ENG 226 FINAL
William Blake (songs of innocence): The Chimney Sweeper
"...Were all of them locked up in coffins of black; And by came an Angel who had a bright key, And he opened the coffins and set them all free;" -Speaker is a small boy who was sold into the chimney sweeping business by his father when his mother died -This is a harsh criticism of a society that would perpetuate the inhuman conditions of chimney sweeping on children -There's a use of PROMISED HOPE to subdue the Oppressed (They go back to their extremely dangerous work because of their hope in a bright future) -It is a critique of the religious aspect that would offer these children palliatives rather than aid
Samuel T. Coleridge: Christobel
"And in my dream methought I went To search out what might there be found; And what the sweet bird's trouble meant, That thus lay fluttering on the ground. I went and peered, and could cry; But yet for her dear lady's sake I stooped, methought, the dove to take, When lo! I saw a bright green snake..." -Possessing originality ("therefore charitably derived every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank) -The poem works through proving you are the authentic one -Geraldine wants to possess Christabel (even says it to her mother's spirit) -Geraldine rapes Christabel and her body is associated with halfness (perhaps transsexual?) -"Lord of Utterance" = Geraldine's magic bosom (Christabel can NOT tell Geraldine's secret) (The Lord of Utterance is preventing her) (The POWER OF SPEECH is the key and Christabel can't say that she is the real one!) -Geraldine is associated with snakes (Lamia) in a phallic masculine way -The poet is trying to warn the Baron that his daughter is in danger of the snake but the Baron only half listens and thinks that Geraldine is the actually the one in danger -Christabel finally sees Geraldine for what she is BUT she is the one who hisses like a snake (She's becoming like Geraldine) ("And passively did imitate that look of dull and treacherous hate") -Language is NOT in her control and she can't disentangle the lies to prove her originality (much like Coleridge's saying he wrote the original) ("For what she knows she could not tell, O'er master'd by the mighty spell)
T.S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!") Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?" Significance: He is worrying about how other people will perceive him. Will they see his bald spot etc. He worries for the entire poem, often repeating himself, several times saying how the women will come and go talking of michel angelo. His worrying leads him to not even attend the party. -Dramatic Monologue, Conscience Stream of Thought. -The poem represents the loss of idealism (popular in Modernism) through the loss of love and self worth. -The title is stilted and hints at the theme Eliot is about to execute. (The name Alfred Prufrock is awkward and doesn't couple well with a "love song") -Tone throughout is Gloomy and Bleak.
William Blake (Songs of Experience): Holy Thursday
"And their sun does never shine. And their fields are bleak and bare And their ways are fill'd with thorns. It is eternal winter there" -In the experienced version, he critiques rather than praises the charity of the institutions for poor children. -A more DIRECT questioning of the holiness of a day that essentially celebrates the existence of poverty -England is a "rich and beautiful, fruitful land" but her children are "reduced to misery/Fed with cold and usurious hand", implies children are a civic duty that is motivated more by self-interest rather than love and pity. -Entertains the idea of children as victims of cruelty and injustice
Samuel T. Coleridge: The Eolian Harp
"And what if all of animated nature Be but organic Harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps Plastic and Vasy, one intellectual breeze, At one the Soul of each, and God of all?" -Early example of Coleridge's lyric invention, the conversation poem. -All creative 'music' or inspiration came from outside the instrument, just as all creative power came from outside the poet in some Sublime way. -Nature is a Nurturing presence. -Poem expresses Coleridge's belief of the connectedness of all things, both Inner and Outer, ("O! the one Life within us and abroad") -He is drawn to things controlled by nature, like the Harp. -Vivid imagery throughout.
Percy B. Shelley: England in 1819
"Anold, mad, blind, despised and dying King Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn,- mud from a muddy spring; Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country" -Sonnet: iambic pentameter -King is a horrible ruler -Shelley is passionately advocating for liberty -Romantic ideals of love and hope shine through in the ending of the poem ("Graves from which a glorious Phantom may Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day")
D. and C. Rossetti: Goblin Market
"Backwards up the mossy glen Turn'd and troop'd the goblin men, With their shrill repeated cry, "Come buy, come buy." When they reach'd where Laura was They stood stock still upon the moss, Leering at each other, Brother with queer brother; Signalling each other, Brother with sly brother. One set his basket down, One rear'd his plate; One began to weave a crown Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown (Men sell not such in any town); One heav'd the golden weight Of dish and fruit to offer her: "Come buy, come buy," was still their cry." **Significance: This piece of the poem Goblin Market shows how the Goblin men are not to be trusted; "brother with queer brother; signalling each other, brother with sly brother". This is important for the entire poem because the Goblin men temp the girl to eat their fruit. This is important because one sister understands this, and the other is blind to it -Narrative Poem -Major theme of renunciation and Self Denial VS. Plentitude and Desire
William Blake (songs of innocence): Holy Thursday
"Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardian of the poor, Then cherish pity lest you drive an angel from your door." -This is a recount of the annual marching of ~6000 children to St. Paul's cathedral to demonstrate their reverence for God and gratitude to their benefactors -There's a thinly veiled subtext of the Exploitation of the Innocent by those who are, ultimately, their moral spiritual inferiors -The children's' innocence (Stated Twice!) trumps the self-serving nature of the spectacle -The Reader is encouraged to "cherish pity" even in the midst of a sin-stricken, cynical system that would use a parade of poor children as a show of Public Virtue -They sit the children in "companies" (like soldiers rather than children), and the COMPULSORY note of their praise is implied in this regimented worship -Harsh critique of the parading of poor children -In contrast, he points to a land where "the sun DOES shine" because there a child "can never hunger.....nor poverty the mind appall")
Samuel T. Coleridge: Kubla Khan
"But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By a woman wailing for her demon-lover!" -Outlines a drug vision (opium) -Dramatizes poetic power -He gets awakened and can't remember his incredible, beautiful dream -the entire poem is blasphemous (The poet is a God if he could only remember that dream song) (He is recording his failure to finish the song and the poem to express the power of poetry IF he had succeeded) -LOOK FOR THE WORDS PLEASURE AND PARADISE
Elizabeth B. Browning: Aurora Leigh
"But poets should Exert a double vision; should have eyes To see near things as comprehensibly As if afar they took their point of sight, And distant things, as intimately deep, As if they touched them. Let us strive for this. I do distrust the poet who discerns No character or glory in his times, And trundles back his soul five hundred years" "Nay, if there's room for poets in the world A little overgrown, (I think there is)" -These novel critiques a number of social issues of the mid-Victorian period: the poor and privileged of England, the condition of women, the role of the artist, particularly the poet -Nationalism: England v. Italy
A. Tennyson: Charge of the Light Brigade
"Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Their but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred." -Narrative poem, (About Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War) -Direct Version of a Hero, meaning a man/man admired for courageous and noble qualities. -The Hero is represented in the army of 600 men who faced Death defending their country even though their leader made a Mistake, they Obeyed anyway because it is their Duty. ("Theirs not to make reply/ Theirs not to reason why/ Theirs but to do and die.") -Hero shown as honorable, selfless. Representing what society wants in a hero, Defend and Protect. -Balance between nobility and brutality. -"Valley of the Shadow of Death" is from Psalms 23, which is often read at funerals. -Speaker doesn't mask the death as Tranquil but rather menacing and predatory. ("Into the Jaws of Death.")
A. Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott (Part 1)
"Four gray walls, and four gray towers Overlook a space of flowers, And the silent isle imbowers The Lady of Shalott." -In Part I, readers see the isle of Shalott with its tall towers and imprisoned, fairy-like Lady. -The interior where she is embowered is "silent" and immovable, whereas the world outside hums along in a busy and cheerful way. -The fact that there exists a connection between the inhabitants of Camelot and the Lady but that it's mysterious and magical further emphasizes the distinction between the external world and the tower.
William Blake (Songs of Experience): "Introduction"
"Hear the voice of the Bard! Who Present, Past and Future sees Whose ears have heard, The Holy Word, That walk'd among the ancient trees" -Darker tone, more realistic, adult, realities visible through life experiences and aging.
William B. Yeats: Easter, 1916
"Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream. The horse that comes from the road. The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute they change; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it; The long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call; Minute by minute they live: The stone's in the midst of all. Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?" -Free Verse -Describes the poets torn emotions regarding the events of the Easter Rising (Irish uprising against the British Empire) -In the first stanza, the poem's narrator admits to having exchanged only "polite meaningless words" with the revolutionaries prior to the uprising, and had even indulged in "a mocking tale or gibe" about their political ambitions. (Ideological and Social distance between them) -Yeats moves from a feeling of separation between the narrator and the revolutionaries, to distinct unity, by including all subjects of the poem in the last line with reference to when the revolutionary leaders were executed by the British: "All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born."
Robert Browning: Pictor Ignotus
"I COULD have painted pictures like that youth's Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar Stayed me—ah, thought which saddens while it soothes! These buy and sell our pictures, take and give, Count them for garniture and household-stuff, And where they live needs must our pictures live And see their faces, listen to their prate, Partakers of their daily pettiness, Discussed of,—"This I love, or this I hate, This likes me more, and this affects me less!" Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint These endless cloisters and eternal aisles With the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint, With the same cold calm beautiful regard,— At least no merchant traffics in my heart;" -Dramatic Monologue -Religious imagery throughout the poem. -Speaker is a shy painter who has avoided fame; he has continued with an idealized style of painting rather than resort to the new and bolder style painters who were working at the same time as him. -There is a direct comparison between the older painter (the speaker) and the 'youth' who is living the life of a 'celebrity'.
William Blake (Songs of Experience): London
"I wander thro' each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe." -Blake calls for London to repent of its wickedness, its oppression of the poor, and its cultivation of vice, or be destroyed! -Expresses his disdain for post-industrial revolution London -Internalization of discipline and control ("Mind-Forged Manacles") -Critique of NOT just society and the system of the world (But only the 3rd stanzas directly addresses one group's oppression of another). INSTEAD, much of it is aimed at man's self-oppression -Portrays marriage as a limiting human institution that leads to the death of love RATHER than its fulfillment in natural impulses
William Wordsworth: Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
"In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee!" -Blank verse -Expresses intense faith in Nature -Expresses his tender feelings toward nature (especially recollects his poetic idea of Tintern Abbey where he went before with his sister and has now returned) -These 'beauteous' forms have ALWAYS been with him, deep-seated in his mind, wherever he went ("Felt in the blood, and felt alone the heart") -In times of frustration and anxiety, these things of Nature used to make him feel sweet sensations through impulse (heart) rather than his waking consciousness and reasoning -He doubts for just a moment whether his thought about the influence of nature is in vain, BUT he can't go on and exclaims "Yet, Oh! How often and amid the joyless daylight, fretful and unprofitable fever of the world have I turned to thee" (Nature for Inspiration and Peace of Mind) -River becomes a symbol for Spirituality (flowing through him) -He reflects on his early years which have all gone by now. -a sense sublime, and FAR more deeply infused -MOTION and SPIRIT impel ALL things -Nature is a Nurse, a guide and the guardian of his heart and soul -Comes to an important conclusion for all the formative influences, he is now consciously in love with the Nature (He's become a thoughtful lover of the Natural)(Nature is the actual source of these sublime thoughts
John Ruskin: Of Queen's Gardens:
"In so far as it is not this, it is not home; so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the outer world is allowed by either husband or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of that outer world which you have roofed over, and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over by Household Gods, before those faces none may come but those whom they can receive with love..." "And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round her." This, then, I believe to be, — will you not admit it to be — the woman's true place and power? But do you not see that, to fulfill this, she must — as far as one can use such terms of a human creature — be incapable of error? So far as she rules, all must be right, or nothing is." *Significance: This was written to assert the distinct differences between men and women, their respective roles in the two separate spheres of public and private life and on the special powers and duties of women.
D. Rossetti: Jenny
"Lazy laughing languid Jenny, Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea, Whose head upon my knee to-night Rests for a while, as if grown light With all our dances and the sound To which the wild tunes spun you round: Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen Of kisses which the blush between Could hardly make much daintier; Whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair Is countless gold incomparable:" "And I should be ashamed to say:— Poor beauty, so well worth a kiss! But while my thought runs on like this With wasteful whims more than enough, I wonder what you're thinking of." -Dramatic monologue -Rossetti's images create a speaker who dwells in two worlds (Victorian society and sentimental towards the prostitute). -His membership in Victorian society should make him think of Jenny as a fallen woman. -However, his emotional connection to her within her room, a place so unlike his home, allows him sympathize with the difficulty of being a socially unacceptable figure. ● He compares Jenny to flowers, lilies are a symbol for laziness and dead flowers reference corruption. ● Though he takes pity on her and has good intentions, he still generalizes her character and she doesn't even speak! (He truly knows nothing of her but ASSUMES he does) -Believes that men have ruined Jenny, No redemption. -Criticism of Victorian Society strict codes of moral conduct particularly women.
