. Having repeatedly refused the help of her powerful friends, she
alienates them all, and now must seek increasingly menial and disreputable (i.e. proletarian) work.
Ethan Frome
It is set in turn-of-the-century New England, in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts.In the
novel, infidelity is explored as the title character wishes to feel vibrant and young again. His wife,
Zenobia (nicknamed Zeena), is a hypochondriac and has led herself to believe that she is going to
die. Her relatives send for her cousin, Mattie Silver, who needs work as she has been left penniless
and an orphan.
He embarks on a chivalrous affair with his wife's cousin, which culminates in Ethan nearly leaving his
wife numerous times. When Mattie displeases Zeena, she sends her back to the city. Emotion
overcomes Ethan, and he tells Mattie that he wants to live with her forever. They decide to sled into
a bulky tree, so it will kill them instantly and they can be together in heaven. The accident paralyzes
Mattie and leaves Ethan with many ailments.
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The story is presented in a style reminscient of Peyton Place, in that a visitor to the town hears of
the entire story not from Ethan, but from other villagers, like the visitor's landlady, Mrs. Ruth
Varnum Hale and the trolley operator, Harmon Gow.
"The Age of Innocence"
The novel is set in the middle and upper classes of 1870s Old New York. Newland Archer, a lawyer
set to enter into a marriage with the naïve but beautiful May Welland, must re-consider his choice
with the intrusion of Countess Ellen Olenska, May's cousin. Ellen has returned to New York because
she is trying to separate herself from a bad marriage. Newland is at first confused and then intrigued
by Ellen, while he becomes more and more disillusioned with May, who is seen as the perfect
product of Old New York society. When Ellen wants to divorce her husband, Newland convinces her
otherwise and realizes how much he cares for her. He begs May to push up their wedding date but
she refuses at first. He then admits to Ellen that he loves her and receives a telegram pushing up his
wedding date.
Newland and May are married in the second part of the novel and Newland tried to forget about
Ellen but sees her while he and May are in Newport. Ellen agrees that she will stay in America if they
do not consummate their relationship. Newland soon discovers that Ellen’s husband wished she
would return to him and she has refused. Ellen comes to New York to care for her sick grandmother
and agrees to consummate her relationship with Newland. Suddenly, she decides to return to
Europe inexplicably. May and Newland throw a farewell party for her and May tells Newland that
she is pregnant and told Ellen so a few days before. Twenty-five years pass and Newland and his son
are in Paris after May’s death. They arrange to meet Ellen in her Paris apartment but Newland
changes his mind at the last minute, happy to live with his memories.
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Harlem Renaissance
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
Most of Baldwin's work deals with racial and sexual issues in the mid-20th century United States. His
work is notable for the deeply personal - even courageous - way in which he explores questions of
identity and meaning. His novels mime all the complex, social and psychological pressures related to
being both black and homosexual at a time well before the social, cultural or political equality of
these groups could be assumed.
His most important works are Notes on a Native Son (essays) and Go Tell it On the Mountain.
Go Tell it on the Mountain examines the role of the Christian Church in the lives of AfricanAmericans, both as a source of repression and moral hypocrisy and as a source of inspiration and
community. It also, more subtly, examines racism in the United States. The protagonist is John
Grimes.
Countee Cullen (1903-1946)
Countee Cullen was an American poet, one of the finest of the Harlem Renaissance. His most famous
poems are "Yet Do I Marvel" and "Incident", the latter of which describes a childhood trip to
Baltimore marred by a racial slur. Countee Cullen was raised and educated in a primarily white
community. Countee Cullen differed from many other poets of the Harlem Renaissance because he
lacked the background to comment from personal experience on the lives of other blacks or use
popular black themes in his writing.
“Yet do I Marvel” (Note that this is a Shakespearean sonnet)
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
“Incident”
Once riding in old Baltimore,
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Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
Ralph Ellison (1914-1994)
Ellison's most famous work is Invisible Man, which explores the theme of man’s search for his
identity and place in society, as seen from the perspective of a black man in the New York City of the
1940’s. In contrast to his contemporaries such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin, Ellison created
characters who are dispassionate, educated, articulate and self-aware. Through the protagonist,
Ellison explores the contrasts between the Northern and Southern varieties of racism and their
alienating effect. The narrator is "invisible" in a figurative sense, in that "people refuse to see" him,
and also experiences a kind of dissociation.
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
Like many writers of the post-WWI era, such as Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, Hughes spent
time in Paris during the early 1920s. For most of 1924 he lived at 15 Rue de Nollet. In November
1924 Hughes moved to Washington D.C. His first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published in
1926. In 1929 he graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. In 1930, his first novel, Not
Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature. Hughes, who claimed Paul Laurence
Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his
insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the 1920s through the 1960s. Much of his
writing was inspired by the blues and jazz of that era; an example is "Montage of a Dream Deferred",
from which a line was taken for the title of the play Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry.
"Montage of a Dream Deferred"
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-68
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
other poetry
Many of his poems are in the form of blues lyrics, such as the opening verse to "Po' Boy Blues":
When I was home de
Sunshine seemed like gold.
When I was home de
Sunshine seemed like gold.
Since I come up North de
Whole damn world's turned cold.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
Her most famous work is Their Eyes Were Watching God. The main character, Janie, embarks on an
epic journey. Her search for self-fufillment as a woman and as an African-American is paralleled with
that of Odysseus as her journey takes her far and wide and pits her against the forces of nature and
"monsters" that try to stop her from reaching self-actualization:
The main character, a black woman in her early forties named Janie Crawford, tells the story of her
life and journey via an extended flashback to her best friend, Pheoby. Her life has three major
periods corresponding to her marriages to three men.
Janie's grandmother, Nanny, was a slave who was impregnated by a white man (Hurston implies
that it was the slaveowner) and gave birth to a daughter. That daughter was raped as a teenager and
became pregnant with Janie, but left Janie with Nanny and is not present in the novel. Nanny sees
Janie kissing a neighborhood boy and fears that Janie will become a "mule" to some man, so she
arranges for Janie to marry Logan Killicks, an older man and farmer who is looking for a wife to keep
his home and help on the farm. Janie has the idea that marriage must involve love, forged in a
pivotal early scene where she sees bees pollinating a pear tree and believes that marriage is the
human equivalent to this natural process. Logan Killicks, however, wants a domestic helper rather
than a lover or partner, and after he begins to hit Janie and to try to force her to help him with the
hard labor of the farm, Janie runs off with the glib Joe (Jody) Starks, who takes her to Eatonville
(which in reality was Hurston's hometown).
Starks arrives in Eatonville (the United States's first all-black community) to find the residents devoid
of ambition, so he arranges to buy more land from the neighboring landowner, hires some local
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residents to build a general store for him to own and run, and has himself appointed mayor. Janie
soon realizes that Joe wants her as a trophy. He wants the image of his perfect wife to reinforce his
powerful position in town, as he asks her to run the store but forbids her from participating in the
substantial social life that occurs on the store's front porch.
After Starks dies, Janie finds herself financially independent and beset with suitors, some of whom
are men of some means or have prestigious occupations, but she falls in love with a drifter and
gambler named Tea Cake. She sells the store and the two head to Jacksonville and get married, only
to move to the Everglades region soon after for Tea Cake to find work planting and harvesting beans.
While their relationship has its ups and downs, including mutual bouts of jealousy, Janie now has the
marriage with love that she had wanted.
The area is hit with a hurricane, and while Tea Cake and Janie survive it, Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid
dog while saving Janie from drowning. He contracts the disease himself. He ultimately tries to shoot
Janie with his pistol, but she shoots him with a rifle in self-defense. She is charged with murder. At
the trial, Tea Cake's black, male friends show up to oppose her, while a group of local white women
is there to support her. The all-white jury acquits Janie, and she returns to Eatonville, only to find the
residents gossiping about her and assuming (or perhaps wishing) that Tea Cake has run off with her
money.
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)
James Weldon Johnson was a leading African American author, poet, early civil rights activist, and
prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, he was the first African
American accepted to the Florida bar. He served in several public capacities, including as consul to
Venezuela and Nicaragua, but he is best remembered today for his writing, which included novels,
poems, and collections of folklore.
His first major literary sensation was The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), a fictional
account of a light-skinned black man's attempts to succeed and survive in the early 20th century. It
was while serving as executive secretary of the NAACP from 1920 through 1931 that he released
God's Trombones, Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, one of the works he is best remembered for today
Richard Wright (1908-1960)
The grandson of slaves, Wright became a respected author, best known for his novel Native Son
(1940). It tells the story of Bigger Thomas, an African-American of the poorest class, struggling to live
in the Chicago, Illinois of the 1930s. His life, however, is doomed from the outset: after Bigger
accidentally kills a white woman, he runs from the police, kills his girlfriend and is then caught and
tried.
Wright is also renowned for the semi-autobiographical Black Boy (1945), which describes his early
life from Roxie through his move to Chicago, his clashes with his Seventh-day Adventist family, his
difficulties with white employers and social isolation.
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Post-Modern & Contemporary Poetry
Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)
Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones on October 7, 1934 in Newark, New Jersey) is a American
writer of poetry, drama, essays, and music criticism. Baraka is today most widely known for the fact
that in 2002 the state of New Jersey made him poet laureate, but forced him out of that position a
year later because of his poem Somebody Blew Up America.
For the sake of the GRE, you need only know the poem below.
“Poem for Half White College Students”
Who are you, listening to me, who are you
listening to yourself? Are you white or
black, or does that have anything to do
with it? Can you pop your fingers to no
music, except those wild monkies go on
in your head, can you jerk, to no melody,
except finger poppers get it together
when you turn from starchecking to checking
yourself. How do you sound, your words, are they
yours? The ghost you see in the mirror, is it really
you, can you swear you are not an imitation greyboy,
that the sister you have you hand on is not really
so full of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton is
coming out of her ears. You may even have to be Richard
with a white shirt and face, and four million negroes
think you cute, you may have to be Elizabeth Taylor, old
lady,
if you want to sit up in your crazy spot dreaming about
dresses,
and the say of certain porters' hips. Check yourself,
learn who it is
speaking, when you make some ultrasophisticated point,
check yourself,
when you find yourself gesturing like Steve McQueen,
check it out, ask
in your black heart who it is you are, and is that image
black or white,
you might be surprised right out the window, whistling
dixie on the way in
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John Berryman
an American poet, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the
second half of the 20th century and often considered one of the founders of the Confessional school
of poetry. He is one of the figures acting as a bridge between the formally loose, socially aware
poetry of the Beats and the personal, grieving poetry of Sylvia Plath. He was the author of The
Dream Songs, which are playful, witty, and morbid. Berryman died by suicide in 1972.
For the sake of the GRE, all you need know is that his poems often feature a character named
“Henry” and one named “Mr. Bones.” Be able to identify those names with Berryman.
Elizabeth Bishop (1911 –1979)
An American poet and writer, increasingly regarded as one of the finest 20th century poets writing in
English.
A disciple of Marianne Moore, and a good friend of poets Robert Lowell and James Merrill, Elizabeth
Bishop was born in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Early in her career, Bishop was regarded (and perhaps dismissed) as a "miniaturist," a master of
small poetic structures and descriptive detail. Careful reading of her work, however, reveals a sharpedged confessional edge: her life story is told through poems which, though nominally addressing
and describing other subject matter (including paintings, tourist destinations, etc.), in fact speak to
true events (and to her, and the reader's, underlying existential states). She was far from prolific: her
Complete Poems is a relatively slim volume.
"In the Waiting Room"
"One Art"
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
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The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
an award-winning African American woman poet. Although she also wrote a novel, an
autobiography and some other prose works, she was noted primarily as a poet. Her 1949 book of
poetry, Annie Allen, received a Pulitzer Prize, the first won by an African American.
Her poetry is rooted in the poor and mostly African-American South Side of Chicago. Although her
poems range in style from traditional ballads and sonnets to using blues rhythms in free verse, her
characters are often drawn from the poor inner city. Her bluesy poem "We Real Cool" is a favorite of
the GRE.
“The Mother”
Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.
I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed
children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,
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and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?-Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.
Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.
“Gay Chaps at the Bar”
...and guys I knew in the States, young
officers, return from the front crying and
trembling. Gay chaps at the bar in Los
Angeles, Chicago, New York...
--Lt. William Couch
in the South Pacific
We knew how to order. Just the dash
Necessary. The length of gaiety in good taste.
Whether the raillery should be slightly iced
And given green, or served up hot and lush.
And we knew beautifully how to give to women
The summer spread, the tropics of our love.
When to persist, or hold a hunger off.
Knew white speech. How to make a look an omen.
But nothing ever taught us to be islands.
And smart, athletic language for this hour
Was not in the curriculum. No stout
Lesson showed how to chat with death. We brought
No brass fortissimo, among our talents,
To holler down the lions in this air.
“We Real Cool”
THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
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We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)
An American Confessionalist poet known for inspiring and teaching several literary superstars of the
1950s and 1960s, including Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath.
With his 1959 volume Life Studies, however, he moved firmly into the confessionalist mode. Life
Studies is best known for the oft-reprinted poem "Skunk Hour," a poem that is primarily a
description of a fading New England town, punctuated by two stanzas of what was, at the time,
shocking personal confession, such as the declaration that "My mind's not right." Life Studies is
widely viewed as one of the most influential and important books of poetry in the 20th century. The
main theme of this work before publication was reputed by one wag to have centered around the
uncommon behavior of inserting a wad of toilet paper into the groove of one's anus after a
particularly messy bowel movement and walking around the bathroom with underpants around the
ankles making "quack-quack" sounds like a duck, although this may very well be an exaggeration.
He followed Life Studies with For the Union Dead, which was also widely praised, particularly for its
title poem. Following this book, however, Lowell's poetry became less and less popular and noticed.
A minor controversy erupted when he incorporated private letters from his ex-wife into his poems.
He was particularly criticized by his friend Elizabeth Bishop for this.
“The Drunken Fisherman“
Wallowing in this bloody sty,
I cast for fish that pleased my eye
(Truly Jehovah's bow suspends
No pots of gold to weight its ends);
Only the blood-mouthed rainbow trout
Rose to my bait. They flopped about
My canvas creel until the moth
Corrupted its unstable cloth.
A calendar to tell the day;
A handkerchief to wave away
The gnats; a couch unstuffed with storm
Pouching a bottle in one arm;
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A whiskey bottle full of worms;
And bedroom slacks: are these fit terms
To mete the worm whose molten rage
Boils in the belly of old age?
Once fishing was a rabbit's foot-O wind blow cold, O wind blow hot,
Let suns stay in or suns step out:
Life danced a jig on the sperm-whale's spout-The fisher's fluent and obscene
Catches kept his conscience clean.
Children, the raging memory drools
Over the glory of past pools.
Now the hot river, ebbing, hauls
Its bloody waters into holes;
A grain of sand inside my shoe
Mimics the moon that might undo
Man and Creation too; remorse,
Stinking, has puddled up its source;
Here tantrums thrash to a whale's rage.
This is the pot-hole of old age.
Is there no way to cast my hook
Out of this dynamited brook?
The Fisher's sons must cast about
When shallow waters peter out.
I will catch Christ with a greased worm,
And when the Prince of Darkness stalks
My bloodstream to its Stygian term . . .
On water the Man-Fisher walks.
“Skunk Hour”
For Elizabeth Bishop
Nautilus Island's hermit
heiress still lives through winter in her Spartan cottage;
her sheep still graze above the sea.
Her son's a bishop. Her farmer
is first selectman in our village,
she's in her dotage.
Thirsting for
the hierarchic privacy
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of Queen Victoria's century,
she buys up all
the eyesores facing her shore,
and lets them fall.
The season's ill-we've lost our summer millionaire,
who seemed to leap from an L. L. Bean
catalogue. His nine-knot yawl
was auctioned off to lobstermen.
A red fox stain covers Blue Hill.
And now our fairy
decorator brightens his shop for fall,
his fishnet's filled with orange cork,
orange, his cobbler's bench and awl,
there is no money in his work,
he'd rather marry.
One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill's skull,
I watched for love-cars. Lights turned down,
they lay together, hull to hull,
where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .
My mind's not right.
A car radio bleats,
'Love, O careless Love . . . .' I hear
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,
as if my hand were at its throat . . . .
I myself am hell,
nobody's here-only skunks, that search
in the moonlight for a bite to eat.
They march on their soles up Main Street:
white stripes, moonstruck eyes' red fire
under the chalk-dry and spar spire
of the Trinitarian Church.
I stand on top
of our back steps and breathe the rich air-a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the
garbage pail
She jabs her wedge-head in a cup
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of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail,
and will not scare.
“Mr. Edwards and the Spider” (note that this poem refers to Jonathan Edwards)
I saw the spiders marching through the air,
Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day
In latter August when the hay
Came creaking to the barn. But where
The wind is westerly,
Where gnarled November makes the spiders fly
Into the apparitions of the sky,
They purpose nothing but their ease and die
Urgently beating east to sunrise and the sea;
What are we in the hands of the great God?
It was in vain you set up thorn and briar
In battle array against the fire
And treason crackling in your blood;
For the wild thorns grow tame
And will do nothing to oppose the flame;
Your lacerations tell the losing game
You play against a sickness past your cure.
How will the hands be strong? How will the heart endure?
A very little thing, a little worm,
Or hourglass-blazoned spider, it is said,
Can kill a tiger. Will the dead
Hold up his mirror and affirm
To the four winds the smell
And flash of his authority? It's well
If God who holds you to the pit of hell,
Much as one holds a spider, will destroy
Baffle and dissipate your soul. As a small boy
On Windsor March, I saw the spider die
When thrown into the bowels of fierce fire:
There's no long struggle, no desire
To get up on its feet and fly-It stretches out its feet
And dies. This is the sinner's last retreat;
Yes, and no strength exerted on the heat
Then sinews the abolished will, when sick
And full of burning, it will whistle on a brick.
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But who can plumb the sinking of that soul?
Josiah Hawley, picture yourself cast
Into a brick-kiln where the blast
Fans your quick vitals to a coal-If measured by a glass,
How long would it seem burning! Let there pass
A minute, ten, ten trillion; but the blaze
Is infinite, eternal: this is death,
To die and know it. This is the Black Widow, death.
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
“Daddy” is one of Plath's best-known poems, in part because of its vivid, sometimes brutal imagery.
Daddy is perhaps in large part inspired by the early death of Plath's father, when the poet was only
ten years old. The poem describes Plath's deep bitterness concerning the death of her father and her
unresolved feelings toward him, with hints of her troubled relationship with the poet Ted Hughes.
Daddy was posthumously published in Ariel in 1965.
"Daddy"
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time -Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
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Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You -Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
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At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two -The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
“The Mirror”
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
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She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Anne Sexton (1928-1974)
The modern model of the confessional poet, one perhaps begun by the publication of Heart's
Needle, by W.D. Snodgrass. Sexton helped open the door not only for female poets, but for female
issues; Sexton wrote about menstruation, abortion, masturbation, and adultery before such issues
were even topics for casual discussion, helping redefine the boundaries of poetry. Sexton modeled
for Boston's Hart Agency. She committed suicide in 1974.
“The Truth the Dead Know”
For my mother, born March 1902, died March 1959
and my father, born February 1900, died June 1959
Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.
My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.
And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in their stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.
“Sylvia’s Death”
it begins:
for Sylvia Plath
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O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with a dead box of stones and spoons,
with two children, two meteors
wandering loose in a tiny playroom,
with your mouth into the sheet,
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer,
(Sylvia, Sylvia
where did you go
after you wrote me
from Devonshire
about rasing potatoes
and keeping bees?)
Contemporary American Novel and Drama
Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
Bellow has a fair chance of showing up on the exam. If you know the names associated with a few of
his books, you should be fine. An acclaimed Canadian-born American Jewish writer, who won the
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and is best known for writing novels that investigate isolation,
spiritual dissociation, and the possibilities of human awakening.
"Herzog"
Herzog is a novel set in post-war America. It's a story of a man, a Jew who has had two unsucessful
marriages. The entire novel is about the life of the protagonist, how he copes with the tragedies, his
unsent letters to his friends, famous people living or dead. The beauty of the novel lies in the
dissection of Herzog's mind. In typical Bellow style, the descriptions of emotions, physical features
are simply brilliant. Herzog's relationships are the central theme of the novel. It's about relationships
with not just women, friends, but also society and with himself. Many believe Herzog is
autobiographical. There are many similarities between Herzog and Saul Bellow (Jewish, Chicago
residents, failed marriages, etc.) Herzog's Jewishness is very visible. One will possibly be reminded of
Philip Roth's novels when reading this. The setting is post-war America and for a traditional Jew this
culture is very foreign. This adds subtle humor in the book even though Herzog is going through a
tough phase. This book deserves a read and re-read. A thorough understanding of the book makes
us think, try to find Herzog's characteristics in our own selves and avoid the mistakes that Herzog
commits.
"Seize the Day"
It tells the story of Wilhelm Adler (a.k.a. Tommy Wilhelm) , a non-religious jewish New Yorker in his
mid 40's who is having a midlife crisis. He is financially irresponsible and leaves his family. His wife
says that he is like a youngster; she has great confidence is his earning ability, however. Tommy
doesn't receive from his father what he wants most--he needs money to keep him going. The novel
is set on Tommy's "day of reckoning", which leaves him a broken and humbled man. He is a familiar
American type, the desperate man looking to get rick quickly. He thus falls for a con-artist. Tommy
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finds his surrogate father in a shady psychologist named Dr. Tamkin. The colorful Dr. Tamkin has put
Tommy's money into the commodities market. Tamkin, and the money, disappear when it becomes
clear that Tommy's father won't be supplying any fresh money for speculation. The charlatan poses
as a psychologist who offers "seize the day" type bromides. Tommy's father, on the other hand, has
always been all too prudent, and he seems to live for taunting Tommy about being more
responsible.
Tommy has recently had two religious experiences. He had an "onrush of loving kindness" in an early
part of the story, but at the end he offers a type of prayer to be delivered from the devil that plagues
him. On the final page he is sobbing his heart out in a massive emotional release.
"Henderson the Rain King"
Eugene Henderson is an unhappy millionaire and pig farmer who searches for meaning and purpose
in his life. His desperation at home brings him on a pilgrimage to Africa, where he hopes to find a
new meaning to his seemingly lacking life. After his first native encounter ends in disaster, he arrives
in a new village that soon declares him Rain King. With a new found friendship with the native king,
Dahfu, Henderson is brought unwillingly into the king's ritualistic search of a lion thought to be the
reincarnation of his predecessor. During this time, Henderson and Dahfu engage in disscussions that
help to fill Henderson's spiritual void. Following another disaster and narrow escape, Henderson
returns, planning on becoming a doctor.
Henderson the Rain King (1959) follows a similar theme as his previous work, the short story Seize
the Day (1956). Both feature men in or approaching middle age who are plagued by acute
desperation and lack meaningful social contacts. While the first ends in a breakdown, Henderson the
Rain King ends on a particularly upbeat note, at least in Henderson's eyes. The philosophical
discussions and ramblings that take place between Henderson and the natives and within himself
serve as a precursor to Bellow's next novel, Herzog (1964), which frequently engages in similar
inquiries into life and meaning. It was said to be Bellow's own favourite amongst his books.
Carson McCullers (1917-1967)
An American southern gothic writer. The Ballad of the Sad Café (1955) is the story of the chaos
wrought on a woman’s life when her cousin Lymon Willis (a dwarf, both deformed and powerfully
charismatic) enters her world.
She also wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Four lonely individuals, marginalized misfits in their
families/communities, each obsessed with a vision of his or her place in the world, collect about a
single deaf-mute with whom they share their deepest secrets. An adolescent who desires to write
symphonies, an itinerant drunk who believes he must organize poor laborers, a black physician
whose desire is to motivate his people to demand their rightful place in American society, and a cafe
owner whose secret wish is sexually ambiguous, believes that the deaf Mr. Singer understands and
validates his or her obsession. Singer, ironically obsessed with a friendship of questionable
reciprocity, commits suicide when the friend dies.
* Toni Morrison (1931-)
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Toni Morrison is very likely to appear on the exam. For a bio of her life, and more info on other
works, check out the wikipedia page on her here.
"Song of Solomon (1977)"
Morrison's third novel, Song of Solomon, brought her national attention. A family chronicle similar to
Alex Haley's Roots, the novel follows the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead III, a black man living in
Chicago, Illinois, from birth to adulthood.
Morrison's protagonist, Macon "Milkman" Dead III, derives his nickname from the fact that he was
breastfed during childhood (Macon's age can be inferred as he was wearing pants with elastic
instead of a diaper, and that he later forgets the event, suggesting he was still rather young).
Milkman's father's employee, Freddie, happens to see him through the window being breastfed by
his mother. He quickly gains a reputation for being a "Momma's boy" in direct contrast to his
(future) best friend, Guitar, who is motherless and fatherless.
Milkman has two sisters, "First Corinthians" and "Magdelene called Lena." The daughters of the
family are named by putting a pin in the Bible, while the eldest son is named after his father. The
first Macon Dead's name was the result of an administrative error when Milkman's grandfather had
to register subsequent to the end of slavery.
Milkman's mother (Ruth Foster Dead) is the daughter of the town's only black doctor; she makes her
husband feel inadequate, and it is clear she idolized her father, Doctor Foster, to the point of
obsession. After her father dies, her husband claims to have found her in bed with the dead body,
sucking his fingers. Ruth later tells Milkman that she was kneeling at her father's bedside kissing the
only part of him that remained unaffected by the illness from which he died. These conflicting
stories expose the problems between his parents and show Milkman that "truth" is difficult or
impossible to obtain. Macon (Jr.) is often violently aggressive towards Ruth because he believes that
she was involved sexually with her father and loved her father more than her own husband. On one
occasion, Milkman punches his father after he strikes Milkman's mother, exposing the growing rift
between father and son.
In contrast, Macon Dead Jr.'s sister, Pilate, is seen as nurturing—an Earth Mother character. Born
without a navel, she is a somewhat mystical character. It is strongly implied that she is Divine—a
female Christ-in spite of her name. Macon (Jr.) has not spoken to his sister for years and does not
think highly of her. She, like Macon, has had to fend for herself from an early age after their father's
murder, but she has dealt with her past in a different way than Macon, who has embraced money as
the way to show his love for his father. Pilate has a daughter, Reba, and a granddaughter named
Hagar. Hagar falls desperately and obsessively in love with Milkman, and is unable to cope with his
rejection, attempting to kill him at least six times.
Hagar is not the only character who attempts to kill Milkman. Guitar, Milkman's erstwhile best
friend, tries to kill Milkman more than once after incorrectly suspecting that Milkman has cheated
him out of hidden gold, a fortune he planned to use to help his Seven Days group fund their revenge
killings in response to killings of blacks.
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Searching for the gold near the old family farm in Pennsylvania, Milkman stops at the rotting Butler
Mansion, former home of the people who killed his ancestor to claim the farm. Here he meets Circe,
an almost supernaturally old ex-slave of the Butlers. She tells Milkman of his family history and this
leads him to the town of Shalimar. There he learns his great-grandfather Solomon was said to have
escaped slavery by flying back to Africa, leaving behind twenty-one children and his wife Ryna, who
goes crazy with loss. Returning home, he learns that Hagar has died of a broken heart. He
accompanies Pilate back to Shalimar, where she is accidentally shot and killed by Guitar, who had
intended to kill Milkman.
The novel ends on a poignant note. In an attempt to confront and reconnect with Guitar, Milkman
leaps toward Guitar—and his own death, uttering his hard-won psychological truth: "if you
surrendered to the air, you could ride it." Milkman's death brings the novel full circle, from the initial
suicide "flight" of insurance agent Robert Smith to the self-sacrificing "flight" by Milkman.
"Beloved (1987)"
Beloved is loosely based on the life and legal case of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who killed
her child to prevent the child from being taken back into slavery. The book's central figure is Sethe,
who murdered her two-year-old daughter, Beloved, to save her from a life of slavery. The novel
follows in the tradition of slave narratives but also confronts the more painful and taboo aspects of
slavery, such as sexual abuse and violence. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988.
When the novel failed to win the National Book Award, a number of writers protested the omission.
The book follows the story of Sethe and her daughter Denver as they try to rebuild their lives after
having escaped from slavery. Their home, 124 Bluestone Road, Cincinnati, is haunted by a revenant,
who turns out to be the ghost of Sethe's daughter. Because of the haunting—which often involves
things being thrown around the room—Sethe's youngest daughter, Denver, is shy, friendless, and
housebound, and her sons, Howard and Buglar, have run away from home by the time they are
thirteen. Shortly afterward, Baby Suggs, the mother of Sethe's husband Halle, dies in her bed.
Paul D, one of the slaves from Sweet Home, the plantation where Baby Suggs, Sethe, Halle, he, and
many other slaves had worked, arrives at 124. He tries to bring a sense of reality into the house. He
also tries to make the family move forward and leave the past behind. In doing so, he forces out the
ghost of Beloved. At first, he seems to be successful, because he leads the family to a carnival, out of
the house for the first time in years. However, on their way back, they encounter a young woman
sitting in front of the house. She has the distinct features of a baby and calls herself Beloved. Denver
recognizes right away that she must be a reincarnation of her sister Beloved. Paul D, suspicious,
warns Sethe, but charmed by the young woman, Sethe ignores him. Paul D is gradually forced out of
Sethe's home by a supernatural presence.
When made to sleep outside in a shed, he is cornered by Beloved, who has put a spell on him. She
burrows into his mind and heart, forcing him to have sex with her, while flooding his mind with
horrific memories from his past. Overwhelmed with guilt, Paul D tries to tell Sethe about it but
cannot and instead says he wants her pregnant. Sethe is elated, and Paul D resists Beloved and her
influence over him. But, when he tells friends at work about his plans to start a new family, they
react fearfully. Stamp Paid reveals the reason for the community's rejection of Sethe.
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When Paul D asks Sethe about it, she tells him what happened. After escaping from Sweet Home
and making it to her mother-in-law's home where her children were waiting, Sethe was found by her
master, who attempted to reclaim Sethe and her children. Sethe grabbed her children, ran into the
tool shed and tried to kill them all, succeeding only with her oldest daughter. Sethe explains to Paul
D, saying she was "trying to put my babies where they would be safe." The revelation is too much for
him, and he leaves for good. Without Paul D, the sense of reality and time moving forward
disappears.
Sethe comes to believe that the girl, Beloved, is the daughter she murdered when the girl was only
two years old; her tombstone reads only "Beloved". Sethe begins to spend carelessly and spoil
Beloved out of guilt. Beloved becomes angry and more demanding, throwing hellish tantrums when
she doesn't get her way. Beloved's presence consumes Sethe's life to the point where she becomes
depleted and sacrifices her own need for eating, while Beloved grows bigger and bigger. In the
climax of the novel, Denver, the youngest daughter, reaches out and searches for help from the
black community. People arrive at 124 to exorcise Beloved, and it is revealed that Beloved was not
getting fat, as previously alluded, but is in fact pregnant from her encounters with Paul D. While
Sethe is confused and has a "rememory" of her master coming again, Beloved disappears.
At the outset, the reader is led to assume Beloved is a supernatural, incarnate form of Sethe's
murdered daughter. Later, Stamp Paid reveals the story of "a girl locked up by a white man over by
Deer Creek. Found him dead last summer and the girl gone. Maybe that's her". Both are supportable
by the text. Beloved sings a song known only to Sethe and her children; elsewhere, she speaks of
Sethe's earrings without having seen them.
Flannery O’Connor
Considered an important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels, 32 short stories,
as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer in the vein of William
Faulkner , often writing in a Southern Gothic style and relying heavily on regional settings and
grotesques as characters. A "born" Roman Catholic , her writing is deeply informed by the
sacramental, and the Thomist notion that the created world is charged with God. Her most famous
work is a collection of short stories which includes the eponymous “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
“The Life You Save May Be Your Own”
A one-armed tramp, appropriately named "Mr. Shiftlet," walks up to a run-down farm where an old
woman and her retarded daughter, Lucynell, are sitting on the front porch. Lucynell cannot talk. Mr.
Shiftlet persuades the old woman to hire him for work around the farm and for repairing a car. She
says she can feed him but not pay him. Over a period of a few weeks he repairs the car (which is
what he really wants) and offers to marry Lucynell if her mother will give him some money
After the wedding Mr. Shiftlet takes Lucynell on a honeymoon, but abandons her in a country diner
the first day, claiming she's a hitchhiker. As he drives towards Mobile, he picks up a boy and begins
to lecture him about being good to his mother. The angry boy jumps out of the car, and Mr. Shiftlet
prays that God will "break forth and wash the slime from this earth."
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Eugene O'Neil ( 1888 – 1953)
O'Neil is very important for the GRE. He is very likely to show up for a few questions. Two plays not
represented here are Desire Under the Elms and The Hairy Ape, which are minor compared with the
three presented here.
an American playwright. More than any other dramatist, O'Neill introduced the dramatic realism
pioneered by Chekhov, Ibsen, and Strindberg into American drama. Generally, his plays involve
characters who inhabit the fringes of society, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and
aspirations but ultimately slide into dillusionment and despair.
"Mourning Becomes Electra (1931)"
Mourning Becomes Electra updates the Greek myth of Orestes to the family of a Northern general in
the American Civil War. Agamemnon is now General Ezra Mannon, Clytemnestra is his second wife
Christine, Orestes is his son Orin, and Electra is his daughter Lavinia. As an updated Greek tragedy,
the play features murder, adultery, incestuous love, and revenge, and even a group of townspeople
who function as a kind of Greek chorus. Though fate alone guides characters' actions in Greek
tragedies, O'Neill's characters have motivations grounded in 1930s-era psychological theory as well.
The play can easily be read from a Freudian perspective, paying attention to various characters'
Oedipus complexes and Electra complexes.
It is divided into three plays of four to five acts each. In order, the three plays are titled
Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted. However, these plays are never produced individually,
but only as part of the larger trilogy. Mourning Becomes Electra is thus extraordinarily lengthy for a
drama, and in production is often cut down. Also, because of the large cast size, it is not performed
as often as some of O'Neill's other major plays.
"The Iceman Cometh"
The Iceman Cometh stages the story of the whiskey-soaked and disillusioned denizens of Harry
Hope's saloon and the upheaval caused by the newly sober salesman Hickey, who -- with all the
annoying zeal of a recent convert -- urges his former drinking companions to give up their "pipe
dreams."
"Long Day's Journey Into Night"
Long Day's Journey Into Night covers a fateful, heart-wrenching night at the seaside Connecticut
home of the Tyrones (the autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his brother, and their
parents): James Tyrone Sr., an Irish-born retired actor who squandered his considerable gifts as a
classical thespian to make a career playing one particular role in a commercially successful but
artistically unfulfilling play; Edmund, the younger and more poetically inclined son, suffers from a
respiratory condition and a deep disillusionment with the world around him after sailing the world
as a deck hand; the elder son James Jr. ("Jamie"), an affable alcoholic and the object of stubborn
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repeated attempts by his father to be set up in business, despite his status as a confirmed ne'er-dowell; and the wife and mother of the family, Mary Cavan Tyrone, who lapses between self-delusion
and the haze of her morphine addiction - the result of the shoddy ministrations of a quack doctor
during her difficult labor and delivery of Edmund twenty-three years prior.
Alice Walker (1944-)
Walker's writings include novels, stories, essays and poems. They focus on the struggles of AfricanAmericans, and particularly African-American women, against societies that are racist, sexist, and
often violent. Her writings tend to emphasize the strength of black women and the importance of
African-American heritage and culture.
"The Color Purple"
The Color Purple is an epistolary novel: that is, the book is written in the form of letters. The central
character is Celie, a young woman who is sexually abused by her father (who, she later discovers, is
her stepfather) and is forced to marry a widower with several children, who is physically abusive
towards her.
When her husband's mistress, singer "Shug" Avery, comes on the scene. Initially, Celie feels
threatened by this effervescent, liberated version of feminity - a form that has previously been alien
to her.
Like "Mr-", Celie's husband (Albert Johnson), Shug has little respect for Celie and the life she lives at
first and continues in her lover's footsteps, abusing Celie and adding to her humiliation.
In time, however, the two women bond, and Celie gradually learns what it means to become an
empowered woman in her own right, through both sexual and financial emancipation and she finds
the strength to leave her tyrannical husband.
This book is often argued to address many issues which are important to understanding AfricanAmerican life during the early-mid 20th century. Its main theme is the position of the black woman
in society, as the lowest of the low, put upon both because of her gender and her color. The book
also deals with the idea of how Celie finds true emotional and physical love with Avery.
Eudora Welty (1909-2001)
Both Delta Wedding and "Why I live at the P.O." are good candidates for a question or two on the
GRE.Her first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," appeared in 1936. In 1941 she published
her first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green. Her novel, The Optimist's Daughter , won the
Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
"Delta Wedding"
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Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty creatively unfolds through the overheard thoughts of the members
of the Fairchild family. The oversized clan deals with a massive amount of external and internal
issues that focus on both the unity and the conflict within this tight-knit Southern family. This novel
does not focus on one person, place, or thing. The protagonist of Delta Wedding is the Fairchild
family in that the author tells the story through the voices of the entire family. However, the
character of George does stand out as the hero of the novel.
“Why I Live at the P.O.”
Sister, the narrator of “Why I Live at the P.O.”, opens the story explaining why Mr. Whitaker broke
up with her and married her sister, Stella-Rondo: she “[t]old him I was one-sided. Bigger on one side
than the other, which is a deliberate, calculated falsehood: I'm the same.” While this bit of dialogue
may seem innocent initially, it refers to the folk belief that all women have one breast bigger than
the other. Blunt interest in female sexuality is hardly characteristic of the prim southerner
misrepresented in so much Welty criticism
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
You can count on a few questions from these plays to appear on the GRE. An American playwright.
Genre critics maintain that Williams writes in the Southern Gothic style. He is known for A Streetcar
Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
"The Glass Menagerie (1944)"
The Glass Menagerie is a memory play, and its action is drawn from the memories of the narrator,
Tom Wingfield. Tom is a character in the play, which is set in St. Louis in 1937. He is an aspiring poet
who toils in a shoe warehouse to support his mother, Amanda, and sister, Laura. Mr. Wingfield, Tom
and Laura’s father, ran off years ago and, except for one postcard, has not been heard from since.
Amanda, originally from a genteel Southern family, regales her children frequently with tales of her
idyllic youth and the scores of suitors who once pursued her. She is disappointed that Laura, who
wears a brace on her leg and is painfully shy, does not attract any gentleman callers. She enrolls
Laura in a business college, hoping that she will make her own and the family’s fortune through a
business career. Weeks later, however, Amanda discovers that Laura’s crippling shyness has led her
to drop out of the class secretly and spend her days wandering the city alone. Amanda then decides
that Laura’s last hope must lie in marriage and begins selling newspaper subscriptions to earn the
extra money she believes will help to attract suitors for Laura. Meanwhile, Tom, who loathes his
warehouse job, finds escape in liquor, movies, and literature, much to his mother’s chagrin. During
one of the frequent arguments between mother and son, Tom accidentally breaks several of the
glass animal figurines that are Laura’s most prized possessions.
Amanda and Tom discuss Laura’s prospects, and Amanda asks Tom to keep an eye out for potential
suitors at the warehouse. Tom selects Jim O’Connor, a casual friend, and invites him to dinner.
Amanda quizzes Tom about Jim and is delighted to learn that he is a driven young man with his mind
set on career advancement. She prepares an elaborate dinner and insists that Laura wear a new
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dress. At the last minute, Laura learns the name of her caller; as it turns out, she had a devastating
crush on Jim in high school. When Jim arrives, Laura answers the door, on Amanda’s orders, and
then quickly disappears, leaving Tom and Jim alone. Tom confides to Jim that he has used the money
for his family’s electric bill to join the merchant marine and plans to leave his job and family in
search of adventure. Laura refuses to eat dinner with the others, feigning illness. Amanda, wearing
an ostentatious dress from her glamorous youth, talks vivaciously with Jim throughout the meal.
As dinner is ending, the lights go out as a consequence of the unpaid electric bill. The characters light
candles, and Amanda encourages Jim to entertain Laura in the living room while she and Tom clean
up. Laura is at first paralyzed by Jim’s presence, but his warm and open behavior soon draws her out
of her shell. She confesses that she knew and liked him in high school but was too shy to approach
him. They continue talking, and Laura reminds him of the nickname he had given her: “Blue Roses,”
an accidental corruption of the word for Laura’s medical condition, pleurosis. He reproaches her for
her shyness and low self-esteem but praises her uniqueness. Laura then ventures to show him her
favorite glass animal, a unicorn. Jim dances with her, but in the process, he accidentally knocks over
the unicorn, breaking off its horn. Laura is forgiving, noting that now the unicorn is a normal horse.
Jim then kisses her, but he quickly draws back and apologizes, explaining that he was carried away
by the moment and that he actually has a serious girlfriend. Resigned, Laura offers him the broken
unicorn as a souvenir.
Amanda enters the living room, full of good cheer. Jim hastily explains that he must leave because of
an appointment with his fiancée. Amanda sees him off warmly but, after he is gone, turns on Tom,
who had not known that Jim was engaged. Amanda accuses Tom of being an inattentive, selfish
dreamer and then throws herself into comforting Laura. From the fire escape outside of their
apartment, Tom watches the two women and explains that, not long after Jim’s visit, he gets fired
from his job and leaves Amanda and Laura behind. Years later, though he travels far, he finds that he
is unable to leave behind guilty memories of Laura.
"A Street Car Named Desire (1947)"
Blanche DuBois is a fading Southern belle whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly mask
her nymphomania and alcoholism. After her ancestral southern plantation is "lost" (due to the "epic
fornications" of her ancestors), Blanche arrives at her sister's house in the French Quarter of New
Orleans where the multicultural setting is a shock to her nerves. Stella, the sister, is just as addicted
to sex as Blanche, and is willing to put up with Stanley's crudity and lack of culture because of her
need for a sexual partner.
The reference to the streetcar (tram) called Desire is ironic, as well as an accurate piece of New
Orleans geography. Blanche has to travel on it to reach Stella's home, the idea being that she has
already indulged in desire before she arrives. Her sorrow is that the pleasure brought from desire is
only short, just like the streetcar journey. It does not give her security. Still, she cannot return on the
streetcar named Desire because she has only a one-way ticket.
"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)"
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It is the story of a Southern family in crisis, focusing on the turbulent relationship of a wife and
husband, Maggie "The Cat" and Brick Pollitt, and their interaction with Brick's family over the
course of a weekend gathering at the family estate in Mississippi, ostensibly to celebrate the
birthday of patriarch and tycoon "Big Daddy" Pollitt. Maggie, through wit and beauty, has escaped a
childhood of desperate poverty to marry into the wealthy Pollitt family, but finds herself suffering in
an unfulfilling marriage. Brick, an aging football hero, has neglected his wife and further infuriates
her by ignoring his brother's attempts to gain control of the family fortune. Brick's indifference, and
his nearly continuous drinking, date back to the recent suicide of his friend Skipper. Although Big
Daddy has cancer and will not celebrate another birthday, his doctors and his family have conspired
to keep this information from him and his wife. His relatives are in attendance and attempt to
present themselves in the best possible light, hoping to receive the definitive share of Big Daddy's
enormous wealth.
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British Literature
Medeival and Early British literature
Anglo Saxon poems
Now, it's pretty unlikely that either of the poems I have here will appear on your test, but a random
poem from the Exeter Book may appear.
"The Wife's Lament," (before 1072)
Genre: an "elegy" or lament for things and/or persons lost, often lost to death. The predominant
features of Anglo-Saxon verse are produced by oral-formulaic composition, in which an illiterate but
immensely learned bard sings, to his own instrumental accompaniment, a song he composes as he
sings by following strict metrical rules and a huge array of thematic content strands.
The poem's date is impossible to determine except that it must have been composed and written
down before the Exeter Book, in which its sole surviving copy was found, was donated to the Exeter
Cathedral library by Exeter's first bishop, Leofric, upon his death in 1072. Scholars generally accept
the conclusion that this, the largest surviving collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry (131 parchment
leaves measuring roughly 12.5 by 8.6 inches), is the manuscript the bishop's will calls ".i. mycel
englisc boc be gehwilcum _ingum on leo_wisan geworht." ["one great English book with many things
written in verse."]
Form: four-stress lines of varying syllable lengths, divided in halves by a caesura which often
indicates a breath pause. The prose translation obscures many of the work's poetic features, but
Anglo-Saxon verse is notoriously difficult to translate into Modern English verse.
Characters: the narrator, a woman married to a man from a distant community which is hostile to
her, and her husband as she characterizes him, also hostile--toward others, but also perhaps toward
her (an interpretive crux).
Summary: The narrator makes the case that her grief deserves to be told in song because she is
exiled from her own kin and from her husband, doomed to poverty amid a wilderness and
surrounded by hostile neighbors, facing old age alone.
“Judith”
Judith is a poem written in Old English during the Middle ages in England on the topic of the
beheading of Holofernes, an Assyrian military leader as recorded in the Biblical-era Book of Judith.
The author is unknown.
Beowul f (c. 700-1000 A.D.)
You can count a set of questions on Beowulf. It is likely that ETS will give you a passage and ask you
to be able to summarize it, maybe explain how a specific word is used, and identify the poetic
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devices or meter used. If you have not read it, DON'T (I didn't). Read a short synopsis online,
memorize the characters, and focus on what's important--it's historical significance. Schlors (and
ETS) are more interested in the dynamics of early Anglo Saxon verse than they are in the actual
content of the poem.
ETS is going to want you to identify a caesura, which is the metrical break in the middle of an Old
English line. If you see a passage in which every line is broken into two pieces, you're probably
looking at Beowulf or an immitation of it. Also knowing that Beowulf is alliterative will be important.
Beowulf is a heroic epic poem. At 3,182 lines, it is notable for its length in comparison to other Old
English poems. It represents about 10% of the extant corpus of Old English poetry. The poem is
untitled in the manuscript, but has been known as Beowulf since the early 19th century.
First battle: Grendel
Beowulf begins with the story of King Hro_gar, who built the great hall Heorot for his people. In it
he, his wife Wealh_eow, and his warriors spend their time singing and celebrating, until Grendel
(angered by the singing) attacks the hall and kills and devours many of Hrothgar's warriors. Hrothgar
and his people, helpless against Grendel's attacks, abandon Heorot.
Beowulf, a young warrior, hears of Hrothgar's troubles and, (with his king's permission) leaves his
homeland to help Hrothgar.
Beowulf and his men spend the night in Heorot. After they fall asleep, Grendel enters the hall and
attacks, devouring one of Beowulf's men. Beowulf, feigning sleep, leaps up and grabs Grendel's arm
in a wrestling hold, and the two battle until it seems as though the hall might fall down due to their
fighting. Beowulf's men draw their swords and rush to his help, but there is a type of magic which
aids Grendel and makes it impossible for swords to hurt him. Finally, Beowulf tears Grendel's arm
from his body and Grendel runs home to die.
Second battle: Grendel's mother
The next night, after celebrating Grendel's death, Hrothgar and his men sleep in Heorot. Grendel's
Mother appears, however and attacks the hall. She kills Hrothgar's most trusted warrior in revenge
for Grendel's death.
Hrothgar, Beowulf, and their men track Grendel's Mother to her lair under an eerie lake. Beowulf
prepares himself for battle; he is presented with a sword, Hrunting, by a warrior called Unferth.
After stipulating a number of conditions (upon his death) to Hrothgar (including the taking in of his
kinsmen, and the inheritance by Unferth of Beowulf's estate), Beowulf dives into the lake. There, he
is swiftly detected and attacked by Grendel's mother. Unable to harm Beowulf through his armour,
Grendel's mother drags him to the bottom of the lake. There, in a cavern containing her son's body
and the remains of many men that the two have killed, Grendel's mother fights Beowulf.
Grendel's mother at first prevails, after Beowulf, finding that the sword (Hrunting) given him by
Unferth cannot harm his foe, discards it in a fury. Again, Beowulf is saved from the effects of his
opponent's attack by his armour and, grasping a mighty sword from Grendel's mother's armoury
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(which, the poem tells us, no other man could have hefted in battle), Beowulf beheads her.
Travelling further into the lair, Beowulf discovers Grendel's corpse; he severs the head, and with it
he returns to Heorot, where he is given many gifts by an even more grateful Hrothgar.
Third battle: The dragon
Beowulf returns home and eventually becomes king of his own people. One day, late in Beowulf's
life, a man steals a golden cup from a dragon's lair. When the dragon sees that the cup has been
stolen, it leaves its cave in a rage, burning up everything in sight. Beowulf and his warriors come to
fight the dragon, but only one of the warriors, a brave young man named Wiglaf, stays to help
Beowulf, because the rest are too afraid. Beowulf kills the dragon with Wiglaf's help, but dies from
the wounds he has received. The dragon's treasure is taken from its lair and buried with Beowulf's
ashes. And with that the poem ends.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)
Chaucer is (rightly) huge with ETS. The Cantebury Tales wil definitely be on your test, and Troilus and
Criseyde has a fair chance, too. Again, there is no need to read either of these for the test. There are
only few characters that you need to know from the Tales, and a synopsis of Troilus will do.
Knowledge of rhyme schemes and meter of these workds is, I think, very important for the exam.
**The Cantebury Tales
You will have to read Chaucer on your exam and be able to explain it. A good way to prepare for this
is to read the prologue to the tales; it's not necessary, but it's good practice on sounding out Middle
English verse.
Apart from picking apart the verses, you'll have to identify characters. A random character or two
may pop up, but chances are that one a few favorites will appear. I have included The Knight, The
Miller, The Nun's Priest, and The Wife of Bath here, but I would also suggest reading up on "The
Merchant."
The Knight's Tale is the first .
The Knights tale is about two knights, Arcite and Palamon, who are imprisoned by Theseus, duke of
Athens. In prison they see and fall in love with the sister of Hippolyta, Emily (Emelye). They variously
get out of prison and end up in a tournament over Emily arranged by Theseus. Arcite wins, but dies
before he can claim Emily as his prize and so Palamon marries her. It introduces many typical aspects
of knighthood such as courtly love and ethical dilemmas, etc. The story is in the form of poetry.
The Knight and his tale both embody the ideas of chivalry. The following tale, by the Miller, is a
direct antithesis to the Knight's with none of the nobility or heritage of classical mythology, but is
instead rollicking, bawdy, comedic and designed to annoy the Knight.
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The Miller’s Tale
The Miller's tale is about a carpenter/landlord and his wife. The Reeve, another of the travellers,
happens to be a carpenter, and urges the Miller not to joke about his profession; the Miller replies
that he does not mean to insult carpenters in general, or portray them as cuckolds, and tells his tale
anyway. Thus, The Reeve's Tale follows, which 'quites' the Miller with a tale in which some students
make a fool out of a dishonest and greedy miller.)
The story is of a student (Nicholas) who persuades his jealous old landlord's much younger wife
(Alisoun/Alison) to spend the night with him, making that possible through an elaborate scheme in
which he convinces the landlord that he has found, through his astrology, that a flood of Biblical
proportions is imminent. The solution, says Nicholas, is for each of them to wait silently overnight for
it in separate tubs suspended from the rafters, and to cut their tubs from the roof when the water
has risen. He adds that if the landlord tells anyone else, he'll become insane. This comic prank allows
Nicholas and Alison the opportunity to sneak down after the landlord falls asleep and be together.
While Nicholas and Alison lie together, another hopeful suitor, the foppish Absolon, appears and
asks Alison for a kiss. She quietly tells Nicholas to watch and get a good laugh. She sticks her "hole"
out the window, and he kisses it "full savorly," pausing only when he feels bristly hair and considers
that no woman has a beard. He realizes the prank and, hearing them laughing at him, becomes
enraged. He disappears to borrow a red hot colter (a plow part) from the early-rising blacksmith.
Returning, he asks for another kiss. This time Nicholas, who had risen from bed to "piss" (urinate),
sticks his "ers" (arse) out the window. When Absolon say "speak sweet bird, I know not where thou
art", Nicholas almost blinds him with an enormous fart, shocking Absolon, who then brands Nicholas
in the rear, searing off the skin. Nicholas cries for water, awakening the landlord, who hears
someone screaming "water, water" and thinks that the Second Flood is come at last. He panics and
cuts himself down, falling clean through the floor and breaking his arm; the rest of the town
awakens to find him lying in the tub in the cellar. He tries to explain what he's doing in the tub, and
sure enough in accordance with Nicholas'prophesy, he is considered a madman (and a cuckold, too)
by the whole town.
The Wife of Bath
Her tale begins with an allusion to the absence of fairies in modern day, and their prevalence in King
Arthur's time, then begins her tale, though she interrupts and is interrupted several times, creating
several digressions. A knight in King Arthur's Court rapes a woman. By law, his punishment is death,
but the queen intercedes on his behalf, and the king turns the knight over to her for judgement. The
queen punishes the knight by sending him out on a quest to find out what women want, giving him a
year and a day to discover it and having his word that he will return. If he fails to satisfy the queen
with his answer, he forfeits his life. He searches but every woman he finds says something different,
from riches to flattery.
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On his way back to the queen after failing to find the truth, he sees four and twenty ladies dancing.
They disappear suddenly, leaving behind an old hag and he asks for her help. She says she'll tell him
what to tell to the queen and save him if he promises to grant her request at a time she chooses. He
agrees and they go back to the court and he is pardoned after he tells them that what women want
most is "to have the sovereignty as well upon their husband as their love, and to have mastery their
man above". The old woman cries out to him before the court that she saved him and that her
reward will be that he takes her as his wife and loves her. He protests, but to no avail, and the
marriage takes place the next day.
The old woman and the knight converse about the knight's happiness in their marriage bed and
discuss that he is unhappy because she is ugly and low-born. She discourses upon the origins of
gentility, as told by Jesus and Dante and reflects on the origins of poverty. She says he can choose
between her being ugly and faithful or beautiful and unfaithful. He gives the choice to her to become
whatever would bring the most honour and happiness to them both and she, pleased with her
mastery of her husband, becomes fair and faithful to live with him happily until the end of their days.
The Nun's Priest's Tale
The tale of Chanticleer and the Fox is a beast fable popularised by the 14th century Middle English
poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer's 625 line poem comprises the Nun's Priest's Tale, one of his
Canterbury Tales.
The tale follows the monk's depressing accounts of despots and fallen heroes and, as well as sharing
these themes, the tale also parodies them. It also has ideas in common with earlier tales with the
marriage between Chanticleer and Pertelote echoing the domestic lives depicted in tales like
Franklin's and The Tale of Melibee. These different themes help to unify several tales and offers a
lively story from a previously almost invisible character.
The tale concerns a world of talking animals who reflect both human insight and error. Its
protagonist is Chanticleer, a proud rooster who dreams of his approaching doom in the form of a
hound. Frightened, he awakens his "wife" Pertelote, who assures him he only suffers from
indigestion and chides him for paying heed to a simple dream. After recounting stories of other
prophets who foresaw their deaths, Chanticleer is comforted by Pertelote and proceeds to greet a
new day.
Unfortunately for Chanticleer, he predicted his doom correctly. A sly fox who has tricked
Chanticleer's father and mother to their downfall now awaits Chanticleer's inflated ego. When the
fox insists upon hearing the cock crow, Chanticleer sticks out his neck just a little too far and is
promptly snatched from the yard. As the fox is chased through the forest, Chanticleer (all the while
dangling from the fox's jaws) suggests that the fox should pause to tell his pursuers to give up their
chase.
Now the fox's haughtiness rears its ugly head, and as the fox complies, the rooster falls out and
proceeds to fly up the nearest tree. The fox tries in vain to convince the wary Chanticleer, who now
prefers the safety of the tree and fails to fall for the same trick a second time.
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"Troilus and Criseyde"
Troilus and Criseyde is a work on another scale altogether, 8239 lines of rhyme-royal (seven-line
stanzas rhyming ababbcc) in five books, the first major work of English literature and sometimes
called the first English novel on account of its concern with the characters' psychology. Shakespeare
also composed a version of Troilus.
The story comes from Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, and it is most intriguing that Chaucer nowhere
mentions the name Boccaccio. Instead, in Troilus, he claims to be simply translating a work by a
certain Lollius, wrongly assumed in the Middle Ages to have written about Troy, whereas he is in fact
radically altering Boccaccio's story to make it deeper and more poetic.
When he began to write Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer was already fully aware of the need to make
the English language into a poetic diction that would be as powerful in expressing emotion and
reflexion as the other literary languages he knew. He was familiar with the writings of Ovid, Cicero,
Virgil, Macrobius, Boethius, and Alain de Lisle in Latin, with Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio in Italian, with
the Romance of the Rose and other French works, as well as with the native English romances. He
had travelled, too, his mind was European. The opening lines of Troilus and Criseyde show why John
Dryden called Chaucer the "father of English poetry" (in the Preface to his Fables Ancient and
Modern of 1700):
The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen,
That was the king Priamus sone of Troye,
In lovinge, how his aventures fellen
Fro woe to wele, and after out of joie,
My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye.
Thesiphone, thou help me for t'endite
These woful vers, that wepen as I write.
To thee clepe I, thou goddess of torment,
Thou cruel Furie, sorwing ever in peyne,
Help me, that am the sorwful instrument,
That helpeth loveres, as I can, to pleyne.
For wel sit it, the sothe for to seyne,
A woful wight to han a drery feere,
And to a sorwful tale, a sory chere.
