Part 1
Optimism and the Belief
in Progress
Queen Victoria in Her Coronation Robes, 1887. Chromolithograph.
From a book celebrating the queen’s Golden Jubilee.
“’Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.”
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Lady Clara Vere de Vere”
921
The Art Archive/Dagli Orti
B E F O R E YO U R EA D
Tennyson’s Poetry
M E E T A LF R E D, LO RD T E N N YSON
N
ot an average child, Alfred Tennyson produced a six-thousand-line epic poem by
the age of twelve. He also wrote poems in
the styles of Alexander Pope, Sir Walter Scott,
and John Milton before his teen years. Throughout
his life, Tennyson would turn to poetry whenever
he felt troubled. As he said in one of his poems,
“for the unquiet heart and brain / A use in measured language lies.”
Tennyson had great need of such solace. His father,
a clergyman, had a long history of mental instability. When Tennyson’s grandfather considered the
clergyman unfit to take over the family dynasty—
thereby virtually disinheriting him—Tennyson’s
father turned to drugs and alcohol. He often took
out his bitter disappointment on the family.
“I suffered what seemed to me to
shatter all my life so that I desired to
die rather than live.”
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Early Struggles At age eighteen, Tennyson
joined his older brother at Cambridge University.
Although he was painfully shy, his poetry brought
him to the attention of an elite group of students
known as “The Apostles.” Thriving on their affection and support, Tennyson gained confidence in
his abilities. His closest friend was Arthur Henry
Hallam, a brilliant and popular student who later
became engaged to Tennyson’s sister. While at
Cambridge, Tennyson published Poems, Chiefly
Lyrical, and he accompanied Hallam and other
Apostles to Spain to support the unsuccessful
revolt against Ferdinand VII.
In 1831 Tennyson left Cambridge to be with his
father, whose health was failing. After his father’s
922
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
National Portrait Gallery of London
death, Tennyson decided to pursue a career in
poetry rather than return to school. His early volumes of poetry drew mixed reviews, however, and
Tennyson was hurt by some stinging criticism.
Then, in 1833, he learned that Arthur Hallam had
died suddenly of a stroke. Tennyson fell into a
deep and long depression. Nearly a decade passed
before he published any poetry. However, he wrote
some of his most significant poems during this
period, perfecting his craft during what he later
called his “ten years’ silence.”
Literary Renown When he was thirty-two,
Tennyson brought out a new book of poems. This
time, almost all of the reviews were positive. Fame
came in 1850 with the publication of In Memoriam
A. H. H., a long cycle of poems about his grief
over the loss of Hallam. That same year, Queen
Victoria appointed Tennyson to succeed William
Wordsworth as poet laureate. Finally confident
about his future, Tennyson married Emily
Sellwood, his fiancée of fourteen years.
For the rest of his life, Tennyson enjoyed remarkable prestige. His books could be found in the
home of nearly every English reader. To his contemporaries, Tennyson was the great consoling
voice of their age.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born in 1809 and died
in 1892.
Author Search For more about
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, go to www.glencoe.com.
L I T E R AT U R E P R E V I E W
Connecting to the Poems
Modern readers turn to Tennyson’s poetry for its heartbreaking beauty and haunting sense of the transitory
nature of life. Like all great artists, Tennyson pondered the
meaning of life and death. As you read, think about how
one copes with the tragic loss of a relative or friend.
Building Background
In Memoriam A. H. H. Within a few days of Arthur
Hallam’s death in 1833, Tennyson wrote an elegy, or
poem of lament, about this loss. He continued writing
elegies over the next seventeen years, eventually collecting them under the title In Memoriam A. H. H.
“Crossing the Bar” At eighty-one Tennyson wrote this
poem, and just a few days before his death he asked
that it be placed at the end of every edition of his
work.
READI NG PREVI EW
Reading Strategy
To analyze mood, identify the elements that work
together to create the emotional quality of a literary
work. These elements include diction, imagery, and figurative language as well as rhythm, rhyme, repetition,
and other sound devices.
Reading Tip: Analyzing Mood As you read, use a
diagram like the one below to help you identify the
elements that create mood.
Figurative
Language: “like a guilty
thing I creep”
Imagery
“Tears, Idle Tears” This lyric is from Tennyson’s first
long narrative poem, The Princess, which explores the
role of women in society. Tennyson wrote “Tears, Idle
Tears” at Tintern Abbey, the setting of Wordsworth’s
famous poem.
Sound devices
Diction
license (l¯ səns) n. freedom used irresponsibly;
p. 925 Jen often took license with her sister’s
belongings, “borrowing” them without asking.
sloth (sloth) n. inactivity; laziness; p. 925 Active
and energetic, she resented her husband’s idleness
and sloth.
Optimism and the Belief
in Progress
As you read, consider to what extent these poems
reflect the belief in optimism that characterized the
Victorian age.
Literary Element
Mood
Vocabulary
Setting Purposes for Reading
Big Idea
Analyzing Mood
diffusive (di fū siv) adj. spread out or widely
scattered; p. 927 A diffusive energy surged through
the stadium as the players ran onto the field.
feigned (fānd) adj. pretended; imagined; p. 929
Is your interest in this offer genuine or feigned?
Rhythm
Rhythm refers to the pattern of beats created by the
arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in
lines of verse. For example, in the following line from
In Memoriam A. H. H., the second, fourth, sixth, and
eighth syllables are stressed:
Vocabulary Tip: Analogies Analogies are comparisons based on relationships between words and ideas.
Ă ha’nd thăt ca’ n bĕ cla’ sped nŏ mo’ re—
As you read these poems, notice the rhythm and consider its effect.
• See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R15.
OB J ECTIVES
In studying these selections, you will focus on the following:
analyzing literary periods
•
Interactive Literary Elements
Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements,
go to www.glencoe.com.
•
•
understanding rhythm
analyzing mood
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
923
London Twilight from the Adelphi. Christopher Richard Wynne
Nevinson (1889–1946). Oil on canvas, 44.5 x 59 cm.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
7
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,°
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
5
924
A hand that can be clasped no more—
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
UNIT 5
Christie’s Images
THE VICTORIAN AGE
2 long unlovely street: Wimpole Street
in London, where Arthur Henry Hallam
lived after he left Cambridge
10
He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly through the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
27
I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet° born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods;
5
10
15
I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfettered by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth°
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.°
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
54
O, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;°
5
3 linnet: a small bird
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
Reading Strategy
10 plighted troth: “pledged loyalty” or
“became engaged to marry”
12 want-begotten rest: leisure that
comes from a lack of commitment (as
opposed to a rest that is earned through
struggle)
3– 4 These two lines specify four types
of ills: pangs of nature (physical pain),
sins of will (moral transgressions), defects
of doubt (spiritual shortcomings), and
taints of blood (inherited flaws).
Analyzing Mood What feelings does the setting evoke in the
speaker?
Reading Strategy
Big Idea
Analyzing Mood Why does the poet include this image?
Optimism and the Belief in Progress What Victorian belief do these
lines reflect?
Vocabulary
license (l¯ səns) n. freedom used irresponsibly
sloth (sloth) n. inactivity; laziness
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
925
10
15
20
That not a worm is cloven° in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shriveled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves° another’s gain.
9 cloven: split
12 subserves: “promotes” or “assists”
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.
106
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
5
10
15
20
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;°
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Reading Strategy
Analyzing Mood How does the mood of this section change
in the final stanza?
Literary Element
926
UNIT 5
Rhythm What effect does the rhythm of this passage create?
THE VICTORIAN AGE
14 party strife: antagonism or a dispute
between sides or factions
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
25
30
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
130
Thy voice is on the rolling air
I hear thee where the waters run;
Thou standest in the rising sun,
And in the setting thou art fair.
5
10
15
What art thou then? I cannot guess;
But though I seem in star and flower
To feel thee some diffusive power,
I do not therefore love thee less.
My love involves the love before;
My love is vaster passion now;
Tho’ mix’d with God and Nature thou,
I seem to love thee more and more.
Far off thou art, but ever nigh;°
I have thee still, and I rejoice;
I prosper, circled with thy voice;
I shall not lose thee tho’ I die.
13 nigh: near
Big Idea
Optimism and the Belief in Progress What positive changes does
the speaker hope for in the new year?
Reading Strategy
Analyzing Mood What feelings does the speaker convey in
these lines?
Vocabulary
diffusive (di fū siv) adj. spread out or widely scattered
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
927
Hove Beach with Fishing Boats, c.1824. John Constable. Oil on paper laid on canvas. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,1
When I put out to sea,
5
10
15
formed by the action of tides or
currents.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though from out our bourne2 of Time and Place
The flood3 may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
Literary Element
Rhythm How does the rhythm reinforce the
meaning of these lines?
928
1. A bar, or sandbar, is a ridge of sand
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
Victoria & Albert Museum, London/Art Resource, NY
2. Bourne means “boundary.”
3. Flood means “rising tide.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
5
Tears, idle1 tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
10
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;2
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
15
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement3 slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
20
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
Reading Strategy
Recalling the Past, 1888. Carlton Alfred Smith.
Watercolor on paper. The Stapleton Collection.
1. Here, idle means “having no basis or
reason.”
2. Verge refers to the horizon.
3. A casement is a window that opens
outward.
Analyzing Mood How does the phrase “autumn fields” con-
vey a feeling of loss?
Reading Strategy
Analyzing Mood What feelings does Tennyson convey by
describing the past as “Death in Life”?
Vocabulary
feigned (fānd) adj. pretended; imagined
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
The Stapleton Collection/Bridgeman Art Library
929
A F T E R YO U R E A D
R ES P O N D I N G A N D T H I N K I NG C R I T IC A LLY
Respond
Analyze and Evaluate
1. Which lines from these poems did you find the
most memorable? Why?