Sir Doyle: Sherlock Holmes- The Sussex Vampire
"Let me tell you, then, the train of reasoning which passed through my mind in Baker Street. The idea of a vampire was to me absurd. Such things do not happen in criminal practice in England. And yet your observation was precise. You had seen the lady rise from beside the child's cot with the blood upon her lips." "Did it not occur to you that a bleeding wound may be sucked for some other purpose than to draw the blood from it? Was there not a queen in English history who sucked such a wound to draw poison from it?" "Poison!" "A South American household. My instinct felt the presence of those weapons upon the wall before, my eyes ever saw them. It might have been other poison, but that was what occurred to me. When I saw that little empty quiver beside the small bird-bow, it was just what I expected to see. If the child were pricked with one of those arrows dipped in curare or some other devilish drug, it would mean death if the venom were not sucked out. -The husband comes to Holmes with the problem that his wife is accused of being a Vampire.(Caught supposedly drinking their infants blood) -Wife is ashamed to tell her husband the truth and locks herself away. (His other son was shooting poison darts at the baby) -Wife sacrifices her personal happiness to not cast a negative light on her husbands first son. DISINTERESTED KINDNESS -Femininity vs Masculinity -Gothic Fear of the Other.
William Blake (songs of innocence): The Lamb
"Little Lamb I'll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb" -a child asks the lamb if he knows who made him, and informs the lamb it was God (inferred as Gods son is the Lamb of God) -connection between nature and divine creation/creator
William Wordsworth: The World is Too Much with Us
"Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" -Sonnet -The speaker accuses the modern age of having lost its connection to nature, spirituality and to everything meaningful ("Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature....") -Humanity is "out of tune" -Human beings have become more occupied with the material. -Important for its rhetorical force (it shows Wordsworth's increasing confidence with language as an implement of dramatic power, "sweeping the wind and the sea up like flowers in a bouquet)
A. Tennyson: In Memoriam
"Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they. We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow." -The poem begins as a tribute to and invocation of the "Strong Son of God." Since man, never having seen God's face, has no proof of His existence, he can only reach God through faith. -The poet attributes the sun and moon ("these orbs or light and shade") to God, and acknowledges Him as the creator of life and death in both man and animals. -Man cannot understand why he was created, but he must believe that he was not made simply to die. -The Son of God seems both human and divine. -Man has control of his own will, but this is only so that he might exert himself to do God's will. -All of man's constructed systems of religion and philosophy seem solid but are merely temporal, in comparison to the eternal God; and yet while man can have knowledge of these systems, he cannot have knowledge of God.
William Blake (Songs of Innocence) "Introduction":
"Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee" -happy, hopeful, innocent -very chipper and sing-song
Robert Browning: Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
"Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores Squats outside the Convent bank With Sanchicha, telling stories, Steeping tresses in the tank, Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, — Can't I see his dead eye glow, Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's? (That is, if he'd let it show!)" -Explores moral hypocrisy. -A monk is criticizing another monk Brother Lawrence, but what the narrator is criticizing turns out to be his own faults as well. -Criticizes Victorian culture of being judgmental.
Wilfred Owen: Parable of the Old Man and the Young
"So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned both of them together, isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?" -In large part this story recounts Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, as Abraham prepares to sacrifice Isaac. -In the Biblical version, Abraham listens to the angel and does NOT sacrifice Isaac. ("But the old man would not so, but slew his son, And half the seed of Europe , one by one. -Using this story as a metaphor for the way the leaders of Europe/governments, for "pride's sake" go to war.
Sarah S. Ellis: The Women of England
"Still I do believe that the women of England are not surpassed by those of any other country for their clear perception of the right and the wrong of common and familiar things, for their reference to principle in the ordinary affairs of life, and for their united maintenance of that social order, sound integrity, and domestic peace, which constitute the foundation of all that is most valuable in the society of our native land. It is a widely mistaken notion to suppose that the sphere of usefulness recommended here, is a humiliating and degraded one.... Yet amongst this unpretending class are found striking and noble instances of women, who, apparently feeble and insignificant, when called into action by pressing and peculiar circumstances, can accomplish great and glorious purposes, supported and carried forward by that most valuable of all faculties—moral power -It is not to be presumed that women possess more moral power than men; but happily for them, such are their early impressions, associations, and general position in the world, that their moral feelings are less liable to be impaired by the pecuniary objects which too often constitute the chief end of man, and which, even under the limitations of better principle, necessarily engage a large portion of his thoughts...." It is a Self-Help book for women -Female power is MORAL POWER (Moral Purity) -Their moral power is used for their men (Moral Authority to aid men) -The woman saves the man from doing bad deeds ("Angel in the House" is in his head/conscience) -Man is influenced by the dangerous PUBLIC SPHERE, and he is weak to it (he listens to the devil and the woman saves him) -Women are important, but their power comes from their life in the DOMESTIC REALM/SPHERE (They are NOT corrupted by the Public Sphere)(If they leave the DOMESTIC REALM, they lose this power)
R. Browning: Porphyria's Lover
"That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good: I found A thing to do, and all her hair In one long yellow string I wound Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain. As a shut bud that holds a bee, I warily oped her lids: again Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. And I untightened next the tress About her neck; her cheek once more Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss: I propped her head up as before Only, this time my shoulder bore" -*ANALYSIS: -First person narrator who presents a highly subjective perspective on a story, with Browning's message coming out not through the text but through the ironic disconnect of what the speaker justifies and what is obvious to the audience -The irony is abundantly clear: the speaker has committed an atrocious act and yet justifies it as not only acceptable, but as noble. -The imagery and ideas suggest an overarching conflict of order vs. chaos, with the most obvious manifestation being the way the speaker presents his beastly murder as an act of rationality and love -The speaker explains such a chaotic act with romantic rationale. -Porphyria, it is implied, is a rich lady of high social standing, while the speaker, out in his remote cabin, is not. She has chosen on this night to leave the social order of the world and retreat into the chaos of the storm to quell her tumultuous feelings for this narrator. -When the speaker realizes that Porphyria ultimately will choose to return to the order of society, while simultaneously believing that she wishes to be with him - she "worshipped" him, after all - he chooses to immortalize this moment by removing her ability to leave. -What the speaker undertakes is a fallacious yet heroic goal: to save Porphyria from the tumultuous contradictions of human nature, to preserve her in a moment of pure happiness and contentment with existing in chaos -Message of the poem is that humans are full of contradictions. We are drawn to both the things we love and the things we hate, and we are eminently capable of rationalizing either choice
Percy B. Shelley: Mont Blanc
"The everlasting universe of things, Flow through the mind..." "Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal Large code of fraud and woe- not understood By all, but which the wise, and great, and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel." -Question the significance of the interchange between nature and the human mind -The speaker is caught up in staring at this giant wonder of nature, and immediately he begins to personify the mountain because otherwise it is too big to understand. -He thus draws parallels between its awesome creation and that of his own mind. -Shelley brings forth the central problem about comprehending the nature of the "power" of the "everlasting universe of things" by employing the river as a metaphor. -Like human understanding, the river, over time, has had the ability to cut through the mountain, though it begins as a "feeble brook."
