Lit Final

Dryden's Essay on Poesy

-mid 1600's, mainly on plays -Cromwell closes the theatres and monarchy reopened them -new demand for modern plays, so Behn and Dryden can make a living -but in what direction should English playwrights go? -Dryden writes his opinion as dialogue of 4 points of view, one ancient, one modern, one French modern, and one English modern (that's Dryden) -never resolved, but in new age, aesthetic differences not leading to bloodshed -4 men on a boat in the Thames, can hear naval battle with Dutch in the background: contrast -English victory means many bad poems to come, they imagine it -Clevelandism, torturing a word into another meaning -poetry that flaunts itself, anti-Castiglione, seems too artificial -the other extreme is dull, not artistic at all

early restoration

-much unrest, mixed feelings -some have not given up on revolution -dislike for Charles II's loose French morals, too French and has Catholic leanings -disasters: 1665 plague outbreak, 1666 London burned to the ground -clearly God is upset and is punishing England for abandoning Puritanism -Dryden calls it Anis Mirabilis, optimistic view -fire is a wonder, London as phoenix (shut up Warsaw is the phoenix city! Everyone knows that! They've had to rebuild it like 9 times) -line 1169, I see a city of more precious mold -fire reimagined as a figure for purgation, Apocalypse, rebirth, new Paradise regained (suck it Milton) -England to be remade, modernized, London personified as shepherdess who had been rude and low but is now a maiden queen -England becoming the centre of a global empire, overtaking other European countries and cities -the maiden queen is an obvious nod to good old Lizzie -triumph comes from trade, not war -England as a nation of shopkeepers -merchant overtakes the soldier as hero -this is a period of rebuilding cities -medieval quarters, unhealthy, torn down and wide streets built on a grid plan, not organic anymore. There is order -Dryden sees this as a metaphor for a new poetics -the old way is riotous, confusing, diseased, must be burnt and remade -translation of classics to English, modernize and rewrite Chaucer and Shakespeare -Milton gives permission to adapt Paradise Lost for the stage, but Dryden adds scandalous rhyming couplets (thankfully he published this travesty after Milton was dead) -this horrid mess was never performed -kind of ruins the point of Paradise Lost don't ya think? the blank verse meant long sentences, convoluted mind of Satan -no invocation in the play, just straight to Satan's speech -couplets chop everything down -Satan's power lost, becomes predictable -blank verse was sprawly, but Dryden makes evil tidy -he only wanted to make everything modern and organized -Dryden loves Milton, culmination of Classical poetry -but he has eyes on the future, Eden too wild , not sustainable -find Aristocratic golden golden mean -rising middle class is the golden mean, middly and also the arbiter of taste -heroic couplets contain ideas, prevents violence -Dryden sets new tone for speech too -well-behaved, unlike Spenser, Milton -reform social manners -behaviour is a huge concern for him

lilliput

-politicians think themselves important, he calls them unimportant, small, petty -emperor is tiny, but has lots of grandiose titles, exaggeration as belittling, which is a conventional satiric method, mock epic, seen in Dunciad, Rape of Lock, MacFlecknoe -magnification as sign of small mindedness -satire also literalizes cliches -politicians compete for power by rope dancing -whoever jumps the highest succeeds in office -this period saw emergence of 2 party system, high and low heelers in lilliput (reduces politics to fashion statement, triviality) -does this with religious differences, belittles it with disagreement on how to crack a boiled egg (big ender or little ender?) -trivializes doctrinal differences that we die for -shows how silly English/French animosity is -1st book is about small mindedness -Gulliver's bigness, contrast, is a joke -Gulliver starts getting small, gets obsessed with rank -mocks Prime Minister Flimknap, who Gulliver is higher than in rank -very concerned with his place in society, a little fixated on class -clears self of all charges of adultery with the prime minsters wife, because that wouldn't work anyways -exaggerated code of honour -gradual political awakening, the bildung -Lilliputians start plotting against him, he realizes fickleness of courts -decides never to put confidence in princes etc.

the earl of rochester

-puerile naughtiness, loves swear words -Sidney said write poetry in the words of speech -well I guess he's being honest and reflecting real life, but really due: you kiss your mother with that mouth?