Chaucer was following in the footsteps of Dante in his attempt to form vernacular English into a
poetic language able to stand beside the language of Virgil and the classics.
Troilus and Criseyde is set inside Troy during the Trojan War. In Book 1 of Chaucer's version, one of
Priam's sons, Troilus, appears as a young warrior scornful of love, until he glimpses Criseyde in a
temple. Love's arrow having wounded him, Troilus suddenly finds himself deeply in love with her. He
withdraws to complain alone, but a friend of his, Pandare, overhears him and he admits he is in love
with Criseyde. Pandare offers to help Troilus meet her.
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Much time elapses as they slowly establish a relationship, until at last Pandare skillfully arranges for
them to spend a night together. This represents the first movement, 'from woe to wele' a rise to
happiness. Suddenly Criseyde learns that her father, a prophet who has fled to the Greeks, is
arranging for her to leave Troy and join him. The lovers are separated by blind destiny. Once in the
Greek camp, Criseyde soon turns for protection to a Greek Diomede and although she and Troilus
exchange letters, soon she seems to forget him. One day Troilus finds a brooch he gave her fixed in a
cloak he has torn from Diomede during the fighting, and knows that she has betrayed him. He tries
to kill Diomede, but cannot. Suddenly the book seems to be over, since the love-tale is at an end:
Go, little book, go, little myn tragedye,
Ther God thy makere yet, er that he dye,
So sende might to make in some comedye!
But little book, no making thou n'envie,
But subgit be to alle poesye;
And kiss the steppes, whereas thou seest pace
Virgile, Ovide, Omer, Lucan, Stace.
And down from thennes faste he gan avyse
This littel spot of erthe, that with the se
Embraced is, and fully gan despise
This wrecched world, and held al vanite
To respect of the pleyn felicite
That is in hevene above; and at the laste,
There he was slayn, his lokyng down he caste.
And in hymself he lough right at the wo
Of hem that wepten for his deth so faste;
And dampned al oure werk that foloweth s
The blynde lust, the which that may not laste,M
And shoulden al oure herte on heven caste.
And forth he wente, shortly for to telle,
Ther as Mercurye sorted hym to dwelle.
The remaining stanzas seem to suggest Christian and moralizing readings of the story at odds with
the main narratorial tone. Finally comes an invitation to "moral Gower, philosophical Strode"
(Chaucer's friends) to correct the work if necessary, and a final prayer translated from Dante's Divine
Comedy.
"Everyman"
Morality pla y - Moralities evolved side by side with the mystery plays, although they were
composed individually and not in cycles. The moralities employed allegory to dramatize the moral
struggle Christianity envisions universal in every individual.
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Everyman , a short play of some 900 lines, portrays a complacent Everyman who is informed by
Death of his approaching end. The play shows the hero's progression from despair and fear of death
to a "Christian resignation that is the prelude to redemption." First, Everyman is deserted by his
false friends: his casual companions, his kin, and his wealth. He falls back on his Good Deeds, his
Strength, his Beauty, his Intelligence, and his Knowledge. These assist him in making his Book of
Accounts, but at the end, when he must go to the grave, all desert him save his Good Deeds alone.
The play makes its grim point that we can take with us from this world nothing that we have
received, only what we have given.
John Gower
It's unlikely that Gower will apear on your exam. If he does, it will be in relation to Chacuer
andTroilus and Criseyde. Here's a short bio in the event that he appears on your exam:
John Gower, poet and friend of Chaucer, was born around 1330, into a prominent Yorkshire family
which held properties in Kent, Yorkshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Gower's coat of arms is identical to
those of Sir Robert Gower of Brabourne. Nothing is known of his education, though it has been
speculated that he was trained in law. Gower himself held properties in Suffolk and Kent, where he
seems to have resided until taking up residence in the priory of St. Mary Overies in Southwark,
London, around 1377.
In 1385, Gower's good friend, Geoffrey Chaucer, dedicated the Troilus and Criseyde to him, giving
him the epithet "moral Gower."
In 1386, Gower began work on his most acclaimed work, Confessio Amantis (i.e. Lover's Confession).
Unlike his previous works, Gower wrote the Confessio in English at the request of Richard II who was
concerned that so little was being written in English. It is a collection of tales and exempla treating of
courtly love. The framework is that of a lover complaining first to Venus, and later in the work,
confessing to her priest, Genius. The Confessio , completed around 1390, is an important
contribution to courtly love literature in English. Some of the stories have their counterparts in
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales , and one of the stories later served as the source for Shakespeare's
Pericles , in which Shakespeare had Gower appear in the Chorus.
Margery Kempe (1373-1439 or 1440)
The Book of Margery Kempe is considered by some to be the first autobiography in the English
language. At around the age of 35, after a failed confession that resulted in a bout of self-described
"madness," Margery Kempe had a vision that called her to leave aside the "vanities" of this world.
Having for many weeks railed against the institutions of family, marriage and church, Kempe reports
that she saw a vision of Christ at her bedside, asking her "Daughter, why have you forsaken me, and I
never forsook you?" From that point forward, Kempe undertook two failed domestic businesses--a
brewery and a grain mill--both common home-based businesses for medieval women. Though she
had tried to be more devout after her vision, she was tempted by sexual pleasures and social
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jealousy for some years. Eventually turning away from what she interpreted as the effect of worldly
pride in her vocational choices, Kempe more fully responded to the spiritual calling that she felt her
earlier vision required. Striving to live a life of commitment to God, Kempe negotiated a chaste
marriage with her husband, and began to make pilgrimages around Europe to sites that were holy to
her, if not to others. The stories surrounding these travels are what eventually comprised much of
her Book, although a final section includes a series of prayers.
Part of Margery Kempe's significance lies in the autobiographical nature of her book: it is the best
insight available that points to the middle class experience in the Middle Ages. Kempe is admittedly
unusual among the more traditional holy exemplars of her time, such as Julian of Norwich. Though
Kempe is often depicted as an "oddity" or even a "madwoman," recent scholarship on vernacular
theologies and popular practices of piety suggest she was not, perhaps, as odd as she appears
compared to more traditional, cloistered holy women.
Sir Thomas Malory (1405-1471)
Malory is important because he wrote the first major Arthurian romance, which continues to be
rewritten up to the current day. I don't see the summary here being very important; I would
remember, however, that this is a work of prose. Many questions on the GRE can be answered if
simply rember whether a work is prose or verse. A good GRE question would try to trick you into
identifying Malory as the author a verse Arthurian romance.
Here's a brief history of the man and the work:
Few facts are certain in Malory's history. From his own words he is known to have been a knight and
prisoner, and his description of himself as "a servant of Jesu both day and night" has led to the
inference that he might have been a priest . It is believed that he was knighted in 1442 and entered
the British Parliament representing Warwickshire in 1445 .
In 1450, it appears that he turned towards a life of crime, being accused of murder, robbery,
stealing, poaching, and rape. However, the validity of these charges are the subject of much
controversy given Malory's unclear political affiliations. False charges were common amidst the
political strife of the War of the Roses. Supposedly while imprisoned for most of the 1450s (mostly in
London 's Newgate Prison ), he began writing an Arthurian legend that he called The Book of King
Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table. His work was first published posthumously by
William Caxton as Le Morte d'Arthur in 1485.
Malory is believed to have obtained the material for his work from many French sources in addition
to earlier English Arthurian Romances, most notably the stanzaic Morte Arthur and the alliterative
Morte Arthure. In the preface to the first edition of the Le Morte D'Arthur , William Caxton speaks of
the work as printed by himself "after a copy unto me delivered, which copy Sir Thomas Malory did
take out of certain books of French, and reduced it into English." Malory himself tells us that he
finished the book in the ninth year of King Edward IV of England (about 1470 ). Le Morte D'Arthur
brought together the various strands of the legend in a prose romance which many critics reckon the
best of its kind.
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Mystery plays
Mystery plays or miracle plays are one of the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe.
They developed from the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying
antiphonal song. As these liturgical plays became more popular, more vernacular elements were
introduced and non-clergy began to participate. As the dramas became increasingly secular, they
began to be performed entirely in the vernacular and were moved out of the churches by the 13th
or 14th century.
These vernacular religious performances were taken over by the guilds, with each guild taking
responsibility for a particular piece of scriptural history. From the guild control they gained the name
mystery play or just mysteries, from the Latin mysterium (meaning handicraft and relating to the
guilds). Mystery plays should not be confused with Miracle plays, which specifically re-enacted
episodes from the lives of the saints. Also, Miracle plays were performed in Latin, unlike Mysteries
which were meant to be understood by the common man.
The mystery play developed into a series of plays dealing with all the major events in the Christian
calendar, from the Creation to the Day of Judgment. By the end of the 15th century, the tradition of
acting these plays in cycles on festival days (such as the Feast of Corpus Christi) was established
across Europe, each play was performed on decorated carts called pageants, that moved about the
city to allow different crowds to watch each play. The entire cycle could take up to twenty hours to
perform and could be spread over a number of days. Taken as a whole, these are referred to as
Corpus Christi cycles.
Piers Plowman
Be able to recognize the beginning of the poem; it might be worth looking at a footnoted version of
the poem so you get a sense of what's going on and how the language works. Likely questions will
concern the form and translations of some of the words.
Piers Plowman or Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman (William's Vision of Piers Plowman ) is an
apocalyptic Middle English allegorical narrative written by William Langland . It is written in
unrhymed alliterative verse divided into sections called "passus" (Latin for "step"). Piers is
considered one of the early great works of English literature . It is one of a very few Middle English
poems that can stand beside Canterbury Tales . It concerns the narrator's intense quest for the true
Christian life, in the terms of the medieval Catholic mind. That quest entails a series of dream-visions
and an examination into the lives of three allegorical characters, Do-Wel ( "Do-Well" ), Do-Bet ( "DoBetter" ), and Do-Best, who are sought by Piers, the humble plowman of the title. The poem begins
on the hillside of Malvern Hill in Malvern, Worcestershire . It begins:
In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne,
I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were,
In habite as an heremite unholy of werkes,
Wente wide in this world wondres to here.
Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne hills
Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.
I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste
Under a brood bank by a bourne syde;
And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres,
I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye..
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a good candidate for the GRE, but it is not a guarantee, either.
Know the plot, but focus more on the style.The poem is written in verse stanzas that end with the
“bob and the wheel.” The “bob” is a very short line, and the wheel is a trimeter quatrain. The five
lines together rhyme ABABA. This is an obscure poetic device, but if you see it on the GRE, you'll
know that you're looking at Gawain.
Example:
ill-sped
Hounds hasten by the score
To maul him, hide and head;
Men drag him in to shore
And dogs pronounce him dead.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th century alliterative romance recorded in a single
manuscript, which also contains three other pieces of an altogether more Christian orientation. Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight is written in the style that linguists have termed the Alliterative Revival
of the fourteenth century. Instead of focusing on a metrical syllabic count and rhyme, the alliterative
form relied on the agreement of (usually a pair of) stressed syllables at the beginning of the line with
(usually) a third and fourth at the end of the line. The line always finds a "breath-point" at some
point after the first two stresses, dividing the line into two half-lines, separated by the pause called a
caesura.
Julian of Norwich (1342-1413)
Julian of Norwich is considered to be one of the greatest English mystics . Little is known of her life
aside from her writings. Even her name is uncertain, the name "Julian" coming from the Church of
St. Julian in Norwich, where she occupied a cell adjoining the church as an anchoress . At the age of
thirty, suffering from a severe illness and believing she was on her deathbed, Julian had a series of
intense visions. These visions would twenty years later be the source of her major work, called
Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (circa 1393 ). This is believed to be the first book written by a
woman in the English language.
Robert Henryson (1425-1500)
Robert Henryson was a Scottish poet who is remarkable mostly for his relationship to Chaucer;
Henryson wrote a conclusion to Chacuer's Troilus.
Henryson's longest, and in many respects his most original and effective work, is his Morall Fabillis of
Esope, a collection of thirteen fables, chiefly based on the versions of Anonymus, John Lydgate and
William Caxton. The outstanding merit of the work is its freshness of treatment. The work is
unrivalled in English fabulistic literature.
In the Testament of Cresseid, Henryson supplements Geoffrey Chaucer's tale of Troilus with the
story of the tragedy of Cresseid. The description of Cresseid's leprosy, of her meeting with Troilus, of
his sorrow and charity, and of her death, give the poem a high place in writings of this genre.
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Renaissance
Thomas Campion
Campion will not likely be on your exam, and if he is, you won't need to know anything about him.
However, "When Corina to her lute sings" is fairly famous, and has some chance of appearing on the
exam.
“When to her lute Corrina sings"
When to her lute Corrina sings,
Her voice reuiues the leaden stringes,
And doth in highest noates appeare,
As any challeng'd eccho cleere ;
But when she doth of mourning speake,
Eu'n with her sighes the strings do breake.
And as her lute doth liue or die,
Led by her passion, so must I,
For when of pleasure she doth sing,
My thoughts enioy a sodaine spring,
But if she doth of sorrow speake,
Eu'n from my hart the strings doe breake.
Michael Drayton
There's nothing you need to know about Drayton, but this Shakespearean sonnet occasionally
appears on the GRE.
"Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part (Idea: LXI)"
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,
Nay, I have done: you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.
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Thomas Kyd (1558-1594)
The Spanish Tragedy is the first extant Elizabethan revenge tragedy. Know the names of the
characters and have a general idea of the plot (it's pretty complicated, and ETS going to expect you
to know every little detail). Also, The Spanish Tragedy has a character named Horatio; don't let this
confuse you. Know the difference between this Horatio and the Horatio of Hamlet.
"The Spanish Tragedy"s
The Spanish Tragedy begins with the ghost of Don Andrea, a Spanish nobleman killed in a recent
battle with Portugal. Accompanied by the spirit of Revenge, he tells the story of his death; he was
killed in hand-to-hand combat with the Portuguese prince Balthazar , after falling in love with the
beautiful Bel-Imperia and having a secret affair with her. When he faces the judges who are
supposed to assign him to his place in the underworld, they are unable to reach a decision and
instead send him to the palace of Pluto and Proserpine, King and Queen of the Underworld.
Proserpine decides that Revenge should accompany him back to the world of the living, and, after
passing through the gates of horn, this is where he finds himself. The spirit of Revenge promises that
by the play's end, Don Andrea will see his revenge.
Andrea returns to the scene of the battle where he died, to find that the Spanish have won.
Balthazar was taken prisoner shortly after Andrea's death, by the Andrea's good friend Horatio, son
of Hieronimo, the Knight Marshal of Spain. But a dispute ensues between Horatio and Lorenzo, the
son of the Duke of Castile and brother of Bel-Imperia, as to who actually captured the prince. The
King of Spain decides to compromise between the two, letting Horatio have the ransom money to be
paid for Balthazar and Lorenzo keep the captured prince at his home. Back in Portugal, the Viceroy
(ruler) is mad with grief, for he believes his son to be dead, and is tricked by Villuppo into arresting
an innocent noble, Alexandro , for Balthazar's murder. Diplomatic negotiations then begin between
the Portuguese ambassador and the Spanish King, to ensure Balthazar's return and a lasting peace
between Spain and Portugal.
Upon being taken back to Spain, Balthazar soon falls in love with Bel-Imperia himself. But, as her
servant Pedringano reveals to him, Bel-Imperia is in love with Horatio, who returns her affections.
The slight against him, which is somewhat intentional on Bel-Imperia's part, enrages Balthazar.
Horatio also incurs the hatred of Lorenzo, because of the fight over Balthazar's capture and the fact
that the lower-born Horatio (the son of a civil servant) now consorts with Lorenzo's sister. So the
two nobles decide to kill Horatio, which they successfully do with the aid of Pedringano and
Balthazar's servant Serberine , during an evening rende-vous between the two lovers. Bel-Imperia is
then taken away before Hieronimo stumbles on to the scene to discover his dead son. He is soon
joined in uncontrollable grief by his wife, Isabella .
In Portugal, Alexandro escapes death when the Portuguese ambassador returns from Spain with
news that Balthazar still lives; Villuppo is then sentenced to death. In Spain, Hieronimo is almost
driven insane by his inability to find justice for his son. Hieronimo receives a bloody letter in BelImperia's hand, identifying the murderers as Lorenzo and Balthazar, but he is uncertain whether or
not to believe it. While Hieronimo is racked with grief, Lorenzo grows worried by Hieronimo's erratic
behavior and acts in a Machiavellian manner to eliminate all evidence surrounding his crime. He tells
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Pedringano to kill Serberine for gold but arranges it so that Pedringano is immediately arrested after
the crime. He then leads Pedringano to believe that a pardon for his crime is hidden in a box brought
to the execution by a messenger boy , a belief that prevents Pedringano from exposing Lorenzo
before he is hanged. Negotiations continue between Spain and Portugal, now centering on a
diplomatic marriage between Balthazar and Bel-Imperia to unite the royal lines of the two countries.
Ironically, a letter is found on Pedringano's body that confirms Hieronimo's suspicion over Lorenzo
and Balthazar, but Lorenzo is able to deny Hieronimo access to the king, thus making royal justice
unavailable to the distressed father. Hieronimo then vows to revenge himself privately on the two
killers, using deception and a false show of friendship to keep Lorenzo off his guard.
The marriage between Bel-Imperia and Balthazar is set, and the Viceroy travels to Spain to attend
the ceremony. Hieronimo is given responsibility over the entertainment for the marriage ceremony,
and he uses it to exact his revenge. He devises a play, a tragedy, to be performed at the ceremonies,
and convinces Lorenzo and Balthazar to act in it. Bel-Imperia, by now a confederate in Hieronimo's
plot for revenge, also acts in the play. Just before the play is acted, Isabella, insane with grief, kills
herself.
The plot of the tragedy mirrors the plot of the play as a whole (a sultan is driven to murder a noble
friend through jealousy over a woman). Hieronimo casts himself in the role of the hired murderer.
During the action of the play, Hieronimo's character stabs Lorenzo's character and Bel-Imperia's
character stabs Balthazar's character, before killing herself. But after the play is over, Hieronimo
reveals to the horrified wedding guests (while standing over the corpse of his own son) that all the
stabbings in the play were done with real knives, and that Lorenzo, Balthazar, and Bel-Imperia are
now all dead. He then tries to kill himself, but the King and Viceroy and Duke of Castile stop him. In
order to keep himself from talking, he bites out his own tongue. Tricking the Duke into giving him a
knife, he then stabs the Duke and himself and then dies.
Revenge and Andrea then have the final words of the play. Andrea assigns each of the play's "good"
characters (Hieronimo, Bel-Imperia, Horatio, and Isabella) to happy eternities. The rest of the
characters are assigned to the various tortures and punishments of Hell.
Christopher Marlowe
As you probably know, Marlowe was the most famous dramatist in Shakespeare's day, and died
young, a few years before Shakespeare's rise to fame. You need to know about Marlowe because
he's a GRE favorite.
**“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
~ see also Sir Walter Ralegh’s “The Nymph: Reply to the Shephard"
~ This poem has been sited by Donne, Herrick, Ralegh and C. Day Lewis.
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"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of th purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.
The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
**Tamburlaine the Great
Be able to pick out the relevant names for Tamburlaine, but don't worry too much about the plot.
In the earliest of Marlowe's plays, the two-part Tamburlaine the Great (c. 1587; published 1590),
Marlowe's characteristic "mighty line" (as Ben Jonson called it) established blank verse as the staple
medium for later Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatic writing. It appears that originally Marlowe
intended to write only the first part, concluding with Tamburlaine's marriage to Zenocrate and his
making "truce with all the world." But the popularity of the first part encouraged Marlowe to
continue the story to Tamburlaine's death.
The play opens in Persepolis. The Persian emperor, Mycetes, dispatches troops to dispose of
Tamburlaine, a Scythian shepherd and at that point a nomadic bandit. In the same scene, Mycetes'
brother Cosroe plots to overthrow Mycetes and assume the throne.
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The scene shifts to Scythia, where Tamburlaine is shown wooing, capturing, and winning Zenocrate,
the daughter of the Egyptian king. Confronted by Mycetes' soldiers, he persuades first the soldiers
and then Cosroe to join him in a fight against Mycetes. Although he promises Cosroe the Persian
throne, Tamburlaine reneges on this promise and, after defeating Mycetes, takes personal control of
the Persian Empire.
Suddenly a powerful figure, Tamburlaine decides to pursue further conquests. A campaign against
Turkey yields him the Turkish king Bajazeth and his wife Zabina as captives; he keeps them in a cage
and at one point uses Bajazeth as a footstool.
After conquering Africa and naming himself emperor of that continent, Tamburlaine sets his eyes on
Damascus; this target places the Egyptian Sultan, his father-in-law, directly in his path. Zenocrate
pleads with her husband to spare her father. He complies, instead making the Sultan a tributary king.
The play ends with the wedding of Zenocrate and Tamburlaine, and the crowning of the former as
Empress of Persia.
In Part 2, Tamburlaine grooms his sons to be conquerors in his wake as he continues to conquer his
neighbouring kingdoms. One of his sons, Calyphas, preferring to stay by his mother's side and not
risk death, incurs Tamburlaine's wrath. Seeing this son as a coward, Tamburlaine kills him in anger
after a battle in which he refuses to fight. During this time, Bajazeth's son, Callapine, plans to avenge
his father's death. Finally, while attacking an Islamic nation, he scornfully burns a copy of the Qur'an
and claims to be greater than God. Suddenly, Tamburlaine is struck ill and dies, giving his power to
his remaining sons, but still aspiring to greatness as he departs life.
“Hero and Leander”
The poem tells the celebrated story of the love between the hero, Leander, and Hero, a priestess of
Venus. The two live in different cities, Abydos and Sestos, which are separated from each other by
the gulf known as the Hellespont. Leander swims across for a night of passion, but in so doing he
attracts the attention of the sea-god Neptune, who makes advances to him which Leander, not really
understanding what is going on, rejects. He breaks safely away, reaches Hero, and the two make
love—and there the story breaks off. Its original publisher printed at this point the words “ desunt
nonnulla “, meaning “something is missing”, and many subsequent readers have been inclined to
agree with him that Marlowe had originally intended to carry the narrative to its traditional
conclusion—the drowning of Leander—and was prevented, presumably by death. Others, however,
have argued that Marlowe, who was after all no respecter of traditions, had simply decided to let
the poem end, as does the first part of Tamburlaine , on an unexpected note of triumph and success,
challenging contemporary attitudes by refusing to endorse the idea that daring and transgression
must always be punished by loss and retribution. He had certainly already deviated from the norm in
the introduction of Neptune's desire for Leander—an innovation which would have been instantly
registered as such, since the story was so popular that, said a contemporary, “Hero and Leander is in
every man's mouth”. At the same time, though, that episode also seems to foreshadow an
ultimately tragic ending by giving the rejected Neptune a strong motive to drown Leander, and
indeed the opening line “On Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood” similarly presages disaster. It
does therefore seem likely that Marlowe would have continued the poem had he lived, and his
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friend George Chapman, who seems to have regarded himself as Marlowe's literary executor,
certainly thought so, since he himself supplied a conclusion for the poem.
“Doctor Faustus”
The play is in blank verse and prose in thirteen scenes (1604) or twenty scenes (1616). Blank verse is
largely reserved for the main scenes while prose is used in the comic scenes.
*Note that Doctor Faustus has a character named Benvolio, like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Don’t get confused on the test if this name comes up; it may be a trick.
Sir Walter Ralegh
Ralegh is not a major figure for the GRE, but "The nymph's reply to the shepherd," which is an
answer to Marlowe's"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," is a GRE favorite, so definitely be able
to identify, explain, and reference the poem. Since Donne, Herrick, and C. Day Lewis have all
parodied Marlowe's original, Ralegh contribution is highly noteworthy.
*“The nymph's reply to the shepherd"
This poem was written in response to Marlowe’s poem,
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.
The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,—
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.
But could youth last and love still breed,
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Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.
"To his son"
Three things there be that prosper up apace
And flourish, whilst they grow asunder far;
But on a day, they meet all in one place,And when they meet they one another mar:
And they be these: the wood, the weed, the wag.
The wood is that which makes the gallow tree;
The weed is that which strings the hangman's bag;
The wag, my pretty knave, betokeneth thee.
Mark well, dear boy, whilst these assemble not,
Green springs the tree, hemp grows, the wag is wild,
But when they meet, it makes the timber rot;
It frets the halter, and it chokes the child.
Then bless thee, and beware, and let us pray
We part not with thee at this meeting day.
The Author's Epitaph, Made By Himself
Even such is time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but With age and dust,
Who in the dark and Silent grave
When we have wandered all Our ways
Shuts up the story of our days,
And from which earth, and grave, and dust
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
Sir Phillip Sidney
As one of the earlier figures of the English Renaissance, he's pretty important, but I don't know that
his works are likely to appear on the exam.
Astrophel and Stella
The first of the famous English sonnet sequences, "Astrophel and Stella" was probably composed in
the early 1580s. They were well-circulated in manuscript before the first (apparently pirated) edition
was printed in 1591; only in 1598 did an authorized edition reach the press. The sequence was a
watershed in English Renaissance poetry. In it, Sidney partially nativized the key features of his
Italian model, Petrarch: variation of emotion from poem to poem, with the attendant sense of an
ongoing, but partly obscure, narrative; the philosophical trappings; the musings on the act of poetic
creation itself. His experiments with rhyme scheme were no less notable; they served to free the
English sonnet from the strict rhyming requirements of the Italian form.
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This is often called a "sonnet cycle" because it tracks in linked sonnets the progressive rise and fall of
a love relationship. However, typically for Sidney who was an avid experimenter in poetic forms, the
108 sonnets are interrupted by 11 songs of varying forms, usually using shorter lines than the
sonnet's pentameters (mostly tetrameters [four feet per line]). The Norton editors include the fourth
and eleventh songs as examples, and also because they record crucial turning points in the affair
celebrated in the sonnets. They also are where you can hear "Stella"'s voice, ventriloquized by the
speaker, as he describes her response to his pleas.
Characters: The lover, characterized as the "star lover" [astro-phil with a pun on Sidney's first name]
and the beloved, "Stella" or star, often are the speaker and spoken-to in these sonnets. However,
Sidney's persona often talks to entities he allegorically personifies as "Reason," "Love," "Love,"
"Queen Virtue," "Sleep," "the Moon," "Patience," "Desire," dawn, and other cognitive phenomena
in sonnets that not infrequently describe allegorical struggles among them which we might compare
with the dialogues in Everyman. The court surrounding them is populated by friends (loyal), enemies
(jealous), and various other characters including her fool of a husband.
The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
Prose punctuated by poems, including "Ye Goatherd Gods," a poem remarkable because it is a
double sestina--a form so dedicated to rhyming structure that it is very rarely seen. The Arcadia, by
far Sidney's most ambitious work, was as significant in its own way as his sonnets. The work is a
romance that combines pastoral elements with a mood derived from the Hellenistic model of
Heliodorus. In the work, that is, a highly idealized version of the shepherd's life adjoins (not always
naturally) with stories of jousts, political treachery, kidnappings, battles, and rapes. As published in
the sixteenth century, the narrative follows the Greek model: stories are nested within each other,
and different story-lines are intertwined. The work enjoyed great popularity for more than a century
after its publication. William Shakespeare borrowed from it for the Gloucester subplot of King Lear;
Samuel Richardson named the heroine of his first novel after Sidney's Pamela.
A Defence of Poesy
(Also known as the Apology for Poetry): Sidney wrote the Apology before 1583. It is generally
believed that he was at least partly motivated by Stephen Gosson, a former playwright who
dedicated his attack on the English stage, The School of Abuse, to Sidney in 1579. In his essay, Sidney
integrates a number of classical and Italian precepts on fiction. The essence of his defense is that
poetry, by combining the liveliness of history with the ethical focus of philosophy, is more effective
than either history or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue. The work also offers important
comments on Edmund Spenser and the Elizabethan stage.
John Skelton
An example of skeltonics can clearly be seen in the following short excerpt from Phyllyp Sparrowe:
Somtyme he wolde gaspe
Whan he sawe a waspe;
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A fly or a gnat,
He wolde flye at that
And prytely he wold pant
Whan he saw an ant;
Lorde, how wolde hop
After the greesop!
And whan I sayd, Phyp, Phyp,
Than he wold lepe and skyp,
And take me by the lyp.
Edmund Spenser
There are a efw things about Spenser that you definitely need to know.
1. The Spensarian stanza. You need to be able to identify it. The rhyme scheme ABABBCBCC. The
first eight lines are iambic pentameter, and the last line is iambic hexameter (called an alexandrine).
The GRE, out of some love of anachronism, badly wants you to know what an alexandrine is, so learn
it.
2. If you know that the language of his poetry is purposely antique, you will have no problem picking
it out, especially since it doesn't really look like Chaucer, anyway; think of it as an imitation of
Chaucher, and you approach a description of Spenser's poetry.
The Shepheardes Calendar
The first poem to earn him notability was a collection of eclogues called The Shepheardes Calendar,
written from the point of view of various shepherds throughout the months of the year. It has been
suggested that the poem is an allegory, or at least is meant to symbolize the state of humanity at
large in a universal sense, as implied by its cyclical structure. The diversity of forms and meters,
ranging from accentual-syllabic to purely accentual, and including such departures as the sestina in
"August," gave Spenser's contemporaries a clue to the range of his powers and won him a good deal
of praise in his day.
It is a pastoral allegory that employs various forms.
The central characters are Colin Clout, Hobbinol, and Rosalind. (you probably won't need to know
this)
The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene is his major contribution to English poetry. The poem is a long allegory, in the
epic form, of Christian virtues, tied into England's mythology of King Arthur. Spenser intended to
complete twelve books of the poem, but managed only six before his death.
In The Faerie Queene, Spenser creates an allegory: The characters of his far-off, fanciful "Faerie
Land" are meant to have a symbolic meaning in the real world. Major characters include Britomart,
Duesa, Redcrosse, and Una.
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It begins:
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song.
The Amoretti and The “Epithalamion”
The Amoretti is a sonnet cycle or sequence composed of 89 sonnets. The "Epithalamion" is a
wedding song derived from Latin originals. The epithalamion is composed in 24 immensely complex
18-line stanzas whose rhyme schemes vary but use Spenser's typical concatenation strategy to link
each stage of the stanza together.
Spenserian sonnet
Edmund Spenser employed an a-b-a-b, b-c-b-c, c-d-c-d, e-e rhyme scheme - as evidenced in his
Amoretti sequence. This form has not been particularly popular.
“ Whilst it is Prime”
Fresh Spring, the herald of loves mighty king,
In whose cote-armour richly are displayd
All sorts of flowers, the which on earth do spring,
In goodly colours gloriously arrayd—
Goe to my love, where she is carelesse layd,
Yet in her winters bowre not well awake;
Tell her the joyous time wil not be staid,
Unlesse she doe him by the forelock take;
Bid her therefore her seife soone ready make,
To wayt on Love amongst his lovely crew;
Where every one, that misseth then her make,
Shall be by him amearst with penance dew.
Make hast, therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime;
For none can call againe the passed time.
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Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)
Wyatt, along with Surrey, was the first to introduce the sonnet into English, with its characteristic
final rhyming couplet. He wrote extraordinarily accomplished imitations of Petrarch's sonnets,
including ' I find no peace ' (' Pace non trovo ') and ' Whoso List to Hunt .'
"Whoso List To Hunt"
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.
*Whoso list: whoever wishes
hind: female deer hélas: alas
vain travail: futile labor
deer: playing on the word "dear"
Sithens: since Noli me tangere: "touch me not"
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547)
Surrey continued in Wyatt 's footsteps on the English sonnet form. Wyatt and Surrey, both often
titled "father of the English sonnet", established the form that was later used by Shakespeare and
others: three quatrains and a couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. (KNOW THE
RHYME SCHEME!)
DESCRIPTION OF SPRING,
WHEREIN EVERY THING RENEWS, SAVE ONLY THE LOVER.
THE soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale.
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her make hath told her tale.
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Summer is come, for every spray now springs,
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he slings;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she slings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale;
The busy bee her honey now she mings;
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!
William Shakespeare
Sonnets
There are lots of sonnets to study, but only a few really likely ones. Remember to also look at the
rhyme scheme of a sonnet to help you identify who wrote it. The Shakespearean sonnet has an
abab, cdcd, efef, gg scheme. It is three quatrains and a couplet, usually with a break between the
octave and the sestet.
A good website to look at more sonnets is http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com
Number 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
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Number 55
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
Number 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Number 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
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I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
Plays
King Lear
King Lear
Cordelia - Lear’s youngest daughter, disowned. The king of France marries her for her virtue alone,
overlooking her lack of dowry. She remains loyal to Lear despite his cruelty toward her, forgives him,
and displays a mild and forbearing temperament even toward her evil sisters, Goneril and Regan.
Goneril - Lear’s ruthless oldest daughter and the wife of the duke of Albany. Goneril is jealous,
treacherous, and amoral. Shakespeare’s audience would have been particularly shocked at Goneril’s
aggressiveness, a quality that it would not have expected in a female character. She challenges
Lear’s authority, boldly initiates an affair with Edmund, and wrests military power away from her
husband.
Regan - Lear’s middle daughter and the wife of the duke of Cornwall. Regan is as ruthless as Goneril
and as aggressive in all the same ways. In fact, it is difficult to think of any quality that distinguishes
her from her sister. When they are not egging each other on to further acts of cruelty, they jealously
compete for the same man, Edmund.
Gloucester - A nobleman loyal to King Lear whose rank, earl, is below that of duke. The first thing
we learn about Gloucester is that he is an adulterer, having fathered a bastard son, Edmund. His fate
is in many ways parallel to that of Lear: he misjudges which of his children to trust. He appears weak
and ineffectual in the early acts, when he is unable to prevent Lear from being turned out of his own
house, but he later demonstrates that he is also capable of great bravery.
Edgar - Gloucester’s older, legitimate son. Edgar plays many different roles, starting out as a
gullible fool easily tricked by his brother, then assuming a disguise as a mad beggar to evade his
father’s men, then carrying his impersonation further to aid Lear and Gloucester, and finally
appearing as an armored champion to avenge his brother’s treason. Edgar’s propensity for disguises
and impersonations makes it difficult to characterize him effectively.
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Edmund - Gloucester’s younger, illegitimate son. Edmund resents his status as a bastard and
schemes to usurp Gloucester’s title and possessions from Edgar. He is a formidable character,
succeeding in almost all of his schemes and wreaking destruction upon virtually all of the other
characters.
Kent - A nobleman of the same rank as Gloucester who is loyal to King Lear. Kent spends most of
the play disguised as a peasant, calling himself “Caius,”
Albany - The husband of Lear’s daughter Goneril. Albany is good at heart, and he eventually
denounces and opposes the cruelty of Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall.
Cornwall - The husband of Lear’s daughter Regan. Unlike Albany, Cornwall is domineering, cruel,
and violent,
Fool
Oswald - The steward, or chief servant, in Goneril’s house. Oswald obeys his mistress’s commands
and helps her in her conspiracies.
Important Quotations
1. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.
Cordelia speaks these words when she address her father, King Lear, who has demanded that his
daughters tell him how much they love him before he divides his kingdom among them (1.1.90–92).
In contrast to the empty flattery of Goneril and Regan, Cordelia offers her father a truthful
evaluation of her love for him: she loves him “according to my bond”; that is, she understands and
accepts without question her duty to love him as a father and king. Although Cordelia loves Lear
better than her sisters do, she is unable to “heave” her heart into her mouth, as her integrity
prevents her from making a false declaration in order to gain his wealth. Lear’s rage at what he
perceives to be her lack of affection sets the tragedy in motion. Cordelia’s refusal to flatter Lear,
then, establishes her virtue and the authenticity of her love, while bringing about Lear’s dreadful
error of judgment.
2. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
…
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate. Fine word—“legitimate”!
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Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper.
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Edmund delivers this soliloquy just before he tricks his father, Gloucester, into believing that
Gloucester’s legitimate son, Edgar, is plotting against him (1.2.1–22). “I grow; I prosper,” he says,
and these words define his character throughout the play. Deprived by his bastard birth of the
respect and rank that he believes to be rightfully his, Edmund sets about raising himself by his own
efforts, forging personal prosperity through treachery and betrayals. The repeated use of the epithet
“legitimate” in reference to Edgar reveals Edmund’s obsession with his brother’s enviable status as
their father’s rightful heir. With its attack on the “plague of custom,” this quotation embodies
Edmund’s resentment of the social order of the world and his accompanying craving for respect and
power. He invokes “nature” because only in the unregulated, anarchic scheme of the natural world
can one of such low birth achieve his goals. He wants recognition more than anything else—perhaps,
it is suggested later, because of the familial love that has been denied him—and he sets about
getting that recognition by any means necessary.
3. O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s . . .
…
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
…
If it be you that stir these daughters’ hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women’s weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
…
No, I’ll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
Lear delivers these lines after he has been driven to the end of his rope by the cruelties of Goneril
and Regan (2.4.259–281). He rages against them, explaining that their attempts to take away his
knights and servants strike at his heart. “O, reason not the need!” he cries, explaining that humans
would be no different from the animals if they did not need more than the fundamental necessities
of life to be happy. Clearly, Lear needs knights and attendants not only because of the service that
they provide him but because of what their presence represents: namely, his identity, both as a king
and as a human being. Goneril and Regan, in stripping Lear of the trappings of power, are reducing
him to the level of an animal. They are also driving him mad, as the close of this quotation indicates,
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since he is unable to bear the realization of his daughters’ terrible betrayal. Despite his attempt to
assert his authority, Lear finds himself powerless; all he can do is vent his rage.
4. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport.
Gloucester speaks these words as he wanders on the heath after being blinded by Cornwall and
Regan (4.1.37–38). They reflect the profound despair that grips him and drives him to desire his own
death. More important, they emphasize one of the play’s chief themes—namely, the question of
whether there is justice in the universe. Gloucester’s philosophical musing here offers an outlook of
stark despair: he suggests that there is no order—or at least no good order—in the universe, and
that man is incapable of imposing his own moral ideas upon the harsh and inflexible laws of the
world. Instead of divine justice, there is only the “sport” of vicious, inscrutable gods, who reward
cruelty and delight in suffering. In many ways, the events of the play bear out Gloucester’s
understanding of the world, as the good die along with the wicked, and no reason is offered for the
unbearable suffering that permeates the play.
5. Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone forever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth.
Lear utters these words as he emerges from prison carrying Cordelia’s body in his arms (5.3.256–
260). His howl of despair returns us again to the theme of justice, as he suggests that “heaven’s vault
should crack” at his daughter’s death—but it does not, and no answers are offered to explain
Cordelia’s unnecessary end. It is this final twist of the knife that makes King Lear such a powerful,
unbearable play. We have seen Cordelia and Lear reunited in Act 4, and, at this point, all of the play’s
villains have been killed off, leaving the audience to anticipate a happy ending. Instead, we have a
corpse and a howling, ready-for-death old man. Indeed, the tension between Lear as powerful figure
and Lear as animalistic madman explodes to the surface in Lear’s “Howl, howl, howl, howl,” a spoken
rather than sounded vocalization of his primal instinct.
King Henry IV – Part 1
King Henry IV - The ruling king of England. Henry is not actually all that old, but at the time the play
opens, he has been worn down prematurely by worries. He nurses guilty feelings about having won
his throne through a civil war that deposed the former king, Richard II. In addition, his reign has not
brought an end to the internal strife in England, which erupts into an even bigger civil war in this
play. Finally, he is vexed by the irresponsible antics of his eldest son, Prince Harry. Regal, proud, and
somewhat aloof, King Henry is not the main character of the play that bears his name but, rather, its
historical focus. He gives the play a center of power and a sense of stability, though his actions and
emotions are largely secondary to the plot.
Prince Harry - King Henry IV’s son, who will eventually become King Henry V. Harry’s title is Prince
of Wales, but all of his friends call him Hal; he is also sometimes called Harry Monmouth. Though
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Harry spends all his time hanging around highwaymen, robbers, and whores, he has secret plans to
transform himself into a noble prince, and his regal qualities emerge as the play unfolds. Harry is the
closest thing the play has to a protagonist: his complex and impressive mind is generally at the
center of the play, though Shakespeare is often somewhat ambiguous about how we are meant to
understand this simultaneously deceitful and heroic young prince.
Hotspur - The son and heir of the Earl of Northumberland and the nephew of the Earl of Worcester.
Hotspur’s real name is Henry Percy (he is also called Harry or Percy), but he has earned his nickname
from his fierceness in battle and hastiness of action. Hotspur is a member of the powerful Percy
family of the North, which helped bring King Henry IV to power but now feels that the king has
forgotten his debt to them. In Shakespeare’s account, Hotspur is the same age as Prince Harry and
becomes his archrival. Quick-tempered and impatient, Hotspur is obsessed with the idea of honor
and glory to the exclusion of all other qualities.
Sir John Falstaff - A fat old man between the ages of about fifty and sixty-five who hangs around in
taverns on the wrong side of London and makes his living as a thief, highwayman, and mooch.
Falstaff is Prince Harry’s closest friend and seems to act as a sort of mentor to him, instructing him in
the practices of criminals and vagabonds. He is the only one of the bunch who can match Harry’s
quick wit pun for pun.
Earl of Westmoreland - A nobleman and military leader who is a close companion and valuable ally
of King Henry IV.
Lord John of Lancaster - The younger son of King Henry and the younger brother of Prince Harry.
John proves himself wise and valiant in battle, despite his youth.
Sir Walter Blunt - A loyal and trusted ally of the king and a valuable warrior.
Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester - Hotspur’s uncle. Shrewd and manipulative, Worcester is the
mastermind behind the Percy rebellion.
Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland - Hotspur’s father. Northumberland conspires and raises
troops on the Percy side, but he claims that he is sick before the Battle of Shrewsbury and does not
actually bring his troops into the fray.
Edmund Mortimer, called the Earl of March - The Welsh rebel Owain Glyndwr’s son-in-law.
Mortimer is a conflation of two separate historical figures: Mortimer and the Earl of March. For
Shakespeare’s purposes, Mortimer matters because he had a strong claim to the throne of England
before King Henry overthrew the previous king, Richard II.
Owain Glyndwr - The leader of the Welsh rebels and the father of Lady Mortimer (most editions of
1 Henry IV refer to him as Owen Glendower). Glyndwr joins with the Percys in their insurrection
against King Henry. Well-read, educated in England, and very capable in battle, he is also steeped in
the traditional lore of Wales and claims to be able to command great magic. He is mysterious and
superstitious and sometimes acts according to prophecies and omens.
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Archibald, Earl of Douglas - The leader of the large army of Scottish rebels against King Henry.
Usually called “The Douglas” (a traditional way of referring to a Scottish clan chief), the deadly and
fearless Douglas fights on the side of the Percys.
Sir Richard Vernon - A relative and ally of the Earl of Worcester.
The Archbishop of York - The archbishop, whose given name is Richard Scrope, has a grievance
against King Henry and thus conspires on the side of the Percys.
Ned Poins, Bardolph, and Peto - Criminals and highwaymen. Poins, Bardolph, and Peto are friends
of Falstaff and Prince Harry who drink with them in the Boar’s Head Tavern, accompany them in
highway robbery, and go with them to war.
Gadshill - Another highwayman friend of Harry, Falstaff, and the rest. Gadshill seems to be
nicknamed after the place on the London road—called Gad’s Hill—where he has set up many
robberies.
Mistress Quickly - Hostess of the Boar’s Head Tavern, a seedy dive in Eastcheap, London, where
Falstaff and his friends go to drink.
1. Yea, there thou mak’st me sad and mak’st me sin
In envy that my Lord Northumberland
Should be the father to so blest a son—
A son who is the theme of honour’s tongue,
Amongst a grove the very straightest plant,
Who is sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride—
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him
See riot and dishonor stain the brow
Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle clothes our children where they lay,
And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet!
(I.i.77–88)
These lines, which King Henry speaks in the first scene of the play, set the stage for the conflict
between Prince Harry and Hotspur. Henry describes the fame and fortune of young Hotspur (the son
of “my Lord Northumberland”), calling him “the theme of honour’s tongue”; in comparison, he says,
Prince Harry (“my young Harry”) has been sullied by “riot and dishonour.” He then refers to an old
English folk superstition—one of the many references to folk culture and magic in the play—about
fairies who switched young children at birth. Henry wishes that a fairy had switched Harry and
Hotspur at birth, so that Hotspur were really his son and Harry the son of Northumberland. This
quote is important for a number of reasons. It foreshadows the rivalry of Harry and Hotspur, and it
helps establish Henry’s careworn, worried condition. Furthermore, it lets the audience know that
Harry is generally considered a disappointment, and, by presenting both Harry and Hotspur as
potential son figures for Henry, it inaugurates the motif of doubles in the play.
2. I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness.
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Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promisèd,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend to make offence a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
(I.ii.173–195)
Prince Harry addresses this monologue to Falstaff and his friends, even though they have just left the
room, leaving Harry all alone. It is in this speech that Harry first reveals his deception. His idling with
the Boar’s Head company is all an act, and when the need arises, he will cast off the act and reveal
his true noble nature. Harry tells the departed Falstaff that he “will a while uphold / The unyoked
humour of your idleness,” but that, just as the sun permits itself to be covered by clouds so that the
people who miss its light will be all the happier when it reappears, he too will eventually emerge
from the cloud cover of his lower-class friends. Harry says that people quickly grow used to and tire
of anything that is familiar: if every day were a holiday, he says, then holidays would seem as
tiresome as work, because “nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.”
Therefore, Harry concludes that by earning the people’s disapproval with his current behavior, he
sets himself up to appear all the more glorious when he finally decides to earn their approval, since
they will not take his high merit for granted. This quote is extremely important to the play, because
it establishes the dramatic irony of Harry’s character, known to no one but the audience and the
prince himself. It also exposes the complexities and ambiguities of Harry’s mind, showing an
apparently virtuous young man who can manipulate and lie to others to achieve his somewhat
selfish, albeit important, goals.
3. When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
...
Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new-reaped
Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home.
He was perfumèd like a milliner,
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...
With many holiday and lady terms
He questioned me; amongst the rest demanded
My prisoners in your majesty’s behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold —
To be so pestered with a popinjay! —
Out of my grief and my impatience
Answered neglectingly, I know not what —
He should, or should not — for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman
...
So cowardly, and but for these vile guns
He would himself have been a soldier.
(I.iii.28–68)
Important Quotations
1. Yea, there thou mak’st me sad and mak’st me sin
In envy that my Lord Northumberland
Should be the father to so blest a son—
A son who is the theme of honour’s tongue,
Amongst a grove the very straightest plant,
Who is sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride—
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him
See riot and dishonor stain the brow
Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle clothes our children where they lay,
And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet!
(I.i.77–88)
Explanation for Quotation 1 >>
These lines, which King Henry speaks in the first scene of the play, set the stage for the conflict
between Prince Harry and Hotspur. Henry describes the fame and fortune of young Hotspur (the son
of “my Lord Northumberland”), calling him “the theme of honour’s tongue”; in comparison, he says,
Prince Harry (“my young Harry”) has been sullied by “riot and dishonour.” He then refers to an old
English folk superstition—one of the many references to folk culture and magic in the play—about
fairies who switched young children at birth. Henry wishes that a fairy had switched Harry and
Hotspur at birth, so that Hotspur were really his son and Harry the son of Northumberland. This
quote is important for a number of reasons. It foreshadows the rivalry of Harry and Hotspur, and it
helps establish Henry’s careworn, worried condition. Furthermore, it lets the audience know that
Harry is generally considered a disappointment, and, by presenting both Harry and Hotspur as
potential son figures for Henry, it inaugurates the motif of doubles in the play.
Close
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2. I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness.
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promisèd,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend to make offence a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
(I.ii.173–195)
Prince Harry addresses this monologue to Falstaff and his friends, even though they have just left the
room, leaving Harry all alone. It is in this speech that Harry first reveals his deception. His idling with
the Boar’s Head company is all an act, and when the need arises, he will cast off the act and reveal
his true noble nature. Harry tells the departed Falstaff that he “will a while uphold / The unyoked
humour of your idleness,” but that, just as the sun permits itself to be covered by clouds so that the
people who miss its light will be all the happier when it reappears, he too will eventually emerge
from the cloud cover of his lower-class friends. Harry says that people quickly grow used to and tire
of anything that is familiar: if every day were a holiday, he says, then holidays would seem as
tiresome as work, because “nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.”
Therefore, Harry concludes that by earning the people’s disapproval with his current behavior, he
sets himself up to appear all the more glorious when he finally decides to earn their approval, since
they will not take his high merit for granted. This quote is extremely important to the play, because
it establishes the dramatic irony of Harry’s character, known to no one but the audience and the
prince himself. It also exposes the complexities and ambiguities of Harry’s mind, showing an
apparently virtuous young man who can manipulate and lie to others to achieve his somewhat
selfish, albeit important, goals.
3. When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
...
Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new-reaped
Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home.
He was perfumèd like a milliner,
...
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With many holiday and lady terms
He questioned me; amongst the rest demanded
My prisoners in your majesty’s behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold —
To be so pestered with a popinjay! —
Out of my grief and my impatience
Answered neglectingly, I know not what —
He should, or should not — for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman
...
So cowardly, and but for these vile guns
He would himself have been a soldier.
(I.iii.28–68)
Hotspur gives this speech to Henry to explain why he did not release a group of prisoners when
ordered to do so by Henry’s messenger. (The conflict over this group of prisoners is what
precipitates the Percys’ break from Henry in Act I.) Hotspur says that this messenger confronted him
immediately after a pitched battle and that the man was so simpering and effeminate that it
disgusted him. The speech is important because of the early insight it offers into Hotspur’s character.
He is a soldier through and through and has no patience for weakness, fashion, cowardice, manners,
or the niceties of courtly behavior. It is highly ironic that Hotspur’s speech about the messenger is so
long and elaborate, because Hotspur takes such pains to portray himself as a man of action rather
than words. Hotspur’s description of his encounter with this man, on the other hand, is remarkably
vivid and eloquent. Shakespeare achieves much through Hotspur’s detailed account of the “neat and
trimly dressed” courtier, who talks in “holiday and lady terms” and reminds Hotspur of a “popinjay”
and a “waiting gentlewoman.” Hotspur’s disgust reaches its height when the courtier says that he
too would have become a soldier “but for these vile guns.” Thus, Shakespeare creates an amusing
and believable character, the courtier, who never appears onstage, and also firmly establishes
Hotspur’s aggressive, masculine nature.
4. Falstaff: But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to say more than I know. That he
is old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it. But that he is, saving your reverence, a
whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked. If to be old and
merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be hated, then
Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins,
but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore
more valiant being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff,
Banish not him thy Harry’s company,
Banish not him thy Harry’s company.
Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
Prince: I do; I will.
(II.v.425–439)
This exchange occurs during Harry and Falstaff’s game of role--playing, as Falstaff pretends to be
Harry so that Harry can prepare for his upcoming meeting with his father. Falstaff uses his time in
the role of King Henry mainly to praise himself, urging Harry to keep Falstaff near him—something
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that the real king would never do, but certainly in keeping with Falstaff’s character. Playing Harry,
Falstaff lists his own faults, and then excuses each of them—“If sack and sugar be a fault, God help
the wicked. If to be old and merry be a sin, then many and old host that I know is damned”—and
then, improbably, begins to list his own supposed virtues, calling himself “sweet,” “kind,” “true,” and
“valiant.” Falstaff is not sweet, kind, true, or valiant, but his constant claims to be these things are
part of what makes him endearing. In any case, this speech is important because it lets us in on
some of the complexities of Harry and Falstaff’s relationship. Falstaff understands that he is
undesirable company for Harry and worries that Harry will one day break his ties with him. So, in the
role of King Henry, Falstaff urges Harry not to do so. Harry’s icy reply, “I do; I will,” foreshadows the
moment of the actual break in the next play, 2 Henry IV.
5. Well, ’tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on?
How then? Can honour set-to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No.
Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word “honour”?
What is that “honour”? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel
it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ’Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living?
No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so
ends my catechism.
(V.i.129–139)
Falstaff delivers this diatribe against honor during the battle at Shrewsbury, just before the climax of
the play. Linking honor to violence, Falstaff, who is about to go into battle, says that honor “pricks
him on” to fight, meaning that honor motivates him; he then asks what he will do if honor “pricks
him off,” that is, kills or injures him. He says that honor is useless when one is wounded: it cannot
set an arm or a leg, or take away the “grief of a wound,” and it has “no skill in surgery.” In fact, being
merely a word, honor is nothing but thin air—that is, the breath that one exhales in saying a word.
He says that the only people who have honor are the dead, and it does them no good, for they
cannot feel or hear it. Furthermore, honor doesn’t “live with the living” because honor is gained
through death. Falstaff therefore concludes that honor is worthless, “a mere scutcheon,” and that
he wants nothing to do with it. In a play obsessed with the idea of honor, this speech comes out of
nowhere to call into question the entire set of moral values on which most of the characters base
their lives. It is one of the remarkable aspects of Falstaff’s character that he is able to live so far
outside the normal mores and expectations of his society; this speech epitomizes Falstaff’s
independent streak
Macbeth
Macbeth - Macbeth is a Scottish general and the thane of Glamis who is led to wicked thoughts by
the prophecies of the three witches, especially after their prophecy that he will be made thane of
Cawdor comes true. Macbeth is a brave soldier and a powerful man, but he is not a virtuous one. He
is easily tempted into murder to fulfill his ambitions to the throne, and once he commits his first
crime and is crowned King of Scotland, he embarks on further atrocities with increasing ease.
Ultimately, Macbeth proves himself better suited to the battlefield than to political intrigue, because
he lacks the skills necessary to rule without being a tyrant. His response to every problem is violence
and murder. Unlike Shakespeare’s great villains, such as Iago in Othello and Richard III in Richard III,
Macbeth is never comfortable in his role as a criminal. He is unable to bear the psychological
consequences of his atrocities.
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Read an in-depth analysis of Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth - Macbeth’s wife, a deeply ambitious woman who lusts for power and position. Early
in the play she seems to be the stronger and more ruthless of the two, as she urges her husband to
kill Duncan and seize the crown. After the bloodshed begins, however, Lady Macbeth falls victim to
guilt and madness to an even greater degree than her husband. Her conscience affects her to such
an extent that she eventually commits suicide. Interestingly, she and Macbeth are presented as
being deeply in love, and many of Lady Macbeth’s speeches imply that her influence over her
husband is primarily sexual. Their joint alienation from the world, occasioned by their partnership in
crime, seems to strengthen the attachment that they feel to each another.
Read an in-depth analysis of Lady Macbeth.
The Three Witches - Three “black and midnight hags” who plot mischief against Macbeth using
charms, spells, and prophecies. Their predictions prompt him to murder Duncan, to order the deaths
of Banquo and his son, and to blindly believe in his own immortality. The play leaves the witches’
true identity unclear—aside from the fact that they are servants of Hecate, we know little about
their place in the cosmos. In some ways they resemble the mythological Fates, who impersonally
weave the threads of human destiny. They clearly take a perverse delight in using their knowledge of
the future to toy with and destroy human beings.
Read an in-depth analysis of The Three Witches.
Banquo - The brave, noble general whose children, according to the witches’ prophecy, will inherit
the Scottish throne. Like Macbeth, Banquo thinks ambitious thoughts, but he does not translate
those thoughts into action. In a sense, Banquo’s character stands as a rebuke to Macbeth, since he
represents the path Macbeth chose not to take: a path in which ambition need not lead to betrayal
and murder. Appropriately, then, it is Banquo’s ghost—and not Duncan’s—that haunts Macbeth. In
addition to embodying Macbeth’s guilt for killing Banquo, the ghost also reminds Macbeth that he
did not emulate Banquo’s reaction to the witches’ prophecy.
King Duncan - The good King of Scotland whom Macbeth, in his ambition for the crown, murders.
Duncan is the model of a virtuous, benevolent, and farsighted ruler. His death symbolizes the
destruction of an order in Scotland that can be restored only when Duncan’s line, in the person of
Malcolm, once more occupies the throne.
Macduff - A Scottish nobleman hostile to Macbeth’s kingship from the start. He eventually becomes
a leader of the crusade to unseat Macbeth. The crusade’s mission is to place the rightful king,
Malcolm, on the throne, but Macduff also desires vengeance for Macbeth’s murder of Macduff’s
wife and young son.
Malcolm - The son of Duncan, whose restoration to the throne signals Scotland’s return to order
following Macbeth’s reign of terror. Malcolm becomes a serious challenge to Macbeth with
Macduff’s aid (and the support of England). Prior to this, he appears weak and uncertain of his own
power, as when he and Donalbain flee Scotland after their father’s murder.
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Hecate - The goddess of witchcraft, who helps the three witches work their mischief on Macbeth.
Fleance - Banquo’s son, who survives Macbeth’s attempt to murder him. At the end of the play,
Fleance’s whereabouts are unknown. Presumably, he may come to rule Scotland, fulfilling the
witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s sons will sit on the Scottish throne.
Lennox - A Scottish nobleman.
Ross - A Scottish nobleman.
The Murderers - A group of ruffians conscripted by Macbeth to murder Banquo, Fleance (whom
they fail to kill), and Macduff’s wife and children.
Porter - The drunken doorman of Macbeth’s castle.
Lady Macduff - Macduff’s wife. The scene in her castle provides our only glimpse of a domestic
realm other than that of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. She and her home serve as contrasts to Lady
Macbeth and the hellish world of Inverness.
