Heart of Darkness
6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
 Tough language
 Author was polish, so his vocabulary is not in sync with ours, uses
many big words in regular usage
 Story:
o About a man Marlow
o He is the storyteller
o Dream imagery
o About his experience traveling into Africa, - which he calls the
heart of darkness


A) Europeans didn’t think Africa was a civilized place
 Prejudice against Africans – less sophisticated,
more animal like
 Because they believe this, there was a movement
in Europe called colonism or imperialism
 When you take your culture and “gift it”
onto someone else
o They may view it as opposing on them
 Book debates whether this is a good or bad
thing
o Book explores both sides of it
 Which is true, and what it says
about us, if the more
destructive side is really the
truth
B) His journey could be read as a symbolic journey into
the heart of his deepest self
 Dream imagery would show this

He is finding out things about himself that are
scary , painful and enlightening
Story


Setting is a boat on the river Thames
o People sitting on a boat but cant travel since it is too windy
Narrator believes that the English culture is the best culture ever
o Believes in the righteousness of the imperial ideal
o Sitting there with other unnamed characters








 Tells us that Marlow is an individual, primary character
Begins by saying that this place (London) too was once uncivilized
Talks about humanity – why powerful countries always want to take
over lesser ones
o Says we are fascinated by the horrible (“fascination by
abomination”)
 We are all drawn towards terrible things
Says that when you think about imperialism it isn’t really noble
o The book is a criticism of colonialism and imperialism
o What redeems it is the noble idea, some believe that we are
truly spreading light onto the darkness
 Unclear whether total criticism or also a defense
Marlow has experienced it first hand and will show us what it truly
looks like (Kurtz)
o Marlow is going on a journey and Kurtz is his goal
 He had gone into Africa with the nobleness intentions,
but there are reports that something is wrong with him,
he may be sick – Marlow is to go to talk to him, and
possibly bring him back
Marlow is going to tell these people on the boat the story of his
journey
o the idea of the time was that going into a savage place would
often bring your own darkness out
Marlow is told about Kurtz for the first time
o When being told about his the word “interior” is used – shows
that you have to go into your self to find more
o Kurtz is also a symbol
o Find out that Kurtz is one of the most successful ivory
explorers, one of the great representatives of English
colonialism
As Marlow gets ready to go, he finds out that many people feel
threatened by Kurtz
o This makes Marlow like him more
o Thinks that he has held up to his values
Meets someone talking about Kurtz who was the chief of the inner
station







o Again “inner”
Marlow thinks that Kurtz will offer him the answers, the truth, which
he hopes will show him the light
Tells the others that he had such an experience, but that they wont
even hear it, its like trying to remember a dream (its impossible)
o Also he cant see the people hes talking to, it is black, they
may all be asleep
 The writer is addressing this
He then talks about when he was going up the river
o Said that in this time, you were not yourself anymore, you
found out who your really are
o Their past came back to them
o It was a place you cant understand, even though its all still
you cant understand it – “the stillness of an implacable force
brooding over an intrutable intention”
o Thinks this new place may be what a human being really is
Says what we do for money is so meaningless, when you see what
real existence is, the “inner truth is hidden”
Feels that Kurtz can explain why we are here, what it all means
o the further he gets the more questions he has, and the more
he thinks that Kurtz can answer them
 scared that these people who he thought were
inhumane, may be humane – that’s what we really are
gets closer and closer to Kurtz
finds out that Kurtz is supposed to write report about the savages
o he goes out there with the intetion of helping them get rid of
their customs
o after being there for a long time he stopped writing the
report, but instead writes a summation of what it is all about
o he wrote “exterminate all the brutes!”
 thought that the Europeans are here for this reason and
that is what they enjoy doing
 they want to get rid of that that frightens them and
what they think is unworthy
we learn that he has changed, he is no longer a noble
Englishman, rather he has realized what he desires, and
he has allowed himself to do this at full force
o by the time Marlow meets Kurtz he bares little resemblence to
the original Kurtz
 he has became a cannibal
 a leader of an African tribe
 they worship him
 he has stakes around his house with skulls on them
 they were facing in though – suggests he likes to



look at them, also that he would talk to them at
night
 he has gone completely to the other side,, embraced his
darkness and savagery
Kurtz is now dying
o Dies and his last words are “The horror! The horror!”
o Marlow is very impressed with Kurtz that he was able to see
the truth
 By the time Kurtz died he had been part of every type
of culture
 He had embraces his heart of darkness
 He made a judgment of what life is about – it is all a
horror
 Marlow thinks that if you have the courage to do
this then you live a much truer life
When Marlow goes back to England he meets his fiancé
o She asks him for his last words
 He replies that the last word was her name

He recognizes the truth, but not willing to live
with the consequences
6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Purpose of strange language:
 Modern literary period is known for experimentation
o Book has personality, something new and different
 Read with different mind set, have to learn the books
vocabulary, see it the way he sees it
 Separates you from this world
 Language is indicative of who he is, he is able to hold on to his own
personality
o Since through his voice, we start to sympathize with him



Section




o Allows us access to his mind and individuality
Chooses to speak in this language, but is able to speak in the
others
o Big theme of book, being able to choose
Alex and his friends use this language to separate themselves, to
identify themselves
o They feel nothing towards society – don’t love or hate them
 Shown the way he acts towards others
If the book was written in regular English people wouldn’t want to
read it, it would be too violent, but the language separates us from
the nature of the acts, we are not emotionally vested in it
1
sets the stage on the world that Burgess invents
we meet Alex and his Droogs
o Alex likes classical music, violence, sex and drugs
Two types of monsters
o Alex and droogs
o State
 Could relate to cold war (time period when written)
 The state has no control, but so much power
See difference between day and night – world they exist
o The day the state cares, but at night the state doesn’t matter
o The state wants the people who hang out at night to be
quieted, the kids are doing it for them
 Seen on page 17, and with author of clockwork orange



Chapter


Chapter
o Easier to let people rebelling quiet each other, they then can
control the other aspects of society
Law and order are controlled absolutely, by keeping everyone under
there control, the chaos is a controlled chaos
A world where control by government is becoming more prevalent
o Because of new types of psychology, little by little the
government will control everyone, the first part of the book is
about a vision in this world
 Even the kids are products of the state
Alex is both a victimizer but also a product of this world, terrible
parenting, a world that uses him as an example
o Unlike his friends he has a bit of individiuaity
one:
Sense that written texts are starting to disappear
o Tells us the book will be a lot about language
 How we use it, how cultures shape it
Looked for real feeling, sense of being alive
o Drugs in milk bar
three:

Alex has an affinity for classical music
o When listening to music he was thinking of violence and sex
 The writer may have chosen classical music for these
things is to break the stereotypes of people with good
taste in music as good people
o Tells us that there is more to Alex then we would think
Chapter five:
 Upset that he is losing control and with Dim
o Dreamt about it as well
Chapter six:
 Went into a house with many cats, milk everywhere, a statue of
Beethoven and an old women
o Alex artistic side made him feel different the others, at some
point they were going to turn on him, feet that he is so
different
 He is starting to become his own person, so the others think he
needs to be taken away
Chapter




7:
Police coming, Alex caught and brought to jail
Alex is different in jail
Finds out the women he broke into had died
Find out he’s fifteen
o Feel bad for him
o Not responsible, in a world that he is neglected and
abandoned by his family
 Start to sympathize, did he create himself, or did the
world create him
Section 2:
 The new state makes the people what they want, makes them
“good”, but what is good? Is it good if you are programmed or is
that time of goodness empty
o They make him “good” by feeling bad when he sees bad
things
Chapter one:
 Same first line as first chapter, but different speaker
 Give him a number


Chapter


Chapter



o Little by little he is surrendering his identity
 In jail he listens to music, stays violent, and reads the
old testament
A Chaplin tries to help Alex
Likes old testament and likes it, then starts to read new testament,
starts to seem himself like Jesus, taking the sins of the world
two:
Tell him they will try a new technique on him
Is going to be set free, but his freedom comes with the inability to
make choices
o Redefines freedom
three:
Tell Alex that they will make him the first recipient of the Ludovico
technique
Inside he feels that something may wrong
The Chaplin responds that it may not be nice to be good, it may be
horrible to be good

He asks what does God want, goodness or the choice of goodness,
is a man who chooses the bad, better then the man who has to
choose the good
 Passing to a place beyond the reach of prayer
 In a sense you have truly chosen the good
o The chaplain is the voice of the author, part of the system but
doesn’t believe in it
 I know what there doing has rationality, but it cant be
good
Chapter seven:





Section



He is brought in front of the authorities as a demonstration, but is
unable to do it, since he feels sick
His music is also taken away
o Author is suggesting you cant have goodness without taking
away a person individuality
 Clockwork orange – an orange is messy, its
unpredictable, the society is turning this orange into a
mechanism
The guy is hitting and mocking Alex
o willing to lick his boots, but instead he kicks him
the Chaplin says that he has no real choice, its insincere, he ceases
to be a wrong doer and a creature capable of moral choice
o doctor that these are subtleties that must be sacrificed
it works, God help the lot of us
three:
His parents don’t need him
Dim has become a policeman
o Seems ironic, but in reality all these people were always
manipulated by government system
He then meets R Alexender, author of clockwork orange, raped his
wife
o Has the same name as Alex
o Became leader of rebel group, that wants to undermine the
government
o Takes him into his home but then realizes that he is the one
who raped his wife
Chapter

Chapter



o Wants to use Alex as propaganda
 If he is a martyr it can be a rallying point
 They try to drive him to suicide
five:
Decided to commit suicide, and jumps
o But doesn’t die
six:
When he is awakened he is freed from government treatment
He is back to the old Alex, got it all back
He felt like he was cured
o Original American book ended here
 Thought Americans wanted a more cynical meaning
 Burgess wanted a more conventional meaning,
with 21 chapters (become an adult)
 Wanted Alex to go through youth, but end
as a man with choice
Chapter seven:
 Starts with a similar beginning
 Makes a choice to end his violent ways, but still keeps his
individuality and artistic side
 Tells us that he is no longer young
o Ends in a conventional way, he makes a choice, but the
conventional one
 He still has language, music, personality
 Done not because he was trained, but because he
has grown up through choice
A society cant make you good, but people who evolve naturally will choose
morality, if imposed it is meaningless


