English 3002 Midterm

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"The Poet writes under one restriction only, namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human Being...Nor let this necessity of producing immediate pleasure be considered as a degradation of the Poet's art. It is far otherwise. It is an acknowledgement of the beauty of the universe...it is a task light and easy to him who looks at the world in the spirit of love: further, it is a homage paid to the native and naked dignity of man, to the grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which he knows, and feels, and lives, and moves."

"Preface" to Lyrical Ballads - William Wordsworth

"I heard a Fly buzz—when I died"

Emily Dickinson

"an experiment...to ascertain, how far, by fitting to metrical arrangement...the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted, which a Poet may rationally endeavour to impart."

"Preface" to Lyrical Ballads - William Wordsworth

"In the name of the bee and of the butterfly and of the breeze, amen!"

Emily Dickinson

Wild nights - Wild nights! Were I with thee Wild nights should be Our luxury! Futile - the winds - To a Heart in port - Done with the Compass - Done with the Chart! Rowing in Eden - Ah - the Sea! Might I but moor - tonight - In thee!

Emily Dickinson

Significant Date: Around 1850-1864

Emily Dickinson, Assorted Poems

With no small interest, Captain Delano continued to watch her- a proceeding not much facilitated by the vapours partly mantling the hull, through which the far matin light from her cabin streamed equivocally enough; much like the sun- by this time hemisphered on the rim of the horizon, and apparently, in company with the strange ship, entering the harbour- which, wimpled by the same low, creeping clouds, showed not unlike a Lima intriguante's one sinister eye peering across the Plaza from the Indian loophole of her dusk saya-y-manta.

Benito Cereno - Herman Melville

"When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink the eyes of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lied, and die! I look around me, and lo! On every visage a Black Veil!"

The Minister's Black Veil - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Significant Date: 1836

The Minister's Black Veil - Nathaniel Hawthorne

"the human mind is capable of being excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants" ["a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cites, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies."]

"Preface" to Lyrical Ballads - William Wordsworth

Wrote in response to Edmund Burke

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman- Mary Wollstonecraft

Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be "the expression of the Imagination": and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony....It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words....it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration, the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present, the words which express what they understand not, the trumpets which sing to battle and feel not what they inspire: the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World.

"A Defence of Poetry" - Percy Shelley

Significant Date: 1821

"A Defence of Poetry" - Percy Shelley

"No joyless forms shall regulateOur living Calendar:We from to-day, my friend, will dateThe opening of the year.Love, now an universal birth.From heart to heart is stealing,From earth to man, from man to earth,—It is the hour of feeling.One moment now may give us moreThan fifty years of reason;Our minds shall drink at every poreThe spirit of the season. Some silent laws our hearts may make,Which they shall long obey;We for the year to come may takeOur temper from to-day.And from the blessed power that rollsAbout, below, above;We'll frame the measure of our souls,They shall be tuned to love.Then come, my sister! come, I pray,With speed put on your woodland dress,And bring no book; for this one dayWe'll give to idleness."

"Lines written at a small distance from my house, and sent by my little boy to the person whom they are addressed." - William Wordsworth

Significant Date: March 1789

"Lines written at a small distance from my house, and sent by my little boy to the person whom they are addressed." - William Wordsworth (and almost all of Wordsworth poems were written in 1789)

I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley is worn: All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

Easter - William Butler Yeats

Significant Date: 1916

Easter - William Butler Yeats

"Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!" he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred."

The Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred Tennyson

Significant Date: 1854

The Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred Tennyson

"Ah, this slavery breeds ugly passions in man!" - Amasa Delano

Benito Cereno - Herman Melville

"a dreamy inquietude, like that of one who alone on the prairie feels unrest from the repose of the noon...."

Benito Cereno - Herman Melville

Character Identification: Captain Delano

Benito Cereno - Herman Melville

Significant Date: 1855

Benito Cereno - Herman Melville

And that simplest Lute, Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark! How by the desultory breeze caressed, Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise, Such a soft floating witchery of sound As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing! And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, And tranquil muse upon tranquility: Full many a thought uncalled and undetained, And many idle flitting phantasies, Traverse my indolent and passive brain, As wild and various as the random gales That swell and flutter on this subject Lute! And what if all of animated nature Be but organic Harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

"The Eolian Harp" - Samuel Coleridge

Significant Date: 1795

"The Eolian Harp" - Samuel Coleridge

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it. And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! He, too, is no mean preacher: Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless— Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, Truth breathed by cheerfulness. One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:— We murder to dissect. Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.

