Brit Lit final - Quotes w/o identifying features

The Cry of the Children - identifying features

(mostly) abab, cdcd, efef

Ode on a Grecian Urn -identifying features 1. themes

1. Ode- "O Attic" Old age/decay beauty is truth, truth is beauty

In Memoriam A. H. H. - identifying features 1. form 2. theme

1. rigid form -abba, quatrains, iambic tetrameter (named The In Memoriam Stanza) 2. death/ mourning homosociality

The Lotos Eaters - identifying features Themes

Allegory for British expansion -nature is like a dangerous drug

Even if they were to leave Europe and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror. Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being I had created; I had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats; but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race.

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Frankenstein

Fetch'd in honey, milk'd the cows, Air'd and set to rights the house, Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat, Cakes for dainty mouths to eat, Next churn'd butter, whipp'd up cream, Fed their poultry, sat and sew'd; Talk'd as modest maidens should: Lizzie with an open heart, Laura in an absent dream, One content, one sick in part; One warbling for the mere bright day's delight, One longing for the night.

Goblin Market Author: Christina Rossetti Speaker: Narrator theme: an analogy for colonialism - sister's = subsistence economy - the exotic, foreign products may them dependent -women can make their own lives without the masculine, global, colonial world of colonialism

"Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die. "They were dying slowly—it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now— nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as air—and nearly as thin. I began to distinguish the gleam of the eyes under the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. The man seemed young— almost a boy—but you know with them it's hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede's ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and held—there was no other movement and no other glance. He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck—Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge—an ornament—a charm— a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread from beyond the seas.

Heart of Darkness Author: Joseph Conrad Speaker: Marlow form/theme: -dehumanization of the Africans -also image of white around black neck--choking -imperial violence

REV. S. [piteously] Frank, my boy: when I wrote those letters I put myself into that woman's power. When I told you about them I put myself, to some extent, I am sorry to say, in your power. She refused my money with these words, which I shall never forget. "Knowledge is power" she said; "and I never sell power." Thats more than twenty years ago; and she has never made use of her power or caused me a moment's uneasiness. You are behaving worse to me than she did, Frank. FRANK. Oh yes I dare say! Did you ever preach at her the way you preach at me every day? REV. S. [wounded almost to tears] I leave you, sir. You are incorrigible. [He turns towards the gate]. FRANK [utterly unmoved] Tell them I shan't be home to tea, will you, gov'nor, like a good fellow? [He moves towards the cottage door and is met by Praed and Vivie coming out]. VIVIE [to Frank] Is that your father, Frank? I do so want to meet him. FRANK. Certainly. [Calling after his father] Gov'nor. Youre wanted. [The parson turns at the gate, fumbling nervously at his hat. Praed crosses the garden to the opposite side, beaming in anticipation of civilities]. My father: Miss Warren. VIVIE [going to the clergyman and shaking his hand] Very glad to see you here, Mr Gardner. [Calling to the cottage] Mother: come along: youre wanted. [Mrs Warren appears on the threshold, and is immediately transfixed, recognizing the clergyman.] VIVIE [continuing] Let me introduce— MRS WARREN [swooping on the Reverend Samuel] Why it's Sam Gardner, gone into the Church! Well, I never! Don't you know us, Sam? This is George Crofts, as large as life and twice as natural. Don't you remember me? REV. S. [very red] I really—er— MRS WARREN. Of course you do. Why, I have a whole album of your letters still: I came across them only the other day.

Mrs. Warren's Profession Author: George Bernard Shaw Speaker: Rev. Samuel, Frank, Vivie themes: Parallel between Vivie and her mother- both dont care about the social norms -Frank and Vivie both disrespect parents

[Summer afternoon in a cottage garden on the eastern slope of a hill a little south of Haslemere in Surrey. Looking up the hill, the cottage is seen in the left hand corner of the garden, with its thatched roof and porch, and a large latticed window to the left of the porch. A paling completely shuts in the garden, except for a gate on the right. The common rises uphill beyond the paling to the sky line. Some folded canvas garden chairs are leaning against the side bench in the porch. A lady's bicycle is propped against the wall, under the window. A little to the right of the porch a hammock is slung from two posts. A big canvas umbrella, stuck in the ground, keeps the sun off the hammock, in which a young lady is reading and making notes, her head towards the cottage and her feet towards the gate. In front of the hammock, and within reach of her hand, is a common kitchen chair, with a pile of serious-looking books and a supply of writing paper on it.] [A gentleman walking on the common comes into sight from behind the cottage. He is hardly past middle age, with something of the artist about him, unconventionally but carefully dressed, and clean-shaven except for a moustache, with an eager susceptible face and very amiable and considerate manners. He has silky black hair, with waves of grey and white in it. His eyebrows are white, his moustache black. He seems not certain of his way. He looks over the palings; takes stock of the place; and sees the young lady.] [taking off his hat] I beg your pardon. Can you direct me to Hindhead View—Mrs Alison's? [glancing up from her book] This is Mrs Alison's. [She Indeed! Perhaps—may I ask are you Miss Vivie Warren? [sharply, as she turns on her elbow to get a good look at him] Yes. [daunted and conciliatory] I'm afraid I appear intrusive. My name is Praed. [Vivie at once throws her books upon the chair, and gets out of the hammock]. Oh, pray don't let me disturb you. [striding to the gate and opening it for him] Come in, Mr Praed. [He comes in]. Glad to see you. [She proffers her hand and takes his with a resolute and hearty grip. She is an attractive specimen of the sensible, able, highly-educated young middle-class Englishwoman. Age 22. Prompt, strong, confident, self-possessed. Plain business-like dress, but not dowdy. She wears a chatelaine at her belt, with a fountain pen and a paper knife among its pendants]. Very kind of you indeed, Miss Warren. [She shuts the gate with a vigorous slam. He passes in to the middle of the garden, exercising his fingers, which are slightly numbed by her greeting]. Has your mother arrived? Will you come indoors; or would you rather sit out here and talk? PRAED. It will be nicer out here, don't you think? VIVIE. Then I'll go and get you a chair. [She goes to the porch for a garden chair]. PRAED [following her] Oh, pray, pray! Allow me. [He lays hands on the chair]. VIVIE [letting him take it] Take care of your fingers; theyre rather dodgy things, those chairs. [She goes across to the chair with the books on it; pitches them into the hammock; and brings the chair forward with one swing]. PRAED [who has just unfolded his chair] Oh, now do let me take that hard chair. I like hard chairs. VIVIE. So do I. Sit down, Mr Praed. [This invitation she gives with a genial peremptoriness, his anxiety to please her clearly striking her as a sign of weakness of character on his part. But he does not immediately obey]. PRAED. By the way, though, hadnt we better go to the station to meet your mother? VIVIE [coolly] Why? She knows the way.