5. How would you describe the tone of “Crossing the
Bar”? What words and phrases create this tone?
Recall and Interpret
6. Sum up the speaker’s attitude toward the past in
“Tears, Idle Tears.” Compare that attitude to the one
expressed by the speaker of In Memoriam.
2. (a)In section 27 of In Memoriam, to what does the
speaker compare those people who have never
loved anyone? (b)What do these metaphors lead
the speaker to conclude about lost love?
3. (a)In “Crossing the Bar,” what is compared to a sea
voyage? (b)What phrases and images suggest this
comparison?
4. (a)In lines 16–19 of “Tears, Idle Tears,” to what
does the speaker compare “the days that are no
more”? (b)How do these similes illustrate line 20?
LITE R ARY ANALYS I S
Literary Element
Rhythm
Meter is a type of rhythm in which the alteration
between stressed and unstressed syllables is predictable and regular.
Connect
8.
Big Idea
Optimism and the Belief in Progress
Tennyson’s contemporaries found In Memoriam
very inspirational. Explain how the speaker of this
poem evolves through stages of grief, progressing
to more positive emotions. Cite specific lines from
the poem to support your response.
R E A D I N G A N D VO C A B U L A RY
Reading Strategy
Analyzing Mood
Refer to the diagram you created on page 923, and
then answer the following questions.
1. What is the metrical pattern of In Memoriam?
1. How would you describe the mood of “Crossing
the Bar”?
2. What is the effect of using regular rhythms in
poems that concern grief and loss?
2. What details in the speaker’s surroundings help
create the mood?
Writing About Literature
Vocabulary
Evaluate Author’s Craft In poetry, author’s craft
refers to how a poet uses elements such as word choice,
imagery, rhythm, and rhyme to create certain effects. In a
short essay, identify examples of repetition in In
Memoriam and “Tears, Idle Tears.” Which ideas does the
poet emphasize through repetition?
Practice with Analogies Choose the word that
best completes each analogy.
Web Activities For eFlashcards,
Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
9 30
7. How does the title of “Tears, Idle Tears” relate to its
theme, or main idea?
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
Practice
1. generous : miserly :: feigned :
a. charitable
b. real
2. irritation : annoyance :: sloth :
a. laziness
b. frenzy
3. fear : fright :: license :
a. liberty
b. faith
4. wild : tame :: diffusive :
a. scattered
b. contained
B E F O R E YO U R EA D
Ulysses
L I T E R AT U R E P R E V I E W
Connecting to the Poem
Which of your achievements do you love to relive in
memory? In Tennyson’s poem, the speaker remembers his glorious adventures and longs to resume his
voyages. As you read, think about whether it is important to experience as much of life as possible.
Building Background
Like In Memoriam, “Ulysses” was inspired by Arthur
Hallam’s death. Tennyson said that the poem
expresses “the feeling about the need of going forward
and braving the struggle of life.” Ulysses is the Roman
name for the Greek hero Odysseus, whose exploits
are portrayed in Homer’s epic poems, the Iliad and
the Odyssey. Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, spent ten
years fighting in the Trojan War. After the fall of Troy,
Odysseus wandered for ten more years throughout the
Mediterranean world, encountering mythical creatures
and facing great perils. At last, he returned to Ithaca to
reestablish himself as king and was reunited with his
faithful wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus (tə
le mə kəs). In “Ulysses,” Tennyson carries the story of
Odysseus further, presenting the thoughts of the old
king who longs for one last adventure.
READI NG PREVI EW
Reading Strategy
When you analyze tone, you think critically about how
the writer’s attitude toward a subject is conveyed
through such elements as diction, sentence structure,
imagery, and figures of speech. As you read, pause
from time to time to consider the poet’s attitude
toward Ulysses.
Reading Tip: Determining Tone Use a web like the
one below to help you identify the elements that convey tone.
Diction
“always roaming
with a hungry
heart”
Imagery
prudence (prō¯ōd əns) n. sound judgment; careful management; p. 933 Please use prudence in
deciding how to invest the money.
As you read, consider the Victorian values that Ulysses
and his son might reflect.
• See Literary Terms Handbook, pp. R2 and R4.
OB J ECTIVES
In studying this selection, you will focus on the following:
analyzing literary periods
•
abide (ə b̄d) v. remain; p. 934 Though his
power and wealth were lost, his family and friends
abided.
Assonance and
Consonance
Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds
within non-rhyming words, as in this line from In
Memoriam: “His license in the field of time.”
Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds
within or at the ends of non-rhyming words, as in this
line from “Crossing the Bar”: “The flood may bear me
far.” As you read, notice other examples of these
sound devices.
Figures of Speech
Vocabulary
Optimism and the Belief
in Progress
Literary Element
Sentence Structure
Tone
Setting Purposes for Reading
Big Idea
Analyzing Tone
Vocabulary Tip: Context Clues To figure out the
meaning of an unfamiliar word, look for clues in
the surrounding words or sentences.
Interactive Literary Elements
Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements,
go to www.glencoe.com.
•
•
identifying assonance, consonance, and alliteration
analyzing tone
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
931
Ulysses and the Sirens. Roman mosaic, 3rd century A.D. Musee National du Bardo, Tunis, Tunisia.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
5
10
15
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,°
Matched with an agèd 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 enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding° drifts the rainy Hyades°
Vexed 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 honored of them all—
Literary Element
Assonance and Consonance Which words contain the short
i sound? Which words contain the g sound?
932
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
Musee National du Bardo, Tunis, Tunisia/Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
2 barren crags: here, the rugged
landscape of Ithaca, the Greek island
where Ulysses lives
4 Unequal laws: rewards and
punishments
7 lees: sediment found at the bottom of
wine and other liquids. To “drink to the
lees” is to drink to the last drop.
10 scudding: wind-driven. Hyades
(h¯ə dēz´): a cluster of stars. When they
rose, it was believed that rain would soon
follow.
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.°
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too 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 scepter and the isle—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered 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.
16 –17 battle . . . Troy: the Trojan War,
which the Greeks won after a ten-year
siege
Print of the ship of Ulysses.
42 Meet: fitting; proper
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled and wrought and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor 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
Literary Element
Assonance and Consonance Which vowel sounds recur in
this line?
Vocabulary
prudence (prō¯ōd əns) n. sound judgment; careful management
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Underwood & Underwood/CORBIS
933
Ulysses and his son Telemachus,
1st century a.d. Mosaic, width:
31.5 cm. Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna.
60
65
70
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.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in 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.
Reading Strategy
Analyzing Tone Which words and phrases in these lines
convey a tone of admiration?
Big Idea
Optimism and the Belief in Progress What values does this line
affirm?
Vocabulary
abide (ə b̄d) v. remain
934
UNIT 5
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
THE VICTORIAN AGE
59 sounding furrows: crashing waves.
60–61 baths . . . stars: reference to
the ancient belief that the stars descended
into a sea or river that encircled Earth.
63 Happy Isles: in Greek mythology,
the place where mortals favored by the
gods are sent to dwell after they die.
64 Achilles (ə ki lēz): the greatest
warrior in the Greek assault on Troy.
A F T E R YO U R E A D
R ES P O N D I N G A N D T H I N K I NG C R I T IC A LLY
Respond
Analyze and Evaluate
1. What questions would you ask Ulysses if he were
alive today?
5. How do you interpret lines 18–21 of the poem?
Recall and Interpret
2. (a)How does Ulysses spend his time at home?
(b)How does he feel about his life at home? Use
evidence from the poem to support your answer.
3. (a)What does Ulysses miss from his past? (b)Sum
up Ulysses’ thoughts and feelings about aging.
Support your answer with evidence from the poem.
4. (a)What does Ulysses want his band of followers to
do with him? (b)Why might Tennyson have chosen
to wait until late in the poem before revealing
whom Ulysses is addressing in his monologue?
6. (a)How does Ulysses regard his son’s approach to
life? (b)Which character would you rather have as
a ruler—Ulysses or Telemachus? Why?
7. (a)What arguments does Ulysses present to persuade his listeners to join him? (b)Do you find his
arguments persuasive? Explain why or why not.
Connect
8.
Big Idea Optimism and the Belief in
Progress Which Victorian values does Ulysses
embody? Which values does his son reflect?
V I S UA L L I T E R AC Y: Fine Art
Odysseus in Art and Literature
Tennyson was not the first artist to be fascinated by
Odysseus—nor would he be the last. This fearless,
wily hero has inspired countless works of art
throughout the ages, ranging from the ancient
Greek red-figure vase shown at the right (ca. 500
B.C.) to James Joyce’s modern novel Ulysses (1922)
and Romare Bearden’s contemporary collage The
Return of Odysseus (1977).
The vase depicts a scene from Homer’s Odyssey. The
sirens were enchantresses who lived on an island.
They lured passing sailors to destruction with irresistibly beautiful songs. To resist this fate, Odysseus had
his crew plug their ears with wax and tie him to the
mast. He listened in anguish as his boat passed the
sirens’ island.
Group Activity Discuss the following questions
with your classmates.
1. What do the artist’s Odysseus and Tennyson’s
Ulysses have in common?
2. Why do you think Odysseus has inspired countless artists over time?
Attic red-figured stamnos of Siren,
5th century B.C. British Museum, London.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
British Museum, London, Great Britain/Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
935
LITE R ARY ANALYS I S
Literary Element
Assonance and
Consonance
Tennyson is often praised for the musical patterns of
his poetry. To help create these patterns, he sometimes uses assonance and consonance. For example,
in line 5 of “Ulysses,” he uses assonance, repeating
long e sounds: “That hoard and sleep and feed, and
know not me”; in line 17, he uses consonance, repeating the n and r sounds: “Far on the ringing plains of
windy Troy.”
