British Literature Final

In Joyce's Concept of an Epiphany, he writes about what he calls an "epiphany". How does he define it?

"A sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself."

*What are the 3 rules of Pounds, "A Retrospect"?

*1) direct treatment of the "thing," objective or subjective 2) use no word that does not contribute to the presentation 3) compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, rather than the sequence of the metronome.

*Is both a kind of poem and a specific four line stanza, usually written in iambic tetrameter (4 stresses) or alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter (3 stresses). The rhyme scheme tends to be A/B/C/B or A/B/A/B. 8 syllables

*Ballad

*Unrhymed iambic pentameter - used by WW in the Prelude3) 10 syllables

*Blank Verse

*A break or cut in the meter of a line: e.g. "Mute - looking at the grave in which he lies"...

*Caesura.. a. Usually the caesuras are in the middle of the line: medial caesura b. Sometimes, as above, there are at the beginning: initial caesura c. Sometimes they are at the end: terminal caesura

*Literally means "X." A crossing of terms from one position to another either between 2 lines or in a single line: My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love, My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim. Or "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." "Beauty is truth, truth beauty."

*Chiasmus

*A genre of poetry refined, if not developed, in the 19th-c by Tennyson and Robert Browning. The speaker is usually defined in some way (i.e. not an abstract lyric "voice") and has an implied if not identified auditor. This genre maximizes the difference between the author and speaker. "Everything is so right in the world.. the grass is green the sun is shining..etc." Even though the point of this sentence seems to make the world a lovely and safe place, the message is really to say the world is very corrupt and we say things like that to cover it up.

*Dramatic Monologue Examples of the form are "My Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover" by Browning; "Ulysses" and "The Lotus Eaters" by Tennyson; "Castaway" by Augusta Webster. T. S. Eliot renovated the genre in "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

Refers to the presentation of a scene through the subjective position of a character. This can happen either through first person narrative or something called "free indirect speech." Focalization is a discursive element, distinct from "story." Suddenly we feel inside the consciousness of one of the characters.

*Focalization

*Type of focalization that makes the reader receive the scene through the author's view. Untagged narrative that belongs to the consciousness of one of the characters, not the narrator - not attributed.

*Free indirect speech Direct speech: "I hate shirts with stripes," she said. Indirect speech: Her father set out the shirts he had bought for her. She thought to herself how much she hated shirts with stripes. Free indirect speech: Her father set out the shirts he had bought for her. She stepped back and considered them. Shirts with stripes were really so last year.

*Text that takes stock of the romantic period and argues that contemporary authors are either too egotistical and spoiled (Byron and Coleridge) or too complaisant (Coleridge). It demonstrates a hyper-awareness of history in the romantic period. It's the awareness of history and how the writer comments on things.

*Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age

*Joyce claimed the idea of these were the most "delicate and evanescent of moments." Critics tend to think of these as moments where "nothing happens" yet something vitally changes...

*Joyce's Concept of an Epiphany

*A new logic, or perhaps the beginning of a concept put forward by John Keats in a letter to his brothers: "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." This concept, romantic in so far as it seems to be a rebuke of enlightenment reason, also seems to be a critique of the first generation of romantic poets, namely Wordsworth and Coleridge. It's been mentioned in class that Keats' insistence in that letter (and elsewhere) on pleasure and intensities, opens up a place for Aestheticism (which arrives on the scene roughly 30 years later).

*Negative capability -Keats

*An essay written "after-the-fact" to elaborate the foundational principles of "imagism" (a poetic movement - again, perhaps more of a trend than a movement - towards a modernist aesthetic): It consists of 3 rules.

*Pound's "A Retrospect"

*Related to "sympathy": a theory of the emotions and society (David Smith, Wollstonecraft, Hartley, Godwin) - the idea is we should be sensitive to our environments and our own internal feelings in order to produce a healthy society - empathy, sympathetic vibrations...

*Sensibility a. William Godwin (18th- and 19th-century philosopher and novelist [extremely important to the Romantics]), in elaborating the importance of sensibility and empathy for a healthy society, said that there were 2 types of pleasure - the sensual and the intellectual. Intellectual pleasures are higher; increasing pleasure is a good thing for individuals and societies; one role of societies is to make sure that my pleasures do not impinge on yours.

*Were a series of acts of parliament which enclosed open fields and common land in the country, creating legal property rights to land that was previously considered common.