Donalbain - Duncan’s son and Malcolm’s younger brother.
1. The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood,
Stop up th’access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’
Lady Macbeth speaks these words in Act 1, scene 5, lines 36–52, as she awaits the arrival of King
Duncan at her castle. We have previously seen Macbeth’s uncertainty about whether he should take
the crown by killing Duncan. In this speech, there is no such confusion, as Lady Macbeth is clearly
willing to do whatever is necessary to seize the throne. Her strength of purpose is contrasted with
her husband’s tendency to waver. This speech shows the audience that Lady Macbeth is the real
steel behind Macbeth and that her ambition will be strong enough to drive her husband forward. At
the same time, the language of this speech touches on the theme of masculinity— “unsex me here /
. . . / . . . Come to my woman’s breasts, / And take my milk for gall,” Lady Macbeth says as she
prepares herself to commit murder. The language suggests that her womanhood, represented by
breasts and milk, usually symbols of nurture, impedes her from performing acts of violence and
cruelty, which she associates with manliness. Later, this sense of the relationship between
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masculinity and violence will be deepened when Macbeth is unwilling to go through with the
murders and his wife tells him, in effect, that he needs to “be a man” and get on with it.
2. If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly. If th’assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success: that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all, here,
But here upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgement here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions which, being taught, return
To plague th’inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends th’ingredience of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking-off,
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’other.
In this soliloquy, which is found in Act 1, scene 7, lines 1–28, Macbeth debates whether he should kill
Duncan. When he lists Duncan’s noble qualities (he “[h]ath borne his faculties so meek”) and the
loyalty that he feels toward his king (“I am his kinsman and his subject”), we are reminded of just
how grave an outrage it is for the couple to slaughter their ruler while he is a guest in their house. At
the same time, Macbeth’s fear that “[w]e still have judgement here, that we but teach / Bloody
instructions which, being taught, return / To plague th’inventor,” foreshadows the way that his
deeds will eventually come back to haunt him. The imagery in this speech is dark—we hear of
“bloody instructions,” “deep damnation,” and a “poisoned chalice”—and suggests that Macbeth is
aware of how the murder would open the door to a dark and sinful world. At the same time, he
admits that his only reason for committing murder, “ambition,” suddenly seems an insufficient
justification for the act. The destruction that comes from unchecked ambition will continue to be
explored as one of the play’s themes. As the soliloquy ends, Macbeth seems to resolve not to kill
Duncan, but this resolve will only last until his wife returns and once again convinces him, by the
strength of her will, to go ahead with their plot.
3. Whence is that knocking?—
How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here! Ha, they pluck out mine eyes.
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Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Macbeth says this in Act 2, scene 2, lines 55–61. He has just murdered Duncan, and the crime was
accompanied by supernatural portents. Now he hears a mysterious knocking on his gate, which
seems to promise doom. (In fact, the person knocking is Macduff, who will indeed eventually destroy
Macbeth.) The enormity of Macbeth’s crime has awakened in him a powerful sense of guilt that will
hound him throughout the play. Blood, specifically Duncan’s blood, serves as the symbol of that
guilt, and Macbeth’s sense that “all great Neptune’s ocean” cannot cleanse him—that there is
enough blood on his hands to turn the entire sea red—will stay with him until his death. Lady
Macbeth’s response to this speech will be her prosaic remark, “A little water clears us of this deed”
(2.2.65). By the end of the play, however, she will share Macbeth’s sense that Duncan’s murder has
irreparably stained them with blood.
4. Out, damned spot; out, I say. One, two,—why, then ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord,
fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it when none can call our power to
account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
These words are spoken by Lady Macbeth in Act 5, scene 1, lines 30–34, as she sleepwalks through
Macbeth’s castle on the eve of his battle against Macduff and Malcolm. Earlier in the play, she
possessed a stronger resolve and sense of purpose than her husband and was the driving force
behind their plot to kill Duncan. When Macbeth believed his hand was irreversibly bloodstained
earlier in the play, Lady Macbeth had told him, “A little water clears us of this deed” (2.2.65). Now,
however, she too sees blood. She is completely undone by guilt and descends into madness. It may
be a reflection of her mental and emotional state that she is not speaking in verse; this is one of the
few moments in the play when a major character—save for the witches, who speak in four-foot
couplets—strays from iambic pentameter. Her inability to sleep was foreshadowed in the voice that
her husband thought he heard while killing the king—a voice crying out that Macbeth was murdering
sleep. And her delusion that there is a bloodstain on her hand furthers the play’s use of blood as a
symbol of guilt. “What need we fear who knows it when none can call our power to account?” she
asks, asserting that as long as her and her husband’s power is secure, the murders they committed
cannot harm them. But her guilt-racked state and her mounting madness show how hollow her
words are. So, too, does the army outside her castle. “Hell is murky,” she says, implying that she
already knows that darkness intimately. The pair, in their destructive power, have created their own
hell, where they are tormented by guilt and insanity.
5. She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
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These words are uttered by Macbeth after he hears of Lady Macbeth’s death, in Act 5, scene 5, lines
16–27. Given the great love between them, his response is oddly muted, but it segues quickly into a
speech of such pessimism and despair—one of the most famous speeches in all of Shakespeare—
that the audience realizes how completely his wife’s passing and the ruin of his power have undone
Macbeth. His speech insists that there is no meaning or purpose in life. Rather, life “is a tale / Told by
an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” One can easily understand how, with his wife
dead and armies marching against him, Macbeth succumbs to such pessimism. Yet, there is also a
defensive and self-justifying quality to his words. If everything is meaningless, then Macbeth’s awful
crimes are somehow made less awful, because, like everything else, they too “signify nothing.”
Macbeth’s statement that “[l]ife’s but a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage”
can be read as Shakespeare’s somewhat deflating reminder of the illusionary nature of the theater.
After all, Macbeth is only a “player” himself, strutting on an Elizabethan stage. In any play, there is a
conspiracy of sorts between the audience and the actors, as both pretend to accept the play’s
reality. Macbeth’s comment calls attention to this conspiracy and partially explodes it—his nihilism
embraces not only his own life but the entire play. If we take his words to heart, the play, too, can be
seen as an event “full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.”
Othello - The play’s protagonist and hero. A Christian Moor and general of the armies of Venice,
Othello is an eloquent and physically powerful figure, respected by all those around him. In spite of
his elevated status, he is nevertheless easy prey to insecurities because of his age, his life as a
soldier, and his race. He possesses a “free and open nature,” which his ensign Iago uses to twist his
love for his wife, Desdemona, into a powerful and destructive jealousy (I.iii.381).
Desdemona - The daughter of the Venetian senator Brabanzio. Desdemona and Othello are secretly
married before the play begins. While in many ways stereotypically pure and meek, Desdemona is
also determined and self-possessed. She is equally capable of defending her marriage, jesting
bawdily with Iago, and responding with dignity to Othello’s incomprehensible jealousy.
Iago - Othello’s ensign (a job also known as an ancient or standard-bearer), and the villain of the
play. Iago is twenty-eight years old. While his ostensible reason for desiring Othello’s demise is that
he has been passed over for promotion to lieutenant, Iago’s motivations are never very clearly
expressed and seem to originate in an obsessive, almost aesthetic delight in manipulation and
destruction.
Michael Cassio - Othello’s lieutenant. Cassio is a young and inexperienced soldier, whose high
position is much resented by Iago. Truly devoted to Othello, Cassio is extremely ashamed after being
implicated in a drunken brawl on Cyprus and losing his place as lieutenant. Iago uses Cassio’s youth,
good looks, and friendship with Desdemona to play on Othello’s insecurities about Desdemona’s
fidelity.
Emilia - Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s attendant. A cynical, worldly woman, she is deeply attached
to her mistress and distrustful of her husband.
Roderigo - A jealous suitor of Desdemona. Young, rich, and foolish, Roderigo is convinced that if he
gives Iago all of his money, Iago will help him win Desdemona’s hand. Repeatedly frustrated as
Othello marries Desdemona and then takes her to Cyprus, Roderigo is ultimately desperate enough
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to agree to help Iago kill Cassio after Iago points out that Cassio is another potential rival for
Desdemona.
Bianca - A courtesan, or prostitute, in Cyprus. Bianca’s favorite customer is Cassio, who teases her
with promises of marriage.
Brabanzio - Desdemona’s father, a somewhat blustering and self-important Venetian senator. As a
friend of Othello, Brabanzio feels betrayed when the general marries his daughter in secret.
Duke of Venice - The official authority in Venice, the duke has great respect for Othello as a public
and military servant. His primary role within the play is to reconcile Othello and Brabanzio in Act I,
scene iii, and then to send Othello to Cyprus.
Montano - The governor of Cyprus before Othello. We see him first in Act II, as he recounts the
status of the war and awaits the Venetian ships.
Lodovico - One of Brabanzio’s kinsmen, Lodovico acts as a messenger from Venice to Cyprus. He
arrives in Cyprus in Act IV with letters announcing that Othello has been replaced by Cassio as
governor.
Graziano - Brabanzio’s kinsman who accompanies Lodovico to Cyprus. Amidst the chaos of the final
scene, Graziano mentions that Desdemona’s father has died.
Clown - Othello’s servant. Although the clown appears only in two short scenes, his appearances
reflect and distort the action and words of the main plots: his puns on the word “lie” in Act III, scene
iv, for example, anticipate Othello’s confusion of two meanings of that word in Act IV, scene i.
Important Quotations
1. Were I the Moor I would not be Iago.
In following him I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so for my peculiar end.
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am. (I.i.57–65)
In this early speech, Iago explains his tactics to Roderigo. He follows Othello not out of “love” or
“duty,” but because he feels he can exploit and dupe his master, thereby revenging himself upon the
man he suspects of having slept with his wife. Iago finds that people who are what they seem are
foolish. The day he decides to demonstrate outwardly what he feels inwardly, Iago explains, will be
the day he makes himself most vulnerable: “I will wear my heart upon my sleeve / For daws to peck
at.” His implication, of course, is that such a day will never come.
This speech exemplifies Iago’s cryptic and elliptical manner of speaking. Phrases such as “Were I the
Moor I would not be Iago” and “I am not what I am” hide as much as, if not more than, they reveal.
Iago is continually playing a game of deception, even with Roderigo and the audience. The paradox
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or riddle that the speech creates is emblematic of Iago’s power throughout the play: his smallest
sentences (“Think, my lord?” in III.iii.109) or gestures (beckoning Othello closer in Act IV, scene i)
open up whole worlds of interpretation.
2. My noble father,
I do perceive here a divided duty.
To you I am bound for life and education.
My life and education both do learn me
How to respect you. You are the lord of my duty,
I am hitherto your daughter. But here’s my husband,
And so much duty as my mother showed
To you, preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor my lord. (I.iii.179–188)
These words, which Desdemona speaks to her father before the Venetian senate, are her first of the
play. Her speech shows her thoughtfulness, as she does not insist on her loyalty to Othello at the
expense of respect for her father, but rather acknowledges that her duty is “divided.” Because
Desdemona is brave enough to stand up to her father and even partially rejects him in public, these
words also establish for the audience her courage and her strength of conviction. Later, this same
ability to separate different degrees and kinds of affection will make Desdemona seek, without
hesitation, to help Cassio, thereby fueling Othello’s jealousy. Again and again, Desdemona speaks
clearly and truthfully, but, tragically, Othello is poisoned by Iago’s constant manipulation of language
and emotions and is therefore blind to Desdemona’s honesty.
3. Haply for I am black,
And have not those soft parts of conversation
That chamberers have; or for I am declined
Into the vale of years—yet that’s not much—
She’s gone. I am abused, and my relief
Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,
That we can call these delicate creatures ours
And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad
And live upon the vapor of a dungeon
Than keep a corner in the thing I love
For others’ uses. Yet ’tis the plague of great ones;
Prerogatived are they less than the base.
’Tis destiny unshunnable, like death. (III.iii.267–279)
When, in Act I, scene iii, Othello says that he is “rude” in speech, he shows that he does not really
believe his own claim by going on to deliver a lengthy and very convincing speech about how he won
Desdemona over with his wonderful storytelling (I.iii.81). However, after Iago has raised Othello’s
suspicions about his wife’s fidelity, Othello seems to have at least partly begun to believe that he is
inarticulate and barbaric, lacking “those soft parts of conversation / That chamberers [those who
avoid practical labor and confine their activities to the ‘chambers’ of ladies] have.” This is also the
first time that Othello himself, and not Iago, calls negative attention to either his race or his age. His
conclusion that Desdemona is “gone” shows how far Iago’s insinuations about Cassio and
Desdemona have taken Othello: in a matter of a mere 100 lines or so, he has progressed from belief
in his conjugal happiness to belief in his abandonment.
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The ugly imagery that follows this declaration of abandonment—Othello finds Desdemona to be a
mere “creature” of “appetite” and imagines himself as a “toad” in a “dungeon”—anticipates his later
speech in Act IV, scene ii, in which he compares Desdemona to a “cistern for foul toads / To knot and
gender in,” and says that she is as honest “as summer flies are in the shambles [slaughterhouses], /
That quicken even with blowing” (IV.ii.63–64, 68–69). Othello’s comment, “’tis the plague of great
ones,” shows that the only potential comfort Othello finds in his moment of hopelessness is his
success as a soldier, which proves that he is not “base.” He attempts to consider his wife’s purported
infidelity as an inevitable part of his being a great man, but his comfort is halfhearted and
unconvincing, and he concludes by resigning himself to cuckoldry as though it were “death.”
4. I am glad I have found this napkin.
This was her first remembrance from the Moor,
My wayward husband hath a hundred times
Wooed me to steal it, but she so loves the token—
For he conjured her she should ever keep it—
That she reserves it evermore about her
To kiss and talk to. I’ll ha’ the work ta’en out,
And give’t Iago. What he will do with it,
Heaven knows, not I.
I nothing, but to please his fantasy. (III.iii.294–303)
This speech of Emilia’s announces the beginning of Othello’s “handkerchief plot,” a seemingly
insignificant event—the dropping of a handkerchief—that becomes the means by which Othello,
Desdemona, Cassio, Roderigo, Emilia, and even Iago himself are completely undone. Before Othello
lets the handkerchief fall from his brow, we have neither heard of nor seen it. The primary function
of Emilia’s speech is to explain the prop’s importance: as the first gift Othello gave Desdemona, it
represents their oldest and purest feelings for one another.
While the fact that Iago “hath a hundred times / Wooed me to steal it” immediately tips off the
audience to the handkerchief’s imminently prominent place in the tragic sequence of events, Emilia
seems entirely unsuspicious. To her, the handkerchief is literally a trifle, “light as air,” and this is
perhaps why she remains silent about the handkerchief’s whereabouts even when Desdemona
begins to suffer for its absence. It is as though Emilia cannot, or refuses to, imagine that her husband
would want the handkerchief for any devious reason. Many critics have found Emilia’s silence about
the handkerchief—and in fact the entire handkerchief plot—a great implausibility, and it is hard to
disagree with this up to a point. At the same time, however, it serves as yet another instance in
which Iago has the extraordinary power to make those around him see only what they want to see,
and thereby not suspect what is obviously suspicious.
5. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well,
Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinable gum. Set you down this,
And say besides that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk
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Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th’ throat the circumcised dog
And smote him thus. (V.ii.341-354)
With these final words, Othello stabs himself in the chest. In this farewell speech, Othello reaffirms
his position as a figure who is simultaneously a part of and excluded from Venetian society. The
smooth eloquence of the speech and its references to “Arabian trees,” “Aleppo,” and a “malignant
and a turbaned Turk” remind us of Othello’s long speech in Act I, scene iii, lines 127–168, and of the
tales of adventure and war with which he wooed Desdemona. No longer inarticulate with grief as he
was when he cried, “O fool! fool! fool!,” Othello seems to have calmed himself and regained his
dignity and, consequently, our respect (V.ii.332). He reminds us once again of his martial prowess,
the quality that made him famous in Venice. At the same time, however, by killing himself as he is
describing the killing of a Turk, Othello identifies himself with those who pose a military—and,
according to some, a psychological—threat to Venice, acknowledging in the most powerful and
awful way the fact that he is and will remain very much an outsider. His suicide is a kind of
martyrdom, a last act of service to the state, as he kills the only foe he has left to conquer: himself.
The Restoration -- Historical Context
The English Interregnum from 1649–1660 was a republican period in Britain, comprising the
Commonwealth and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell after the regicide of Charles I and before
the restoration of Charles II
During the Interregnum, England had been dominated by Puritan literature and the intermittent
presence of official censorship (see, for example, Milton's Areopagitica and his later retraction of
that statement). While some of the Puritan ministers of Oliver Cromwell wrote poetry that was
elaborate and carnal (e.g. Andrew Marvell's "Mower" poems and To His Coy Mistress), such poetry
was not published. Similarly, some of the poets who published with the Restoration produced their
poetry during the Interregnum. However, the official break in literary culture caused by censorship
and radically moralist standards effectively created a gap in literary tradition. At the time of the
English Civil War, poetry had been dominated by Metaphysical poetry of the John Donne, George
Herbert, and Richard Lovelace sort. Drama had developed the late Elizabethan theater traditions and
had begun to mount increasingly topical and political plays (the drama, for example, of Thomas
Middleton). However, the Interregnum put a stop, or at least a caesura to these lines of influence
and allowed a seemingly fresh start for all forms of literature after the Restoration.
The last years of the Interregnum were turbulent, as the last years of the Restoration period would
be, and those who did not go into exile were called upon to change their religious beliefs more than
once. With each religious preference came a different sort of literature, both in prose and poetry
(the theaters were closed during the Interregnum). When Cromwell himself died and his son,
Richard Cromwell, threatened to become Lord Protector, politicians and public figures scrambled to
show themselves allies or enemies of the new regime. Printed literature was dominated by odes in
poetry, and religious writing in prose. The industry of religious tract writing, despite official efforts,
did not reduce its output. Figures such as the founder of the Society of Friends, George Fox, were
jailed by the Cromwellian authorities and published at hazard.
During the Interregnum, the royalist forces attached to the court of Charles I went into exile with the
twenty-year old Charles II and conducted a brisk business in intelligence and fund-raising for an
eventual return to England. Some of the royalist ladies installed themselves in convents in Holland
and France, and these convents offered safe haven for indigent and travelling nobles and allies. The
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men similarly stationed themselves in Holland and France, with the court-in-exile being established
in The Hague before setting up more permanently in Paris. The nobility who travelled with (and later
travelled to) Charles II were therefore lodged for over a decade in the midst of the continent's
literary scene. However, as Holland and France in the 17th century were little alike, so the influences
picked up by courtiers in exile and the travellers who sent intelligence and money to them were not
monolithic. Charles spent his time attending plays in France, and he developed a taste for Spanish
plays. Those nobles living in Holland began to learn about mercantile exchange as well as the
tolerant, rationalist prose debates that circulated in that officially tolerant nation. John Bramhall, for
example, had been a strongly high church theologian, and yet, in exile, he debated willingly with
Thomas Hobbes and came into the Restored church as tolerant in practice as he was severe in
argument. Courtiers also received an exposure to the Roman Catholic Church and its liturgy and
pageants, as well as, to a lesser extent, Italian poetry.
When Charles II came to the throne in 1660, the sense of novelty in all forms of literature was
tempered by a sense of suddenly participating in European literature in a way that England had not
before. One of Charles's first moves to was reopen the theaters and to establish Letters patent and
mandates for the theater owners and managers. William Davenant received one of the patents, and
Thomas Killigrew received the other. Drama was public and a matter of royal concern, and therefore
both theaters were charged with producing a certain number of old plays, and Davenant was
charged with presenting material that would be morally uplifting. Additionally, the position of Poet
Laureate was recreated, complete with payment by a barrel of "sack" (brandy), and the requirement
for birthday odes.
Charles II was a man who prided himself on his wit and his worldliness. He was well known as a
philanderer as well. Consequently, highly witty, playful, and sexually wise poetry had court sanction.
Additionally, Charles, and the Duke of York (the future James II of England), were sponsors of
mathematics and natural philosophy, and so, again, spirited skepticism and investigation into nature
were favored by the court. Charles II sponsored the Royal Society, and courtiers were eager to join
the Royal Society (for example, the noted diarist Samuel Pepys was a member), just as Royal Society
members moved in court. Charles and his court had also learned the lessons of exile, and so,
although Charles was High church (and secretly vowing to convert to Roman Catholicism on his
death) and James, Duke of York was crypto-Catholic, Charles's policy was to be generally tolerant of
religious and political dissenters. While Charles II did have his own version of the Test Act, he was
slow to jail or persecute Puritans, preferring merely to keep them from public office (and therefore
to try to rob them of their Parliamentary positions). As a consequence, the prose literature of
dissent, political theory, and economics increased in Charles II's reign.
The general first reaction to Charles's return was for authors to move in two directions. On the one
hand, there was an attempt at recovering the English literature of the Jacobean period, as if there
had been no disruption, but, on the other, there was a powerful sense of novelty, and authors
approached Gallic models of literature and elevated the literature of wit (particularly satire and
parody). The novelty would show in the literature of skeptical inquiry, and the Gallicism would show
in the introduction of Neo-classicism into English writing and criticism.
Poetry
The Restoration was an age of poetry. Not only was poetry the most popular form of literature, but
it was also the most significant form of literature, as poems affected political events and
immediately reflected the times. It was, to its own people, an age dominated only by the king, and
not by any single genius. Throughout the period, the lyric, ariel, historical, and epic poem was being
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developed.
The English epic
Even without the introduction of Neo-classical criticism, English poets were aware that they had no
national epic. Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene was well known, but England, unlike France with
Song of Roland or Spain with El Cid or, most of all, Italy with Aeneid, had no epic poem of national
origins. Several poets attempted to supply this void.
William D'Avenant, operator of the first playhouse opened after the Restoration, was also a
playwright and an epic poet.William D'Avenant was the first Restoration poet to attempt an epic. His
Gondibert was of epic length, and it was admired by Hobbes. However, it also used the ballad form,
and other poets, as well as critics, were very quick to condemn this rhyme scheme as unflattering
and unheroic (Dryden Epic). The prefaces to Gondibert show the struggle for a formal epic structure,
as well as how the early Restoration saw themselves in relation to Classical literature.
Although today he is studied separately from the Restoration, John Milton's Paradise Lost was
published during the Restoration. Milton no less than Davenant wished to write the English epic. He
chose blank verse as his form. However, Milton rejected the cause of English exceptionalism. His
Paradise Lost seeks to tell the story of all mankind, and his pride is in Christianity rather than
Englishness.
Significantly, Milton began with an attempt at writing an epic on King Arthur, for that was the matter
of English national founding. While Milton rejected that subject, in the end, others made the
attempt. Richard Blackmore wrote both a Prince Arthur and King Arthur. Both attempts were long,
soporific, and failed both critically and popularly. Indeed, the poetry was so slow that the author
became known as "Never-ending Blackmore" (see Alexander Pope's lambasting of Blackmore in The
Dunciad).Lyric poetry, pastoral poetry, ariel verse, and odes
Lyric poetry, where the poet speaks of his or her own feelings in the first person and expresses a
mood, was not especially common in the Restoration period. Poets expressed their points of view in
other forms, usually public or formally disguised poetic forms, such as odes, pastoral poetry, and
ariel verse. One of the characteristics of the period is its devaluation of individual sentiment and
psychology in favor of public utterance and philosophy. The sorts of lyric poetry found later in the
Churchyard Poets would, in the Restoration, only exist as pastorals.
Formally, the Restoration period had a preferred rhyme scheme. Rhyming couplets in iambic
pentameter was by far the most popular structure for poetry of all types. Neo-Classicism meant that
poets attempted adaptations of Classical meters, but the rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter held
a near monopoly. According to Dryden ("Preface to The Conquest of Grenada"), the rhyming couplet
in iambic pentameter has the right restraint and dignity for a lofty subject, and its rhyme allowed for
a complete, coherent statment to be made. Dryden was struggling with the issue of what later critics
in the Augustan period would call "decorum": the fitness of form to subject (q.v. Dryden Epic). It is
the same struggle that Davenant faced in his Gondibert. Dryden's solution was a closed couplet in
iambic pentameter that would have a minimum of enjambment. This form was called the "heroic
couplet," because it was suitable for heroic subjects. Additionally, the age also developed the mockheroic couplet. After 1672 and Samuel Butler's Hudibras, iambic tetrameter couplets with unusual or
unexpected rhymes became known as "Hudibrastic verse." It was a formal parody of heroic verse,
and it was primarily used for satire. Jonathan Swift would use the Hudibrastic form almost
exclusively for his poetry.
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Although Dryden's reputation is greater today, contemporaries saw the 1670s and 1680s as being
the age of courtier poets in general, and Edmund Waller was as praised as any. Dryden, Rochester,
Buckingham, and Dorset dominated verse, and all were attached to the court of Charles. Aphra
Behn, Matthew Prior, and Robert Gould, on the other hand, were outsiders who were profoundly
royalist. The court poets follow no one particular style, except that they all show sexual awareness, a
willingness to satirize, and a dependence upon wit to dominate their opponents. Each of these poets
wrote for the stage as well as the page.
Dryden was prolific. Indeed, he was accused of "plagiarizing from himself," he wrote so well and
quickly. Both before and after his Laureateship, he wrote public odes. He attempted the Jacobean
pastoral along the lines of Walter Raleigh and Philip Sidney, but his greatest successes and fame
came from his attempts at apologetics for the restored court and the Established Church. His
“Absalom and Achitophel” and “Religio Laici” both served the King directly by making controversial
royal actions seem reasonable. He also pioneered the mock-heroic. Although Samuel Butler had
invented the mock-heroic in English with Hudibras (written during the Interregnum but published in
the Restoration), Dryden's “MacFlecknoe” set up the satirical parody. Dryden was himself not of
noble blood, and he was never awarded the honors that he had been promised by the King (nor was
he repaid the loans he had made to the King), but he did as much as any peer to serve Charles II.
Even when James II came to the throne and Roman Catholicism was on the rise, Dryden attempted
to serve the court, and his “The Hind and the Panther” praised the Roman church above all others.
After that point, Dryden suffered for his conversions, and he was the victim of many satires.
Buckingham wrote some court poetry, but he, like Dorset, was a patron of poetry more than a poet.
On the other hand, Rochester was a prolix and outrageous poet. Rochester's poetry is almost always
sexually frank and is frequently political. Inasmuch as the Restoration came after the Interregnum,
the very sexual explicitness of Rochester's verse was a political statement and a thumb in the eye of
Puritans. His poetry often assumes a lyric pose, as he pretends to write in sadness over his own
impotence ("The Disabled Debauchee") or sexual conquests, but most of Rochester's poetry is a
parody of an existing, Classically-authorized form. He has a mock topographical poem ("Ramble in St
James Park"), which is about the dangers of darkness for a man intent on copulation and the
historical compulsion of that plot of ground as a place for fornication, several mock odes ("To
Signore Dildo," concerning the public burning of a crate of "contraband" from France on the London
docks), and mock pastorals. Rochester's interest was in inversion, disruption, and the superiority of
wit as much as it was in hedonism. Rochester's venality led to an early death, and he was later
frequently invoked as the exemplar of a Restoration rake.
Aphra Behn has been unjustly called "the female Rochester." While she was best known publicly for
her drama (in the 1670s, only Dryden's plays were staged more often than hers), she wrote a great
deal of poetry that would be the basis of her later reputation. Edward Bysshe would include
numerous quotes from her verse in his Art of English Poetry. While her poetry was occasionally
sexually frank, it was never as graphic or intentionally lurid and titilating as Rochester's. Rather, her
poetry was, like the court's ethos, playful and honest about sexual desire. One of the most
remarkable aspects of Behn's success in court poetry, however, is that Behn was herself a
commoner. She had no more relation to peers than Dryden, and possibly quite a bit less. As a
woman, a commoner, and Kentish, she is remarkable for her success in moving in the same circles as
the King himself. She was likely a spy for the Royalist side during the Interregnum, and she was
certainly a spy for Charles II in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, but she had neither exceptional beauty
nor any wealth at all (indeed, she may have spent time in debtor's prison), and her ability to write
poetry that stands among the best of the age gives some lie to the notion that the Restoration was
an age of female illiteracy and verse composed and read only by peers.
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If Behn is a curious exception to the rule of noble verse, Robert Gould breaks that rule altogether.
Gould was born of a common family and orphaned at the age of thirteen. He had no schooling at all
and worked as a domestic servant, first as a footman and then, probably, in the pantry. However, he
was attached to the Earl of Dorset's household, and Gould somehow learned to read and write, as
well as to read and write Latin. In the 1680s and 1690s, Gould's poetry was very popular. He
attempted to write odes for money, but his great success came with “Love Given O'er, or A Satyr
Upon ... Woman” in 1692. It was a partial adaptation of a satire of Juvenal, but with an immense
amount of explicit invective against women. The misogyny in this poem is some of the harshest and
most visceral in English poetry: the poem sold out all editions. Gould also wrote “a Satyr on the Play
House” with detailed descriptions of the actions and actors involved in the Restoration stage. He
followed the success of Love Given O'er with a series of misogynistic poems, all of which have
specific, graphic, and witty denunciations of female behavior. His poetry has "virgin" brides who,
upon their wedding nights, have "the straight gate so wide/ It's been leapt by all mankind,"
noblewomen who have money but prefer to pay the coachman with oral sex, and noblewomen
having sex in their coaches and having the cobblestones heighten their pleasures. Gould's career was
brief, but his success was not a novelty of subliterary misogyny. After Dryden's conversion to Roman
Catholicism, Gould even engaged in a poison pen battle with the Laureate. His "Jack Squab" attacked
Dryden's faithlessness viciously, and Dryden and his friends replied. That a footman even could
conduct a verse war is remarkable. That he did so without, apparently, any prompting from his
patron is astonishing.
Other poets (translations, controversialists, etc.)
Roger L'Estrange was a significant translator, and he also produced verse translations. Others, such
as Richard Blackmore, were admired for their "sentence" (declamation and sentiment) but have not
been remembered. Also, Elkannah Settle was, in the Restoration, a lively and promising political
satirist, though his reputation has not fared well since his day. After booksellers began hiring authors
and sponsoring specific translations, the shops filled quickly with poetry from hirelings. Similarly, as
periodical literature began to assert itself as a political force, a number of now anonymous poets
produced topical, specifically occasional verse.
The largest and most important form of incunabula of the era, however, was satire. In general,
publication of satire was done anonymously. There were great dangers in being associated with a
satire. On the one hand, defamation law was a wide net, and it was difficult for a satirist to avoid
prosecution if he were proven to have written a piece that seemed to criticize a noble. On the other
hand, wealthy individuals would respond to satire as often as not by having the suspected poet
physically attacked by ruffians. John Dryden was set upon for being merely suspected of having
written the Satire on Mankind. A consequence of this anonymity is that a great many poems, some
of them of merit, are unpublished and largely unknown. In particular, political satires against The
Cabal, against Sunderland's government, and, most especially, against James II's rumored conversion
to Roman Catholicism, are uncollected. However, such poetry was a vital part of the vigorous
Restoration scene, and it was an age of energetic and voluminous satire.
Restoration Commedy
Refinement meets burlesque in Restoration comedy. In this scene from George Etherege's Love in a
Tub, musicians and well-bred ladies surround a man who is wearing a tub because he has lost his
pants.
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Restoration comedy is the name given to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration
period from 1660 to 1700. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the
Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a rebirth of English drama.
Restoration comedy is famous or notorious for its sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by
Charles II (1660-1685) personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethos of his court. Socially diverse
audiences were attracted to the comedies by up-to-the-minute topical writing, by crowded and
bustling plots, by the introduction of the first professional actresses, and by the rise of the first
celebrity actors. This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn.
Centered on tensions between the accepted social codes of behavior toward sex and marriage, and
the rather more direct behavioral prerogatives of human lust and social ambition
“war between the sexes” is a common theme
THESE PLAYS ARE NOT WRITTEN IN VERSE
Examples of Restoration comedy include:
William Wycherley: The Country Wife (1675)
Featuring Mr. Horner, Mr. Pinchwife, Sir Jasper Fidget, Mrs.
Squeamish, and Mrs. Dainty Fidget
George Etherege’s The Man of Mode (1676)
Featuring Mr. Dorimant, Sir Fopling Flutter, and Mrs. Loveit
William Congreve: The Way of the World (1700), and Irish dramatist
Featuring Millamant (a woman), Mirabell (a man), Mr. Fainall, Lady Wishfort,
Foible (a woman), and Mincing (a woman)
Richard Sheridan: The School for Scandal (1777)
Featuring Sir Peter Teazle, Maria, Lady Sneerwell, Sir Benjamin Backbite, and
Charles Surface
Irish
George Farquhar: The Beaux Stratagem (1707)
Colley Cibber
Love's Last Shift, or, Virtue Rewarded (1696)
It is regarded as an early herald of a massive shift in audience taste, away from the intellectualism
and sexual frankness of Restoration comedy and towards the conservative certainties and gender
role backlash of exemplary or sentimental comedy. It is often described as opportunistic (Hume),
containing as it does something for everybody: daring Restoration comedy sex scenes, sentimental
reconciliations, and broad farce.
Love's Last Shift is the story of a last "shift" or trick that a virtuous wife, Amanda, is driven to in
order to reform and retain her out-of-control rakish husband Loveless. Loveless has been away for
ten years, dividing his time between the brothel and the bottle, and no longer recognizes his wife
when he returns to London. Acting the part of a high-class prostitute, Amanda inveigles Loveless into
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her luxurious house and treats him to the night of his dreams, confessing her true identity in the
morning. Loveless is so impressed by her faithfulness that he immediately becomes a reformed
character.
A minor part which was a great success with the première audience is the fop Sir Novelty Fashion,
written by Cibber for himself to play. Sir Novelty flirts with all the women, but is more interested in
his own exquisite appearance and witticisms.
William Congreve
The Way of the World
The play is based around the two lovers Mirabell and Millamant. In order for the two to get married
and receive Millamant's full dowry, Mirabell must receive Millamant's aunt, Lady Wishfort's
blessing. Unfortunately, she is a bitter lady who hates Mirabell and wants her own nephew, Sir
Witwoud to marry Millamant.
Other characters include Fainall who is having a secret affair with Mrs. Marwood, a friend of Mrs.
Fainall's, who in turn once had an affair with Mirabell.
Waitwell is Mrs. Fainall's servant and is married to Foible, Mrs. Wishfort's servant. Waitwell
pretends to be Sir Rowland and on Mirabell's command, tries to trick Lady Wishfort into a false
engagement.
Oliver Goldsmith
She Stoops to Conquer (1773)
In essence, the play is a farce, full of misunderstandings.
The hero is Charles Marlow, a wealthy young man who is being forced by his family to consider a
potential bride whom he has never met. He is anxious about meeting her, because he suffers from
shyness and can only behave naturally with women of a lower class. He sets out with a friend to
travel to the home of his prospective in-laws, the Hardcastles, but they become lost on the road.
While the bride-to-be is awaiting his arrival, her half-brother, Tony Lumpkin (one of literature's great
comic characters), while out riding, comes across the two strangers, and, realising their identity,
plays a practical joke by telling them that they are a long way from their destination and will have to
stay overnight at an inn. The "inn" he directs them to is in fact the home of his parents. When they
arrive, their hosts, who have been expecting them, go out of their way to make them welcome.
However, the two men, believing themselves in a hostelry, behave rudely.
Meanwhile, Tony's sister, Kate, learning of the error and also acquainted with her suitor's shyness,
masquerades as a serving-maid in order to get to know him. He falls in love with her and plans to
elope with her. Needless to say, all misunderstandings are sorted out in the end, and Charles and
Kate live happily ever after.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
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Sheridan is one of the few Restoration commedians that wrote more than one noteworthy play.
Don't worry too much about knowing the plots; focus instead on knowing the names of the
characters.
The Rivals (1775)
ETS likes to test over the character of Mrs. Malaprop because it is from her character that the word
malapropism derives.
The play is set in Bath in the 18th century, a town legendary for conspicuous consumption and
fashion at the time. People would travel there to take the waters which were believed to have
healing properties. The town was much less exclusive than London, and provides an ideal setting for
the characters.
The plot centres around two characters: Lydia Languish and Captain Jack Absolute. Lydia is
obsessed with the romantic ideals of love she reads in popular novels of the time, and is drawn into
a relationship with Captain Absolute, who pretends to be a poor soldier called Ensign Beverly. Lydia
finds the idea of eloping with a poor soldier romantic. In reality, Captain Absolute is a rich
gentleman, the son of Sir Anthony Absolute. Both Sir Anthony and Mrs Malaprop, Lydia's aunt, want
to prevent their secret romance. Mrs Malaprop wants Lydia to marry for financial reasons.
The marriage arranged by Sir Anthony is, in fact, with Lydia, but when Lydia finds out who Ensign
Beverly really is, she refuses to marry him, clinging to her romantic notions of eloping with a poor
soldier.
Faulkland, who is a close friend of Jack, falls in love with Julia, Sir Anthony's ward. However, he has
irrational doubts about Julia's love for him and eventually decides to test her love. Julia rejects him.
Bob Acres decides to fight a duel against the fictional Ensign Beverly, and Sir Lucius O'Trigger wants
to duel against Jack Absolute. Lydia stops the fight at the prospect of Jack's death and admits that
she loves him and Julia forgives Faulkland.
The School for Scandal (1777)
Brothers Joseph and Charles Surface, and their cousin Maria, are orphans in the care of their uncle,
Sir Peter Teazle. Both brothers wish to marry Maria. Lady Sneerwell, a malicious gossip and founder
of The School for Scandal, wants to marry Charles and spreads false rumours about an affair
between Charles and Lady Teazle in an attempt to make Maria reject Charles. Meanwhile, Joseph is
attempting to seduce Lady Teazle. The brothers have a rich uncle, Sir Oliver, whom they have never
met, and who visits them both incognito to test their characters before deciding which of them shall
inherit his fortune. He finds that Joseph is a sanctimonious hypocrite, and that Charles is a generous
libertine, and prefers Charles.
In a farcical scene involving characters hiding behind furniture, Sir Peter learns of the plotting
between Joseph and Lady Sneerwell, that the rumours about Charles and Lady Teazle are false, and
that his wife is merely a victim of Joseph's flattery. He is therefore reconciled with his wife, and
decides that Charles deserves to marry Maria. Lady Teazle, who has had a narrow escape from ruin,
delivers an epilogue warning of the dangers of scandal-making.
William Wycherley
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The Country Wife
A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan
ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. Even its title contains
a lewd pun. It is based on several plays by Molière, with added features that 1670s London
audiences demanded: colloquial prose dialogue in place of Molière's verse, a complicated, fastpaced plot tangle, and many sex jokes. It turns on two indelicate plot devices: a rake's trick of
pretending impotence in order to safely have clandestine affairs with married women, and the
arrival in London of an inexperienced young "country wife", with her discovery of the joys of town
life, especially the fascinating London men.
The Country Wife is more neatly constructed than most Restoration comedies, but is typical of its
time and place in having three sources and three plots. The separate plots are interlinked but
distinct, each projecting a sharply different mood. They are:
Horner's impotence trick
the married life of Pinchwife and Margery
the courtship of Harcourt and Alithea
Aphra Behn (1640 - 1689)
Aphra Behn stars in the canon of English literature as the first known English woman to earn her
living by the pen. She is famous for her prose work Oroonoko (1688) and for her comic Restoration
dramas such as The Rover (1681) and The Lucky Chance (1686). As well as plays and prose she wrote
poetry and translated works from French and Latin.
From what we know of her life she had a colourful childhood and adolescence, some of which was
spent in Dutch Guiana in the West Indies (providing material for Oroonoko).
The Forc'd Marriage, her first play, was produced in 1671, and its witty and vivacious style was
typical of her work. The Rover, produced in two parts, was a highly successful depiction of the
adventures of a small group of English Cavaliers in Madrid and Naples during the exile of Charles II.
Oroonoko is the story of an enslaved African prince and is now considered a foundation stone in the
development of the English novel. Among her sources was the Italian commedia dell' arte
(improvised comedy).
In her time she was a popular celebrity who caused something of a stir due to her independence as a
professional writer and her concern for equality between the sexes.
She often published under her spy code-name, Astrea
John Bunyan
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is a work of prose. It is a major work of the Restoration.
John Bunyan was a passionately religious man, imprisoned in 1660 for preaching without a license,
and spending most of the next twelve years in jail. It was after his release and during his second
imprisonment in 1676 that he seems to have written his most famous and influential work, The
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Pilgrim's Progress. It is an allegory told by a dreamer, much like certain medieval poems (Pearl is
the clearest example). Its full title is The Pilgrim's Progress from this World to that which is to come
and is was published in two parts, in 1678 and 1684. The dreamer sees a man, Christian, clothed in
rags, with a burden on his back, leaving his house behind in the knowledge that it will burn down.
The book he holds in his hands has told him so. He has to flee his family who think he has gone mad
and escape the City of Destruction. On the advice of Evangelist he begins a journey through a series
of allegorical places: the Slough of Despond, the House Beautiful, the Valley of Humiliation, the
Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle and so on to the Celestial City that he
seeks. Each character and place in the dream is given an appropriate name: so Christian meets the
goodly Hopeful and Faithful, the cheating Mr Legality and the evil Giant Despair. The format is not
unlike that of Spenser's The Faerie Queene in this sense and in that of a divinely inspired journey.
The second part concerns the Christiana, Christian's wife, who is inspired to follow on a similar
pilgrimage.
The Pilgrim’s Progress is the source for the name of Thackery’s Vanity Fair.
The Author's Apology for His Book (begins Pilgrim’s Progress, first stanza)
When at the first I took my pen in hand
Thus for to write, I did not understand
That I at all should make a little book
In such a mode; nay, I had undertook
To make another; which, when almost done,
Before I was aware, I this begun.
Beginning of Part 1:
As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I
laid me down in that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw
a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his
hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and,
as he read, he wept, and trembled; and, not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a
lamentable cry, saying, What shall I do?
Samuel Butler
Butler is notable for Hudibras, from the terms Hudibrastic verse comes. Don't concern yourself too
much with the plot of Hudibras, as ETS really values the style.
Hudibrastic – A term derived from Samuel Butler’s Hudibras. It refers specifically to the couplets of
rhymed terameter lines which Butler used in Hudibras, or generally to any deliberate, humorous,
ill-rhymed couplets. All lines have 8 syllables, and are iambic tetrameter couplets. This was Swift’s
chosen poetic style:
We grant, although he had much wit
He was very shy of using it
As being loathe to wear it out
And therefore bore it not about,
Unless on holidays, or so
As men their best apparel do.
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Beside, tis’ known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs squeak.
Hudibras
Hudibras is a mock heroic poem from the 17th century written by Samuel Butler. The title comes
from Spenser’s Faerie Queene.
The work is a satirical polemic upon Roundheads, Puritans, Presbyterians and many of the other
factions involved in the English Civil War. The work was written in three parts in 1663, 1664 and
1678 although an unauthorised edition came out in 1662.
Published only four years after Charles II had been restored to the throne and the Protectorate of
Oliver Cromwell being completely over the poem found an appreciative audience. The satire is not
balanced as Butler was fiercely royalist and only the parliamentarian side are singled out for ridicule.
Butler also uses the work to parody some of the dreadful poetry of the time.
The epic tells the story of Sir Hudibras, a knight errant who is described dramatically and with
laudatory praise that is so thickly applied to be absurd and the conceited and arrogant person is
visible beneath. He is praised for his knowledge of logic despite appearing stupid throughout, but it
his religious fervour which is mainly attacked:
For his Religion, it was fit
To match his learning and his wit;
'Twas Presbyterian true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church Militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire and sword and desolation,
A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
His squire, Ralpho, is of a similar stamp but makes no claim to great learning knowing all there is to
know from his religion or “new-light” as he calls it. Butler satirises the competing factions at the time
of the protectorship by the constant bickering of these two principle characters whose religious
opinions should unite them.
These are fawning but barbed portraits and are thought to represent personalities of the times but
the actual analogues are, now as then, debateable. "A Key to Hudibras" printed with one of the
work's editions and ascribed to Roger L'Estrange names Sir Samuel Luke as the model for Hudibras.
Certainly, the mention of Mamaluke in the poem makes this possible although Butler suggests
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Hudibras is from the West Country making Henry Rosewell a candidate. The witchfinder, Matthew
Hopkins, John Desborough parliamentarian general and William Prynne lawyer all make and
appearance and the character of Sidrophel is variously seen as either William Lilly or Paul Neale.
Butler is clearly influenced by Rabelais and particularly Cervantes' Don Quixote. But whereas in
Cervantes, although being mocked, the readers sympathies are obviously supposed to be with the
noble knight, Hudibras is offered nothing but derision.
The title comes from the name of a knight in Edmund Spencer's Faerie Queene who is described as
"not so good of deeds as great of name" and "more huge in strength then wise in work". Spencer in
turn probably got the name from the legendary English king Rud Hud Hudibras.
Hudibras was written in an iambic tetrameter in closed couplets, with surprising feminine rhymes.
The dramatic meter portends tales of dramatic deeds but the subject matter and the unusual
rhymes undercut its importance. This verse form is now referred to as Hudibrastic.
Plot
The knight and his squire sally forth and come upon some people bear-baiting. After deciding that
this is anti-Christian they attack the baiters and capture one after defeating the bear. The defeated
group of bear-baiters then rallies and renews the attack capturing the knight and his squire. While in
the stock the pair argue on religion.
Part two describes how the knight's imprisoned condition is reported by Fame to a widow Hudibras
has been wooing and she comes to see him. With a captive audience, she complains that he does
not really love her and he ends up promising to flagellate himself if she frees him. Once free he
regrets his promise and debates with Ralpho how to avoid his fate with Ralpho suggesting that oath
breaking is next to saintliness:
For breaking of an oath, and lying,
Is but a kind of self-denying;
A Saint-like virtue: and from hence
Some have broke oaths by Providence
Some, to the glory of the Lord,
Perjur'd themselves, and broke their word;
Hudibras then tries to convince Rapho of the nobility of accepting the beating in his stead but he
declines the offer. They are interrupted by a skimmington, a procession where women are
celebrated and men made fools. After haranguing the crowd for their lewdness, the knight is pelted
with rotten eggs and chased away.
He decides to visit an astrologer, Sidrophel, to ask him how he should woo the widow but they get
into an argument and after a fight the knight and squire run off in different directions believing they
have killed Sidrophel.
The third part was published 14 years after the first two and considerably different to the first parts.
It picks up from where the second left off with Hudibras going to the widow's house to explain the
details of the whipping he had promised to give himself but Ralpho had got there first and told her
what had actually happened. Suddenly a group rushes in and gives him a beating and supposing
them to be spirits from Sidrophel, rather then hired by the widow, confesses his sins and by
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extension the sins of the Puritans. Hudibras then visits a lawyer—the profession Butler trained in
and one he is well able to satirise—who convinces him to write a letter to the widow. The poem
ends with their exchange of letters in which the knight's arguments are rebuffed by the widow
Before the visit to the lawyer there is a digression of an entire canto in which much fun is had at the
events after Oliver Cromwell's death. The succession of his son Richard Cromwell and the squabbles
of factions such as the Fifth Monarchists are told with no veil of fiction and no mention of Sir
Hudibras.
John Dryden
With Pope, Dryden is a celebrity of the Restoration. For the sake of the GRE, you need to know his
poem "MacFlecknoe." His "Epigram to Milton" also shows up with regularity, thought there are
numerous poems that the GRE could choose to test over.
*“Mac Flecknoe”
Like Pope's "Rape of the Lock," Dryden's "Mac Flecknoe" is a relatively short poem that is worth
reading. And like "The Rape," it is a mock epic. In it, Dryden attacks his contemporary, Thomas
Shadwell in heroic couplets. The mock epic is characterized by grandiose language describing
mundane, trivial things.
“Absalom and Achitophel”
A political allegory that uses biblical figures and events to stand in for a political crisis current in
Dryden’s time
o Note the names: Absalom, Achitophel, and King David
o Written in heroic couplets
"All For Love"
All for Love, or the World Well Lost (1677), Dryden’s tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, represents a
turning point in his career as a dramatist. Abandoning his practice of composing his plays in rhymed
couplets (a method he had earlier encouraged in his Essay of Dramatic Poesie)(1668), Dryden shows
here the mastery of an artist at the height of his powers. The play is especially impressive in creating
genuine emotion and dramatic tension within the rigorous strictures of the neoclassical theatre; the
unities of time, place, and action are strictly observed, but the story loses none of its power as a
result. The work has obviously suffered in its inevitable comparison to Shakespeare’s Antony and
Cleopatra—when read, Dryden’s play is usually offered as an illustration of the inadequacies of
Restoration tragedy when compared to that of the English Renaissance—but such comparison is
fundamentally misguided, as it ignores the vastly different conditions of performance and
composition between the two eras. A masterpiece in its own right, All for Love is a product of its
time, and cannot be judged according to Shakespearean standards. Indeed, a comparison of the two
plays might cede Dryden the victory in certain areas. While Shakespeare’s play ranges widely over
time and place, creating an epic but often awkwardly meandering sense of scope, Dryden’s tightly
focused composition allows a greater degree of emotional intensity and insight—without the
ability to show battles, multiple settings, or the sweeping changes of time, Dryden manages
nevertheless to create a work of genuinely tragic pathos. If Dryden’s meek Cleopatra is no match
for what is perhaps Shakespeare’s most brilliantly rendered female character, his Antony is a
startlingly astute portrait of a great man in crisis. Most importantly, though the two authors tell the
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same tale, their versions are driven by quite different artistic visions: if Shakespeare’s art is
motivated primarily by the passion of history’s most famous lovers, Dryden’s interest lies in the clash
between the personal and the political—the dramatic clash in the play is not between the lovers and
the world that seeks to divide them, but between Antony’s duties as a statesman and a Roman, and
his passionate desire for the woman he loves.
“Epigram on Milton”
Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next, in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go.
To make a third, she joined the former two.
“A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”
it begins:
From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
This universal frame began.
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise ye more than dead.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And music's pow'r obey.
Anne Finch (1661-1720)
I don't have any background info on Anne Finch, but this poem seems to come up on the exam from
time to time.
“Adam Pos’d”
Cou'd our First Father, at his toilsome Plough,
Thorns in his Path, and Labour on his Brow,
Cloath'd only in a rude, unpolish'd Skin,
Cou'd he a vain Fantastick Nymph have seen,
In all her Airs, in all her antick Graces,
Her various Fashions, and more various Faces;
How had it pos'd that Skill, which late assign'd
Just Appellations to Each several Kind!
A right Idea of the Sight to frame;
T'have guest from what New Element she came;
T'have hit the wav'ring Form, or giv'n this Thing a Name.
John Milton (1609-1674)
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Milton wrote a lot of stuff that you will need to know apart from Paradise Lost, which is, according
to some, the most commonly occurring work on the exam. There's plenty of short poetry (including
sonnets), long poetical works, and philosophical work to study. Here I have given the short poetry
first, followed by the non-poetic work. On the topic of Paradise Lost, I have not included any
information. Since it appears as often as it does, spending time to read at least the first book of the
poem is worth your while. The real trick with Paradise Lost is not to know the plot, but to get as
sense of the cadence and the syntax. ETS really wants you to be able to identify the parts of speech
in a Miltonic sentence -- what's the subject, what does X adjective modify, etc. Spending time
reading the poem is the best way to prepare for those types of questions which will more than likely
constitute at least four or five questions.
I have also listed Milton as a Restoration poet, which is really rather arbitrary. Milton does not really
fit in with Restoration poets, but he's a bit late to be considered a Renaissance poet.
“How Soon Hath Time”
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew’th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near,
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th.
Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of
Heaven;
All is: if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Task-Master’s eye.
“On Shakespeare”
My personal feeling is that it's worth knowing poems by poets about other poets. Ben Johnson also
wrote about Shakespeare, and Andrew Marvell wrote about Milton. It's a good idea to keep these
things in mind because ETS wants you to be able to place such poets in a meaningful constellation of
influences.
What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid
Under a Star- ypointing Pyramid ?
Dear son of memory , great heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th' shame of slow- endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book,
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Those Delphick lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving ;
And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.
“On the Late Massacre in Piedmont”
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones;
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To Heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred-fold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
“When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” (also sometimes called “On his blindness”)
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask; But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."
Aeropagitica
Areopagitica is John Milton's impassioned (if not initially successful) protest against censorship and
obstruction of the press. While the work did not produce immediate results and seems rather
conservative to modern tastes, it grew to have great significance to later generations and was
instrumental in forming many modern defenses of literary freedom.
Throughout the piece, Milton makes numerous religious and classical allusions (to the point of
tedium). He considered the political freedom of ancient Greece to have been an ideal situation and
attempts to link the greatness of Greece with the greatness of England. In addition, the Protestant
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Milton got a tremendous mileage out of continually evoking the frightening and hated visage of the
Catholic Church, which had created in 1559 the infamous "Index of Prohibited Books".
Milton brings up three central points in his attack of censorship. Firstly, books are not the sole
purveyors of evil or destructive information, so attempts to halt the flow of evil or destructive
information by regulating book publishing would necessarily be ineffective. Secondly, you would
need inhumanly perfect individuals to serve as judges, or personal biases and misunderstanding
would creep into the system and damage the chances that "good" books had of publication. Thirdly,
even "bad" books can serve a constructive purpose by strengthening an individual's resistance to
faulty or evil ideas - if a person can be exposed to poisonous thoughts and triumph, their spirit will
be the stronger for the contest.
"For Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active
as that soule was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and
extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously
productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up
armed men. And yet on the other hand unlesse warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a
good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image; but hee who destroyes a good
Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to
the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up on
purpose to a life beyond life."
*Comus
Comus is a masque about the attempted seduction of a young girl by Comus, a supernatural being.
The Lady stands firm, secure in the sanctity of her virginity, and eventually her brothers (along with
an attendant spirit or two) come to her rescue.
Comus is of interest due to being a very early example of John Milton's work (certain elements of
Lucifer of Paradise Lost can be seen in Comus). Additionally, Comus is dedicated to the Earl of
Bridgewater and features his children in the primary roles. Debate still rages about whether or not
Milton intended the masque to address an unpleasant situation involving the Earl's sister-in-law and
niece, where both women were raped repeatedly by members of their household. Comus is very
much absorbed in the mental and spiritual aspects of chastity and could be viewed as a defense of
the victims of sexual assault (who still have their spiritual chastity "intact"), if read with the family
history in mind.
From Comus:
"Love virtue, she alone is free;
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime:
Or, if virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her."
Of Education
Of Education is Milton's contribution to contemporary debate about methods of education, which in
turn was part of a larger discussion about how the Church should be organized and how the State
should be governed. In substance, Milton's tractate generally agrees with the humanistic theory of
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education that grew up in Western Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, under the
impulse of the Revival of Learning. This theory is marked by two or three outstanding characteristics,
all of which are prominent in Milton's treatise. One of these is a clearer consciousness, among
teachers and students, of education as a discipline for active life. A second is an insistence upon the
more extensive reading of ancient writers, both classical and Christian, as the principal means of
securing this discipline. A third characteristic is an attitude of severe and often hostile criticism
toward medieval education and culture.
Samson Agonistes
In this play he re-tells the story of the Hebrew hero Samson from the Book of Judges in the Bible.
The play concentrates on Samson after he had been betrayed by his wife Delilah, was blinded and
held prisoner by the Philistines, the enemies of the Hebrews. Samson resists the temptation to
become despondent and, having re-gained his strength by allowing his hair to grow after the
Philistines had cut it, destroyed the leadership of the Philistines by pulling a large building down on
them and himself.
This play takes on a special poignancy when one understands that Milton, like Samson, had devoted
his life to his country. Milton temporarily gave up his poetry and worked for Oliver Cromwell and the
Commonwealth government after Charles I was deposed. He continued this service even though his
eyesight was failing and he knew that he was hastening his own blindness. After the Restoration
in1660, Milton saw all his efforts come to nothing, for the monarchy was restored with Charles II.
One can imagine Milton wishing that he could perform some heroic feat as Samson did. And in some
sense Milton was successful, for his beloved England, along with much of the world, enjoys many of
the freedoms he fought for. The tyranny the monarchy represented to him has disappeared from
England.
Lycidas
"Lycidas" is a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy, dedicated to the memory of
Edward King, a collegemate of Milton's at Cambridge who had been drowned when his ship sank in
the Irish Sea off the coast of Wales. The poem is 193 lines in length, and is irregularly rhymed.
The topic of the poem is a shepherd who mourns his drowned friend, Lycidas, first alluding to the
immortal fame of a poet. Then, the metaphor of "shepherd" for priests is explored. King and Milton
were both preparing to become ministers, and the death of one good shepherd mourned as a severe
loss to the flock, i.e. the salvation of the faithful (108–131):
Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean lake,
Two massy Keyes he bore of metals twain,
(The Golden opes, the Iron shuts amain)
He shook his Miter'd locks, and stern bespake,
How well could I have spar'd for thee young swain,
Anow of such as for their bellies sake,
Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold?