Mrs. Warren's Profession Author: George Bernard Shaw Speaker: Vivie and The Gentleman (Praed) themes: Shows anxieties about gender - Vivie is super strong and forceful, unwelcoming -Praed assumes the feminine role

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 Author: John Keats Speaker: Narrator

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: 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 Author: John Keats Speaker: Narrator Themes: He asks the urn to speak, but the urn has only pictures and no story paradox- lovers frozen eternally happy, but eternally unsatisfied

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - identifying features

Quatrains - sometimes sextets, lots of abab rhyme, but not exclusively

Modern Love - indentifying features

Sonnets

Pile on the brown man's burden To gratify your greed; Go, clear away the "******s" Who progress would impede; Be very stern, for truly 'Tis useless to be mild With new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. Pile on the brown man's burden; And, if ye rouse his hate, Meet his old-fashioned reasons With Maxims up to date. With shells and dumdum bullets A hundred times made plain The brown man's loss must ever Imply the white man's gain. Pile on the brown man's burden, compel him to be free; Let all your manifestoes Reek with philanthropy. And if with heathen folly He dares your will dispute, Then, in the name of freedom,

The Brown Man's Burden Author: Labouchere Speaker: Narrator?

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Ulysses Author: Tennyson Speaker: Ulysses

Mariana - identifying features

repetition abab, cddc, efef

Tintern Abbey - identifying features 1. form 2. themes

1. blank verse 2. intense feeling of nature as a child seeing nature in a more reflective way

The Prelude - General identifying features 1. form 2. themes

1. pentameter, but no rhyme (blank verse) 2. focus on nature invocation to natural elements (O welcome messenger! - to the wind) asking nature to instruct him/ nature as a guide Peace in nature Going out alone on a shepherd's boat and watching a cliff get bigger (sublime) writing down the story of his life the world being beyond one's knowledge and only striving to be/do what one knows

Preface to Lyrical Ballads - identifying features 1. form 2. themes

1. prose 2. using the "selection of language really used by men" making the ordinary seem extraordinary "low," rustic, rural life - nature and simplicity poetry = "emotion recollected in tranquility" - write after emotion, not during emotion

Kubla Khan - identifying features 1. form 2. themes/summary

1. rhyming, but not in a particular pattern some prose 2. I composed perfect poetry in my sleep, but then forgot a lot of it capitalism is the failure modern life corrupts us

No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Frankenstein form/theme: shows a double-- there is a parallel between walton and frankenstein - both are on a quest for discovery that will supposedly benefit mankind -male conquest

During these last days I have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it blamable. In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being. "This was my duty, but there was another still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity and selfishness in evil; he destroyed my friends; he devoted to destruction beings who possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, and wisdom; nor do I know where this thirst for vengeance may end. Miserable himself that he may render no other wretched, he ought to die.

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Frankenstein theme: Victor does not take responsibility for the monster's "infancy" - the idea that we are all born good

"That he should live to be an instrument of mischief disturbs me; in other respects, this hour, when I momentarily expect my release, is the only happy one which I have enjoyed for several years. The forms of the beloved dead flit before me, and I hasten to their arms. Farewell, Walton! Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed."

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Frankenstein theme: Victor seems to learn that ambition and the male quest are not the most important things, but then immediately says someone else might succeed and seems to unlearn his lesson

She left me, and I continued some time walking up and down the passages of the house and inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat to my adversary. But I discovered no trace of him and was beginning to conjecture that some fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the execution of his menaces when suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful scream. It came from the room into which Elizabeth had retired. As I heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped, the motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended; I could feel the blood trickling in my veins and tingling in the extremities of my limbs. This state lasted but for an instant; the scream was repeated, and I rushed into the room. Great God! Why did I not then expire! Why am I here to relate the destruction of the best hope and the purest creature on earth? She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down and her pale and distorted features half covered by her hair. Everywhere I turn I see the same figure — her bloodless arms and relaxed form flung by the murderer on its bridal bier. Could I behold this and live? Alas! Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated. For a moment only did I lose recollection; I fainted.

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Frankenstein theme: bridal scene- association between murder and marriage - shows how marriage can be like death for the woman

If this journey had taken place during my days of study and happiness, it would have afforded me inexpressible pleasure. But a blight had come over my existence, and I only visited these people for the sake of the information they might give me on the subject in which my interest was so terribly profound. Company was irksome to me; when alone, I could fill my mind with the sights of heaven and earth; the voice of Henry soothed me, and I could thus cheat myself into a transitory peace. But busy, uninteresting, joyous faces brought back despair to my heart. I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my fellow men; this barrier was sealed with the blood of William and Justine, and to reflect on the events connected with those names filled my soul with anguish.

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Frankenstein theme: isolation, the monster falls outside of the human community

His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him and sometimes felt a wish to console him, but when I looked upon him, when I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sickened and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred. I tried to stifle these sensations; I thought that as I could not sympathize with him, I had no right to withhold from him the small portion of happiness which was yet in my power to bestow. "You swear," I said, "to be harmless; but have you not already shown a degree of malice that should reasonably make me distrust you? May not even this be a feint that will increase your triumph by affording a wider scope for your revenge?" "How is this? I must not be trifled with, and I demand an answer. If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose existence everyone will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that 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 became linked to the chain of existence and events from which I am now excluded."

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Frankenstein/ the monster theme: the monster thinks that community is the antidote to violence, but victor thinks that community is dangerous

"Be calm! I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous." "Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, in which one must fall."

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: The creature

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. 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? His limbs were in proportion, and 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.

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Victor Frankenstein form/themes: -no language of humanity - "wretch" "catastrophe" -othering, assumed outstretched hand was meant to hurt -the uncanny

It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent. For some time I sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice. A mist covered both that and the surrounding mountains. Presently a breeze dissipated the cloud, and I descended upon the glacier. The surface is very uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and interspersed by rifts that sink deep. The field of ice is almost a league in width, but I spent nearly two hours in crossing it. The opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock. From the side where I now stood Montanvert was exactly opposite, at the distance of a league; and above it rose Mont Blanc, in awful majesty. I remained in a recess of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene. 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 life."