*The Enclosure Acts

*When the unconscious is present in a literary text, it constitutes the "return of the repressed"- for example, in Beckett's, "Krapp's last Tape". Explain how it's present in this text.

*The dark eyes of nurse echo Bianca's eyes - or the "Spoool" that Krapp loves so much, can be said to echo an oral childhood pleasure related to his mother (for a fully fleshed out return of the repressed, see the section with James in the boat when the wind stops in "The Lighthouse" section of To the Lighthouse).

*Often contrasted with "the beautiful. A feeling you get when confronting either an aesthetic object (painting) or a landscape or image which evokes in you "awe" - or when you are in the dark, in a graveyard, etc. - it's "too immense for the mind to hold." Cannot describe the feeling but you know what it is.. your brain is overwhelmed by it and it doesn't know what to do with it.

*The sublime

*Something that is at the same time familiar and strange; Freud develops this notion as a way to describe the return of the repressed. Something that familiar and unfamiliar at the same time (like deja vu.) This feeling of strangeness is a modern concept of the sublime we dealt with earlier in the quarter.

*The uncanny Ex: Seeing the same person several times in different locations at different times on the same day in a crowded city. Ex: Krapp's experience with tapes is an uncanny one - he seems to know and remember on some level what information the tapes contain, and yet it often comes as an unwelcome surprise.

*By looking at the effects of the Enclosure Acts, one recognizes a deeply romantic logic: you don't really get "nature" as a concept until..

*a) It is threatened in some way (enclosure acts, ecological devastation,etc.) b) You get its opposite (human culture, urbanization, industrialization, etc.).

*In Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent", the basic things to get in this essay are about the historical sense and personality. Explain the 3 points he wants to make clear to the reader.

*a) Poetry is a historical process. He believes deeply in "tradition," but to be in the "tradition" you must be one of introducing new ideas; original and creative in thinking. In his understanding of tradition, when you do something "new" in poetry it both adds to the tradition and changes what was done in the past. b) Poets should avoid "personality" and instead be in favor of being a "medium" for new experiences. (here he was trying to avoid the view or theory that "the self is all that can be known to exist" of romantic poetics) c) Poets should reject "emotion" (as something fixed, received, sentimental, etc.) and aim instead for "new combinations of feeling"

Pride and Prejudice: After proposing to Elizabeth and being rejected, Darcy writes a long letter and gives it to Elizabeth. The letter lays out the true story of Wickham and an explanation of his part in steering Bingley away from Jane. What is the effect of placing this long and detailed letter in the middle of the novel? Why not have Darcy simply state these things to Elizabeth? Why do you think Austen chose to relay the information in this way?

-To show an intimate side of Elizabeth -It allows Elizabeth distance and objectivity -Since Darcy took the time to write a thought-out and sincere letter that she could keep, it seems more truthful -Makes for a richer narration

In WW's preface to Lyrical Ballads, what were his 3 salient points?

1. P is the "spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions" BUT produced by someone who has "thought long and deeply" about his or her subject 2. P should be in the language of common men 3. P should be about "situations chosen from everyday life"

Name of poem and author? A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees.

A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal by William Wordsworth

This concept found its footing in Europe in the early nineteenth century, proposed that art doesn't need to serve moral, political ends. Whereas the romantic movement of the early and mid-nineteenth century viewed art as a product of the human creative impulse that could be used to learn more about humankind and the world, this movement denied that art must necessarily be an instructive force in order to be valuable. Instead, this concept argued that art should be valuable in and of itself—art for art's sake The emphasis on this is pleasure, new experience, and pushes views to be more and more sensitive to finer and finer experiences of pleasure.

Aestheticism Example: Lord Henry in Dorian Gray

Repetition of a vowel sound in lines of poetry- also called internal rhyme

Assonance

Poems written in quatrains (4-line stanzas), a kind of "song". Many of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience & many of Wordsworth's & Coleridge's poems in Lyrical Ballads (we are seven)

Ballad Measure

All of Blake's poetry after 1790 was produced by a new method of print-making; (for example) the songs of Innocence and Experience.