1. Find other examples of assonance and consonance
in “Ulysses.”
2. How does Tennyson’s use of assonance and consonance contribute to the overall effect of the
poem?
R E A D I N G A N D VO C A B U L A RY
Reading Strategy
Analyzing Tone
A writer’s tone may convey a variety of attitudes such
as sympathy, irony, admiration, sadness, or bitterness.
To analyze the tone of “Ulysses,” focus on elements
such as diction, imagery, and figurative language. In
the following lines, for example, the image of fading
light gives the speaker’s words a sad, urgent tone:
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes;
Review the web you completed on page 931, and
then answer the following questions.
1. How would you describe the overall tone of this
poem?
2. What details in the poem contribute to this tone?
Practice
Review: Alliteration
Vocabulary
As you learned on page 800, alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words,
as in the line “On the bald street breaks the blank
day.” Like assonance and consonance, alliteration is
used to create rhythmic or musical effects.
Practice with Context Clues For each sentence
below, identify the context clue that most suggests
the meaning of the underlined vocabulary word.
Partner Activity Meet with a classmate to identify
examples of alliteration in “Ulysses.” Use a two-column
chart like the one below to record your examples and
describe their effects.
a. true
Example
lines 6-7 “I will
drink / Life to the
lees.”
Effect
Creates rhythm;
emphasizes the idea
that Ulysses enjoys
life to the fullest.
1. The true hero acts not with rashness, but with
prudence.
b. hero
c. rashness
2. Even though heroes die, their messages abide,
never fading away.
a. die
b. never fading
c. away
Academic Vocabulary
Here are two words from the vocabulary list on
page R82.
incline (in kl¯n) v. have a particular tendency
or bent of mind
conceive (kən sēv) v. to hold as one’s opinion
Practice and Apply
1. In your opinion, does Tennyson incline toward
joyful or sorrowful subjects? Explain.
2. How does Tennyson’s Ulysses conceive of old
age?
936
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
Musee National du Bardo, Tunis, Tunisia/Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
WR ITI N G AN D EXTE N D I N G
G R AM MAR AN D ST YLE
Writing About Literature
Tennyson’s Language and Style
Respond to Theme In his poems, Tennyson often
expresses ideas about life in thematic statements,
such as “‘Tis better to have loved and lost / Than
never to have loved at all” and “I will drink / Life to
the lees.” Find another such statement in one of the
Tennyson poems you have read and write a journal
entry explaining whether you agree with it. Discuss
how the idea relates to your own experience or that of
someone you know. Before you begin writing, organize your thoughts in a graphic organizer like the one
below.
Using Capitalization in Poetry You probably have
mastered many of the rules of capitalization for formal
writing. For example, you know that you capitalize the
first word of a sentence, the pronoun I, and proper
nouns and adjectives. These rules of capitalization
also apply to poetry. In addition, in traditional poems,
the first word of each line is capitalized.
Experiences
Experiences
Thematic
Statement
Experiences
Experiences
Literature Groups
“Ulysses” takes the form of a dramatic monologue—
a dramatic poem in which the speaker describes a
crucial moment in his or her life to a silent listener. In
the process, the speaker reveals much about his or
her own character. With a small group, discuss the
character of Ulysses as Tennyson portrays him.
Consider his attitude toward his family and the people
of Ithaca, the value he places on his past experiences,
his dreams for the future, his description of
Telemachus, and his efforts to inspire his crew. Focus
on the following questions, using evidence from the
poem to support your interpretations:
• Is Ulysses irresponsible for wanting to leave his wife,
son, and homeland to go on one last voyage, or is
he just being true to his nature as a hero?
• Is his plan in the best interest of his people?
• How do you think his family will react?
To some degree, capitalization reflects the conventions of the time. During the Victorian age, poets and
prose writers sometimes capitalized common nouns
for emphasis or to indicate personification. For example, in the following passages from “Locksley Hall,”
Tennyson capitalizes the common nouns time, life,
nature, honor, and vision:
“Love took up the glass of Time,”
“Love took up the harp of Life,”
“Nay, but Nature brings thee solace;”
“the hurt that Honor feels,”
“Saw the Vision of the world,”
Activity Create a chart listing examples of capitalized
words in the poems by Tennyson you have just read.
Consider the following categories:
• Proper nouns
• The first word of a line
• Personified or emphasized nouns
Revising Check
Capitalization Proper capitalization is important to
consider when revising your own writing. With a partner, go through the journal entry you wrote about a
thematic statement in Tennyson’s poems. Look for
words that should be capitalized and revise your entry
to correct these errors. Then, imagine that you were
writing during the Victorian age. Circle nouns that you
might have capitalized for emphasis.
Create a group statement of opinion and explain your
ideas to the rest of your class.
Web Activities For eFlashcards,
Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
937
Comparing Literature
Across Time and Place
Connecting to the Reading Selections
The line between love and heartache is thin, delicate, and often defies logic. The following poems by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Edna St. Vincent Millay, letter by Simone de Beauvoir, and song by
John Lennon and Paul McCartney investigate the necessity of love and its power to change lives.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sonnet 43 .............................................................................. sonnet .................. 939
A love for all time
England, 1850
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink .... poem .................. 943
Love—a necessity or an indulgence?
United States, 1931
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir to Nelson Algren................. letter .................. 944
The frenetic fervor of a new relationship
France, 1947
John Lennon and Paul McCartney
In My Life ................................................................................ song .................. 946
Love in the past and in the present
England, 1965
COM PAR I NG TH E
Big Idea
Optimism and the Belief in Progress
Barrett Browning’s poem describes an idealized love and reflects an optimism unburdened by
certain realities of her life and times. The four selections here express idealistic views of the
adventure and power of romance, while also presenting realistic hurdles between lovers.
COM PAR I NG
Theme of Passionate Love
The themes of love and desire have produced some of history’s most memorable literature.
The selections you are about to read explore the presence and absence of love in one’s life.
COM PAR I NG
Historical Contexts
The manner in which love is expressed in a poem, a song, or a letter can depend upon historical context. For example, at one point it was fashionable to write religious love poems. This is
not the case today.
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UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
(t) Fine Art Photographic Library, London/Art Resource, NY (tc) Ricco/Maresca Gallery/Art Resource, NY ((bc) Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY (b) Bettmann/CORBIS
B E F O R E YO U R EA D
Sonnet 43
M E E T E LIZ A B E T H BA R R E T T B ROW N I N G
T
he eldest child of a wealthy country squire,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning spent her childhood playing in the countryside and reading. In fact, by the age of ten, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning had read a stunning array of literature,
from the histories of classical Greece and Rome
to Shakespeare’s plays. Reflecting on her youth,
Browning said, “Books and dreams were what I
lived in and domestic life only seemed to buzz
gently around, like bees about the grass.”
Hope End Barrett grew up on a lush, opulent
country estate called “Hope End.” Her father
derived his wealth from sugar plantations in
Jamaica. The business turned sour, however, while
Barrett was still a youth and the family adopted a
more modest lifestyle. When she was fifteen, Barrett
suffered a spinal injury, which, along with a chronic
problem with her lungs, left her bedridden for much
of her life. Despite her poor health, Barrett became
one of the most successful and versatile poets in
Victorian England. Her work was characterized by
enthusiasm, directness, and a warmly felt sense of
social responsibility. Still, Barrett’s family life was
difficult, and she struggled to cope with the tragic
drowning in 1840 of her favorite brother, Edward.
Additionally, her contact with the outside world
was restricted by her over-protective father, who
forbade any of his eleven children to marry. By the
age of thirty-five, Barrett was confined to her bedroom in the family’s London home because of both
her health and her father’s wishes.
“I tell you hopeless grief is passionless.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A Great Love Story Despite her confinement,
Barrett became well known for her published
verses. When her poems came to the attention of
the fledgling poet Robert Browning, he immediately wrote her a telegram declaring, “I love your
verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett. I do, as
I say, love these books with all my heart—and I
love you too.” In contrast to Barrett’s bedridden
existence, Browning led an active social life. Six
years her junior, Browning was determined and
brash. He boldly began to visit Barrett despite her
father’s disapproval. The two eloped in 1846, moved
quickly to Italy, and settled at Casa Guidi, an old
stone house in Florence. In Italy, the couple had a
child they nicknamed “Pen,” and Barrett Browning
became an avid player in politics, supporting the
risorgimento movement that sought to unify the
country. In 1850 Barrett Browning published
Sonnets from the Portuguese, perhaps her most
famous collection.
While her love poems still thrill readers,
Browning, like other Victorian writers, also wrote
literature intended to spark social reform. Her
1857 book-length poem Aurora Leigh was groundbreaking. The work critiques the treatment of
women in Victorian society by telling the story of
an independent, artistic heroine. Of the poem,
Virginia Woolf wrote, “Aurora Leigh, with her passionate interest in social questions, her conflict as
artist and woman, her longing for knowledge and
freedom, is the true daughter of her age.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in 1806 and died
in 1861.
Author Search For more about
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, go to www.glencoe.com.
E L I Z A B E T H B A R R E T T B R OW N I N G
John Brett/Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Library
939
L I T E R AT U R E P R E V I E W
Connecting to the Sonnet
In the following sonnet, Barrett Browning explores the
way she experiences love. As you read the poem,
think about the following questions:
• How would you define love? Is love the same as
romance?
• Is love a luxury, or a basic human need, like air and
water?
Building Background
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote forty-four sonnets
describing the fear, excitement, and hope she felt
when, after years of ill health that left her bedridden,
she fell in love. Barrett Browning waited until three
years after her marriage to slip the sonnets into her
husband’s coat pocket. Robert Browning, her husband,
was so impressed with the sonnets that he insisted
she publish them. Not wanting to share her private
feelings with the public, she published the cycle of
sonnets under the misleading title Sonnets from the
Portuguese, hoping people would think the poems
were translations rather than expressions of her own
emotions.