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Victor Frankenstein theme: classic Romantic scene in nature - the sublime . reminding us that nature ought to inspire awe, and we should not try to dominate it

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. What did he there? Could he be (I shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No sooner did that idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of its truth; my teeth chattered, and I was forced to lean against a tree for support. The figure passed me quickly, and I lost it in the gloom.

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Victor Frankenstein theme: lightening illuminates the creature

we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.

Frankenstein Author: Mary Shelley Speaker: Walton form/theme: shows a double-- there is a parallel between walton and frankenstein - both are on a quest for discovery that will supposedly benefit mankind -male conquest

"Did you miss me? Come and kiss me. Never mind my bruises, Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices Squeez'd from goblin fruits for you, Goblin pulp and goblin dew. Eat me, drink me, love me; Laura, make much of me; For your sake I have braved the glen And had to do with goblin merchant men."

Goblin Market Author: Christina Rossetti Speaker: Lizzie theme: this poem rejects hetero relationships, but says that homosexual and homosocial relationships can save you

Though the goblins cuff'd and caught her, Coax'd and fought her, Bullied and besought her, Scratch'd her, pinch'd her black as ink, Kick'd and knock'd her, Maul'd and mock'd her,

Goblin Market Author: Christina Rossetti Speaker: Narrator

They began to scratch their pates, No longer wagging, purring, But visibly demurring, Grunting and snarling. One call'd her proud, Cross-grain'd, uncivil; Their tones wax'd loud, Their looks were evil. Lashing their tails They trod and hustled her, Elbow'd and jostled her, Claw'd with their nails, Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking, Tore her gown and soil'd her stocking, Twitch'd her hair out by the roots, Stamp'd upon her tender feet, Held her hands and squeez'd their fruits Against her mouth to make her eat.

Goblin Market Author: Christina Rossetti Speaker: Narrator themes: loss of virginity/ rape/ the fallen woman

Would tell them how her sister stood In deadly peril to do her good, And win the fiery antidote: Then joining hands to little hands Would bid them cling together, "For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands."

Goblin Market Author: Christina Rossetti Speaker: Narrator and Laura/Lizzie Theme: The power of a sister (or nun) to save you

Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpeck'd cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheek'd peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries;— All ripe together In summer weather,— Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy: Our grapes fresh from the vine, Pomegranates full and fine, Dates and sharp bullaces, Rare pears and greengages, Damsons and bilberries, Taste them and try: Currants and gooseberries, Bright-fire-like barberries, Figs to fill your mouth, Citrons from the South, Sweet to tongue and sound to eye; Come buy, come buy." Evening by evening Among the brookside rushes, Laura bow'd her head to hear, Lizzie veil'd her blushes: Crouching close together In the cooling weather, With clasping arms and cautioning lips, With tingling cheeks and finger tips. "Lie close," Laura said, Pricking up her golden head: "We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?" "Come buy," call the goblins Hobbling down the glen.

Goblin Market Author: Christina Rossetti Speaker: Narrator/ Goblins/ Laura form/themes: -tons of repetition, internal rhyme too -tons of description/imagery -sensual, hypnotic sound

'Bitzer,' said Mr. Gradgrind, stretching out his hands as though he would have said, See how miserable I am! 'Bitzer, I have but one chance left to soften you. You were many years at my school. If, in remembrance of the pains bestowed upon you there, you can persuade yourself in any degree to disregard your present interest and release my son, I entreat and pray you to give him the benefit of that remembrance.' 'I really wonder, sir,' rejoined the old pupil in an argumentative manner, 'to find you taking a position so untenable. My schooling was paid for; it was a bargain; and when I came away, the bargain ended.' It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn't get to Heaven that way, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there.

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Mr Gradgrind and Bitzer themes: pursuing self interest -lack of gratitude, loyalty, feeling -all human interaction becomes transaction

I am going to take young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, in order to deliver him over to Mr. Bounderby. Sir, I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Bounderby will then promote me to young Mr. Tom's situation. And I wish to have his situation, sir, for it will be a rise to me, and will do me good.' 'If this is solely a question of self-interest with you—' Mr. Gradgrind began. 'I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir,' returned Bitzer; 'but I am sure you know that the whole social system is a question of self-interest. What you must always appeal to, is a person's self-interest. It's your only hold. We are so constituted. I was brought up in that catechism when I was very young, sir, as you are aware.'

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Mr Gradgrind and Bitzer themes: pursuing self interest -lack of gratitude, loyalty, feeling -all human interaction becomes transaction

'Girl number twenty,' said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, 'I don't know that girl. Who is that girl?' 'Sissy Jupe, sir,' explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and curtseying. 'Sissy is not a name,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Don't call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.' 'It's father as calls me Sissy, sir,' returned the young girl in a trembling voice, and with another curtsey. 'Then he has no business to do it,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Tell him he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?' 'He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.' Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand. 'We don't want to know anything about that, here. You mustn't tell us about that, here. Your father breaks horses, don't he?' 'If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the ring, sir.' 'You mustn't tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?' 'Oh yes, sir.' 'Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse.' (Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.) 'Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!' said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. 'Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.' The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely white-washed room, irradiated Sissy. For, the boys and girls sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact bodies, divided up the centre by a narrow interval; and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But, whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired, that she seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous colour from the sun, when it shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the self-same rays appeared to draw out of him what little colour he ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with something paler than themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair might have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white. 'Bitzer,' said Thomas Gradgrind. 'Your definition of a horse.' 'Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.' Thus (and much more) Bitzer. 'Now girl number twenty,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'You know what a horse is.'

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Mr. Gradgrind and Sissy themes: institutionalization teaching people to fall in line stamping out emotion and individuality

'so you have settled it! Well, I'm sure I hope your health may be good, Louisa; for if your head begins to split as soon as you are married, which was the case with mine, I cannot consider that you are to be envied, though I have no doubt you think you are, as all girls do. However, I give you joy, my dear—and I hope you may now turn all your ological studies to good account, I am sure I do! I must give you a kiss of congratulation, Louisa; but don't touch my right shoulder, for there's something running down it all day long. And now you see,' [...] [...] with a mingled sense of politeness and injury, 'to be constantly addressing him and never giving him a name. I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is insupportable to me. You yourself wouldn't hear of Joe, you very well know. Am I to call my own son-in-law, Mister! Not, I believe, unless the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my relations. Then, what am I to call him!' Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the remarkable emergency, Mrs. Gradgrind departed this life for the time being, after delivering the following codicil to her remarks already executed: 'As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is,—and I ask it with a fluttering in my chest, which actually extends to the soles of my feet,—that it may take place soon. Otherwise, I know it is one of those subjects I shall never hear the last of.' When Mr. Gradgrind had presented Mrs. Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly turned her head, and looked, in wonder, in pity, in sorrow, in doubt, in a multitude of emotions, towards Louisa. Louisa had known it, and seen it, without looking at her. From that moment she was impassive, proud and cold—held Sissy at a distance—changed to her altogether.