Blake's illuminated prints

Name of poem and author? The Boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead. Yet beautiful and bright he stood, As born to rule the storm; A creature of heroic blood, A proud though childlike form. The flames rolled on; he would not go Without his father's word; That father, faint in death below, His voice no longer heard. He called aloud, "Say, Father, say, If yet my task be done!" He knew not that the chieftain lay Unconscious of his son. "Speak, Father!" once again he cried, "If I may yet be gone!" And but the booming shots replied, And fast the flames rolled on. Upon his brow he felt their breath, And in his waving hair, And looked from that lone post of death In still yet brave despair, And shouted but once more aloud, "My father! must I stay?" While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud, The wreathing fires made way. They wrapt the ship in splendour wild, They caught the flag on high, And streamed above the gallant child, Like banners in the sky. There came a burst of thunder sound; The boy, - Oh! where was he? Ask of the winds, that far around With fragments strewed the sea,- With shroud and mast and pennon fair, That well had home their part,- But the noblest thing that perished there Was that young, faithful heart.

Casa Blanca by Felicia Hemans

How are children in poems significant?

Children became important in British and American poetry by the 19th century; there is a very convincing argument (Empson: Some Versions of the Pastoral) that children come to take over the role of the shepherd or swain, a role that had already come to stand also for the poet - children come to represent innocence (maybe over and against enlightenment experience)

Repetition of consonant sounds - not necessarily initial - "Or at the caSement Seen her Stand? / Or iS She know in all the land..."

Consonance

Dorian Gray: Where does Dorian go after Cybil's bad performance and why? What does his wandering signify?

Dorian goes in the lower class neighborhoods for opium. He goes there to forget, and to find the "true" Dorian. The gap in the narrative resembles Dorian's desire to forget. When he arrives, the people in the neighborhood are described as dangerous and animal-like which mirrors Dorian's own darkness.

Name of poem and author? Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

A line that is not end-stopped...(remember that a line can't have punctuation at the end of the line to be end-stopped)

Enjambment

An early 18th century form of novel told through letters. One effect of this form is that it lends an air of truth to fiction - this was especially important in the 18th and early 18th and early 19th centuries, when women (the main readers of novels) were assumed to be vulnerable to scandalous ideas and role models.

Epistolary novels -Pride and Prejudice uses the epistolary form in places (the letter from Darcy is reprinted) for some of the same, but also some different, effects...

Something that's repressed, returns. Freud argues that this concept are things we've merely forgotten, drives/instincts, and wishes or thoughts that because of some ideological prohibition or another, the psyche will not allow us to think/feel.

Freud's concept of the unconscious Ex: Painting in Dorian Gray Ex: Coin in the dubliners

Name of poem and author? The Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings: save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; Only that film, which fluttered on the grate, Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form, Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit By its own moods interprets, every where Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of Thought. But O! how oft, How oft, at school, with most believing mind, Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, To watch that fluttering stranger ! and as oft With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower, Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come! So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams! And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Fixed with mock study on my swimming book: Save if the door half opened, and I snatched A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up, For still I hoped to see the stranger's face, Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, My play-mate when we both were clothed alike! Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the intersperséd vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought! My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes! For I was reared In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy God Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal Teacher! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the night-thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

Frost at Midnight by Samuel Coleridge

Name of poem and author? Here I am, an old man in a dry month, Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. I was neither at the hot gates Nor fought in the warm rain Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass, Bitten by flies, fought. My house is a decayed house, And the Jew squats on the window sill, the owner, Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp, Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London. The goat coughs at night in the field overhead; Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds. The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea, Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter. I an old man, A dull head among windy spaces. Signs are taken for wonders. 'We would see a sign!' The word within a word, unable to speak a word, Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year Came Christ the tiger In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas, To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero With caressing hands, at Limoges Who walked all night in the next room; By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians; By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles Weave the wind. I have no ghosts, An old man in a draughty house Under a windy knob. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, Guides us by vanities. Think now She gives when our attention is distracted And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late What's not believed in, or is still believed, In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree. The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last We have not reached conclusion, when I Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last I have not made this show purposelessly And it is not by any concitation Of the backward devils. I would meet you upon this honestly. I that was near your heart was removed therefrom To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition. I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it Since what is kept must be adulterated? I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: How should I use it for your closer contact? These with a thousand small deliberations Protract the profit of their chilled delirium, Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled, With pungent sauces, multiply variety In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do Suspend its operations, will the weevil Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn, White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims, And an old man driven by the Trades To a sleepy corner.

Gerontion by T.S. Elliot

To the Lighthouse: What's the importance of the scene where Lily compliments Mr. R's boots?