READI NG PREVI EW
Reading Strategy
To analyze style means to break down the expressive
qualities of a work in order to help reveal the author’s
attitude and purpose in writing. Word choice, figurative
language, and imagery are key elements that help create style. In addition, identifying genre, poetic form,
and subject matter can help you to understand certain
stylistic choices. For instance, you may expect something different from a sonnet than from a haiku. Also,
context matters—you might interpret a religious metaphor in a love poem differently from the same metaphor in a poem about war.
Reading Tip: Connecting Style and Theme As you
read, identify the stylistic elements the poet employs.
Ask yourself how these elements reflect the poem’s
theme. Keep track of these elements in a graphic organizer like the one below.
Overall Effect
Optimism and the Belief
in Progress
figurative
language
As you read, notice how Barrett Browning’s poem
reflects the optimism and belief in progress of her day.
Also, consider how the sonnet relates to the themes
addressed by other Victorian writers, including
marriage.
Literary Element
line and
stanza
pattern
imagery
Setting Purposes for Reading
Big Idea
Analyzing Style
rhythm
Repetition
Repetition is the recurrence of sounds, words,
phrases, lines, or stanzas in a poem. This literary
device builds a sense of unity in a work and calls
attention to particular ideas.
• See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R15.
OB J ECTIVES
In studying this selection, you will focus on the following:
analyzing literary genres
•
940
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
Interactive Literary Elements
Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements,
go to www.glencoe.com.
•
•
analyzing repetition
analyzing style
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Painter’s Honeymoon, c.1863–4. Lord Frederic Leighton.
Oil on canvas, 83.8 x 77.5 cm. Museum of Fine Art, Boston.
5
10
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 every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
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.
Reading Strategy Analyzing Style What do these images of
the sun and candlelight suggest about the speaker’s feelings?
E L I Z A B E T H B A R R E T T B R OW N I N G
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Charles H. Bayley Picture and Painting Fund
941
A F T E R YO U R E A D
R ES P O N D I N G A N D T H I N K I NG C R I T IC A LLY
Respond
Analyze and Evaluate
1. The speaker of “Sonnet 43” expresses her love in a
variety of “ways.” Which of these “ways” do you
find most compelling? Explain.
5. (a)How would you describe the speaker’s tone, or
attitude toward the subject? (b)What does the
speaker’s tone seem to suggest about her character
and personality?
Recall and Interpret
2. (a)Paraphrase how the speaker describes her love
in lines 1–8. (b)What do these lines reveal about
the nature of the speaker’s love?
Connect
3. (a)How does the speaker describe her love in lines
9–12? (b)What can you infer about the speaker’s
past from these lines?
7. Do you think this poem is too personal or that the
language and imagery is too outdated to be of
interest to modern-day readers? Explain.
4. (a)How long does the speaker expect her love to
last? (b)What line or lines in the poem support
your interpretation?
8.
LITE R ARY ANALYS I S
Literary Element
Repetition
Repetition in a literary work often helps to highlight
important concepts.
1. (a)Identify repeated words and phrases as well as
syntactical repetition in Barrett Browning’s poem.
(b)What is the effect of this repetition?
Big Idea
Optimism and the Belief in
Progress How does this poem reflect an optimistic outlook and a belief in progress? Explain.
R E A D I N G A N D VO C A B U L A RY
Reading Strategy
Analyzing Style
The style of a work can be a window into the writer’s
purpose. Review the web you created to analyze the
stylistic features of the sonnet.
1. What distinguishes the style of this sonnet? Cite
examples from the text.
2. How does this repetition relate to the professed
purpose of the poem?
2. How does the use of concrete imagery and abstract
concepts contribute to the poem’s message?
Writing About Literature
Academic Vocabulary
Apply Form Try your hand at writing your own love
sonnet. Begin with Barrett Browning’s first line, and
then write thirteen lines describing something that you
love. The poem you create can be serious or humorous. Use figurative language and end the sonnet
with a conclusion. To review the sonnet form, see
pages 252–253.
Web Activities For eFlashcards,
Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
942
6. Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of a
love as strong as the speaker’s in the poem.
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
Here are two words from the vocabulary list on
page R82.
straightforward (strāt´ fo r wərd) adj. a clear,
honest report; basic
compile (kəm p¯l) v. to pull together comments from a variety of sources
Practice and Apply
1. Are the emotions in this poem presented in a
straightforward manner? Explain.
2. How does the poem compile Barrett Browning’s
feelings for Robert Browning?
B E FOR E YO U R EA D
Building Background
To a generation of Americans who came of age during
the Roaring Twenties, the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay
was a symbol of the modern woman: young,
independent, free-spirited, energetic, and beautiful. In
fact, the line “My candle burns at both ends” from
one of Millay’s poems became a motto for the age.
After graduating from college, she moved to
Greenwich Village, a section of New York City
renowned for its artists, intellectuals, and eccentric
atmosphere. There she worked as an actress, fell in
and out of love, and wrote. In 1921 she traveled to
Europe and spent two years as a correspondent for
Vanity Fair magazine. Upon returning to New York,
she met and fell in love with Eugen Boissevain, a
businessman whom she married several months
later. In 1923, when she was thirty-one, she won the
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Author Search For more about
Edna St. Vincent Millay, go to www.glencoe.com.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
5
10
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
Discussion Starter
Millay’s poem explores both the power and the inability of love
to sustain an individual. The speaker in the poem expresses
both emotional and rational responses to love. Which type of
response to love does the speaker most value? Discuss this
question with a group of classmates and cite examples from
the poem to support your views.
E D N A S T. V I N C E N T M I L L AY
943
B EFOR E YO U R EA D
Building Background
French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir is best known
for her 1949 feminist classic The Second Sex and her
lifelong friendship with philosopher and Nobel Prize–
winning author Jean-Paul Sartre. Beauvoir also wrote
many successful works of fiction, which explored
existentialist themes of alienation and the individual’s
relationship with the world. In 1947 Beauvoir began
an unlikely and passionate relationship with Nelson
Algren, the gritty Chicago writer. Their seventeen-year
romance is well-documented by the letters they sent
to each other across the Atlantic Ocean.
this trip, she met Algren who introduced Beauvoir to
the pervasive poverty, the distressed working class,
and the bohemian Wicker Park neighborhood of
Chicago. The day Beauvoir returned to Paris after her
trip, she wrote the following letter. The two later
traveled and lived together. In the end, they went
their separate ways. Of her relationship with Algren,
Beauvoir wrote, “To explore an unfamiliar country is
work, but to possess it through the love of an
appealing foreigner is a miracle.”
As World War II drew to a close, Beauvoir traveled to
the United States to lecture at college campuses. On
Author Search For more about
Simone de Beauvoir, go to www.glencoe.com.
Simone de Beauvoir
to Nelson Algren
Sunday, 18 Mai 1947
1
My Precious beloved Chicago man,
I think of you in Paris, in Paris I miss you. The whole journey was
marvelous. We had nearly no night since we went to the East. At
Newfoundland the sun began to set, but five hours later it was rising in
Shannon, above a sweet green Irish landscape. Everything was so beautiful and I had so much to think that I hardly slept. This morning at 10
(it was 6 by your time), I was in the heart of Paris. I hoped the beauty of
Paris would help me to get over my sadness; but it did not. First, Paris is
not beautiful today. It is gray and cloudy; it is Sunday, the streets are
empty, and everything seems dull, dark, and dead. Maybe it is my heart
which is dead to Paris. My heart is yet in New York, at the corner of
Broadway where we said goodbye; it is in my Chicago home, in my own
warm place against your loving heart. I suppose in two or three days it will
be a bit different. I must be concerned again by all the French intellectual
and politic life, by my work and my friends. But today I don’t even wish
to get interested in all these things; I feel lazy and tired, and I can enjoy
only memories. My beloved one, I don’t know why I waited so long before
1. “My Precious beloved Chicago man” refers to Nelson Algren.
944
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
Alone. Emilio Longoni. Casa di Livorno, Milan, Italy.
saying I loved you. I just wanted to be sure and not to say easy, empty
words. But it seems to me now love was there since the beginning.
Anyway, now it is here, it is love and my heart aches. I am happy to be so
bitterly unhappy because I know you are unhappy, too, and it is sweet to
have a part of the same sadness. With you pleasure was love, and now
pain is love too. We must know every kind of love. We’ll know the joy of
meeting again. I want it, I need it, and I’ll get it. Wait for me. I wait for
you. I love you more even than I said, more maybe than you know. I’ll
write very often. Write to me very often too. I am your wife forever.
Your Simone
I read the whole book2 and I like it very much. I’ll have it translated,
sure. Kisses and kisses and kisses. It was so sweet when you kissed me. I
love you.
2. The book Beauvoir refers to is Algren’s novel The Man with the Golden Arm, which won the
first National Book Award for fiction.
Quickwrite
A common adage is “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” How do you think
Beauvoir would react to this adage? Do you think this saying is true? Write a
paragraph exploring these questions. Cite evidence from the letter and the
Building Background feature in your answer.
S I M O N E D E B E AU VO I R
Alinari/Art Resource
945
B EFOR E YO U R EA D
Building Background
The Beatles emerged from the English city of Liverpool
to take the world by storm. The Fab Four’s lineup
included John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George
Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Influenced by American rock
n’ roll, the Beatles perfected the art of the pop song.
As they grew as musicians, their songs became more
complex and emotionally revealing. One of the first
songs to demonstrate such growth was “In My Life,” a
song written by guitarist and singer John Lennon for
the 1965 album Rubber Soul. Lennon remarked, “‘In
My Life’ was, I think, my first real, major piece of work.