Of other care they little reck'ning make,
Then how to scramble at the shearers feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouthes! that scarce themselves know how to hold
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A Sheep-hook, or have learn'd ought els the least
That to the faithfull Herdmans art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched straw,
The hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim Woolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing sed,
But that two-handed engine at the door,
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
The phrase "blind mouths" describes the corrupt clergy who "creep, intrude and climb into the
fold", i.e. who acquire their position with dishonest means, referring to their greed, and uselessness
as guardians. The "Wolf" has been interpreted as an allegory for the Catholic Church, and the "twohanded engine at the door" may refer to Judgement Day, although the precise metaphor intended is
uncertain, and the lines are among the most discussed in English literature. An "engine" in Milton's
day needed not be a mechanical machine, but could also refer to a simpler device or weapon, such
as a two handed sword used for execution.
The final lines of the poem:
And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the Western bay;
At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew:
To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new.
Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
Pope is one of the major figures of the Restoration, and his poem "The Rape of the Lock" will almost
certainly be on your exam. Apart from "The Rape of the Lock," Pope has a number of works that
have a high probability of showing up.
Note that Pope wrote almost exclusively in heroic couplets, like many Restoration poets. Noting
that a poem is written in heroic couplets is a good step toward identifying a work of Pope's
"The Rape of the Lock"
"The Rape of the Lock" is not a terribly long poem, and given that it is very likely to appear on your
exam, take the time to read it.
"The Rape of the Lock" is a mock-heroic poem, first published in 1712 in two cantos, and then
reissued in 1714 in a much-expanded 5-canto version.
The poem is based on an incident involving friends of Pope. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord
Petre were both from aristocratic Catholic families at a time, in England, when Catholicism was
legally proscribed. Petre, wooing Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, and the
resulting argument had created a breach between the two families. Pope wrote the poem at the
request of a friend in order to "laugh the two together". Pope refigures Arabella as Belinda and
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introduces an entire system of "sylphs", or guardian spirits of virgins, a parodic version of the gods
and goddess of conventional epic. Pope satirizes a petty squabble by comparing it to the epic world
of the gods.
To Mrs. Arabella Fermor
Madam,
It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, since I dedicate it to You. Yet you may
bear me witness, it was intended only to divert a few young Ladies, who have good sense and good
humour enough to laugh not only at their sex's little unguarded follies, but at their own. But as it
was communicated with the air of a Secret, it soon found its way into the world. An imperfect copy
having been offer'd to a Bookseller, you had the good-nature for my sake to consent to the
publication of one more correct: This I was forc'd to, before I had executed half my design, for the
Machinery was entirely wanting to compleat it.
The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the Critics, to signify that part which the Deities,
Angels, or Dæmons are made to act in a Poem: For the ancient Poets are in one respect like many
modern Ladies: let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear of the utmost
importance. These Machines I determined to raise on a very new and odd foundation, the
Rosicrucian doctrine of Spirits.
I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard words before a Lady; but't is so much the concern
of a Poet to have his works understood, and particularly by your Sex, that you must give me leave to
explain two or three difficult terms.
The Rosicrucians are a people I must bring you acquainted with. The best account I know of them is
in a French book call'd Le Comte de Gabalis, which both in its title and size is so like a Novel, that
many of the Fair Sex have read it for one by mistake. According to these Gentlemen, the four
Elements are inhabited by Spirits, which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders. The
Gnomes or Dæmons of Earth delight in mischief; but the Sylphs whose habitation is in the Air, are
the best-condition'd creatures imaginable. For they say, any mortals may enjoy the most intimate
familiarities with these gentle Spirits, upon a condition very easy to all true Adepts, an inviolate
preservation of Chastity.
As to the following Canto's, all the passages of them are as fabulous, as the Vision at the beginning,
or the Transformation at the end; (except the loss of your Hair, which I always mention with
reverence). The Human persons are as fictitious as the airy ones; and the character of Belinda, as it is
now manag'd, resembles you in nothing but in Beauty.
If this Poem had as many Graces as there are in your Person, or in your Mind, yet I could never hope
it should pass thro' the world half so Uncensur'd as You have done. But let its fortune be what it will,
mine is happy enough, to have given me this occasion of assuring you that I am, with the truest
esteem, Madam,
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Your most obedient, Humble Servant,
A. Pope
Canto I
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing — This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my lays.
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Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle?
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,
Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
In tasks so bold, can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty Rage?
Sol thro' white curtains shot a tim'rous ray,
And oped those eyes that must eclipse the day:
Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake,
And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake:
Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the
ground,
And the press'd watch return'd a silver sound.
Belinda still her downy pillow prest,
Her guardian Sylph prolong'd the balmy rest:
'Twas He had summon'd to her silent bed
The morning-dream that hover'd o'er her head;
A Youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau,
(That ev'n in slumber caus'd her cheek to glow)
Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay,
And thus in whispers said, or seem'd to say.
Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish'd care
Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air!
If e'er one vision touch.'d thy infant thought,
Of all the Nurse and all the Priest have taught;
Of airy Elves by moonlight shadows seen,
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The silver token, and the circled green,
Or virgins visited by Angel-pow'rs,
With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly
flow'rs;
Hear and believe! thy own importance know,
Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.
Some secret truths, from learned pride conceal'd,
To Maids alone and Children are reveal'd:
What tho' no credit doubting Wits may give?
The Fair and Innocent shall still believe.
Know, then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly,
The light Militia of the lower sky:
These, tho' unseen, are ever on the wing,
Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring.
Think what an equipage thou hast in Air,
And view with scorn two Pages and a Chair.
As now your own, our beings were of old,
And once inclos'd in Woman's beauteous mould;
Thence, by a soft transition, we repair
From earthly Vehicles to these of air.
Think not, when Woman's transient breath is fled
That all her vanities at once are dead;
Succeeding vanities she still regards,
And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards.
Her joy in gilded Chariots, when alive,
And love of Ombre, after death survive.
For when the Fair in all their pride expire,
To their first Elements their Souls retire:
The Sprites of fiery Termagants in Flame
Mount up, and take a Salamander's name.
Soft yielding minds to Water glide away,
And sip, with Nymphs, their elemental Tea.
The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome,
In search of mischief still on Earth to roam.
The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the fields of Air.
"Know further yet; whoever fair and chaste
Rejects mankind, is by some Sylph embrac'd:
For Spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease
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Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.
What guards the purity of melting Maids,
In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,
Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark,
The glance by day, the whisper in the dark,
When kind occasion prompts their warm desires,
When music softens, and when dancing fires?
'Tis but their Sylph, the wise Celestials know,
Tho' Honour is the word with Men below.
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Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their
face,
For life predestin'd to the Gnomes' embrace.
These swell their prospects and exalt their pride,
When offers are disdain'd, and love deny'd:
Then gay Ideas crowd the vacant brain,
While Peers, and Dukes, and all their sweeping
train,
And Garters, Stars, and Coronets appear,
And in soft sounds, Your Grace salutes their ear.
'T is these that early taint the female soul,
Instruct the eyes of young Coquettes to roll,
Teach Infant-cheeks a bidden blush to know,
And little hearts to flutter at a Beau.
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Oft, when the world imagine women stray,
The Sylphs thro' mystic mazes guide their way,
Thro' all the giddy circle they pursue,
And old impertinence expel by new.
What tender maid but must a victim fall
To one man's treat, but for another's ball?
When Florio speaks what virgin could withstand,
If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand?
With varying vanities, from ev'ry part,
They shift the moving Toyshop of their heart;
Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots swordknots strive,
Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive.
This erring mortals Levity may call;
Oh blind to truth! the Sylphs contrive it all.
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Of these am I, who thy protection claim,
A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name.
Late, as I rang'd the crystal wilds of air,
In the clear Mirror of thy ruling Star
I saw, alas! some dread event impend,
Ere to the main this morning sun descend,
But heav'n reveals not what, or how, or where:
Warn'd by the Sylph, oh pious maid, beware!
This to disclose is all thy guardian can:
Beware of all, but most beware of Man!"
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He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too
long,
Leap'd up, and wak'd his mistress with his tongue.
'T was then, Belinda, if report say true,
Thy eyes first open'd on a Billet-doux;
Wounds, Charms, and Ardors were no sooner
read,
But all the Vision vanish'd from thy head.
And now, unveil'd, the Toilet stands display'd,
Each silver Vase in mystic order laid.
First, rob'd in white, the Nymph intent adores,
With head uncover'd, the Cosmetic pow'rs.
A heav'nly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
Th' inferior Priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling begins the sacred rites of Pride.
Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here
The various off'rings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the Goddess with the glitt'ring spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The Tortoise here and Elephant unite,
Transformed to combs, the speckled, and the
white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.
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Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens ev'ry grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
The busy Sylphs surround their darling care,
These set the head, and those divide the hair,
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown:
And Betty's prais'd for labours not her own.
Canto II
Not with more glories, in th' etherial plain,
The Sun first rises o'er the purpled main,
Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams
Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames.
Fair Nymphs, and well-drest Youths around her shone.
But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white breast a sparkling Cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore.
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those:
Favours to none, to all she smiles extends;
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,
Might hide her faults, if Belles had faults to hide:
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
This Nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
Nourish'd two Locks, which graceful hung behind
In equal curls, and well conspir'd to deck
With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck.
Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains,
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And mighty hearts are held in slender chains.
With hairy springes we the birds betray,
Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey,
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.
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Th' advent'rous Baron the bright locks admir'd;
He saw, he wish'd, and to the prize aspir'd.
Resolv'd to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a Lover's toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends.
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For this, ere Phœbus rose, he had implor'd
Propitious heav'n, and ev'ry pow'r ador'd,
But chiefly Love — to Love an Altar built,
Of twelve vast French Romances, neatly gilt.
There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves;
And all the trophies of his former loves;
With tender Billet-doux he lights the pyre,
And breathes three am'rous sighs to raise the fire.
Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes
Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize:
The pow'rs gave ear, and granted half his pray'r,
The rest, the winds dispers'd in empty air.
But now secure the painted vessel glides,
The sun-beams trembling on the floating tides:
While melting music steals upon the sky,
And soften'd sounds along the waters die;
Smooth flow the waves, the Zephyrs gently play,
Belinda smil'd, and all the world was gay.
All but the Sylph — with careful thoughts opprest,
Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast.
He summons strait his Denizens of air;
The lucid squadrons round the sails repair:
Soft o'er the shrouds aërial whispers breathe,
That seem'd but Zephyrs to the train beneath.
Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold,
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold;
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Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight,
Their fluid bodies half dissolv'd in light,
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,
Thin glitt'ring textures of the filmy dew,
Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies,
Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes,
While ev'ry beam new transient colours flings,
Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings.
Amid the circle, on the gilded mast,
Superior by the head, was Ariel plac'd;
His purple pinions op'ning to the sun,
He rais'd his azure wand, and thus begun.
Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear!
Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Dæmons, hear!
Ye know the spheres and various tasks assign'd
By laws eternal to th' aërial kind.
Some in the fields of purest Æther play,
And bask and whiten in the blaze of day.
Some guide the course of wand'ring orbs on high,
Or roll the planets thro' the boundless sky.
Some less refin'd, beneath the moon's pale light
Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night,
Or suck the mists in grosser air below,
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow,
Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main,
Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain.
Others on earth o'er human race preside,
Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide:
Of these the chief the care of Nations own,
And guard with Arms divine the British Throne.
Our humbler province is to tend the Fair,
Not a less pleasing, tho' less glorious care;
To save the powder from too rude a gale,
Nor let th' imprison'd-essences exhale;
To draw fresh colours from the vernal flow'rs;
To steal from rainbows e'er they drop in show'rs
A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs,
Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs;
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Nay oft, in dreams, invention we bestow,
To change a Flounce, or add a Furbelow.
This day, black Omens threat the brightest Fair,
That e'er deserv'd a watchful spirit's care;
Some dire disaster, or by force, or slight;
But what, or where, the fates have wrapt in night.
Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law,
Or some frail China jar receive a flaw;
Or stain her honour or her new brocade;
Forget her pray'rs, or miss a masquerade;
Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;
Or whether Heav'n has doom'd that Shock must fall.
Haste, then, ye spirits! to your charge repair:
The flutt'ring fan be Zephyretta's care;
The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign;
And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine;
Do thou, Crispissa, tend her fav'rite Lock;
Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock.
To fifty chosen Sylphs, of special note,
We trust th' important charge, the Petticoat:
Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail,
Tho' stiff with hoops, and arm'd with ribs of whale;
Form a strong line about the silver bound,
And guard the wide circumference around.
Whatever spirit, careless of his charge,
His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large,
Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins,
Be stopp'd in vials, or transfix'd with pins;
Or plung'd in lakes of bitter washes lie,
Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye:
Gums and Pomatums shall his flight restrain,
While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain;
Or Alum styptics with contracting pow'r
Shrink his thin essence like a rivel'd flow'r:
Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel
The giddy motion of the whirling Mill,
In fumes of burning Chocolate shall glow,
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And tremble at the sea that froths below!
He spoke; the spirits from the sails descend;
Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend;
Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair;
Some hang upon the pendants of her ear:
With beating hearts the dire event they wait,
Anxious, and trembling for the birth of Fate.
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Canto III
Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flow'rs,
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,
Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name.
Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom
Of foreign Tyrants and of Nymphs at home;
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey.
Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes Tea.
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Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort,
To taste awhile the pleasures of a Court;
In various talk th' instructive hours they past,
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;
One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At ev'ry word a reputation dies.
Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.
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Mean while, declining from the noon of day,
The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray;
The hungry Judges soon the sentence sign,
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And wretches hang that jury-men may dine;
The merchant from th' Exchange returns in peace,
And the long labours of the Toilet cease.
Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites,
Burns to encounter two advent'rous Knights,
At Ombre singly to decide their doom;
And swells her breast with conquests yet to come.
Straight the three bands prepare in arms to join,
Each band the number of the sacred nine.
Soon as she spreads her hand, th' aërial guard
Descend, and sit on each important card:
First Ariel perch'd upon a Matadore,
Then each, according to the rank they bore;
For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race,
Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place.
Behold, four Kings in majesty rever'd,
With hoary whiskers and a forky beard;
And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a flow'r,
Th' expressive emblem of their softer pow'r;
Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band,
Caps on their heads, and halberts in their hand;
And particolour'd troops, a shining train,
Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain.
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The skilful Nymph reviews her force with care:
Let Spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.
Now move to war her sable Matadores,
In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors.
Spadillio first, unconquerable Lord!
Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board.
As many more Manillio forc'd to yield,
And march'd a victor from the verdant field.
Him Basto follow'd, but his fate more hard
Gain'd but one trump and one Plebeian card.
With his broad sabre next, a chief in years,
The hoary Majesty of Spades appears,
Puts forth one manly leg, to sight reveal'd,
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The rest, his many-colour'd robe conceal'd.
The rebel Knave, who dares his prince engage,
Proves the just victim of his royal rage.
Ev'n mighty Pam, that Kings and Queens o'erthrew
And mow'd down armies in the fights of Lu,
Sad chance of war! now destitute of aid,
Falls undistinguish'd by the victor spade!
Thus far both armies to Belinda yield;
Now to the Baron fate inclines the field.
His warlike Amazon her host invades,
Th' imperial consort of the crown of Spades.
The Club's black Tyrant first her victim dy'd,
Spite of his haughty mien, and barb'rous pride:
What boots the regal circle on his head,
His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread;
That long behind he trails his pompous robe,
And, of all monarchs, only grasps the globe?
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The Baron now his Diamonds pours apace;
Th' embroider'd King who shows but half his face,
And his refulgent Queen, with pow'rs combin'd
Of broken troops an easy conquest find.
Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in wild disorder seen,
With throngs promiscuous strow the level green.
Thus when dispers'd a routed army runs,
Of Asia's troops, and Afric's sable sons,
With like confusion different nations fly,
Of various habit, and of various dye,
The pierc'd battalions dis-united fall,
In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all.
The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily arts,
And wins (oh shameful chance!) the Queen of Hearts.
At this, the blood the virgin's cheek forsook,
A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look;
She sees, and trembles at th' approaching ill,
Just in the jaws of ruin, and Codille.
And now (as oft in some distemper'd State)
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On one nice Trick depends the gen'ral fate.
An Ace of Hearts steps forth: The King unseen
Lurk'd in her hand, and mourn'd his captive Queen:
He springs to Vengeance with an eager pace,
And falls like thunder on the prostrate Ace.
The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky;
The walls, the woods, and long canals reply.
Oh thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,
Too soon dejected, and too soon elate.
Sudden, these honours shall be snatch'd away,
And curs'd for ever this victorious day.
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For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crown'd,
The berries crackle, and the mill turns round;
On shining Altars of Japan they raise
The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze:
From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,
While China's earth receives the smoking tide:
At once they gratify their scent and taste,
And frequent cups prolong the rich repast.
Straight hover round the Fair her airy band;
Some, as she sipp'd, the fuming liquor fann'd,
Some o'er her lap their careful plumes display'd,
Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade.
Coffee, (which makes the politician wise,
And see thro' all things with his half-shut eyes)
Sent up in vapours to the Baron's brain
New Stratagems, the radiant Lock to gain.
Ah cease, rash youth! desist ere't is too late,
Fear the just Gods, and think of Scylla's Fate!
Chang'd to a bird, and sent to flit in air,
She dearly pays for Nisus' injur'd hair!
But when to mischief mortals bend their will,
How soon they find fit instruments of ill!
Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting grace
A two-edg'd weapon from her shining case:
So Ladies in Romance assist their Knight,
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Present the spear, and arm him for the fight.
He takes the gift with rev'rence, and extends
The little engine on his fingers' ends;
This just behind Belinda's neck he spread,
As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head.
Swift to the Lock a thousand Sprites repair,
A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair;
And thrice they twitch'd the diamond in her ear;
Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near.
Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought
The close recesses of the Virgin's thought;
As on the nosegay in her breast reclin'd,
He watch'd th' Ideas rising in her mind,
Sudden he view'd, in spite of all her art,
An earthly Lover lurking at her heart.
Amaz'd, confus'd, he found his pow'r expir'd,
Resign'd to fate, and with a sigh retir'd.
The Peer now spreads the glitt'ring Forfex wide,
T' inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.
Ev'n then, before the fatal engine clos'd,
A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd;
Fate urg'd the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain,
(But airy substance soon unites again)
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!
Then flash'd the living lightning from her eyes,
And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.
Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast,
When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last;
Or when rich China vessels fall'n from high,
In glitt'ring dust and painted fragments lie!
Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine
(The victor cry'd) the glorious Prize is mine!
While fish in streams, or birds delight in air,
Or in a coach and six the British Fair,
As long as Atalantis shall be read,
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Or the small pillow grace a Lady's bed,
While visits shall be paid on solemn days,
When num'rous wax-lights in bright order blaze,
While nymphs take treats, or assignations give,
So long my honour, name, and praise shall live!
What Time would spare, from Steel receives its date,
And monuments, like men, submit to fate!
Steel could the labour of the Gods destroy,
And strike to dust th' imperial tow'rs of Troy;
Steel could the works of mortal pride confound,
And hew triumphal arches to the ground.
What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hairs should feel,
The conqu'ring force of unresisted steel?
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Canto IV
But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress'd,
And secret passions labour'd in her breast.
Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive,
Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,
Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss,
Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss,
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry,
E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,
As thou, sad Virgin! for thy ravish'd Hair.
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For, that sad moment, when the Sylphs withdrew
And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew,
Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite,
As ever sully'd the fair face of light,
Down to the central earth, his proper scene,
Repair'd to search the gloomy Cave of Spleen.
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Swift on his sooty pinions flits the Gnome,
And in a vapour reach'd the dismal dome.
No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows,
The dreaded East is all the wind that blows.
Here in a grotto, shelter'd close from air,
And screen'd in shades from day's detested glare,
She sighs for ever on her pensive bed,
Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head.
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Two handmaids wait the throne: alike in place,
But diff'ring far in figure and in face.
Here stood Ill-nature like an ancient maid,
Her wrinkled form in black and white array'd;
With store of pray'rs, for mornings, nights, and noons,
Her hand is fill'd; her bosom with lampoons.
There Affectation, with a sickly mien,
Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen,
Practis'd to lisp, and hang the head aside.
Faints into airs, and languishes with pride,
On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe,
Wrapt in a gown, for sickness, and for show.
The fair ones feel such maladies as these,
When each new night-dress gives a new disease.
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A constant Vapour o'er the palace flies;
Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise;
Dreadful, as hermit's dreams in haunted shades,
Or bright, as visions of expiring maids.
Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires,
Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires:
Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes,
And crystal domes, and angels in machines.
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Unnumber'd throngs on every side are seen,
Of bodies chang'd to various forms by Spleen.
Here living Tea-pots stand, one arm held out,
One bent; the handle this, and that the spout:
A Pipkin there, like Homer's Tripod walks;
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Here sighs a Jar, and there a Goose-pie talks;
Men prove with child, as pow'rful fancy works,
And maids turn'd bottles, call aloud for corks.
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Safe past the Gnome thro' this fantastic band,
A branch of healing Spleenwort in his hand.
Then thus address'd the pow'r: "Hail, wayward Queen!
Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen:
Parent of vapours and of female wit,
Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit,
On various tempers act by various ways,
Make some take physic, others scribble plays;
Who cause the proud their visits to delay,
And send the godly in a pet to pray.
A nymph there is, that all thy pow'r disdains,
And thousands more in equal mirth maintains.
But oh! if e'er thy Gnome could spoil a grace,
Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face,
Like Citron-waters matrons cheeks inflame,
Or change complexions at a losing game;
If e'er with airy horns I planted heads,
Or rumpled petticoats, or tumbled beds,
Or caus'd suspicion when no soul was rude,
Or discompos'd the head-dress of a Prude,
Or e'er to costive lap-dog gave disease,
Which not the tears of brightest eyes could ease:
Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin,
That single act gives half the world the spleen."
The Goddess with a discontented air
Seems to reject him, tho' she grants his pray'r.
A wond'rous Bag with both her hands she binds,
Like that where once Ulysses held the winds;
There she collects the force of female lungs,
Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues.
A Vial next she fills with fainting fears,
Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.
The Gnome rejoicing bears her gifts away,
Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to day.
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Sunk in Thalestris' arms the nymph he found,
Her eyes dejected and her hair unbound.
Full o'er their heads the swelling bag he rent,
And all the Furies issu'd at the vent.
Belinda burns with more than mortal ire,
And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire.
"O wretched maid!" she spread her hands, and cry'd,
(While Hampton's echoes, "Wretched maid!" reply'd)
"Was it for this you took such constant care
The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare?
For this your locks in paper durance bound,
For this with tort'ring irons wreath'd around?
For this with fillets strain'd your tender head,
And bravely bore the double loads of lead?
Gods! shall the ravisher display your hair,
While the Fops envy, and the Ladies stare!
Honour forbid! at whose unrivall'd shrine
Ease, pleasure, virtue, all our sex resign.
Methinks already I your tears survey,
Already hear the horrid things they say,
Already see you a degraded toast,
And all your honour in a whisper lost!
How shall I, then, your helpless fame defend?
'T will then be infamy to seem your friend!
And shall this prize, th' inestimable prize,
Expos'd thro' crystal to the gazing eyes,
And heighten'd by the diamond's circling rays,
On that rapacious hand for ever blaze?
Sooner shall grass in Hyde-park Circus grow,
And wits take lodgings in the sound of Bow;
Sooner let earth, air, sea, to Chaos fall,
Men, monkeys, lap-dogs, parrots, perish all!"
She said; then raging to Sir Plume repairs,
And bids her Beau demand the precious hairs;
(Sir Plume of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane)
With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face,
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He first the snuff-box open'd, then the case,
And thus broke out — "My Lord, why, what the devil?
"Z — ds! damn the lock! 'fore Gad, you must be civil!
Plague on't!'t is past a jest — nay prithee, pox!
Give her the hair" — he spoke, and rapp'd his box.
"It grieves me much" (reply'd the Peer again)
"Who speaks so well should ever speak in vain.
But by this Lock, this sacred Lock I swear,
(Which never more shall join its parted hair;
Which never more its honours shall renew,
Clipp'd from the lovely head where late it grew)
That while my nostrils draw the vital air,
This hand, which won it, shall for ever wear."
He spoke, and speaking, in proud triumph spread
The long-contended honours of her head.
But Umbriel, hateful Gnome! forbears not so;
He breaks the Vial whence the sorrows flow.
Then see! the nymph in beauteous grief appears,
Her eyes half-languishing, half-drown'd in tears;
On her heav'd bosom hung her drooping head,
Which, with a sigh, she rais'd; and thus she said.
"For ever curs'd be this detested day,
Which snatch'd my best, my fav'rite curl away!
Happy! ah ten times happy had I been,
If Hampton-Court these eyes had never seen!
Yet am not I the first mistaken maid,
By love of Courts to num'rous ills betray'd.
Oh had I rather un-admir'd remain'd
In some lone isle, or distant Northern land;
Where the gilt Chariot never marks the way,
Where none learn Ombre, none e'er taste Bohea!
There kept my charms conceal'd from mortal eye,
Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die.
What mov'd my mind with youthful Lords to roam?
Oh had I stay'd, and said my pray'rs at home!
'T was this, the morning omens seem'd to tell,
Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell;
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The tott'ring China shook without a wind.
Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind!
A Sylph too warn'd me of the threats of fate,
In mystic visions, now believ'd too late!
See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs!
My hands shall rend what ev'n thy rapine spares:
These in two sable ringlets taught to break,
Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck;
The sister-lock now sits uncouth, alone,
And in its fellow's fate foresees its own;
Uncurl'd it hangs, the fatal shears demands,
And tempts once more thy sacrilegious hands.
Oh hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize
Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!"
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Canto V
She said: the pitying audience melt in tears.
But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's ears.
In vain Thalestris with reproach assails,
For who can move when fair Belinda fails?
Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain,
While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain.
Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan;
Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began.
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"Say why are Beauties prais'd and honour'd most,
The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast?
Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford,
Why Angels call'd, and Angel-like ador'd?
Why round our coaches crowd the white-glov'd Beaux,
Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows;
How vain are all these glories, all our pains,
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Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains:
That men may say, when we the front-box grace:
'Behold the first in virtue as in face!'
Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day,
Charm'd the small-pox, or chas'd old-age away;
Who would not scorn what housewife's cares produce,
Or who would learn one earthly thing of use?
To patch, nay ogle, might become a Saint,
Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint.
But since, alas! frail beauty must decay,
Curl'd or uncurl'd, since Locks will turn to grey;
Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade,
And she who scorns a man, must die a maid;
What then remains but well our pow'r to use,
And keep good-humour still whate'er we lose?
And trust me, dear! good-humour can prevail,
When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail.
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."
So spoke the Dame, but no applause ensu'd;
Belinda frown'd, Thalestris call'd her Prude.
"To arms, to arms!" the fierce Virago cries,
And swift as lightning to the combat flies.
All side in parties, and begin th' attack;
Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack;
Heroes' and Heroines' shouts confus'dly rise,
And bass, and treble voices strike the skies.
No common weapons in their hands are found,
Like Gods they fight, nor dread a mortal wound.
So when bold Homer makes the Gods engage,
And heav'nly breasts with human passions rage;
'Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms;
And all Olympus rings with loud alarms:
Jove's thunder roars, heav'n trembles all around,
Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps resound:
Earth shakes her nodding tow'rs, the ground gives way.
And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day!
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Triumphant Umbriel on a sconce's height
Clapp'd his glad wings, and sate to view the fight:
Propp'd on the bodkin spears, the Sprites survey
The growing combat, or assist the fray.
While thro' the press enrag'd Thalestris flies,
And scatters death around from both her eyes,
A Beau and Witling perish'd in the throng,
One died in metaphor, and one in song.
"O cruel nymph! a living death I bear,"
Cry'd Dapperwit, and sunk beside his chair.
A mournful glance Sir Fopling upwards cast,
"Those eyes are made so killing" — was his last.
Thus on Mæander's flow'ry margin lies
Th' expiring Swan, and as he sings he dies.
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When bold Sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down,
Chloe stepp'd in, and kill'd him with a frown;
She smil'd to see the doughty hero slain,
But, at her smile, the Beau reviv'd again.
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Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air,
Weighs the Men's wits against the Lady's hair;
The doubtful beam long nods from side to side;
At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside.
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See, fierce Belinda on the Baron flies,
With more than usual lightning in her eyes:
Nor fear'd the Chief th' unequal fight to try,
Who sought no more than on his foe to die.
But this bold Lord with manly strength endu'd,
She with one finger and a thumb subdu'd:
Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew,
A charge of Snuff the wily virgin threw;
The Gnomes direct, to ev'ry atom just,
The pungent grains of titillating dust.
Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows,
And the high dome re-echoes to his nose.
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Now meet thy fate, incens'd Belinda cry'd,
And drew a deadly bodkin from her side.
(The same, his ancient personage to deck,
Her great great grandsire wore about his neck,
In three seal-rings; which after, melted down,
Form'd a vast buckle for his widow's gown:
Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew,
The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew;
Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs,
Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.)
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"Boast not my fall" (he cry'd) "insulting foe!
Thou by some other shalt be laid as low,
Nor think, to die dejects my lofty mind:
All that I dread is leaving you behind!
Rather than so, ah let me still survive,
And burn in Cupid's flames — but burn alive."
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"Restore the Lock!" she cries; and all around
"Restore the Lock!" the vaulted roofs rebound.
Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain
Roar'd for the handkerchief that caus'd his pain.
But see how oft ambitious aims are cross'd,
And chiefs contend 'till all the prize is lost!
The Lock, obtain'd with guilt, and kept with pain,
In ev'ry place is sought, but sought in vain:
With such a prize no mortal must be blest,
So heav'n decrees! with heav'n who can contest?
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Some thought it mounted to the Lunar sphere,
Since all things lost on earth are treasur'd there.
There Hero's wits are kept in pond'rous vases,
And beau's in snuff-boxes and tweezer-cases.
There broken vows and death-bed alms are found,
And lovers' hearts with ends of riband bound,
The courtier's promises, and sick man's pray'rs,
The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs,
Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea,
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Dry'd butterflies, and tomes of casuistry.
But trust the Muse — she saw it upward rise,
Tho' mark'd by none but quick, poetic eyes:
(So Rome's great founder to the heav'ns withdrew,
To Proculus alone confess'd in view)
A sudden Star, it shot thro' liquid air,
And drew behind a radiant trail of hair.
Not Berenice's Locks first rose so bright,
The heav'ns bespangling with dishevell'd light.
The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies,
And pleas'd pursue its progress thro' the skies.
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This the Beau monde shall from the Mall survey,
And hail with music its propitious ray.
This the blest Lover shall for Venus take,
And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake.
This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies,
When next he looks thro' Galileo's eyes;
And hence th' egregious wizard shall foredoom
The fate of Louis, and the fall of Rome.
Then cease, bright Nymph! to mourn thy ravish'd hair,
Which adds new glory to the shining sphere!
Not all the tresses that fair head can boast,
Shall draw such envy as the Lock you lost.
For, after all the murders of your eye,
When, after millions slain, yourself shall die:
When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,
This Lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.
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Pope used epic battle imagery to describe a small pair of ladies' scissors, hence satirizing the
ridiculous nature of the whole situation. The useless and transient nature of the sylphs is seen here.
One, cut in half by the "fatal engine" is unharmed.
*“Essay on Criticism”
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The poem is the nearest thing in eighteenth-century, English writing to what might be called a
neo-classical manifesto, although it is never as categorically expounded as the term implies. It
comes closer, perhaps, to being a handbook, or guide, to the critic's and poet's art, very much in
the style of Horace's Ars Poetica, or, to take the English models with which the young Pope was
especially familiar, the Earl of Roscommon's translation of Horace, The Art Of Poetry, (1680), and
John Sheffield's (the Duke of Buckingham's) Essay On Poetry, (1682). It is accordingly of great value
to us today in understanding what Pope and many of his contemporaries saw as the main functions
and justifications of criticism in early, eighteenth-century England.
The poem is articulated through a more consciously epigrammatic style than anything found
elsewhere in Pope's poetry. It is built upon a series of maxims, or pithy apothegms, such as “To Err
is Humane; to forgive, Divine,” (525), or “For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.” (625).
Pope's ability to sum up an idea tersely and memorably in a phrase, line, or couplet, of packed,
imaginative clarity is a hallmark of An Essay on Criticism. Few other poems in the language contain
so many formulations that have gone on to achieve an independent, proverbial existence in our
culture. The polished couplets encapsulate points that reverberate in the manner of conversational
repartee.
“Essay on Man”
"The Essay on Man" is a philosophical poem, written, characteristically, in heroic couplets, and
published between 1732 and 1734. Pope intended it as the centerpiece of a proposed system of
ethics to be put forth in poetic form: it is in fact a fragment of a larger work which Pope planned but
did not live to complete. It is an attempt to justify, as Milton had attempted to vindicate, the ways
of God to Man, and a warning that man himself is not, as, in his pride, he seems to believe, the
center of all things. Though not explicitly Christian, the Essay makes the implicit assumption that
man is fallen and unregenerate, and that he must seek his own salvation.
The "Essay" consists of four epistles, addressed to Lord Bolingbroke, and derived, to some extent,
from some of Bolingbroke's own fragmentary philosophical writings, as well as from ideas expressed
by the deistic third Earl of Shaftsbury. Pope sets out to demonstrate that no matter how imperfect,
complex, inscrutable, and disturbingly full of evil the Universe may appear to be, it does function in a
rational fashion, according to natural laws; and is, in fact, considered as a whole, a perfect work of
God. It appears imperfect to us only because our perceptions are limited by our feeble moral and
intellectual capacity. His conclusion is that we must learn to accept our position in the Great Chain of
Being--a "middle state," below that of the angels but above that of the beasts--in which we can, at
least potentially, lead happy and virtuous lives.
The Dunciad
The Dunciad expresses Pope's deep dismay concerning the feared loss of Britain's literary, cultural
and ethical inheritance. Pope takes this idea, of the personified goddess of Dulness being at war
with reason, darkness at war with light, and extends it to a full Aeneid parody. His poem celebrates
a war, rather than a mere victory, and a process of ignorance, and Pope picks as his champion of all
things insipid Lewis Theobald and Colley Cibber. (Theobald was Pope’s nemesis in editing
Shakespeare. Cibber was Pope’s poetic nemesis who because laureate over Pope.)
The poem was loosely modelled on Dryden's MacFlecknoe, but where Dryden's poem was a
lampoon of 217 lines attacking a single person, Thomas Shadwell, Pope's was a more fully developed
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satirical anti-epic, attacking all those who had slandered him over many years, in a poem more than
four times the length.
“Eloisa to Abelard”
It is an Ovidian heroic epistle inspired by the 12th century story of Eloisa's (Heloise's) illicit love for,
and secret marriage to, her teacher Pierre Abélard, perhaps the most popular teacher and
philosopher in Paris, and the brutal vengeance her family exacts when they castrate him, not
realizing that the lovers had married.
It is from this poem that the title for the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind comes.
“To a Lady”
Although the target of the satire appears at first to be aristocratic and wealthy women, the venom
that Pope expends upon them clearly spreads to encompass women as a sex. For readers today
Pope's text, like Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, presents serious problems of
interpretation. Whereas in his other satires Pope targets either particular vices, or particular
individuals, in An Epistle To A Lady he attacks the entire female sex. Paradoxically his misogyny
weakens rather than strengthens his satire.
The “Lady” to whom it is addressed, and whom it praises so glowingly at the end, was Pope's closest
female friend, Martha Blount
Epistle II begins:
NOTHING so true as what you once let fall,
"Most Women have no Characters at all."
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.
Joseph Addison & Richard Steel
Together they began and ran the periodical The Spectator and its predecessor, The Tatler. The
Spectator was published between March of 1711 and December of 1712, and was a pioneering
innovation of its times. Each issue consisted of one long essay. The Spectator was one of the first
literary endeavors to make a deliberate effort to appeal to a female readership.
Addison and Steele might appear on the exam, but you will not need to be able to identify a passage
of theirs. They are notable mostly for their historical significance.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Swift is considered the foremost prose satirist in the English language, although he is also well
known for his poetry and essays. Gulliver’s Travels will appear on your exam, and A Modest Proposal
is highly likely, as are some of Swift's poems.
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*Gulliver’s Travels
Acing questions on Gulliver's Travels is easy if you simply memorize the names of the different people
and nations that Gulliver meets.
The book presents itself as a simple traveller's narrative with the disingenuous title Travels into
Several Remote Nations of the World, its authorship assigned only to "Lemuel Gulliver, first a
surgeon, then a captain of several ships".
Gulliver's Travels has been called a lot of things from Mennipean Satire to a children's story, from
proto-Science Fiction to a forerunner of the modern novel. Possibly one of the reasons for the book's
classic status is that it can be seen as many things to many people. It is even funny. Broadly the book
has three themes:
~a satirical view of the state of European government
~an inquiry into whether man is inherently corrupt or whether men are corrupted
~a restatement of the older "ancients v. moderns" controversy previously addressed by Swift in the
Battle of the Books.
**Names to remember
Lilliputians: the very small
Brobdignags: the very large
Houyhnhnms: very smart horses who rule over the human Yahoos. They have cancelled all feeling in
favor of reason.
Yahoos: brutish subhumans
Laputa: a flying island
The Struldburgs: unhappy immortals who would like to die
Blefuscu – rival country of Lilliput
A Modest Proposal
A Modest Proposal may account for a question or two on your exam, but the sheer ridiculousness of
the argument should tip you off to Swift's satire.
The author (who is not to be confused with Swift himself, but is merely a persona) argues, through
economic reasoning as well as a self-righteous moral stance, for a way to turn the problem of
squalor among the Catholics in Ireland into its own solution. His proposal is to fatten up the
undernourished children and feed them to Ireland's rich land-owners. Children of the poor could be
sold into a meat market at the age of one thus combating overpopulation and unemployment,
sparing families the expense of child-bearing while providing them with a little extra income,
improving the culinary experience of the wealthy, and contributing to the overall economic wellbeing of the nation.
He offers statistical support for his assertions and gives specific data about the number of children to
be sold, their weight and price, and the projected consumption patterns. He suggests some recipes
for preparing this delicious new meat, and he feels sure that innovative cooks will be quick to
generate more. He also anticipates that the practice of selling and eating children will have positive
effects on family morality: husbands will treat their wives with more respect, and parents will value
their children in ways hitherto unknown. His conclusion is that the implementation of this project
will do more to solve Ireland's complex social, political, and economic problems than any other
measure that has been proposed.
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This is widely believed to be the greatest example of sustained irony in the history of the English
language.
A Tale of a Tub
A Tale of a Tub is divided between various forms of digression and sections of a "tale." The "tale," or
narrative, is an allegory that concerns the adventures of three brothers, Peter, Martin, and Jack, as
they attempt to make their way in the world. Each of the brothers represents one of the primary
branches of Christianity in the west. This part of the book is a pun on "tub," which Alexander Pope
says was a common term for a pulpit, and a reference to Swift's own position as a clergyman. Peter
(named for Saint Peter) stands in for the Roman Catholic Church. Jack (who Swift connects to "Jack
of Leyden") represents the various dissenting Protestant churches whose modern descendants
would include the Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Mennonites, and the assorted Charismatic
churches. The third brother, middle born and middle standing, is Martin (named for Martin Luther),
who Swift uses to represent the 'via media' of the Church of England. The brothers have inherited
three wonderfully satisfactory coats (representing religious practice) by their father (representing
God), and they have his will (representing the Bible) to guide them. Although the will says that the
brothers are forbidden from making any changes to their coats, they do nearly nothing but alter
their coats from the start. Inasmuch as the will represents the Bible and the coat represents the
practice of Christianity, the allegory of the narrative is supposed to be an apology for the British
church's refusal to alter its practice in accordance with Puritan demands and its continued resistance
to alliance with the Roman church.
A Tale of a Tub is an enormous parody with a number of smaller parodies within it.
“A Description of a City Shower”
Careful observers may foretell the hour
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower:
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
Returning home at night, you'll find the sink
Strike your offended sense with double stink.
If you be wise, then go not far to dine,
You spend in coach-hire more than save in wine.
A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old aches throb, your hollow tooth will rage.
Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen;
He damns the climate, and complains of spleen.
Mean while the South rising with dabbled wings,
A sable cloud a-thwart the welkin flings,
That swilled more liquor than it could contain,
And like a drunkard gives it up again.
Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope,
While the first drizzling shower is born aslope,
Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean
Flirts on you from her mop, but not so clean.
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You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop
To rail; she singing, still whirls on her mop.
Not yet, the dust had shunned the unequal strife,
But aided by the wind, fought still for life;
And wafted with its foe by violent gust,
'Twas doubtful which was rain, and which was dust.
Ah! where must needy poet seek for Aid,
When dust and rain at once his coat invade;
Sole coat, where dust cemented by the rain,
Erects the nap, and leaves a cloudy stain.
Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the daggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen Goods, but nothing buy.
The Templar spruce, while every spout's a-broach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides.
Here various kinds by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.
Triumphant Tories, and desponding Whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits,
While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather sounds, he trembles from within.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed,
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Instead of paying chairmen, run them through.)
Laocoon struck the outside with his spear,
And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear.
Now from all Parts the swelling kennels flow,
And bear their Trophies with them as they go:
Filth of all hues and odours seem to tell
What streets they sailed from, by the sight and smell.
They, as each Torrent drives, with rapid force
From Smithfield, or St. Pulchre's shape their course,
And in huge confluent join at Snow-Hill ridge,
Fall from the conduit prone to Holborn-Bridge.
Sweepings from butchers stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,
Dead cats and turnips-tops come tumbling down the flood.
The Scriblerus Club
The Scriblerus Club was an informal group of friends that included Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope,
John Gay, John Arbuthnot, and Thomas Parnell. Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer
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occasionally joined the club for meetings, though he is not known to have contributed to any of their
literary work. The club began as a project of satirizing the abuses of learning wherever they might
be found, which led to The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. The second edition of Pope's The
Dunciad also contains work attributed to Martinus Scriblerus.
Late 17th & 18th Century British poetry
The Cavalier Poets
Though the Cavalier Poets only occasionally imitated the strenuous intellectual conceits of Donne,
and his followers, and were fervent admirers of Jonson's elegance, they took care to learn from both
parties. In fact, reading the work of Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling, Richard Lovelace, Lord Herbert,
Aurelian Townshend, William Cartwright, Thomas Randolph, William Habington, Sir Richard
Fanshawe, Edmund Waller, and the Marquis of Montrose, it is easy to see that they each owe
something to both styles. In fact the common factor that binds the cavaliers together is their use of
direct and colloquial language expressive of a highly individual personality, and their enjoyment of
the casual, the amateur, the affectionate poem written by the way. They are 'cavalier' in the sense,
not only of being Royalists (though Waller changed sides twice), but in the sense that they distrust
the over-earnest, the too intense. They accept the ideal of the Renaissance Gentleman who is at
once lover, soldier, wit, man of affairs, musician, and poet, but abandon the notion of his being also
a pattern of Christian chivalry. They avoid the subject of religion, apart from making one or two
graceful speeches. They attempt no plumbing of the depths of the soul. They treat life cavalierly,
indeed, and sometimes they treat poetic convention cavalierly too. For them life is far too
enjoyable for much of it to be spent sweating over verses in a study. The poems must be written in
the intervals of living, and are celebratory of things that are much livelier than mere philosophy or
art. To put it in a nutshell, the Mistress in no longer an impossibly chaste Goddess to be wooed
with sighs, but a woman who may be spoken to in a forthright fashion. Though the poems written
to her may be more important to the writer than she is herself, there is no pretence that this is not
the case. Poetry need not be a matter of earnest emotion or public concern. Dick might like to have
a ballad, so Dick gets one. Lady X gave an admirable party, and so here is a thank you poem. On the
other hand, this wedding or funeral deserves a line or two, and why not upbraid that girl for her
coldness or point out to that young man that the world doesn't end simply because he's been jilted?
It may all sound rather trivial, and much of it no doubt is; but the Cavaliers made one great
contribution to the English Lyrical Tradition. They showed us that it was possible for poetry to
celebrate the minor pleasures and sadnesses of life in such a way as to impress us with a sense of
ordinary day-to-day humanity, busy about its affairs, and on the whole, enjoying them very much.”
They include:
∑ Ben Jonson
∑ Robert Herrick
∑ Edward Herbert
∑ Thomas Carew
∑ James Shirley
∑ Mildmay Fane
∑ Edmund Waller
∑ Sir John Suckling
∑ Richard Lovelace
∑ Abraham Cowley
∑ Henry Vaughan
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Thomas Carew
A Cavalier poet, his elegy to Donne contrasts from the otherwise bawdy, worldly and cynical nature
of his poetry.
“An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of St. Paul’s, Dr. John Donne”
CAN we not force from widow'd poetry,
Now thou art dead, great Donne, one elegy,
To crown thy hearse ? Why yet did we not trust,
Though with unkneaded dough-baked prose, thy dust,
Such as the unscissor'd lecturer, from the flower
Of fading rhetoric, short-lived as his hour,
Dry as the sand that measures it, might lay
Upon the ashes on the funeral day ?
Have we nor tune nor voice ? Didst thou dispense
Through all our language both the words and sense ?
'Tis a sad truth. The pulpit may her plain
And sober Christian precepts still retain ;
Doctrines it may, and wholesome uses, frame,
Grave homilies and lectures ; but the flame
Of thy brave soul, that shot such heat and light,
As burn'd our earth, and made our darkness bright,
Committed holy rapes upon the will,
Did through the eye the melting heart distil,
And the deep knowledge of dark truths so teach,
As sense might judge what fancy could not reach,
Must be desired for ever. So the fire,
That fills with spirit and heat the Delphic choir,
Which, kindled first by thy Promethean breath,
Glow'd here awhile, lies quench'd now in thy death.
The Muses' garden, with pedantic weeds
O'erspread, was purg'd by thee ; the lazy seeds
Of servile imitation thrown away,
And fresh invention planted ; thou didst pay
The debts of our penurious bankrupt age ;
Licentious thefts, that make poetic rage
A mimic fury, when our souls must be
Possess'd, or with Anacreon's ecstacy,
Or Pindar's, not their own ; the subtle cheat
Of sly exchanges, and the juggling feat
Of two-edged words, or whatsoever wrong
By ours was done the Greek or Latin tongue,
Thou hast redeem'd, and open'd us a mine
Of rich and pregnant fancy ; drawn a line
Of masculine expression, which, had good
Old Orpheus seen, or all the ancient brood
Our superstitious fools admire, and hold
Their lead more precious than thy burnish'd gold,
Thou hadst been their exchequer, and no more
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They each in other's dung had search'd for ore.
Thou shalt yield no precedence, but of time,
And the blind fate of language, whose tuned chime
More charms the outward sense : yet thou mayst claim
From so great disadvantage greater fame,
Since to the awe of thy imperious wit
Our troublesome language bends, made only fit
With her tough thick-ribb'd hoops to gird about
Thy giant fancy, which had proved too stout
For their soft melting phrases. As in time
They had the start, so did they cull the prime
Buds of invention many a hundred year,
And left the rifled fields, besides the fear
To touch their harvest ; yet from those bare lands,
Of what was only thine, thy only hands
(And that their smallest work,) have gleaned more
Than all those times and tongues could reap before.
But thou art gone, and thy strict laws will be
Too hard for libertines in poetry ;
They will recall the goodly exiled train
Of gods and goddesses, which in thy just reign
Was banish'd nobler poems ; now with these,
The silenced tales i' th' Metamorphoses,
Shall stuff their lines, and swell the windy page,
Till verse, refined by thee in this last age,
Turn ballad-rhyme, or those old idols be
Adored again with new apostacy.
O pardon me, that break with untuned verse
The reverend silence that attends thy hearse,
Whose solemn awful murmurs were to thee,
More than these rude lines, a loud elegy,
That did proclaim in a dumb eloquence
The death of all the arts : whose influence,
Grown feeble, in these panting numbers lies,
Gasping short-winded accents, and so dies.
So doth the swiftly-turning wheel not stand
In th' instant we withdraw the moving hand,
But some short time retain a faint weak course,
By virtue of the first impulsive force :
And so, whilst I cast on thy funeral pile
Thy crown of bays, oh let it crack awhile,
And spit disdain, till the devouring flashes
Suck all the moisture up, then turn to ashes.
I will not draw the envy to engross
All thy perfections, or weep all the loss ;
Those are too numerous for one elegy,
And this too great to be express'd by me.
Let others carve the rest ; it shall suffice
I on thy grave this epitaph incise:—
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Here lies a king that ruled, as he thought fit,
The universal monarchy of wit ;
Here lies two flamens, and both those the best :
Apollo's first, at last the true God's priest.
Robert Herrick
A Cavalier Poet, Herrick is often associated with a carpe diem theme because of his poem "To the
Virgins, Make Much of Time," a poem that ETS holds in high regard.
His reputation rests on his Hesperides, a collection of lyric poetry, and the much shorter Noble
Numbers, spiritual works, published together in 1648. He is well-known for his bawdy style,
referring frequently to lovemaking and the female body. Many of his bawdy poems focus on the
character of "Julia."
“To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time” (often compared to Marvell’s ‘Coy Mistress’)
GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry:
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.
“UPON JULIA'S CLOTHES”
WHENAS in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free;
O how that glittering taketh me!
"Upon Julia’s Breasts"
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DISPLAY thy breasts, my Julia—there let me
Behold that circummortal purity,
Between whose glories there my lips I'll lay,
Ravish'd in that fair via lactea.
“The Night Piece, to Julia"
HER eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
No Will-o'-th'-Wisp mislight thee,
Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee;
But on, on thy way,
Not making a stay,
Since ghost there's none to affright thee.
Let not the dark thee cumber:
What though the moon does slumber?
The stars of the night
Will lend thee their light
Like tapers clear without number.
Then, Julia, let me woo thee,
Thus, thus to come unto me;
And when I shall meet
Thy silv'ry feet
My soul I'll pour into thee.
“Corinna’s Going A-Maying”
it begins:
GET up, get up for shame, the blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air:
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herb and tree.
Ben Jonson (1572 – 1637)
English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. He is best known for his plays Volpone and The
Alchemist, his lyrics, his influence on Jacobean and Caroline poets, his theory of humours, his
contentious personality, and his friendship and rivalry with William Shakespeare.
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“To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare”
To draw no envy, SHAKSPEARE, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame ;
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise ;
For seeliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right ;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance ;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it seemed to raise.
These are, as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron ; what could hurt her more ?
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our stage!
My SHAKSPEARE rise ! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room :
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so my brain excuses,
I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses :
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names : but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread
And shake a stage : or when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time !
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm !
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines !
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Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please ;
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give Nature all ; thy art,
My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion : and, that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil ; turn the same,
And himself with it, that he thinks to frame ;
Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn ;
For a good poet's made, as well as born.
And such wert thou ! Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well torned and true filed lines;
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandisht at the eyes of ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza, and our James !
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there !
Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage
Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.
“To Penhurst”
Thou art not, PENSHURST, built to envious show
Of touch, or marble ; nor canst boast a row
Of polish'd pillars, or a roof of gold :
Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told ;
Or stair, or courts ; but stand'st an ancient pile,
And these grudg'd at, art reverenced the while.
Thou joy'st in better marks, of soil, of air,
Of wood, of water ; therein thou art fair.
Thou hast thy walks for health, as well as sport :
Thy mount, to which thy Dryads do resort,
Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made,
Beneath the broad beech, and the chestnut shade ;
That taller tree, which of a nut was set,
At his great birth, where all the Muses met.
There, in the writhed bark, are cut the names
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Of many a sylvan, taken with his flames ;
And thence the ruddy satyrs oft provoke
The lighter fauns, to reach thy lady's oak.
Thy copse too, named of Gamage, thou hast there,
That never fails to serve thee season'd deer,
When thou wouldst feast or exercise thy friends.
The lower land, that to the river bends,
Thy sheep, thy bullocks, kine, and calves do feed ;
The middle grounds thy mares and horses breed.
Each bank doth yield thee conies ; and the tops
Fertile of wood, Ashore and Sydneys copp's,
To crown thy open table, doth provide
The purpled pheasant, with the speckled side :
The painted partridge lies in ev'ry field,
And for thy mess is willing to be kill'd.
And if the high-swoln Medway fail thy dish,
Thou hast thy ponds, that pay thee tribute fish,
Fat aged carps that run into thy net,
And pikes, now weary their own kind to eat,
As loth the second draught or cast to stay,
Officiously at first themselves betray.
Bright eels that emulate them, and leap on land,
Before the fisher, or into his hand,
Then hath thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers,
Fresh as the air, and new as are the hours.
The early cherry, with the later plum,
Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come :
The blushing apricot, and woolly peach
Hang on thy walls, that every child may reach.
And though thy walls be of the country stone,
They're rear'd with no man's ruin, no man's groan ;
There's none, that dwell about them, wish them down ;
But all come in, the farmer and the clown ;
And no one empty-handed, to salute
Thy lord and lady, though they have no suit.
Some bring a capon, some a rural cake,
Some nuts, some apples ; some that think they make
The better cheeses, bring them ; or else send
By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend
This way to husbands ; and whose baskets bear
An emblem of themselves in plum, or pear.
But what can this (more than express their love)
Add to thy free provisions, far above
The need of such ? whose liberal board doth flow
With all that hospitality doth know !
Where comes no guest, but is allow'd to eat,
Without his fear, and of thy lord's own meat :
Where the same beer and bread, and self-same wine,
That is his lordship's, shall be also mine.
And I not fain to sit (as some this day,
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At great men's tables) and yet dine away.
Here no man tells my cups ; nor standing by,
A waiter, doth my gluttony env_ :
But gives me what I call, and lets me eat,
He knows, below, he shall find plenty of meat ;
Thy tables hoard not up for the next day,
Nor, when I take my lodging, need I pray
For fire, or lights, or livery ; all is there ;
As if thou then wert mine, or I reign'd here :
There's nothing I can wish, for which I stay.
That found King JAMES, when hunting late, this way,
With his brave son, the prince ; they saw thy fires
Shine bright on every hearth, as the desires
Of thy Penates had been set on flame,
To entertain them ; or the country came,
With all their zeal, to warm their welcome here.
What (great, I will not say, but) sudden chear
Didst thou then make 'em ! and what praise was heap'd
On thy good lady, then ! who therein reap'd
The just reward of her high huswifry ;
To have her linen, plate, and all things nigh,
When she was far ; and not a room, but drest,
As if it had expected such a guest !
These, Penshurst, are thy praise, and yet not all.
Thy lady's noble, fruitful, chaste withal.
His children thy great lord may call his own ;
A fortune, in this age, but rarely known.
They are, and have been taught religion ; thence
Their gentler spirits have suck'd innocence.
Each morn, and even, they are taught to pray,
With the whole household, and may, every day,
Read in their virtuous parents' noble parts,
The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts.
Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee
With other edifices, when they see
Those proud ambitious heaps, and nothing else,
May say, their lords have built, but thy lord dwells.
“On My First Son”
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy ;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
Oh, could I lose all father now ! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age !
Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.
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For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such
As what he loves may never like too much.
Volpone
Volpone, or The Fox (in Italian: "Big Fox"), is a black comedy by Ben Jonson first produced in 1606,
and considered one of the finest comedies of the Jacobean period.
Volpone fakes a long illness to pique the expectations of all who aspire to his fortune. Mosca tells
each of them, Voltore, Corbaccio, and Corvino, in their turns, that they are to be named Volpone's
heir, thanks to Mosca's influence. Mosca then announces Volpone's impending death. The hopeful
heirs shower Volpone with gifts. Corbaccio disinherits his own son in Volpone's favour; Corvino
offers Volpone his wife. Complications ensue, and just as Volpone is about to be outsmarted by
Mosca, he reveals all in open court and the characters are punished according to their crime and
station.
Metaphysical Poets
A term used to group together certain 17th-century poets, usually DONNE, MARVELL, VAUGHAN and
TRAHERNE, though other figures like ABRAHAM COWLEY are sometimes included in the list.
Although in no sense a school or movement proper, they share common characteristics of wit,
inventiveness, and a love of elaborate stylistic maneuvers.
Metaphysical concerns are the common subject of their poetry, which investigates the world by
rational discussion of its phenomena rather than by intuition or mysticism. DRYDEN was the first to
apply the term to 17th-century poetry when, in 1693, he criticized Donne: 'He affects the
Metaphysics... in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of
the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts.' He
disapproved of Donne's stylistic excesses, particularly his extravagant conceits (or witty
comparisons) and his tendency towards hyperbolic abstractions. JOHNSON consolidated the
argument in THE LIVES OF THE POETS, where he noted (with reference to Cowley) that 'about the
beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the
metaphysical poets'. He went on to describe the far-fetched nature of their comparisons as 'a kind of
discordia concors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things
apparently unlike'. Examples of the practice Johnson condemned would include the extended
comparison of love with astrology (by Donne) and of the soul with a drop of dew (by Marvell).
Reacting against the deliberately smooth and sweet tones of much 16th-century verse, the
metaphysical poets adopted a style that is energetic, uneven, and rigorous. (Johnson decried its
roughness and violation of decorum, the deliberate mixture of different styles.) It has also been
labelled the 'poetry of strong lines'. In his important essay, 'The Metaphysical Poets' (1921), which
helped bring the poetry of Donne and his contemporaries back into favour, T. S. ELIOT argued that
their work fuses reason with passion; it shows a unification of thought and feeling which later
became separated into a 'dissociation of sensibility'.”