Book is a satire, fear of future, vision of young, hope for them
What is unique is the way the message is presented to us
Modest Proposal + Wuthering Heights
Yossi Quint
A modest proposal: Got Ericas notes
Wuthering Heights
 Two major narrators
o Mr. Lockwood
 In the beginning of the book in the present, he goes to
rent a house near wuthering heights and thruscross
grange
 Get an idea of characters from name of house
 Wutheirng – windy, intense, emotional



o Heathcliff belongs here
Thrushcross – a thrush is a bird, cross –
Christianity, very traditional, religious,
orderly
o Lockwood belongs in this type of place
o Nelly
o Mr lockwood starts it then nelly takes over then goes back to
lockwood
Genealogy
Main characters
o Heathcliff

Byronic hero – Byron was a poet who wrote about a
certain type of men, the type of men who were known
as this had to be handsome, dark (misanthropically,
mysterious, violent, passionate), who seemed to be
nursing some type of grievance against the world,
which makes women drawn to them
Chapter 1:
 Begins 1801 (reading a diary)
 Nelly telling story to Lockwood and we are reading this
o Reading is important, since a recurring image is language and
reading, literacy, words
o Besides nelly telling the story, many characters tell her
stories
 She is sometimes a participant, someone’s an observer,
and sometimes just heard it from someone else
 And then Lockwood tells it to us
o Lockwood edited Nelly words
 By the time it gets to us its been totally distorted
 Suggests philosophically that there is no true or




real story
 Lockwood is not reliable
Why would Emily Bronte do all of these things to distance us and
confuse us, and to tell us that there is no central truth?
o Empowers every individual reader (+ subjectivity)
Begins with date, seems chronological, but isn’t
o Pieces of puzzle hear, just not in order
Lockwood going to visit his landlord
o Says it’s a perfect place for someone that hates others
Heathcliff is often referred to as tabulas rasa – blank slate
o The character isn’t as identifiable as a reflection of the person
who’s describing it
o You write upon it, you create it, either in the way you observe
or the way you mold him
 People see what they want to see + when he is
introduced no one knows where he comes from or who
his parents are


 Created out of his environment
Lockwood is revealing something about himself
o He would like to be Byronic and a misanthrope
 But he isn’t
 He is very much the opposite
Lockwood says hello to Heathcliff and Heathcliff just nods, doesn’t
respond
o A man of few words
o Uses words for their usefulness
o Says what he feels
Presents himself as he is, not worried about hw is he
perceived
On the other hand, Heathcliff is verbose
The entire first part of the novel is about Lockwood and major
themes, only after that do we enter the real story
Lockwood sees Heathcliff as very reserved, even more so then him
– example of tabulas rasa
o Lockwood wanted to have the same picture of himself
Names







o Lockwood
 Closed, boring
o Heathcliff
 Alive, dangerous, daring
o Names have nothing in common
 Funny that Lockwood thinks they are so similar
Lockwoods tells a story of how he liked this girl and she liked him
but he didn’t say anything and she left
o Real story: he liked her and stared at her which the girl was
scared of and she left
why is he the narrator?
o We know he want tell the truth but will present the facts
o Enabling us to read the story as we want
o He represents a type of society that the author wants to
satirize
 The world of men, convention, the typical city dweller,
or typical author
In a male centric world, having a narrator who is a man
makes the reader more comfortable, but the real
narrator is nelly, but the man filters it
 This allows the lower class women to have a lot
more integrity when contrasted to Lockwood’s
voice
o When she published it she wanted a fake name on the cover,
didn’t think people were ready for a female writer
 But name was ambiguous
Heathcliff gets everything wrong


o Tries to pet the dog
 Heathcliff doesn’t want the dog to be spoiled
 He starts to make weird faces at the dog
Chapter 2:
 Two levels of reading (for comes down to dinner… servant girl…
runs out of house to wuthering heights) – this isn’t just a short
walk, its four miles
o He may be a snob, may be awkward
o Or he is excited by this women, physical excitement
Cant deal with his desires
 Runs away from them
The snow storm is so bad, that he has to stay at Wuthering heights
for the night
He stays in old Cathys old room
o Cathy I – girl who grew up with Heathcliff
o Cathy II (or little Catherine) – is Cathys daughter
3:
Sees written in the desk Catherine Earnshaw Catherine Heathcliff



Chapter

Catherine Linton
o This awakens Lockwood
o He wants to explore this
o Catherine in writing these names she has shown her
confusion, as well as predicted her future
 What’s also interesting is that her daughters future is
reversed, she starts as a Linton, then becomes a
Heathcliff and finally Earnshaw
This shows that the generations are going in
circles, one women does one thing, the other
does the opposite
 No progress will be made, time will not alter
anything essential
 Also a supernatural feeling about Wuthering heights
 This is emphasized when Lockwood goes to sleep
Lockwood dreams of a noise at night, and he is annoyed and thinks
it’s a branch hitting the window, he goes to move the branch away
but instead feel the fingers of a small ice cold hand








The voice said “Let me in, let me in”
Lockwood takes the hand and tries to cut its wrist
o Shows us that when he is afraid he is willing to do whatever
needs to be done
He lies to the ghost so that it will let him go
And then puts books against the window
Heathcliff hears him and is angry that he is sleeping in this room,
so he throws him out and sends him to another room
Lockwood then observes through a key hole what Heathcliff does

He sees Heathcliff yelling for Cathy to come in
o Heathcliff and Lockwood are opposite
o Heathcliff loved Cathy and it’s a love that he is holding onto,
he is obsessed
Chapter 4
 Pg. 32 narration shifts from lockwood to nelly
o We go back to wuthering heights, where the original Mr and
Mrs Rarnshaw live
 They have two children Hinley and Catherine

One day Mr Earnshaw brings home a boy (Heathcliff)
o The reaction isn’t very good
 He’s dark and he’s a gypsy
 Hindley is particularly upset (it threatens his place in
the family)
o This may be included in the book since it’s a story about
prejudice, and since he is somewhat different he is never


Chapter

treated the same as others, and as the consequence of that
he becomes this monster figure
Tells the story of how he found it
o He may not have found it, but had an affair, which may show
why they had a closer relationship
o This also adds another dimension to Cathy and Heathcliff
 Incest…
Even Nelly an outsider calls him “it” and not him
6
Hindley becomes the master of wuthering heights after his parents
die





o He has no one standing between him and cathy and Heathcliff
 This makes cathy and Heathcliff closer together
One day they run away together and find themselves near thrush
cross grange
o It’s beautiful (opposite of wuthering heights), there are even
a brother and sister (mirror image of sibilings)
Heathcliff returns home without cathy, since cathy was injured by
the dog their and was invited to be cared for at the lintons home
Heathcliff returns to nelly and tells her what he saw
o Heathcliff says he doesn’t envy, he has nothing but disdain
for their “petted lives” (pg. 44)
o Shows the comparison between the two
 Thruscross – absolute security, materilisitc
 But when they get what they want they just want
more, they wont have the close relationship that
he and cathy have
 Book starts to ask the questions, which is
better
Cathy stays at thruscross grange for five weeks and marks the
divide of Cathy and Heathcliff
o Makes Cathy aware of an alternative life
When she returned she was whitened from not being outdoors and
working

Chapter














She sees Heathcliff as dirty and lesser, which upsets Heathcliff
greatly since everyone judged him but cathy, and now cathy does
too
9
Edgar Linton decides he likes Cathy and Cathy is torn between the
two
Mr. Linton came in to the house to see Nelly hiding Haerton in the
cupboard
He grabs nelly and threatens to stab her with a death
Nelly responds that shed rather be shot
o She’s used to this, wants to calm him down
Note: What’s Emily bronte really saying
o Lockwood is trying to rape nelly
 Not just physical violence, but also sexual violence
o This shows us how bad things are it also shows us why cathy
chose edgar over Heathcliff
 Even if she loves Heathcliff more, she needs a refuge
Heathcliff is sitting outside the door and Nelly knows this, but nelly
tells cathy hes in the stable
She tells nelly that edgar linton asked him to marry him
o And she accepted him
She says how she loves all the things that surround edgar
o She wants a good life, security, possessions
Nelly points this out
o May want to reveal her shallowness to Heathcliff
o Maybe Nelly wants Heathcliff
She tells nelly that she is acting rationally
o She is going against her emotions to her secure life
She says that she knows that she is denying her own heart
Says she doesn’t belong in heaven, she belongs in hell with
Heathcliff
o But she chooses heaven for the comfort
It would degrade her to marry Heathcliff
o He has a lower status, and has lost his humanity since she
had been treated so poorly
With this Heathcliff leaves



Chapter





Chapter



o He doesn’t hear the next part
Cathy says that in the long run she might be able to help Heathcliff
o Trying to rationalize it
My relationship with Edgar is about the now, my eternal part is with
Heathcliff
o I am Heathcliff, but I will never be with him
Nelly goes to live with Cathy
o Abandones Haerton for Hindley to raise
10
Nelly sees Heathcliff for the first time since he ran away
o Sees beneath the civilized demeanor is the same rage and
passion
Isabella sees Heathcliff and is attracted to him, and tells cathy
o She may be desperate
o She may be jealous that cathy stole edgar, and now wants to
get even
Cathy gives her a very strong warning
o Isabella feels that cathy had a chance and now has a life, she
wants to know why she cant
Cathy calls Isabelle and Heathcliff in to the library
o She comments to Heathcliff – it’s not nelly
 Saying that nelly also likes him
Heathcliff realizes that Isabella is Edgars heir
o Great opportunity to get even with Edgar
o Its not about love anymore
o Once he has a goal nothing will stand in his way
 He wants cathy, he wants thruscross grange and
wuthering height and then he wants to destroy it all
12
Edgar says that Heathcliff can no longer visit anymore
Cathy is upset and locks herself up in the room
Edgar is told by nelly that she needs her time and leave her alone
o Edgar listens, but cathy wants him to care (she wants the
opposite)
 Cathy is pregnant
o Not written, since nelly doesn’t want to include it