Up until then it had all been glib and throwaway.”
The song originally contained a catalog of specific
memories from Lennon’s youth, but Lennon edited
the song to speak more generally about the
experience of love, memory, and life.
Though Lennon wrote “In My Life,” both he and
McCartney collaborated on most of the songs they
wrote. Sometimes this collaboration consisted of
one slightly revising the other’s songs, and at other
times one would complete the other’s song
fragments. Due to an agreement made during the
early years of the band, Lennon and McCartney are
credited for all songs that one or both of them
wrote and royalties were split equally.
Author Search For more about the
Beatles, go to www.glencoe.com.
There are places I remember all my life,
Though some have changed,
Some forever, not for better,
Some have gone and some remain.
5
10
15
20
John Lennon and
Paul McCartney
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall.
Some are dead and some are living.
In my life I’ve loved them all.
But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compares with you,
And these mem’ries lost their meaning
When I think of love as something new.
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them,
In my life I’ll love you more.
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them,
In my life I’ll love you more.
In my life I’ll love you more.
Discussion Starter
How is this song structured? How are songs similar
to poems? What qualities associated with poetry are
at work in this song? Discuss these questions in a
group. If a recording of the song is available, listen
to it to enrich your understanding of the lyrics.
946
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
Wrap-Up: Comparing Literature
• Sonnet 43
by Elizabeth Barrett
Browning
Across Time and Place
• Love Is Not All: It Is • Simone de Beauvoir • In My Life
by John Lennon and
Not Meat nor Drink
to Nelson Algren
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
COM PAR I NG TH E Big Idea
by Simone de Beauvoir
Paul McCartney
Optimism and the Belief in Progress
Writing What purpose does love serve in society? Does love inspire innovation and bring about
a better quality of life? Does a belief in love go hand in hand with a belief in progress? Write a
brief essay comparing the arguments made by these four writers.
COM PAR I NG
Theme of Passionate Love
Group Activity With a group of classmates, read and discuss the following quotations. Ask
yourselves, how does each quotation characterize love? How does love affect each speaker? Is
love eternal or can love change over time? Is love a necessity or an indulgence?
“I love thee with a love I seemed to lose / With my
lost saints”
—Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43
“Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;”
—Millay, “Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink”
“With you pleasure was love, and now pain is love too.”
—Beauvoir, “Simone de Beauvoir to Nelson Algren”
Online Romance. Illustration. Farida Zaman.
“And these mem’ries lost their meaning
When I think of love as something new.”
—Lennon and McCartney, “In My Life”
COM PAR I NG
Historical Contexts
Speaking and Listening Writers are influenced by their surroundings. Barrett Browning’s
poem is a product of her upbringing in Victorian England. Millay’s poem mirrors her frenetic lifestyle during the Roaring Twenties. Beauvoir’s letter reflects the bohemian values of her day.
Lennon and McCartney’s song is influenced by sudden stardom. Research the historical backdrop
of one of the selections and give a short oral report to your class about how the context helps
you better understand the writer’s portrayal of love and passion.
OB J ECTIVES
Compare poems, a letter, and a song about love
from different cultures and eras.
Analyze the theme of passionate love in literature.
•
•
•
Evaluate how historical context influences your
understanding of literature and music.
C O M PA R I N G L I T E R AT U R E
Images.com/CORBIS
947
I n f o r m a t i o n a l Te x t
Media Link to
Sonnet 43
Preview the Article
“What Is Love?” examines whether love
is culturally acquired or genetically
programmed.
1. How does love influence traditions
and institutions in our culture?
2. Based on the photographs on
pages 949 and 950, what point
do you think the writer is going to
make about love?
Set a Purpose for Reading
Read to learn about scientific studies on
the origin of love.
Reading Strategy
Examining Connotation and Denotation
A word’s denotation is its literal meaning,
or its dictionary definition. Connotation
refers to the suggested or implied
meanings associated with a word beyond
its literal meaning. As you read, examine
how the writer uses connotation and
denotation.
Example
Sentence
“Love is mushy;
science is hard.”
Connotation Connotations:
or Denotation mushy; hard
Overall Effect The author
implies that
science comes
from reason and
love comes from
emotion.
OB J ECTIVES
Read to examine how a writer uses
denotation and connotation.
Analyze informational text using appropriate comprehension strategies.
•
•
948
UNIT 5
What
Is
LOVE?
After centuries of ignoring the subject as too vague
and mushy, scientists have undergone a change of
heart about the tender passion.
By PAUL GRAY
What is this thing called love? What? Is this thing
called love? What is this thing called? Love.
H
OWEVER PUNCTUATED ,
Cole Porter’s simple
question begs an answer. Love’s symptoms
are familiar enough: a
drifting mooniness in thought and
behavior, the mad conceit that the
entire universe has rolled itself up
into the person of the beloved, a
conviction that no one on earth has
ever felt so torrentially about a fellow creature before. Love is ecstasy
and torment, freedom and slavery.
Poets and songwriters would be in a
fine mess without it. Plus, it makes
the world go round.
Until recently, scientists wanted
no part of it. The reason for this
avoidance, this reluctance to study
what is probably life’s most intense
emotion, is not difficult to track
down. Love is mushy; science is
hard. Anger and fear, feelings that
have been considerably researched
in the field and the lab, can be
quantified through measurements:
pulse and breathing rates, muscle
contractions, a whole spider web of
involuntary responses. Love does
not register as definitively on the
instruments; it leaves a blurred fingerprint that could be mistaken for
anything from indigestion to a
manic attack. Anger and fear have
direct roles—fighting or running—
in the survival of the species. But
romantic love, and all the attendant
sighing and swooning and sonnet
writing, has struck many pragmatic
investigators as beside the point.
So biologists and anthropologists
assumed that it would be fruitless,
even frivolous, to study love’s origins,
the way it was encoded in our genes
or imprinted in our brains. Serious
scientists simply assumed that romantic love was really all in the head, put
there five or six centuries ago when
civilized societies first found enough
spare time to indulge in flowery
prose. The task of writing the book
of love was ceded to playwrights,
poets, and pulp novelists.
But in recent years, scientists
across a broad range of disciplines
have had a change of heart about
love. The amount of research
expended on the tender passion has
Informational Text
UNITED STATES
Valentine’s Day
novels, magazines, and nearly everything shown on TV. Love is a formidable and thoroughly proved
commercial engine; people will buy
and do almost anything that promises them a chance at the bliss of
romance.
But does all this mean that love is
merely a phony emotion that we
picked up because our culture celebrates it? Psychologist Lawrence
Casler, author of Is Marriage
Necessary?, forcefully thinks so, at
least at first: “I don’t believe love is
part of human nature, not for a minute. There are social pressures at
work.” Then a shadow falls over his
CHINA
Courtship on Horseback
On the plains of Xinjiang, mounted
Kazakh suitors play Catch the
Maiden. He chases her in pursuit of
a kiss. If he succeeds, she goes
after him with a riding crop.
Jay Dickman
never been more intense. To explain
this rise in interest, some point to
the growing number of women scientists and suggest that they may be
more willing than their male colleagues to take love seriously. Says
researcher Elaine Hatfield: “When I
was back at Stanford in the 1960s,
they said studying love and human
relationships was a quick way to ruin
my career. Why not go where the
real work was being done: on how
fast rats could run?” Whatever the
reasons, science seems to have come
around to a view that nearly everyone else has always taken for granted:
Romance is real. It is not merely a
conceit; it is bred into our biology.
Getting to this point logically is
harder than it sounds. The love-ascultural-delusion argument has long
seemed unassailable. What actually
accounts for the emotion, according
to this scenario, is that people long
ago made the mistake of taking fanciful literary notions seriously.
Among the prime suspects are the
12th-century French troubadours
who more or less invented the Art
of Courtly Love, an elaborate and
artificial ritual for idle aristocrats.
Ever since then, the injunction
to love and to be loved has hummed
nonstop through popular culture; it
is a dominant theme in music, films,
Sandi Fellman
Romantic rituals in the West have evolved
into the bestowal of flowers, candy, and
other sweet nothings. But the absence of
such gift giving in poorer cultures does
not, anthropologists are learning,
mean the absence of romance.
certainty. “Even if it is a part of
human nature, like crime or violence, it’s not necessarily desirable.”
Well, love either is or is not intrinsic to our species; having it both ways
leads nowhere. And the contention
that romance is an entirely acquired
trait—the revenge of overly imaginative love poets on those who would
take them literally—has always rested
on some flimsy premises.
Why, for example, has romantic
love—that odd collection of tics
and impulses—lasted over the centuries? Most mass hallucinations,
such as the 17th-century tulip mania
in Holland (when the popularity of
tulips pushed the price of a single
bulb sky high), flame out fairly rapidly when people realize the absurdity of what they have been doing
and come to their senses. When
people in love come to their senses,
they tend to orbit with added energy
around each other and look more
helplessly loopy and self-besotted. If
romance were purely a figment,
unsupported by any rational or sensible evidence, then surely most
folks would be immune to it by now.
Look around. It hasn’t happened.
Love is still in the air.
And it may be far more widespread than even romantics imagined. Those who argue that love is a
cultural fantasy have tended to do
W H AT I S L OV E ?
949
Informational Text
a universal phenomenon, a
panhuman characteristic that
stretches across cultures.
Societies like ours have the
resources to show love
The Woodaabe
tribe recognizes
through candy and flowers,
two kinds of
but that does not mean that
marriage: kobgal,
the lack of resources in other
or arranged, and
teegal, made
cultures indicates the absence
from the heart.
of love.”
This young male
Some scientists are not
is hoping to
attract a partner startled by this contention.
in teegal.