They include:
John Donne
George Herbert
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Henry Vaughan
Edward Herbert
Thomas Carew
Richard Crashaw
Andrew Marvell
Richard Lovelace
Sir John Suckling
John Donne (1572-1631)
John Donne was a Jacobean metaphysical poet. His works include sonnets, love poetry, religious
poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, and sermons. Donne will certainly appear on
your GRE exam, and he has plenty that is worth studying.
"The Canonization"
FOR God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love ;
Or chide my palsy, or my gout ;
My five gray hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout ;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve ;
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace ;
Or the king's real, or his stamp'd face
Contemplate ; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.
Alas ! alas ! who's injured by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?
Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.
Call's what you will, we are made such by love ;
Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find th' eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us ; we two being one, are it ;
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tomb or hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse ;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
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We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms ;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for love ;
And thus invoke us, "You, whom reverend love
Made one another's hermitage ;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage ;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes ;
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize—
Countries, towns, courts beg from above
A pattern of your love."
“THE FLEA”
MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
“A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”
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AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
*“The Sun Rising”
This poem is an aubade, or a poem or song of or about lovers separating at dawn.
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BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."
She's all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.
“Air and Angels”
TWICE or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name ;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be.
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing did I see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too ;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.
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Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught ;
Thy every hair for love to work upon
Is much too much ; some fitter must be sought ;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scattering bright, can love inhere ;
Then as an angel face and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my love's sphere ;
Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air's and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.
*Holy Sonnets: XIV
Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
*Holy Sonnets: X
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.
*"The Bait"
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Take note that the first few lines of this poem come from Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate
Shepherd to His Love"
COME live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
There will the river whisp'ring run
Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun ;
And there th' enamour'd fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.
When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.
If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,
By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.
Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net.
Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest ;
Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.
For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait :
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas ! is wiser far than I.
"The Ecstacy"
WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,
A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.
Our hands were firmly cemented
By a fast balm, which thence did spring ;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string.
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So to engraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one ;
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.
As, 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls—which to advance their state,
Were gone out—hung 'twixt her and me.
And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay ;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day.
If any, so by love refined,
That he soul's language understood,
And by good love were grown all mind,
Within convenient distance stood,
He—though he knew not which soul spake,
Because both meant, both spake the same—
Might thence a new concoction take,
And part far purer than he came.
This ecstasy doth unperplex
(We said) and tell us what we love ;
We see by this, it was not sex ;
We see, we saw not, what did move :
But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things they know not what,
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again,
And makes both one, each this, and that.
A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size—
All which before was poor and scant—
Redoubles still, and multiplies.
When love with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
We then, who are this new soul, know,
Of what we are composed, and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.
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But, O alas ! so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They are ours, though not we ; we are
Th' intelligences, they the spheres.
We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
Nor are dross to us, but allay.
On man heaven's influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air ;
For soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.
As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can ;
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot, which makes us man ;
So must pure lovers' souls descend
To affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.
To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look ;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
And if some lover, such as we,
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change when we're to bodies gone.
An Anatomy of the World
Wherein, by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and the decay of
this whole world is represented THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY.
It begins:
When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone,
Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one
(For who is sure he hath a soul, unless
It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
And by deeds praise it? He who doth not this,
May lodge an inmate soul, but 'tis not his)
When that queen ended here her progress time,
And, as t'her standing house, to heaven did climb,
Where loath to make the saints attend her long,
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She's now a part both of the choir, and song;
This world, in that great earthquake languished;
For in a common bath of tears it bled,
Which drew the strongest vital spirits out;
But succour'd then with a perplexed doubt,
Whether the world did lose, or gain in this,
(Because since now no other way there is,
But goodness, to see her, whom all would see,
All must endeavour to be good as she)
This great consumption to a fever turn'd,
And so the world had fits; it joy'd, it mourn'd;
And, as men think, that agues physic are,
And th' ague being spent, give over care,
So thou, sick world, mistak'st thy self to be
Well, when alas, thou'rt in a lethargy.
Her death did wound and tame thee then, and then
Thou might'st have better spar'd the sun, or man.
That wound was deep, but 'tis more misery
That thou hast lost thy sense and memory.
'Twas heavy then to hear thy voice of moan,
But this is worse, that thou art speechless grown.
Thou hast forgot thy name thou hadst; thou wast
Nothing but she, and her thou hast o'erpast.
For, as a child kept from the font until
A prince, expected long, come to fulfill
The ceremonies, thou unnam'd had'st laid,
Had not her coming, thee her palace made;
Her name defin'd thee, gave thee form, and frame,
And thou forget'st to celebrate thy name.
Some months she hath been dead (but being dead,
Measures of times are all determined)
But long she'ath been away, long, long, yet none
Offers to tell us who it is that's gone.
But as in states doubtful of future heirs,
When sickness without remedy impairs
The present prince, they're loath it should be said,
"The prince doth languish," or "The prince is dead;"
So mankind feeling now a general thaw,
A strong example gone, equal to law,
The cement which did faithfully compact
And glue all virtues, now resolv'd, and slack'd,
Thought it some blasphemy to say sh'was dead,
Or that our weakness was discovered
In that confession; therefore spoke no more
Than tongues, the soul being gone, the loss deplore.
It ends:
The noblest part, man, felt it first; and then
Both beasts and plants, curs'd in the curse of man.
So did the world from the first hour decay,
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That evening was beginning of the day,
And now the springs and summers which we see,
Like sons of women after fifty be.
And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out,
The sun is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation;
Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phoenix, and that then can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he.
This is the world's condition now, and now
She that should all parts to reunion bow,
She that had all magnetic force alone,
To draw, and fasten sund'red parts in one;
She whom wise nature had invented then
When she observ'd that every sort of men
Did in their voyage in this world's sea stray,
And needed a new compass for their way;
She that was best and first original
Of all fair copies, and the general
Steward to fate; she whose rich eyes and breast
Gilt the West Indies, and perfum'd the East;
Whose having breath'd in this world, did bestow
Spice on those Isles, and bade them still smell so,
And that rich India which doth gold inter,
Is but as single money, coin'd from her;
She to whom this world must it self refer,
As suburbs or the microcosm of her,
She, she is dead; she's dead: when thou know'st this,
Thou know'st how lame a cripple this world is.
George Herbert
Herbert's poems are characterized by a precision of language, a metrical versatility, and an ingenious
use of imagery or conceits that was favored by the metaphysical school of poets. They include
almost every known form of song and poem, but they also reflect Herbert's concern with speech-conversational, persuasive, proverbial. Carefully arranged in related sequences, the poems explore
and celebrate the ways of God's love as Herbert discovered them within the fluctuations of his own
experience. Because Herbert is as much an ecclesiastical as a religious poet, one would not expect
him to make much appeal to an age as secular as our own; but it has not proved so. All sorts of
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readers have responded to his quiet intensity; and the opinion has even been voiced that he has, for
readers of the late twentieth century, displaced Donne as the supreme Metaphysical poet.
“The Pulley”
WHEN God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by ;
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can :
Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
So strength first made a way ;
Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottome lay.
For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewell also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts in stead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature :
So both should losers be.
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlesnesse :
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast.
“The Collar”
I STRUCK the board, and cry’d, No more ;
I will abroad.
What ? shall I ever sigh and pine ?
My lines and life are free ; free as the rode,
Loose as the winde, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit ?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me bloud, and not restore
What I have lost with cordiall fruit ?
Sure there was wine,
Before my sighs did drie it : there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the yeare onely lost to me ?
Have I no bayes to crown it ?
No flowers, no garlands gay ? all blasted ?
All wasted ?
Not so, my heart : but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
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On double pleasures : leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit, and not forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which pettie thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away ; take heed:
I will abroad.
Call in thy deaths head there : tie up thy fears.
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need,
Deserves his load.
But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde,
At every word,
Methought I heard one calling, Childe :
And I reply’d, My Lord.
“Easter-Wings"
LORD, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poor:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories :
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.
My tender age in sorrow did beginne:
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day thy victorie,
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.
"The Altar"
A broken A L T A R, Lord, thy servant reares,
Made of a heart, and cemented with teares:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workmans tool hath touch’d the same.
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A H E A R T alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow’r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy Name;
That, if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
O let thy blessed S A C R I F I C E be mine,
And sanctifie this A L T A R to be thine.
Richard Lovelace
an English poet and nobleman, born in Woolwich, today part of south-east London . He was one of
the cavalier poets, and a noted royalist.
He was imprisoned briefly in 1648 for supporting the Royalists during the time of Oliver Cromwell.
He was best known for his poems "To Althea," "from Prison" and "To Lucasta, on Going to the
Wars."
“To Lucasta, on Going to the Warres"
I.
TELL me not (Sweet) I am unkinde,
That from the Nunnerie
Of thy chaste breast, and quiet minde,
To Warre and Armes I flie.
II.
True ; a new Mistresse now I chase,
The first Foe in the Field;
And with a stronger Faith imbrace
A Sword, a Horse, a Shield.
III.
Yet this Inconstancy is such,
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee (Deare) so much,
Lov'd I not Honour more.
"To Althea from Prison"
I
WHEN Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my Gates ;
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the Grates ;
When I lye tangled in her haire
And fettered to her eye;
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The Gods that wanton in the Aire,
Know no such Liberty.
II
When flowing Cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our carelesse heads with Roses bound,
Our hearts with Loyall Flames;
When thirsty griefe in Wine we steepe,
When Healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the Deepe,
Know no such Libertie.
III
When (like committed linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetnes, Mercy, Majesty,
And glories of my KING;
When I shall voyce aloud, how Good
He is, how Great should be;
Enlarged Winds that curle the Flood,
Know no such Liberty.
IV
Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor Iron bars a Cage;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage;
If I have freedome in my Love,
And in my soule am free;
Angels alone that sore above,
Injoy such Liberty.
Andrew Marvell
Marvell is guarenteed a few appearances on the GRE. Note that he is often grouped with the
'metaphysical poets." Marvell is easy to pick out because of his rhyme schemes, but since the type of
schemes he favored were popular at the time, it is also easy to confuse him with his contemporaries.
* “To his Coy Mistress”
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
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Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
“The Definition of Love”
My love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.
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Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown,
But vainly flapp'd its tinsel wing.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixt,
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic pow'r depose.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have plac'd,
(Though love's whole world on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embrac'd;
Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramp'd into a planisphere.
As lines, so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet;
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.
Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.
“On Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost”
When I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold,
In slender Book his vast Design unfold,
Messiah Crown'd, Gods Reconcil'd Decree,
Rebelling Angels, the Forbidden Tree,
Heav'n, Hell, Earth, Chaos, All; the Argument
Held me a while misdoubting his Intent,
That he would ruine (for I saw him strong)
The sacred Truths to Fable and old Song,
(So Sampson groap'd the Temples Posts in spight)
The World o'rewhelming to revenge his Sight.
Yet as I read, soon growing less severe,
I lik'd his Project, the success did fear;
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Through that wide Field how he his way should find
O're which lame Faith leads Understanding blind;
Lest he perplext the things he would explain,
And what was easie he should render vain.
Or if a Work so infinite he spann'd,
Jealous I was that some less skilful hand
(Such as disquiet alwayes what is well,
And by ill imitating would excell)
Might hence presume the whole Creations day
To change in Scenes, and show it in a Play.
Pardon me, Mighty Poet, nor despise
My causeless, yet not impious, surmise.
But I am now convinc'd, and none will dare
Within thy Labours to pretend a Share.
Thou hast not miss'd one thought that could be fit,
And all that was improper dost omit:
So that no room is here for Writers left,
But to detect their Ignorance or Theft.
That Majesty which through thy Work doth Reign
Draws the Devout, deterring the Profane.
And things divine thou treats of in such state
As them preserves, and Thee in violate.
At once delight and horrour on us seize,
Thou singst with so much gravity and ease;
And above humane flight dost soar aloft,
With Plume so strong, so equal, and so soft.
The Bird nam'd from that Paradise you sing
So never Flags, but alwaies keeps on Wing.
Where couldst thou Words of such a compass find?
Whence furnish such a vast expense of Mind?
Just Heav'n Thee, like Tiresias, to requite,
Rewards with Prophesie thy loss of Sight.
Well might thou scorn thy Readers to allure
With tinkling Rhime, of thy own Sense secure;
While the Town-Bays writes all the while and spells,
And like a Pack-Horse tires without his Bells.
Their Fancies like our bushy Points appear,
The Poets tag them; we for fashion wear.
I too transported by the Mode offend,
And while I meant to Praise thee, must Commend.
Thy verse created like thy Theme sublime,
In Number, Weight, and Measure, needs not Rhime.
The “Mower” poems
"The Mower Against Gardens" is the first of the "Mower" sequence, an attack on the sophistications
of human invention and a praise of Nature's proper mixture vs. the hybrids' "Forbidden mixtures"
and "nutriment" that changes our kind. The poem's disgust with the freaks produced by science is
balanced with the praise of Nature's "wild and fragrant innocence" (34).
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"Damon the Mower" exploits the figure of paradox in eleven 8-line stanzas of tetrameter couplets.
The mistress's "cruelty," refusing to return Damon's love, distracts the mower until his scythe does
to him what he did to the grass. The figure of love as a wound also is used--it could be compared
with many a Petrarchan conceit, but here it is combined with the pastoral mode.
"The Mower to the Glowworms" continues to evoke the distracting and destructive effects of love
by wishing the glowworms might show the Mower the way back to himself, which he has lost in his
delirium.
"The Mower's Song" continues the "mower mown" paradox of "Damon" within a more complex
stanza structure. Note that, throughout the poem, Damon is unable to simply name the deed by
which he makes his living ("to mow") and instead employs circumlocution.
"The Garden" returns to the praise of idealized Nature and contrasts it with the fallen state of things
under human domination. The quest to re-imagine the un-fallen world leads the poet to a kind of
ekstasis in which his language becomes almost nonsense: what exactly would one be thinking were
one to think "a green thought in a green shade" (48). This return to Eden leads the persona to
imagine God-the-Gardener and Adam as the first Gardener's helper. This has direct relevance for
Milton, who was Marvell's mentor and predecessor as Cromwell's Latin Secretary.
"An Horatian Ode: Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland"
"An Horatian Ode: Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland" sets up the praise of the de-facto
dictatorial ruler of England in terms that allow Marvell to put his deeds in context with the
inexorable political realities which the Parliamentary cause hoped to outwit. Most impressive, for
this political climate, are Marvell's ability to praise Charles I's conduct in defeat and to caution
against English patriotic fervor after the end of the Irish uprising. The poem is a continuous effort to
balance current appearances against the message of time and the poetic tradition.
"Graveyard Poets"
"Churchyard Poets" or "Graveyard Poets" is a critical term applied in retrospect to a number of
English poets of the 1740s to the 1790s who wrote in the vein of Thomas Gray's Elegy in a Country
Churchyard (1750). These poets are also sometimes called "pre-Romantics." Despite the name, the
term encompasses at least two major works written before Gray's Elegy: James Thomson's The
Seasons (1726 - 1730) and Edward Young's Night Thoughts (1742 - 1745).
What the term refers to is a set of characteristics that may apply to all the poets in question. Each
member of the "school" writes about melancholy, and each shows an interest in nature. Further, the
poets show an interest in "ancient" English poetic forms and folk poetry. Thus, the Churchyard Poets
include Thomas Warton, Thomas Percy, Thomas Gray, James MacPherson, Robert Blair, William
Collins, Joseph Warton, and even Thomas Chatterton's forgeries.
Scholars have demonstrated that most of the characteristics of the Churchyard School are not
unique to them, that the production of ballads and odes, for example, did not rise in their years.
However, these were notable and influential figures who created a stir in the public and, at the very
least, gave the impression of a shift in mood and form in English poetry in the second half of the
18th century.
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Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
Thomas Gray is a really great poet, whose "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" will likely appear
on the GRE. Because of this poem, he is sometimes considered a "Graveyard Poet." He has a few
other poems that are worth looking at before you take your exam, but be sure to spend some time
with the "Elegy."
*“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke:
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
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Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to These the fault,
If Memory o'er their Tomb no Trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone
Their glowing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
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Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our Ashes live their wonted Fires.
For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
'One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;
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Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
'The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn:'
THE EPITAPH
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
The bosom of his Father and his God.
"On The Death Of A Favourite Cat, Drowned In A Tub Of Gold Fishes"
'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.
Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream:
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.
The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw,
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With many an ardent wish,
She stretched, in vain, to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?
Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between:
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.
Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to ev'ry wat'ry god
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A fav'rite has no friend!
From hence, ye beauties undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wand'ring eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold.
“The Progress of Poesy”
it begins:
Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake,
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The laughing flowers that round them blow
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of Music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;
The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar.
“The Bard”
a long poem that begins:
'Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait,
Tho' fanned by Conquest's crimson wing
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They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor Hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor even thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria'sÊ curse, from Cambria's tears!'
Such were the sounds, that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, 10
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy sideÊ
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance:
'To arms!' cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quiv'ring lance.
Robert Blair
A Scottish poet,his sole work, “The Grave” (1743), is a poem written in blank verse, and is much less
conventional than its gloomy title might lead one to expect. Its religious subject no doubt
contributed to its great popularity, especially in Scotland. It extends to 767 lines of very various
merit, in some passages rising to great sublimity, and in others sinking to commonplace. It inspired
William Blake to undertake a series of twelve illustrative designs, which were engraved by Luigi
Schiavonetti, and published in 1808.
Robert Burns (late 1700s)
He is the best known of the poets who have written in Lowland Scots. Burns also collected folk songs
from across Scotland, often times revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) Auld Lang Syne is
often sung at Hogmanay, and Scots Wha Hae served for a long time as an unofficial National anthem
of the country. Other poems and songs of Burns that remain well known today across the world
include A Red, Red Rose, A Man's A Man for A' That, To a Louse, and To a Mouse.
Burns' direct influences in the use of Scots in poetry were Allan Ramsay (1686-1758) and Robert
Fergusson. Burns' poetry also drew upon a substantial familiarity and knowledge of Classical, Biblical,
and English literature, as well as the Scottish Makar tradition. Burns was skilled in writing not only in
Scots but also in English. Some of his works, such as Love and Liberty (also known as The Jolly
Beggars), are written in both Scots and English for various effects.
Burns is generally classified as a proto-Romantic poet, and he influenced Wordsworth, Coleridge,
and Shelley greatly. The Edinburgh literati worked to sentimentalize Burns during his life and after
his death, dismissing his education by calling him a "heaven-taught ploughman." Burns would
influence later Scottish writers, especially Hugh MacDiarmid who fought to dismantle the
sentimental Burns cult that had dominated Scottish literature in MacDiarmid's opinion.
"A Red, Red Rose"
O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
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O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
And fare thee weel, awhile!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!
"Tam O’ Shanter: A Tale" (1790)
It begins:
"Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke."
--Gawin Douglas.
When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter:
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses).
“A Fond Kiss”
A fond kiss, and then we sever;
A farewell, and then forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
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While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.
I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Nothing could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love forever.
Had we never lov'd say kindly,
Had we never lov'd say blindly,
Never met--or never parted-We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
Fare thee well, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee well, thou best and dearest!
Thine be like a joy and treasure,
Peace. enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
A fond kiss, and then we sever;
A farewell, alas, forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!
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18th & 19th Century British Prose
Henry Fielding
There are probably two personalities that epitomize the 18th century novel -- Henry Fielding and
Samuel Richardson. Fielding is remarkable his attitude on the novel differed so greatly from
Richardson's. Whereas Richardson's novel attempts to promote public morality through the
depiction of archetypally virtusous and villainous men and women, Fielding portrays a world of
mixed morality, in which right and wrong are not always clear. Where Richardson is sober, Fielding is
cavalier and hilarious. Fielding's most noteworthy books are Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones. For the
GRE exam, you will likely need to recognize Tom Jones and possibly know something about the
public differences between Fielding and Richardson.
Shamela and Joseph Andrews
From a literary point of view, by far the most important new means of earning a living that Fielding
explored after he was effectively barred from the stage was the writing of prose fiction. He moved in
this direction, revealing a unique and inimitable, genre-enhancing range of talents in the process,
more gradually than he had in taking on the law and journalism and initially in a negatively parodic
way, stimulated by his disapproval of the moral and social implications of Richardson's Pamela or
Virtue Rewarded (1740) and its critical and clerical over-praising. An Apology for the Life of Mrs.
Shamela Andrews, In which, the many notorious Falsehoods and Misrepresentations of a Book called
“Pamela”, are exposed and refuted (2 April 1741) is a minor masterpiece of ironization that its
author never acknowledged. In it Fielding turns Pamela into Shamela, whose amoral manipulation
of Mr. B[ooby] into marriage and cuckoldry are revealed in her ”actual,” semi-literate letters,
which are sent by a sensible clergyman to one of the clerical fools who moved in part by its
pornographic tendencies, had cried “Pamela” up as an ultimate guide to morality. His first novel,
The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, begins with a transgendering of Pamela's
resistance to seduction, in which high comedy is made out of Joseph Andrews' resistance to losing
his virginity out of wedlock. Joseph is thought to be the servant-class-brother of Pamela, who, when
we finally meet her, has become Mrs. Booby and a snobbish parvenu.
The title for Pamela comes from Sidney’s Arcadia.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Tom Jones is a long book which is difficult to summarize. The title character, a handsome, brave,
generous young man of uncertain parentage and hearty appetites, remains faithful to his beloved in
spirit, if not in flesh. The combination of vice and virtue in a fully realized, three-dimensional hero
was unusual in English literature of its day. Throughout the lengthy book, the author openly mocks
the moral rigidity of fashionable writers and critics while simultaneously acknowledging the
frailties of his characters and celebrating their good natures.
Some of the characters include:
Tom Jones
Sophia Western
Blifil
Squire Allworthy
Lady Bridget
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The famous opening words, which have been known to appear on the GRE:
The introduction to the work, or bill of fare to the feast.
An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat,
but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money. In
the former case, it is well known that the entertainer provides what fare he pleases; and though this
should be very indifferent, and utterly disagreeable to the taste of his company, they must not find
any fault; nay, on the contrary, good breeding forces them outwardly to approve and to commend
whatever is set before them. Now the contrary of this happens to the master of an ordinary. Men
who pay for what they eat will insist on gratifying their palates, however nice and whimsical these
may prove; and if everything is not agreeable to their taste, will challenge a right to censure, to
abuse, and to d--n their dinner without controul.
Samuel Richardson (1689 –1761)
Samuel Richardson was a major 18th century writer best known for his three epistolary novels:
Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and Sir Charles
Grandison (1753).
Richardson had been an established printer and publisher for most of his life when, at the age of 51,
he wrote his first novel — and immediately became one of the most popular and admired writers of
his time.
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, first published in 1740. It
tells in the first person the story of the virtuous lady's maid Pamela and the modest and agonized
delicacy, yet determination, with which she rebuffs and reforms her aristocratic would-be seducer
Mr B and is rewarded with marriage to him. Told through Pamela's probingly introspective letters
and diary, Pamela is widely considered a seminal influence on the direction the novel form was to
take towards psychological analysis and self-examination.
The heroine, Pamela Andrews, is a maid whose master makes unwanted advances towards her. She
rejects him until he shows his sincerity by proposing a fair marriage to her. In the second part of the
novel, Pamela attempts to accommodate herself to upper-class society and to build a successful
relationship with her husband.
Clarissa
Clarissa is an exceptionally long novel; excepting novel sequences, it may well be the longest novel in
the English language. The full volume of its third edition, the edition most extensively revised by
Richardson, spans over one million words. The first edition alone contains nearly 969,000 words.
Clarissa Harlowe, the tragic heroine of Clarissa, is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family
has become very wealthy only in recent years and is now eager to become part of the aristocracy by
acquiring estates and titles through advantageous pairings. Clarissa is forced by relatives to marry a
rich but heartless man against her will and, more importantly, against her own sense of virtue.
Desperate to remain free, she allows a young gentleman of her acquaintance, Lovelace, to scare her
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into escaping with him. However, she refuses to marry him, longing — unusually for a girl in her time
— to live by herself in peace. Lovelace, in the meantime, has been trying to arrange a fake marriage
all along, and considers it a sport to add Clarissa to his long list of conquests. However, as he is more
and more impressed by Clarissa, he finds it difficult to keep convincing himself that truly virtuous
women do not exist. The continuous pressure he finds himself under, combined with his growing
passion for Clarissa, forces him to extremes and eventually he rapes her. Clarissa manages to escape
from him, but remains dangerously ill. When she dies, however, it is in the full consciousness of her
own virtue, and trusting in a better life after death. Lovelace, tormented by what he has done but
still unable to change, dies in a duel with Clarissa's cousin. Clarissa's relatives finally realise the
misery they have caused, but discover that they are too late and Clarissa has already died.
Gothic Novel
You will almost certainly have a few questions on the Gothic novel on your exam. Some knowledge
of the books below will prepare you for almost any question you are likely to see.
'Gothic' came to be applied to the literary genre precisely because the genre dealt with such
emotional extremes and dark themes, and because it found its most natural settings in the buildings
of this style: Castles, Mansions and Monasteries, often remote, crumbling and ruined. It was a
fascination with this architecture and its related art, poetry (see Graveyard Poets) and even
landscape gardening that inspired the first wave of gothic novelists: Horace Walpole, whose seminal
The Castle of Otranto is often regarded as the first true gothic novel, was obsessed with fake
medieval gothic architecture and built his own house Strawberry Hill in that form, sparking off a
fashion for gothic revival.
A term to associate with the Gothic novel is gothic explique, which is the logical explanation at the
end of the book of an event that at first seems supernatural. This becomes a major component of
detective fiction (think Scooby Doo).
Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto
Walpole's landmark work, published in December 1764, purports to be a translation (as the 1765
title page has it) "from the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas
at Otranto," and the events related in it are supposed to have occurred in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. When the story opens, the villainous Manfred, prince of Otranto, in order to
get an heir to his estate, has arranged a marriage between his only son, Conrad, and the beautiful
Isabella. But on the night before the wedding, Conrad is mysteriously killed (he is crushed by a giant
helmet). Lest he should be left without male descendants, Manfred determines to divorce his
present wife, Hippolita, who is past childbearing, and marry Isabella himself.
Walpole writes as if by formula. The standard Gothic devices and motifs are all in place: moonlight,
a speaking portrait, the slamming of doors, castle vaults, an underground passage, blasts of wind,
rusty hinges, the curdling of blood, and above all, in practically every sentence, strong feelings of
terror ("Words cannot paint the horror of the princess's situation . . ."). But Walpole was the
inventor of the formula, and his influence — on Beckford, Radcliffe, and Lewis in this topic and then,
along with them, on subsequent English fiction (and on literature and films more generally) — is
incalculable.
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Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian
In Radcliffe's books, the hero is usually a gentleman of noble birth, likely as not in some sort of
disgrace; the heroine, an orphan-heiress, high-strung and sensitive, and highly susceptible to
music and poetry and to nature in its most romantic moods. A prominent role is given to the
tyrant-villain. He is a man of fierce and morose passions obsessed by the love of power and riches.
The villain can usually be counted on to confine the heroine in the haunted wing of a castle
because she refuses to marry someone she hates. Whatever the details, Mrs. Radcliffe generally
manages the plot and action so that the chief impression is a sense of the young heroine's incessant
danger. On oft-repeated midnight prowls about the gloomy passageways of a rambling, ruined
castle, the heroine in a quiver of excitement (largely self-induced) experiences a series of hair-raising
adventures and narrow escapes. Her emotional tension is kept to the pitch by a succession of
strange sights and sounds . . . and by an assorted array of sliding panels, trap doors, faded hangings,
veiled portraits, bloodstained garments, and even dark and desperate characters.
Names to associate with Radcliffe:
The Italian: Vincentio di Vivaldi, Ellena Rosalba, the mysterious monk Schedoni
The Mysteries of Udolpho: Montoni, Emily
M. G. Lewis’s The Monk
The Gothic novel is traditionally divided into two main branches, “terror” and ”horror”, and it is in
the latter that The Monk is to be placed. It is one of the most extreme examples of horror Gothic,
dealing as it does with such shocking topics as rape, matricide, and incest. In The Monk we see
Gothic being taken to its limits – both in terms of subject matter and public acceptability. The storm
of controversy the novel created on its publication in 1796 indicates that Lewis had gone well
beyond the more sedate story-lines of his avowed inspiration, Anne Radcliffe, the major
representative of terror Gothic. Where Radcliffe always provides a natural explanation for
ostensibly supernatural phenomena, Lewis revels in the use of the supernatural as a plot device.
The Monk concerns itself with the career of the Capuchin monk Ambrosio, an apparent orphan
who has been brought up under the care of his monastic order to become a charismatic preacher,
idolised by the population of Madrid. At the start of the narrative Ambrosio is a model of piety, but
he proves to be a very brittle character who only too easily succumbs to the temptations of the
devil. The devil's chosen instrument is the young monk Rosario, soon revealed to be a female in
disguise (and then later a demon). As Matilda she seduces Ambrosio and becomes his accomplice
in the career of sin that he proceeds to embark upon. Even before the seduction Ambrosio reveals
himself to be motivated less by piety than pride and vanity, and in the first instance of the
narrative's obsession with perverted sexuality, expresses erotic longings towards a painting of the
Virgin Mary (which turns out to be a likeness of Matilda).
Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey is a parody of the Gothic novel, and for that reason ETS loves to use it. The story
centers around the character of Cahterine Morland, who is an avid devotee of the genre. Invited to
spend some time at the Abbey home of the Tilney family, Catherine hopes for and fears all the
cliches of the Gothic novel, only to appear foolish before her hosts.
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Names to associate with Northanger Abbey: Cahterine Morland, the Allens, Henry Tilney, and John
Thorpe. Catherine Morland is also a fan of Anne Radclife's The Mysteries of Udolpho, and Austen
novel uses Radcliffe's for parodic effect.
!9th Century Novel
Jane Austen
Let's face the facts: there is just far too much Jane Austen that could appear on the exam, and you
can be certain that at least one of her books will show up. Again, it's a name game; concentrate on
learning the names of the primary characters, and take a brief look at the plots of the novels, but
don't attempt to memorize every little detail, and certainly don't waste your time reading the
novels. I have listed here only the names of the main characters, and in some instances, the opening
lines. Check out Spark Notes for more in-depth treatment of Jane Austen. Also, the GRE study books
that are out there give concise summarsies of all Austen's work.
Sense and Sensibility
Names to know:
Marianne Dashwood
Elinor Dashwood
Lucy Steel
John Willoughby
Colonel Brandon
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is essentially the story of a mother attempting to marry off her daughters.
Names to know:
Elizabeth Bennet
Jane Bennet
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Chrles Bingley
George Wickham
It begins:
IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in
want of a wife.
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However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a
neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is
considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
``My dear Mr. Bennet,'' said his lady to him one day, ``have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at
last?''
Mansfield Park
the Bertrams of Mansfield Park
Fanny Price
Mrs. Norris
Emma
Emma Woodhouse
Mr. Knightley
Miss Bates
Frank Churchill
Harriet Smith
Jane Fairfax
It begins:
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition,
seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the
world with very little to distress or vex her.
Persuasion
Sir Walter
Elizabeth Elliot|
Anne Elliot
Frederick Wentworth
Charlotte Bronte (1816 – 1855)
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters whose novels have
become enduring classics of English literature.
Jane Eyre
The narrator and main character, Jane Eyre, is a poor orphan with a joyless life as a child in the
opening chapters. Her wealthy aunt, the widowed Mrs. Reed, have agreed to take care of Jane after
her parents' deaths. However, she and her children are unkind to Jane, never failing to emphasize
how she is below them. Jane's plain, intelligent, and passionate nature, combined her occasional
"visions" or vivid dreams, certainly does not help to secure her relatives' affections.
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When tensions escalate, Jane is sent to Lowood, a boarding school run by the inhumane Mr.
Brocklehurst. She is soon is branded a liar, which hurts her even more than malnutrition and cold,
but Miss Temple, the headmistress Jane admires, later clears her of these charges. She also finds a
friend in Helen Burns, who is very learned and intelligent, has a patient and philosophical mind, and
believes firmly in God. While Jane responds to the injustices of the world with a barely contained
burning temper, Helen accepts earthly sufferings, including her own premature death from
consumption (TB), with calmness and a martyr-like attitude.
After a serious typhoid fever epidemic occuring simultaneously with Helen's death, the conditions in
Lowood improve as Jane slowly finds her place in the institution, eventually becoming a teacher.
When Miss Temple marries and moves away, Jane decides to change careers. She is desperate to see
the world beyond Lowood and puts out an advertisement in the local paper, soon securing a position
as governess in Thornfield Hall.
At first, life is very quiet with Jane teaching a young French girl, Adélè, and spending time with the
old housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax. But everything changes when the owner of the manor—brooding,
Byronic, fiery Edward Rochester—arrives. Though on rough footing at first, he and Jane slowly
become acquainted with and respect each other. Mr. Rochester creates an elaborate set-up by
seemingly courting a proud local beauty named Miss Blanche Ingram until Jane cannot bear it any
longer. Mr. Rochester then admits that his courtship of Miss Ingram was a ruse to arouse Jane's
jealousy and that it is she whom he truly loves. His feelings are returned, and they become engaged
despite their differences in social status, age, and experience. Jane is young and innocent at
nineteen years old, while Rochester is nearly forty—worldly, and thoroughly disillusioned with life
and religion. Jane is determined to stay modest, plain, and virtuous, and Rochester is almost equally
determined to offer her expensive presents and finery. The former has the moral high ground,
though, and the weeks before the wedding are spent mostly as she wishes.
The wedding ceremony is interrupted by a lawyer, who declares that Mr. Rochester is already
married. His mad wife Bertha Mason, a Creole from Jamaica whom he had to marry to secure an
estate, resides in the attic of Thornfield Hall, and her presence explains all sorts of mysterious events
that have taken place during Jane's stay in Thornfield. Mr. Rochester offers to take her abroad to live
with him, but Jane is not willing to sacrifice her morals or self-respect for earthly pleasures, let alone
accept the status of mistress, even though Rochester insists Jane will break his heart if she refuses
him. Torn between her love for Rochester and her own integrity and religion, Jane flees Thornfield in
the middle of the night, with very little money and nowhere to go.
She wanders for a few days and finally finds safe haven, under an alias, with a vicar, St. John Rivers,
and his two sisters. They bond, and in due course Jane is given a position as village schoolteacher.
Later, St. John learns Jane's true identity, and, in an incredulous coincidence, it transpires that he
and his sisters are actually her cousins. Additionally, Jane conveniently inherits a large sum of money
from an uncle who lived abroad. The cousins are left without inheritance because of an old family
feud, but she promptly splits the money so that all four of them are now financially secure. This gives
St. John the means to pursue his true calling, to go to India as a missionary, but not without
proposing marriage to Jane in order for her to accompany him. Though this is her opportunity to
choose a husband of high morals, she knows St. John does not truly love her. Counter to her protest,
he insists they are to be married if they are to go to India. Jane nearly succumbs to his proposal, but
at the last minute, in another supernatural fashion, she hears Rochester's voice calling her in the
wind, and feels the need to respond to it.
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Jane immediately travels to Thornfield Hall, only to find it abandoned and ruined by a devastating
fire. She learns that Mr. Rochester lost a hand, an eye, and the sight of the other eye as a result of
trying to unsuccessfully save Bertha from the flames, of which she was the cause of. Upon acquiring
the knowledge of his location, at a cabin called Ferndean, she sets off for it. She and Mr. Rochester
reconcile and marry, for he has adopted love and religion. She writes in the perspective of ten years
after their marriage, during which she gave birth to a son and Mr. Rochester gained part of his sight
back. Jane's long quest to find love and a sense of belonging is finally fulfilled. The book ends with a
look at the noble missionary death of St. John Rivers far away in India, most likely representing the
righteousness of the path Jane did not take.
Emily Bronte (1818 – 1848)
Emily Jane Brontë was a British novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel Wuthering
Heights,
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym
Ellis Bell.
Brontë's novel tells the tale of Catherine and Heathcliff, their all-encompassing love for one another,
and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them both. Social tensions prevent their union,
leading Heathcliff to shun and abuse society. The plot is given here in detail, as the book's narration
is at times non-linear.
The story is narrated by a character named Lockwood, who is renting a house from Heathcliff. The
house, Thrushcross Grange, is close to Wuthering Heights.
Much of the action itself is narrated to Lockwood during his illness by the housekeeper of
Thrushcross Grange, Nelly Dean. Lockwood's arrival is after much of the story has already happened
- but his story is interwoven with Dean's.
The plot is complicated, involving many turns of fortune. It begins with Mr. Earnshaw, the original
proprietor of Wuthering Heights, bringing back the dark-skinned foundling Heathcliff from Liverpool.
Initially, Earnshaw's children - Hindley and Catherine - detest the boy, but over time Heathcliff wins
Catherine's heart, to the resentment of Hindley, who sees Heathcliff as an interloper of his father's
affections. Later, Hindley is packed off to college by his father. Catherine and Heathcliff become
inseparable.
Upon Earnshaw's death three years later, Hindley comes home from college and surprises everyone
by also bringing home a wife, a woman named Frances. He takes over Wuthering Heights, and
brutalizes Heathcliff, forcing him to work as a hired hand. Despite this, Heathcliff and Catherine
remain the fastest of friends. By means of an accident (a dog bite), Catherine is forced to stay at the
Linton family estate Thrushcross Grange for some weeks, wherein she matures and grows attached
to the refined young Edgar Linton. A year later, Frances dies soon after the birth of Hindley's child
Hareton. The loss leaves Hindley despondent, and he turns to alcohol. Some two years after that,
Catherine becomes engaged to Edgar, causing Heathcliff to leave.
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After Catherine has been married to Edgar for three years, Heathcliff returns to see her, having
amassed significant wealth. He has duped Hindley into owing him Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff
learns of, and takes advantage of, a crush Edgar's sister Isabella has on him and he seduces and
elopes with her, much to Edgar's despair.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
Note that in British literary history, there are two men by name of Samuel Butler. Don't confuse this
Victorian Butler with the author of Hudibras.
The Way of All Flesh (1903)
The Way of All Flesh is a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler which attacks Victorian era
hypocrisy. Written between 1873 and 1884, it traces four generations of the Pontifex family. It
represents the diminishment of religious outlook from a Calvinistic approach, which is presented as
harsh. Butler dared not publish it during his lifetime, but when it was published, it was accepted as
part of the general revulsion against Victorianism.La
Erewhon (1872)
Erewhon, an anagram for "Nowhere," is a satire of Victorian society.
The first few chapters of the novel, dealing with the discovery of Erewhon, are in fact based on
Butler's own experiences in New Zealand, where as a young man he was a sheep farmer for about
four years (1860-1864) and where he explored parts of the interior of the South Island. (One of the
country's largest sheep farms, located in this region, is named Erewhon in his honour)
The greater part of the book consists of a description of Erewhon. The nature of this nation is clearly
intended to be ambiguous. At first glance Erewhon appears to be a utopia, yet it soon becomes clear
that this is far from the case. Yet for all the failings of Erewhon it is also clearly not a dystopia (or
anti-utopia), an undesirable society such as that depicted by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
As a satirical utopia Erewhon has sometimes been compared to Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan
Swift, the image of Utopia in this case also bearing strong parallels with the self-view of the British
Empire at the time.
Erewhon satirizes various aspects of Victorian society, including criminal punishment, religion and
anthropocentrism. In Erewhon law, offenders are treated as if they were ill, whilst ill people are
looked upon as criminals, for example. Another feature of Erewhon is that there are no machines,
because they are considered to be dangerous: they might develop consciousness and supersede
humankind. This last aspect of Erewhon reveals the influence of Charles Darwin's evolution theory;
Butler had read The Origin of Species soon after it was published in 1859.
Fanny Burney (1752-1840)
was an English novelist and diarist. She published her first novel Evelina anonymously in 1778. The
revelation of its authorship brought her nearly immediate fame by its narrative and comic power.
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She published Cecilia in 1782 and Camilla in 1796. Her three major novels, much admired by Jane
Austen, are about the entry into the world of a young, beautiful, intelligent but inexperienced girl.
Evelina
Evelina, the title character, is abandoned by her father, Sir John Belmont, who thought that he
would receive a fortune from marriage. Evelina's mother dies in childbirth, and Evelina is raised in
seclusion by Mr. Villars, her guardian. When Evelina grows up to be a beautiful and intelligent
woman, she travels to London to visit a friend, Mrs. Mirvan. She is introduced to society, falls in love
with the handsome Lord Orville. However, her ill-bred relatives, and in particular her vulgar
grandmother, Madame Duval, as well as the obstinate attentions of Sir Clement Willoughby frustrate
her happiness. To attain her proper station in London society, Evelina's friends contact Sir Belmont
to get him to acknowledge his daughter. Belmont announces that, in fact, he has had his daughter
with him since her mother's death. It turns out that the nurse had passed her own child to Sir
Belmont. Belmont discovers the imposition, recognizes Evelina, and she marries Lord Orville.
The novel was a great success in Burney's own lifetime. Her father was a friend of the leading men of
the age, and Frances herself knew most of these distinguished writers and artists. None of her
subsequent novels achieved the success of Evelina, but it was very well received, and the novel
compares favorably with the early novels of Jane Austen.
Charles Dickens
David Copperfield
The story deals with the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity and deals with issues
of child labor. David Copperfield – the protagonist; later called "Trotwood Copperfield" by some
("David Copperfield" is also the name of the hero's father, who died before he was born).
Edward Murdstone – Young David's cruel stepfather who caned him for falling behind in his studies.
David reacted by biting Mr Murdstone, who then sent him to Salem House - the private school
owned by his friend Mr. Creakle. After David's mother died, Mr Murdstone sent him to work in a
blacking factory. He appeared at Betsy Trotwood's house after David ran away. Mr Murdstone
appears to show signs of repentence when confronted with Copperfield's aunt but later in the book
we hear he has married another young woman and applied his old principles of "firmness".
James Steerforth – A close friend of David of a romantic and charming disposition; though well-liked
by most, he proves himself to be lacking in character by seducing and later abandoning Emily. He
eventually drowns at Yarmouth with Ham Peggotty, who was trying to rescue him.
The Pickwick Papers
The novel's main character, Mr. Pickwick, is a kind old gentleman, the founder of the Pickwick Club.
Mr. Pickwick travels with his friends, Mr. Nathaniel Winkle, Mr. Augustus Snodgrass, and Mr. Tracy
Tupman, and their adventures are the chief theme of the novel.
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Bleak House
The plot concerns a long-running legal dispute (Jarndyce and Jarndyce) which has far-reaching
consequences for all involved. Dickens's assault on the flaws of the British judiciary system is based
in part on his own experiences as a law clerk. His harsh characterization of the slow, arcane
Chancery law process gave voice to widespread frustration with the system, helping to set the stage
for its eventual reform in the 1870s.
Esther Summerson — an orphan
Caddy Jellyby — a friend of Esther
Nicholas Nickleby
The lengthy novel centres around the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, a young man who
must support his mother and sister after his father dies. His Uncle Ralph, who thinks Nicholas will
never amount to anything, plays the role of an antagonist.
The tone of the work is burlesque, with Dickens taking aim at what he perceives to be social
injustices. Many memorable characters are introduced, including Nicholas' malevolent uncle Ralph,
and the villainous Wackford Squeers, who operates a squalid boarding school at which Nicholas
temporarily serves as a tutor.
Great Expectations
Pip – an orphan, and the protagonist. Pip is to be trained as a blacksmith, a low but skilled and
honest profession, but strives to rise above his class after meeting Estella Havisham.
Joe Gargery – Pip's brother-in-law, and his first father figure. Joe represents the poor but honest life
that Pip rejects.
Miss Havisham
Estella [Havisham] – Miss Havisham's adopted daughter,
Hard Times (1854)
The book is one of a number of state-of-the-nation novels published around the same time, another
being North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, which aimed to highlight the social and economic
pressures some people were under. The novel is unusual, in that it is not set in London, as is Dickens'
usual wont, but the fictitious Victorian industrial town of Coketown.
Dickens' novel follows the classical tripartite structure of novels, and the titles of each book are
related to the proverbial aphorism, 'As you sow, so shall you reap'. The interpretation of this quote
being, what ever is effected upon or done in the present will have a direct effect on what happens
later. Book I is entitled 'Sowing', Book II is entitled 'Reaping', and the third is 'Garnering'. These titles
are a deliberate motif used, and have to be bared in mind when reading the book and analysing its
narrative and content.
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In Hard Times it can be affirmed that there is no main protagonist. A criticism of Dickens novels is
that the intricate plots and eventual denouement, mean that several characters are involved only to
represent ideas of Dickens, usually at the expense of their development as human beings. Ergo,
representing straw men and women.
Mr. Thomas Gradgrind
Tom Gradgrind is a utilitarian who is the founder of the educational system in Coketown. 'Eminently
practical' is Gradgrind's recurring description throughout the novel, and practicality is something he
zealously aspires to. He represents the stringency of 'Fact', statistics and other materialistic pursuits.
Only after his daughter's breakdown does he come to a realisation that things such as poetry, fiction
and other pursuits are not 'destructive nonsense'.
Josiah Bounderby
Josiah Bounderby is a business associate of Mr. Gradgrind. He is a bombastic, yet thunderous
merchant given to peroration. He employs many of the other central characters of the novel, and his
rise to prosperity is shown to be an example of social mobility. He marries Mr. Gradgrind's daughter
Louisa, some 25 years his junior, in what turns out to be a soulless matrimony. Bounderby is the
main target of Dickens' attack on the supposed moral superiority of the wealthy, and is revealed to
be an utter hypocrite in his sensational comeuppance at the end of the novel.
Louisa Gradgrind/Bounderby
Louisa is the unemotional, distant and eldest child of the Gradgrind family. She has been taught to
abnegate her emotions, and finds it hard to express herself clearly, saying as a child she has
'unmanageable thoughts'. She is married to Josiah Bounderby, in a very logical and businesslike
manner, representing the emphasis on factuality and business ethos of her education. Her marriage
is a disaster and is tempted into adultery by James Harthouse, yet, she manages to resist this
temptation.
Stephen Blackpool
'Old Stephen' as he is referred to by his fellow 'Hands' is an improvident, indigent worker at one of
Bounderby's mills. His life is immensely strenuous, and he is married to a constantly inebriated wife
who comes and goes throughout the novel. He forms a close bond with Rachael, a female worker.
After a dispute with Bounderby, he is dismissed from his work at the Coketown mills and is forced to
find work elsewhere. Whilst absent from Coketown he is accused of complicity in a crime he did not
commit, and tragically, on his way back to vindicate himself he falls into a pit, and seriously injures
himself. He is rescued, but dies.
Oliver Twist
Characters:
* Oliver Twist
* Fagin
* Bill Sikes
* The Artful Dodger
* Noah Claypole
* Mr. Brownlow
Oliver is a boy born in a workhouse, who has no idea of his parents' identity. His mother Agnes died
in childbirth. By pure chance he is chosen as a scapegoat by the other starving boys, and is made to
go and ask for an extra helping at a mealtime ("Please, sir, I want some more."). As a result of this
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breach of etiquette, he is "sold" by the workhouse as an undertaker's apprentice. The cruelty he
suffers at the hands of an older apprentice named Noah Claypole causes him to run away, and he
finds his way to London, where he is taken under the wing of the Artful Dodger, a boy criminal.
The Dodger introduces Oliver into his circle of friends, who include Fagin the Jew, a criminal
mastermind, and his brutal ally, Bill Sikes. Oliver is taught crimes such as picking pockets, but never
actually participates in them. He is shown kindness by Bill's 17-year-old mistress, Nancy.
After a robbery that goes wrong, in which Oliver played the part of an unwitting lookout, he is taken
into the home of a wealthy man, Mr Brownlow. Unknown to them, efforts are being made by
Oliver's half-brother, Monks, to locate him and prevent him from obtaining his inheritance, but Mr
Brownlow soon begins to suspect that Oliver is the son of his niece. Sikes and Nancy snatch Oliver
back, and Sikes takes him on a burglary, planning to get him a criminal record as a favour to Monks.
But Oliver is left behind when the burglary goes wrong, and is adopted into the home of Rose
Maylie. Ultimately he is restored to Mr Brownlow.
Meanwhile, Monks and Fagin are plotting to try to go after Oliver again and either kidnap him or kill
him. Nancy is fearful of such a scenario and goes to Rose Maylie and Mr Brownlow to divulge the
plot of the evil pair. She manages to keep her secret meetings hidden until Noah Claypole (he has
fallen out with the same undertaker who once employed Oliver and moved to London to seek his
own fortune) agrees to spy on Nancy and then gives information to Fagin and Sikes. In a fit of rage,
Sikes murders Nancy and is himself killed while being pursued by an angry mob. Monks is forced to
explain his secrets and give his inheritance to Oliver, and moves to America soon afterwards, where
he ultimately dies in prison. Fagin is arrested and hanged for his crimes. Rose Maylie marries her
long-time sweetheart Harry, and Oliver lives happily with his saviour, Mr Brownlow.
George Eliot (1819 – 1880)
George Eliot is the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, who was an English novelist. She was one of the
leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well known for
their realism and psychological perspicacity.
Middlemarch
In Middlemarch, Eliot interweaves the stories of various friends, acquaintances, and relations in the
town of Middlemarch. She demonstrates genuine compassion for each of her characters, yet she
seeds her portraits with critical—even cynical—assessments of human hypocrisy and weakness. She
is particularly tart on the topic of gender relations and the limited role of women.
The central character, Dorothea Brooke, is a beautiful and serious-minded young woman who
yearns for knowledge and the power to help others. She rejects a titled young man in favour of the
Reverend Edward Casaubon, a middle-aged clergyman who, she imagines, will teach her and engage
her in great works. Her marriage proves a terrible mistake, as Casaubon disdains her efforts to assist
him in his research, and Dorothea begins to realize the meanness of his intellectual ambitions.
Meanwhile, she makes the acquaintance of his poor relation, Will Ladislaw, who truly admires her
and who matches her in passion and ambition.
When Casaubon dies suddenly, Dorothea inherits his large fortune and tries to use it for the good of
others, despite her indignation on finding, in the terms of his will, that she is specifically forbidden to
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marry Will Ladislaw. In the end, she gives up the inheritance in order to find true happiness with
Will.
Dorothea's charitable works bring her into contact with Doctor Tertius Lydgate, who plans to build
and run a hospital in anticipation of epidemic typhus reaching Middlemarch. Lydgate falls in love
with the pretty but impractical Rosamond Vincy; their financial improvidence puts Lydgate in debt to
the disreputable attorney Bulstrode, whose attempts to conceal a scandal in his past lead him
eventually into real evil. Bulstrode never clears his name but finds true sympathy from his wife;
Lydgate becomes a successful-enough London doctor but never achieves happiness at home or
scientific greatness.
Meanwhile, Fred Vincy, Rosamond's irresponsible brother, takes a step down socially and
economically—but a step up in terms of integrity and hard work—as he allies himself with the Garth
family and finally marries plain but kindhearted Mary Garth. Along with Dorothea, whose pursuit of
true love is deemed socially unacceptable, Mary is a possible stand-in for Eliot herself. She is sensible
and loving, and when she publishes an historical volume for boys, nobody believes that a woman
could have written it.
Virginia Woolf described Middlemarch as "one of the few English novels written for grown up
people".
Silas Marner
Set in the early years of the 19th century, Silas Marner was a weaver and had been since a young
man. While living in this industrial town, he was also a highly thought of member of a little
Dissenting church. Silas was engaged to be married to a female member of the church and thought
his future happiness assured. However, due to the betrayal of a fellow parishioner, who blamed him
for a theft that he did not commit, Silas was expelled from the congregation. He found out later that
his former fiancee married the man who had betrayed him. Later on, he went to settle in the village
of Raveloe, where he lived as a recluse who existed only for work and his precious hoard of money
until that money was stolen by a son of Squire Cass, the town's leading land owner, causing him to
become heartbroken. Soon, however, an orphaned child came to Raveloe. She was not known by
the people there, but she was really the child of Godfrey Cass, the eldest son of the local Squire.
Because the mother was a woman of low birth, Godfrey had refused to clarify her as his wife, and
the woman, Molly, went to seek out Godfrey for revenge, but she never made it there and died on
the way. Silas named the child Eppie (after his deceased mother Hephzibah) and changed his life
completely. Symbolically, Silas lost his material gold only to have it replaced by the golden-haired
Eppie. Later in the book, the gold is found and restored. Godfrey wanted to take her back when she
was a young woman but she refused to go back with him and his second wife, Nancy Lammeter. At
the end, Eppie married a local boy, Aaron, son of Dolly Winthrop.
Adam Bede (1859)
Adam Bede is a young workman of twenty-six in the town of Hayslope in Loamshire. He is the
foreman of a carpentry shop where his brother, Seth, also works. The novel opens in the workshop
with an argument among the men about religion. We learn that Dinah Morris, a Methodist preacher
with whom Seth is in love, will speak in the village that evening.
Seth goes to the prayer meeting and afterwards proposes to Dinah, who refuses him. Meanwhile,
Adam has gone home and found out from his mother, Lisbeth, that his father, Thias, has gone off
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drinking instead of finishing a coffin he had contracted for. Working all night, Adam finishes the
coffin, and he and Seth deliver it in the morning. On their way home, they find the drowned body of
their father in a brook.
Joshua Rann, the parish clerk, informs Mr. Irwine, the local Anglican clergyman, that the Methodists
are stirring up dissension in Hayslope. Mr. Irwine and Arthur Donnithorne, grandson and heir of the
local landowner, ride over to see Dinah at the Hall Farm, a place tenanted by the Poysers, Dinah's
uncle and aunt. Mr. Irwine speaks to Dinah and is impressed by her religious sincerity. Meanwhile,
Arthur flirts with another of the Poysers' nieces, Hetty Sorrel, and she is greatly flattered by his
attentions.
Mr. Irwine informs Dinah of Thias Bede's death, and she goes to the Bedes' cottage and comforts
Lisbeth. Arthur learns on the same occasion that Hetty will be at the Chase, his manor, in two days'
time, and he places himself so as to meet her in a grove on the grounds. After talking with her, he is
ashamed of himself for being attracted to a mere farm girl, but he cannot break the spell and later
that day intercepts her again in the same grove and kisses her. Ashamed of his behavior once more,
he decides to tell his troubles to Mr. Irwine, hoping that confession will cure his passion. But when
he speaks to the clergyman at Broxton parsonage the following morning, he loses his nerve and says
nothing about Hetty. Meanwhile, Dinah has encouraged Hetty to come to her if she ever needs help,
but Hetty, a thoughtless little thing who feels that no trouble will ever come to her, repulses the
offer. Dinah leaves for her home in Snowfield, Stonyshire, the next day.
Thias Bede is buried, and Adam reflects that now he can begin to look forward to marriage; he is in
love with Hetty. He goes to the Hall Farm and finds that Hetty seems more friendly towards him than
in the past; he doesn't realize that her thoughts are all of Arthur, and his hopes rise. While visiting
Bartle Massey, the local schoolmaster, that evening, he learns that the keeper of the Chase woods
has had a stroke and that the job may be offered to him. Adam's marriage prospects look bright
indeed, both from a financial and an emotional viewpoint.
Arthur's twenty-first birthday arrives, and all the tenants of the estate gather for a grand
celebration. There is a round of toasts at dinnertime and everyone wishes the popular Arthur well.
Adam is offered the job as keeper of the woods and he accepts it. There are games in which the
townspeople compete in the afternoon and a dance in the evening. At the dance, Adam discovers by
accident that Hetty is wearing a locket which looks like a lover's token, but he dismisses the thought
that she is interested in another man. The locket, of course, is a gift from Arthur; he and Hetty are
carrying on a secret affair.
About three weeks later, Adam happens to be passing through the grove on the Chase grounds
when he finds Arthur and Hetty in an embrace. He is furious, starts a fight with Arthur, and knocks
him out. When Arthur revives, Adam forces him to promise to write a note to Hetty breaking off the
relationship. After much soul-searching, Arthur composes the note and gives it to Adam to deliver.
He then leaves to join his regiment in the south of England. Adam delivers the note, trying to soften
the blow to Hetty as much as possible. Before she reads the letter, Hetty refuses to believe that
Arthur wants to break off the relationship; she is convinced that Arthur will marry her. After she
reads it, she is in despair. She wants to leave home and go into service as a maid, but the Poysers
won't let her. Finally she begins to feel that marrying Adam wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.
Meanwhile, Dinah has written a friendly letter to Seth from Snowfield, and Mrs. Poyser has verbally
routed Squire Donnithorne, Arthur's grandfather, who was bent on making a sharp deal with respect
to the Poyser's farm.
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When Adam notices that Hetty's friendly attitude toward him does not change, he concludes that
there had really been nothing serious between Arthur and her. He proposes to her, she accepts, and
the wedding is set for the following spring. Adam is deliriously happy and spends the next three
months making preparations. Hetty, meanwhile, has fits of depression and contemplates suicide; she
is pregnant by Arthur. She decides to run away and go to Arthur; telling the Poysers that she is going
to visit Dinah in Snowfield for a week or two, she sets out.
After traveling for seven days, Hetty arrives sick, exhausted, and penniless, at Windsor. Here she is
befriended by an innkeeper and his wife who inform her that Arthur's regiment has left for Ireland.
Hetty faints in despair, but the next day her courage revives, she gets some money from the
innkeeper in exchange for the jewelry Arthur had given her, and she heads back north, intending to
go to Dinah in Snowfield. After five days of traveling, though, her spirits give out, and she leaves her
coach and wanders out into the open fields. She spends part of a night by a pond but can't summon
the courage to kill herself and so resumes her journey on foot towards Stonyshire.