Chapter

Cathy feels as if she is dying
Neylly finds out that Isabella ran off with Heathcliff
13
Isabella then writes a letter to Nelly (who’s telling it to Lockwood,
who’s telling us)
 Isabella thinks she made a big mistake and wants Nelly to bring her
something from Edgar
 Talks about violence between Heathcliff and Hindley
o How she is mistreated
o How wuthering heights is the opposite

Chapter





Depends on Nelly to save him
14
Heathcliff tells Nelly that he wants to see Catherine before she dies
Nelly allows this (since she always listens to Heathcliff)
But she also asks him what is going on with Isabella
He told her from the beginning that he didn’t love her and would
take everything from her
o he didn’t lie and he proved this by hanging her dog
o Heathcliff is straight to the point
 He is also very self aware
Heathcliff says the more someone suffers the more he wants to
hurt it
o Says it’s a moral teething
 The more pain that occurs, the more he gains
o Freud says everyone brain has three components
 Id, superego, and the ego
 Id – desires
 Super ego – conscious
 Ego – balances id and superego
o Heathcliff is all Id
o Wutheirng heights – id
o Thrushcrsos grange – super ego
Chapter



15
Heathcliff asks nelly to allow him to visit cathy
Nelly brings him in
It’s the first and last physical contact that Cathy and Heathcliff have





Chapter





They meet…
Towards the end of her life Cathy wants opening, she feels
suffocation from all the enclosure (151)
Cathy asks him for forgiveness
Heathcliff says she deserves this
o That he will be constantly be tormented, while you will have
the peace of death
o He can forgive the person that broke his heart, but not he
person who broke their own heart
Nelly was standing here the entire term, but felt awkward since he
thought edgar would come home
16
Catherine bore Catherine
The elder Catherine then dies (in child birth)
o Heathcliffs goal of getting Catherine back is impossible
o Now he can only get back at others
Very upset, wishes Catherine would haunt him
Then hits his head against a tree
Catherine wasn’t buried in the traditional place for the linton or
earnshaw family
o She wasn’t truly part of either world
o Literally she was also in two worlds, earth and heaven (or
hell)
o She may also have not been buried in the church yard since
she may have committed suicide
(from the beginning of the book to this point the themes are:
 the consequence of decisions
 forbidden love


Lack of communication and altering of it by Nelly and Lockwood.
About following head instead of heart
o while book two is about following the heart)
Chapter 17
 Since Hindley Earnshaws wife died, he was a gambling and drinking
attic. He was in total debt to Heathcliff.
o He then dies (174)




Chapter




Chapter

The events after his death were told to Nelly by Kenneth (a servant
at wuthering heights) who told is to Nockwood, who told us to us…
very second hand
Nelly upon hearing of the death from the doctor, thinks that
Heathcliff may have killed him
o We also learn that Nelly is 27
Nelly goes to see Heathcliff and says that Hindley deserves a proper
burial
o She notices that Heathcliff is proud
 He got rid of Hindley and Heathcliff now owns wuthering
heights and going to take control of Haerton
At the funeral Heathcliff tells Haerton I will raise you like your
father raised me, and well see how you come out
o The irony of Haerton is the crueler Heathcliff is the more he
likes Heathcliff
18
Meanwhile cathy is growing up, and Nelly likes her a lot
Cathy from the early stages of her life wanted to know more, she
wanted to know what was out there (like her mom, she doesn’t like
the enclosed world of thruscross grange)
o With Nellys help she goes on trips away from thrusscross
grange
Nelly then meets Haerton for the first time in 12 years
o May be that they wandered, or nelly did this purposefully
Heathchliff didn’t treat him as awfully as she imagined
19
The second generation has three main characters
o Cathy, Haerton, and Linton (Isabellas son)
Named Linton Heathcliff as an attack on Heathcliff
Haerton was in the first half, but is different since his
master is now Heathcliff
 Nelly describes Linton as being like a girl, since raised entirely by
Isabella
o He is also weak and sickly and a bit full of himself
Chapter 20
 Nelly goes to visit Linton and Heathcliff



Heathcliff tells Nelly that he doesn’t like his son but he wants to
preserve his gentlemen like state, he wants to make him weak but
also have superior feeling of others
 He wants him to inherit thruscross grange and then die, so
Heathcliff can inherit everything
o If Heathcliff does die first then his descendent will be in
control
 Heathcliff will make Haerton into a monster and Linton into a
gentlemen
Chapter 21





Chapter
Cathy starts to like Linton
Heathcliff decides they should marry and this way, no matter what
he will inherit thrushcross grange and edgars money
Edgar tries to keep them apart, but Heathcliff gets linton to write
love letters to cathy
Heathcliff thinks Haerton is a lot better then Linton but he wil make
linton appear to be better to help his cause
Haerton is jealous of Linton and cathy, and them make fun of him
21-27

Heathcliff kidnaps nelly and cathy
o Tells cathy that her father is dying but he wont let her visit
him, unless he marries linton
Chapter 28
 Linton is a selfish brat, who wants everything, and believes
everything is in his control
 Heathcliff also manipulates Green, the lawyer so that he doesn’t go
to Edgars house to change his will, to make sure Heathcliff doesn’t
get anything

Edgar dies without a will, so cathy gets all the money, which goes
to Linton
o Heathcliff closer to ultimate goal
 But with ultimate goals, the closer you are to getting it,
the less it means
 Going to get it is the meaningful part
Chapter 29
 Heathcliff opens up Cathys grave to look it

Chapter




Chapter


He wants his body to be placed next to Cathys so that they can bind
together in the earth
30-31
Lockwood then comes back in to the story
Nelly then moves back to Wuthering heights
Linton dies, and all that’s left of everyone Lockwood knew, was
Heathcliff, Cathy, Haerton, and Nelly
Lockwoods start to think that since Cathy was married and now is
their with these two gross people, perhaps I can marry her
32
Lockwood imagines himself as a romantic hero, he wants to believe
in fairy tales
o This is important since he makes the final thematic judgment
on story (as narrator)
Haerton and Cathy had always fought since Cathy liked the
intellectual and sophisticated type, but now she is forced to be with
Haerton
o Haerton tells cathy that he wants to learn how to read
o So she tries to teach him how to become more literate

Lockwood starts to realize that he wont be with her, since there is
someone else (Haerton)
 Haerton while learning to read with Cathy falls in love with her, and
he falls in love with him
o Together they no longer fear Heathcliff, they realize that
together they are or could be stronger then him
Chapter 33
 We are now past the point that we started in time
o Time stalled and now is moving on again
Could be saying that Cathy and Haerton relationship
redeems, and revitalizes the relationship that was never
fulfilled by Cathy and Heathcliff
 Haerton parallel to Heathcliff, and Cathy to Cathy
Heathcliff says he lost his will to destroy them
o Realized he wont get any satisfaction to destroy them
 Since he doesn’t want to do it
Everything reminds him of Cathy





Has one goal to be with Cathy (and destroy everyon that took her
away)
Note: The ghost is returning and changing him
o Why is the ghost coming now?
 A. So he doesn’t destroy Cathy and Haerton
 There to protect daughter
 Not help Heathcliff, rather destroy him
 Cathy may have found a deeper connection,
Cathy
o Her love for Heathcliiff is triumphed



B. Seeing Haerton and Cathy in love, reminds Cathy
how much she loves Heathcliff and wants to be with
him.
C. There is no ghost, hes come to the realization that he
doesn’t want to destroy them and that he has pushed to
far and to hard. This has destroyed his life.
D. He is a tragic hero, since this one characteristic
which is so strong is what destroys him
 His obsession with love, destroys him

While chasing Cathy, he destroys Cathy’s
love
Chapter 34
 He dies without a will, but he wanted to make a will to disinherit
Cathy and Haerton
o Knows he is getting ill
 But he is not able to make it before his death
 Lockwood returns and we see the end through his point of view
o (have to read with skepticism)
o sees two ghost couples walking around
 everything works out for the dead
o walks past gravestones
 under the benign (harmless) sky
 if he judged this world as harmless
 he misjudged everything
o wants a happy ending
 asks how can anyone imagine that their not at peace
everyone is at peace
all this craziness had an ending, a final peaceful
ending
o Since we mistrust Lockwood we should question this ending
 Is their afterlife restful or bitter?
 We are left suspicious of happy ending
 Emily Brontes view of life is that its not
simple, its complex, violent, chaotic
 Doesn’t want us to take peoples words for granted,
rather assert our own conclusions



Yossi Quint
1797




Two people William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge
Wrote poetry called Lyrical Ballads
o In which they put forth a new idea about poetry
They are the founders of romantic poetry
The romantic era is a short lived poetic era, but had and has a
tremendous influence on writers, poet, philosophers…
o It ends the restoration period (satire, parody)
o Emily Brontes Wuthering heights is inspired by the romantic
poems of her time
o Gets inspiration from nature
The World is too much with us - William Wordsworth
 Sonnet – ABBA ABBA CD CD CD – octave over sextet
 Title – Focus on individual (“I”), to concerned as a group of people
with world concerns
o What people think of us, material items, status
 Line 1: world - society, Late and soon - always
o Romantic poets want us to return to nature, the natural world
 Line 2: spend most of our time getting money + status and





spending them. This wastes our feeling, our time, our experience
with the real world
Line 3: we don’t see nature as having anything to do with us, lost
touch
o Lost touch with a part of life for so long
Line 4: given away our feelings (souls) for these gains, a disgusting
gift
o Sordid boon – oxymoron – we think it’s a gift, were making
progress, but the gift is actually taking away more then it is
giving us
Line 5: taking place at sea, she is showing her naked self to the
moon
o Sea personified as a women (“her”), it wants to be touch and
seen
o We have turned away from a nature who is alive
Line 6: the winds are alive
Line 7: but right now its like sleeping flowers