Given that Mr. R is someone that is desperate for sympathy, he expects it from everyone, including Lily. Mrs. Ramsay was a natural giver and could satisfy his needs but Lily could not. Her reluctance to show sympathy to Mr. Ramsay recalls her reaction to Charles Tansley at the dinner table. Then, as now, she cannot bring herself to soothe the tortured male ego. Mr. Ramsay sighs, waiting. Lily feels that, as a woman, she is a failure for not being able to satisfy his need. Eventually, she compliments him on his boots, and he gladly discusses footwear with her. He stoops to demonstrate the proper way to tie a shoe, and she pities him deeply.

Long convoluted syntax...lots of clauses...hierarchically arranged (i.e. the main clause gets the most weight, the subordinate clauses get less) they provide additional information that clarifies the main clause of the sentence.

Hypotaxis Example: Everything is going to be alright BECAUSE HER MOTHER SAID SO.

10 syllables - 5 stresses - organized unstressed/stressed: "Oh never say that I was false of heart"

Iambic Pentameter

Name of poem and author? I have no name I am but two days old.— What shall I call thee? I happy am Joy is my name,— Sweet joy befall thee! Pretty joy! Sweet joy but two days old, Sweet joy I call thee; Thou dost smile. I sing the while Sweet joy befall thee.

Infant Joy by William Blake

Name of poem and author? My mother groand! my father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt: Helpless, naked, piping loud; Like a fiend hid in a cloud. Struggling in my fathers hands: Striving against my swaddling bands: Bound and weary I thought best To sulk upon my mothers breast.

Infant Sorrow by William Blake

One way of understanding it: I and E are just different perspectives on the same experience - one is not better than the other - we need both (Blake calls them the "two contrary states of the human soul") - ultimately though, we must transcend both towards a "higher innocence."

Innocence and Experience in Blake's songs

A feature of almost all classical poetry, in which the poet calls on his/her muse or muses (a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist) to help him/her write the poem.

Invocation

To the lighthouse: Why is Mrs. R's shawl important?

It's like a transitional object and form of protection. The scene where Cam is scared of the boar's skull, Mrs. R covers it up with her own clothing as a way to protect her child and so she won't be so frightened of it. She can hide it, but it still is in the presence is still there. The skull is a symbol of the decay of time. Later, as time passes, the shawl slowly unravels from the skull with no one to hide the decay.

The way the poetry is lined out on the page

Lineation

Name of poem and author? I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man. Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. The birds around me hopped and played, Their thoughts I cannot measure:— But the least motion which they made It seemed a thrill of pleasure. The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there. If this belief from heaven be sent, If such be Nature's holy plan, Have I not reason to lament What man has made of man?

Lines Written In Early Spring by William Wordsworth

A project done by Wordsworth and Coleridge - in 1790s - a new idea about poetry.

Lyrical Ballads

Name of poem and author? With blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds look'd sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!" Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, "The night is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!" Upon the middle of the night, Waking she heard the night-fowl crow: The cock sung out an hour ere light: From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her: without hope of change, In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn About the lonely moated grange. She only said, "The day is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!" About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blacken'd waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small, The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark: For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding gray. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said "I am aweary, aweary I would that I were dead!" And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and away, In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low And wild winds bound within their cell, The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, "The night is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!" All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creak'd; The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd, Or from the crevice peer'd about. Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!" The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping toward his western bower. Then said she, "I am very dreary, He will not come," she said; She wept, "I am aweary, aweary, Oh God, that I were dead!"

Mariana by Alfred Tennyson

Name of poem and author? About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Musee des Beaux Arts by W.H Auden

Name of poem and author? That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek; perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat." Such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech—which I have not—to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark"—and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse— E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretense Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

My Last Duchess by Robert Browning

Name of poem and author? We stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, And a few leaves lay on the starving sod; - They had fallen from an ash, and were gray. Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles of years ago; And some words played between us to and fro On which lost the more by our love. The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing Alive enough to have strength to die; And a grin of bitterness swept thereby Like an ominous bird a-wing.... Since then, keen lessons that love deceives, And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree, And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

Neutral Tones by Thomas Hardy

Short phrases, repetition...arranged in parallel (i.e. each clause carries more or less the same weight)