When Hetty does not return in the expected time, Adam decides to go to Snowfield and bring her
back. He discovers, of course, that she has never been there, and he tries to trace her but to no avail.
Realizing that she has probably gone to Arthur, he resolves to go to Ireland. He stops at the
parsonage to tell Mr. Irwine his plans and is shocked to learn that Hetty is in prison in Stoniton for
the murder of her baby. He and Mr. Irwine go to Stoniton; Mr. Irwine returns the next day to break
the bad news to the Poysers, while Adam rents a room and stays. Meanwhile, Arthur's grandfather
has died and Arthur has set out for home from Ireland.
As the trial begins, Adam sits in his room in despair. Mr. Irwine and Bartle Massey (who has come to
stay with Adam) bring news of how the trial is progressing; Hetty's guilt seems certain, though Adam
refuses to believe it. Finally he goes to the courtroom himself. Two witnesses give evidence against
Hetty, the jury returns the verdict of guilty, and the judge pronounces the death sentence.
Meanwhile, Arthur has returned home, found a note from Mr. Irwine explaining the situation, and
left for Stoniton.
On the evening after the trial, Dinah comes to the prison and gains admittance; she has been away
and has just returned to the area. She gets Hetty to confess her guilt, which the girl had refused to
do before, and induces her to pray. Dinah then goes and asks Adam to come and see Hetty before
she dies. He comes the following morning, the day of the execution, and gives Hetty the forgiveness
she asks for. Then Hetty is taken away to the place of execution. But at the last instant, Arthur comes
riding up with a reprieve; Hetty's sentence has been commuted to "transportation" (exile). The next
day, Adam and Arthur meet by chance in the grove where they had fought. Arthur is repentant and
plans on going off to the wars. He asks Adam's forgiveness, and Adam, after a short struggle with his
pride, agrees to shake hands.
Eighteen months later, Adam visits the Hall Farm to ask Dinah, who is visiting her relatives again, to
come and comfort his ailing mother. Dinah goes back to the cottage with him and stays overnight to
help Lisbeth. She blushes when Adam speaks to her. After she leaves, Lisbeth tells Adam that Dinah
loves him; Adam is taken by surprise, but when he thinks about it he realizes that he loves her too.
That afternoon he goes to the Hall Farm and proposes; Dinah wants to say yes, but her sense of duty
stops her. She says she will return to her work among the poor and think about it. Adam reluctantly
agrees and Dinah leaves. It is harvest time at the farm, and the harvest supper takes place with great
gaiety.
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After a month or so, Adam becomes anxious to know Dinah's decision and goes to Snowfield. He
meets her atop a hill and she accepts his proposal. After another month has passed, they are
married amid great rejoicing.
Some years later, Dinah and Seth are at home with Dinah's two children. Adam comes home; he has
been to see Arthur, who has been away all this time and has returned a changed man. We learn that
Hetty is dead, and then the novel ends on a note of domestic contentment.
Thomas Hardy
The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-imaginary county of Wessex, is marked by imaginative
poetic descriptions, and a foreboding sense of fatalism. D.H. Lawrence greatly admired Hardy’s
ability to ennoble the common man.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
It is Hardy's penultimate written novel. Though now considered to be a great classic of English
literature, the book was poorly received at the time of its initial publication. The poignant portrait of
heroine Tess illustrates Hardy's deep understanding of women.
The story concerns a simple country girl, Tess Durbeyfield, whose father's pretensions to social
status lead her into the company of the nouveau-riche d'Urberville family. In a scene which suggests
rape, though it is open to interpretation, Tess is made pregnant by the rakish Alec d'Urberville. Tess
returns home in disgrace, but the child she bears soon dies, leaving her free to leave her village once
again to look for work. While employed as a milkmaid, she encounters the morally upright Angel
Clare, who falls in love with her. After their marriage, she is honest with him about her past; though
Angel is educated, he remains basically naive, and cannot reconcile his real affection for Tess, his
wounded pride, and his image of Tess as a semi-pagan Mary figure.
Abandoned by Angel, Tess is lured into a liaison with Alec d'Urberville, who comes back into her
life by chance. When Alec lays eyes on Tess once more, he ruthlessly hunts her down, determined to
win her back into his life of sin. Tess, influenced by her desprate situation and the perception that
her husband will never rejoin her, yeilds to Alec's determination and allows him to support her
while she lives with him. Eventually Angel returns, repentant, to reclaim her, and Tess murders
Alec in order to be with her legal husband. They flee together, but the police catch up with them
at Stonehenge, in a memorable finale. Tess is hanged for the murder of Alec.
The Mayor of Casterbridge
It is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge (based on the town of Dorchester in Dorset). Hardy
subtitled the novel "The Life and Death of a Man of Character".
Under the influence of alcohol, Michael Henchard, a young hay-trusser, sells his wife and daughter
in a country fair to a sailor. Once sober, he swears never to touch liquor again.
Eighteen years later, Henchard, now a successful grain merchant and the Mayor of Casterbridge, is
reunited with Susan, the wife he gave away at a country fair. The return of his wife and daughter
sets in motion a decline in his fortunes. The daughter, Elizabeth Jane, soon falls in love with Donald
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Farfrae, whom Henchard has employed as an assistant. Until his wife's death, Henchard is unaware
that Elizabeth Jane is not his own child, but that of the man who "bought" Susan from him. He
conceals the secret from her. His growing resentment of Donald Farfrae leads to his standing in the
way of a marriage between Donald and Elizabeth Jane.
In the meantime, Henchard's former mistress, Lucetta, arrives in town, and attracts Donald, who
marries her. Rumours spread of her previous relationship with Michael Henchard, and both are
disgraced. Lucetta dies. When Newson, Elizabeth Jane's real father, returns, Henchard, afraid of
losing her companionship, pretends she is dead. By the time Elizabeth Jane, now married to Donald
Farfrae and reunited with Newson, goes looking for Henchard to forgive him, he has died.
Jude the Obscure
Jude the Obscure is the last of Thomas Hardy's novels, first published in 1895.
Called "Jude the Obscene" by at least one reviewer, Jude the Obscure received so harsh a reception
from scandalized critics that Hardy stopped writing fiction altogether, producing only poetry and
drama for the rest of his life. It was first published under the title The Simpletons; and then Hearts
Insurgent in the European and American editions of Harper's New Monthly Magazine
The novel is often thought of as Thomas Hardy's best work, not only for the elaborate structuring of
the plot, where small and subtle details lead to the character's ruin, but in the themes of the book.
Such themes include how human loneliness and sensuality can stop a person from trying to fulfill his
dreams; how, when free from the trap of marriage, one's dreams will not be fulfilled if one is of a
lower status; how the educated classes are often more like sophists than intellectuals; how living a
libertine life full of integrity and passion will be condemned as scandalous in conservative society;
and how religion is nothing but a mistaken sense that the tragedies that wear down an individual are
the result of having sinned against a higher being.
As in most of Hardy's novels except, perhaps, for Far From the Madding Crowd, Hardy manipulates
the downfall of his characters like a sadistic god—as if he were a true believer in a deity that was not
a redeemer but a cruel monster (a motif frequently called a "rigged doom").
The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, a stonemason who yearns to be a scholar at
"Christminster", a city modelled on Oxford, England. Denied entry into the university, Jude is
manipulated into an unwanted marriage with a country girl, Arabella, who soon deserts him. He
becomes obsessed with his cousin, Sue Bridehead, even after she marries his former schoolteacher.
Sue is attracted to the normalcy of her married life but quickly finds the relationship an unhappy one
because, inherently, she is a libertine like Jude.
When Jude and Sue begin to live together, employers, who find out about this illicit relationship and
its bastard children, dismiss Jude from his employment—and landlords continually evict them. Jude's
eldest son (from his first marriage to Arabella), also called Jude but known as "Little Father Time",
after observing the problems he and his siblings are causing their parents, hangs Sue's two children
and then himself. The child leaves a pathetically misspelled note that reads: Done because we are
too menny.
This tragedy ends Jude's relationship with Sue who returns to her first husband, Phillotson, after
experiencing extreme religious guilt. After being tricked yet another time into remarrying Arabella,
Jude falls ill and makes one last trip to Sue. Sue first confirms her intense love for him then leaves
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him forever, evincing the moral stranglehold of the church. Jude returns home and dies alone as
Arabella is out courting his doctor.
Far from the Madding Crowd
Far from the Madding Crowd is a novel by 19th century English novelist Thomas Hardy, published in
1874. The title is apt, as the life of the book's heroine, Bathsheba Everdene, living in the quiet rural
village of Weatherbury is indeed disrupted by the "madding crowd". After shunning the first man to
love her, the shepherd Gabriel Oak, she is courted by two others: the lonely and repressed farmer
Boldwood, and the charming but faithless Sergeant Troy. The role of fate is clearly established, with
each twist and turn in the book being more luck than the choice of one of the characters. The book is
widely seen as Hardy's first masterpiece.
Hardy's Poetry
Though known to us primarily as a novelist, Hardy was in fact a rather accomplished (and good)
poet, and a poem of his may appear on the GRE.
“The Darkling Thrush”
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An agèd thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
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Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
From: “Channel Firing”
That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgement-day
And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worm drew back into the mounds,
The glebe cow drooled. Till God cried, “No;
It’s gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:
“All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.
“That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening. . . .
William Thackeray (1811-1863)
An English novelist of the 19th century, he was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair,
a satire of middle-class English society.
Vanity Fair
The title is a reference to John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
The story opens at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for young ladies, where we meet the main characters,
Becky Sharp, a strong-willed and cunning young woman determined to make her way in society, and
Amelia Sedley, a good natured though simple-minded young girl. The book accompanies Becky and
Amelia's life through happy times and sorrowful days between London, Brighton, the countryside
and the Battle of Waterloo.
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After Amelia's completion of studies at Miss Pinkerton's Academy, she invited her friend Becky to
her home. It was there that Miss Sharp met with Amelia's lover George Osborne and her brother,
Joseph Sedley, a clumsy and vainglorious official who serves in India. Because of his wealth and
status, Becky purposely enticed him and hoped to marry him, though eventually failed as a result of
Joseph's shyness and his foolish act in party at Vauxhall.
With the failure of this hope, Becky Sharp said farewell to Sedley's family and headed to baronet Pitt
Crawley's home to serve as a governess. Her behaviour at baronet's house gained the favour of Sir
Pitt, who eventually proposed to marry Miss Sharp, but was politely rejected.
Sir Pitt's sister, Miss Crawley, was a woman of affluence. Her great wealth was a source of constant
conflict between members of Crawley family who fought for her inheritance. Captain Rawdon
Crawley, nephew of Miss Crawley, was the inheritor and favourite of her aunt. Miss Sharp succeeded
in gaining Rawdon's heart and eloped with him. Miss Crawley, enraged by the elopement because of
Becky's low birth, eventually disinherited her nephew.
While Becky Sharp was trying to gain her wealth and status, Amelia's father went bankrupt. Captain
George Osborne, persuaded by his friend Dobbin, married Amelia in spite of her poverty and his
father's fierce objection.
When all these personal incidents were going on, Napoleon escaped Elba and reorganised his army.
George Osborne and William Dobbin were sent to Brussels in order to fight the French army. In
Brussels George met with Becky and the disinherited Captain Crawley. The newly wedded Osborne
was by now growing tired of Amelia and he became increasingly attracted to Becky, who was now
Mrs Crawley.
Before Osborne could run away with Mrs Crawley, he was sent to Waterloo and killed in the battle,
leaving behind Amelia and his posthumous son George (same name as his father) in the world. With
the death of Osborne, young George's godfather Dobbin gradually expressed more love and concern
to Amelia. However, his regiment was dispatched abroad before he could confess his true affection
to Amelia.
After the war, Becky and Rawdon Crawley went to Paris; then they returned to London, leaving
behind a large amount of debts in France. Becky's obscure relationship with Lord Steyne was
discovered by Rawdon, who in a rage abandoned his wife and moved abroad. Mrs Crawley, having
lost both husband and status, became a wanderer.
As Amelia's son George grew up his grandfather became fond of him and took him away from his
daughter-in-law when her family lacked the money to foster him. Meanwhile both Joseph Sedley
and William Dobbin returned to England. Dobbin professed his unchanged love to Amelia, although
Amelia was also affectionate to Dobbin, she could not forget the memory of her dead husband and
thus refused.
While in England, Dobbin managed a reconciliation between Amelia and her father-in-law. The death
of George's grandfather gave Amelia and young George a large fortune.
After the death of old Mr Osborne. Amelia, Joseph, George and Dobbin went on a trip to Germany,
where they encountered the destitute Becky. Dobbin again professed his love to Amelia, but was
refused again, thus left her.
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However, Becky, in a moment of conscience, showed Amelia the note that George (Amelia's dead
husband) gave her which asked her to run away with him. This broke George's idealised image in
Amelia's mind, thus eventually bringing Dobbin and Amelia together, who happily lived ever after.
Becky resumed her seduction of Joseph Sedley and gained control over him. He eventually died of a
suspicious ailment after signing a portion of his money to Becky as life insurance. It is hinted that she
may have murdered him to make her fortune.
19th Century Essayists
The ETS makes a big to-do about the figures contained herein. The study books published by
Princeton Review and REA handle this subject concisely, so I suggest you look there to find a more
adequate treatment of the subject. To this list, Princeton Review adds Matthew Arnold who I have
included with the Romantic poets.
John Ruskin
Rushkin invented the term "pathetica fallacy," so if you see it on the exam, you'll know you're
looking at Ruskin.In literary criticism, the pathetic fallacy is the description of inanimate natural
objects in a manner that endows them with human emotions, thoughts, sensations, and feelings.
Examples of the pathetic fallacy include:
* "The stars will awaken / Though the moon sleep a full hour later" (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
* "The fruitful field / Laughs with abundance" (William Cowper)
* "Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty" (Walt Whitman)
* "Nature abhors a vacuum" (John Ruskin's translation of the well-known Medieval saying natura
abhorret a vacuo, in his work Modern Painters.)
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
English philosopher and political economist, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He
was an advocate of utilitarianism. His notable works include:
(1859) On Liberty:
Perhaps the most memorable point made by Mill in this work, and his basis for liberty, is that "Over
himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign". Mill is compelled to say this due to
what he calls the "tyranny of the majority" (a line from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in
America), wherein through control of etiquette and morality, society is an unelected power that can
do horrific things.
(1869) The Subjection of Women: a progressive work in which Mill changes the mistreatment of
women from a philosophical, moral, and economic perspective.
"What is poetry" -- This is an essay in which Mill defines poetry athe expression of the self to the
self.
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John Henry, Cardinal Newman
Newman was widely considered the best writer of prose in his day, as Stephen Daedulus in A
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man argues to his peers.
Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Latin, "A defence of one's life") is the classic defence of the religious opinions
of John Henry Newman, published in 1864 in response to what he saw as an unwarranted attack on
Roman Catholic doctrine by Charles Kingsley.
The Idea of a University -- As the title suggests, in this work Newman addresses the idea of the
universityas "the high protecting power of all knowledge and science, of fact and principle, of inquiry
and discovery of experiment and speculation."
Thomas Carlyle
Carlyle's major work, Sartor Resartus (meaning 'The tailor re-tailored'), purported to be a
commentary on the thought and early life of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdröckh
(which translates as 'god-born devil-shit'), author of a tome entitled "Clothes: their Origin and
Influence." Teufelsdröckh's Transcendentalist musings are mulled over by a skeptical English editor
who also provides fragmentary biographical material on the philosopher.
Sartor Resartus, published in 1833, was intended to be a new kind of book: simultaneously factual
and fictional, serious and satirical, speculative and historical. It ironically commented on its own
formal structure (as Tristram Shandy had, long before), while forcing the reader to confront the
problem of where 'truth' is to be found. The imaginary "Philosophy of Clothes" holds that meaning is
to be derived from phenomena, continually shifting over history, as cultures reconstruct themselves
in changing fashions, power-structures, and faith-systems.
A few names to associate with the work:
Blumine
Dumbdrudge
Hofrath Heuschrecke
Weissnichtwo
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British Romantic Poetry
William Blake (1757–1827)
Your GRE exam will probably have a poem from either Songs of Experience or from Songs of
Innocence -- almost certainly either "The Tyger" or "The Lamb." Chances are good that the more
psychedlic stuff like Visions of the Daughers of Albion will not be on the test, but they might.
"Songs of Innocence"
Songs of Innocence is a collection of illustrated lyrical poetry, published by William Blake in 1789. Its
companion volume is Songs of Experience.
Blake believed that innocence and experience were "the two contrary states of the human soul,"
and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Songs of Innocence contains poems
either written from the perspective of children or written about them. This collection includes “The
Lamb.”
“The Lamb”
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight;
Softest clothing, wooly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and he is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Songs of Experience
The Songs of Experience is a poetry collection, forming the second part of William Blake's Songs of
Innocence and Experience. Many of the poems appearing in Innocence have a counterpart in
'Experience', with quite a different perspective of the world. The disastrous end of the French
Revolution caused Blake to lose faith in the goodness of mankind, explaining much of the volume's
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sense of despair. Blake also believed that children lost their innocence through exploitation and
from a religious community which put dogma before mercy. This collection includes “The Tyger.”
“The Tyger"
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
“Mock On, Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau”
Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, mock on; 'tis all in vain!
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.
And every sand becomes a gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back they blind the mocking eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.
The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton's Particles of Light
Are sands upon the Red Sea shore,
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.
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The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, written between 1790 and 1793, is the most complex work of
Blake's early years. It consists of 24 Plates (as well as three further Plates under the separate title “A
Song of Liberty”) and has at its heart an opposition between Heaven, conceived as an image of
restraint and passivity, and Hell, an image of energy and action. Both of these “contraries”, Blake
claims, are necessary for human life; but there is little doubt as to which is more to his taste. In the
fourth Plate we hear the voice of the Devil, making three crucial claims which in turn underpin
Blake's own world-view:
1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the
five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of
Energy.
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.
This rejection of reason as the touchstone of the human in favour of a revaluation of the body and
its desires is pursued throughout the Marriage, perhaps most famously in some of the “proverbs of
Hell” which comprise Plates 7 to 10 of the poem. Some of the best-known, frequently to be found as
recently as the 1960s as emblematic graffiti, are the following:
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
Exuberance is Beauty.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
Some of these aphorisms, especially the last-quoted, may appear mystically anarchic; but it must be
remembered that Blake is trying to assert a different set of values against the received wisdom of his
day. Later in the poem, the narrator has an encounter with an “Angel”, who threatens him with Hell
for his beliefs; but the narrator counters by delving into his own imagination and showing the
“Angel” that his vision of Heaven and Hell is merely an extension of his belief in the changelessness
of society, and that an alternative vision, based on change and potentiality, is also possible.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell can be seen as a kind of treatise on how to think beyond confining
limits, on how to value energy and excitement and not to be restrained by conventional patterns of
thought. If it speaks in its title of a “marriage”, the reader is nonetheless at liberty to question
whether this marriage will necessarily be a smooth one, and whether what is really at stake here is
an eternal battle between order and chaos, between reason and energy, between social constraint
and imaginative freedom.
Visions of the Daughters of Albion
The central action of Visions of the Daughters of Albion is clear. The maiden Oothoon, accepting
love, goes fearlessly to her lover Theotormon, but her happiness is short-lived. She is raped by a
figure of violence, Bromion, but worse, Theotormon thereafter regards her as defiled; in his jealousy
he ties Oothoon and Bromion back to back, and it is with this unmoving scene that the poem
concludes. What, then, is the poem about? At one level, it is clearly about sexual jealousy and about
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double standards. In the last part of the poem, Oothoon has a long and very powerful speech on
these themes:
I cry, Love! Love! Love! Happy, happy love, free as the mountain wind!
Can that be love that drinks another as a sponge drinks water,
That clouds with jealousy his nights, with weepings all the day,
To spin a web of age around him, grey and hoary, dark,
Till his eyes sicken at the fruit that hangs before his sight?
Such is self-love that envies all, a creeping skeleton
With lamplike eyes watching around the frozen marriage bed.
But it also needs to be remembered that alongside this indictment of the curtailment of sexual
freedom, Oothoon is referred to as the 'soft soul of America', and throughout the poem there runs a
critique of both British oppression of the colonies and also the American slave trade.
“London”
I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every black’ning Church appalls ;
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
Lord Byron
Byron is not as much of a player on the GRE as you might imagine, though the fact that Childe
Harold’s Pilgrimages is written in Spensarian stanzas is the kind of thing that those GRE people
would love to quiz you over.
“She Walks in Beauty”
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
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Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
"Manfred"
A 1817 poem by Lord Byron, and considered by some to be his response to the ghost story craze
sweeping through England at the time, Manfred is a dramatic poem very much in the tradition of
Goethe’s Faust. It begins:
Mandred: The lamp must be replenish'd, but even then
It will not burn so long as I must watch.
My slumbers-- if I slumber-- are not sleep,
But a continuance of enduring thought,
Which then I can resist not: in my heart
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close
To look within; and yet I live, and bear
The aspect and the form of breathing men.
But grief should be the instructor of the wise;
Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.
Philosophy and science, and the springs
Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world,
I have essay'd, and in my mind there is
A power to make these subject to itself-But they avail not: I have done men good,
And I have met with good even among men-But this avail'd not: I have had my foes,
And none have baffled, many fallen before me-But this avail'd not: Good, or evil, life,
Powers, passions, all I see in other beings,
Have been to me as rain unto the sands,
Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread,
And feel the curse to have no natural fear
Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes
Or lurking love of something on the earth.
Now to my task.-247
Byronic Hero
A theme that pervades much of Byron's work is that of the Byronic hero, an idealised but flawed
character whose attributes include:
* being a rebel
* having a distaste for social institutions
* being an exile
* expressing a lack of respect for rank and privilege
* having great talent
* hiding an unsavoury past
* being highly passionate
* ultimately, being self-destructive
Not only is the character a frequent part of his work, Byron's own life could cast him as a Byronic
hero. The literary history of the Byronic hero in English can be traced from Milton, especially Milton's
interpretation of Lucifer as having justified complaint against God. One of Byron's most popular
works in his lifetime, the closet play "Manfred," was loosely modeled on Goethe's anti-hero, Faust.
Byron's influence was manifested by many authors and artists of the Romantic movement during the
19th century and beyond. An example of such a hero is Heathcliff from Emily Brontë's Wuthering
Heights.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimages
A long narrative poem about masculinity. In Byron's poem, the main character is portrayed as a dark
brooding man, who doesn't like society and wants to escape from the world because of his
discontent with it. It deals with the underdog and Military might. Byron uses gothic literature
imagery to get sublime nature, representing adventure, such as climbing mountains for sport.
Previous to this, mountain climbing had been thought of as being associated with evil. Instead this
poem deals with engaging and conquering the dark side of nature. The poem describes the travels
and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry,
looks for distraction in foreign lands.
(Note: The term childe was a medieval title for a young man who was a candidate for knighthood.)
**It has four cantos written in Spenserian stanzas, which consist of eight iambic pentameter lines
followed by a one alexandrine (a twelve syllable iambic line), and rhyme ababbcbcc.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
One important thing to note about Coleridge, which I do not discuss below, is that he co-wrote The
Lyrical Ballads with Wordsworth. For my money, I'd bet on seeing "On Donne's poetry" and "Frost at
Midnight," but there are a fair nuumber of works by Coleridge that could appear on your exam.
“Frost at Midnight”
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*“On Donne’s Poetry”
With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots ;
Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,
Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.
Biographia Literaria
Coleridge’s thesis is that the imagination is the supreme faculty of the human intellect, and its
cultivation is both a prerequisite and the aim of poetry. For him, “imagination” is the process of
keenly perceiving the phenomena of the world and self, and then re-expressing phenomena through
the creative faculties of the poet’s whole being, the mind and the soul, the rational and the
irrational.
All that is necessary to identify this passage is the following information:
Coleridge always capitalizes the words “Imagination” and “Fancy,” which recur throughout the
work.
“Kubla Khan”
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
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And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
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John Keats (1795-1821)
John Keats was one of the principal poets in the English Romantic movement. During his short life,
his work was the subject of constant critical attacks, and it was not until much later that the
significance of the cultural change which his work both presaged and helped to form was fully
appreciated. Keats's poetry is characterised by an exuberant love of the language and a rich,
sensuous imagination; he often felt that he was working in the shadow of past poets, and only
towards the end of his life was he able to produce his most original and most memorable poems.
Endymion
John Keats starts off the poem Endymion with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy forever". In this
epic, Keats takes the tale of Endymion, the shepherd who falls in love with Selene, the moon
goddess, and adds the details to their story. It starts by painting a rustic scene of trees, rivers,
herders, and sheep. They gather around an alter and pray to Pan, god of shepherds and flocks. As
the youths sing and dance, the elder men sit and talk about how life would be like in the shades of
Elysium. However, Endymion is trancelike, participating in none of their discourse. His sister takes
him away and brings him to her resting place where he sleeps. After he wakes, he tells Peona of his
encounter with Selene, and how much he loved her.
Book I gives an account of Endymion's dreams and experiences and give the background for the rest
of the poem.
Book III reveals Endymion's enduring love, and he begs the Moon not to torment him any longer.
Book IV, "And so he groan'd, as one by beauty slain." He is miserable, till quite suddenly he comes
upon her. She then tells him of how she tried to forget him, to move on, but that in the end, "'There
is not one,/ No, no, not one/ But thee to comfort a poor lonely maid;'"
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
’Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
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An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.
“The Eve of St. Agnes”
A long poem, "The Eve of Saint Agnes" was written immediately after Keats met Fanny Brawne, who
would eventually become his fiancée in October 1819. The basis of the poem is the superstition that
a woman would see her future husband if she performed a certain ritual on the eve of Saint Agnes. If
she were to go to bed without looking behind her back, her future partner would appear in a dream,
eat with her and kiss her. In his original version, Keats emphasised the sensuality but his publishers
persuaded him to change the wording so as to avoid a controversy. The main characters are
Madeline and Porphyro. Porphyro sings to her “La Belle Dame sans Merci.”
The first of 42 stanzas:
ST. AGNES’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.
Isabella
Isabella', an adoption of the story of the 'Pot of Basil' in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron
It begins:
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love’s eye!
They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
Without some stir of heart, some malady;
They could not sit at meals but feel how well 5
It soothed each to be the other by;
They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep
But to each other dream, and nightly weep.
“La Belle Dame sans Merci”
O what can ail thee Knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering ?
The sedge has withered from the Lake
And no birds sing!
O what can ail thee Knight at arms,
So haggard, and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full
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And the harvest’s done.
I see a lilly on the thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too
I met a Lady in the Meads
Full beautiful, a faery’s child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild-I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant Zone;
She look’d at me as she did love
And made sweet moan-I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sidelong would she bend and sing
A faery’s song-She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said
I love thee true-She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sigh’d full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d, Ah Woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried ‘La belle Dame sans merci
Thee hath in thrall.’
I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering
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Though the sedge is withered from the Lake,
And no birds sing.
Theory from the Letters
Keats has garnered some celebrity for ideas he expressed in his letters. They may come up on the
GRE. "Negative Capability" is by far the more famous and important of the two concepts.
The Mansion of Many Apartments is a theory of the poet John Keats, expressed in his letter to John
Hamilton Reynolds dated Sunday, 3 May 1818.
I compare human life to a large Mansion of Many Apartments, two of which I can only describe, the
doors the rest being as yet shut upon me - The first we step into we call the infant or thoughtless
Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think - We remain there a long while, and
notwithstanding the doors of the second Chamber remain wide open, showing a bright appearance,
we care not to hasten to it; but are at length imperceptibly impelled by awakening of the thinking
principle - within us - we no sooner get into the second Chamber, which I shall call the Chamber of
Maiden-Thought, than we become intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere, we see nothing but
pleasant wonders, and think of delaying there for ever in delight.
Keats thought that people were capable of different levels of thought. People who did not consider
the world around them (probably people who did not write poetry) remained in the thoughtless
chamber. Even though the door to move on to the next "apartment" was open, they had no desire
to think any deeper and to go into that next apartment.
When you did move on into the next chamber, you would for the first time have a choice of
direction, as from this apartment there were several different park passages. Keats believed that he
when he wrote the letter was at this point, as was William Wordsworth when he wrote Tintern
Abbey.
*Negative Capability is a theory of the poet John Keats, expressed in his letter to George and
Thomas Keats dated Sunday, 21 December 1817.
I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my
mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature
& which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is
capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason
Keats believed that great people (especially poets, whom he considered to almost be on another
level to the rest of humanity) had the ability to accept that not every thing can be resolved - being
capable of remaining negative on something. Keats was a Romantic and believed that truth does not
lie in science and philosophical reasoning, but in art. In art the aim is not, as in science, to solve
problems, but rather to explore them. Hence, accepting that there may not be a solution to vexing
problems is important to artists.
“Ode on a Grecian Urn”
1.
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
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Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme :
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these ? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit ? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels ? What wild ecstasy?
2.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on :
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal-yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
3.
Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love ! more happy, happy love!
For every warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
4.
Who are those coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.
5.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
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As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
“Ode on Melancholy”
1.
No, no go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
2.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
3.
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu ; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
“Ode to a Nightingale”
1
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
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Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk :
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness, That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
2
O for a draught of vintage ! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth !
O for a beaker full of the warm South !
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth ;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim :
3
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies ;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs ;
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.
4
Away ! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards :
Already with thee ! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays ;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown,
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
5
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
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The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild ;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine ;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves ;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
6
Darkling I listen ; and for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath ;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy !
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain To thy high requiem become a sod.
7
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird !
No hungry generations tread thee down ;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown :
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
8
Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self !
Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side ; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades :
Was it a vision, or a waking dream ?
Fled is that music : - do I wake or sleep?
**“On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer”
MUCH have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 5
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That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken; 10
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
“Ode to Autumn”
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
You definitely want to familiarzie yourself with "Ozymandias" and "To a Skylark" as well as
Prometheus Unbound. A biography can be found here.
"Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats”
This is a long work written in Spensarian stanzas. It begins:
I
I weep for Adonais--he is dead!
Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!"
II
Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,
When thy Son lay, pierc'd by the shaft which flies
In darkness? where was lorn Urania
When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,
'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise
She sate, while one, with soft enamour'd breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies,
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,
He had adorn'd and hid the coming bulk of Death.
“Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni”
a long poem with irregular stanzas, it begins:
I
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom-Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters--with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
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“Ode to the West Wind”
The rhyme scheme of the poem is ABA BCB CDC DED FF, and it is written in iambic pentameter.
I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!
II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystàlline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
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Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!
IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
*“Ozymandias”
Ozymandias is a famous 1818 sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley. This short poem, probably Shelley's
most famous due to its frequent appearance in anthologies, combines a number of great themes —
the arrogance and transience of power, the permanence of real art and emotional truth, the
contradictory and critical character of the relationship between artist and subject — with striking
imagery, a setting that merges exotic distance (Egypt, Ozymandias, the desert) with the more
familiar and topical (Napoleon I of France and a European, presumably English,
traveller/commentator — an echo of the viator of classical epitaphs), and virtuoso diction.
OZYMANDIAS of EGYPT
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
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Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
*“To a Skylark”
HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert—
That from heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
5
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden light'ning
Of the sunken sun, |
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
15
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight—
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
10
20
25
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.
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30
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:—
35
Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
40
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
45
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aërial hue
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:
50
Like a rose embower'd
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-wingèd thieves.
55
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken'd flowers—
All that ever was
Joyous and clear and fresh—thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
60
65
Chorus hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match'd with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt—
A thin wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
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70
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
75
80
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
85
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet, if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
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Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
“To Wordsworth”
Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship, and love's first glow,
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100
90
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,
Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.
Prometheus Unbound
Prometheus Unbound is a four-act play by Percy Bysshe Shelley first published in 1820. It is inspired
by Aechylus's Prometheus Bound and concerns the final release from captivity of Prometheus.
For the GRE, you probably need only know that Shelley wrote this play, and you ought to have a
general background of the story of Prometheus.
Matthew Arnold
Arnold is an important figure in the eyes of the folks at ETS. The information provided below will
most likely cover all bases with regard to what they might test over Arnold.
“Dover Beach”
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
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The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
“To Marguerite—Continued”
YES! in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.
But when the moon their hollows lights,
And they are swept by balms of spring,
And in their glens, on starry nights,
The nightingales divinely sing;
And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
Across the sounds and channels pour-Oh! then a longing like despair
Is to their farthest caverns sent;
For surely once, they feel, we were
Parts of a single continent!
Now round us spreads the watery plain-Oh might our marges meet again!
Who order'd, that their longing's fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?
Who renters vain their deep desire?-A God, a God their severance ruled!
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.
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*Culture and Anarchy
Arnold is probably most famous for this book, and the GRE is most likely going to ask you to identify
a passage. A typical passage will include either the words "sweetness and light" or the word
"philistine," a term he popularized.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
A brief biography can be found here.
“Aurora Leigh”
“Aurora Leigh” – poem written in 9 books, it begins:
OF writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine,–
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.
Sonnets from Portuguese
Sonnets from the Portuguese, written ca. 1845–1846 and first published in 1850, is a collection of
forty-four love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The poems largely chronicle the
period leading up to her 1846 marriage to Robert Browning. The collection was acclaimed and
popular even in the poet's lifetime and it remains so today.
Elizabeth was initially hesitant to publish the poems, feeling that they were too personal. However,
Robert insisted that they were the best sequence of English-language sonnets since Shakespeare's
time and urged her to publish them. To offer the couple some privacy, she decided that she might
publish them under a title disguising the poems as translations of foreign sonnets. Therefore, the
collection was first to be known as Sonnets from the Bosnian, until Robert suggested that she
change their imaginary original language to Portuguese, probably after his nickname for her: "my
little Portuguese."
By far the most famous poem from this collection, with one of the most famous opening lines in the
English language, is number forty-three:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
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I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
ETS is, in my mind, strangely enamored with Robert Browing. As a rule, everything and anything of
his that may appear on your exam is going to be a dramatic monologue, which makes picking out his
work a lot less difficult than it might seem. "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess" are both
common on the GRE.
“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church”
Another long poem. Here is its beginning:
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews--sons mine . . . ah God, I know not! Well-She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
“Fra Lippo Lippi”
These are the first 11 lines of a long poem about a painter.
I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
You need not clap your torches to my face.
Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk!
What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds,
And here you catch me at an alley's end
Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?
The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up,
Do,--harry out, if you must show your zeal,
Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole,
And nip each softling of a wee white mouse,
Weke, weke, that's crept to keep him company!
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**“My Last Duchess”
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myselfthey turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my Lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace -- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -- good! but thanked
Somehow -- I know not how -- as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech -- (which I have not) -- to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark" -- and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
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The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
*“Porphyria’s Lover”
This poem is told by a madman in the process of murdering his lover by strangling her with her own
hair, which he does so that she can be his forever and will be in an eternal state of love.
The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listen'd with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneel'd and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soil'd gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And call'd me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me—she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I look'd up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipp'd me; surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
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Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laugh'd the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untighten'd next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blush'd bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propp'd her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorn'd at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gain'd instead!
Porphyria's love: she guess'd not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirr'd,
And yet God has not said a word!
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889)
Hopkins isn't properly a Romantic figure, but I have included him in the Romantic poetry section
because he falls between the Romantics and the Modernists. A poem or two of his are very likely to
appear on the exam, and fortunately, they are pretty easy to spot because of the unusual rhythm.
Gerard Manley Hopkins was a British Victorian poet and Jesuit priest Much of Hopkins' historical
importance has to do with the changes he brought to the form of poetry. Prior to Hopkins most
Middle English and Modern English poetry was based on a rhythmic structure inherited from the
Norman side of English's literary heritage. This structure is based on repeating groups of two or
three syllables, with the stressed syllable falling in the same place on each repetition. Hopkins called
this structure running rhythm, and though he wrote some of his early verse in running rhythm he
became fascinated with the older rhythmic structure of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, of which Beowulf
is the most famous example. Hopkins called this rhythmic structure sprung rhythm. Sprung rhythm
is structured around feet with a variable number of syllables, generally between one and four
syllables per foot, with the stress always falling on the first syllable in a foot.
Hopkins saw sprung rhythm as a way to escape the constraints of running rhythm, which he said
inevitably pushed poetry written in it to become "same and tame." Many contemporary poets have
followed Hopkins' lead and abandoned running rhythm, though most have not adopted sprung
rhythm but have instead abandoned traditional rhythmic structures all together, adopting free verse
instead. Hopkins was also a practitioner of the sonnet. He also invented the “curtal sonnet” (“Pied
Beauty” is an example).
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*“The Windhover”
To Christ our Lord
I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
“Carrion Comfort”
NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?
Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.
*“Pied Beauty”
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
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Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
“Spring and Fall”
to a young child
MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
‘Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend’
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum: verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum
prosperatur? &c.
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
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Christina Rossetti
an English poet and the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Their father, Gabriele Rossetti, was a
political asylum seeker from Naples, and their mother, Frances Polidori, was the sister of Lord
Byron's friend and physician, John William Polidori.
Born in London and educated privately, she suffered ill-health in her youth, but was already writing
poetry in her teens. Her engagement to a painter, James Collinson, was broken off because of
religious differences (she was High Church Anglican). This experience is credited with inspiring her
most popular poem 'Remember'. She refused to marry Charles Cayley, whom she was deeply in love
with, because of religious reasons.
Many of her poems were written for children. "Goblin Market" seemed like a children's nursery
rhyme with its talk of goblins. However, it was really an allegory for temptation. It is similar to the
story of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve.
Christina rejected the social world of her brother's "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood", preferring "my
shady crevice -- which crevice enjoys the unique advantage of being to my certain knowledge the
place assigned me."
Goblin Market
Goblin Market deals implicitly with the ambiguous nature of the female role in Victorian society and
is highly allusive to Biblical imagery (notably the Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden and The Fall).
The main characters are two girls, Laura and Lizzie, who hear the goblins hawk their merchandise of
exotic fruit each day. Laura is tempted by the fruit, while Lizzie warns her away, then runs from the
goblins with her ears covered to avoid hearing their voices.
Laura purchases fruit from the goblins with a lock of her hair, then eats a great deal. The next day,
she longs to buy more, and spends the afternoon in depressed anticipation. At evening, however,
only Lizzie can hear the goblins. Laura grows sick and weak with longing for the goblin-fruit, until
finally Lizzie takes pity on her and goes to buy more fruit from the goblins, bringing a silver penny to
pay them.
When the goblins discover Lizzie refuses to eat any of the fruit and wants to bring it to someone
else, they grow very angry and try to persuade her to eat. She resists them and returns home with
the juice of the goblin fruits in her mouth and on her lips, though she does not dare swallow. She
allows Laura to kiss her and taste the juice from her skin; Laura is eager to do so, but soon finds that
the juice burns like a fire in her blood. After Lizzie cares for her through a long night of sickness,
however, Laura recovers and is her old self again.
“Remember”
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
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Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti is most notable as the founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,an avart
guarde group that believed in the primacy of mimetic and detailed art (painting in particular). His
role on the GRE is mostly an historic one since as a poet his was a rather minor figure.
an English poet, painter and translator. The son of émigré Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti, D. G.
Rossetti was born in London, England and originally named Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti. His family
and friends called him "Gabriel", but in publications he put the name Dante first, because of its
literary associations. He was the brother of poet Christina Rossetti and the critic William Michael
Rossetti and a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with John Everett Millais and William
Holman Hunt
“A Superscription”
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;
Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell
Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,
Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.
Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart
One moment through thy soul the soft surprise
Of that winged peace which lulls the breath of sighs, Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.
"THE BALLAD OF DEAD LADIES"
by D.G. Rossetti and several Victorian painters
Rossetti especially, but Victorian artists generally, celebrated beautiful women as the expression of
the highest beauty in art or nature. In this poem, a translation of Francois Villon's “Ou sont les neiges
d'antan,” Rossetti catalogs women in history who were worthy of such celebration. Although it is
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unlikely that the painters were responding to this poem specifically, they certainly chose subjects for
their paintings according to the same impulse.
Tell me now in what hidden is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman? Flora
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man, Echo
Only heard on river and mere,-She whose beauty was more than human?...
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Where's Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?...
But where are the snows of yester-year?
White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden,-Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,Joan
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,-And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there,-Mother of God, where are they then?...
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword,-But where are the snows of yester-year?
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Tennyson is another poet with more poems worth studying than is comfortable. "Ulysses" and
"Break, break break" are both poems that the GRE folks love, but they also want you to know that
Tenyyson was interested in both the Arthurian tradition and in Homer (as in "Ulysses" and "The
Lotus-Eaters").
*“Ulysses”
This poem is a GRE moneymaker. Know it.
"Ulysses" is a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, written in 1833 but not published until 1842. It is
narrated by an aged Ulysses who has become dissatisfied with his life as king of Ithaca. Ulysses has
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spent years fighting the Trojans (as described in the Iliad) and trying to return home (which is the
subject of The Odyssey), but now that his journey is complete he feels restless and yearns to get
back out into the world. He is an "idle king" who is not satisfied with his duties in Ithaca. He declares
his intent to leave the throne to Telemachus ("He works his work, I mine") and gather up all of his
old sailors for one final voyage:
Tennyson questions what becomes of the hero after the quest. The man who could outwit the Fates
could not grow old. Although many readers have accepted the last lines of the poem as inspirational,
it is not clear that Tennyson intended them as such. Ulysses's call to action is suicidal and proud. He
intends to die contending, rather than in peace.
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isleWell-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
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Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with meThat ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads- you and I are old;
Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
*In Memoriam A.H.H.
In Memoriam A.H.H. is a long poem by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is a requiem for the
poet's Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly of a stroke in Vienna in 1833, but it
is also much more. Written over a period of 17 years, it can be seen as reflective of Victorian society
at the time, and the poem dicusses many of the issues that were beginning to be questioned. It is
the work in which Tennyson reaches his highest musical peaks and his poetic experience comes full
circle. It is generally regarded as one of the great poetic works of the British 19th century.
“The Lady of Shalott”
The poem (of which Tennyson wrote two versions: one in 1833, of twenty verses, the other in 1842
of nineteen verses) is based loosely upon a story from Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur
concerning Elaine of Astolat, a maiden who falls in love with Lancelot, but dies of grief when he
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cannot return her love. Tennyson returned to the story in “Lancelot and Elaine” (in his 1859 Idylls of
the King). However the original story of Elaine is quite different from that of the Lady, who is never
named and who is, it seems, not quite human. It begins:
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro’ the field the road runs by
To many-tower’d Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
“The Lotus-Eaters”
A long poem that begins:
‘Courage!’ he said, and pointed toward the land,
‘This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.’
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
“Mariana”
"Mariana of the Moated Grange" first appears in Shakespeare's dark comedy Measure for Measure
and is the inspiration for the poem. In Shakespeare's work, Mariana waits in a grange for her lover,
who has deserted her. At the end of Shakespeare's work, Mariana is re-united with her lover.
However, there is no happy ending in Tennyson's work.
Mariana follows a common theme in much of Tennyson's work: that of despondent isolation. The
subject of Mariana is a woman who continuously laments her lack of connection with society. The
isolation defines her existence, and her longing for a connection leaves her wishing for death at the
end of every stanza. In order to properly portray her horrible plight, Tennyson uses strong imagery
to express a parallel between the woman's dilapidated environment and her inner mental/social
state. Tennyson's greatest strength may possibly be his ability to create scenery and use this scenery
to embody a human's emotional state.
Different stanzas in the poem reflect on either day, night, or her life as a whole. The end result is
obvious, that in her current state, hours, days, weeks, months all blend into nothing. They merely
create a dull smear of despondency that is her life.
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
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That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look’d sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, ‘My life is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!’
Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, ‘The night is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!’
Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen’s low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem’d to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, ‘The day is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!’
About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken’d waters slept,
And o’er it many, round and small,
The cluster’d marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, ‘My life is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!’
And ever when the moon was low,
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And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, ‘The night is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!’
All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak’d;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d,
Or from the crevice peer’d about.
Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, ‘My life is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!’
The sparrow’s chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then, said she, ‘I am very dreary,
He will not come,’ she said;
She wept, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
Oh God, that I were dead!’
“To E. FitzGerald”
Old Fitz, who from your suburb grange,
Where once I tarried for a while,
Glance at the wheeling Orb of change,
And greet it with a kindly smile;
Whom yet I see as there you sit
Beneath your sheltering garden-tree,
And while your doves about you flit,
And plant on shoulder, hand and knee,
Or on your head their rosy feet,
As if they knew your diet spares
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Whatever moved in that full sheet
Let down to Peter at his prayers;
Who live on milk and meal and grass;
And once for ten long weeks I tried
Your table of Pythagoras,
And seem’d at first ‘a thing enskied’
(As Shakespeare has it) airy-light
To float above the ways of men,
Then fell from that half-spiritual height
Chill’d, till I tasted flesh again
One night when earth was winter-black,
And all the heavens flash’d in frost;
And on me, half-asleep, came back
That wholesome heat the blood had lost,
And set me climbing icy capes
And glaciers, over which there roll’d
To meet me long-arm’d vines with grapes
Of Eshcol hugeness; for the cold
Without, and warmth within me, wrought
To mould the dream; but none can say
That Lenten fare makes Lenten thought,
Who reads your golden Eastern lay,
Than which I know no version done
In English more divinely well;
A planet equal to the sun
Which cast it, that large infidel
Your Omar; and your Omar drew
Full-handed plaudits from our best
In modern letters, and from two,
Old friends outvaluing all the rest,
Two voices heard on earth no more;
But we old friends are still alive,
And I am nearing seventy-four,
While you have touch’d at seventy-five,
And so I send a birthday line
Of greeting; and my son, who dipt
In some forgotten book of mine
With sallow scraps of manuscript,
And dating many a year ago,
Has hit on this, which you will take
My Fitz, and welcome, as I know
Less for its own than for the sake
Of one recalling gracious times,
When, in our younger London days,
You found some merit in my rhymes,
And I more pleasure in your praise.
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The Idylls of the King
The Idylls of the King is a sequence of poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson which portrays the Coming of
Arthur, the knights of the Round Table, Guinevere, the decline of Camelot and finally "The Passing of
Arthur", the poem Tennyson wrote first, and which inspired the sequence. The episodic poems, are
not an epic either in structure or tone, but take their elegaic sadness from the idylls of Theocritus:
like the Alexandrian poems an idealized, distant, pastoral review of a lost time. When the poems
were published as a set there was a dedication to one, unidentified at first,
And indeed He seems to me
Scarce other than my king's ideal knight,
whom in the course of its development, the reader finds is the late Prince Albert: the Idylls of the
King are often read as an allegory of the social conflicts and malaises of mid-Victorian England. There
are twelve poems in the suite. For the first poem written, "Morte d'Arthur" Tennyson adapted the
well-known title of Sir Thomas Malory's prose romance, which had fixed the imagery of Arthur in the
English imagination. The downfall of Arthur lies, not in himself nor in his act of incest with his faery
sister, but in the faithless Guinevere.
*“Break, Break, Break”
This is another GRE moneymaker.
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill:
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
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British and Irish Modernism
Irish Literary Revival
The Celtic Revival, also known as the Irish Literary Revival, was begun by Lady Gregory, Edward
Martyn and William Butler Yeats in Ireland in 1896. The Revival stimulated new appreciation of
traditional Irish iterature. The movement also encouraged the creation of works written in the spirit
of Irish culture, as distinct from English culture. This was, in part, due to the political need for an
individual Irish identity. Figures such as Yeats, J.M. Synge and Sean O'Casey wrote many plays and
articles about the political state of Ireland at the time. These were connected with another great
symbol of the literary revival, The Abbey Theatre, which served as the stage for many new Irish
writers and playwrights of the time.
J. M. Synge
Although he came form a middle-class Protestant background, Synge's writings are mainly
concerned with the world of the Roman Catholic peasants of rural Ireland and with what he saw as
the essential paganism of their world view.
The Playboy of the Western World (1907)– an unflattering portrayal of the working class Irish. It is
set in a cottage in County Mayo (on the North-West coast of Ireland) during the early 1900s. It tells
the story of Christy Mahon, a young man supposedly running away having killed his father. Christy
arrives at the cottage, and the locals are more interested in vicariously enjoying his story than in
condemning his morality.
The Shadow of the Glen (1905)
William Butler Yeats
Yeats played a part in the Irish Literary Revival, though as a dramatist his role was rather limited. To
see more on Yeats and his poetry, check out my page on Yeats in the the poetry section.
The Countess Cathleen – dramatizes an Irish fable about those who sell their soul for food during
the famine.
Sean O’Casey
a major Irish dramatist and memorist. A committed nationalist and socialist, he was the first Irish
playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. His plays are particularly noted for his
sympathetic treatment of his female characters.
The Plough and the Stars – deal with the impact of the Irish Civil War on the working class poor of
the city. The Plough and the Stars, an anti-war play, was misinterpreted by the Abbey audience as
being anti-nationalist and resulted in scenes reminiscent of the riots that greeted Synge's The
Playboy of the Western World in 1907.
Innocence and Experience
Oscar Wilde
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Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)
an Irish playwright, novelist and poet. Beckett's work is stark, fundamentally minimalist, and deeply
pessimistic about human nature and the human condition, although the pessimism is mitigated by a
great and often wicked sense of humor. His later work explores his themes in an increasingly cryptic
and attenuated style. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969.
Waiting for Godot
The play is in two acts. The plot concerns Vladimir (also called Didi) and Estragon (also called Gogo),
who arrive at a pre-specified roadside location in order to await the arrival of Godot. Vladimir and
Estragon appear to be tramps: their clothes are ragged and do not fit. They pass the time in
conversation, and sometimes in conflict. Estragon complains of his ill-fitting boots, and Vladimir
struts about stiff-legged due to a painful bladder condition. They make vague allusions to the nature
of their circumstances and to the reasons for meeting Godot, but the audience never learns who
Godot is or why he is important. They are soon interrupted by the arrival of Pozzo, a cruel but
lyrically gifted man who claims to own the land they stand on, and his servant Lucky, whom he
appears to control by means of a lengthy rope. Pozzo sits down to feast on chicken, and afterwards
throws the bones to the two tramps. He entertains them by directing Lucky to perform a lively
dance, and then deliver an ex tempore lecture on the theories of Bishop Berkeley. After Pozzo and
Lucky depart, a boy arrives with a message he says is from Godot that he will not be coming today,
but will come tomorrow. The second act follows a similar pattern to the first, but when Pozzo and
Lucky arrive, Pozzo has inexplicably gone blind and Lucky has gone mute. Again the boy arrives and
announces that Godot will not appear, also confessing that Godot beats him and makes him sleep in
a barn. The much quoted ending of the play might be said to sum up the stasis of the whole work:
Vladimir: Well, shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let's go.
They do not move.
Happy Days
Winnie, the main character, is buried up to her waist in a tall mound of sand. She has a bag full of
interesting artifacts, including a comb, a toothbrush and a revolver, which she strokes and pats
lovingly. The harsh ringing of a bell demarcates waking and sleeping hours. Winnie is content with
her existence: "Ah well, what matter, that's what I always say, it will have been a happy day after all,
another happy day."
Her husband Willie is nearby, behind Winnie and moving on all fours. Winnie is unable to move, but
Willie occasionally comes out and even reads the paper beside his wife (but not facing the stage).
In the second act, Winnie is now buried up to her head. She continues to speak, but can no longer
reach her bag. At the conclusion of the play Willie crawls up to her, dressed immaculately. Winnie
looks lovingly down at Willie, singing a song from the music box she examined in the first act.
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George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Born in Dublin but working in London, Shaw was a freethinker, feminist, socialist, and vegetarian
whose more than 50 plays dealt with social issues of his day. Shaw’s plays focus on the conflict
between thought and belief.
*Pygmalion (1913)
Shaw used Pygmalion, the mythological sculptor who fell in love with his creation, as the basis for his
play. It is the story of Professor Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, who wagers that he can
turn a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into the toast of London society merely by teaching her
how to speak with an upper-class accent. In the process, he becomes fond of her and attempts to
direct her future, but she rejects his domineering ways and marries a young aristocrat.
Arms and the Man
Arms and the Man is a comedy, the title of which comes from the opening words of Virgil's Aeneid:
"Arma virumque cano" (Of arms and the man I sing). The play was first produced in 1894, and
published in 1898 as part of Shaw's Plays Pleasant volume. Shaw's plays often point out the
hypocrisy or worthlessness of Victorian values, and Arms and the Man is no exception. Its satirical
target is the people who think war is "glorious" or "noble."
The play takes place during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War. Its heroine, Raina, is a young Bulgarian
woman engaged to one of the heroes of that war, whom she idealizes. One night, a Swiss voluntary
soldier to the Serbian army bursts into her bedroom and begs her to hide him, so that he is not
killed. Raina complies, though she thinks the man a coward, especially when he tells her that he
doesn't carry rifle cartridges, but chocolates. During the course of the play, Raina comes to realize
the hollowness of her romantic idea and her fiancé's values, and the true nobility of the "chocolatecream soldier."
Man and Superman (1902)
This title comes from Nietzsche's philosophical ideas about the "Superman." The plot centers around
John Tanner, author of "The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion" and a confirmed
bachelor, and the lovely Ann's persistent efforts to make him marry her. Ann is referred to as "The
Life Force" and represents Shaw's view that in every culture, it's the women who force the men to
marry them, rather than the men taking the initiative.
Major Barbara (1905)
The story is about an officer in The Salvation Army, Major Barbara Undershaft, who becomes
disillusioned by social ills and the willingness of her Christian denomination to accept money from
armament manufacturers, which includes her own father.
Mrs. Warren’s Profession
The story centers on the relationship between Mrs. Warren, a prostitute, described by Shaw as "on
the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman," and her daughter, Vivie.
More than about prostitution, the play explores the conflicts of the new women of the Victorian
times - the middle-class girls who wanted greater social independence in work and education.
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Other themes include criticism of the sexual triteness of the times and a want for greater social
sexual awareness.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Oscar Wilde was an Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, short story writer and Freemason. One of
the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his
day, known for his barbed and clever wit, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned after
being convicted in a famous trial for gross indecency (homosexual acts).
Two prose pieces of Wilde's that may appear on the GRE are “The Decay of Lying” and “The Critic as
Artist.” However, I was unable to secure synopses of either of these works.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, a wealthy young Londoner, pretends to have a friend named Bunbury who lives in the
country and frequently is in ill health. Whenever Algernon wants to avoid an unwelcome social
obligation, or just get away for the weekend, he makes an ostensible visit to his "sick friend." In this
way Algernon can feign piety and dedication, while having the perfect excuse to get out of town. He
calls this practice "Bunburying."
Algernon's real-life best friend lives in the country but makes frequent visits to London. This friend's
name is Ernest...or so Algernon thinks. When Ernest leaves his silver cigarette case at Algernon's
rooms he finds an inscription in it that claims that it is "From little Cecily to her dear Uncle Jack". This
forces Ernest to eventually disclose that his visits to the city are also examples of "Bunburying,"
much to Algernon's delight.
In the country, "Ernest" goes by his real name, John Worthing, and pretends that he has a wastrel
brother named Ernest, who lives in London. When honest John comes to the city, he assumes the
name, and behaviour, of the profligate Ernest. In the country John assumes and more serious
attitude for the benefit of Cecily, who is his ward.
John himself wishes to marry Gwendolen, who is Algernon's cousin, but runs into a few problems.
First, Gwendolen seems to love him only because she believes his name is Ernest, which she thinks is
the most beautiful name in the world. Second, Gwendolen's mother is the terrifying Lady Bracknell.
Lady Bracknell is horrified when she learns that John is a foundling who was discovered in a handbag
at a railway station.
John's description of Cecily appeals to Algernon who resolves to meet her. Algernon soon gets the
idea to visit John in the country, pretending that he is the mysterious brother "Ernest."
Unfortunately, unknown to Algernon, John has decided to give up his Bunburying, and to do this he
has announced the tragic death of Ernest.
A series of comic misunderstandings follows, as Algernon-as-Ernest visits the country (as a dead
man, as far as the hosts are aware), and John shows up in his mourning clothes. There he encounters
John's ward, Cecily, who believes herself in love with Ernest - the non-existent brother she has never
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met. After Lady Bracknell arrives, it is discovered that John is a nephew of Lady Bracknell who was
lost by Miss Prism, Cecily’s governess, who was then working for Lady Bracknell’s sister. It is also
discovered that John’s real name is Ernest. It is suggested at the end of the play that Ernest/John will
marry Gwendolyn and Algernon will marry Cecily. The play contains many examples of Wilde's
famous wit.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Somewhat confusingly, The Ballad of Reading Gaol is not the work that Wilde wrote while
imprisoned for moral (in his case, homosexual) offences in 1895. That work was De Profundis,
published five years after his death, in 1905. The Ballad of Reading Gaol was written after his release
and in France, in 1897, though it was published in 1898. His works during this exile were published
under the name Sebastian Melmouth, and this is the most famous. He would die in 1900. The poem
is written in memory of "C.T.W." who died in Reading prison in July 1896 and it traces the feelings of
an imprisoned man towards a fellow inmate who is to be hanged. They are "like two doomed ships
that pass in storm", and Wilde creates a solemn funereal tone in his rhyme made sad and familiar by
certain repeated phrases ("each man kills the thing he loves", "the little tent of blue/ Which
prisoners call the sky"). The narrator’s emotions are filtered through an uncertainty about the law
that has condemned them although he is certain that they are joined together in sin. There is a
longing for the outside, innocence and crucially beauty, the last of which is undermined in the
latrine-like cells. The poem seems to offer some limited comfort in the possibility of the thief’s
entrance to Paradise. It is a work of startling contrasts between light and shade, drawn together with
a keen eye and a sense of the beauty in sadness itself.