Line 8: for this we are out of tune, we don’t care
o We are an instrument which is out of tune, we have the
potential to be great but we not
Line 9: All this doesn’t move us, we have lost a part of ourselves
Line 10: Telling god he would rather even be a pagan then be one
of these people that are out touch with this world
o The pagans had what was lacking in this world
o The earth, sky, and sea were alive
o Give up faith, if I could have this attachment with the natural
world


Line 11: I would stand on this pleasant area
Line 12: If I were a pagan I would see things that we don’t sea
anymore
 Line 13: if I were a pagan I would believe in this shape shifter
 Line 14: If I were a pagan I would believe in a merman
I wandered lonely as a cloud - William Wordsworth
 Paragraph 1:
o Literal: Guy goes a walk in the words, sees a lot of daffodils
moving around in the wind



o He is lonely, may not be negative, could be an opportunity, a
way of exploring ones self
o He may be lonely since he is different, cant participate in
society then same way everyone else does
o Compares himself to a cloud, he is above everyone (cant
connect, above everyone – may be alienated or egotistic)
o Flowers made him happy, since they are dancing
Paragraph 2:
o Literal: Endless amount of daffodils dancing
o They are continuous and united, while he is alone
 Alone by choice but envy others
Paragraph 3:
o Literal: He cant help but be happy when he sees this,
o he didn’t realize at the time but these daffodils brought him
wealth and happiness that wouldn’t disappear, rather it can
stay with him beyond the moment
Paragraph 4:

o Literal: When I am resting I will think about this
o When he is resting, this idea of the daffodils will be with him
again
Memory is another keep aspect of romanticism (along with nature,
individual, regular folk)
o Romantic poems come out of: Experience recollected in
tranquility
 The way in which you enrich yourself is by remembering
things so that when things are bad, you can re-enrich
yourself through memory

Even though he is not with the daffodils, he can carry this
experience with him and it can offer him comfort in times when he
is not as happy
 The limit is that he is not actually there, its just a memory
o There is disconnect between him and the world
o The daffodils are totally conformed but they have each other
Kubla Khan – Samuel Coleridge
 The dream of something great, transcended, above individuals
o Only reference to man is Kubla Khan, and narrator





About child like imaginations
Romantics use child like imagination
Returning to perfection
o Asking question “Why?” do we have to let this apart of our
self go, innocence, creativity, imagination…
 There may be a way to recall these things
About his dream, he had fallen asleep (opium induced) he then
woke up wanted to write down his dream, which he started to do,
then his neighbor knocked on his door, and he forgot the rest of his
dream
o This is indicated by a skipped line
Verse by verse
o Xanadu – imaginative. Kubla Khan – great emperor.
o He decried that we will build a pleasure home
 The fact that has decree this, shows he has god like
power
The idea that man has powers of creation if they
wanted it, is a constant idea in romanticism
The dome has a sacred river
Which goes through caverns that are infinite (measureless)
 undefinable series of rivers and caverns
Continue to the sunless sea
So twice five miles of fertile ground
Surrounded by walls and tower
Gardens bright with curvy rills
Trees that smell like incense

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o Ancient forests
o Sunny spots of greenery
 Note: His perfection includes a lot of nature, but also
walls and towers
He wants it all
 Sun and sunless
 Seas and mountains
 Nature and artificial things
 Disorder and order (five miles)












But oh (enthusiasm, pleasure), the deep romantic chasm which
slanted
o Now talking about man and female
Down a green hill
It was savage, and holy, enchanted (opposites)
Women were yelling for their demon lover (man
o Chasm was a yonic symbol
from this ceaseless turmoil
earth had thick pants (man)
a might fountain came out (phallic symbol)
swift fast bursts
…
Nature has become lifeless
o Reached crescendo
Missed notes- get it
No longer line for line



Note; When he returns to finish the poem, he cant remember the
previous dream, so remembers other thoughts he had that he liked
A maid playing on her dulcimer and singing beautifully
o Then connects her to the dome
I would build the dome air
o I would – subjunctive
 I cant
 Limitation – can remember, but not fully. Never get
back a moment that is lost.
o He recognizes that the dream is an impossible dream
ironically that failure becomes part of the romantic
temperament
 the sad feeling you get knowing you cant capture
the temperament, is such an intense feeling that
becomes something that you can cherish and
adds to your life (it’s a spark)
the dome that is sunny and has caves of ice
everyone that heard about this
would yell beware,beware




o since he is so strong, like Kubla khan
 describes how his phyischal body would be unkempt
o in touch with natural world, not physichal
 they would circle me
o be in awe
 They wouldn’t be able to look at me
o I would be like a god
o Believed man good become super
Ozymandias



By Percey Shelley
Named after Ramses II (aka Ozymandias)
Line by line
o The speaker met a person from an old place
o Who said: “there two legs of stoneo In the destert…” near them in the sand
o A half sunk head lies with a shattered face who frowns
o Wrinkled lip with a sneer look (serious)
o This sculpture teaches about the sculptor, he was good at
reading people
o The emotions still survive in this (the sculptors work still
speaks to people)
o by looking at this we can extrapolate a meaning about the
rest of this person
 this is what impresses the antic traveler the most, that
he can look at something from a long time ago and still
see something, since the sculptor was so talented
 this sculpture was everlasting the creators life was
there, while ozymandias work was decrepit
 work from the heart, the imagination, that is what
survives
 but the sculpture, those who live with integrity,
survive
 Time has shown that someone low on the
hierarchies power is much greater then that
of high on the hierarchy of that time period
o Vanity of human wishes
o on the pedestal it says” Ozymandias, King of Kings:
o Look on my works, ye, Mighty, and despair!”
 Statue supposed to celebrate ozymandias
 Ironic (next three lines)
o There were only remains left
o A huge boundless wreck
o Sands lay everywhere
 Over time nature took away everything that he built
 His power is gone, but the sculptures is left


This story has three narrators
o We listen to Speaker who is filtering guy telling story
o The romantic poet has to connect us to the experience of this
person
The dark side of the poem is that the sculpture is going to
disappear as well, already decrepit
o Even the artists work who had integrity, will rot and dissapear
over time
o Life eventually wins

6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
Victorian period
 1832-1900
 ruled by queen Victoria
o able to quiet romanticism, and create a world which appears
to be perfect, absolute progress, reform
o England now exporting their vision of life to other countries
which they control (have an empire)
 They thought they are bringing light to the darkness of
the world
 Sounds good, but at the same time, they didn’t ask if




they wanted it
 Many times they impoverished or enslaved them,
instead of enlightening them
 Forced religion on others
Point where middle class became the power brokers of society
o Important since it’s the middle class that does most of the
reading
 Women read more then men, they had a lot of time
since they didn’t work
The Victorian era produces the novel
o A book that is prose, that tells the story of a persons life
o Most novels were written for newspapers
 Each day they would print a chapter
 Consequence was that the chapters were very
short, but the novels was very long
 Goes into great detail about all the
characters
The values that Victoria was putting on the world were absolute
values
o Rules for everything
 Implied dress code for society
 Decorum
o Very moral
Poetry also changed
o Victorian poems tell distinct stories
o About relationships, called dramatic monologues

A narration spoken to another person, who is in the
room, but we don’t here the response that person gives
Dover Beach
 By Mathew Arnold
 Man is speaking to a women, they are lovers – dramatic monologue
o Man calling women to look at a beautiful site
o Trying to teach her how to interpret the moment
 Could assume he’s older
 Part I – starts with the sea is calm
o describes place

o says you can see England and France
 at a particular place that we can see a lot of space
o tells her to come to the window, wants to show her
 sweet, but also telling her what to do
o don’t just look also listen, and he tells her how to listen
 tells her to notice the tide, how it goes back and forth
 describes the pattern of life
Part 2 – starts with Sophocles
o Compares his wisdom to Sophocles
People who were aware have noticed that there is a
connection to the past, something eternal of the
observations of intelligent beings
o It used to be that religion was everything, people used to
have faith, everyone believed and knew what do
 Tells us this is at the end of the Victorian era
 New generation will ruin these values
o Now I only hear how the tide is retreating
Part 3 – starts Ah, love


o His solution is form him and his love to keep a little pocket of
morality between them
 They will be an island within their world
Got Erica notes for rest, and next poem – Ulysses
My last Duchess by Robert Browning
 Dramatic monologue
o The speaker is a rich noblemen named duke Ferrara
 Poem is about his most recent wife, who has died
o A painting of her has sparked memories of her, and she is
sharing these memories with a particular painting
o Suggestion that she had relationships with others – easily
impressed
o He thinks she should have respected him more, lack of
admiration for him
o He still has grudge against her
o Talking to counts servant (line 49)
 Romantically interested in counts daughter
 May be trying to make sure she will behave
Wants to make sure he can train her, says last
wife wasn’t tamable
 Wants his next wife to be trainable
o Power hungry
He may have killed his last wife
 Upset with old wife
 Didn’t give special smile
 This grew  more often
 I gave commands (wasn’t willing to stoop to





her), resulted in all smiles stopping
 There she stands as if alive
o Subtly connecting the two
Telling servant that he should let his boss know that he
shouldn’t be taken lightly
Says nay we’ll go
 Makes it sounds like they are together
Notice Neptune taming a sea horse, a rarity, which is
cast in bronze
Telling him he wants a tame object
 He collects objects with his power, not
people who act on their own volition
Underneath is an irony, as much as he wants a very different wife,
the fact that he keeps this pictures tells us that ironically eh is the
one he really loves
o Deep inside, doenst want tame women
o But has big ego so thinks he needs great power