"The Tables Turned" - William Wordsworth

ESSAY TOPIC: Virtually all of our authors explore the place of religious belief in modern life. Some (such as Equiano, Wollstonecraft, and Douglass) appeal to Christian doctrine to support their arguments for human worth and social reform. Others (Hawthorne, Dickinson, Tennyson, Melville) dramatize the difficulties of reconciling belief with often painful personal experience. Others still (Wordsworth, P. Shelley, Yeats) explore alternate, non-Christian forms of spiritual life. Choose two writers and describe how they present religious belief in their works.

- Hawthorne's The Minister in the Black Veil: Story about puritans- a religious reform movement that distanced itself from the Catholic church. They have a rigorous moral code and believe all things should be punished. Thus leading to the paranoia that caused the Salem Witch Trials. Hawthorne wrestled with topics of sin and guilt. The minister comes to a town wearing a black veil which unsettles and frightens the town. The props helped to convey messages to the audience. "How strange,' said a lady, 'that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face!" This veil creates a lot of speculation and gossip but no one asks him directly. People can not find the courage to talk to him out of fear. The minister refuses to take off the veil or explain why he has it when finally asked. "The veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness." Years later on his deathbed, he responded to never take off the veil. The veil's true meaning symbolizes widespread deception, it represents the secrets that people hide from each other and try to hide from God. Criticism on church goers who sin against God. There doesn't seem to be anything heroic at the conclusion of the play; the tale could be read as a critique of the religious authoritarianism of the Puritans as a result of the Salem Witch Trials. There's no mercy and forgiveness in this depiction, feelings that are normally present in Christianity. - Dickinson's Some Keep the Sabbath going to Church 'Some keep the Sabbath going to Church -' is one of Emily Dickinson's best-known poems. It features the poet's growing disbelief regarding the customary Christian rituals and her intention to seek salvation without resorting to the conventional means. In this poem she shares her some of her feelings about faith and christianity. When she was disillusioned with the fact that God resides in one's heart. A rigorous follower of Christian rituals may get the divine blessing, but one who seeks Him within the soul need not crave such blessings. As God communicates directly with that person. Through this poem, Dickinson makes it clear that if one truly wants to attain salvation, they can get it by staying at their home. Only one condition must be followed. They have to be true at their heart.

Year of Significance: 1789 (Hint: 2 Readings)

1. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano 2. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman- Mary Wollstonecraft

"Animated by this important object, I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style. . . . wishing rather to persuade by the force of my arguments, than dazzle by the elegance of my language. . . . I shall be employed about things, not words!"

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman- Mary Wollstonecraft

"Like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk.."

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman- Mary Wollstonecraft

"One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human being, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers."

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman- Mary Wollstonecraft

"The Simple Language of Truth"

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman- Mary Wollstonecraft

"The understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilized women of the present century, with few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtue exact respect."

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman- Mary Wollstonecraft

Significant Dates: 1789-1832

British Romanticism

Significant Date: 1818

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto 4 - Byron

XXIII But ever and anon of griefs subduedThere comes a token like a scorpion's sting, Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;And slight withal may be the things which bringBack on the heart the weight which it would flingAside for ever: it may be a sound --A tone of music -- summer's eve -- or spring --A flower -- the wind -- the ocean -- which shall wound,Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound; XXIV And how and why we know not, nor can traceHome to its cloud this lightning of the mind,But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,Which out of things familiar, undesign'd,When least we deem of such, calls up to viewThe spectres whom no exorcism can bind,The cold -- the changed -- perchance the dead -- anew,The mourn'd, the loved, the lost -- too many! -- yet how few!

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto 4 - Byron

"Like Adam, I was created apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous . . . [while] I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition."

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley - Creature

"But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. . . . I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans."

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley

"I felt sensations of a peculiar and overpowering nature: they were a mixture of pain and pleasure, such as I had never before experienced, either from hunger or cold, warmth or food; and I withdrew from the window, unable to bear these emotions."