Parataxis

Name of poem and author? The rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm; Which done, she rose, and from her form Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, And laid her soiled gloves by, untied Her hat and let the damp hair fall, And, last, she sat down by my side And called me. When no voice replied, She put my arm about her waist, And made her smooth white shoulder bare, And all her yellow hair displaced, And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair, Murmuring how she loved me — she Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour, To set its struggling passion free From pride, and vainer ties dissever, And give herself to me for ever. But passion sometimes would prevail, Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain A sudden thought of one so pale For love of her, and all in vain: So, she was come through wind and rain. Be sure I looked up at her eyes Happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshipped me; surprise Made my heart swell, and still it grew While I debated what to do. That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good: I found A thing to do, and all her hair In one long yellow string I wound Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain. As a shut bud that holds a bee, I warily oped her lids: again Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. And I untightened next the tress About her neck; her cheek once more Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss: I propped her head up as before, Only, this time my shoulder bore Her head, which droops upon it still: The smiling rosy little head, So glad it has its utmost will, That all it scorned at once is fled, And I, its love, am gained instead! Porphyria's love: she guessed not how Her darling one wish would be heard. And thus we sit together now, And all night long we have not stirred, And yet God has not said a word!

Porphyria's Lover by Robert Browning

Is a grouping of lines in a poem that have a rhyme scheme - 2 lines to 11 (or more?) 4 lines is a quatrain.

Stanza

The way that language fits together in sentences and phrases

Syntax The "syn" part means "with"; the tax part means "touching" - the way words "touch with" other words...

Name of poem and author? The jester walked in the garden: The garden had fallen still; He bade his soul rise upward And stand on her window-sill. It rose in a straight blue garment, When owls began to call: It had grown wise-tongued by thinking Of a quiet and light footfall; But the young queen would not listen; She rose in her pale night-gown; She drew in the heavy casement And pushed the latches down. He bade his heart go to her, When the owls called out no more; In a red and quivering garment It sang to her through the door. It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming Of a flutter of flower-like hair; But she took up her fan from the table And waved it off on the air. 'I have cap and bells,' he pondered, 'I will send them to her and die'; And when the morning whitened He left them where she went by. She laid them upon her bosom, Under a cloud of her hair, And her red lips sang them a love-song Till stars grew out of the air. She opened her door and her window, And the heart and the soul came through, To her right hand came the red one, To her left hand came the blue. They set up a noise like crickets, A chattering wise and sweet, And her hair was a folded flower And the quiet of love in her feet.

The Cap and Bells by William Yeats

Name of poem and author? I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I. At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.

The Darkling Thrush by William Hardy

Name of poem and author? Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice! Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Little Lamb I'll tell thee, Little Lamb I'll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child: I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee.

The Lamb by William Blake

Name of poem and author? Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!") Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet — and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"— If one, settling a pillow by her head Should say: "That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all." And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all." No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Elliot

Name of poem and author? Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The Second Coming by William Yeats

Name of poem and author? Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Tyger by William Blake

To the lighthouse: What does the colorful fish represent in the end of the book?

The fish represents the paradox of the world as an extremely cruel place in which survival is somehow possible.

To the Lighthouse: significance of Mrs. R's wedge of darkness?

The silent communication between Mr. and Mrs. R gives a deep expression of the consciousness. They seem to answer each other's silent questions without conscious effort. Mrs. R slips into a silent, invisible-like wedge-shaped darkness.. not able to express her feelings, during these times of deepest expression. Especially when Mr. R tells her he loves her and she doesn't respond. He can tell by her admirable and soft smile that she loves him back.

Name of poem and author? There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs And islands of Winander! many a time, At evening, when the earliest stars began To move along the edges of the hills, Rising or setting, would he stand alone, Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake; And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls That they might answer him.—And they would shout Across the watery vale, and shout again, Responsive to his call,—with quivering peals, And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause Of silence such as baffled his best skill: Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise Has carried far into his heart the voice Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene Would enter unawares into his mind With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received Into the bosom of the steady lake. This boy was taken from his mates, and died In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old. Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs Upon a slope above the village-school; And through that churchyard when my way has led On summer-evenings, I believe that there A long half-hour together I have stood Mute—looking at the grave in which he lies!

There Was A Boy by William Wordsworth

Name of poem and author? Yes! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone. The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless bounds they know. But when the moon their hollows lights, And they are swept by balms of spring, And in their glens, on starry nights, The nightingales divinely sing; And lovely notes, from shore to shore, Across the sounds and channels pour— Oh! then a longing like despair Is to their farthest caverns sent; For surely once, they feel, we were Parts of a single continent! Now round us spreads the watery plain— Oh might our marges meet again! Who order'd, that their longing's fire Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd? Who renders vain their deep desire?— A God, a God their severance ruled! And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.