Author may be saying that these men that run the world that seem
to be elegant and sophisticated are corrupt being
Pied Beauty by Gerland Manly Hopkins
 Praises things that are not traditionally considered beautiful
o Pied – spotted
 Usually not recognized as being pretty
 Glory be the God who creates thinks that are imperfect
o Praising God by prasiging imperfection
 Sky with several colors
 Like a braided cow










o Has hair coming out of spots
Like a spotted fish
Lists a bunch of flawed things – birds…
Landscape that has different forms and colors
(Second paragraph)
all people who are original and people we don’t pay attention to
whoever is indecisive
list oxymorons (also alliteration)
o seems to contradict, but he finds praiseworthy
Praise God since all of these imperfections emphasize the perfect
unchanging beauty of God
o Victorians didn’t like change, but he reacted to it differently
Note:
o Called this a curtailed sonnet
 Six lines over four and a half
 This fraction is equal to 8/6
 Seems pied, but underneath is equivalency
6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
James Joyce
 Forefront of modernist movement
 He said everything has already been written, there are no quotation
marks
o Instead there are dashes
o Difficult to tell where quote ends
 Reasons to do
 A) Simple: being different
 B) its not so important what people say, what’s
important is what’s going on in a persons mind

He wants to take the reader on an inward journey into the
consciousness of an individual
 How do people thing, what do they really think
o Finding deeper and more profound meanings that each
person harbors inside themselves
The Dead
 Plot:
o Party every year at a house
 Julia and Kates house
o Every year different people come to this great party
 Very formal
o This night is a special dinner since the two of them are
getting older
 They are older, the world is changing
o People come into the house and take off there coats to get
ready for the party, every is waiting for Gabriel Conroy and
his wife to come
 When he comes in the party can really start
 Need a man to make a speech, carve the goose…
 He is sophisticated, well traveled..
o Meet various people
 Meaningless in terms of story
 Story is about what happens inside Gabriel’s mind
 We start entering his mind
 In a way that no one else did
 There are now theories about the mind

o Seeing from inside
 Called stream of consciousness
o Worries about things, gives a speech
o The party is over, everyone leaves
o He looks up and sees how pretty his wife
 Excited since spending night without his kids
 Walks home with her, on the way he is getting excited
about rekindling their romantic life
o They go to there hotel room
Epiphany
o Something that happens and you feel it, its internal
 Sudden revelation
o Two types
 False epiphany
 Real epiphany
o Very often we think we feel something, but we are really
missing the point, then there are moments when the truth of
our lives washes over us
 In this book Gabriel experiences a few false epiphanies
but at the end he has a significant and momentous
epiphany, which at that point life changes

Text: 183
 Starts with Lilly the maid
o We start the story, like a guest, we are welcomed in to the
party
o She is described as Lilly, the caretakers daughter, it points
out two issues:
A) class
 World where class matters, seen based on their
family
 B) gender
 As a women not described by who she is or what
she does, rather what man she is attached to
Invited into house
Get a sense of life, three older ladies, all live in house






o Hints that they demand obedience from people who are lower
then them “they would not stand for back answers”
o Also give lessons to only upper class families
They (and us) are waiting for Gabriel
We learn he has conventional ideas about women “takes three
mortal hours to dress herself”
Gabriel cleans his galoshes
o Snow is binding of story, snow gets worse and worse until the
story comes to an end
 Different people have difrent attiudes and responses to
the snow
 we learn about character by how the react to
snow
o The fact that he is wearing galoshes tells us that he is a world
man, since it was not fashionable to wear them in Ireland,
rather they were popular in France and England
 Cares about European fashion
o They protect him from the snow
 whatever the snow is, Gabriel doesn’t want to be part of



it
o tries to get all vestiges of the snow off of him
 symbolic and practical
 likes to be clean and safe
men and women have different responsibilities – women go to
dressing room
tonight is a big night for the snow falling
makes polite chit chat with Lilly
o asks her about her schooling
looks at her like she’s a little girl, doesn’t think that she
changed over time
o then asks if shes getting married soon
 Gabriel has conventional notions of gender
o She replies, “the men that is now is only all palaver and what
they can get out of you” - men just want sex and how they
can use you
 This is totally alien to Gabriel

He doesn’t want to know that she has real
feelings
o Gabriel is embarrassed, feels he made a mistake, tries to
clean himself up and get away from her
o Tries to cover this up with some money
o Lilly tries to give back, but runs away from her
 Afraid of her
Since lie is getting disordered he tries to order himself – fixes tie
and cuffs
He then thinks about speech, thinks that his quotes are above them







o Thinks he is better then them – superiority
We meet his wife
o She was talking to others about galoshes, she wasn’t trying to
run away from snow, she didn’t need the newest things
He sees a picture of his mother in her ants house, and remembers
that she was somewhat difficult sometimes
o His mother thought that his wife was too “country like” from a
lower class
 People from the east of Ireland are higher then those on
the west
 Surprisingly Gabriel married someone from the
west, it seems like its not like him
 However conventional he is, something in him
may want more
He the has a conversation with a single women named Ivor
o Brings up fact that Gretta is from the west, but he replies that
her people are, she has evolved though
o She then invites on a summer excursion
o He replies that he cant he’s going to other places in Europe
o She’s upset that he’s running away from his country, to go to
others
o He’s not interested in this, but her ideas penetrate
Sits by the window thinking about speech
o Border line between inside and outside
o When we entre his mind, we see that he wants to be out in
the cold
We the reader, know he is scared of the cold, he longs
for it but is afraid of it
Everyone gets ready for dinner
o We learn that the snow is deliberated (associated) with the
west (pg. 212)
 Snow may be freedom and it is also dangerous
Gives his speech
o Telling the audience what they want to hear
o Seems to be that the old was better then then new
o Being condescending, the new generation is educated maybe




too much so
o But he is really insulting the old, that they aren’t, happy that
they are almost over
o Speech is a big success
 He is happy, since his role in the night is over, all he
has to look forward to is a nice night with his wife
Gabriel is waiting for his wife to go home
o He looks up to see a skirt, but doesn’t know who’s it is
(neither do we – we are now in his consciousness)
 It is his wife, but he doesn’t really know his wife
o He feels a sense of attraction
o So in love that he wants to hold onto it for ever, and turn it
into art – wants to make it something everlasting
 Wants to title it distant music
 Irony – as he is falling in love he is saying how
distant he is from her, calls the picture distant
music
 The music isn’t distant to her, but to him – the

picture is more about him
 He only thinks about things through his
perspective
Before they leave, he again sees the richness of her
o He sees her blushing
 Thinks she is feeling the same sexual emotion as he
does
He thinks they are always in sync, thinking the
same thing
 But we know that he just sees what he
wants to
He’s very excited thinks this will be a great night
o He wants to be chivalrous and then have se with her
 Seeing her as model of what a wife should be
Remembers beginning of there relationship when he wrote poetry
to her, and how great it was
o Thought that this moment could redeem there past dullness




 Could be an epiphany that would change there future
Get to hotel room, but she is not reacting the way he wants he to
o Starting to get annoyed
o He comes and kisses him and tells him that he is so generous
 He thinks it’s the beginning of a big night
 But we read it that she is feeling affection, just not an
overbearing type
o He thinks that of course thinks worked out the way he wanted
it to
 “I think I know what is the matter”
o she then replied in an outburst of tears, that she is thinking
about the song
 he asks about it
 she replies that it reminded him of a person long ago
 Gabriel thinks its him
 But she then says it wasn’t
 It was a childhood boy
 Gabriel is now getting mad


Tells him about a boy when is was younger
 He asks if they were in love, she doesn’t reply
 He also has a new theory that she wants to see
this boy from the west, on vacation with the
women who invited them to the west
 Misreads her every time
She replied that he had died
Gabriel asked what was he, he wants to feel
better about himself
 He finds out that he was low class, this
makes him feel even worse
His whole ego deflates, feels like he is the lowest of the
low
 Asks if they were in love
She replies that they were in love in the time
 He asked what he died from
She said he died from me




Tells him the story, of how he ran to her house in
the rain, got sick, and died

Gabirel realized how little he knows about her, that a
person from the lower class could have more of a hold
on his wife then he can, she will never love him like she
loved him
 He will never have it without risk, without the
snow


Image of death – big abstract issue, if I don’t risk
ill be safe – the other guy risked and died
 Realizes that he cant escape it, he will die
anyways, he is not above it all
o Central real epiphany
o Pitied her for the first time
 Starts to think about all the things he got wrong in his
life
o His awareness of death is overwhelming here


 Realized he is missing everything in fear of time
 Thinks its better to live like the other boy then like him
o Generous tears filled his eyes
 Generous is a new type of emotion of Gabriel
 Doesn’t feel
 His identity changed
It then begins to snow again
o It is also a symbol of mutuality
We are all the same – the snow touches everyone, it is
absurd to think we are all different
o It is time to go on a westward journey – to run back towards
life
 It fell on him and where Michael Furey lay buried
Connects the living and the dead
o It is everywhere
o


English- 2nd
6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
Poems

Through Elizabethan period, through the Jacobean period, then the
puritan and ending in the restoration period
Shakespeare
 All poetry has to do with the issue of time
o Parts of life
o How to make life meaningful
 Shakespeare sonnet
o Sonnet
 14 lines

 distinct meter and rhyme scheme
three types
 Elizibithin (or Shakespearian) sonnet
 rhyme scheme
o 1st with 3rd, 2nd with 4th …. And 13th
and 14th rhyme (a couplet)
o ABABCDCDEFEFGG
o Each four lines are a quatrain
 Three of these and one couplet

Sonnet



Iambic pentameter
 Iam – two syllables next to each other
o First is unstressed, second is stressed
 Five Iams in a row (10 syllables)
2
Still speaking to the young man
Speaker things time is your enemy
First quatrain
o A1- in forty winters you will grow old
 Winters are depressing (negative vision of time)
o B1- Your forehead is now like a field that is fresh and new,
but time will dig holes in your face
o A2- the clothing (the superficial) that you look so good now
o B2- will eventually be tattered and worth little
 Time destroys clothes, fashion goes out of style
 Fresh new self, is constantly falling apart

 Economic terms used
o Summation of first quatrain
 You will be old, what is beautiful will be ugly, time will
take away what you believe is important
Second quatrain
o C1- where is your beauty now
o D1- where are all the treasures of your youth
 Treasure – finical term
o C2- if you answer by saying your beauty is in your eyes
o D2- that would be a shame and an empty praise
All eating – you will have eaten all your beauty, would
have consumed all of your beauty, the praise you would
be giving yourself is worthless
 Had the potential to create treasure (finical term)
instead you are left with something valueless
quatrain (solution)
E1- you have potential
F1- if you have a child it would be realized
E2- you would make a profit out of your life