It begins:
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.
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Poetry
W.H. Auden (1907-1973)
Wystan Hugh Auden was an English poet and critic, widely regarded as among the most influential
and important writers of the 20th century. He spent the first part of his life in the United Kingdom,
but emigrated to the United States of America in 1939, becoming an American citizen in 1946.
**“Musée des Beaux Arts”
See also William Carlos Williams’ “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus”.
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
*“In Memory of W.B. Yeats”
I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
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By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
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Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
“Lay your sleeping head, my love”
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's sensual ecstasy.
Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
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All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of sweetness show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness see you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.
A.E. Housman (1859-1936)
Alfred Edward Housman was an English poet and classical scholar, now best known for his cycle of
poems A Shropshire Lad.
"When I was one-and-twenty"
Housman's most familiar poem is surely "When I was one-and-twenty," number XIII from A
Shropshire Lad.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
"Terence, this is stupid stuff"
‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
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But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, ’tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’
Why, if ’tis dancing you would be,
There’s brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world’s not.
And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:
The mischief is that ’twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I’ve lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.
Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
’Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
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But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul’s stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.
There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.
"To an Athlete Dying Young"
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honors out,
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Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round the early-laureled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer. He is widely considered to be among the
greatest poets of the 20th century; his most famous poems include "Do Not Go Gentle Into That
Good Night" and "And Death Shall Have No Dominion."
Dylan Thomas is widely considered one of the greatest 20th century poets writing in English,
frequently mentioned alongside Frost, Yeats, and T. S. Eliot in lists of the century's most important
poets. He remains the leading figure in Anglo-Welsh literature.
His vivid and often fantastic imagery was a rejection of the trends in 20th Century verse: while his
contemporaries gradually altered their writing to serious topical verse (political and social concerns
were often expressed), Thomas gave himself over to his passionately felt emotions, and his writing is
often both intensely personal and fiercely lyrical. Thomas, in many ways, was more in alignment with
the Romantics than he was with the poets of his era (Auden and Eliot, to name but two).
He is particularly remembered for the remarkable radio-play Under Milk Wood, for his poem "Do
Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," which is generally interpreted as a plea to his dying father to
hold onto life, and for the short stories "A Child's Christmas in Wales." and "The Outing".
“Do not go gentle into that good night”
You should probably know for the exam that this a classic example of a villanelle.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because there words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
“And Death Shall Have No Dominion”
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Through they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
*“Fern Hill”
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
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Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.
And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
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Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Yeats is a major player on the GRE, and for the reason all the poems below are well worth studying.
Of particular note is "The Second Coming" which appears on the exam with some frequency.
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, mystic and public figure of Anglo-Irish (Protestant)
ancestry, brother of the artist Jack Butler Yeats and son of John Butler Yeats. Yeats was one of the
driving forces behind the Irish Literary Revival and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. Yeats also
served as an Irish Senator. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923 for what the Nobel
Committee described as "his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression
to the spirit of a whole nation".
"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
See Ezra Pound’s parody of this poem here.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
"When You are Old"
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
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And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
"The Wild Swans at Coole"
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
**"The Second Coming"
From this poem comes the name of Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
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The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
“Sailing to Byzantium”
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
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Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
" Leda and the Swan"
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
How can anybody, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins, engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
“Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop”
I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
'Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.'
'Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.
'A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.'
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Stanza VI from “Among School Children”
Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Solider Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.
“The Dolls”
A doll in the doll-maker's house
Looks at the cradle and bawls:
'That is an insult to us.'
But the oldest of all the dolls,
Who had seen, being kept for show,
Generations of his sort,
Out-screams the whole shelf: 'Although
There's not a man can report
Evil of this place,
The man and the woman bring
Hither, to our disgrace,
A noisy and filthy thing.'
Hearing him groan and stretch
The doll-maker's wife is aware
Her husband has heard the wretch,
And crouched by the arm of his chair,
She murmurs into his ear,
Head upon shoulder leant:
'My dear, my dear, O dear,
It was an accident.'
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Fiction
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
Conrad is not, strictly speaking, a British author, but since he lived in England for such a long time
and wrote in English, I don't feel I done him too much harm in including him here.
For the exam, you definitely want to equate the name Marlowe with Conrad, since Marlowe is the
character that narrates both of Conrad's major works, lord Jim and Heart of Darkness.
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness is a novella (published 1902) by Joseph Conrad. This highly symbolic story is
actually a story within a story, or frame tale, narrated by a man named Marlow to colleagues at an
evening gathering. It details an incident earlier in Marlow's life, a visit up the Congo River to
investigate the work of Kurtz, a Belgian trader in ivory in the Congo Free State.
Lord Jim
The novel falls into two parts, a psychological tale about Jim's moral lapse aboard the pilgrim ship
Patna, and an adventure story about Jim's rise and fall amongst the people of Patusan, a nativeruled state somewhere in the interior of one of the islands of the East Indies. Some critics have said
that the second part of the story is inferior to the first, but it is necessary to the working out of the
psychological drama established in the first part.
The novel is remarkable for its sophisticated manipulation of point of view. The bulk of the novel is
told in the form of a story recited by the character Marlow, and the conclusion is presented in the
form of a letter from Marlow.
The Secret Sharer
The Secret Sharer is narrated by a sea captain many years after the event has happened, which
reveals its significance. The story takes place during his first command of a merchant ship. His new
ship is anchored at the head of the Gulf of Siam, "at the starting point of a long journey." There is no
suggestion that it is a journey involving special hazards. The young man leans on his "ship's rail as if
on a shoulder of his trusted friend." He feels that he is a stranger to the ship. He is something of a
stranger to himself. He is the youngest man on board except the second mate. He is inexperienced,
considering his position, which involves the fullest responsibility.
The Captain's "strangeness" makes him sleepless and he decides to set anchor-watch. He sets
himself to remain to remain on deck during the earlier part of the night. One result is that he goes to
pull a rope ladder, which is on the side of the ship. He sees a naked man clinging to it. As soon as the
stranger knows he is speaking to the Captain, he introduces himself as one Leggatt. He is obviously a
good swimmer for he has been in the water practically since nine o'clock. The question for the
swimmer now is whether he should let go of this ladder and go on swimming till he sinks from
exhaustion or to come on board.
The Captain of the ship feels this is no mere formula of desperate speech, but a real alternative in
the view of a strong soul. He gathers from this that he is young. In fact, it is only the young who are
confronted by such clear issues. But at that time, it is pure intuition on his part. A mysterious
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communication is established between the two in the face of the silent, darkened tropical sea. The
Captain too is young enough to make no comment. The man in the water begins suddenly to climb
up the ladder. The Captain hastens away from the rail to fetch some clothes. In a moment, the
stranger conceals his damp body in a sleeping-suit of the same gray-stripe pattern as the one which
the Captain wears, like his double. It is thus that the secret sharing begins. The "mysterious
communication" between the two is established before the Captain learns anything of Leggatt's
circumstances.
Leggatt soon tells his story. He has swam from "The Sephora," a ship at anchor two miles away. He
has been the first mate on board the ship. During the crisis of a terrible storm, he has seized and
strangled an incompetent and disobedient member of the crew. Now he has made a bid to escape
the law. The Captain accepts at once, without any indication of internal debate, that it is his duty to
harbor Leggatt. However, it is difficult for the Captain to remain unperturbed. The dangers of the
situation and a degree of identification with Leggatt make it almost impossible for him to preserve a
rational behavior before his officers and crew.
Leggatt remains self-possessed. "Whenever was being driven distracted, it was not he." But the
Captain knows what he must do. He must steer sufficiently near the land to give the fugitive a fair
chance to swim to safety. In this shore beneath "the black mass of Koh-ring." Consequently, his ship
is in terrible danger. All those on board the ship are amazed and shocked. Finally, Leggatt departs
and it is all over. The ship is saved by a hat, which the Captain has given him for protection against
the sun. In fact, it serves at a crucial moment to show when the vessel has gathered stern way.
Already the ship is drawing ahead. The Captain is alone with her. No one in the world should stand
now between them, throwing a shadow on the way of silent knowledge and mute affection. It is the
perfect communion with the season with his first communion with the seamen with his first
command. The Captain is in time to catch a glimpse of his white hat, which is left floating on the
water. It marks the spot where the secret sharer of his cabin as though he were his second self, had
lowered himself into the water to take his punishment. He is now "a free man, a proud swimmer
striking out for a new destiny."
E.M. Forster (1879-1970)
Forster has a lot of books that could appear on the test. Pay close attention to the names associated
with each and you should do fine. Also take note of the idea of "flat" and "round characters" that
Forster propounds in Aspects of the Novel.
Forster's views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often features characters
attempting to understand each other ('only connect...', in the words of Forster's famous epigraph to
Howards End) across social barriers. His humanist views are expressed in the non-fictional essay
"What I believe." Sexuality is another key theme in Forster's works and it has been argued that
Forster's writing can be characterized as progressing from heterosexual love to homosexual love. All
of his major work was published by 1924.
Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
Names to know:
~Caroline Abbott
~Lilia Herriton
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On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and travelling companion Caroline Abbott, widowed
Lilia Herriton falls in love with both Italy and a handsome Italian much younger than herself, and
decides to stay. Furious, her dead husband's family send Lilia's brother-in-law and his sister to Italy
to prevent a misalliance, but they arrive too late. Lilia marries the Italian and in due course becomes
pregnant again. When she dies giving birth to her child, the Herritons consider it both their right and
their duty to travel to Monteriano to obtain custody of the infant so that he can be raised as an
Englishman.
A Room with a View
Names:
~Charlotte Bartlett
~Lucy Honeychurch
~Mr. Emerson
~George Emerson
~Mr. Beebe
~Eleanor Lavish
~Cecil Vyse
A Room with a View tells the story of a young Englishwoman whose encounter with a handsome
young man in Florence may interfere with her marriage plans.
Howards End
Names:
~Margaret, Helen, and Tibby Schlegel
~Charles, Paul and Evie Wilcox
On the one hand are the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, and their brother Tibby, who care
about civilized living, music, literature, and conversation with their friends; on the other, the
Wilcoxes, Henry and his children Charles, Paul, and Evie, who are concerned with the business side
of life and distrust emotions and imagination. Helen Schlegel is drawn to the Wilcox family, falls
briefly in and out of love with Paul Wilcox, and thereafter reacts away from them.
Margaret becomes more deeply involved. She is stimulated by the very differences of their way of
life and acknowledges the debt of intellectuals to the men of affairs who guarantee stability, whose
virtues of 'neatness, decision and obedience ... keep the soul from becoming sloppy'. She marries
Henry Wilcox, to the consternation of both families, and her love and steadiness of purpose are
tested by the ensuing strains and misunderstandings. Her marriage cracks but does not break. In the
end, torn between her sister and her husband, she succeeds in bridging the mistrust that divides
them. Howards End, where the story begins and ends, is the house that belonged to Henry Wilcox's
first wife, and is a symbol of human dignity and endurance.
A Passage to India (1924)
Names:
~Adela Quested
~Dr. Aziz
~The Marabar Caves
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A Passage to India deals with the tensions between natives of India and British colonials when a
white woman, Adela Quested, accuses a native man, Dr. Aziz, of attempted rape. The accusation
takes place after Adela's unidentified traumatic experience while touring a local natural attraction,
the Marabar Caves. The ensuing court trial increases the racial tension between the Indians and the
British, threatening to tear apart the colonial society of Chandrapore, India.
The Road to Colonus
Names:
~Mr. Lucas
~Ethel Lucas
Mr. Lucas, an Englishman, is growing old. He has always wanted to visit Greece and has finally
achieved this, accompanied by his unmarried daughter, Ethel, who will, it has been assumed,
dedicate her life to taking care of him in his old age. In Greece, Mr. Lucas becomes restless and
resistant to the idea of an expected passive, peaceful death from old age. He wants to "die fighting."
Something mysterious happens: he finds a great old hollow tree from which a spring of water flows.
He climbs into the tree and experiences an epiphany: he suddenly sees all things as "intelligible and
good."
But when the rest of his party find him, he is oddly repelled by them. He does not feel that anyone
can share the revelation he has experienced, and he becomes afraid that if he leaves the place he
will lose the feeling himself. He decides not to leave, and says he plans to stay at an inn near the old
tree, but the others are horrified, and force him to leave with them.
Back in England, some time later, Ethel is now about to be married. Mr. Lucas has become a
perpetually disgruntled old man, complaining about everything (especially the sound of water in the
plumbing--the mystical Greek spring has been reduced to this annoyance--he says, "there's nothing I
dislike more than running water"). His sister, Julia, whom he hates, is going to take care of him once
Ethel is married.
Then a gift arrives from a friend in Greece, wrapped in a Greek newspaper. In it Ethel reads the news
that on the night they left, the old tree was blown down, and fell on the family who kept the inn
nearby, killing them all. Ethel is upset, and says how lucky it was that they hadn't stayed there that
night, calling it a "marvellous deliverance," but Mr. Lucas dismisses the story without interest. He no
longer cares.
This story is a retelling of Oedipus.
"What I Believe"
In this essay Forster outlines his creed as a secular humanist.
E.M. Forster starts out by saying that he does not believe in creeds; but there are so many around
that one has to formulate creed of one’s own in self defence. Three values are important to Forster:
tolerance, good temper and sympathy.
Forster cautiously welcomes democracy for two reasons:
* It places importance on the individual (at least more than authoritarian regimes)
* It allows criticism
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Thus, he calls for “two cheers for democracy” (also the title of the book which contains his essay) but
argues that three are not necessary.
Forster goes on to argue that, although the state ultimately rests on force, the intervals between the
use of force are what makes life worth living. Some people may call the absence of force decadence;
Forster prefers to call it civilization.
*Aspects of the Novel
The major idea to come out of this book of criticism is the idea of “flat” characters and “round”
characters. Forster believed that Dickens was a strong writer of both types.He also asserts that
novles should strive to be more than just stories. He differentiates between “form” and “content.”
He differentiates between a story (“the king died.”) and a plot (“the queen then died of grief.”).
James Joyce (1882-1941)
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an expatriate Irish writer and poet, widely considered to be one
of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He is best known for his short story collection
Dubliners (1914), and his novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and
Finnegans Wake (1939).Although most of his adult life was spent outside the country, Joyce's Irish
experiences are essential to his writings and provide all of the settings for his fiction and much of
their subject matter. His fictional universe is firmly rooted in Dublin and reflects his family life and
the events and friends (and enemies) from his school and college days. Due to this, he became both
one of the most cosmopolitan and one of the most local of all the great English language modernists.
For the exam, absolutely be able to identify the passages from Ulysses and A Portrait.
Dubliners
The only story that's very likely to appear from Dubliners is "The Dead."
The characters include:
* Kate Morkan and Julia Morkan - Sisters who throw an Epiphany party.
* Lily - Maid, insulted by Gabriel Conroy when he asks about her love life.
* Gabriel Conroy - Professor, the main character of the story.
* Gretta Conroy - Gabriel's wife.
* Miss Ivors - Fellow professor, very patriotic about Ireland.
* Michael Furey - Gretta's first childhood love.
**The famous closing paragraph:
"A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He
watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had
come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general
all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling
softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon
waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey
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lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little
gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the
universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."
Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man
It is the story of the growth and education of Stephen Dedalus, named after the Grecian
mythological craftsman Daedalus.
A Portrait is one of the key examples of the Künstlerroman in English literature. Joyce's novel traces
the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to
question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions he has been brought up in. He finally
leaves for Paris to pursue his calling as an artist.
Passages to be familiar with:
The opening:
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and
this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo
His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.
He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon
platt.
O, the wild rose blossoms
On the little green place.
He sang that song. That was his song.
O, the green wothe botheth.
When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on the oilsheet. That had the
queer smell.
The famous declaration of Stephen Dedalus:
APRIL 26. Mother is putting my new secondhand clothes in order. She prays now, she says, that I
may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen.
So be it. Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to
forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
Ulysses
Ulysses chronicles the passage through Dublin by its main character, Leopold Bloom, during an
ordinary day, June 16, 1904. The title alludes to the hero of Homer's Odyssey (Latinized version
Ulysses), and there are many parallels, both implicit and explicit, between the two works (e.g. the
correlations between Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen
Dedalus and Telemachus). June 16 is now celebrated by Joyce's fans worldwide as Bloomsday.
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The famous opening:
STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a
mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him
by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
—INTROIBO AD ALTARE DEI.
Stephen wandering on the beach:
INELUCTABLE MODALITY of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures
of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen,
bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was aware of
them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy.
Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro di color che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in?
Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your
eyes and see.
The famous closing words of Molly:
. . . and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair
like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall
and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and
then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes
and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like
mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
Finnegans Wake
You almost certainly will not need to know anything about Finnegans Wake for the exam. If it does
appear, what you'll see will be the opening lines:
"riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius
vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."
D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)
My feeling is that Lawrence isn't all that likely to appear on the exam. The short stories and the nonfiction is seem to me to be more likely to appear than the novels.
David Herbert Lawrence was one of the most important, prolific and certainly controversial English
writers of the 20th century, whose output spans novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel
books, paintings, translations, literary criticism and personal letters. These works, taken together,
represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation.
In them Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, sexuality,
and instinctive behaviour, making him iconic in an age influenced by Freud and Nietzsche.
Lawrence's unsettling opinions earned him many enemies and he endured hardships, official
persecution, censorship and the misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half
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of his life, much of which he spent in voluntary exile, self defined as a 'savage pilgrimage'. At the
time of his death his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable
talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice challenged this widely held view; describing him as 'the
greatest imaginative novelist of our generation'. Later the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis
championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction
within the canonical 'great tradition' of the English novel. He is now valued as a visionary thinker and
a significant representative of modernism in English literature, although some feminists have
questioned the attitudes to women and sexuality to be found within his works.
The Rainbow (1915)
For both The Rainbow and Women in Love, you probably only need to be able to recognize the
names Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen.
It follows three generations of the Brangwen family, focusing in particular on the sexual dynamics of
its characters.
Lawrence's frank treatment of sexual desire and the power plays within relationships as a natural
and even spiritual force of life, though perhaps tame by modern standards, caused The Rainbow to
be prosecuted in an obscenity trial in late 1915, as a result of which all copies were seized and burnt.
After this ban it was unavailable in Britain for 11 years, although editions were available in the USA.
Women in Love
It was a sequel to The Rainbow (1915), following the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen
sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with
Gerald Crich, an industrialist. Lawrence contrasts this pair with the love that develops between
Ursula and Rupert Birkin, an alienated intellectual who articulates many opinions associated with the
author. The novel ranges over the whole of British society at the time of the First World War and
eventually ends high up in the snows of the European Alps.
Like most of his works, Women in Love caused controversy over its sexual subject matter, and was
only initially published for five years after it was first written. One early reviewer said of it "I do not
claim to be a literary critic, but I know dirt when I smell it, and here is dirt in heaps - festering, putrid
heaps which smell to high Heaven."
Sons and Lovers (1913)
It tells the story of Paul Morel, a young man and a budding artist. This autobiographical novel is a
brilliant evocation of life in a working class mining community.
“The Odour of Chrysanthemums”
The stry’s main character awaits her husband’s return from work in the mines, but he has been
suffocated in a cave-in. The woman reflects on her unhappy marriage.
“The Horse Dealer’s Daughter”
This story is about a girl named Mabel who tries to commit suicide by drowning herself in a pond. A
young doctor, Joe Ferguson, saves her. She then believes that he loves her. Although this idea never
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occurred to Joe, he begins to find that he indeed loves her. However, Mabel thinks she is "too awful"
to be loved, and finds that when Joe declares over and over that he wants her and that he loves her,
she is more scared about that than of Joe not wanting her.
Lawrence's non-fiction
"Edgar Allen Poe" – This essay extensively describes Poe’s writing style, which he describes as
mechanical and scientific. He says that Poe’s stories are not stories at all, but a series of cause and
effect. He says the Poe does not look at the human side of characters and instead treats them as
inanimate objects with human characteristics (but still human).
"Thomas Hardy" - Lawrence chastises writers such as Thomas Hardy and Leo Tolstoy, who, he
argues, defile their own passionate impulses when in their emplotted judgments they side with
social law against the primitive nature of their characters.
"Why the Novel Matters" - "The novel is the book of life. In this sense, the Bible is a great confused
novel. You may say, it is about God. But it is really about man alive. Adam, Eve, Sarai, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Samuel, David, Bath-sheba, Ruth, Esther, Solomon, Job, Isaiah, Jesus, mark, Judas, Paul,
Peter: what is it but man alive, from start to finish? Man alive, not mere bits. Even the Lord is
another man alive, in a burning bush, throwing the tablets of stone at Moses's head." (from 'Why
the Novel Matters,' 1956)
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
Virginia Woolf is by reputation one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth
century. Though she is commonly regarded by many as feminist, it should be noted that she herself
deplored the term, as she felt it suggested an obsession with women and women's concerns. She
preferred to be referred to as a "humanist" .
Between the World Wars, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of
the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse,
Orlando, and her essay A Room of One's Own.
Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs Dalloway details one day in Clarissa Dalloway's life about post-World War I England.
The novel follows Clarissa Dalloway throughout a single day in post-Great War England in a stream of
consciousness style narrative. The basic story is that of Clarissa's preparations for a party she is to
host that evening. Using the interior perspective of the novel, Woolf moves back and forth in time,
and in and out of the various characters' minds to construct a complete image, not of just Clarissa's
life, but capturing the Edwardian social structure in the space of a single day.
Because of structural and stylistic similarities, Mrs Dalloway is commonly thought to be a response
to James Joyce's Ulysses, a text that is commonly hailed as one of the greatest novels of the
Twentieth Century. Woolf herself derided Joyce's masterpiece, even though Hogarth Press, run by
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her and her husband Leonard, initially published the novel in England. Fundamentally, however, Mrs
Dalloway treads new ground and seeks to portray a different aspect of the human experience.
To the Lighthouse
**The famous opening words:
“Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,” said Mrs Ramsay. “But you’ll have to be up with the lark,” she
added.
A Room of One's Own
The essay examines whether women were capable of producing work of the quality of William
Shakespeare, amongst other topics. In one section, Woolf invented a fictional "Shakespeare's
Sister", Judith, to illustrate that a woman with Shakespeare's gifts would have been denied the same
opportunities to develop them because of the doors that were closed to women. Woolf also
examines the careers of several female authors, including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and
George Eliot. The author subtly refers to several of the most prominent intellectuals of the time, and
her hybrid name for the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge - Oxbridge - has
become a well-known term in English satire.
The title comes from Woolf's conception that to be a successful writer, a woman needed space of
her own in which to work and enough money to support herself. It also refers to any author's need
for poetic license and the personal liberty to create art.
A Room of One's Own is written with supreme irony and sarcasm over the power-balance between
men and women, and it is commonly accepted that Virginia Woolf succeeds in convincingly getting
her view across to the reader. However one may analyze this book, it nevertheless stands out as one
of the most important feminist essays of the early 20th century.
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Postmodern/Contemporary British Literature
Philip Larkin
Larkin's early work shows the influence of Yeats, but his later poetic identity was influenced mainly
by Thomas Hardy. He is well-known for his use of slang and coarse language in his poetry, partly
balanced by a similarly antique word choice. With fine use of enjambement and rhyme, his poetry is
highly structured, but never rigid. Death was a recurring theme and subject of his poetry, Aubade
being an example of this. The Less Deceived, published in 1955, marked Larkin as an up-and-coming
poet. He was for a time associated with The Movement. 1964's The Whitsun Weddings confirmed
his reputation. The title poem is a masterly depiction of the sights seen by the poet from a train one
Whitsun; though this description does the poem little justice. In 1972 he wrote the oft-quoted
"Going, Going", a poem which reveals his increasing streak of romantic fatalism in his view of
England in his later years – prophesising a complete destruction of the countryside and of a certain
idealised idea of national togetherness and identity, it ends with the doom-laden statement "I just
think it will happen, soon". High Windows, his last book, was released in 1974; for some critics it
represents a falling-off from his previous two books into acrid self-parody; yet it contains a number
of his most-loved pieces, including "This Be The Verse" and "The Explosion", as well as the title
poem.
Besides poetry, Larkin published two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), and several
essays. Larkin was also a major contributor to the re-evaluation of the poetry of Thomas Hardy,
which had been ignored in comparison to his work as a novelist. Hardy received the longest selection
in Larkin's idiosyncratic and controversial anthology, The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English
Verse (1973). Larkin was by contrast a notable critic of modernism in contemporary art and
literature; his skepticism is at its most nuanced and illuminating in Required Writing, a collection of
his book-reviews and essays; it is at its most enflamed and polemical in his introduction to his
collected jazz reviews, All What Jazz.
“Here”
Swerving east, from rich industrial shadows
And traffic all night north; swerving through fields
Too thin and thistled to be called meadows,
And now and then a harsh-named halt, that shields
Workmen at dawn; swerving to solitude
Of skies and scarecrows, haystacks, hares and pheasants,
And the widening river's slow presence,
The piled gold clouds, the shining gull-marked mud,
Gathers to the surprise of a large town:
Here domes and statues, spires and cranes cluster
Beside grain-scattered streets, barge-crowded water,
And residents from raw estates, brought down
The dead straight miles by stealing flat-faced trolleys,
Push through plate-glass swing doors to their desires Cheap suits, red kitchen-ware, sharp shoes, iced lollies,
Electric mixers, toasters, washers, driers –
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A cut-price crowd, urban yet simple, dwelling
Where only salesmen and relations come
Within a terminate and fishy-smelling
Pastoral of ships up streets, the slave museum,
Tattoo-shops, consulates, grim head-scarfed wives;
And out beyond its mortgaged half-built edges
Fast-shadowed wheat-fields, running high as hedges,
Isolate villages, where removed lives
Loneliness clarifies. Here silence stands
Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken,
Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken,
Luminously-peopled air ascends;
And past the poppies bluish neutral distance
Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach
Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence:
Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.
Denise Levertov
John Fowles
Kingsley Amis
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Antiquity and "World" Literatures
Classical Literature
Epic Poets
Homer
The Odyssey
Odysseus - The protagonist of the Odyssey. Odysseus fought among the other Greek heroes at Troy
and now struggles to return to his kingdom in Ithaca. Odysseus is the husband of Queen Penelope
and the father of Prince Telemachus. Though a strong and courageous warrior, he is most renowned
for his cunning. He is a favorite of the goddess Athena, who often sends him divine aid, but a bitter
enemy of Poseidon, who frustrates his journey at every turn.
Telemachus - Odysseus’s son. An infant when Odysseus left for Troy, Telemachus is about twenty at
the beginning of the story. He is a natural obstacle to the suitors desperately courting his mother,
but despite his courage and good heart, he initially lacks the poise and confidence to oppose them.
His maturation, especially during his trip to Pylos and Sparta in Books 3 and 4, provides a subplot to
the epic. Athena often assists him.
Penelope - Wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Penelope spends her days in the palace
pining for the husband who left for Troy twenty years earlier and never returned. Homer portrays
her as sometimes flighty and excitable but also clever and steadfastly true to her husband.
Athena - Daughter of Zeus and goddess of wisdom, purposeful battle, and the womanly arts. Athena
assists Odysseus and Telemachus with divine powers throughout the epic, and she speaks up for
them in the councils of the gods on Mount Olympus. She often appears in disguise as Mentor, an old
friend of Odysseus.
Poseidon - God of the sea. As the suitors are Odysseus’s mortal antagonists, Poseidon is his divine
antagonist. He despises Odysseus for blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, and constantly
hampers his journey home. Ironically, Poseidon is the patron of the seafaring Phaeacians, who
ultimately help to return Odysseus to Ithaca.
Zeus - King of gods and men, who mediates the disputes of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is
occasionally depicted as weighing men’s fates in his scales. He sometimes helps Odysseus or permits
Athena to do the same.
Antinous - The most arrogant of Penelope’s suitors. Antinous leads the campaign to have
Telemachus killed. Unlike the other suitors, he is never portrayed sympathetically, and he is the first
to die when Odysseus returns.
Eurymachus - A manipulative, deceitful suitor. Eurymachus’s charisma and duplicity allow him to
exert some influence over the other suitors.
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Amphinomus - Among the dozens of suitors, the only decent man seeking Penelope’s hand in
marriage. Amphinomus sometimes speaks up for Odysseus and Telemachus, but he is killed like the
rest of the suitors in the final fight.
Eumaeus - The loyal shepherd who, along with the cowherd Philoetius, helps Odysseus reclaim his
throne after his return to Ithaca. Even though he does not know that the vagabond who appears at
his hut is Odysseus, Eumaeus gives the man food and shelter.
Eurycleia - The aged and loyal servant who nursed Odysseus and Telemachus when they were
babies. Eurycleia is well informed about palace intrigues and serves as confidante to her masters.
She keeps Telemachus’s journey secret from Penelope, and she later keeps Odysseus’s identity a
secret after she recognizes a scar on his leg.
Melanthius - The brother of Melantho. Melanthius is a treacherous and opportunistic goatherd who
supports the suitors, especially Eurymachus, and abuses the beggar who appears in Odysseus’s
palace, not realizing that the man is Odysseus himself.
Melantho - Sister of Melanthius and maidservant in Odysseus’s palace. Like her brother, Melantho
abuses the beggar in the palace, not knowing that the man is Odysseus. She is having an affair with
Eurymachus.
Calypso - The beautiful nymph who falls in love with Odysseus when he lands on her island-home of
Ogygia. Calypso holds him prisoner there for seven years until Hermes, the messenger god,
persuades her to let him go.
Polyphemus - One of the Cyclopes (uncivilized one-eyed giants) whose island Odysseus comes to
soon after leaving Troy. Polyphemus imprisons Odysseus and his crew and tries to eat them, but
Odysseus blinds him through a clever ruse and manages to escape. In doing so, however, Odysseus
angers Polyphemus’s father, Poseidon.
Circe - The beautiful witch-goddess who transforms Odysseus’s crew into swine when he lands on
her island. With Hermes’ help, Odysseus resists Circe’s powers and then becomes her lover, living in
luxury at her side for a year.
Laertes - Odysseus’s aging father, who resides on a farm in Ithaca. In despair and physical decline,
Laertes regains his spirit when Odysseus returns and eventually kills Antinous’s father.
Tiresias - A Theban prophet who inhabits the underworld. Tiresias meets Odysseus when Odysseus
journeys to the underworld in Book 11. He shows Odysseus how to get back to Ithaca and allows
Odysseus to communicate with the other souls in Hades.
Nestor - King of Pylos and a former warrior in the Trojan War. Like Odysseus, Nestor is known as a
clever speaker. Telemachus visits him in Book 3 to ask about his father, but Nestor knows little of
Odysseus’s whereabouts.
Menelaus - King of Sparta, brother of Agamemnon, and husband of Helen, he helped lead the
Greeks in the Trojan War. He offers Telemachus assistance in his quest to find Odysseus when
Telemachus visits him in Book 4.
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Helen - Wife of Menelaus and queen of Sparta. Helen’s abduction from Sparta by the Trojans
sparked the Trojan War. Her beauty is without parallel, but she is criticized for giving in to her Trojan
captors and thereby costing many Greek men their lives. She offers Telemachus assistance in his
quest to find his father.
Agamemnon - Former king of Mycenae, brother of Menelaus, and commander of the Achaean
forces at Troy. Odysseus encounters Agamemnon’s spirit in Hades. Agamemnon was murdered by
his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, upon his return from the war. He was later avenged
by his son Orestes. Their story is constantly repeated in the Odyssey to offer an inverted image of
the fortunes of Odysseus and Telemachus.
Nausicaa - The beautiful daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians. Nausicaa
discovers Odysseus on the beach at Scheria and, out of budding affection for him, ensures his warm
reception at her parents’ palace.
Alcinous - King of the Phaeacians, who offers Odysseus hospitality in his island kingdom of Scheria.
Alcinous hears the story of Odysseus’s wanderings and provides him with safe passage back to
Ithaca.
Arete - Queen of the Phaeacians, wife of Alcinous, and mother of Nausicaa. Arete is intelligent and
influential. Nausicaa tells Odysseus to make his appeal for assistance to Arete.
Remember: you're not going to need to know about the historical contexts of these poems -- just the
plot synopses and major characters. You will also need to know that both poems begin in media res,
meaning "in the middle of things."
Also, you will need to know that both poems are written in dactylic hexameter.
The Iliad
Achilles - The son of the military man Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis. The most powerful warrior
in The Iliad, Achilles commands the Myrmidons, soldiers from his homeland of Phthia in Greece.
Proud and headstrong, he takes offense easily and reacts with blistering indignation when he
perceives that his honor has been slighted. Achilles’ wrath at Agamemnon for taking his war prize,
the maiden Briseis, forms the main subject of The Iliad.
Agamemnon (also called “Atrides”) - King of Mycenae and leader of the Achaean army; brother of
King Menelaus of Sparta. Arrogant and often selfish, Agamemnon provides the Achaeans with strong
but sometimes reckless and self-serving leadership. Like Achilles, he lacks consideration and
forethought. Most saliently, his tactless appropriation of Achilles’ war prize, the maiden Briseis,
creates a crisis for the Achaeans, when Achilles, insulted, withdraws from the war.
Patroclus - Achilles’ beloved friend, companion, and advisor, Patroclus grew up alongside the great
warrior in Phthia, under the guardianship of Peleus. Devoted to both Achilles and the Achaean
cause, Patroclus stands by the enraged Achilles but also dons Achilles’ terrifying armor in an attempt
to hold the Trojans back.
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Odysseus - A fine warrior and the cleverest of the Achaean commanders. Along with Nestor,
Odysseus is one of the Achaeans’ two best public speakers. He helps mediate between Agamemnon
and Achilles during their quarrel and often prevents them from making rash decisions.
Diomedes (also called “Tydides”) - The youngest of the Achaean commanders, Diomedes is bold
and sometimes proves impetuous. After Achilles withdraws from combat, Athena inspires Diomedes
with such courage that he actually wounds two gods, Aphrodite and Ares.
Great Ajax - An Achaean commander, Great Ajax (sometimes called “Telamonian Ajax” or simply
“Ajax”) is the second mightiest Achaean warrior after Achilles. His extraordinary size and strength
help him to wound Hector twice by hitting him with boulders. He often fights alongside Little Ajax,
and the pair is frequently referred to as the “Aeantes.”
Little Ajax - An Achaean commander, Little Ajax is the son of Oileus (to be distinguished from Great
Ajax, the son of Telamon). He often fights alongside Great Ajax, whose stature and strength
complement Little Ajax’s small size and swift speed. The two together are sometimes called the
“Aeantes.”
Nestor - King of Pylos and the oldest Achaean commander. Although age has taken much of
Nestor’s physical strength, it has left him with great wisdom. He often acts as an advisor to the
military commanders, especially Agamemnon. Nestor and Odysseus are the Achaeans’ most deft and
persuasive orators, although Nestor’s speeches are sometimes long-winded.
Menelaus - King of Sparta; the younger brother of Agamemnon. While it is the abduction of his wife,
Helen, by the Trojan prince Paris that sparks the Trojan War, Menelaus proves quieter, less
imposing, and less arrogant than Agamemnon. Though he has a stout heart, Menelaus is not among
the mightiest Achaean warriors.
Idomeneus - King of Crete and a respected commander. Idomeneus leads a charge against the
Trojans in Book 13.
Machaon - A healer. Machaon is wounded by Paris in Book 11.
Calchas - An important soothsayer. Calchas’s identification of the cause of the plague ravaging the
Achaean army in Book 1 leads inadvertently to the rift between Agamemnon and Achilles that
occupies the first nineteen books of The Iliad.
Peleus - Achilles’ father and the grandson of Zeus. Although his name often appears in the epic,
Peleus never appears in person. Priam powerfully invokes the memory of Peleus when he convinces
Achilles to return Hector’s corpse to the Trojans in Book 24.
Phoenix - A kindly old warrior, Phoenix helped raise Achilles while he himself was still a young man.
Achilles deeply loves and trusts Phoenix, and Phoenix mediates between him and Agamemnon
during their quarrel.
The Myrmidons - The soldiers under Achilles’ command, hailing from Achilles’ homeland, Phthia.
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The Trojans
Hector - A son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, Hector is the mightiest warrior in the Trojan army.
He mirrors Achilles in some of his flaws, but his bloodlust is not so great as that of Achilles. He is
devoted to his wife, Andromache, and son, Astyanax, but resents his brother Paris for bringing war
upon their family and city.
Priam - King of Troy and husband of Hecuba, Priam is the father of fifty Trojan warriors, including
Hector and Paris. Though too old to fight, he has earned the respect of both the Trojans and the
Achaeans by virtue of his level-headed, wise, and benevolent rule. He treats Helen kindly, though he
laments the war that her beauty has sparked.
Hecuba - Queen of Troy, wife of Priam, and mother of Hector and Paris.
Paris (also known as “Alexander”) - A son of Priam and Hecuba and brother of Hector. Paris’s
abduction of the beautiful Helen, wife of Menelaus, sparked the Trojan War. Paris is self-centered
and often unmanly. He fights effectively with a bow and arrow (never with the more manly sword or
spear) but often lacks the spirit for battle and prefers to sit in his room making love to Helen while
others fight for him, thus earning both Hector’s and Helen’s scorn.
Helen - Reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the ancient world, Helen left her husband,
Menelaus, to run away with Paris. She loathes herself now for the misery that she has caused so
many Trojan and Achaean men. Although her contempt extends to Paris as well, she continues to
stay with him.
Aeneas - A Trojan nobleman, the son of Aphrodite, and a mighty warrior. The Romans believed that
Aeneas later founded their city (he is the protagonist of Virgil’s masterpiece the Aeneid).
Andromache - Hector’s loving wife, Andromache begs Hector to withdraw from the war and save
himself before the Achaeans kill him.
Astyanax - Hector and Andromache’s infant son.
Polydamas - A young Trojan commander, Polydamas sometimes figures as a foil for Hector, proving
cool-headed and prudent when Hector charges ahead. Polydamas gives the Trojans sound advice,
but Hector seldom acts on it.
Glaucus - A powerful Trojan warrior, Glaucus nearly fights a duel with Diomedes. The men’s
exchange of armor after they realize that their families are friends illustrates the value that ancients
placed on kinship and camaraderie.
Agenor - A Trojan warrior who attempts to fight Achilles in Book 21. Agenor delays Achilles long
enough for the Trojan army to flee inside Troy’s walls.
Dolon - A Trojan sent to spy on the Achaean camp in Book 10.
Pandarus - A Trojan archer. Pandarus’s shot at Menelaus in Book 4 breaks the temporary truce
between the two sides.
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Antenor - A Trojan nobleman, advisor to King Priam, and father of many Trojan warriors. Antenor
argues that Helen should be returned to Menelaus in order to end the war, but Paris refuses to give
her up.
Sarpedon - One of Zeus’s sons. Sarpedon’s fate seems intertwined with the gods’ quibbles, calling
attention to the unclear nature of the gods’ relationship to Fate.
Chryseis - Chryses’ daughter, a priest of Apollo in a Trojan-allied town.
Briseis - A war prize of Achilles. When Agamemnon is forced to return Chryseis to her father, he
appropriates Briseis as compensation, sparking Achilles’ great rage.
Chryses - A priest of Apollo in a Trojan-allied town; the father of Chryseis, whom Agamemnon takes
as a war prize.
The Gods and Immortals
Zeus - King of the gods and husband of Hera, Zeus claims neutrality in the mortals’ conflict and often
tries to keep the other gods from participating in it. However, he throws his weight behind the
Trojan side for much of the battle after the sulking Achilles has his mother, Thetis, ask the god to do
so.
Hera - Queen of the gods and Zeus’s wife, Hera is a conniving, headstrong woman. She often goes
behind Zeus’s back in matters on which they disagree, working with Athena to crush the Trojans,
whom she passionately hates.
Athena - The goddess of wisdom, purposeful battle, and the womanly arts; Zeus’s daughter. Like
Hera, Athena passionately hates the Trojans and often gives the Achaeans valuable aid.
Thetis - A sea-nymph and the devoted mother of Achilles, Thetis gets Zeus to help the Trojans and
punish the Achaeans at the request of her angry son. When Achilles finally rejoins the battle, she
commissions Hephaestus to design him a new suit of armor.
Apollo - A son of Zeus and twin brother of the goddess Artemis, Apollo is god of the arts and
archery. He supports the Trojans and often intervenes in the war on their behalf.
Aphrodite - Goddess of love and daughter of Zeus, Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus but
maintains a romantic relationship with Ares. She supports Paris and the Trojans throughout the war,
though she proves somewhat ineffectual in battle.
Poseidon - The brother of Zeus and god of the sea. Poseidon holds a long-standing grudge against
the Trojans because they never paid him for helping them to build their city. He therefore supports
the Achaeans in the war.
Hephaestus - God of fire and husband of Aphrodite, Hephaestus is the gods’ metalsmith and is
known as the lame or crippled god. Although the text doesn’t make clear his sympathies in the
mortals’ struggle, he helps the Achaeans by forging a new set of armor for Achilles and by rescuing
Achilles during his fight with a river god.
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Artemis - Goddess of the hunt, daughter of Zeus, and twin sister of Apollo. Artemis supports the
Trojans in the war.
Ares - God of war and lover of Aphrodite, Ares generally supports the Trojans in the war.
Hermes - The messenger of the gods. Hermes escorts Priam to Achilles’ tent in Book 24.
Iris - Zeus’s messenger.
Virgil
Chances are that The Ecologues will not be on your exam, though they were very important for later
poets like Edmund Spenser. The Aeneid will be on the exam, though it may only account for a
question or two.
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC (between 29 and 19 BC) that tells the
legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy where he became the ancestor of the
Romans. It is written in dactylic hexameter.
Virgil begins his poem with a statement of his theme (Arma virumque cano…, "I sing of arms and the
man...") and an invocation to his Muse (Musa, mihi causas memora…, "O Muse, relate to me the
reasons…"). He then explains the cause of the principal conflict of the plot; in this case, the
resentment held by Juno against the Trojan people. This is in keeping with the style of the Homeric
epics, except in that Virgil states the theme and then invokes his Muse, whereas Homer invokes the
Muse and then states the theme.
Also in the manner of Homer, the story proper begins in medias res, with the Trojan fleet in the
eastern Mediterranean, heading in the direction of Italy. Juno stirs up a storm which is on the verge
of sinking the fleet. Neptune takes notice: although he himself is no friend of the Trojans, he is
infuriated by Juno's intrusion into his domain, and stills the winds and calms the waters. The fleet
takes shelter on the coast of Africa, where Aeneas gains the favor of Dido, queen of Carthage, a city
which has only recently been founded by refugees from Tyre and which will later become Rome's
greatest enemy.
At a banquet given in the honor of the Trojans, Aeneas recounts the events which occasioned the
Trojans' fortuitous arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the events described in the Iliad, and tells
of the end of the Trojan War, the ruse of the Trojan Horse, the sack of Troy by the Greek armies, and
his escape with his son Ascanius and father Anchises, his wife Creusa having been separated from
the others and subsequently killed in the general catastrophe. She was later turned into a minor
goddess. He tells of how, rallying the other survivors, he built a fleet of ships and made landfall at
various locations in the Mediterranean (including Thrace, Crete and Epirus) before being divinely
advised to seek out the land of Italy (also known as Ausonia or Hesperia), where his descendants
would not only prosper, but in time rule the entire known world. The fleet reached as far as Sicily
and was making for the mainland, until Juno raised up the storm which drove it back across the sea
to Carthage.
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During the banquet, Dido realizes that she has fallen madly in love with Aeneas, although she had
previously sworn fidelity to the soul of her late husband, Sychaeus, who was murdered by her
cupidinous brother Pygmalion. Juno seizes upon this opportunity to make a deal with Venus, Aeneas'
mother, with the intention of distracting him from his destiny of founding a city in Italy. Aeneas is
inclined to return Dido's love, and during a hunting expedition, a storm drives them into a cave in
which Aeneas and Dido presumably have sex, an event that Dido takes to indicate a marriage
between them. But when Jupiter sends Mercury to remind him of his duty, he has no choice but to
part. Her heart broken, Dido commits suicide by stabbing herself upon a pyre with a sword. Before
dying, she predicts eternal strife between Aeneas's people and hers; "rise up from my bones,
avenging spirit" is an obvious invocation to Hannibal. Looking back from the deck of his ship, Aeneas
sees Dido's funeral pyre's smoke and knows its meaning only too clearly. However, destiny calls and
the Trojan fleet sails on to Italy.
Aeneas's father Anchises having been hastily interred on Sicily during the fleet's previous landfall
there, the Trojans returned to the island to hold funeral games in his honor. Eventually, the fleet
lands on the mainland of Italy and further adventures ensue. Aeneas descends to the underworld
through an opening at Cumae, where he speaks with the spirit of his father and has a prophetic
vision of the destiny of Rome. Returning to the land of the living, he leads the Trojans to settle in the
land of Latium, where he courts Lavinia, the daughter of king Latinus. A war ensues between the
Trojans and some of the indigenous peoples of Italy, which is brought to a close when Lavinia's
rejected suitor Turnus, king of the Rutuli, challenges Aeneas to a duel in which Turnus is slain.
The Eclogues
Written in around 37 BC, it consists of ten poems with a rural setting. (For this reason, they are
sometimes known as "The Bucolics".) Most of the individual poems are in the form of conversations
between characters with names such as "Tityrus" (supposedly representing Virgil himself),
"Meliboeus", "Menalcas" and "Mopsus".
Cupid and Psyche (Roman myth)
The tale of Cupid and Psyche first appeared as a digressionary story told by an old woman in Lucius
Apuleius' novel, The Golden Ass, written in the second century CE. Apuleius probably used an earlier
folk-tale as the basis for his story, modifying it to suit the thematic needs of his novel. Read on its
own, it is for the most part a mixture of straightforward fairy tale and parody.
Psyche, in Roman mythology, beautiful princess loved by Cupid, god of love. Jealous of Psyche's
beauty, Venus, goddess of love, ordered her son, Cupid, to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest
man in the world. Fortunately for Psyche, Cupid instead fell in love with her and carried her off to a
secluded palace where he visited her only by night, unseen and unrecognized by her. Although Cupid
had forbidden her ever to look upon his face, one night Psyche lit a lamp and looked upon him while
he slept. Because she had disobeyed him, Cupid abandoned her, and Psyche was left to wander
desolately throughout the world in search of him. Finally, after many trials she was reunited with
Cupid and was made immortal by Jupiter, king of the gods.
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Niobe - A mortal woman in Greek mythology, Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and either Euryanassa,
Eurythemista, Clytia, Dione, or Laodice, and the wife of Amphion, boasted of her superiority to Leto
because she had fourteen children (Niobids), seven male and seven female, while Leto had only two.
Apollo killed her sons as they practiced athletics, with the last begging for his life (Apollo would have
spared his life, but had already released the arrow), and Artemis, her daughters. Apollo and Artemis
used poisoned arrows to kill them, though according to some versions a number of the Niobids were
spared (Chloris, usually). Amphion, at the sight of his dead sons, either killed himself or was killed by
Apollo after swearing revenge. A devastated Niobe fled to Mount Sipylus in Asia Minor and turned
into stone as she wept, or committed suicide. Her tears formed the river Achelous. Zeus had turned
all the people of Thebes to stone and so no one buried the Niobids until the ninth day after their
death, when the gods themselves entombed them.
Lamia - On the fringes of Greek mythology Lamia was one of the monstrous bogeys that terrified
children and the naive, like her daughter Scylla, or Empousa. Laimos is the gullet, and she had a
cannibal appetite for children that could be interpreted as a dangerous erotic appetite for men:
harlots might be named "Lamia."
Ariadne - In later Greek mythology, Ariadne's divine origins were submerged and she became known
as the daughter of King Minos of Crete, who conquered Athens after his son was murdered there.
The Athenians were required to sacrifice seven young men and seven maidens each year to the
Minotaur. One year, the sacrificial party included Theseus, a young man who volunteered to come
and kill the Minotaur. Ariadne fell in love at the first sight of him, and helped him by giving him a
magic sword and a ball of thread so that he could find his way out the Minotaur's labyrinth. She ran
away with Theseus after he achieved his goal, and according to Homer was punished by Artemis with
death, but in Hesiod and most others accounts, he left her sleeping on Naxos, and Dionysus wedded
her. With Dionysus, she was the mother of Oenopion.
Cassandra - In Greek mythology, Cassandra ("she who entangles men") (also known as Alexandra)
was a daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen Hecuba, who captured the eye of Apollo and so
was given the ability to see the future. However, when she did not return his love, he placed a curse
on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions. Thus Cassandra foresees the destruction
of Troy (she warns the Trojans about the Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and her own
demise), but is unable to do anything about them. Coroebus and Othronus came to the aid of Troy
out of love for Cassandra. Cassandra was the first to see the body of her brother Hector being
brought back to the city.
Daphne - Pursued by Apollo who has been shot with an arrow by Eros, Daphne prays Pheneus to be
turned into a tree, which later becomes sacred to Apollo.
Europa - was a Levantine woman in Greek mythology. There were two competing myths relating
how Europa came into the Greek world: in the more familiar one she was seduced by the god Zeus in
the form of a bull and carried away to Crete on his back, but according to Herodotus she was
kidnapped by Minoans , who likewise were said to have taken her to Crete. The mythical Europa
cannot be separated from the mythology of the sacred bull , which had been worshipped in the
Levant.
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Euripides
Euripides is known primarily for having reshaped the formal structure of traditional Attic tragedy by
showing strong women characters and smart slaves, and by satirizing many heroes of Greek
mythology. His plays seem modern by comparison with those of his contemporaries, focusing on the
inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown to Greek audiences.
Iphigenia at Aulis
At the start of the play, Agamemnon is having second thoughts about whether he can go through
with the sacrifice of his daughter, and he sends a second message to his wife, telling her to ignore
the first missive. However, Clytemnestra never receives this message because it is intercepted by
Menelaus, Agamemnon's brother, who is enraged that his brother has changed his mind.
To Menelaus, this is not only a personal blow (it is his wife, Helen , with whom the Trojan prince
Paris ran off, and retrieving her is a main pretext for the war), but it also may lead to mutiny and the
downfall of the Greek leaders if the rank and file discover Calchas' prophecy and realize that their
general put his family above their pride as soldiers.
The brothers debate, and eventually, each changes the other's mind: Agamemnon is now ready to
carry out the sacrifice, and Menelaus is convinced that it would be better to disband the Greek army
than to have his niece killed. But by this time, Clytemnestra is already en route to Aulis with
Iphigeneia and her baby brother, Orestes , making the decision of how to proceed all the more
difficult.
Iphigeneia is thrilled at the prospect of marrying one of the great heroes of the Greek army, but she,
her mother, and the groom-to-be in the supposed marriage soon discover the truth. Achilles is
furious at having been used as a prop in Agamemnon's plan to lure his family to Aulis, and he vows
to protect Iphigeneia - as much to save the innocent girl as to take revenge on her father for
besmirching his own honor.
Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia try in vain to persuade Agamemnon to change his mind, but the
general believes he has no choice. But as Achilles prepares to defend the young woman by force,
Iphigeneia has a sudden change of heart and decides that the heroic thing to do is to let herself be
sacrificed. She is led off to die, with her mother Clytemnestra distraught over the decision.
However, in an addition to the play, a messenger arrives in the end to inform Clytemnestra that at
the last minute, just as Agamemnon was about to kill their daughter, Artemis, apparently appeased,
switched the body of Iphigeneia with that of a deer, which was sacrificed in the girl's stead.
Iphigeneia was swept off by the gods, thus paving the way for the plot of another of Euripides' plays,
Iphigeneia in Tauris .
Medea
Medea is a tragedy written by Euripides, based on the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced
in 431 BC. Along with the plays Philoctetes, Dictys and Theristai, which were all entered as a group, it
won the third prize at the Dionysia festival. The plot largely centres on the protagonist in a struggle
with the world, rendering it the most Sophoclean of Euripides' extant plays. Euripides breaks with
tradition, having a female lead with what in Greek drama were very male characteristics and by
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having a female chorus, the chorus was usually city elders. The play is notable in that either Medea
or Jason can be viewed as the tragic hero.
The play tells the story of the jealousy and revenge of a woman betrayed by her husband. The
concentrated action of the play is at Corinth, where Jason has brought Medea after the adventures
of the Golden Fleece but has now left her to marry the daughter of King Creon (elsewhere known as
Glauce, and also known in Latin works as Creusa - see Seneca the Younger's Medea and Propertius
2.16.30). The play opens with Medea grieving over her loss, and her elderly nurse fearing what she
might do to herself or her children.
Creon, also fearing what Medea might do, arrives determined to send Medea into exile. Medea
pleads for one day's delay. She then begins to plan the deaths of Jason, Glauce, and Creon.
Meanwhile Jason arrives to confront her and explain himself. He believes he could not pass up the
opportunity to marry a royal princess, as Medea is only a barbarian woman, but hopes to someday
join the two families and keep Medea as his mistress. Medea, and the chorus of Corinthian women,
do not buy his story. She reminds him that she left her own barbarian people for him ("I am the
mother of your children. Whither can I fly, since all Greece hates the barbarian?"), and that she had
caused Pelias, whom he feared, to be killed by his own daughters.
She refuses with scorn his base gifts, "Marry the maid if thou wilt; perchance full soon thou mayst
rue thy nuptials."
Next Medea is visited by Aegeus, King of Athens, who shares the prophecy that will lead to the birth
of Theseus; Medea begs him to protect her, in return for her help in his wife conceiving a child.
Aegeus does not know what Medea is going to do in Corinth, but promises to give her refuge in any
case, provided she can escape to Athens.
Medea then returns to her scheming, plotting how she may kill Creus and Glauce. She decides to
poison some golden robes (a family heirloom and gift from the sun god), in hopes that the bride will
not be able to resist wearing them, and consequently be poisoned. Medea resolves to kill her own
children as well, not because the children have done anything wrong, but because she feels it is the
best way to hurt Jason. She calls for Jason once more, falsely apologizes to him, and sends the
poisoned robes with her children as the gift-bearers.
"Forgive what I said in anger! I will yield to the decree, and only beg one favor, that my children may
stay. They shall take to the princess a costly robe and a golden crown, and pray for her protection."
The request is granted and the gifts are accepted. Offstage, while Medea ponders her actions,
Glauce is killed by the poisoned dress, and Creon is also killed by the poison while attempting to save
her. These events are related by a messenger.
"Alas! The bride had died in horrible agony; for no sooner had she put on Medea's gifts than a
devouring poison consumed her limbs as with fire, and in his endeavor to save his daughter the old
father died too."
Medea is pleased, and gives a soliloquy pondering her next action:
In vain, my children, have I brought you up,
Borne all the cares and pangs of motherhood,
And the sharp pains of childbirth undergone.
In you, alas, was treasured many a hope
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Of loving sustentation in my age,
Of tender laying out when I was dead,
Such as all men might envy.
Those sweet thoughts are mine no more, for now bereft of you
I must wear out a drear and joyless life,
And you will nevermore your mother see,
Nor live as ye have done beneath her eye.
Alas, my sons, why do you gaze on me,
Why smile upon your mother that last smile?
Ah me! What shall I do? My purpose melts
Beneath the bright looks of my little ones.
I cannot do it. Farewell, my resolve,
I will bear off my children from this land.
Why should I seek to wring their father's heart,
When that same act will doubly wring my own?
I will not do it. Farewell, my resolve.
What has come o'er me? Shall I let my foes
Triumph, that I may let my friends go free?
I'll brace me to the deed. Base that I was
To let a thought of wickedness cross my soul.
Children, go home. Whoso accounts it wrong
To be attendant at my sacrifice,
Let him stand off; my purpose is unchanged.
Forego my resolutions, O my soul,
Force not the parent's hand to slay the child.
Their presence where we will go will gladden thee.
By the avengers that in Hades reign,
It never shall be said that I have left
My children for my foes to trample on.
It is decreed.
She rushes offstage with a knife to kill her children. As the chorus laments her decision, the children
are heard screaming. Jason rushes to the scene to punish her for the murder of Glauce and learns
that his children too have been killed. Medea then appears above the stage in the chariot of the sun
god Helios; this was probably accomplished using the mechane device usually reserved for the
appearance of a god or goddess. She confronts Jason, revelling in his pain at being unable to ever
hold his children again:
"I do not leave my children's bodies with thee; I take them with me that I may bury them in Hera's
precinct. And for thee, who didst me all that evil, I prophesy an evil doom."
She escapes to Athens with the bodies. The chorus is left contemplating the will of Zeus in Medea's
actions.