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind theme: Although they are talking about marriage, Louisa never speaks

'I was to pull through it, I suppose, Mrs. Gradgrind. Whether I was to do it or not, ma'am, I did it. I pulled through it, though nobody threw me out a rope. Vagabond, errand-boy, vagabond, labourer, porter, clerk, chief manager, small partner, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Those are the antecedents, and the culmination. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown learnt his letters from the outsides of the shops, Mrs. Gradgrind, and was first able to tell the time upon a dial-plate, from studying the steeple clock of St. Giles's Church, London, under the direction of a drunken cripple, who was a convicted thief, and an incorrigible vagrant. Tell Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, of your district schools and your model schools, and your training schools, and your whole kettle-of-fish of schools; and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, tells you plainly, all right, all correct—he hadn't such advantages—but let us have hard-headed, solid-fisted people—the education that made him won't do for everybody, he knows well—such and such his education was, however, and you may force him to swallow boiling fat, but you shall never force him to suppress the facts of his life.'

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Mrs Gradgrind and Bounderby theme: bootstrapping

'Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son to—to be brought up in the gutter?' 'Josiah in the gutter!' exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. 'No such a thing, sir. Never! For shame on you! My dear boy knows, and will give you to know, that though he come of humble parents, he come of parents that loved him as dear as the best could, and never thought it hardship on themselves to pinch a bit that he might write and cipher beautiful, and I've his books at home to show it! Aye, have I!' said Mrs. Pegler, with indignant pride. 'And my dear boy knows, and will give you to know, sir, that after his beloved father died, when he was eight years old, his mother, too, could pinch a bit, as it was her duty and her pleasure and her pride to do it, to help him out in life, and put him 'prentice. And a steady lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him a hand, and well he worked his own way forward to be rich and thriving.

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Mrs Pegler (Bounderby's mother) theme: bootstrapping No one is a self-made man- people boosted mr bounderby, but now he wont do that for others

For the first time in her life Louisa had come into one of the dwellings of the Coketown Hands; for the first time in her life she was face to face with anything like individuality in connection with them. She knew of their existence by hundreds and by thousands. She knew what results in work a given number of them would produce in a given space of time. She knew them in crowds passing to and from their nests, like ants or beetles. But she knew from her reading infinitely more of the ways of toiling insects than of these toiling men and women. Something to be worked so much and paid so much, and there ended; something to be infallibly settled by laws of supply and demand; something that blundered against those laws, and floundered into difficulty; something that was a little pinched when wheat was dear, and over-ate itself when wheat was cheap; something that increased at such a rate of percentage, and yielded such another percentage of crime, and such another percentage of pauperism; something wholesale, of which vast fortunes were made; something that occasionally rose like a sea, and did some harm and waste (chiefly to itself), and fell again; this she knew the Coketown Hands to be. But, she had scarcely thought more of separating them into units, than of separating the sea itself into its component drops.

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Narrator theme: prioritizing statistics over individuals -utilitarianism -not pleasure, productivity

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Narrator themes: regularity of time/ sameness of people, suppressed individuality - "the hands" - institutes govern ever aspect of life

I That there was any Fancy in them demanding to be brought into healthy existence instead of struggling on in convulsions? That exactly in the ratio as they worked long and monotonously, the craving grew within them for some physical relief—some relaxation, encouraging good humour and good spirits, and giving them a vent—some recognized holiday, though it were but for an honest dance to a stirring band of music—

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Narrator? themes: underneath discipline, there remains imagination and a desire for relaxation and fun -even breaks are regulted

'Tell me some of your mistakes.' 'I am almost ashamed,' said Sissy, with reluctance. 'But to-day, for instance, Mr. M'Choakumchild was explaining to us about Natural Prosperity.' 'National, I think it must have been,' observed Louisa. 'Yes, it was.—But isn't it the same?' she timidly asked. 'You had better say, National, as he said so,' returned Louisa, with her dry reserve. 'National Prosperity. And he said, Now, this schoolroom is a Nation. And in this nation, there are fifty millions of money. Isn't this a prosperous nation? Girl number twenty, isn't this a prosperous nation, and a'n't you in a thriving state?' 'What did you say?' asked Louisa. 'Miss Louisa, I said I didn't know. I thought I couldn't know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine. But that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the figures at all,' said Sissy, wiping her eyes. 'That was a great mistake of yours,' observed Louisa. 'Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was, now. Then Mr. M'Choakumchild said he would try me again. And he said, This schoolroom is an immense town, and in it there are a million of inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your remark on that proportion? And my remark was—for I couldn't think of a better one—that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the others were a million, or a million million. And that was wrong, too.' 'Of course it was.' 'Then Mr. M'Choakumchild said he would try me once more. And he said, Here are the stutterings—' 'Statistics,' said Louisa. 'Yes, Miss Louisa—they always remind me of stutterings, and that's another of my mistakes—of accidents upon the sea. And I find (Mr. M'Choakumchild said) that in a given time a hundred thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and only five hundred of them were drowned or burnt to death. What is the percentage? And I said, Miss;' here Sissy fairly sobbed as confessing with extreme contrition to her greatest error; 'I said it was nothing.' 'Nothing, Sissy?' 'Nothing, Miss—to the relations and friends of the people who were killed. I shall never learn,' said Sissy. 'And the worst of all is, that although my poor father wished me so much to learn, and although I am so anxious to learn, because he wished me to, I am afraid I don't like it.'