Percy B. Shelley: Ozymandias
"The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" -Sonnet -Talking about the role of an artist -Insignificance of the human in the passage of time. -Irony is that the king claims to be mighty but he's bound by time (eternal is NOT with the political) -The tyranny does NOT last. Political art DOES LAST
John Stuart Mill: The Subjection of Women
"The object of this essay is to explain as clearly as I am able, the grounds of an opinion that I have held from the very earliest period. That principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes the legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement." "On the other point which is involved in the just equality of women, their admissibility to all the functions and occupations hitherto retained as the monopoly of the stronger sex, I should anticipate no difficulty in convincing anyone who has gone with me on the subject of the equality of women in the family." -Cultural training makes meekness and submission an essential part of sexual attractiveness -Women aren't actively being oppressed but rather the entire culture/society is formed around these ideas -We CANNOT know the true nature of women (It doesn't matter what they say about their own nature because of the ideals within the system of gender hierarchy) -Laws and prohibitions undermine the case that certain professions and roles are natural for women -Mill argues for a Free Market Approach -Laws confining women to marriage and children suggest that women need to be forced to do what these laws claim are natural
William Wordsworth: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
"The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed-and gazed but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought" -Subjects of Nature and Memory, this time with a particularly simple spare, musical eloquence. -Speaker discovers some daffodils by a lake, the memory of which pleases him and comforts him when lonely, bored or restless. -Personifies the "clouds" and the daffodils -Unity between man and nature
Alfred Tennyson: The Epic
"Then half-way ebb'd; and there we held a talk, How all the old honor had from Christmas gone, Or gone or dwindled down to some odd games In some odd nooks like this; till I tired out With cutting eights that day upon the pond, Where, three times slipping from the outer edge, I bump'd the ice into three several stars, Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, Now harping on the church-commissioners, Now hawking at geology and schism; Until I woke, and found him settled down Upon the general decay of faith" -Blank Verse -Describes a gathering of 4 friends on Christmas Eve (clergy member, a poet, the host and the narrator.) -They discuss how Christmas is no longer taken seriously as a religious holiday ("All the old honor had from Christmas gone") The host suggests that Poetry might replace Religion as the new source of faith and inspiration. -The poet agrees to read from the salvaged 11th book he wrote about King Arthur. -The host and the Narrator are encaptured by either "the tone in which he read" or the "modern touches here and there," throughout his take on a classical story. -Narrator dreams of King Arthur that night and is awoken to church bells. -Poem is the frame for Tennyson's 12th and final book in Idylls of the King.
Angela Carter: Company of Wolves
"There is always something to look at in the forest, even in the middle of winter - the huddled mounds of birds, succumbed to the lethargy o f the season, heaped on the creaking boughs and too forlorn to sing; the bright frills of the winter fungi on the blotched trunks of trees; the cuneiform slots of rabbits and deer, the herringbone tracks of the birds, a hare as lean as a rasher of bacon streaking across the path where the thin sunlight dapples the russet brakes of last year's bracken. When she heard the freezing howl of a distant wolf, her practiced hand sprang to the handle of the knife, but she saw no sign of a wolf at all, nor of a naked man, neither, but then she heard a clattering among the brushwood and there sprang onto the path a fully clothed one, a very handsome one.... Soon they were laughing and joking like old friends. When he offered to carry her basket, she gave it to him although her knife was in it because he told her his rifle would protect them. As the day darkened, it began to snow again; she felt the first flakes settle on her dark eyelashes, but now there was only half a mile to go and there would be fire, and hot tea, and a welcome, a warm one, surely, for this dashing huntsman as well as herself."
William Blake (Songs of Experience): The Chimney Sweeper
"They clothed me in the clothes of death, and taught me to sing the notes of woe" -As opposed to the subtle one from Innocence, he directly strikes against the type of religion that brings false comfort to abused children -His HAPPINESS (an affront to his parents) that helps him enjoy life despite the deathly cold and deprivation of winter (perhaps representing poverty) is the very quality that condemns him to a life of further labor and danger -"Are gone up to praise God and his priest and king/Who make up a heaven of our misery" (The entire system, including God, eludes to build up its own vision of paradise upon the labors of children who probably won't even make it to adulthood) -Blake castigates the government ("the King") and religious leaders ("Priests"), decrying the use of otherwise innocent children to prop up the moral consciences of adults both rich and poor)
A. Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott (Part 4)
"Turn'd to tower'd Camelot: For ere she reach'd upon the tide The first house by the water-side, Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shalott." -In Part IV, when she lets the river carry her, Tennyson emphasizes the disruption of the Lady's being through scenes of chaotic and mournful Nature: the wind is "stormy," the "pale yellow woods were waning," and the "low sky" was raining heavily, the banks of the river straining. -The inhabitants of Camelot are frightened and curious as they hear her last song and see her pale shape. -The poem ends with Lancelot looking down at her and commenting that she "has a lovely face" and that he hopes God will lend her grace -It raises the question of whether or not artistic seclusion is necessary for achievement. In the beginning of the poem, despite her isolation, the Lady of Shalott experiences artistic fulfillment in her safe haven of Shalott. She works on her web and sings her song, blissful and happy. -However, her art is doubly removed; it mimics the shadows glimpsed through a mirror and is far from direct observation of real life. This isolation finally prompts her to a gesture of passion and thus an embrace of her own death. The mirror cracks, symbolizing the end of her artistic abilities.
William B. Yeats: The Second Coming
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; A shape with lion body and the head of a man" -Blank Verse -Post War disillusionment -Follows the theme of modernist authors by being very hopeless and lacks faith in humanity. -Written following WWI. Yeats believes the war had brought about the end of society and humanity (more specifically totalitarianism and fascism.) -The poem, and it's title are in direct reference to the Second Coming of Christ. -Yeats compares the desolation after the war to the magnitude of Armageddon.
William Blake (Songs of Experience): The Tyger
"When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? -The Tyger suggests God's ferocity and power -"What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry" -"Did he who made the lamb make thee?" (The same God who made the gentle, obedient lamb also made the frightening, powerful, and bloody-minded tiger -Whereas the lamb was "made," the tiger is FORGED ("What the hammer/What the chain? /In what furnace was thy brain"). God forges the tiger mechanically rather than naturally (Critique Technological Industrialization) -Sort of asks--- Could the God of Innocence really also be the God of Experience??? -How could we mere mortals ever hope to understand such a God?