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Modern "World" Literature
France
Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist. Along with Flaubert, he is generally regarded as a foundingfather of realism in European fiction. His large output of novels and stories, collectively entitled La
Comédie humaine, is a broad panorama of French society in the period of the Restoration and the
July Monarchy
Lost Illusions
The story of a young, handsome, talented man, Lucian de Rubempre, who travels to Paris with a
married woman to make his literary name. He loses the woman, betrays his talent, and sells out not
only himself but his family, mistresses, etc. He dies in the end after making an unlikely comeback
orchestrated by Balzac’s criminal matermind, Vautrin (who also figures prominently in Pére Goriot)
Le Père Goriot
It is one of the series of novels to which Balzac gave the title of "The Human Comedy." It is a
comedy, mingled with lurid tragic touches, of society in the French capital in the early decades of the
19th century. The novel follows Eugene Rastignac's entrance into heartless Parisian society. This
heartlessness is embodied by the cruel fate of Goriot who has reduced himself to a state of squalour
to provide his daughters with the material luxuries they desire. These daughters do not even come
to visit him as he's dying and Rastignac is the only attendent at his funeral
Albert Camus (1913-1960)
Albert Camus was a French author and philosopher and one of the principal luminaries of absurdism.
Camus was the second youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (after Rudyard
Kipling) when he received the award in 1957.
The Plague
tells the story of medical workers finding solidarity in their labor as the Algerian city of Oran is swept
by a plague. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition.
The characters in the book, ranging from doctors to vacationers to fugitives, all help to show the
effects the plague has on a populace.
Generally taken as a metaphoric treatment of the French resistance to Nazi occupation during World
War II, The Plague is interpreted to mean much more. Camus uses extreme hardships (e.g., pain,
suffering, and death) to represent our human world. The story is told through the narrative of the
main character, Dr. Rieux, whose decidedly existential account of events in the story is not only
helpful in exploring the philosophy of existentialism, but also in making this an allegory of the nature
of life and suffering. Although his approach in the book is severe, he emphasizes the ideas that we
ultimately have no control, irrationality of life is inevitable, and he further illustrates the human
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reaction towards the ‘absurd’. The Plague represents how the world deals with the philosophical
notion of the Absurd, a theory which Camus himself helped to define.
The Fall
Set in Amsterdam, The Fall consists of a series of monologues by a self-proclaimed 'judge penitent'
Jean-Baptiste Clamence, as he reflects upon his life to a stranger. Clamence tells us of his success, he
enjoyed an upstanding role in society, esteem from fellows, and a rich sensuous life, and his ultimate
'fall' from grace.
The Stranger
The novel tells the story of an alienated man, who eventually commits a murder and waits to be
executed for it. The book uses an Algerian setting, drawn from Camus' own upbringing.
At the start of the novel, Meursault goes to his mother's funeral, where he does not express any
emotions and is basically unaffected by it. The novel continues to document the next few days of his
life through the first person point-of-view. In these days, he befriends one of his neighbors,
Raymond Sintes, a notorious local pimp. He aids Raymond in dismissing one of his Arab mistresses.
Later, the two confront the woman's brother ("the Arab") on a beach and Raymond gets cut in the
resulting knife fight. Meursault afterwards goes back to the beach and, in a heat-induced fit of
lunacy, shoots the Arab five times.
At the trial, the prosecution focuses on the inability or unwillingness of Meursault to cry at his
mother's funeral, considered suspect by the authorities. The killing of the Arab apparently is less
important than whether Meursault is capable of remorse. The argument follows that if Meursault is
incapable of remorse, he should be considered a dangerous misanthrope and subsequently executed
to prevent him from doing it again, and by executing, make him an example to those considering
murder.
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)
French novelist who is counted among the greatest Western novelists, known especially for his first
published novel Madame Bovary, and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style, best
exemplified by his endless search for le mot juste ("the precise word").
Madame Bovary
The important thing to know about this book is that the main character, Emma, believes herself to be
in a novel, much in the same way as Jane Austen's Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.
Madame Bovary takes place in provincial northern France, near the town of Rouen. A doctor,
Charles Bovary, marries a beautiful farm girl, Emma. She is filled with a desire for luxury and
romance, which she gets from reading popular novels. Charles means well, but is boring and
clumsy. When Emma gets pregnant and eventually gives birth to a daughter, she believes her life is
virtually over.
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Charles decides that Emma needs a change of scenery, and moves from the village of Tostes into an
equally stultifying village, Yonville. There, Emma flirts with a young law student, Léon, who seems to
share her appreciation for "the finer things in life." When he leaves to study in Paris, Emma begins
an affair with a rich landowner, Rodolphe. Swept away by romantic fantasy, she makes a plan to run
away with him. Rodolphe, however, does not love her, and breaks off the plan the evening before it
was to take place.
Emma and Charles attend the opera in Rouen one night, and Emma reencounters Léon. They begin
an affair--Emma travels to the city each week to meet him, while Charles believes that she is taking
piano lessons. Meanwhile, Emma is spending exorbitant amounts of money at the local
dressmaker's. When Emma's debts begin to pile up and people begin to suspect her adultery, she
sees suicide as her only means of escape. She swallows arsenic and dies, painfully and slowly. The
loyal Charles is distraught, even more so after finding the letters that Rodolphe wrote to her. Soon
after, he dies, leaving their daughter an orphan.
The Sentimental Education
The Sentimental Education describes the life of a young man (Frederic Moreau) living through the
revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second French Empire, and his love for an older woman.
Flaubert based many of the protagonist's experiences (including the romantic passion) on his own
life.
Molière (1622-1673)
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Molière (January 15, 1622 – February 17, 1673), was a
French theatre writer, director and actor, one of the masters of comic satire.
Tartuffe
As the play begins, the well-off Orgon is convinced that Tartuffe is a man of great religious zeal and
fervor. In fact, Tartuffe is a scheming hypocrite. By the time Tartuffe is exposed and Orgon
renounces him, Tartuffe has legal control of Orgon's finances and family, and is about to steal all of
Orgon's wealth and marry his daughter. Instead the king intervenes, and Tartuffe is condemned to
prison. As a consequence, the word tartuffe is used in contemporary French, and also in English, to
designate a hypocrite who ostensibly and exaggeratedly feigns virtue, especially religious virtue.
Jean Racine
Phèdre
Phèdre was a 1677 play by Jean Racine, based on both the play Hippolytus by Euripides, and a later
Roman play Phaedra by Seneca the Younger. Due to its negative reception in the popular press,
Racine abandoned writing for the public theater after this play (although later in his career he did
write additional works on a royal commission). It is generally considered his finest work; it was
chosen for inclusion in the Harvard Classics. Phèdre is the last secular tragedy of Racine before a long
silence of twelve years, during which time he devoted himself to the service of King Louis XIV and to
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religion. In Phèdre, Racine again chose a subject already treated by Greek and Roman tragic poets. In
the absence of her husband, King Thésée, Phèdre falls in love with Hippolyte, son of Thésée of a
preceding marriage.
Every aspect of Phèdre was celebrated: the tragic construction, the depth of the personages and the
wealth of the versification. In contrast to Euripides in Hippolytos kalyptomenos, Racine puts off
Phèdre's death until the end of the play. In this way, she has time to learn of Hippolyte’s death.
Phèdre, at once guilty of causing misfortune and being victim to it, is most remarkable among
Racine's tragic heroes and heroines.
Jean-Paul Satre (1905 – 1980)
Jean-Paul Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, dramatist, novelist and critic.
Nausea
Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre wrote La Nausée in 1938 while he was a college professor. The Kafkainfluenced novel concerns a dejected researcher in a town who becomes convinced that inanimate
objects and situations encroach on his ability to define himself, on his intellectual and spiritual
freedom, evoking in the protagonist a sense of nausea.
Fresh from several years of travel, 30-year-old Antoine Roquentin settles in the French seaport town
of Bouville to finish his research on the life of an 18th-century political figure. But during the winter
of 1932 a "sweetish sickness" he calls nausea increasingly impinges on almost everything he does or
enjoys -- his research project, the company of "The Self-Taught Man" who is reading all the books in
the library, a pleasant physical relationship with a cafe owner named Francoise, his memories of
Anny, an English girl he once loved ... even his own hands and the beauty of nature. Antoine is facing
the troublesomely provisional and limited nature of existence itself; he embodies Sartre's theories of
existential angst, and he searches anxiously for meaning in all the things that had filled and fulfilled
his life up to that point.
No Exit
Originally published in French in 1944 as Huis Clos, the play features only four characters (one of
whom appears for only a very limited time), and one set. No Exit is the source of the famous
Sartreian maxim, "Hell is other people".
The play begins with a bellhop leading a man named Garcin into a hotel room (the play portrays Hell
as a gigantic hotel, and realization of where the action is taking place dawns on the audience in the
opening minutes). The room has no windows and only one door. Eventually Garcin is joined by a
woman (Inez), and then another (Estelle). After their entry, the bellhop bolts the door shut. All
expect to be tortured, but no torturer arrives. Instead, they realize, they are there to torture each
other, which they do effectively, by probing each other's sins, desires, and unpleasant memories. At
first, the three see events concerning them that are happening on earth, though they can only
observe and listen, but eventually (as their connection to Earth dwindles and the living move on)
they are left with only their own thoughts and the company of the other two.
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Stendhal (1783-1842)
Marie-Henri Beyle, better known by his penname Stendhal, was a 19th century French writer. He is
known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology and for the dryness of his writing-style. He
is considered one of the foremost and earliest practioners of the realistic form, and his best novels
are Le Rouge et le Noir (1830; The Red and the Black) and La Chartreuse de Parme (1839; The
Charterhouse of Parma).
The Red and the Black
The Red and the Black is the story of Julien Sorel, the aesthete son of a carpenter in the fictional
French village of Verrières, and his attempts to overcome his poor birth through posturing and
telling people what they want to hear. The novel comprises two “books,” but each book has two
major stories within it.
The first book introduces Julien, who would rather spend his time with his nose in books or
daydreaming about being in Napoleon’s (by then defunct) army than work with his carpenter father
and brothers, who beat him for his pseudo-intellectual tendencies. Julien ends up becoming an
acolyte for the local Catholic Abbé, who later secures him a post as tutor for the children of the
Mayor of Verrières, M. de Rênal. Julien acts as a pious cleric, but in reality has little interest in the
Bible beyond its literary value and the way he can use memorized passages to impress important
people. Over time, Julien begins an affair with the wife of M. de Rênal, one that ends badly when the
affair is exposed throughout the town by a servant, Eliza, who had designs of her own on Julien. M.
de Rênal then banishes Julien, who moves on to a seminary that he finds cliquish and stifling. The
director of the seminary, M. Pirard, takes a liking to Julien, and when M. Pirard leaves the seminary
in disgust at the political machinations of the Church’s hierarchy, he recommends Julien as a
candidate for secretary to the diplomat and reactionary M. de la Mole.
Book II chronicles Julien’s time in Paris with the family of M. de la Mole. Julien tries to participate in
the high society of Paris, but the nobles look down on him as something of a novelty – a poor-born
intellectual. Julien, meanwhile, finds himself torn between his ambitions to rise in society and his
disgust at the base materialism and hypocrisy of the Parisian nobility.
Mathilde de la Mole, the daughter of Julien’s boss, seduces Julien, and the two begin a comical onagain, off-again affair, one that Julien feeds by feigning disinterest in Mathilde at one point and using
the letters written by a lothario he knows to woo a widow in the de la Mole’s social circle.
Eventually, Julien and Mathilde reunite when she reveals she is pregnant with his child. M. de la
Mole is livid at the news, but relents and grants Julien a stipend, a place in the army, and his
grudging blessing to marry his daughter. But M. de la Mole relents when he receives a letter from
Mme. de Rênal warning him that Julien is nothing but a cad and a social climber who preys on
vulnerable women. (In a perfect example of irony, Julien had suggested to M. de la Mole that he
write to Mme. de Rênal for a character reference.) On learning of this treachery and M. de la Mole’s
decision to rescind all he had granted the couple, Julien races back to Verrières, buys bullets for his
pistols, heads to the Church, and shoots Mme. de Rênal twice – missing once and hitting her
shoulder blade the second time – during Mass. Although Mme. de Rênal lives, Julien is sentenced to
death, in part due to his own rambling, anti-patrician speech at his trial. Mathilde attempts to bribe
a high official to sway the judgment against Julien, but the trial is presided over by a former romantic
rival for Mme. de Rênal’s affections.
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The last few chapters show Julien in prison, reconsidering all of his actions over the three years
during which the story takes place and considering his place in the world and the nature of society.
Mme. de Rênal forgives Julien, and she and Mathilde both attempt to bribe and cajole local officials
to overturn Julien’s death sentence. Julien’s affections, meanwhile, have returned to Mme. de Rênal.
The novel closes with Julien’s execution; Mme. de Rênal, who pledged to Julien that she would not
take her own life and that she would care for Mathilde’s baby, dies three days later, most likely of
grief.
Russia
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
Anton Chekhov was a physician, major Russian short story writer and playwright. Many of his short
stories are considered the apotheosis of the form while his playwriting career, though brief, has had
a great impact on dramatic literature and performance.
The Seagull (1896)
This is the first of what are generally considered to be Anton Chekhov’s four major plays. It centers
on the romantic and artistic conflicts between four theatrical characters: the ngénue Nina, the
fading leading lady Irina Arkadina, her son the experimental playwright Konstantin Treplyov, and
the famous middlebrow story writer Trigorin.
Like the rest of Chekhov’s full-length plays, The Seagull relies upon an ensemble cast of diverse, fully
developed characters. In opposition to much of the melodramatic theater of the 19th century, lurid
actions (such as Treplyov’s suicide attempts) are kept offstage. Characters tend to speak in ways that
skirt around issues rather than addressing them directly, a concept known as subtext.
The play has a strong intertextual relationship with Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Arkadina and Treplyov
quote lines from it before the play-within-a-play in the first act (and the play-within-a-play device is
itself used in Hamlet). There are many allusions to Shakespearean plot details as well. For instance,
Treplyov seeks to win his mother back from the usurping older man Trigorin much as Hamlet tries to
win Queen Gertrude back from Uncle Claudius.
The Cherry Orchard (1904)
Although the play is viewed by most as a tragicomedy, Chekhov called it a comedy and even claimed
that it had many farcical elements.
Lyubov Ranevskaya returns to her Russian country house with her adopted daughter Varya, her 18year old daughter Anya, and several other people. They stay there for almost a year. Ranevskaya,
Varya, and Anya live there with Ranyevskaya's brother, Gayev, a maid, Dunyasha and there are
several other people that stay and visit throughout the play.
Ranevskaya's main problem is the lack of money that is very troublesome for her. Throughout the
play there are various solutions suggested to her, but she doesn't do anything. The orchard is
consequently sold in an auction to Yermolay Alekseyevich Lopakhin, a man whose ancestors were
serfs on the property. In the end, the orchard is chopped down by Lopakhin.
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Three Sisters (1901)
Four young people - Olga, Masha, Irina and Andrey Prozorov - are left stranded in a provincial
backwater after the death of their father, an army general. They focus their dreams on returning to
Moscow, a city remembered through the eyes of childhood as a place where happiness is possible.
Olga works as a teacher in a gymnasium, or a school. Masha is married to Fyodor Ilyich Kulygin, a
teacher. At the time of their marriage, Masha was enchanted by his cleverness, but seven years
later,she considers him to be rather stupid. Irina is the youngest sister, she dreams of going to
Moscow and meeting her true love. Andrey is the only boy in the family. He is in love with Natasha
Ivanovna.
The play begins on the first anniversary of their father's death, also Irina's name-day. It follows with
a party. At this Andrey tells his feelings to Natasha.
Act two begins about 21 months later, Andrey and Natasha are married and have a child. Masha
begins to have an affair with Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin, a lieutenant commander who is
married to a woman who constantly attempts suicide.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky is considered one of the greatest of Russian writers, whose works have had a
profound and lasting effect on twentieth-century fiction. His works often feature characters living in
poor conditions with disparate and extreme states of mind, and exhibit both an uncanny grasp of
human psychology as well as penetrating analyses of the political, social and spiritual states of Russia
of his time. Many of his best-known works are prophetic precursors to modern-day thoughts.
Notes from Underground
It is considered the world's first existentialist work. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling
memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as Underground
Man), a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg.
The novel is divided into two rough parts. Part 1 falls into three main sections. The short
introduction propounds a number of riddles whose meanings will be further developed. Section two,
three and four deal with suffering and the enjoyment of suffering; sections five and six with
intellectual and moral vacillation and with conscious "inertia"-inaction; sections seven through nine
with theories of reason and advantage; the last two sections are a summary and a transition into
Part 2. Part 1 focuses primarily on man's desire to distinguish himself from nature. The narrator
describes this as his spitefulness. It is elaborated into not only a spitefulness for authority and
morality, but for causality itself. War is described as people's rebellion against the assumption that
everything needs to happen for a purpose, because humans do things without purpose, and this is
what determines human history. Secondly, the narrator's desire for pain and paranoia (which
parallels Raskolnikov's behavior in Crime and Punishment) is exemplified in a tooth ache, which he
says he would love to have, and paranoia which he builds up in his head to the point he is incapable
of looking his co-workers in the eye.
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Part 2 focuses on three incidents. The first,the incident with the officer on the Nevsky Prospect
illustrates the narrator's theories on insults and suffering; the second, the farewell dinner for
Zverkov is clearly connected with vacillation and "inertia"; the third and most crucial episode, that
with the prostitute Liza, is the extension and embodiment of the narrator's theories on reason and
advantage, and of his views on the nature of man.
It begins: I AM A SICK MAN.... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is
diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me.
I don't consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors.
Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated
enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious).
* Crime and Punishment (1866)
The novel portrays the haphazardly planned murder of a miserly, aged pawnbroker and her younger
sister by a destitute Saint Petersburg student named Raskolnikov, and the emotional, mental, and
physical effects that follow.
* The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
The book is written on two levels: on the surface it is the story of a patricide in which all of the
murdered man's sons share varying degrees of complicity, but on a deeper level, it is a spiritual
drama of the moral struggles between faith, doubt, reason, and free will
~ Fyodor Karamazov
~ Dmitri Karamazov (Mitya, Mitka, Mitenka)
~ Ivan Karamazov (Vanya, Vanka, Vanechka)
~ Alexei (Alyosha) Karamazov (Alyoshka, Alyoshenka)
~ Pavel Smerdyakov: Was born from a mute woman of the street and is widely rumored to be the
illegitimate son of Fyodor Karamazov. When the novel begins Smerdyakov is Fyodor's lackey and
cook. He is a very morose and sullen man.
~ Agrafena Alexandrovna Svetlova (Grushenka, Grusha, Grushka): Is the local Jezebel and has an
uncanny charm among men.
~ Zosima
It begins: ALEXEY Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a
landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his
gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper
place.
Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists, particularly noted for his
masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina; in their scope, breadth and realistic depiction of
Russian life, the two books stand at the peak of realistic fiction. As a moral philosopher he was
notable for his ideas on nonviolent resistance through his work The Kingdom of God is Within You,
which in turn influenced such twentieth-century figures as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
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What is Art?
What Is Art? (1897) is a nonfictional essay by Leo Tolstoy in which he argues against numerous
aesthetic theories which define art in terms of the good, truth, and especially beauty. In Tolstoy's
opinion, art at the time was corrupt and decadent, and artists had been misled.
What is Art? develops the aesthetical theories that bloomed at the end of the eighteenth century
and during the nineteenth century, thus criticizing the realistic position (held since Plato that
regarded imitative position as the highest value) and the shallow, existing link between art and
pleasure. Tolstoy addition to previously existing theories that stressed the emotional importance
pivots on the value of communication-as-infection; which leads him to reject bad or counterfeit art
since those are harmful to society inasmuch it damages the people's ability to separate good art
from bad art.
Tolstoy detaches art from non-art (or counterfeit art); art must create a specific emotional link
between artist and audience, one that "infects" the viewer. Thus, real art requires the capacity to
unite people via communication (clearness and genuineness are therefore crucial values). This
aesthetic conception led Tolstoy to widen the criteria of what exactly a work of art is; he believed
that the concept art embraces any human activity in which one emitter, by means of external signs,
transmits previously experienced feelings. Tolstoy exemplifies this: a boy that has experienced fear
after an encounter with a wolf and later relates that experience, infecting the hearers and
compelling them to feel what he had experienced—that is a perfect example of a work art.
The good art vs. bad art issue unfolds into two directions, one is the conception that the stronger the
infection, the better is the art. The other leads Tolstoy to the examination of whether that emotional
link corresponds with the religion of the time. Good art, he claims, fosters those feelings that fit with
the particular religion, while bad art inhibits such feelings. The problem Tolstoy sees is that the
upper class has entirely lost its religion, and thus clings to the art that was good according to another
religion. To cite one example, ancient Greek art extolled virtues of strength, masculinity, and
heroism according to the values derived from its mythology. However, since Christianity does not
embrace these values (and in some sense values the opposite, the meek and humble), Tolstoy
believes that it is unfitting for people in his society to continue to embrace the Greek tradition of art.
Among other artists, he specifically condemns Wagner and Beethoven as examples of overly
cerebral artists, who lack real emotion. Furthermore, the Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven), cannot claim
to be able to "infect" their audience—as it pretends—with the feeling of unity and therefore cannot
be considered good art.
War and Peace
The novel tells the story of five aristocratic families (particularly the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskis, and
the Rostovs--the members of which are portrayed against a vivid background of Russian social life
during the war against Napoleon (1805-14).) and the entanglement of their personal lives with the
history of 1805–1813, specifically Napoleon's invasion of Russia. As events proceed, Tolstoy
systematically denies his subjects any significant free choice: the onward roll of history determines
happiness and tragedy alike.
In his 365 chapters (roughly 1500 pages), some only a few pages in length, Tolstoy tells of birth and
death, balls and battles, gossip and tragedy, military strategy and political philosophy. While roughly
the first two-thirds of the novel concern themselves strictly with the fictional characters, the later
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parts of the novel, as well as one of the work's two epilogues, increasingly contain highly
controversial, nonfictional essays about the nature of war, political power, history, and
historiography. Tolstoy interspersed these essays seamlessly into the story in a way which defies
conventional fiction. Certain abridged versions removed these essays entirely, while others
(published even during Tolstoy's life) simply moved these essays into an appendix.
If there is a central character to War and Peace it is Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a
wealthy count, who upon receiving an unexpected inheritance is suddenly burdened with the
responsibilities and conflicts of a Russian nobleman. His former carefree behavior vanishes and he
enters upon a philosophical quest particular to Tolstoy: how should one live a moral life in an
imperfect world? He attempts to free his peasants and improve his estate, but ultimately achieves
nothing. He enters into marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful and immoral daughter Elena,
against his own better judgment.
Anna Karenina
The novel, set among the highest circles of Russian society, is generally thought by the casual reader
to be nothing more than the story of a tragic romance. However, Tolstoy was both a moralist and
severe critic of the excesses of his aristocratic peers, and Anna Karenina is often interpreted overall
as a parable on the difficulty of being honest to oneself when the rest of society accepts falseness.
Anna is the jewel of St. Petersburg society until she leaves her husband for the handsome and
charming military officer, Count Vronsky. By falling in love, they go beyond society's external
conditions of trivial adulterous dalliances. But when Vronsky's love cools, Anna cannot bring herself
to return to the husband she detests, even though he will not permit her to see their son until she
does. Unable to accept Vronsky's rebuff, and unable to return to a life she hates, she kills herself.
Germany
Thomas Mann (1875-1955)
Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, social critic, philanthropist and essayist, lauded
principally for a series of highly symbolic and often ironic epic novels and mid-length stories, noted
for their insight into the psychology of the artist and intellectual and an underlying eroticism
informed by Mann's own struggles with his sexuality. He is noted for his analysis and critique of the
European and German soul in beginning of the 20th century using modernized German and Biblical
myths as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer.
Buddenbrooks
It portrays the downfall of a wealthy mercantile family, the Buddenbrooks, over four generations.
The book is generally understood as a portrait of the german bourgeois society from the 19th
century to the beginning of the 20th century. The book displays Mann's characteristic ironic and
detailed style, and it was mainly this novel which made Mann gain the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1929.
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“Death in Venice”
Aged Gustav von Aschenbach - a novelist in the novel, a composer in the film - travels to Venice,
where he becomes obsessed with the androgynous beauty of an adolescent boy named Tadzio. An
epidemic of Asiatic cholera has just broken out and von Aschenbach plans to leave but changes his
mind because of Tadzio, even though he never even has the opportunity to talk to the boy. As his
vacation continues, von Aschenbach's entire existence begins to revolve around following this young
boy, both a symbol of faded youth and of attractions that von Aschenbach never made reality.
The novel ends on the Lido beach where von Aschenbach is watching Tadzio play with his friends.
The boy wanders out to sea but turns and finally shares eye contact with the old man, and von
Aschenbach dies.
The Magic Mountain
The protagonist is Hans Castorp, who visits his cousin Joachim Ziemßen in a sanatorium in Davos in
the Swiss Alps before World War I. Castorp's departure is repeatedly delayed by his failing health what at first looks like a cold develops into the symptoms of tuberculosis. In the end, Castorp
remains in the morbid atmosphere of the sanatorium for seven years. At the end of the novel, the
war begins, Castorp is drafted into the military, and his imminent death on the battlefield is
suggested.
During his stay, Castorp meets and learns from a variety of characters, who are together a
microcosm of pre-war Europe. These include the humanist and encyclopedist Lodovico Settembrini
(a student of Giosuè Carducci), the totalitarianist jesuit Leo Naphta, the hedonist Heer Peeperkorn,
and his romantic interest Madame Chauchat.
Norway
Henrik Ibsen
an extremely influential Norwegian playwright who was largely responsible for the rise of the
modern realistic drama. His plays were considered scandalous in much of society at the time, when
Victorian values of family life and propriety were still very much the norm and any challenge to them
considered immoral and outrageous. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many
facades, which the society of the time did not want to see.
A Doll’s House
It is sharply critical of Victorian marriage norms. It is considered a prime example of what is called
The Well-Made Play (a genre with a neo-classical flavor, involving a very tight plot and a climax that
takes place very close to the end of the story, with most of the story taking place before the action
of the play; much of the information regarding such previous action would be revealed through
thinly veiled exposition)
A Doll's House is a scathing criticism of the traditional roles of men and women in Victorian marriage.
As Ibsen wrote in his initial notes for the play, "There are two kinds of moral law, two kinds of
conscience, one in man and a completely different one in woman. They do not understand each
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other; but in matters of practical living the woman is judged by man’s law, as if she were not a
woman but a man."
Ibsen has his protagonist, Nora, leave her husband in search of the wider world, after realizing that
he is not the noble creature she has supposed him to be. Her role in the marriage is that of a doll,
her house a "Doll's House", and indeed her husband Torvald refers to her incessantly as his little
"starling" and as his "squirrel". She is not even permitted a key to the mailbox. Ibsen noted, "A
woman cannot be herself in contemporary society, it is an exclusively male society with laws drafted
by men, and with counsel and judges who judge feminine conduct from the male point of view."
When she is blackmailed because of an improper act that she commits in order to save her
husband's life – forging her father's name on a note – her husband shows disgust and horror at what
she had done upon finding this out. His only concern is his own reputation, despite the love for him
that prompts her to do it.
When the blackmailer (Krogstad) recants, it could all be over, and in a traditional Victorian drama all
would then be resolved. For Ibsen, however, and for Nora, it is too late to go back to the way things
were. Her illusions destroyed, she decides she must leave her husband, her children, and her Doll's
House to discover what is truly real and what is not. As Ibsen described it, "Depressed and confused
by her faith in authority, she loses faith in her moral right and ability to bring up her children. A
mother in contemporary society, just as certain insects go away and die when she has done her duty
in the propagation of the race."
An Enemy of the People
Amongst other things, it is concerned with the irrational tendencies of the masses, and the
hypocritical and corrupt nature of the political system that they support. Dr. Stockmann is the
popular citizen of a small coastal town in Norway. The town has recently invested a large amount of
public and private money towards the development of baths, a project led by Dr. Stockmann and his
brother, the Mayor. The town is expecting a surge in tourism and prosperity from the new baths,
said to be of great medicinal value and as such, the baths are the pride of the town. However, as the
baths are starting to succeed, Dr. Stockmann discovers that waste products from the town's tannery
are contaminating the baths. He expects this important discovery to be his greatest achievement,
and promptly sends a detailed report to the Mayor, with a proposed solution included.
But to his surprise, Stockmann finds it difficult to get through to the authorities. They seem unable
to appreciate the seriousness of the issue and unwilling to address the problem. As the conflict
ensues, the Mayor warns his brother that he should "acquiesce in subordinating himself to the
community". Stockmann refuses to accept this, and rents a hall in order to hold a town meeting and
convince the people to close the baths.
The townspeople - eagerly awaiting the prosperity that the baths are believed will bring - refuse to
accept Stockmann's claims, as his friends and allies, who had explicity given support for his
campaign, turn against him en masse. He is taunted and denounced as a lunatic, an "Enemy of the
People." In a scathing rebuke of both the Victorian notion of community and the principles of
democracy, Dr. Stockmann proclaims that in matters of right and wrong, the individual is superior to
the multitude, who are easily led by self-advancing demagogues. Stockmann sums up Ibsen's
denunciation of the masses, with the memorable quote "...the strongest man in the world is the
man who stands most alone."
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With the entire town pitted against him, Stockmann considers leaving with his family; but he decides
to stay and set up a school for poor children in the same hall where he was denounced as an enemy
of the people. In doing so, he upholds the heroic ideal of defending the principles of truth and
refusing to be silenced.
The Wild Duck
The Wild Duck is considered by many to be Ibsen's finest work, and it is certainly the most complex.
It tells the story of Gregers Werle, a young man who returns to his hometown after an extended
exile and is reunited with his boyhood friend Hjalmar Ekdal. Over the course of the play the many
secrets that lie behind the Ekdals' apparently happy home are revealed to Gregers, who insists on
pursuing the absolute truth, or the "Summons of the Ideal". Among these truths: Gregers' father
impregnated his servant Gina, then married her off to Hjalmar to legitimize the child. Another man
has been disgraced and imprisoned for a crime the elder Werle committed. And while Hjalmar
spends his days working on a wholly imaginary "invention", his wife is earning the household
income.
Hedda Gabbler
The action takes place in a villa in Kristiania (present-day Oslo). Hedda Gabler, daughter of an
impoverished General, has just returned from her honeymoon with Jørgen Tesman, an aspiring
young academic - reliable but uninteresting. It becomes clear in the course of the play that she has
never loved him, and she fears she may be pregnant. The reappearance of her former lover, Ejlert
Løvborg, throws their lives into disarray. Løvborg, a writer, is also an alcoholic who has wasted his
talent until now. Thanks to a relationship with Hedda's old schoolmate, Thea Elvsted (who has left
her husband for him), he shows signs of rehabilitation, and has just completed what he considers to
be his masterpiece. This means he now poses a threat to Tesman, as a competitor for the university
professorship which Tesman had believed would be his.
Hedda, apparently jealous of Mrs Elvsted's influence over Ejlert, hopes to come between them.
Tesman, on returning home from a party, finds the manuscript of Ejlert Løvborg's great work, which
the latter has lost while drunk. When Hedda next sees him, he confesses to her, despairingly, that he
has lost the manuscript. Instead of telling him that the manuscript has been found, Hedda burns it,
and encourages him to consider suicide . She tells her husband she has destroyed the manuscript to
secure their future, so that he, not Løvborg, will become a professor.
When the news comes that Løvborg has indeed killed himself, Tesman and Mrs Elvsted are
determined to try to reconstruct his book from what they already know. Hedda is shocked to
discover, from the sinister Judge Brack, that Ejlert's death, in a brothel, was messy and probably
accidental. The judge appears to be blackmailing her. Leaving the others to discuss the situation, she
goes into another room and shoots herself.
Africa
Chinua Achebe (b. 1930)
Achebe is considered the father of the African novel in English as well as one of the world's most
acclaimed writers.
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Things Fall Apart (1958)
Things Fall Apart explores the forces that drive the rise and fall of Okonkwo, a leader in the Umuofia
clan and the influences of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on his traditional Ibo (also
spelled Igbo) community.
Things Fall Apart is considered one of the major works in African postcolonial literature because it
presents the life, culture, and complexities of a traditional African people with breathtaking honesty,
dignity and humanity. The story of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart has been compared in western
countries to Greek tragedy, as the very characteristics that make Okonkwo a great leader in his clan
(strength, inflexibility) lead ultimately to his death.
The title of the book comes from a poem, "The Second Coming," by William Butler Yeats, and is
quoted in the frontpiece of the book:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)
Nadine Gordimer is a South African (Jewish) novelist and writer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in
literature and 1974 Booker Prize.
Nadine Gordimer's subject matter in the past has been the effect of apartheid on the lives of South
Africans and the moral and psychological tensions of life in a racially-divided country, which she
often wrote about by focusing on oppressed non-white characters. She was an ardent opponent of
apartheid and refused to accommodate the system, despite growing up in a community in which it
was accepted as normal. Her work has therefore served to chart, over a number of years, the
changing response to apartheid in South Africa. Her first novel, The Lying Days (1953), was based
largely on her own life and set in her home town. Her next three novels, A World of Strangers
(1958); Occasion for Loving (1963), which focuses on an illicit love affair between a black man and a
white woman; and The Late Bourgeois World (1966) deal with master-servant relations in South
African life. In 1974, her novel The Conservationist, was joint winner of the Booker Prize for Fiction.
Latin America
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentine writer who is considered one of the foremost literary figures of
the 20th century. Best-known in the English speaking world for his short stories and fictive essays,
Borges was also a poet, critic, and man of letters.
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“The Library of Baebel”
The story repeats the theme of Borges's 1939 essay "The Total Library" ("La biblioteca total"), which
in turn acknowledges the earlier development of this theme by Kurd Lasswitz in his 1901 story "The
Universal Library" ("Die Universalbibliotek").
Borges's narrator describes how his universe consists of an endless expanse of interlocking
hexagonal rooms, each of which contains the bare necessities for human survival—and four walls of
bookshelves. Though the order and content of the books is random and apparently completely
meaningless, the inhabitants believe that the books contain every possible ordering of just a few
basic characters (letters and punctuation marks). Though the majority of the books in this universe
are pure gibberish, the library also must contain, somewhere, every coherent book ever written, or
that might ever be written, and every possible permutation or slightly erroneous version of every
one of those books. The narrator notes that the library must contain all useful information, including
predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages.
Conversely, for any given text some language could be devised that would make it readable with any
of an infinite number of different contents.
Despite—indeed, because of—this glut of information, all books are totally useless to the reader,
leaving the librarians in a state of suicidal despair. However, Borges speculates on the existence of
the "Crimson Hexagon", containing a book that contains the truth of all the other books; the
librarian who reads it is akin to God.
This short story features many of Borges's signature themes, including infinity, reality, cabalistic
reasoning, and labyrinths. The concept of the library is often compared to Borel's dactylographic
monkey theorem; it is also overtly analogous to the view of the universe as a sphere having its
center everywhere and its circumference nowhere. The mathematician and philosopher Blaise
Pascal employed this metaphor, and in an earlier essay Borges noted that Pascal's manuscript called
the sphere effroyable, or "frightful".
Borges would examine a similar idea with his later story, "The Book of Sand"; in the later story, there
is an infinite book rather than an infinite library.
Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928)
Gabriel José García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, journalist, publisher, political activist, and
Nobel laureate in literature. Born in the town of Aracataca in the department of Magdalena, he has
lived mostly in Mexico and Europe and currently spends much of his time in Mexico City. Widely
credited with introducing the global public to magical realism, he has secured both significant critical
acclaim and widespread commercial success. A growing consensus of literary scholars holds that
García Márquez ranks alongside Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar as one of South America's
greatest 20th-century authors.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
All of the events of One Hundred Years of Solitude take place in the fictional Colombian village of
Macondo. The town is founded by José Arcadio Buendía, a strong-willed and impulsive leader who
becomes deeply interested in the mysteries of the universe when a band of gypsies visits Macondo,
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led by the recurring Melquíades. As the town grows, the fledgling government of the country takes
an interest in Macondo's affairs, but they are held back by José Arcadio Buendía.
Civil war breaks out in the land, and Macondo soon takes a role in the war, sending a militia led by
Colonel Aureliano Buendía, José Arcadio Buendía's son, to fight against the conservative regime.
While the colonel is gone, José Arcadio Buendia goes insane and must be tied to a tree. Arcadio, his
illegitimate grandchild, takes leadership of the town but soon becomes a brutal dictator. The
Conservatives capture the town, and Arcadio is shot by a firing squad.
The wars continue, with Colonel Aureliano narrowly avoiding death multiple times, until, weary of
the meaningless fighting, he arranges a peace treaty that will last until the end of the novel. After
the treaty is signed, Aureliano shoots himself in the chest, but survives. The town develops into a
sprawling center of activity as foreigners arrive by the thousands. The foreigners begin a banana
plantation near Macondo. The town prospers until a strike arises at the banana plantation. The
national army is called in, and the protesting workers are gunned down and thrown into the ocean.
At this time, Úrsula, the impossibly ancient widow of José Arcadio Buendía, remarks that "it was as if
time was going in a circle".
After the banana worker massacre, the town is saturated by heavy rains that last for almost five
years. Úrsula says that she is waiting for the rains to stop so that she can die at last. The last member
of the Buendía line, named Aureliano Babilonia (originally referred to as Aureliano Buendía, before
he discovers through Melquíades' parchments that Babilonia is his paternal surname), is born at this
time. When the rains stop, Úrsula dies at last, and Macondo is left desolated.
Aureliano Babilonia is finally left in solitude at the crumbling Buendía house, where he studies the
parchments of Melquíades, who has appeared as a ghost to him. He gives up on this task to have a
love affair with his aunt, though he is unsure whether they are related. When she dies in childbirth
and his son (who is born with a pig's tail) is eaten by ants, Aureliano is finally able to decipher the
parchments. The house, and the town, disintegrate into a whirlwind as he translates the
parchments, on which is contained the entire history of the Buendía family, as predicted by
Melquíades. As he finishes translating, the entire town is obliterated from the world.
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Literary Terms, Verse Forms, Meter, etc.
DO NOT underestimate the importancee of this section. There are A LOT of questions on the GRE
about forms, verse, meter, etc. You won't need to count feet (probably), but you will need to be able
to identify a Spensarian stanza, an alexandrine, etc. Not only will knowing these terms help you get
questions that specifically ask you to identify a form, but it will also help you distinguish between
different poets. For example, if you see a poem that is written in heroic couplets, you can pretty
much be certain that the poet is not going to be anybody modern, that the poet is almost certainly
Alexander Pope or John Dryden.
Literary Terms, Verse Forms, Meter, etc.
alexandrine – Another name for iambic hexameter. ETS is going to ask you to identify the final line of
a Spenserian stanza as an alexandrine.
Alliterative verse -- Verse tradition stemming from the Germanic lands and evidenced in AngloSaxon epics and Icelandic sagas. The alliterative line was normally written in two halves - with each
half containing two strongly stressed syllables. Of the four stressed syllables two, three or even four
would begin with the same sound. During the 14th century in England there was an alliterative
revival which produced works such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Vision of Piers
Plowman by William Langland.
apostrophe – is an exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech, when a speaker or writer breaks off and
directs speech to an imaginary person or abstract quality or idea. In dramatic works and poetry, it is
often introduced by the word "O" (not the exclamation "oh").
~ To what green altar, O mysterious priest, / Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, / And all her
silken flanks with garlands drest?" John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn".
~ "Roll on thou dark and deep blue ocean." Lord Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage".
Aubade – An aubade is a poem or song of or about lovers separating at dawn. Donne’s “The Sunne
Rising” is a famous example.
assonance – the repetition of vowel sounds within a short passage of verse or prose.
Ballad – The ballad stanza is a quatrain where the second and fourth lines rhyme. La Belle Dame
Sans Merci by John Keats is in ballad form. It usually features alternating four-stress and three-stress
lines. The lines alternate between 8 and 6 syllables. Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a
ballad.
Blank verse – a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the
meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter. It is widely associated
with Shakespeare and Milton’s Paradise Lost. It was first used by the Earl of Surrey around 1540.
bob and the wheel – this is the mechanism used to end stanzas in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
It consists of a short line (bob), followed by a trimeter quatrain (wheel).
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Breton Lay – is a form of medieval French and English romance literature. Lais are short (typically
600-1000 lines), rhymed tales of love and chivalry, often involving supernatural and fairy-world
Celtic motifs. “The Franklin's Tale” from the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is an example
caesura – an audible pause that breaks up a line of verse. This may come in the form of any sort of
punctuation which causes a pause in speech; such as a comma; semicolon; full stop etc. It is
especially common and apparent in Old English verse.
Ex. Hwæt! we Gar-Dena || on geardagum
("Lo! we Spear-Danes, in days of yore. . .")
chiasmus – a rhetorical construction in which the order of the words in the second of two paired
phrases is the reverse of the order in the first. ("Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure" –
Byron)
conceit – an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs an entire poem or poetic
passage. It is especially associated with the metaphysical poets.
elegy – a poem of mourning. Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is a good
example. A subset of this classification is a pastoral elegy, in which the mourner is a shepherd.
Milton’s Lycidas and Shelley’s Adonais are both examples of pastoral elegies.
End-stopped line – A line of verse which ends with a grammatical break such as a coma, colon, semicolon or full stop etc. It is the opposite of enjambment.
Enjambment - the breaking of a syntactic unit (a phrase, clause, or sentence) by the end of a line or
between two verses. Its opposite is end-stopping, where each linguistic unit corresponds with a
single line.
The following lines from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (c. 1611) are heavily enjambed:
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown.
epithalamium – refers to a form of poem that is written for the bride or to celebrate a wedding
generally. See Spenser’s Epithalamium.
Eclogue – An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are
sometimes also called bucolics. See Virgil’s Ecologues and Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar.
euphuistic prose: Tending to or resembling euphuism; of the nature of euphuism; characterized by
euphuism. Chiefly in inaccurate sense: Abounding in ‘highflown’ or affectedly refined expression.
Highly associated with John Lyly whose popular prose romance, Euphues, or The Anatomy of Wit,
set the fashion for the decade before Shakespeare started writing and is a moral romance
distinguished by its elaborate style. Also, self-consciously laden with elaborate figures of speech—a
popular form in the late 16th century.
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fabliau – comic works that typical concern cuckolded husbands, rapacious clergy and foolish
peasants. The form was popular in medieval times. Several appear in Chaucer’s Cantebury Tales.
feminine rhyme – a rhyme that matches two or more syllables at the end of the respective lines.
Usually the final syllable is unaccented. Shakespeare's Sonnet number 20, uniquely among the
sonnets, makes use exclusively of feminine rhymes:
A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion...
flat and round characters – used to describe characters who do and do not develop over the course
of a work respectively. The distinction was first made by E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel.
Free verse – a term describing various styles of poetry that are not written using strict meter or
rhyme, but that still are recognizable as 'poetry' by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another
that readers can perceive to be part of a coherent whole. Walt Whitman was a practitioner of free
verse.
georgic – a poem dealing with agriculture. Derived from Virgil’s Georgics.
hamartia – tragic mistake or tragic flaw. It is derived from Aristotle’s Poetics.
*Heroic couplets – rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines. You should associate heroic couplets
almost exclusively with Restoration verse. Example: Pope’s Rape of the Lock.
Homeric epithet – A characteristic of Homer's style is the use of recurring epithets, such as the rosyfingered dawn or swift-footed Achilles. These epithets were metric stop-gaps as well as mnemonic
devices.
Hudibrastic – Hudibrastic is a type of English verse named for Samuel Butler's Hudibras of 1672. For
the poem, Butler invented a mock-heroic verse structure. Instead of pentameter, the lines were
written in iambic tetrameter. The rhyme scheme is the same as in heroic verse (aa, bb, cc, dd, etc.).
Kunstlerroman – a kind of Bildungsroman, a novel about an artist's growth to maturity. Joyce’s
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers are both examples.
Litotes – a figure of speech in which the speaker emphasizes the magnitude of a statement by
denying its opposite. Example: “That [sword] was not useless / to the warrior now." (Beowulf)
Masculine rhyme – a rhyme that ends on a final, stressed syllable (as opposed to two final rhyming
syllables in feminine rhyme).
monody – an ode sung by one voice (Arnold’s Thyrsis and parts of Milton’s Lycidas)
Neo-classical unities – principles of dramatic unity popular in antiquity and until after the
renaissance. The three unities are place, time, and action.
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Ottava Rima – The ottava rima stanza in English consists of eight iambic lines, usually iambic
pentameters. Each stanza consists of three rhymes following the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c..
Byron’s Don Juan and Yeats’ “Sailing to Byzantium” are examples.
Pathetic fallacy – the description of inanimate natural objects in a manner that endows them with
human emotions, thoughts, sensations, and feelings. The term was coined by John Ruskin. Ruskin’s
famous examples is “The cruel crawling foam.”
Picaresque novel – a popular subgenre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in
realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by
his or her wits in a corrupt society. Daniel DeFoe’s Moll Flanders is a good example.
Poetic inversions - An inversion of the normal grammatical word order; it may range from a single
word moved from its usual place to a pair of words inverted or to even more extremes (e.g. “chains
adamantine” – Paradise Lost)
Prosopopoeia – a rhetorical device in which a speaker or writer communicates to the audience by
speaking as another person or object.
*Rhyme Royal – The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The
rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. Chaucer’s “Troilus and Criseyde” is a good example.
roman à clef – a novel describing real-life events behind a façade of fiction. Hawthorne’s Blithedale
Romance, Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, and Sylvia Plath’s Bell
Jar are all examples.
Sestina – consists of thirty-nine lines; six six-line stanzas, usually ending with a triplet. It is an
uncommon verse form. “Ye Goatherd Gods” from Sidney’s Arcadia is the only example that comes to
mind.
*Spensarian – a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem The Faerie Queene.
Each verse contains nine lines in total: eight lines of iambic pentameter, with five feet, followed by a
single line of iambic hexameter, an "alexandrine," with six. The rhyme scheme of these lines is
"ababbcbcc." Shelley’s elegy “Adonais” and Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Progress” both employ the
Spensarian stanza.
Sprung rhythm – poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. It is constructed
from feet in which the first syllable is stressed and may be followed by a variable number of
unstressed syllables. The British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins claimed to have discovered this
previously-unnamed poetic rhythm in the natural patterns of English in folk songs, spoken poetry,
Shakespeare, Milton, et al.
Sturm und Drang – a German literary movement which emphasized the volatile emotional life of the
individual. This genre is especially associated with Goethe.
Synaethesia – The description of a sense impression (smell, touch, sound etc) but in terms of
another seemingly inappropriate sense e.g. 'a deafening yellow'. Synesthesia is particularly
associated with the French symbolist poets. Keats also uses synesthesia in Ode to a Nightingale with
the term 'sunburnt mirth'.
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Synecdoche: a figure of speech that presents a kind of metaphor in which:
* A part of something is used for the whole,
* The whole is used for a part,
* The species is used for the genus,
* The genus is used for the species, or
* The stuff of which something is made is used for the thing.
Synecdoche, as well as some forms of metonymy, is one of the most common ways to characterize a
fictional character. Frequently, someone will be consistently described by a single body part or
feature, such as the eyes, which comes to represent their person.
terza rima: a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern a-b-a, b-c-b, c-d-c, d-e-d, etc. Terza
rima is especially associated with Dante’s Divine Comedy. See also “Ode to the West Wind” by
Shelley.
“ubi sunt” – a phrase taken from the Latin Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerent?, meaning "Where are
those who were before us?" Ubi Sunt is a phrase that begins several Latin medieval poems. It refers
to the tone of the poem, and can even be used to indicate the tone of another work, such as
Beowulf.
Villanelle – The essence of the form is its distinctive pattern of rhyme and repetition, with only two
rhyme-sounds ("a" and "b") and two alternating refrains that resolve into a concluding couplet.
Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” is a good example. Stephen Dedalus also
writes one in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Grammar
On only one practice test of mine was I asked to identify an intransitive verb, but I had no idea how to
do so. You will occasionally get grammar questions (i.e. What is the direct object in this involute
sentence from Paradise Lost?), so if you don't feel comfortable with those kinds of questions, you
may want to do a short refresher.
transitive verb is incomplete without a direct object, as in the following examples:
INCOMPLETE
The shelf holds.
COMPLETE
The shelf holds three books and a vase of flowers.
An intransitive verb, on the other hand, cannot take a direct object:
Ex. This plant has thrived on the south windowsill.
The compound verb "has thrived" is intransitive and takes no direct object in this sentence.
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The Sonnet
More than any other form, the sonnet is the most important in the eyes of ETS. Take pains to
memorize the differences between the Italian, English, and Spensarian sonnet. This will help you not
only on questions that directly address form and authorship, but it will help you contextualize
questions generally. I have included in this section the curtal sonnet, which was invented by Gereard
Manley Hopkins; however, ETS may not acknowledge the curtal sonnet as equal to other sonnet
forms.
Italian Sonnet (Petrarchan)
There are two really important things to know about the Italian sonnet:
rhyme scheme: a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a, c-d-e, c-d-e.
Broken up into an octet and a sestet.
The chance of seeing an Italian sonnet on the exam is not great.
The major Italian sonneteers included Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Guido Cavalcanti (c. 1250–
1300), but the most famous early sonneteer was Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374).
In its original form, the Italian sonnet was divided into an octave followed by a sestet in the topic or
tone of the sonnet. The octave stated a proposition and the sestet stated its solution with a clear
break between the two. Typically, the ninth line created a "turn" or volta, which signaled the move
from proposition to resolution. Even in sonnets that don't strictly follow the problem/resolution
structure, the ninth line still often marks a "turn" by signalling a change in the tone, mood, or stance
of the poem.
Giacomo da Lentini octave rhymed a-b-a-b, a-b-a-b it became later a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a. For the sestet
there were two different possibilities, c-d-e-c-d-e and c-d-c-c-d-c. In time, other variants on this
rhyming scheme were introduced.
The first known sonnets in English, written by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey,
used this Italian scheme, as did sonnets by later English poets including John Milton, Thomas Gray,
William Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. However, these poets tended to ignore the
strict logical structure of proposition and solution. (ETS may refer to sonnets with an Italian form but
not break between the octet and sestet as a "Miltonic sonnet").
This example, On His Being Arrived to the Age of Twenty-three by Milton, gives a sense of the Italian
Form:
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, (a)
Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year! (b)
My hasting days fly on with full career, (b)
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. (a)
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, (a)
That I to manhood am arrived so near, (b)
And inward ripeness doth much less appear, (b)
That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th. (a)
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, (c)
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It shall be still in strictest measure even (d)
To that same lot, however mean or high, (e)
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven. (d)
All is, if I have grace to use it so, (c)
As ever in my great Task-master's eye. (e)
The English (or Shakespearian) Sonnet
The major features:
It is comprised of three quatrains and a final couplet in iambic pentameter.
Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg.
Often, the beginning of the third quatrain marks the "turn", or the line in which the poem's mood
shifts and the poet expresses a revelation or epiphany.
This example, Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, illustrates the form:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
History
The sonnet was introduced into English by Thomas Wyatt in the early 16th century. His sonnets and
those of his contemporary the Earl of Surrey were chiefly translations from the Italian of Petrarch
and the French of Ronsard and others. Sir Philip Sidney's sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591)
started a tremendous vogue for sonnet sequences: the next two decades saw sonnet sequences by
William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, Fulke Greville, William
Drummond of Hawthornden, and many others.These sonnets were all essentially inspired by the
Petrarchan tradition, and generally treat of the poet's love for some woman; the exception is
Shakespeare's sequence. In the 17th century, the sonnet was adapted to other purposes, with John
Donne and George Herbert writing religious sonnets, and John Milton using the sonnet as a general
meditative poem. Both the Shakespearean and Petrarchan rhyme schemes were popular throughout
this period, as well as many variants.
The fashion for the sonnet went out with the Restoration, and hardly any sonnets were written
between 1670 and Wordsworth's time.
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Spenserian Sonnet
Major features:
three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter
rhyme scheme: abab bcbc cdcd ee.
In a Spenserian sonnet there does not appear to be a requirement that the initial octet sets up a
problem which the closing sestet answers as is the case with a Shakespearean sonnet. Instead, the
form is treated as three quatrains connected by the interlocking rhyme scheme and followed by a
couplet. The linked rhymes of his quatrains suggest the linked rhymes of such Italian forms as terza
rima.
This example, Sonnet 1 from Spencer's Amoretti, illustrates the form:
Happy ye leaves! when as those lily hands,
Which hold my life in their dead doing might,
Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands,
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight.
And happy lines! on which, with starry light,
Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look,
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite,
Written with tears in heart's close bleeding book.
And happy rhymes! bathed in the sacred brook
Of Helicon, whence she derived is,
When ye behold that angel's blessed look,
My soul's long lacked food, my heaven's bliss.
Leaves, lines, and rhymes seek her to please alone,
Whom if ye please, I care for other none.
Curtal Sonnet
The curtal sonnet is a form invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and used in three of his poems.
It is an eleven-line (or, more accurately, ten-and-a-half-line) sonnet, but rather than the first eleven
lines of a standard sonnet it consists of precisely ¾ of the structure of a Petrarchan sonnet shrunk
proportionally, so that the octave of a sonnet becomes a sestet and the sestet a quatrain plus an
additional "tail piece." "Pied Beauty" is an example.
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Literary Theory
ETS has put more stress on literary theory than they have in the past. For this reason, your exam will
have more theory on it than your practice tests do. Most likely, you will be given 4-5 questions on
theory. One of them will probably be five interpretations of the same text from different
perspectives; your job will be to match up the interpretation with the school of thought.
Two schools of thought that I have not included here are Feminism and Marxism, but I think in
generally those schools of thought are easily distinguished from the ones below.
ETS will not make you choose between two very similar schools of thought. So, for example, they will
not ask you to distinguish between New Criticism and Formalism because they are just too similar.
Formalism
Formalism – approaches to interpreting or evaluating literary works that focus on features of the
text itself (especially properties of its language) rather than on the contexts of its creation
(biographical, historical or intellectual) or the contexts of its reception. Formalism was also a Russian
movement spearheaded by Viktor Shklovsky, who contributed two of the movement’s most wellknown concepts: defamiliarization and the plot/story distinction.
New Criticism
New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the mid twentieth
century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Its adherents were emphatic in their advocacy of close
reading and attention to texts themselves, and their rejection of criticism based on extra-textual
sources, especially biography. n 1954, William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley published an essay
entitled "The intentional fallacy", in which they argued strongly against any discussion of an
author's intention, or "intended meaning."
*I.A. Richards
*Wimsatt & Beardsley
* T.S. Eliot
* F.R. Leavis
* William Empson
* Robert Penn Warren
* John Crowe Ransom
* Cleanth Brooks
Structuralism
In literary theory structuralism is an approach to analyzing the narrative material by examining the
underlying structure. For example, a literary critic applying a structuralist literary theory might say
that the authors of the West Side Story did not write anything "really" new, because their work has
the same structure as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In both texts a girl and a boy fall in love (a
"formula" with a symbolic operator between them would be "Boy +LOVE Girl") despite the fact that
they belong to two groups that hate each other ("Boy's Group -LOVE Girl's Group") and conflict is
resolved by their death. The versatility of structuralism is such that a literary critic could make the
same claim about a story of two friendly families ("Boy's Family +LOVE Girl's Family") that arrange a
marriage between their children despite the fact that the children hate each other ("Boy -LOVE Girl")
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and then the children commit suicide to escape the arranged marriage; the justification is that the
second story's structure is an 'inversion' of the first story's structure: the relationship between the
values of love and the two pairs of parties involved have been reversed. Structuralistic literary
criticism argues that the "novelty value of a literary text" can lie only in new structure, rather than in
the specifics of character development and voice in which that structure is expressed.
Structuralism was pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure.
Post-structuralism
Post-structural practices generally operate on some basic assumptions:
* Post-structuralists hold that the concept of "self" as a singular and coherent entity is a fictional
construct. Instead, an individual is composed of conflicting tensions and knowledge claims (e.g.
gender, class, profession, etc.). Therefore, to properly study a text the reader must understand how
the work is related to their own personal concept of self. This self-perception plays a critical role in
one's interpretation of meaning.
* The meaning the author intended is secondary to the meaning that the reader perceives. Poststructuralism rejects the idea of a literary text having one purpose, one meaning or one singular
existence.
* A post-structuralist critic must be able to utilize a variety of perspectives to create a multifaceted
(perhaps even conflicting) interpretation of a text. It is particularly important to analyze how the
meanings of a text shift in relation to certain variables (usually involving the identity of the reader).
Major contributors included Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Julia Kristeva.
Deconstructionism
Deconstruction's central concern is a radical critique of the Enlightenment project and of
metaphysics, including in particular the founding texts by such philosophers as Plato, Rousseau, and
Husserl, but also other sorts of texts, including literature. Deconstruction identifies in the Western
philosophical tradition a "logocentrism" or "metaphysics of presence" (also known as
phallogocentrism) which holds that speech-thought (the logos) is a privileged, ideal, and self-present
entity, through which all discourse and meaning are derived. This logocentrism is the primary target
of deconstruction.
One typical form of deconstructive reading is the critique of binary oppositions, or the criticism of
dichotomous thought. A central deconstructive argument holds that, in all the classic dualities of
Western thought, one term is privileged or "central" over the other. The privileged, central term is
the one most associated with the phallus and the logos.
Common terms include: Différance, Trace, Écriture, Hymen / Phallocentrism, Pharmakon
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