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Sissy and Louisa Theme: what matters? to sissy-the individual to m'choackemchild -the group

So, I mun be ridden o' this woman, and I want t' know how?' 'No how,' returned Mr. Bounderby. 'If I do her any hurt, sir, there's a law to punish me?' 'Of course there is.' 'If I flee from her, there's a law to punish me?' 'Of course there is.' 'If I marry t'oother dear lass, there's a law to punish me?' 'Of course there is.' 'If I was to live wi' her an' not marry her—saying such a thing could be, which it never could or would, an' her so good—there's a law to punish me, in every innocent child belonging to me?' 'Of course there is.' 'Now, a' God's name,' said Stephen Blackpool, 'show me the law to help me!' 'Hem! There's a sanctity in this relation of life,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'and—and—it must be kept up.' 'No no, dunnot say that, sir. 'Tan't kep' up that way. Not that way. 'Tis kep' down that way. I'm a weaver, I were in a fact'ry when a chilt, but I ha' gotten een to see wi' and eern to year wi'. I read in th' papers every 'Sizes, every Sessions—and you read too—I know it!—with dismay—how th' supposed unpossibility o' ever getting unchained from one another, at any price, on any terms, brings blood upon this land, and brings many common married fok to battle, murder, and sudden death. Let us ha' this, right understood. Mine's a grievous case, an' I want—if yo will be so good—t' know the law that helps me.' 'Now, I tell you what!' said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his pockets. 'There is such a law.' Stephen, subsiding into his quiet manner, and never wandering in his attention, gave a nod. 'But it's not for you at all. It costs money. It costs a mint of money.' 'How much might that be?' Stephen calmly asked. 'Why, you'd have to go to Doctors' Commons with a suit, and you'd have to go to a court of Common Law with a suit, and you'd have to go to the House of Lords with a suit, and you'd have to get an Act of Parliament to enable you to marry again, and it would cost you (if it was a case of very plain sailing), I suppose from a thousand to fifteen hundred pound,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'Perhaps twice the money.' 'There's no other law?' 'Certainly not.' 'Why then, sir,' said Stephen, turning white, and motioning with that right hand of his, as if he gave everything to the four winds, ''tis a muddle. 'Tis just a muddle a'toogether, an' the sooner I am dead, the better.'

Hard Times Author: Charles Dickens Speaker: Stephen Blackpool and Mr. Bounderby

I gave my name, and looked about. Deal table in the middle, plain chairs all round the walls, on one end a large shining map, marked with all the colours of a rainbow. There was a vast amount of red—good to see at any time, because one knows that some real work is done in there, a deuce of a lot of blue, a little green, smears of orange, and, on the East Coast, a purple patch, to show where the jolly pioneers of progress drink the jolly lager-beer. However, I wasn't going into any of these. I was going into the yellow. Dead in the centre. And the river was there—fascinating—deadly—like a snake.

Heart of Darkness Author: Joseph Conrad Speaker: Marlow form/theme: neither white, nor black - color is meant to imply the idea of the "jolly pioneer" -deadliness- symbol of the snake -Conrad depicts both African savagery and imperial violence

"Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, `When I grow up I will go there.' The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour's off. Other places were scattered about the hemispheres. I have been in some of them, and . . . well, we won't talk about that. But there was one yet—the biggest, the most blank, so to speak— that I had a hankering after. "True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery— a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. And as I looked at the map of it in a shop-window, it fascinated me as a snake would a bird—a silly little bird. Then I remembered there was a big concern, a Company for trade on that river. Dash it all! I thought to myself, they can't trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of fresh water—steamboats! Why shouldn't I try to get charge of one? I went on along Fleet Street, but could not shake off the idea. The snake had charmed me.

Heart of Darkness Author: Joseph Conrad Speaker: Marlow form/theme: whiteness=undiscovered, dark=discovered Why is Africa dark? - either b/c of the savagery of the natives or because of the violence and corruption of Euro imperialism

The young man looked at me with surprise. I suppose it did not occur to him that Mr. Kurtz was no idol of mine. He forgot I hadn't heard any of these splendid monologues on, what was it? on love, justice, conduct of life—or what not. If it had come to crawling be fore Mr. Kurtz, he crawled as much as the veriest savage of them all. I had no idea of the conditions, he said: these heads were the heads of rebels. I shocked him excessively by laughing. Rebels! What would be the next definition I was to hear? There had been enemies, criminals, workers—and these were rebels. Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to me on their sticks.

Heart of Darkness Author: Joseph Conrad Speaker: Marlow theme: Kurtz has set up a regime that makes rebels and has elevated himself to kingly status -the white man's hubris

We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the wood-cutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig would make you start. Were were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping. of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us—who could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign— and no memories. 'The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there— there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity— like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there ywas in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you—you so remote from the night of first ages—could comprehend. And why not? The mind of man is capable of anything—because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage—who can tell?— but truth—truth stripped of its

Heart of Darkness Author: Joseph Conrad Speaker: Marlow theme: Marlow's view on race

'And this also,' said Marlow suddenly, 'has been one of the dark places of the earth.' [...] —'I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago—the other day.... Light came out of this river since—you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker—may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine—what d'ye call 'em?—trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries—a wonderful lot of handy men they must have been, too—used to build, apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him here—the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina— and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sandbanks, marshes, forests, savages,—precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay—cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death—death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here.

Heart of Darkness Author: Joseph Conrad Speaker: Marlow theme: defamiliarizing London - once, it too, was . heart of darkness -we are all the same

This simply because I had a notion it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz whom at the time I did not see—you understand. He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you ya dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams....' He was silent for a while. '... No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the lifesensation of any given epoch of one's existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating

Heart of Darkness Author: Joseph Conrad Speaker: Marlow theme: how hard it is to tell stories -uncertainty, loss of control -the white man's impurity

'No one, as far as I know, unless a species of wandering trader— a pestilential fellow, snapping ivory from the natives.' Who was it they were talking about now? I gathered in snatches that this was some man supposed to be in Kurtz's district, and of whom the manager did not approve. 'We will not be free from unfair competition till one of these fellows is hanged for an example,' he said. 'Certainly,' grunted the other; 'get him hanged! Why not? Anything—anything can be done in this country. That's what I say; nobody here, you understand, HERE, can endanger your position. And why? You stand the climate—you outlast them all. The danger is in Europe; but there before I left I took care to—' They moved off and whispered, then their voices rose again. 'The extraordinary series of delays is not my fault. I did my best.' The fat man sighed. 'Very sad.' 'And the pestiferous absurdity of his talk,' continued the other; 'he bothered me enough when he was here. 'Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing.' Conceive you—that ass! And he wants to be manager! No, it's—' Here he got choked by excessive indignation

Heart of Darkness Author: Joseph Conrad Speaker: The manager and the fat man that Marlow overhears theme: The men are talking about how Kurtz wants to civilize, but they say this is ridiculous and that the empire is one only about making money

'So careful of the type?' but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, `A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go. 'Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death: The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.' And he, shall he, Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law— Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed— Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, Or seal'd within the iron hills? No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music match'd with him. O life as futile, then, as frail! O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil.