One of them is anthropologist Helen Fisher, a research
so from a Eurocentric and class- associate at the American Museum
driven point of view. Romance, they of Natural History. Says Fisher: “I’ve
say, arose thanks to circumstances never not thought that love was a
peculiar to the West: leisure time, a very primitive, basic human emodecent amount of creature comforts, tion, as basic as fear, anger, or joy. It
a certain level of refinement in the is so evident. I guess anthropologists
arts and letters. Romantic love was have just been busy doing other
for aristocrats, not for peasants.
things.”
But a study conducted by anthroAmong the things anthropologists William Jankowiak of the pologists—often knobby-kneed
University of Nevada-Las Vegas and gents in safari shorts—tended to do
Edward Fischer of Tulane University in the past was ask questions about
found evidence of romantic love in at courtship and marriage rituals. This
least 147 of the 166 cultures they now seems a classic example, as the
studied. This discovery, if borne out, old song has it, of looking for love
should pretty well wipe out the idea in all the wrong places. In many
that love is an invention of the cultures, love and marriage do not
Western mind rather than a biologi- go together. Weddings can have all
cal fact. Says Jankowiak: “It is, instead, the romance of corporate mergers,
Carol Beckwith/Millennium:
Tribal Wisdom of the Modern World
AFRICA
Dressed Up
for Display
signed and sealed for family or
territorial interests. This does not
mean, Jankowiak insists, that love
does not exist in such cultures; it
erupts in clandestine forms, “a
phenomenon to be dealt with.”
But if science is going to probe
and prod and then announce that
we are all scientifically fated to
love—and to love preprogrammed
types—by our genes and chemicals,
then a lot of people would just as
soon not know. If there truly is a
biological predisposition to love, as
more and more scientists are coming
to believe, then it follows that there
is also an amazing diversity in the
ways humans have chosen to express
the feeling. The cartoon images of
cavemen bopping cavewomen over
the head and dragging them home
by their hair? Love. Helen of Troy,
subjecting her adopted city to 10
years of ruinous siege? Love. Romeo
and Juliet? Ditto. Joe in Accounting
making a fool of himself around the
water cooler over Susan in Sales?
Love. Like the universe, the more
we learn about love, the more
preposterous and mysterious it is
likely to appear.
Updated 2005,
from TIME, February 15, 1993
R E S P O N D I N G AN D T H I N K I N G C R I TI CALLY
Respond
Analyze and Evaluate
1. How did the article influence your preconceptions
about the origin of love?
5. (a)Why do you think the writer chose to use the
introductory quote by Cole Porter? (b)What is the
significance of the quote?
Recall and Interpret
2. (a)Why have scientists traditionally been reluctant
to study the concept of love? (b)Who took on the
“task of writing the book of love”?
3. (a)Paraphrase the “love-as-cultural-delusion” argument.
(b)What facts tend to refute this argument?
4. (a)According to some modern anthropologists,
why are courtship and marriage rituals the wrong
places to look for the origins of love? (b)Where
do modern scientists look for the origin of love?
9 50
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
6. (a)Why do some theorists think love is a fantasy
of the West? (b)How does the study by
Jankowiak and Fischer prove this theory wrong?
7. If romantic love is genetically programmed, what
selective advantage does it afford the human species?
Connect
8. How do you think Victorian writers would have
responded to the modern scientific view that love
is biologically determined?
B E F O R E YO U R E A D
Hopkins’s Poetry
MEET GER ARD MANLEY HOPKINS
L
ike many artists and writers, Gerard Manley
Hopkins did not know fame during his lifetime. In fact, his poetry was not published
until 1918, nearly thirty years after his death. For
this reason, Hopkins was long viewed as a twentieth-century poet, although in recent decades scholars and publishers have considered his poems in
their original Victorian context—all the better to
understand and appreciate the extent of Hopkins’s
innovation and accomplishment as a poet.
From Highgate to High Church The first of
nine children, Hopkins was born into a middleclass Anglican family who shared a love of literature, art, and music. He began writing as a child
and won a poetry prize when he was fifteen. After
a brilliant career at the Highgate School in
London, Hopkins entered Oxford University in
1863. There he studied Latin and Greek and was
also exposed to the newest ideas in poetry and theology. These pursuits fostered in Hopkins a dual
interest in rich, imagistic verse and in rich, imagistic religion—the latter of which led him first to
High Church Anglicanism and then to Roman
Catholicism and the Jesuit priesthood. As a result
of his conversion, Hopkins suffered a painful and
enduring estrangement from his Protestant family.
“The world is charged with the
grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from
shook foil.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Poet Priest Soon after his conversion,
Hopkins burned most of his poems in a display of
religious devotion. For seven years he wrote no
new poetry. Then, in
1875, one of his
superiors suggested
that he write a poem
about five nuns
exiled for their faith
who had drowned in
the shipwreck of
the Deutschland.
“The Wreck of the
Deutschland” was
rejected for publication due to its unconventional
style but sparked in Hopkins a renewed interest
in writing poetry—which he would continue to
do for the remaining fourteen years of his life.
In much of Hopkins’s early poetry, the meeting of
the mind and nature leads directly to a transcendent awareness of God in all things—an awareness
expressed fervently and poignantly in his 1877
poem “God’s Grandeur.”
Late in life, however, Hopkins produced a series of
“terrible sonnets” which express despair at the
poet’s inability to fully escape the prison of the
self. This despair created for Hopkins a frustrating
dilemma: isolation from the very God who made
each human unique—and, therefore, isolated from
one another.
Hopkins’s priestly life was varied and full. His duties
took him, among other places, to the slums of
industrial England, where he witnessed the misery
of the poor and the devastation of the natural
environment. His last five years were spent teaching
Greek and Latin at the Catholic University in
Dublin and writing some of his most striking poetry.
Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in 1844 and
died in 1889.
Author Search For more about
Gerard Manley Hopkins, go to www.glencoe.com.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Getty Images
951
L I T E R AT U R E P R E V I E W
Connecting to the Poems
Are human beings a part of nature or apart from it? In
these poems, Hopkins suggests that both may be true.
As you read, think about these questions:
• What actions do you take that affect the natural
environment?
• When in your life have you felt most a part of the
natural world?
Building Background
Gerard Manley Hopkins believed that each human
being was characterized by an intricate and utterly
unique design—a kind of spiritual fingerprint that he
called “inscape.” This notion also extended to his
poetry. He once said that “design, pattern, or what I
am in the habit of calling ‘inscape’ is what I above all
aim at in poetry.”
READI NG PREVI EW
Reading Strategy
To monitor comprehension, note whether you fully
grasp the author’s meaning as you read. If not, you
can use strategies to help you understand the text.
These strategies include reading more slowly, rereading difficult passages, and using a graphic organizer.
Reading Tip: Charting Meaning As you read, use a
two-column chart to clarify the meaning of difficult
phrases. Use footnotes, a dictionary, or your own prior
knowledge to help you.
Difficult Phrase
“dappled things”
To create such an effect, Hopkins developed a style of
poetry based on irregular rhythms, incomplete syntax,
and echoing devices such as repetition and alliteration.
The resulting roughness, he believed, captured not only
the complex design of the human mind but also its jolting movements as it perceives and reflects on an object
in nature.
fallow (fal ō) n. land plowed but left unseeded;
p. 953 The fallow field lay brown and empty,
waiting for next year’s seeds.
Another word for progress—a central Victorian ideal—is
change. As you read these poems, consider how
change can be both beautiful and sad.
• See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R17.
OB J ECTIVES
In studying these selections, you will focus on the following:
analyzing literary time periods
•
952
UNIT 5
blight (bl¯t) n. a disease caused by parasites that
makes plants and trees wither and die; p. 954 A
blight in the region killed thousands of saplings.
Sprung Rhythm
Hopkins’s central poetic innovation was a technique he
called sprung rhythm. Sprung rhythm is a kind of
meter in which each foot contains one stressed syllable (the first) and any number of unstressed syllables.
This meter has four kinds of feet: the stressed monosyllable ( ´ ), the trochee ( ´ ˘ ), the dactyl ( ´ ˘ ˘), and
the first paeon ( ´ ˘ ˘ ˘). Additional unstressed syllables are also permitted.
THE VICTORIAN AGE
“blotched or
spotted things”
dappled (dap əld) adj. marked with spots;
p. 953 A ray of sun warmed the fawn’s dappled
coat.
Optimism and the Belief
in Progress
Literary Element
Simplified Meaning
Vocabulary
Setting Purposes for Reading
Big Idea
Monitoring
Comprehension
Vocabulary Tip: Word Origins Many words in
English come from words in other languages.
Understanding word origins can help you figure out
the meaning of unfamiliar words.
Interactive Literary Elements
Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements,
go to www.glencoe.com.
•
•
analyzing sprung rhythm
monitoring comprehension
The Sower, 1888. Vincent van Gogh. Oil on canvas, 64 x 80.5 cm.
Rijksmuseum, Netherlands.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-color 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 plow;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.°
5
10
All things counter,° original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth° whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
2 brinded: streaked or spotted.
3 rose-moles: marks of a reddish color.
stipple: a method of painting that uses
small dots of color to produce gradations
of tone
4 fresh-firecoal: fresh-firecoal chestnutfalls describes the glowing color of
chestnuts newly stripped of their husks.
5 Landscape plotted and pieced: the
patchwork pattern created by dividing
land into fields. fold: an enclosed area for
sheep
6 trim: equipment or clothing.
7 counter: contrary or opposite
10 fathers-forth: creates
Reading Strategy Monitoring Comprehension How does your prior knowledge of the word couple help you understand the meaning of this unusual phrase?