Third
o
o
o
o F2- prove your beauty through your children
Couplet
o G1- if you do this when your old
o G2- you can still see the beauty in your child
In these first two sonnets the older person is telling the younger
person that he is special and he should get married and have
children and leave something behind
o Second sonnet much more aggressive
 Time is an enemy



Sonnet 18
You have to do something to defeat time
Even as we lose our beauty we must recreate
something of equal or greater value, in that way we as
a group defeat times power
Thinking about time and his diminishing time and he is
worried that something that he found beautiful and
meaningful to persist






Same older guy to same younger boy
Later in the series of speeches
Often misunderstood of love sonnet
o Since he compliments
Same sequence of advice giving
o Responsibility, children, death, art, beauty
This one seems a lot more positive then the first two that we did
o Ends with a positive statement
First quatrain
o A1- Can I compare you to something beautiful?

o B1- You are more beautiful and more consistent
 You don’t change you keep your beauty
o A2- Sometimes its too windy
o B2- Summer is short
Second quatrain
o C1- Sometimes the sun is too hot
 But you are always perfect
o D1- Sometimes its cloudy
 But not you

o C2- If it is a perfect day we know it will pass
o D2- Sometimes by chance, sometimes since nature demands
it
 We cant control nature, but you are controlled
Third quatrain
o E1- But you are eternal, you will not fade
o F1- Your fairness does not decline, you keep it always
o E2- Death will not be able to brag that he has you
o F2- When you have lines on your face you will still be

beautiful
 Could be generational lines, family tree
 Could be writing
Couplet
o G1- As long as there are people alive who are breathing and
seeing
o G2- So long lives this and this gives life to you




This could be a child (would make sense with
generational line)
This could also be the poem or his writing. It could be
saying, I cant depend on you, instead of having a child
we can keep beauty alive by writing great poetry
 We will defeat time and death through poetry
Ends with life, not death, promise, not failure,
statement of satisfaction, sense of possibility
6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
Terms






Simile
o Comparison using as or like
o Explicit comparison
Metaphor
o Comparison that is implicit
o Doesn’t use as or like
Personification
o Giving human characteristics to something that is inanimate
object, or an abstract idea (love, death…)
Apostrophe
o Something spoken to someone who is not present at the
location
Synecdoche/Metonymy
o A part of something representing the whole
Symbol
o Something that stands in for something else
o Invented and inherited
 Invented – invented just for that particular poem





Inherited – know from hundreds of years of culture
Allegory
o A story that stands for something else (symbolic)
Paradox
o A statement that sounds that it contradicts itself but is true
Understatement (Meiosis/Litosis)
o Minimize the emotional context of a particular statement
o Can be negative affirmation
Irony
o The opposite
o Three types
 Situational
 Expect one thing to happen but the opposite
occurs
 Verbal
 Say something but mean the opposite
 Dramatic













Reader knows more then the character
In a poem
 Poem means more then the speaker thinks
he is saying
Allusion
o A reference to something else
Tone
o Attitude the poem takes
Rhythm
o The sounds that the poem makes, created by meter
Meter
o Alteration of stressed and unstressed syllables
Hyperbole
o Exaggeration, overstatement
Alliteration & consonance
o Repetition of vowels or consonant sounds
Sonnet
o Three types
 Shakespearian
 Petracarcan
 Spenserian
Shakespearean
o 3 quatrains, 1 couplet
o ABABCDCDEFEFGG
Petrarchan
o Octave followed by a sestet (8 lines followed by 6)
o ABBAABBA / ABABABAB followed by CDECDE / CDCDCD
o Name after petrach
Spenserian
o Three qatrains then a couplet
o ABABAB BCBC CDCD EE
 Interlocking rhyme

o Name after spenser
Octaves
o Eight lines













Sestets
o Six lines
Quatrains
o Four lines
Tercets
o Line of three
Couplets
o Line of two
Volta
o The space in between the 8 and 6 (octave and sestet)
o Means torn
o The point at which the meaning of the poem ships
Stress
o If stressed put a “/”
 emphasis
o If unstressed put a sortive “u”
Scansion
o The action of figuring out what I stressed and what is not
o Note stresses and unstressed
Iamb
o [u /]
o two syllable unit, has an unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed one
Trochee
o (/ u)
o stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable
Anapest
o [ uu /]
o two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable
Dactyle
o [// u]
o two stressed syllables followed by one unstressed syllable
Spondee
o [ // ]
o two stressed syllables in a row
Iambic Pentameter
o
o
o
o
Most famous type of meter
Used by Shakespeare
Five units of iambic meter in a row
[u/u/u/u/u/]
Poems done by classmates
6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
Whoso List to Hunt
 Sir Thomas Wyatt
 took place in the renaissance
 About a man
o He says who ever wants to find a girl (deer), I know where to
find one
o He isn’t trying anymore since the chase has made him tired
o This dear cant be caught since she is of royal class
o Whoever tries to chase her is just wasting there time
o She seems like she cant be caught but she cant allow herself
o
o
o
o
to be
Could be autobigoraphal
ABBAABBACDECDE
 Petrarchian sonnet
Some deer’s in that time were not allowed to be hunted since
they belonged to great powers
 The reader may interpret it to be about a women
Why is there a relationship between a hunter and a animal?
 It says something about his feelings of relationship
Not an equal relationship
 Man gets to own the women
 But this women was already hunted by a greater hunter
o The author thinks a deer is a compliment, they are hunting
because they love the deer
 Deer vs. dear
o Last two lines are said by her (the deer)
Interprations
o Love poem about Anne Bleyn


o About a hunting trip
o Don’t prey on the unattainable
 Life doesn’t work that way, you can only get so much
with what you have
 The higher people in society will always win
 There is always someone who has more power
then you
Everyone is controlled by someone else, we are
all at some level powerless
o Recognize the limits of your own power
Like a huntsman
 By Edmond Spencer
 This poem is part of a greater cycle of sonnets describing his
relationship with this Elizabeth Boyle
o They are called Amoretti (little love songs) sonnets
 He used three quatrains and then a couplet
o His rhyming scheme is different then Shakespearian



 ABAB BCBC CDCD EE – Spenserian or interlocking
Poem – could be a love poem
o The Huntsman is tired after a futile chase
o He sits down to rest with his dogs who are also tired
o After a long time with futile efforts
o The gentle deer came back since it was thirsty and wanted to
drink
 Could be saying his love is coming back becomes he
know wants him
o Now it is calmer. It didn’t want to run, it was fearless
o But when I took its hand it then wanted to run
o But now the dear wants to be here
o Even though she was wild, in the end she wanted to be there
Lesson
o Sit back and wait for them to come to you – play hard to get
 Or he also may think he’s playing hard to get, but he
actually tricked himself
o Could be saying a relationship has to be with equals
Which is strange in the male centric society the author
lived in
o Relax, don’t be overly crazy
Dramatic irony
o The speaker thinks in the end he won her
o But the poem suggests that she decided she wanted you, she
did it her way, you wouldn’t have won anything. She will have
the power



She is the hunter, he is the hunted
 But he thinks he is the hunter – irony
Sonnet



XXXIX
By Sir Philip Sidney
Astrophel and Stella
Shakesperanian sonnet
o ABAB ABAB CDCD EE
 Poem
o Bind peace and sleep
o Controls intelligence and it sooths anguish
o It gives relief from the poor and prisoners
o It doesn’t care about your social hierarchy
 Personification – sleep with indifferent judge
o Protects you from sorrow and pain
o The speaker feels pain with life
 Despair (capitol D), shows human aspect of his pain
o Sleep settles internal conflicts
 Civil war alludes to inner conflict
o How grateful he is to sleep
o
o
o
o
o
o
I’ve says he would help sleep by having nice pillows and bed
He wants a quiet dark room that is sound proof
Sleep will relieve him and be like a beautiful garden
And if these great things
Are not good enough for you
In sleep you’ll see stellas image
 Stella is the person who the sonnets are talking about,
she is supposed to be Penelope who he lived
 This person is desperate for sleep since he cant stop
thinking about the person he loves
 He wants to sleep since
 He may get what he cant have
 Or hell stop thinking about her
 If you (sleep) let me sleep you too can see Stella
Holy sonnet 10: Batter my heart
 By John Donne
o English poet
First half of career wrote love poems, second half religious
Used everyday objects as metaphors (often using science)
Caused controversy
Conceit
 Type of metaphor that compares two things that seem
to be very different from each other
Written in Jacobian age (after Elizabethan era)
Era know for Metaphysical poets
o Use humor paradoxes and abstract reasoning to explore the
nature of reality
o
o
o
o