In Memoriam AHH Author: Tennyson Narrator: Tennyson? theme: Nope, nature doesnt even care about species, there is no soul and man might go extinct -life means nothing, everything will turn to dust -nature is cruel, indifferent and violent -connection to science - grief and science overlap in a long, cyclical process, with repetition and slight change over time -nature is bad and man is not special

Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy'd, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete; That not a worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another's gain. Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At last—far off—at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream: but what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry.

In Memoriam AHH Author: Tennyson Narrator: Tennyson? theme: We think that bad things happen for a reason, but how can we know that that is true?

The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave, Derives it not from what we have The likest God within the soul? Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear, I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.

In Memoriam AHH Author: Tennyson Narrator: Tennyson? theme: are nature and god at strife? nature cares about the species as a whole, but not about any single individual

O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, That sittest ranging golden hair; And glad to find thyself so fair, Poor child, that waitest for thy love! For now her father's chimney glows In expectation of a guest; And thinking `this will please him best,' She takes a riband or a rose; For he will see them on to-night; And with the thought her colour burns; And, having left the glass, she turns Once more to set a ringlet right; And, even when she turn'd, the curse Had fallen, and her future Lord Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford, Or kill'd in falling from his horse. O what to her shall be the end? And what to me remains of good? To her, perpetual maidenhood, And unto me no second friend. Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasp'd no more— Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day.

In Memoriam AHH Author: Tennyson Narrator: Tennyson? theme: homosociality - Tennyson compares himself to the woman getting ready and waiting for her dead husband

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

Kubla Khan Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Speaker: Narrator First half: form of a limerick - comical -abaab -all 8 syllables and iambic Second half: aabbadb, shifted meter, not iambic, but rather, irregular -begins with order/pattern and this falls apart - was the disorder a failure of memory or a part of the poem? - a poem cannot be contained in orderly forms

composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent [148] expressions, without any sensation of consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!

Kubla Khan Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Speaker: Narrator Theme: the author composed perfect poetry in his sleep, but now it's all gone (besides some 50 lines) - capitalism and modern life are responsible for the failure

In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Kubla Khan Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Speaker: Narrator theme: creativity cannot be controlled

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.

Mariana Author: Tennyson Speaker: narrator/mariana Form/themes: -Mariana waiting for someone - lack of movement -s and l sounds slow you down -idea of nature enmeshed with man -nature is not awe inspiring, but rather a parasite that encroaches on human space (Victorian era thinking as opposed to Romantic0 -lack of movement in nature

By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand's light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes Her giant heart of Memory and Tears Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet Were moveless, looking through their dead black years, By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall. Like sculptured effigies they might be seen Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

Modern Love Author: George Meredith Speaker: Meredith or speaker (?)

It chanced his lips did meet her forehead cool. She had no blush, but slanted down her eye. Shamed nature, then, confesses love can die: And most she punishes the tender fool Who will believe what honours her the most! Dead! is it dead? She has a pulse, and flow Of tears, the price of blood-drops, as I know, For whom the midnight sobs around Love's ghost, Since then I heard her, and so will sob on. The love is here; it has but changed its aim. O bitter barren woman! what's the name? The name, the name, the new name thou hast won? Behold me striking the world's coward stroke! That will I not do, though the sting is dire. —Beneath the surface this, while by the fire They sat, she laughing at a quiet joke.

Modern Love Author: George Meredith Speaker: Meredith or speaker (?) form/theme: -1st intro to 1st person -love dies and we suppress everyone -everyone thinks every else's marriage is great - divorce is not possible

VIVIE. It would not matter if you did: you would not succeed. [Mrs Warren winces, deeply hurt by the implied indifference towards her affectionate intention. Vivie, neither understanding this nor concerning herself about it, goes on calmly] Mother: you don't at all know the sort of person I am. I don't object to Crofts more than to any other coarsely built man of his class. To tell you the truth, I rather admire him for being strongminded enough to enjoy himself in his own way and make plenty of money instead of living the usual shooting, hunting, dining-out, tailoring, loafing life of his set merely because all the rest do it. And I'm perfectly aware that if I'd been in the same circumstances as my aunt Liz, I'd have done exactly what she did. [...] MRS WARREN. Yes, Heaven forgive me, it's true; and you are the only one that ever turned on me. Oh, the injustice of it! the injustice! the injustice! I always wanted to be a good woman. I tried honest work; and I was slave-driven until I cursed the day I ever heard of honest work. I was a good mother; and because I made my daughter a good woman she turns me out as if I were a leper. Oh, if I only had my life to live over again! I'd talk to that lying clergyman in the school. From this time forth, so help me Heaven in my last hour, I'll do wrong and nothing but wrong. And I'll prosper on it. VIVIE. Yes: it's better to choose your line and go through with it. If I had been you, mother, I might have done as you did; but I should not have lived one life and believed in another. You are a conventional woman at heart. That is why I am bidding you goodbye now. I am right, am I not?

Mrs. Warren's Profession Author: George Bernard Shaw Speaker: Vivie and Mrs. Warren theme: Prostitution was ok in Vivie's eyes because she was thumbing her nose at the world, but running a brothel was not because then the mother was buying into the social world

VIVIE [sitting down with a shrug, no longer confident; for her replies, which have sounded sensible and strong to her so far, now begin to ring rather woodenly and even priggishly against the new tone of her mother] Don't think for a moment I set myself above you in any way. You attacked me with the conventional authority of a mother: I defended myself with the conventional superiority of a respectable woman. Frankly, I am not going to stand any of your nonsense; and when you drop it I shall not expect you to stand any of mine. I shall always respect your right to your own opinions and your own way of life. MRS WARREN. My own opinions and my own way of life! Listen to her talking! Do you think I was brought up like you? able to pick and choose my own way of life? Do you think I did what I did because I liked it, or thought it right, or wouldn't rather have gone to college and been a lady if I'd had the chance? VIVIE. Everybody has some choice, mother. The poorest girl alive may not be able to choose between being Queen of England or Principal of Newnham; but she can choose between ragpicking and flowerselling, according to her taste. People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. MRS WARREN. Oh, it's easy to talk, isn't it? Here! would you like to know what my circumstances were? VIVIE. Yes: you had better tell me. Won't you sit down? MRS WARREN. Oh, I'll sit down: don't you be afraid. [She plants her chair farther forward with brazen energy, and sits down. Vivie is impressed in spite of herself]. D'you know what your gran'mother was? VIVIE. No. MRS WARREN. No, you don't. I do. She called herself a widow and had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint, and kept herself and four daughters out of it. Two of us were sisters: that was me and Liz; and we were both good-looking and well made. I suppose our father was a well-fed man: mother pretended he was a gentleman; but I don't know. The other two were only half sisters: undersized, ugly, starved looking, hard working, honest poor creatures: Liz and I would have half-murdered them if mother hadn't half-murdered us to keep our hands off them. They were the respectable ones. Well, what did they get by their respectability? I'll tell you. One of them worked in a whitelead factory twelve hours a day for nine shillings a week until she died of lead poisoning. She only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed; but she died. The other was always held up to us as a model because she married a Government laborer in the Deptford victualling yard, and kept his room and the three children neat and tidy on eighteen shillings a week—until he took to drink. That was worth being respectable for, wasn't it?