The Great Social Evil (Anon.)
"Why stand on your eminence shouting that we should be ashamed of ourselves? What have we to be ashamed of, we who do not know what shame is—the shame you mean? Will you make us responsible for what we never knew? Teach us what is right and tutor us in good before you punish us for doing wrong." -Anonymous letter published in the London times in 1853 -Presumably by a prostitute who defends her "immoral" career to society. -Argues against society for condemning her "lack of virtue" by claiming she never had an Virtue to being with. -She states it is wrong of society to hold her to their moral standard when society has taught her nothing about these morals she is expected to uphold: she was denied the opportunities those who criticize her were given (education) -From her standpoint, she's earned her way in society and never broken a law or behaved in a way to offend the public. -Her Profession should not be her Identifier. -Asks society if she (and other prostitutes) should starve under the harshness of the situation they were born into or sell their bodies to survive.
William Wordsworth: Preface to Lyrical Ballads
"it was published..... real language of men...endeavor to impart" "The language too of these men is adopted... best part of language..." (By digging into the earth itself you're digging into the origins of language) "For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings" -Argues that poetic language should not be different from prose at all -"REAL" LANGUAGE: (a) Common, Authentic, and Ordinary (b) A SIMPLE language that directly expresses deep feelings -Says Poetry comes from a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" BUT it is disciplined by remembering those feelings/emotions in moods of peaceful meditation/tranquility -The emotions overwhelm the senses initially but it is only when this emotion is recollected in tranquility that the poet can assemble words to do the sublime instance justice -The combination of feeling and meditation produces artful poetry with PURPOSE -Get Beauty and Nature in the SIMPLE things and don't get "over-stimulated by rapid communications of intelligence
Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest (Act 3)
"marriages. When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind. But I never dreamed for a moment of allowing that to stand in my way. Well, I suppose I must give my consent." LADY BRACKNELL: There are distinct social possibilities in Miss Cardew's profile. ALGERNON: Cecily is the sweetest, dearest, prettiest girl in the whole world. And I don't care twopence about social possibilities. LADY BRACKNELL: Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that. [To CECILY.] Dear child, of course you know that Algernon has nothing but his debts to depend upon. But I do not approve of mercenary -Play is a mock of Victorian values, satirizing the idea of "Earnest" virtue that's prized by Victorians, when really, the dialogue reveals that these characters care about surfaces/appearances. Humor depends on the dialogue throughout the play.
Gothic
-Atmosphere of mystery and suspense -Curiosity of the main character. -An ancient prophecy, legend, or fable -Terror-pleasurable fright, Horror-grotesque. -Supernatural, the sublime or otherwise inexplicable events. -High, often times, overwrought emotion. -Women in distress -Femme Fatale
Postmodern Feminism
-Classical feminism is the promotion of equal rights for BOTH women and men. -Goal to move past the modernist polarities of liberal feminism and radical feminism.
John Ruskin's views
-Gender Differences: (a) Men and Women have complementary roles (they complete each other) (b) They each give what the other lacks -Women's role in the public sphere is a version of the private (a) BUT it does disrupt the absolute distinction -Ruskin is an Advocate for the Education of Women: (a) Both Physical and Intellectual Education (b) Girl's education should be MORE SERIOUS (She should start earlier and be less frivolous) (c) Education for women (BUT directed differently)
Romanticism
-Imagination and emotion are more important than reason and formal rules; imagination is a gateway to transcendent experience and truth. -Along the same lines, intuition and a reliance on "natural" feelings as a guide to conduct are valued over controlled, rationality.
A. Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott (Part 2)
-In Part II, readers are introduced to the Lady herself, who is under the spell of a mysterious curse that does not allow her to look out her window. She seems happy regardless, and she spends her days weaving her "magic web" and singing. Her web, a symbol of artistic fecundity but also of her enslavement, depicts the world outside, but only as reflected in her mirror -She sees funerals and weddings. This state of affairs is what causes her to assert her identity by claiming that she is sick of shadows, for her life is paralyzed and stagnant. She feels a sense of loss and exclusion. "But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror's magic sights, For often thro' the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights And music, came from Camelot: Or when the moon was overhead Came two young lovers lately wed; 'I am half sick of shadows,' said The Lady of Shalott."
A. Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott (Part 3)
-In Part III, the handsome and courageous Sir Lancelot is introduced. The language is sensual and heroic, and the Lady of Shalott is as entranced as the reader. She breaks the curse and strides to her window to look down on the great knight. The song Lancelot sings "Tirra, lirra", breaks down the Lady's resistance, for song is one of her means of expression. -Thus, she feels an intense connection with Sir Lancelot -Once the mirror cracks and the web flutters out the window, she and the reader know she is doomed. "She left the web, she left the loom She made three paces thro' the room She saw the water-flower bloom She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side; 'The curse is come upon me,' cried The Lady of Shalott."
John Stuart Mill's opinion on women and marriage
-In Victorian society, women had to rely on their husbands for everything -Mill argued that this reliance of a wife on a husband created a type of slavery -Just as a slave is fearful of displeasing his master who provides food and clothes, a wife is also fearful of displeasing her husband because her he is her only means of food, shelter, and social status -This unequal relationship between husband and wife cannot possibly make for a truly open, supportive, and affectionate marriage and home life -Therefore, Mill argued that marriages and families would actually be healthier if women were better educated and socially empowered
John Stuart Mill's opinion on women and work
-In Victorian society, women were gradually entering the workforce, though they were still excluded from many fields and were not paid the same as men because Victorian society did not think working women could contribute to the good of the whole society -Thus, Mill showed that granting women individual rights did in fact serve the good of society -For example, in a town needs a doctor, wouldn't it be best to have the best doctor, regardless of gender? Wouldn't the knowledge and skill of the doctor be more important than the doctor's gender? -Besides, Mill said that competition would weed out those doctors (whether male or female) who could not work efficiently. -Again, Mill argued that allowing women into fields like medicine would not only improve the status of women but would improve society as a whole because there will be more capable workers available.