To Marguerite by Matthew Arnold

Name of poem and author? It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,— Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson

Name of poem and author? ———A simple Child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death? I met a little cottage Girl: She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head. She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad: Her eyes were fair, and very fair; —Her beauty made me glad. "Sisters and brothers, little Maid, How many may you be?" "How many? Seven in all," she said, And wondering looked at me. "And where are they? I pray you tell." She answered, "Seven are we; And two of us at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea. "Two of us in the church-yard lie, My sister and my brother; And, in the church-yard cottage, I Dwell near them with my mother." "You say that two at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea, Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell, Sweet Maid, how this may be." Then did the little Maid reply, "Seven boys and girls are we; Two of us in the church-yard lie, Beneath the church-yard tree." "You run about, my little Maid, Your limbs they are alive; If two are in the church-yard laid, Then ye are only five." "Their graves are green, they may be seen," The little Maid replied, "Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, And they are side by side. "My stockings there I often knit, My kerchief there I hem; And there upon the ground I sit, And sing a song to them. "And often after sun-set, Sir, When it is light and fair, I take my little porringer, And eat my supper there. "The first that died was sister Jane; In bed she moaning lay, Till God released her of her pain; And then she went away. "So in the church-yard she was laid; And, when the grass was dry, Together round her grave we played, My brother John and I. "And when the ground was white with snow, And I could run and slide, My brother John was forced to go, And he lies by her side." "How many are you, then," said I, "If they two are in heaven?" Quick was the little Maid's reply, "O Master! we are seven." "But they are dead; those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven!" 'Twas throwing words away; for still The little Maid would have her will, And said, "Nay, we are seven!"

We Are Seven by William Wordsworth

Dorian Gray: What is the importance of Lord Henry and Dorian's interaction?

When Dorian meets Lord Henry, he escorts Dorian into the garden, where he praises Dorian's youth and beauty and warns him how surely and quickly those qualities will fade. He urges Dorian to live life to its fullest, to spend his time "always searching for new sensations" rather than devoting himself to "common" or "vulgar" pastimes. determination to live a life of beauty and to mold his life into a work of art as known as the aesthetic view of things.

What scene in Pride and Prejudice represents "the sublime"?

When Elizabeth goes to Pemberley. When Darcy and Elizabeth come across each other, they both have the "deepest blush" spread across their faces. A feeling that cannot pin point how either of them feel but it shows a kind of lust and shock. They also share a "sympathetic sublime". They need some sort of wit, letter or something to blunt the force of their feelings.

The Dubliners: What's the significance of "time passes" in the novel? Explain why Mrs. R's green cloak is important.

While "The Window" deals with the minute details of a single afternoon and evening, stretching them out into a considerable piece of prose, "Time Passes" compresses an entire decade into barely twenty pages. Woolf chooses to portray the effects of time on objects like the house and its contents rather than on human development and emotion. "Time Passes" validates Lily's and the Ramsays' fears that time will bring about their demise, as well as the widespread fear among the characters that time will erase the legacy of their work.

Name of poem and author? The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove, Each simple flower which she has nurs'd in dew, Anemones, that spangled every grove, The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue. No more shall violets linger in the dell, Or purple orchis variegate the plain, Till Spring again shall call forth every bell And dress with hurried hands her wreaths again. Ah, poor humanity! so frail, so fair, And the fond visions of thy early day, Till tyrant passion and corrosive care Bid all thy fairy colours flee away! Another May new birds and flowers shall bring; Ah! why has happiness no second spring?

Written At The Close Of Spring by Charlotte Smith

The Transitional Object concept comes out of the the writing of D. W. Winnicott. The idea is that after a child moves out of the primary stage of inter-related bonding with the mother, it uses an object (a blanket, a stuffed animal, etc.) in order to deal with the anxiety that comes from being separated from the mother. The object must have these qualities...

a) belong to the child b) be able to withstand the child's angry and destructive impulses without retaliating c) never be challenged or taken away (or even washed) by the parent.

Name of poem and author? Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine, Except these kisses of my lips on thine Brand them with immortality; but me - Men shall not see bright fire nor hear the sea, Nor mix their hearts with music, nor behold Cast forth of heaven, with feet of awful gold And plumeless wings that make the bright air blind, Lightning, with thunder for a hound behind Hunting through fields unfurrowed and unsown, But in the light and laughter, in the moan And music, and in grasp of lip and hand And shudder of water that makes felt on land The immeasurable tremor of all the sea, Memories shall mix and metaphors of me.

from Anactoria by Algernon Swinburne