Vocabulary
dappled (dap əld) adj. marked with spots
fallow (fal ō) n. land plowed but left unseeded
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
953
Fine Art Photographic Library, London/Art Resource, NY
The Wild Wood, Autumn. Alfred Oliver (d 1943). Private collection.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
5
10
15
Márgarét, are 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.
Literary Element
Sprung Rhythm Which three syllables
are stressed in this line? What type of foot does each
stressed syllable begin?
Big Idea Optimism and the Belief in Progress How
do these lines express the flip side of Victorian optimism?
Vocabulary
blight (bl¯t) n. a disease caused by parasites that makes
plants and trees wither and die
954
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
2 Goldengrove unleaving: a grove of
trees losing its leaves in autumn
8 wanwood leafmeal: a ground
covering of crushed, decomposing, palecolored autumn leaves
13 ghost: the spirit or soul
A F T E R YO U R E A D
R ES P O N D I N G A N D T H I N K I NG C R I T IC A LLY
philosophy of life, death, and the aging process?
Use details from the poem to support your answer.
Respond
1. Do you think the same person could be the
speaker of both poems, or is it likely that the
speakers are two different people? Give reasons for
your answer.
Recall and Interpret
2. (a)In the first stanza of “Pied Beauty,” for what specific things does the speaker glorify God? (b)What
do the speaker’s choices suggest about his concept
of beauty?
3. (a)In the second stanza of “Pied Beauty,” for what
does the speaker praise God? (b)Explain the comparison the speaker makes between God’s beauty
and the beauty of the world.
Analyze and Evaluate
5. In your opinion, why does Hopkins include examples from trade (gear, tackle, and trim) in his
praise of pied beauty?
6. In “Pied Beauty,” how does Hopkins’s use of
imagery, or word pictures, help to convey the
poem’s theme, or main idea?
7. Do you agree with the point of view expressed in
lines 5–9 of “Spring and Fall”? Why or why not?
Connect
8.
Big Idea
Optimism and the Belief in
4. (a)In “Spring and Fall,” how does the speaker first
explain Margaret’s grief? How does he later explain
it? (b)What can you infer about the speaker’s
Progress The Victorians felt that it was their pre-
LITE R ARY ANALYS I S
R E A D I N G A N D VO C A B U L A RY
Literary Element
Sprung Rhythm
Hopkins chose to use sprung rhythm because “it is
nearest to the rhythm of prose, that is, the native and
natural rhythm of speech.”
1. In your opinion, does sprung rhythm resemble natural, everyday speech? Support your answer, using
specific examples from the poems.
2. Do you think sprung rhythm captures the movement of the mind as it sees and registers what it
perceives? Explain.
Listening and Speaking
With a partner, take turns reading the two poems
aloud. Before you begin, reread the definition of
sprung rhythm in the Literary Element feature on
page 952. Also pay attention to the way each poem
sounds—specifically, the use of end rhyme and alliteration in each poem.
rogative to bend nature to their own purposes.
How does “Pied Beauty” counter this idea?
Reading Strategy
Monitoring
Comprehension
Remember that when you monitor comprehension,
you pay special attention to parts of the text you don’t
understand.
Reread “Spring and Fall.” What line or phrase seemed
difficult the first time you read it but is much clearer
now? Explain.
Vocabulary
Practice
Practice with Word Origins Use a dictionary
with etymologies to help you match each vocabulary word to the description of its origin.
a. blight
b. dappled
c. fallow
1. Old English word for a skin condition
2. Old English word meaning “a piece of plowed
land”
3. Middle English word that describes a color
Web Activities For eFlashcards,
Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
9 55
B E F O R E YO U R E A D
Jabberwocky
M E E T LE W IS C A R RO LL
C
onsidered a dull lecturer by many of his
students and a marginally important mathematician by his colleagues at Oxford
University, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson might, on
the surface, seem an uninteresting fellow. Yet this
quiet, painfully shy man published some of the
wittiest children’s fiction ever written. Under the
pen name Lewis Carroll, Dodgson became world
famous, particularly for two books that for generations have captivated children and adults alike:
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the
Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.
An Inventive Youth The son of a church rector,
Dodgson was the third child and oldest son in a family of eleven children. The Dodgson children lived in
an isolated country village and had few friends outside the family, but they found many ways to amuse
themselves. From an early age, Dodgson entertained
his younger siblings by performing magic tricks and
marionette shows and by writing poetry and word
games for the family’s homemade magazines.
As a teenager, Dodgson spent four years at the
Rugby School. These were unhappy years, as
Dodgson’s shyness and frequent ill health made him
a target for bullying. The young scholar found more
success at Oxford University, where he excelled in
mathematics and classical studies. Graduating first
in his class in mathematics, Dodgson was
granted a scholarship
and assumed a post as
a lecturer in mathematics. As a condition
of this scholarship,
Dodgson was also
ordained a deacon,
but a severe stammer
kept him from seeking a career in
preaching.
956
UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
Christ Church College, Oxford by N. Herkomer/E.T. Archive
Play Makes Perfect Even though Dodgson
spent twenty-six years teaching math at Oxford,
he was bored by the work. In the company of children, however, Dodgson was neither bored nor shy.
He was able to speak to children without stammering, and he loved to entertain young visitors—
often the children of fellow faculty members—by
inventing games, performing magic tricks, giving
puppet shows, and telling stories. Much to
Dodgson’s own surprise, one of these stories eventually became Alice in Wonderland.
“In a desperate attempt to strike out
some new line of fairy-lore, I had sent
my heroine straight down a rabbithole, to begin with, without the least
idea what was to happen afterwards.”
—Lewis Carroll
Alice was not Dodgson’s first publication, however.
Between 1854 and 1856, several of Dodgson’s comical and satirical works appeared in national publications. Then, in 1856, a poem called “Solitude”
was printed under the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll.”
In typical word-play fashion, Dodgson had created
this name by translating his given name into
Latin—Carolus Ludovicus—then reversing the
names and translating them back into English. He
used the pseudonym on all of his non-academic
works, although Dodgson also published a good
number of scholarly works under his given name.
Lewis Carroll was born in 1832 and died in 1898.
Author Search For more about
Lewis Carroll, go to www.glencoe.com.
L I T E R AT U R E P R E V I E W
Connecting to the Poem
Lewis Carroll’s flights of fancy resulted in some very
compelling inventions. As you read, think about why
the notion of inventing new things is so compelling to
human beings.
Building Background
Dodgson often entertained the young daughters of
Henry George Liddell, the dean of his college. On a
summer day in 1862, Dodgson and a friend took the
girls on a boat trip up the river Thames. Dodgson told
an especially amusing tale that afternoon, and young
Alice Liddell begged him to write it down for her.
Eventually some writers who read the manuscript persuaded Dodgson to revise and expand his story for
publication. In 1865 he published the story as Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland. Six years later he published a sequel, Through the Looking Glass and
What Alice Found There, which includes the poem
“Jabberwocky.”
READI NG PREVI EW
Reading Strategy
Clarifying Meaning
To clarify the meaning of a nonsense word (also
called nonce words), you can use both context and
syntax. For example, if a character is “galumphing into
the forest,” both the -ing form of the nonsense word
and the clue “into the forest” would tell you that
galumphing is a way of walking or running.
Reading Tip: Analyzing Syntax When you come
across a confusing phrase or sentence, clarify the syntax by labeling the nonsense words’ parts of speech.
ADJ.
ADJ. N.
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
V
V
N
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. . . .
Setting Purposes for Reading
Big Idea
Optimism and the Belief
in Progress
Among other things, the Victorians invented the train,
the toilet, the vacuum cleaner, the stamp, and cola. As
you read, notice how Victorian inventiveness extended
itself to the world of verse as well.
Literary Element
Nonsense Verse
Nonsense verse is humorous poetry that defies
logic—or, at first glance, appears to. Nonsense
verse usually has a strong rhythm and contains
made-up words. These words—like galumphing in
“Jabberwocky”—often use onomatopoeia, or a technique of using words whose sounds suggest their
meanings.
• See Literary Terms Handbook, p. R12.
Interactive Literary Elements
Handbook To review or learn more about the literary elements,
go to www.glencoe.com.
OB J ECTIVES
In studying this selection, you will focus on the following:
analyzing literary genres
•
Alice and the Cards. First published in 1865.
•
•
identifying characteristics of nonsense verse
clarifying meaning by analyzing syntax
LEWIS CARROLL
Mary Evans Picture LIbrary/The Image Works
957
Lewis Carroll
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
5
10
15
20
25
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
Reading Strategy
Clarifying Meaning What can you tell
about the Jabberwock, the Jubjub bird, and the Bandersnatch?
What clues help you?
Literary Element
Nonsense Verse Which of these words
are onomatopoetic? What meaning does the sound of each
word suggest?
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UNIT 5
Mary Evans Picture Library
THE VICTORIAN AGE
The Jabberwock, 19th century. John Tenniel. Illustration.
A F T E R YO U R E A D
R ES P O N D I N G A N D T H I N K I NG C R I T IC A LLY
Respond
Analyze and Evaluate
1. Which lines in the poem struck you as particularly
amusing? Why?
5. (a)Describe the poem’s meter (or rhythm) and
rhyme scheme. (b)What effects are created by
these devices?
Recall and Interpret
2. (a)What warnings does the father give his son?
(b)What do these warnings suggest about the
setting of the poem?
3. (a)Summarize what happens in stanzas 3–5.
(b)What do these events reveal about the
boy’s character?
4. (a)How does the father respond to his son’s
actions? (b)Why do you think he responds in
this manner?
6. (a)How would you describe the poem’s
atmosphere? (b)Does the atmosphere change?
Explain your answer citing specific evidence from
the poem.
7. (a)Why do you think Carroll repeats the first stanza
at the end of the poem? (b)What is the effect of
this repetition?