Post-modernism
-Literary Movement of post-1950s, a time marked by the Cold War and the excesses of consumption -Topics dealing with the complex absurdity of contemporary life- moral and philosophical relativism, loss of faith in political and moral authority, Alienation -Uses Black Humor, parody, grotesque, absurdity and travesty -Erasing boundaries between "low" and "high" culture. -Often lacks a grand narrative, no absolute Truth. -Truth is thus plural and relative -Avoids traditional closure of theme or situations -Condemns commercialism, hedonism, globalism
Victorian Era
-Literature of this age tends to come closer to daily life which reflects its practical problems and interests. It becomes a powerful instrument for human progress. Socially & economically, Industrialism was on the rise and various reform movements like emancipation, child labor, women's rights, and evolution.
John Stuart Mill on gender roles
-Mill REJECTED all of the customary Gender Roles of Victorian Culture/Society and instead argued that such custom kept women from reaching their full potential -Instead, Mill argued women should be granted more political and legal rights as well as given more social and economic opportunities.
Modernism
-WWI is often seen as the Start of this period -It rejects all literary conventions of the nineteenth century, its conventional morality, taste, traditions, and economic values. -Post war Disillusionment -Often questions humanity and what will come of the world (result of both world wars and the development of new technology/industrialization/globalization)
A. Tennyson: Passing of Arthur
And I am blown along a wandering wind, And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight." And fainter onward, like wild birds that change Their season in the night and wail their way From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream Shrilled; but in going mingled with dim cries Far in the moonlit haze among the hills, As of some lonely city sacked by night, When all is lost, and wife and child with wail Pass to new lords; and Arthur woke and called, "Who spake? A dream. O light upon the wind, Thine, Gawain, was the voice--are these dim cries Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild Mourn, knowing it will go along with me?" This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake: "O me, my King, let pass whatever will, Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field; But in their stead thy name and glory cling To all high places like a golden cloud For ever: but as yet thou shalt not pass.
Robert Browning: Fra Lippo Lippi
And stopped all that in no time. "How? what's here? Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all! Faces, arms, legs and bodies like the true As much as pea and pea! it's devil's-game! Your business is not to catch men with show, With homage to the perishable clay, But lift them over it, ignore it all, Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh. Your business is to paint the souls of men — Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke ... no, it's not ... It's vapour done up like a new-born babe — -Blank Verse -Poem attempts to capture the rhythms of human speech rather than conforming to a strict meter. -Based on an actual Monk Painter who lived in Florence who is considered the first Realist painter. (Art at the time was meant to conform to Religious Principles & pursue Moral forms rather than the Intricacies of life) -This poem is a discourse on the purpose of art, the responsibility of the artist, limits of subjectivity, inadequacy of moral shapes and strictures, and triumph of dramatic voice. -Lippo believes art should aspire to capture the Beauty God has made to evoke a response from its audience. (Appreciate things in a new light) -In contrast, his superiors believe art should "instigate to prayer." -The poem ultimately suggests that an artist must be responsible to only one thing: Himself.
A. Tennyson: Ulysses
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. -Dramatic monologue -Egotistical Hero who disregards personal responsibilities for "heroic" quests. -Ulysses considers it boring and a waste to stay in one place because the world was meant to be traveled. -He like "the hero of his own life" -Story about an old man who can only find peace of mind through war. -Finds society and ruling boring. Determination is key to a Hero.
W. Owen: Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. **Significance: Only poem we've read that features soldiers at war, and it is necessarily graphic. Highlight: "Ecstasy" -Title is from a latin saying meaning "It is sweet and right", full saying at the end of the poem translated, "It is sweet and right to die for your country." -Honorable to fight for your country. -Formally it combines 2 sonnets with irregular line spacing. -Describes the horrors of war in gruesome detail concluding that in reality, one might not repeat the Latin saying. -Represents violence in nature in the landscape of war (Very different than Romantic Wordsworth's focus on the peace and divinity of Nature)
A. Carter: The Tiger's Bride
Gambling is a sickness. My father said he loved me yet he staked his daughter on a hand of cards. He fanned them out; in the mirror, I saw wild hope light up his eyes. His collar was unfastened, his rumpled hair stood up on end, he had the anguish of a man in the last stages of debauchery. The draughts came out of the old walls and bit me, I was colder than I'd ever been in Russia, when nights are coldest there. A queen, a king, an ace. I saw them in the mirror. Oh, I know he thought he could not lose me; besides, back with me would come all he had lost, the unravelled fortunes of our family at one blow restored. You must not think my father valued me at less than a king's ransom; but, at no more than a king's ransom. In his rarely disturbed privacy, The Beast wears a garment of Ottoman design, a loose, dull purple gown with gold embroidery round the neck that falls from his shoulders to conceal his feet. The feet of the chair he sits in are handsomely clawed. He hides his hands in his ample sleeves. The artificial masterpiece of his face appalls me. A small fire in a small grate. A rushing wind rattles the shutters. -Based on the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast -In this story, Carter produces a very feminist view of men's apparent role in human relationships. -She suggests to us that men live Materialistic lives, and care more about possessions and social status than their partners. -Thus, the father in the story sees her daughter as an Object of Value in gambling. -The daughter takes advantage of protecting herself by marketing her skin as that of a prostitute to make the Beast feel guilty bargaining over her in a game.
W. H. Auden: The Unknown Citizen
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink. The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way. Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured, And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured. Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan And had everything necessary to the Modern Man, A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire. Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation. And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
Ivor Gurney: To His Love
He's gone, and all our plans Are useless indeed. We'll walk no more on Cotswolds Where the sheep feed Quietly and take no heed. His body that was so quick Is not as you Knew it, on Severn River Under the blue Driving our small boat through. You would not know him now... But still he died Nobly, so cover him over With violets of pride Purple from Severn side. Cover him, cover him soon! And with thick-set Masses of memoried flowers- Hide that red wet Thing I must somehow forget. **Significance: How people at home want to laud dead as soldier, romanticize his death, be proud that he fought and died. Glorification of war? Desire to honor and commemorate war debt...how man must be covered so those from home don't see reality of horrors of war..."clean and sanitized" -This poem is a monologue, in which one soldier speaks to the fiancé or girlfriend of a dead soldier of his death -Throughout the poem memories of nature, the English countryside, flowers and rivers provide consoling images that contrast with the realities of war.