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley

"I quitted my seat, and walked on, although the darkness and storm increased every minute, and the thunder burst with a terrific crash over my head. . . . While I watched the storm, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits; I clasped my hands and exclaimed aloud, 'William, dear angel! This is thy funeral, this thy dirge!' As I said these words, I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gazing intently: I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon to whom I had given life."

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley

"If I have no ties and affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes. . . . My vices are the children of a forced solitude which I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded."

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley

"If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your tastes for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit to interfere with the tranquility of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed."

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley

"These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. . . . For some time I sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice. . . . The sea, or rather the vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains, whose aerial summits hung over its recesses. Their icy and glittering peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds. My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy; I exclaimed—'Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of this life.' SUBLIME

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley

"When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster?" "Where were my friends and relations?" "I am alone, and miserable." "Let [mankind] live with me in the interchange of kindness, and, instead of injury, I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance." "If any being felt emotions of benevolence to me, I should return them an hundred and an hundred fold. . . . But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realized."

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley

Significant Date: January 1st, 1818

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley

"My day dreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. . . . [S]ailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe."

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley - Walton's First Letter

"How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? . . . I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!—Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips. . . . "I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. . . . And now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart."

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley - Victor

After the De Lacey debacle, the creature wanders in the night woods: "Now and then the sweet voice of a bird burst forth amidst the universal stillness. All, save I, were at rest or in enjoyment. I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me; and, finding myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin."

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley - the Creature

"Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove;"

In Memoriam - Alfred Tennyson

Significant Date: 1850

In Memoriam - Alfred Tennyson

Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur- These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration:—feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,— Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey - William Wordsworth

Significant Date: July 13, 1798

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey - William Wordsworth

What master did Fredrick Douglass revolt against?

Mr. Covey

"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck."

Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass

Significant Date: 1845

Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass

Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Ode on a Grecian Urn - John Keats

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Ode on a Grecian Urn - John Keats

Significant Date: 1819

Ode on a Grecian Urn - John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

Ode on a Grecian Urn - John Keats

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Ode on a Grecian Urn - John Keats

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Ode to the West Wind - Percy Shelley

Significant Date: 1819

Ode to the West Wind - Percy Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Ozymandias - Percy Shelley

Significant Date: Written 1817 Published 1818

Ozymandias - Percy Shelley

That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. II An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.

Sailing to Byzantium - William Butler Yeats

"If she were my wife, I'd never part with that birthmark." - The Assistant

The Birthmark - Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The birth-mark is deeply interwoven as it were with the texture and substance of her face."

The Birthmark - Nathaniel Hawthorne

"What will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work!" and "Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife,' cried Aylmer, rapturously, 'doubt not my power."

The Birthmark - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Significant Date: Late 1700s

The Birthmark - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Significant Date: 1799-1804 (hint: historical event)

The Haitian Revolution

"Oh! I could pass all relics left by the pomps of old, to gaze on this rude monument, cast in affections mould. Love, human love! what art thou? Thy print upon the dust outlives the cities of renown wherein the mighty trust! Immortal, oh! immortal thou art, whose earthly glow hath given these ashes holiness- it must, it must be so!"

The Image in Lava - Hermans

And childhood's fragile image Thus fearfully enshrin'd, Survives the proud memorials rear'd By conquerors of mankind. Babe! wert thou brightly slumbering Upon thy mother's breast, When suddenly the fiery tomb Shut round each gentle guest? A strange, dark fate o'ertook you, Fair babe and loving heart! One moment of a thousand pangs Yet better than to part! Haply of that fond bosom On ashes here impress'd, Thou wert the only treasure, child! Whereon a hope might rest. Perchance all vainly lavish'd Its other love had been, And where it trusted, nought remain'd But thorns on which to lean. Far better then to perish, Thy form within its clasp, Than live and lose thee, precious one! From that impassion'd grasp.

The Image in Lava - Hermans

Significant Date: 1st Published 1827

The Image in Lava - Hermans

"I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions, too, differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke . . . united to confirm me in this belief. . . . I asked [my companions] if we were not going to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces, and long hair. . . . They looked and acted in so savage a manner; for I had never seen among my people such instances of brutal cruelty."