More humor, discussion of issues that weren’t discussed
before, investigating the nature of the world (why are
we here, what should we believe in, why do I have fate,
life after death, how to live life…)
 Will use every area of life as part of their poems
 Mathematics, sciences, objects, bodies…
Poem part of series of sonnets
o Petrarchian form
 Octave (8) the nsestet (6)


o Rhyme scheme
 ABBA ABBA CDCD EE
o Main idea is that the scientific revolution should not be the
focus, rather religion should
 How to fit fate with science
 Says religion should come first
 Written to god
 says we should return to the old testament where
god is harsher and punishes these types of

people, unlike the kinder god in the new
testament
o about desperation, being desperate for something you want
but cant push yourself to do
Poem
o Asks holy trinity to force religion back onto him
 Three person god is the holy trinity
 Metaphysical aspect – god beat me up…
o Stop doing nothing and start acting
 Says three things, parallel to trinity
 Tells god that he is being too easy on them
o Wants god to hurt him so he can go to heaven
o Be harsher
 Three things, parallel trinity
 Like a glass maker (break, blow, burn)
 Force me to go back to you
o He is like a captured town that belongs to someone else
 The devil took the town but it should be gods
o The speaker is trying to let god into his heart but he is
unsuccessful since the devil is there
 Town – heart
o god you should defend me
 acting childish
o my reason is leading me to doubt you
 reason personified as a part of you
 everything he learns through reason is leading him
away from god
o
o
o
o
 finds this odd
speaker says he truly loves god and he would be happy to be
loved by god
but he is married to the devil ( gods enemy)
 betrothed – married
divorce be from the devil
 almost sexually talking about god
take me away instead of the devil
if not I will never be free
 paradoxical
o he will be pure if god rapes him
 typical metaphysical conceit
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
 By John Donne
 Vocab
o Virtuous – righteous
o Profanation - sacrilegious


o Laity – ordinary people
o Trepidation – fear of something to come
o Sublunary – belonging to this world
o Elemented – started
Title
o = Farewell forbidding weeping
Poem
o As righteous men die
o His friends gather around him at his death bed and says he is
about to die, some object
o Lets not cry (talking to his wife) or make a big deal about it
o It would be sacrilegious of our love to make a scene of our
parting
 our relationship (us parting) is like a virtuous man
parting, you don’t need to make a big deal since we
know there is a happy ending
o An earthquake brings harm and fear
o Man think about the impact of it
o But when the planets move (when the future is changed)
o People don’t see it as a big deal
 Our parting is like the spheres, the laity are like the
earthquake
o Weak love between is based on sex
o And absence destroys the love
o But we have such a strong love
o That we don’t even know why it is so great
o We don’t need this physical contact
o Our souls are really one
o Even though I have to go
o Our souls are not truly parted
o Rather are souls are expanding (not diminishing it)
 Gold to aery thinness beat
 When gold is hit it becomes a thin sheet and it
expands (gets longer)
 Metaphysical
o Fine, were not one big soul, rather two
o Just like the two points of a compass
o Your soul is like the fixed foot (not moving)
o It doesn’t move unless the other one moves as well
 Two souls, but two souls together
 Metaphysical
o His wife is the foot of the compass that sits in the center
o When the other foot grows farther
o The center foot leans towards the other
o When it comes back the center perks up
o This is how you are to me, just like the center foot that leans
 Obliquely – leaning
o Your firmness makes me be just
o And come back to where I begin
 Image of compass is not one that you would expect for
love
 That’s what metaphysical did
 How to feel that life is meaningful
 Image of circle also repeats a lot
 We don’t need to be sad, since together we are



perfect
Connects it to faith
 A person who has faith in god, will have a life
that goes back to the beginning, things will work
out
So much faith they don’t need to cry or lament
Could be read as love or discussion of belief and fate
My poem
Vertue





by George Herbert (1593-1643)
o renaissance men, end of his life he became a priest
metaphysical
rhyme scheme - ABABCDCDEFEFGEGE
everything has its life purpose and ultimately die except for life’s
virtuous
Poem
o Says all the great things about the day
o The marriage between earth and sky
o The dew will cry since the day is turning to night
 Personification of dew
o The day has to die (when it turns to night)
 Everything lives for a certain amount of time
o The sweet rose whose color is angry and brave (during the
day)
 A rose dies where it lives
o The rash gazer cries
 Oxymoron
o Since the rose is in its grave
o And ultimately die
o Praises spring since its full of sweet days and roses
 Spring eventuall ends as well
o A place where everything sweet is close together
o Music (is also sweet) has an end
o And eventually dies
o Only a sweet and virtuous soul
o Like wood which never dies



It eventually becomes a soul, like a soul it never gives
up just changes form
 Just as timber doesn’t dies so too a soul never
goes away totally
Why coal?
 Religious connotations – when the end of the
world comes everything will turn to cold,
particularly those people who sinned. This is why
on Christmas if your bad you get coal, you will
burn in hell for eternity
The poem is discussing how everything dies
o Day ends, rose dies, spring ends
o This type of poem is called memento mory – remember you
shall die
o At some point in the future when judgment day comes
everything will die except one thing, a virtuous soul which is
compared to seasoned timber
o When timber is put in the fire place it burns, this is when
timber burns brightest
 How is this different then carpe diem?
 Philosophically the point of view is different
 Memento moris - remember you will die and
life has meaning, season your soul so that
you will ultimately be reward
 Carpe diem is seize the day, who cares
about tomorrow
Death Be Not Proud




By John Donne (1572 – 1631)
Petrarchian
o ABBA ABBA CDDC EE
The entire poem is an apostrophe (talking to anything that is not
there)
o He is talking to death
Poem
o Telling death he should not be proud even though people
think you are proud
People think you are scary but you really aren’t
The people who you think you kill you cant
You have killed many but you cant kill me and you cant die
Your just like resting or sleep, which is nice and peaceful
Death is pleasurable
You take our best men when they are young
 You are a rest for them
o You let their bones rest and send their soul
o Death, you have no control since fate, chance, kings and
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
people who commit suicide are causes for death
Poison, war, and sickness also kill people
Drugs can also kill people.
Drugs are betters since there is no pain or suffering
Death is just a resting place before we are resurrected
 till the end of time (Christian…)
Death shall be no more, it will die
 Paradox, telling death to die
Death will die when everyone is resurrected since he
can no longer cause death
 Contradicts rest of poem, death will meet this really
terrible thing, death. But when humans meet death its
not something to be afraid of.
 Metaphysical.
The poem is saying everyone is scared of death, but they shouldn’t
be, it’s just a resting place
o Speaker is trying to relinquish fear of dying
o Very human attempt to deal with grieving and loss


 For both us and himself
o Death is seen as a person so that he isn’t so awesome, just
looks scary but really isn’t
 He is also a person since he is ineffective, since there is
eternal life
o Answer to death is live a good life and do not harm to others
 If not religious, this doesn’t apply
o An attempt to confront death with logic
 Very metaphysical

Tells death that he hangs out with all these low life’s
 War, drugs, sickness…
Two Daffodils
 By Robert Herrick
o 1591-1674
o born in London, rich famiy
o became a goldsmith and then a minister
o poems about love is beautiful, time is short, and make the
most out of life (Carpe Diem)


rhyme scheme is ABCBDDCEAE FGHGIIHJFJ
Poem – first stanza
o (Talking to daffodils) its sad to see you
o Since you die so early
o You die even before the sun reached its half way point
o Stay longer
o Until the day
o has gone by

o Stay until the evening song
 Christian service, he was a Christian minister
I want to pray together with you
Second stanza – compares life to a flower
o We also die after a short time
o We have a short youth
 Spring refers to youth
o We are quick to die
o We will then be like you decaying
o We die
Our years are like your hours, we get older just like you do
And go away
Just like the summers rain (which barely comes)
And the morning dew (which barely lasts)
Do not come back
 Compares life to these parts of nature
 These things are forgotten when they are gone, like
death
Sadness but recognition of beauty and acceptance of death
o
o
o
o
o

To The




o Memento mory
 Talks about prayer
o But could also be carpe diem
 Grab life, since it passes
Virgins, To Make Much Of Time
By Robert Herrick
Rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH
Tone of poem is light even though hes talking about heavy ideas
Poem
o Gather rosebuds while you can
 Rosebuds = young
o But beware that time is flying
o A flower which is beautiful and young
 Comparing a flower to a young lady
o Tomorrow you will day
 Don’t have so much time
o The sun this great thing
o The higher the sun gets
 time is going by
o Time is almost up
 Personification – treating the sun as a person
 Its one circuit, life span becomes shorter by each
cycle
 Showing how fast life goes by, its like a day
o And time is going to be up
o Age is best when you are young
o Since your healthier
Says youthfulness is better then age
People who are virgins of life should gather their
rosebuds now, they shouldn’t wait. Since he can advise
them on what choices to make.
o Your are getting older, time is being spent
o Good times will end so the best time is now
 Tempus fugit – time flies
o Don’t be flirty, use your time wisely
 Don’t fool around with life





o Go spend your time and be happy
o If you waste your time
o Then you may be forever tart
 You will be stuck forever, always behind schedule
Carpe diem
o Don’t wait till tomorrow, there may not be a tomorrowm to
gather
May be sexual
May be about life
poems done by Dr. Milowitz
6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
Elizabethan period
 1485-1603
o includes Shakespeare, wyatt, spencer, Sydney
 a period of order, patterns and structure in literature
 Elizabeth was a strong leader, she kept things in control
o Even though scientific advancements were coming and
debates on religious forms, she kept the level of disquiet
under control
 She died in 1603 and was succeeded by King James
o Everything changed all the questions that were hovering in
the background, came out
o This period is called the Jacobean period
Jacobian period
 1603- 1649
 Poetic world changed its focus, starts to deal with questions about
life, instead of accepting the order and great chain of being
o Metaphysical poets took charge during this time
 Civil war breaks out in Britain, between Protestant and Catholics
Puritan period




1649-60
In 1649 a group of puritans (people who believed everything should
revolve around our pure intents) led by Oliver Cromwell too over
Started the puritan protectorate
o No more king or queen
o Parliamentary government
England became a theocracy
o Cromwell instituted a rule of law that privileged pure
Christians over everyone else
Theaters were closed
Literature and poetry were censored
 Writers no longer encouraged to write with same
type of freedom
Very few prominent poets
o But one writer who was a puritan and who managed to be a
devout puritan and a genuinely great poet/writer was John
Milton



John Milton
 He is one of the truly great writers
 He tries to proselytize people for pertains
 But his work has ambiguity and questions
 A great intellectual
 When he was in his thirties he started to lose his eyesight, probably
because he would read so often
On His Blindness
 By John Milton
 Attempt to deal with his issue of losing his eyesight, he also

connected it to a greater theological issue
o Can be read literal and symbolic
o Losing his eyesight makes him think about the fact that he
has one great talent
Puritan sonnet
o A sonnet that is meant to proselytize, make a person a better
puritan
 What makes Milton better is that his poems are open
enough to speak with people who don’t share the same
belief system