R. Browning: My Last Duchess
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, —E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet **Significance: "but who passed without" represents how the narrator thought his "duchess" was too friendly with other men. This is significant for the whole piece because it is implied that he killed her because of this. He is telling the man about this because he wants his new wife to be aware of what happened to "My Last Duchess"
Sir Doyle: Sherlock Holmes- Charles Augustus Milverton
Holmes had not said one word to me about the tragedy which we had witnessed, but I observed all the morning that he was in his most thoughtful mood, and he gave me the impression, from his vacant eyes and his abstracted manner, of a man who is striving to recall something to his memory. We were in the middle of our lunch when he suddenly sprang to his feet. "By Jove, Watson; I've got it!" he cried. "Take your hat! Come with me!" He hurried at his top speed down Baker Street and along Oxford Street, until we had almost reached Regent Circus. Here on the left hand there stands a shop window filled with photographs of the celebrities and beauties of the day. Holmes's eyes fixed themselves upon one of them, and following his gaze I saw the picture of a regal and stately lady in Court dress, with a high diamond tiara upon her noble head. I looked at that delicately-curved nose, at the marked eyebrows, at the straight mouth, and the strong little chin beneath it. Then I caught my breath as I read the time-honoured title of the great nobleman and statesman whose wife she had been. My eyes met those of Holmes, and he put his finger to his lips as we turned away from the window.
Sir Doyle: Sherlock Holmes- Engineer's Thumb
How our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to the spot where he recovered his senses might have remained forever a mystery were it not for the soft mould, which told us a very plain tale. He had evidently been carried down by two persons, one of whom had remarkably small feet and the other unusually large ones. On the whole, it was most probable that the silent Englishman, being less bold or less murderous than his companion, had assisted the woman to bear the unconscious man out of the way of danger. "Well," said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return once more to London, "it has been a pretty business for me! I have lost my thumb and I have lost a fifty-guinea fee, and what have I gained?" "Experience," said Holmes, laughing. "Indirectly it may be of value, you know; you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation of being excellent company for the remainder of your existence."
Ted Hughes: Relic
I found this jawbone at the sea's edge: There, crabs, dogfish, broken by the breakers or tossed To flap for half an hour and turn to a crust Continue the beginning. The deeps are cold: In that darkness camaraderie does not hold. Nothing touches but, clutching, devours. And the jaws, Before they are satisfied or their stretched purpose Slacken, go down jaws; go gnawn bare. Jaws Eat and are finished and the jawbone comes to the beach: This is the sea's achievement; with shells, Verterbrae, claws, carapaces, skulls. Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts these Indigestibles, the spars of purposes That failed far from the surface. None grow rich In the sea. This curved jawbone did not laugh But gripped, gripped and is now a cenotaph.
Rupert Brooke: The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. **Significance: Poem about nations losing their young sons in the war. England as an empire "in hearts at peace, under an English heaven." -This sonnet encompasses the memoirs of a deceased soldier who declares his patriotism. -Romanticizes War. -Personifies England as a Mother or a God.
Sir Doyle: Sherlock Holmes- The Speckled Band
It was a singular sight which met our eyes. On the table stood a dark-lantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant beam of light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar. Beside this table, on the wooden chair, sat Dr. Grimesby Roylott clad in a long gray dressing-gown, his bare ankles protruding beneath, and his feet thrust into red heelless Turkish slippers. Across his lap lay the short stock with the long lash which we had noticed during the day. His chin was cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful, rigid stare at the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head. As we entered he made neither sound nor motion. -The Speckled Band is a great example of how society was transitioning into accepting logic. -Holmes in this story uses logic to deduce that the speckled band is a poisonous snake. -Mean step father ends up getting bitten by the snake and dies. -Is Justice served?...Is it right for Holmes to decide a fitting form or Justice? ("I am in no doubt indirectly responsible for the Dr. Grimesby Roylott's death") -Mainly written for entertainment value. -Allegory for Fear of the Empire and Fear of the Other.
Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest (Act 1)
Lady Bracknell: I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square. -Play is a mock of Victorian values, satirizing the idea of "Earnest" virtue that's prized by Victorians, when really, the dialogue reveals that these characters care about surfaces/appearances. Humor depends on the dialogue throughout the play.
Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest (Act 2)
On the 14th of February, last. Worn out by your entire ignorance of my existence, I determined to end the matter one way or the other, and after a long struggle with myself I accepted you under this dear old tree here. The next day I bought this little ring in your name, and this is the little bangle with the true lover's knot I promised you always to wear. ALGERNON: Did I give you this? It's very pretty, isn't it? CECILY: Yes, you've wonderfully good taste, Ernest. It's the excuse I've always given for your leading such a bad life. And this is the box in which I keep all your dear letters. [Kneels at table, opens box, and produces letters tied up with blue ribbon.] -Play is a mock of Victorian values, satirizing the idea of "Earnest" virtue that's prized by Victorians, when really, the dialogue reveals that these characters care about surfaces/appearances. -Humor depends on the dialogue throughout the play. -Act 2 mocks Victorian culture by interchanging the serious and trivial. -Morality and wickedness are discussed, along with presenting the idea of the importance of truth, since a majority of the characters lies (Jack, Alg, Cecily)
A. Carter: Werewolf
She found her grandmother was so sick she had taken to her bed and fallen into a fretful sleep, moaning and shaking so that the child guessed she had a fever. She felt the forehead, it burned. She shook out the cloth from her basket, to use it to make the old woman a cold compress, and the wolf's paw fell to the floor. But it was no longer a wolf's paw. It was a hand, chopped off at the wrist, a hand toughened with work and freckled with old age. There was a wedding ring on the third finger and a wart in the index finger. By the wart, she knew it for her grandmother's hand. She pulled back the sheet but the old woman woke up, at that, and began to struggle, squawking and shrieking like a thing possessed. But the child was strong, and armed with her father's hunting knife; she managed to hold her grandmother down long enough to see the cause of her fever. There was a bloody stump where her right hand should have been, festering already. -As Carter revisits the story of Little Red Riding Hood and provides the reader with a new interpretation of the tale, she shades the story with layers of ambiguity. -At a broad allegorical level, this ambiguity serves to make a statement on the condition of the modern woman, and how she (as represented by the heroine) should embrace her own independence and self-agency. -At the same time, it allows for an exploration of the darker, more sinister implications that such a perspective might engender.