Connect
8.
Big Idea
Optimism and the Belief in Progress
What Victorian attitudes might Carroll be mocking,
or satirizing, in this poem?
LITE R ARY ANALYS I S
Literary Element
Nonsense Verse
Carroll provided “definitions” for many of the nonce
words in “Jabberwocky.” For example, he defined a
“tove” as a type of badger that had short horns and
“lived chiefly on cheese” and “slithy” as a combination
of “slimy” and “lithe” that means “smooth and active.”
For each nonce word below, write one or two real
words that are suggested by its sound.
1. brillig
2. mimsy
3. raths
4. frumious
5. uffish
6. frabjous
Performing
In a small group, use a combination of mime, dance,
music, or visual arts to create a multimedia performance of “Jabberwocky.” As part of your planning, go
over the poem together and recall possible meanings
for the nonce words. Use this discussion to help you
decide what each creature and setting should look
and sound like.
R E A D I N G A N D VO C A B U L A RY
Reading Strategy
Clarifying Meaning
Remember that you can use context and syntactical
clues to clarify possible meanings of nonce words in
the poem.
Partner Activity Copy the first stanza of the poem.
Label each nonce word with a part of speech (N, V,
ADJ, or ADV). Now rewrite the stanza, substituting a
real word of the same part of speech for each nonce
word. Read your new stanza aloud to a partner. Discuss
similarities and differences in your interpretations.
Academic Vocabulary
Here is a word from the vocabulary list on
page R82.
coherent (kō hēr ənt) adj. logically consistent
Practice and Apply
Even though “Jabberwocky” is a nonsense poem,
do you find it coherent? Why?
Web Activities For eFlashcards,
Selection Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
LEWIS CARROLL
9 59
L I T E R A R Y P E R S P EC T I V E on “Jabberwocky”
Informational Text
Wanda Coleman
Budding Scholar, Henry Herman Roseland (1866–1950). Private collection.
Building Background
Wanda Coleman, a prize-winning African American
poet and novelist, had a transformative experience
when she read Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. In particular, Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky” helped her make
sense of the realities of racial discrimination. In her
world, as in Alice’s, nothing was ever as it seemed.
Set a Purpose for Reading
Read to discover how reading a literary classic influenced a future writer.
Reading Strategy
Analyzing Literary Influences
Analyzing literary influences involves examining the
ways that literary works affect writers. As you read,
take notes about the influence of Lewis Carroll’s
poem on Coleman. Use a cause-and-effect diagram
like the one below to help you.
Cause
Coleman feels like an
outsider.
➧
Effect
She turns to reading.
T
he stultifying1 intellectual loneliness of
my Watts upbringing was dictated by my
looks—dark skin and unconkable kinky
hair. Being glowered at was a constant state of
being. The eyes of adults and children alike
immediately informed me that some unpleasant
ugliness had entered their sphere and spoiled
their pleasure because of its close and onerous2
proximity. I recall one such moment very
strongly: a white man was standing in front of
me at such an angle that I was momentarily
uncertain what he was frowning at. I turned to
look behind me and saw nothing.
I have come to mark such moments—as they
have recurred throughout my life—as indicative
of the significance of physical likeness, beyond the
issue of physical beauty: of the importance of
“mirror image” (a phrase that recurs in one form
or another in my poetry); in the ongoing dialogue
of race, as I’ve struggled to grasp and respond to
what others assume when their eyes are directed at
or on me. I find the shifts in visual context as
infuriating now as they were in childhood. The
act of wading through stereotypes, in order to
1. Stultifying means “negating” or “dulling.”
2. Onerous means “troublesome.”
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UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE
Private Collection, Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Art Library
Informational Text
become clearly visible in the larger society, corresponds exactly to that moment when Lewis
Carroll’s Alice steps through that looking glass.
Incapable of imagining my world, removed
from it by gender and race as well as by time and
place, Lewis Carroll had nevertheless provided me
with a means (and an attitude) with which to
assess, evaluate, and interpret my own journey
through this bizarre actuality of late-twentiethcentury America, where nothing is ever as it
seems. I was a Negro child—yet this book, and its
poem “Jabberwocky,” served singularly to buoy my
self-esteem, constantly under assault by my Black
peers, family members, and the world outside.
I found the rejection unbearable and—
encouraged by my parents to read—sought an
escape in books, which were usually hard to
come by. In the South Central Los Angeles of
the 1950s and 1960s, there were only three
Black-owned bookstores, and I would not discover them until early adulthood. In my childhood there was no Harlem Renaissance, no
Black arts movement; I did not encounter the
poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar and James
Weldon Johnson3 except at church socials and
in the early 1960s, during Negro History “week”
celebrations. There were no images of Black
children of any age in the American literature I
encountered. The sole exception was “Little
Black Sambo,” whom I immediately rejected
upon finding the book on my desk in the first
grade—along with equally boring books featuring Dick, Jane, and Spot. There was no way in
which I could “identify” with these strange
images of children. I was born and raised in the
white world of Southern California; it gave
birth to me, but excluded me. Even the postwar
Watts of the poet Arna Bontemps,4 and the
South Central Los Angeles that would riot in
1965, were predominantly working-class white
neighborhoods with small Black enclaves.
Whenever my father visited public libraries,
he allowed me to roam the stacks. This was my
Wonderland. I was immediately enthralled with
3. Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906) was an African American
poet and novelist. James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) was
an African American poet and leading member of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
4. Arna Bontemps (1902–1973) was an African American
novelist, historian, and poet.
the forbidden world of adult literature, hidden
away in leather-bound tomes I was neither able
to reach nor allowed to touch. I hungered to
enter, and my appetite had no limits. I plowed
through Papa’s dull issues of National Geographic
and Mama’s tepid copies of Reader’s Digest and
Family Circle in desperation, starved. At age ten I
consumed the household copy of the complete
works of Shakespeare. Although the violence
was striking, and Hamlet engrossing (particularly
Ophelia), I was too immature to appreciate the
Bard until frequent rereadings in my mid-teens.
On Christmas, thereabouts, I received
Johanna Spyri’s5 Heidi as a well-intended gift. I
had exhausted our teensy library, and my father’s
collections of Knight and Esquire. . . . Between
my raids on the adults-only stuff, there was nothing but Heidi, reread in desperation until I could
quote chunks of the text, mentally squeezing it
for what I imagined to be hidden underneath.
One early spring day, my adult cousin Rubyline
came by the house with a nourishing belated
Christmas gift: an illustrated collection of Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland and Through the
Looking-Glass. (She also gave me my first
Roget’s—which I still use—on my twelfth birthday in 1958.) In love with poetry since kindergarten, my “uffish” vows were startlingly renewed.
5. Johanna Spyri (1829–1901) was a Swiss writer.
The Children’s Encyclopedia, James McDonald (b.1956). Oil on
canvas. Private collection. Bourne Gallery, Reigate, Surrey, UK.
WA N D A C O L E M A N
Private Collection, Bourne Gallery, Reigate, Surrey/Bridgeman Art Library
961
Informational Text
I promptly retired Heidi and steeped myself in
childhood poems, along with Poe’s “Raven,”
Alice to an iambic spazz.
Service’s “Cremation of Sam McGee,” Byron’s
In the real world I was an outsider, but in the
“Prisoner of Chillon,” Coleridge’s “Rime of the
stories and poems of Carroll I belonged. Why?
Ancient Mariner,” Henley’s “Invictus,” and
Perhaps because when he
E. A. Robinson’s “Richard
freed Alice in the mirror, he
Cory.”7 To the astute reader,
Carroll’s lasting influence
also freed my imagination and
“If a drink
on my poetry is easily dispermitted me to imagine
or a slice of cake
cerned. Many have referred
myself living in an adventure,
6
to “Jabberwocky” as nonsans the constraints of a raccould transform her . . .
ist society. If a drink or a slice
sense, but in my Los
Why not a transformation
of cake could transform her,
Angeles childhood, it made
alter her shape and size, the
absolutely one hundred perof her skin color?”
next leap for me was the most
cent perfect sense. And
illogically logical of all: Why
within the context of Los
not a transformation of her skin color? In my freAngeles today, that “nonsense” is dangerously
quent rereadings of Alice, I rewrote her as me.
and exhilaratingly profound.
“Jabberwocky” was and remains one of only
a dozen poems I’ve ever loved enough to memo7. Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was an American poet and
rize. It heads the very long list of my favorite
fiction writer; Robert Service (1874–1958) was a Canadian
poet; Lord Byron (1788–1824) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772–1834) were British Romantic poets; William Ernest
Henley (1849–1903) was a British critic and poet; and Edwin
Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) was an American poet.
6. Sans is a French word that means “without.”
R E S P O N D I N G AN D T H I N K I N G C R I TI CALLY
Respond
1. Which details in this essay did you find most
interesting? Why?
Recall and Interpret
2. (a)How did Coleman’s peers, family members, and
strangers treat her as a child? (b)How did reading
the poem “Jabberwocky” help buoy her self-esteem?
3. (a)Why did Coleman feel at home in Carroll’s stories and poems? (b)What does the question, “Why
not a transformation of her skin color?” reveal
about Coleman’s response to Alice?
5. (a)Which words in this essay establish a comparison
between reading and eating? (b)What does this comparison suggest about Coleman’s regard for reading?
6. Why does Coleman maintain that “Jabberwocky” is
meaningful rather than nonsensical?
Connect
7. What is the best book you have ever read? How
can reading be a transformative experience?
Analyze and Evaluate
4. What does Coleman’s exploration of magazines,
the “forbidden world of adult literature,” and her
rereading of Heidi suggest about her personality
and environment?
OB J ECTIVES
Analyze literary influences.
Construct graphic organizers.
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UNIT 5
THE VICTORIAN AGE