English 320
Study Guide for Midterm Exam: Friday, October 19 11:00-11:50 Xavier 238
You will need at least one blue book for the exam; turn in blank blue books for the exam
at the beginning of class on Wednesday. The exam will have two parts:
1. Of ten passages, choose seven. For each passage that you choose, identify
author, title, century (five points). Then briefly indicate the context of the
passage and, in complete sentences, discuss its significance in terms of the
issues and themes of the course; where relevant, you may also discuss
connections between the passage and other works in the course. Plot
summary alone is not adequate and will not guarantee full credit (five
points).
2. Identify and analyze one sixteenth century sonnet; the sonnet will be taken
from a list of 7 possible sonnets indicated below. Identify the sonnet by
author and title of sonnet sequence (five points). Then identify the rhyme
scheme, the argument in each section, the volta (turn) and conclusion, and
the pattern of metaphors or images in each distinct section (fifteen
points).
Sonnets: Sidney, Astrophil and Stella: 1, 7. Shakespeare, Sonnets: 15, 73, 130. Spenser,
Amoretti: 15, 22.
Sonnet terms: octave, sestet, quatrain, couplet, volta, English vs. Petrarchan sonnet
forms, masculine vs. feminine rhyme, blazon and contreblazon, Petrarchan mistress, fair
vs. “black,” Dark Lady, Young Man.
The following is a list of terms introduced in the course, as well as significant characters
and scenes from the readings. When appropriate, you should be able to use these terms
when glossing the significance of a passage. The exam is designed to test both your
reading of the works and your attendance and comprehension of the lectures and
discussions.
Background on Anglo-Saxon period (6th-11th
centuries AD)
Anglo-Saxons vs. Britons
Oral poetry
Alliterative verse
Caesura
Hybridity: Christian and Pagan Anglo-Saxon
elements
Wergild
Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English
People (8th century, c. 725 AD)
Mission to convert Anglo-Saxon people
Five languages of Britain
Sparrow analogy
Caedmon’s Hymn
Problem of translation
Dream of the Rood (c. 8th-10th centuries)
Dream Vision
Ruthwell Cross
Animism and Personification
Christ as Warrior
Rood’s narrative of the Passion of Christ
Beowulf (c. 8th-11th centuries)
Litotes and Indirect Discourse
Scop
Kenning
Epithets
Grendel and Cain
Grendel’s Mother vs. Wealhtheow
Background on the Anglo-Norman period
(11th-13th centuries)
Norman Conquest (1066)
Fiefdoms and Vassals
Influence of French on the English language
Arthurian Romance
Henry II vs. Thomas Becket (12th century)
Marie de France, Lanval (c. 1155-1170)
Breton Lai
Celtic Motifs: Faeries, Magic
Chivalry
Courtly Love
Importance of Oaths and Promises
Faerie Lady vs. Queen
Background on the Fourteenth Century
14th Century Crises: Hundred Years’ War (13371453), Black Death (1347-48), Peasant’s Revolt
(1381)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th c.)
Northern English dialect
Alliterative Revival
Bob and Wheel
Arthurian Romance
Chivalry and Courtly Love
Significance of the Color Green
Gawain’s Shield: Pentangle and Virgin
Problem of Oaths and Verbal Agreements
Bertilak, his Lady and Morgan le Fay
Interlacing Scenes: Hunting and Bedroom
Allegorical Animals: Deer, Boar, Fox
Girdle as symbol of Gawain’s “Sin”
Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (c. 138687)
Iambic Pentameter
Rhyming Couplets
“General Prologue”
Three Estates: Nobility, Church, Laborers
Estates Satire
Portraits of Pilgrims’ “Condicion,” “Degree,”
and “Array”: Knight, Monk, Prioress, Wife of
Bath, Pardoner
“The Knight’s Tale”
Romance of Antiquity: Theseus and Hippolyta
Courtly Love
Rival Lovers: Palamon and Arcite
Love Object: Emelye
Man of Emotion vs. Man of Action
Temples of Mars, Venus and Diana
Arcite’s “lawe” of love vs. Theseus’ “faire
cheyne of love”
“The Miller’s Prologue and Tale”
fabliau
parody of “Knight’s Tale”
Rival lovers: Absolon and Nicholas
Love Object: Alison
Man of Emotion vs. Man of Action
Rime Riche: “queynte”
“The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale”
Literary Confession and Sermon
Wife’s Interpretation of Saint Paul
Five Husbands
“Maistrie” and “Souverayntee”
Book of Wikked Wyves
Arthurian Romance
Motif of the “Loathly Lady”
Parallels between the Wife’s Fifth Marriage and
the End of her Tale
“The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale”
Literary Confession and Sermon
Pardoner’s emphasis on “Greed” as the Root of
all Sins
Relics and Indulgences
Pardoner’s Tale as a False Relic
Pardoner vs. Host
Background on the English Reformation (16th
century)
Invention of printing press (c. 1450)
Protestant Reformation
Luther (1483-1546), Wittenberg, ‘”faith” vs.
“works”
Calvin (1509-1564), Geneva, predestination
Henry VIII breaks with Rome and becomes Head
of the Church of England (1533-34)
Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536)
Elizabethan Settlement (1559)
Foxe, Book of Martyrs, first English edition,
1563
England as an Elect Protestant Nation
Protestant Martyrs (Foxe) vs. Catholic Martyrs
(Southwell)
Puritans vs. Catholics
Elizabeth I as the Virgin Queen (1558-1603)
King’s Two Bodies
Elizabeth at Tillbury; defeat of Spanish Armada
(1588)
Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1590)
Spenserian Stanza
Alexandrine
Allegory
Archaisms
Epic and Arthurian Romance
Invocation of Muse
Canto 1: Redcrosse as Saint George
Redcrosse’s Armor and the Armor of a Christian
Man (Ephesians)
Errour
Archimago as Double for Poet
Una as Church of England vs. Duessa as Roman
Church (images in bono and in malo)
Canto 8: Stripping of Duessa as contreblazon
Duessa as allegory of Mary Queen of Scots
(executed 1587)