Sir Doyle: Sherlock Holmes- Adventure of the Copper Beeches
She was never happy at home, Miss Alice wasn't, from the time that her father married again. She was slighted like and had no say in anything, but it never really became bad for her until after she met Mr. Fowler at a friend's house. As well as I could learn, Miss Alice had rights of her own by will, but she was so quiet and patient, she was, that she never said a word about them but just left everything in Mr. Rucastle's hands. He knew he was safe with her; but when there was a chance of a husband coming forward, who would ask for all that the law would give him, then her father thought it time to put a stop on it. He wanted her to sign a paper, so that whether she married or not, he could use her money. When she wouldn't do it, he kept on worrying her until she got brain-fever, and for six weeks was at death's door. Then she got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and with her beautiful hair cut off; but that didn't make no change in her young man, and he stuck to her as true as man could be." -A woman is wary to accept a job requiring strange thing but a great salary (hired for her looks, made to sit in a chair and act as someone else (Unknown to her at the start) -Made to cut her hair and wear an "electric blue dress." -The purpose of hiring Miss Hunter becomes clear: her presence is to convince the man watching from the road that Rucastle's daughter Alice, previously unknown to Miss Hunter, and whom she resembles, is no longer interested in seeing him. -Combination suspense -Watson notes, at the end of the story, that Holmes appears to have been drawn to Miss Hunter. -However, Holmes does not show any interest in Miss Hunter after the mystery has been solved, which was the real force behind his feelings. -Holmes concludes that in fact MORE crime happens in the rural areas because visitors/neighbors are infrequent, more space and privacy -As opposed to urban life where there can always be someone watching/listening/checking in.
A. Carter: Snow Child
So the girl picks a rose; pricks her finger on the thorn; bleeds; screams; falls. Weeping, the Count got off his horse, unfastened his breeches and thrust his virile member into the dead girl. The Countess reined in her stamping mare and watched him narrowly; he was soon finished. Then the girl began to melt. Soon there was nothing left of her but a feather a bird might have dropped; a blood stain, like the trace of a fox's kill on the snow; and the rose she had pulled off the bush. Now the Countess had all her clothes on again. With her long hand, she stroked her furs. The Count picked up the rose, bowed and handed it to his wife; when she touched it, she dropped it. "It bites!" she said. -A story built on the 'Snow White. Starts of with a great sense of danger, the first three words "MIDWINTER - INVINCIBLE, IMMACULATE." Create the picture of a cold, powerful and barren land. -The use of capitals further enforces the image of the power of the nature surrounding the characters. -Carter uses this dangerous atmosphere to aid the creation of the character of the dominatrix-esque Countess, who wore "high, black shining boots with scarlet heels" -"Then the girl began to melt", once the Count has used the girl for her intended purpose, she has lost the attraction to him, her Purity was destroyed along with her Virginity, and therefore the count has caused the loss of 'The Child of his Desire'. -The audience is told by Carter that men only want women for sexual pleasure.
Sir Doyle: Sherlock Holmes- Abbey Grange
That's what I think," said he. "I know that every word is true, for you have hardly said a word which I did not know. No one but an acrobat or a sailor could have got up to that bell-rope from the bracket, and no one but a sailor could have made the knots with which the cord was fastened to the chair. Only once had this lady been brought into contact with sailors, and that was on her voyage, and it was someone of her own class of life, since she was trying hard to shield him, and so showing that she loved him. You see how easy it was for me to lay my hands upon you when once I had started upon the right trail." "I thought the police never could have seen through our dodge." "And the police haven't, nor will they, to the best of my belief. Now, look here, Captain Crocker, this is a very serious matter, though I am willing to admit that you acted under the most extreme provocation to which any man could be subjected. I am not sure that in defence of your own life your action will not be pronounced legitimate. However, that is for a British jury to decide. Meanwhile I have so much sympathy for you that, if you choose to disappear in the next twenty-four hours, I will promise you that no one will hinder you."
Seamus Haney: Digging
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked Loving their cool hardness in our hands. By God, the old man could handle a spade, Just like his old man. My grandfather could cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner's bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, digging down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I've no spade to follow men like them. -Written in free-verse: no set meter
W. H. Auden: Shield of Achilles
The mass and majesty of this world, all That carries weight and always weighs the same Lay in the hands of others; they were small And could not hope for help and no help came: What their foes like to do was done, their shame Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride And died as men before their bodies died. She looked over his shoulder For athletes at their games, Men and women in a dance Moving their sweet limbs Quick, quick, to music, But there on the shining shield His hands had set no dancing-floor But a weed-choked field. **Significance: Using this poem to talk about society; is it hopeless, can the poet teach people to pray for others? Is Christianity hopeless?
A. Tennyson: Morte d'Arthur
There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, In act to throw: but at the last it seemed Better to leave Excalibur concealed There in the many-knotted waterflags, That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. So strode he back slow to the wounded King.
W. Owen: Disabled
There was an artist silly for his face, For it was younger than his youth, last year. Now, he is old; his back will never brace; He's lost his colour very far from here, Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry, And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race And leap of purple spurted from his thigh. One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg, After the matches, carried shoulder-high. It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg, He thought he'd better join. - He wonders why. Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts, That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg, Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts He asked to join. He didn't have to beg; Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years. -Soldier returns home from war with no arms or legs only to not be celebrated but cast off. -People cheered him going off to war but not returning. -Shows the ignorance many people had about war. -In this piece he compares war to a soccer match "one time he like a blood-smear down his leg, after the matches, carried shoulder-high" - English people cared more about good soccer players than Soldiers coming home from war.
Ted Hughes: Daffodils
We thought they were a windfall. Never guessed they were a last blessing. So we sold them. We worked at selling them As if employed on somebody else's Flower-farm. You bent at it In the rain of that April - your last April, We bent there together, among the soft shrieks Of their jostled stems, the wet shocks shaken Of their girlish dance-frocks - Fresh-opened dragonflies, wet and flimsy, Opened too early. We piled their frailty lights on a carpenter's bench, Distributed leaves among the dozens - Buckling blade-leaves, limber, groping for air, zinc-silvered - Propped their raw butts in bucket water, Their oval, meaty butts, And sold them, sevenpence a bunch - Wind-wounds, spasms from the dark earth, With their odourless metals, A flamy purification of the deep grave's stony cold As if ice had a breath - -This contrasts the Romantic period view of nature in the sense that here we see nature having a monetary value, whereas Wordsworth only sees it as having a value to better you as a person and to appreciate.
Siegfried Sassoon: On Passing the New Menin Gate
Who will remember, passing through this Gate, the unheroic dead who fed the guns? Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,- Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones? Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own. Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp; Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone, The armies who endured that sullen swamp. Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride 'Their name liveth for ever', the Gateway claims. Was ever an immolation so belied as these intolerably nameless names? Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime Rise and deride this sepulcher of crime. **Significance: Unheroic dead who mounted the guns...who "fed" the guns. Dead soldier's aren't heroic because they've been fed to the machine...deaths are brutal and pointless. Who shall absolve foulness of their gate? Doom, conscripted. Men are called off to war and die. The memorial is not great for them in the end. -Glory v. Reality -"Nameless Names" is in reference to the soldiers who died for their country but are recorded more as a Statistic rather than People. -The term "paid" is used with heavy Irony because their is in fact NO WAY to repay non-accidental deaths.