Poem
o When I think about that I will not be able to see anymore
o Before half my days are over in this world
 The world is becoming darker and unclear
 Question is what is he going to do now that this world
has changed
o My one talent (writing) will be dead (finished)
 Talking about parabola of talent
One man invested his money
Another hid it, didn’t lose any
Master yelled at second, talents are meant to be
invested used
 Wondering how he will serve god without this talent
 Could be read egoistically
o I still have the talent but it is now useless



Just like his eyes are there but not functioning, he cant
write even though he has the same talent
Even though I lost my talent I still want to serve him, to do
something, that is as important to him as my poetry
Otherwise I will be yelled at by god
If god yells at me I will be in the position of the Israelites
 an illusion to the bible, Pharaoh told Israelites to build
without giving them the necessary resources
I ask but Patience will tell me
 fondly – angry but still love him

o
o
o
o
Patience (capitol P) – personification, patience is a
person who will give him the answer
o He says “ god liked your gift but he doesn’t need it”
 Patience is chastising the speaker, aren’t you a little bit
too prideful, your thinking about your own stature, its
your vanity that makes you think this is bad
o Either mans work or his gifts, who best:
o Those people who go about their burdens that god gives
them, those are the people who serve him best

god has angels working for him that are a lot better then you
(don’t think you’re the one person who can serve him best)
o The angels can fly do anything
o Don’t just wait passively, wait actively
o
Paradise Lost
6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
John Miltons most famous poem is called Paradise Lost]
 Takes place in Eden
 Deals with Adam and Eve getting kicked out, it also shows how
satan decided to rebel against god and to eventually take his anger
out on Adam and Eve
 Milton wants to make this as beautiful as it can possibly, since he
can make the story as understandable to the common man
 It’s a long poem – 12 books
o We are doing part of first book
introduction











This story will be about the first time man disobeyed god and the
result, which brought death into this world
This will be fixed when Jesus returns again
Sing heavenly muses
o Uses form of epic poem, Odysseus… to tell this Christian story
o god is the muse in this story
Says that he wants this poem to go above the story of the greek
god’s
o this epic will be the first true epic, since it is a true story, the
story
 may be showing his pride
says that man does not need a middle man between him and god
god gave life to earth – sitting on abyss and made it pregnant
o Alludes to another pregnancy, Mary
Let me see what I cant see – talking about blindness
Ultimate goal in poem is to justify the way of god to men
The primary topic of this story is to see the cause for Adam and
Eves fall
The snake first seduced them
Or maybe we should start with why Satan rebelled against god in
the first place
o There wasn’t always a satan, there was heaven and god and
Lucifer, and Lucifer decided that he didn’t like being beneath
god, so he got a group and rebelled against god. Since they
lost god took them all and thrust them into hell. That’s where
the story begins









Our story begins with satan sitting in hell tied up in unbreakable
chains
o It starts off in hell since satan is the main character
Satan was beaten and confused
o Milton may have been drawn to satan since he sees the issue
of going from one way of life to another
Satan is an a unique position since he is both beaten and destroyed
but also immortal – paradoxical
His doom may him angrier
o Has not given into to defeat
He is tormented by this (in presence tense)
o Going into his mind
o His memory is a terrible thing. Remembers heaven.
He has not given up hate
o Really believes in his cause
o This admirable but also a flaw
Describes hell with a fire that burns but does give light (oxymoron)
o Gives off its negative characteristics – heat, but not the
positive ones – light
o Darkness visible – oxymoron
 Hell is unnatural
 Opposite of everything else that is normal
o Only woe no peace
o Torture
o Locate hell physically
 Three times as far from earth as heaven is
In Satan’s mind, feel pain
o “O” (line 75) feel his pain
gets his name when he was sent to hell
o his name was Lucifer but since he needed to change his
name, he became satan
 he thinks since he can determine who they are (by
choosing his name) hell isn’t as bad as heaven, where
people have no choice
o same thing happened with Beelzebub







looks around and says we looked so beautiful but now we are
bound up in these chains and disgusting
I never realized how powerful god was
o god owes me for showing these other angels how powerful he
is
o But I will not beg god for forgiveness, I still believe in my
cause and I will not repent
 His cause is that he thinks god is a dictator and he
would be a better leader
 All my soldiers and I shook gods thrown
 We can continue to do this even in hell
Gives his soldiers a pep talk
o We will never stop fighting and we may win in the very end
o Skip 125-156
Continue speech to Beelzebub
o Our job for eternity is to not do good
 Strangely phrased, instead of saying do bad ,he is
saying we are just doing the opposite of what He (god)
defines as good (thinks it is evil)
o We will be like a constant thorn undermining him
o Then he says maybe god isn’t so strong, he cant put up with
us, that is why he sent us here, and why he needs guards
o We have an opportunity here, our chains have disappeared,
lets go start planning our new world
o Skip 103-109
Believes he has free will since G-d is leaving him alone,
o Dramatic irony –(211-212) but we know now that he doesn’t
really have free will, since G-d made him do this since G-d
wanted him there
214-242
Satans speech
o Is this were will shall spend eternity?
o We accept this and we our happy, since if god is in charge
then the farthest away from him, is the best place to be.
o With the right perspective we can turn heaven to hell and hell
to heaven
 We have the power to change our perception
o It doesn’t matter where I am since I am the same person
o Here we are at least free (which is more important then
comfort)
o “Here we may reign secure, and in my choice / To reign is
worth Ambition, though in Hell: / Better to reign in Hell then
serve in Heaven.” (261-4)
 the reader and milton both identify themselves with
satan
 this creates a healthy confusion


even though satan is eloquent he is wrong,
since no one is free
 this poem shows us how we are like satan,
since we too have desires for individuality
and power
his argument is compelling, which allows different
readers to attain different experiences
 some become better, other agree with satan
6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
The puritan period ends in 1660 and the restoration period begins
 monarchy is restored
 puritans disbanded
 new attitude in England, an attitude of great celebration (the
puritan period had been very oppressive)
 this period had happy, optimistic and humorous writing
o downside – superficial world, people were very materialistic
 parody and satire
o satire – criticism often in humorous fashion about society
 Purpose of change

o Parody – being presented as something that seems like the
thing itself but is in fact an exaggerated imitation
 No purposes
Two great writers –
o Jonathan Swift who wrote a Modest Proposal

o Alexander Pope who wrote the Rape of the Lock
 Epic poem
 Not a real epic, a mock epic, uses epic form
(rhyming couplet) to tell a superficial tragedy
 Central event (superficial tragedy) is the cutting off a
lock of hair
 In a world were appearance is everything, cutting
someone’s hair is considered a terrible tragedy
 The subject matter gives us a sense of a parody
The Rape of the Lock
 Begins near the Thames river (which is personified, as a prideful
river), takes place at Hampton court, which is where the queen and
parliament would go to do work during the summer time or
vacation
o Here they plan wars as well as the doom of beautiful women
at home
 Funny since they care equally about these two
o Call the queen by her first name, which shows some sign of
familiarity





o Zeugma – poetic device that uses one verb to describe two
different actions
 Take counsel – take advice
 Take tea – drink year
 Satirical since the queen has equal regard for her
council as she does for her tea
 Criticism
Most of the time is spent talking about parties and not serious
things
o Since this is a satire it is not mean spirited, rather it wants
change but loves the very thing that its talking about
o Some people care about the queens gory while other people
cares about materialism
People are constantly degrading everyone, killing each others
reputation through words
o A world of scandal and gossip
The judges don’t care about the truth, rather they just want things
to be timely
Everyone spends too much time in the bathroom every night
o Getting ready to go out at night
We are introduced to Belinda who’s hair will be cut off
o She wants to meet two knights, so that they can play cards
o She’s prideful and takes this context very seriously
 In a world were big things don’t matter, people care
about these little things
o Sylphs – tiny fairies that try to help Belinda
 The fact that these gods are so small, tells us that it’s a
diminished world
 Ariel is the chief sylph
o The game is compared to a war
 Velvet plain
o (skip to last paragraph 404)
o The card game goes on
 Only Belinda and the baron are left
 It looks like Belinda will lose but things change and
Belinda wins
But people are most vulnerable when they are on
the top
o The game is over and they are having tea and cookies
 Feeling of celebration
o Clarissa, an old and ugly women is introduced
 She is the villain
 Most old women have knowledge and experience
o Clarissa takes out scissors and gives them to the baron
 Clarissa could be jealous of Belinda looks
 If Belinda loses some of her looks, she will feel

that the whole world is falling apart
o The baron is about to cut her hair, but the sylphs try to stop
the scissor
 They try to get her attention, but are unable to
 At just thus moment, Ariel (chief sylph) goes into
Belinda mind, and sees Belinda thinking of her love
 This image may show us that she wants to lose
her virginity, and Ariel realizes he cant protect
her, from something she wants
o Her hair is cut
o Belinda realized what happened, and she screams
 Women cry when; husbands die, dogs die, china breaks
o The Baron rejoices over his conquest
Does this story have a more meaningful point?
 What does Belinda gain from losing this hair?
o There is more to life, Clarisse wants Belinda to learn this. She
wants Belinda to gain pride, and thoughtfulness
 Restoration needs to give up superficiality to embrace something
that has more structure
6/13/2009 10:09:00 PM
Four periods
 Elizabethan 1485-1603
o Respect for order
o Great chain of being
o Sonnet
 Sidney
 Spencer
 Wyatt
 Shakespeare
 Know 1564-1616



o Know what a sonnet is, and the different possibly rhyme
schemes, may have to figure that out
Jacobean 1603-1648
o Questions about religion and faith came to the service
o Metaphysical
 Donne
 Marvell
 Herbert
 Herrick
o Know what metaphysical poetry is, difference between this
and Elizabethan - conceit
Puritan 1649- 1660
o Cromwell is very restrictive and close minded
 Milton
Restoration 1660 - onward
o Satire and parody
 Satire – criticism
 Parody – imitation
o Mock epic poem – imitation epic, satirize society and epic
form
 Pope
Format
 Section on quotes
o Given part of poem
Must identify by name of poem, poet, period, speaker
and who he is speaking to, significance of quote to
entire poem
 Short answers – fill ins
o Identifying terms
May be an unseen