Mrs. Warren's Profession Author: George Bernard Shaw Speaker: Vivie and Mrs. Warren themes: -social world=a web of economics in which we are all enslaved -bootstrapping -vivie reacts poorly to mom's profession

PRAED [revolted] What a monstrous, wicked, rascally system! I knew it! I felt at once that it meant destroying all that makes womanhood beautiful! VIVIE. I don't object to it on that score in the least. I shall turn it to very good account, I assure you. PRAED. Pooh! In what way? VIVIE. I shall set up chambers in the City, and work at actuarial calculations and conveyancing. Under cover of that I shall do some law, with one eye on the Stock Exchange all the time. I've come down here by myself to read law: not for a holiday, as my mother imagines. I hate holidays. PRAED. You make my blood run cold. Are you to have no romance, no beauty in your life? VIVIE. I don't care for either, I assure you. PRAED. You can't mean that. VIVIE. Oh yes I do. I like working and getting paid for it. When I'm tired of working, I like a comfortable chair, a cigar, a little whisky, and a novel with a good detective story in it.

Mrs. Warren's Profession Author: George Bernard Shaw Speaker: Vivie and The Gentleman (Praed) theme: Is Shaw shattering traditional images of beauty or saying that this way of life strips life of its beauty?

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.

Porphyria's Lover Author: Browning Speaker: The lover Theme: speaker believes he has done the right think and Porphyria is happy, but the reader knows that the speaker's actions are cruel -shows how perspectives can vary

The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to chuse incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.

Preface to Lyrical Ballads Author: William Wordsworth Speaker: Wordsworth

I have said that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on;

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Author: William Wordsworth Speaker: Wordsworth Theme: Write after intense emotion has died down, not during it

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years ? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, — And that cannot stop their tears.

The Cry of The Children Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Speaker: narrator (?) form/theme: -second person - this is a call to action, speaks directly to the readers

"For all day, the wheels are droning, turning, — Their wind comes in our faces, — Till our hearts turn, — our heads, with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling — Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall, — Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling — All are turning, all the day, and we with all ! — And all day, the iron wheels are droning ; And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning) 'Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' "

The Cry of The Children Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Speaker: the children form/theme: -children as a collective

Cecily. I can't understand how you are here at all. Uncle Jack won't be back till Monday afternoon. Algernon. That is a great disappointment. I am obliged to go up by the first train on Monday morning. I have a business appointment that I am anxious . . . to miss? Cecily. Couldn't you miss it anywhere but in London? Algernon. No: the appointment is in London. Cecily. Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life, but still I think you had better wait till Uncle Jack arrives. I know he wants to speak to you about your emigrating.

The Importance of Being Earnest Author: Oscar Wilde Speaker: Cecily and Algernon

Jack. Well, if you want to know, Cecily happens to be my aunt. Algernon. Your aunt! Jack. Yes. Charming old lady she is, too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells. Just give it back to me, Algy. Algernon. [Retreating to back of sofa.] But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells? [Reading.] 'From little Cecily with her fondest love.' Jack. [Moving to sofa and kneeling upon it.] My dear fellow, what on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself. You seem to think that every aunt should be exactly like your aunt! That is absurd! For Heaven's sake give me back my cigarette case. [Follows Algernon round the room.] Algernon. Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle? 'From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.' There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can't quite make out. Besides, your name isn't Jack at all; it is Ernest. Jack. It isn't Ernest; it's Jack. Algernon. You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to every one as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't Ernest. It's on your cards. Here is one of them. [Taking it from case.] 'Mr. Ernest Worthing, B. 4, The Albany.' I'll keep this as a proof that your name is Ernest if ever you attempt to deny it to me, or to Gwendolen, or to any one else. [Puts the card in his pocket.]

The Importance of Being Earnest Author: Oscar Wilde Speaker: Jack and Algernon

Morning-room in Algernon's flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in the adjoining room. [Lane is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music has ceased, Algernon enters.] Algernon. Did you hear what I was playing, Lane? Lane. I didn't think it polite to listen, sir. Algernon. I'm sorry for that, for your sake. I don't play accurately—any one can play accurately—but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life. Lane. Yes, sir. Algernon. And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell? Lane. Yes, sir. [Hands them on a salver.] Algernon. [Inspects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa.] Oh! . . . by the way, Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night, when Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed. Lane. Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint. Algernon. Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information. Lane. I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. Algernon. Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that? Lane. I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person. Algernon. [Languidly.] I don't know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane. Lane. No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself. Algernon. Very natural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you. Lane. Thank you, sir. [Lane goes out.] Algernon. Lane's views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.

The Importance of Being Earnest Author: Oscar Wilde Speaker: Lane and Algernon

Lady Bracknell. I'm sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn't been there since her poor husband's death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger. And now I'll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me. Algernon. Certainly, Aunt Augusta. [Goes over to tea-table.] Lady Bracknell. Won't you come and sit here, Gwendolen? Gwendolen. Thanks, mamma, I'm quite comfortable where I am. Algernon. [Picking up empty plate in horror.] Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially. Lane. [Gravely.] There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. I went down twice. Algernon. No cucumbers! Lane. No, sir. Not even for ready money. Algernon. That will do, Lane, thank you. Lane. Thank you, sir. [Goes out.] Algernon. I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no cucumbers, not even for ready money. Lady Bracknell. It really makes no matter, Algernon. I had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now. Algernon. I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.

The Importance of Being Earnest Author: Oscar Wilde Speaker: Several

They sat them down upon the yellow sand, Between the sun and moon upon the shore; And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar, Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. Then some one said, "We will return no more"; And all at once they sang, "Our island home Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."

The Lotos Eaters Author: Tennyson Speaker: Narrator/ sailors theme: Colonies as a place of luxury double meaning on the word home as either Ithaca or Britain

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, And dear the last embraces of our wives And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change: For surely now our household hearths are cold, Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Or else the island princes over-bold Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things. Is there confusion in the little isle? Let what is broken so remain. The Gods are hard to reconcile: 'Tis hard to settle order once again. There is confusion worse than death, Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, Long labour unto aged breath, Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.

The Lotos Eaters Author: Tennyson Speaker: the sailors (as a collective they) theme: the temptation of the luxurious colonies makes you forget about responsibilities back home

For I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven Was blowing on my body, felt within A corresponding mild creative breeze, A vital breeze which travelled gently on O'er things which it had made, and is become 45 A tempest, a redundant energy,

The Prelude by William Wordsworth Speaker= Wordsworth

She, in the midst of all, preserved me still A poet, made me seek beneath that name My office upon earth, and nowhere else

The Prelude by William Wordsworth Speaker= Wordsworth theme: The world is out of my control, so I will only strive to be/do what I know

One end hereby at least hath been attain'd, My mind hath been revived, and if this mood 670 Desert me not, I will forthwith bring down, Through later years, the story of my life. The road lies plain before me; 'tis a theme Single and of determined bounds; and hence I chuse it rather at this time, than work 675 Of ampler or more varied argument, Where I might be discomfited and lost, And certain hopes are with me that to thee This labour will be welcome, honoured friend

The Prelude by William Wordsworth Speaker= Wordsworth theme: because bigger themes are beyond one's intimate knowledge, there is a turn inward

OH there is blessing in this gentle breeze, A visitant that while it fans my cheek Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings From the green fields, and from yon azure sky. Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come To none more grateful than to me; escaped From the vast city, where I long had pined A discontented sojourner: now free, Free as a bird to settle where I will. What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream Shall with its murmur lull me into rest? The earth is all before me. With a heart Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, I look about; and should the chosen guide Be nothing better than a wandering cloud, I cannot miss my way. I breathe again! Trances of thought and mountings of the mind Come fast upon me: it is shaken off, That burthen of my own unnatural self, The heavy weight of many a weary day Not mine, and such as were not made for me. Long months of peace (if such bold word accord With any promises of human life), Long months of ease and undisturbed delight Are mine in prospect; whither shall I turn, By road or pathway, or through trackless field, Up hill or down, or shall some floating thing Upon the river point me out my course?

The Prelude by William Wordsworth speaker = Wordsworth (autobiographical)

One evening (surely I was led by her) 375 I went alone into a Shepherd's Boat, A Skiff that to a Willow tree was tied Within a rocky Cave, its usual home. 'Twas by the shores of Patterdale, a Vale Wherein I was a Stranger, thither come 380 A School-boy Traveller, at the Holidays. Forth rambled from the Village Inn alone No sooner had I sight of this small Skiff, Discover'd thus by unexpected chance, Than I unloos'd her tether and embark'd. 385 The moon was up, the Lake was shining clear Among the hoary mountains; from the Shore I push'd, and struck the oars and struck again In cadence, and my little Boat mov'd on Even like a Man who walks with stately step 390 Though bent on speed. It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure; not without the voice Of mountain-echoes did my Boat move on, Leaving behind her still on either side Small circles glittering idly in the moon, 395 Until they melted all into one track Of sparkling light. A rocky Steep uprose Above the Cavern of the Willow tree And now, as suited one who proudly row'd With his best skill, I fix'd a steady view 400 Upon the top of that same craggy ridge, The bound of the horizon, for behind Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky. She was an elfin Pinnace; lustily I dipp'd my oars into the silent Lake, 405 And, as I rose upon the stroke, my Boat Went heaving through the water, like a Swan; When from behind that craggy Steep, till then The bound of the horizon, a huge Cliff, As if with voluntary power instinct, 410 Uprear'd its head. I struck, and struck again And, growing still in stature, the huge Cliff Rose up between me and the stars, and still, With measur'd motion, like a living thing, Strode after me. With trembling hands I turn'd, 415 And through the silent water stole my way Back to the Cavern of the Willow tree. There, in her mooring-place, I left my Bark, And, through the meadows homeward went, with grave And serious thoughts; and after I had seen 420 That spectacle, for many days, my brain Work'd with a dim and undetermin'd sense Of unknown modes of being; in my thoughts There was a darkness, call it solitude, Or blank desertion, no familiar shapes 425 Of hourly objects, images of trees, Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields; But huge and mighty Forms that do not live Like living men mov'd slowly through the mind By day and were the trouble of my dreams

The Prelude by William Wordsworth Speaker = himself theme: the sublime, - big mountain makes him feel weak and small, consuming his thoughts, making something ordinary into something strange, something that can teach you

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: May'st hear the merry din.' He holds him with his skinny hand, 'There was a ship,' quoth he. 'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Speaker: Narrator/ mariner form/theme: repetition plays into the theme of compulsion/inescapability

The naked hulk alongside came, And the twain were casting dice; 'The game is done! I've won! I've won!' Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Speaker: The lady Death/ the mariner

Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire. O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware: Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware. The self-same moment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Speaker: The mariner Form/theme: regularity gone, diff stanza length, in liminal world - liminal movements of life and death - contrasts the mariner's certainty -the glosses force you out of and into the poem

And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow! Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, The glorious Sun uprist: Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist. 'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Speaker: The mariner themes: is the albatross good or bad? quick judgement/ group think "they/them' - making the sailors a collective voice/mind

Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go send your sons to exile To serve your captives' need To wait in heavy harness On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child Take up the White Man's burden In patience to abide To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit And work another's gain

The White Man's Burden Author: Rudyard Kipling Speaker: Narrator? form/theme: -line length - 7 and 6 syllables - one group is more powerful tha nthe other -alliteration - sense of order -Belief that western civilization imposes order on a chaotic world

For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, not any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.

Tintern Abbey Author: William Wordsworth Speaker: Wordsworth themes: although he felt an intense love for nature as a child, after time away, he sees nature in a more reflective way, a more intellectual way connects to "emotion recollected in tranquility" no longer sees himself as separate from nature dated on the eve of the French Rev- shows innocence before French Rev - dont try to remake the world, let it remake you Forms: Enjambment - allows for conversational style

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.

Ulysses Author: Tennyson Speaker: Ulysses

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.

Ulysses Author: Tennyson Speaker: Ulysses themes: finding adventure abroad/ away from the home, part of himself resides abroad contradiction: switch from 3rd to 1st person in SAME SENTENCE - indicates that this is not a coherent way of speaking -says he is an "idle king," yet he oppresses his people -thus, it is revealed through Ulysses' speech that he is neither a good king nor a good husband/father