richard lovelace

-quintessential cavalier, known for beauty -first collection published the year the king was executed, which is pretty bad timing since he's a huge royalist -writes love and war poetry to women he is absent from

To His Coy Mistress

-his best known poem -carpe diem motif, seduction poem -is he embracing or mocking tradition? is he being serious or making fun of the usual images? -Donne gets so caught in his own wit that he forgets about the woman in the room, kind of like Chauntecleer -Marvell is not interested in love, but in the metaphysical side of Donne -dichotomies that resist resolution -impossibility of un-dividing countries

Katherine Phillips

-important, popular and well-connected in the 17th c and civil war -known as the matchless Orinda -upper middle class, staunch royalist -protests murder of Charles and the disrespectful things said of him after his death -woman voicing unpopular popular opinion, her own husband was on Cromwell's side -stands up against society AND her household -not parroting the beliefs of her husband, has her own opinions -"A Married State", celebrates the single life for women, marriage is not great for women as Milton had said it was -Virgin State as paradise, urges women to watch out for romantic ideas, don't rush into marriage -writes to and about a small group of female friends, celebrates girl friendship -long tradition of celebrity male friendships, starting with Cicero, the Montaigne in the Renaissance -Montaigne said best friend is another self, highest possibly intimacy between bros -Ben Jonson was really into this too says intimacy between men is the greatest because there is no sexual difference -Jonson said women were intellectually not stimulating -but for the Greeks, this friendship was pretty erotic to say the least -Renaissance dudes leave out the eroticism (the rise of no homo) and this is the point: their pure love is not corrupted by bodily urges -Phillips says women have this bond too, her language is reminiscent of Donne in it's eroticism but she uses it to describe spiritual, not bodily, connectivity -Friendship's Mystery, to Lucasia -let's prove there's a religion in our love -Donne often used the imperative to begin a poem too, and logic -Phillips uses his images of sexual consummation to describe the meeting of their minds -like Donne, focus on 2 becoming 1 -something sacrificed to be reborn in immortal sacred form -but this is not sexual (says Kilgour, not me), no bodily component to inhibit -detach women from associations with material body, emphasize their soulfulness -repurposes forms used for male experience to reflect her own -she's gay too

Andrew Marvell

-poet and politician, self-divided -when war breaks out, he goes to the continent to stay aloof -natural Royalist, then switches to Revolution, works for cromwell, friend of Milton -saves Milton from execution -Marvell moves from side to side, accepts Cromwell, but also accepts the Restoration -he stayed in government for life, most of his known life is public -we know little about his private life, unlike Milton, who we know well -develops on the ideas of Donne

from 16th c on

-poetic generations define selves against predecessors -sonnet, petrarchan love becomes cliche, wish to express closer to life -express the individual, which means women can emerge -concern with private and subjective -later writers feel there is too much conflict in this sort of thing, dangerous to be too individualistic -now we just want what binds and unites the nation after the violent great divide of the civil war -18th c writers wish to focus on what makes us the same, not different

Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare

-poetical and patriotic -his plays often not set in England -Aristotle did NOT demand unity of time and space, the French made that up -too many rules stifle art, nature and freedom -he says Shakespeare is an exemplary English artist -Johnson says English art must balance law and freedom -search for this kind of ideal is Dryden's essay

Herbert recap

-poetry highly private, invites autobiographical readings -public, to help others, Jonsonian morals

Oliver Cromwell

-makes Commonwealth, supposedly democratic -but cromwell is a soldier, very authoritarian -his son takes over after his death, like a monarchy -1660, Charles II invited back to England, becomes a monarchy once again -British represent selves as fighters, cherish personal liberty (like Wyatt in Mine Own John Poins) -Donne as free from public world that changes your behaviour -freedom is part of British inheritance -also deep conservatism, nostalgia for past (from Beowulf to Ben Jonson) -conservative side wins, fear that too much liberty creates anarchy

Cavendish, the Hunting of the Hare

-point of view of the hunted -rabbit Wat, all rabbits must be called Wat, sympathetic character, shows his fear -attacks ideals of the hunt, violent heroic masculinity -killing a bunny doesn't make you a hero -to hunt there needs to valiant soldier's skill -sounds a bit like Rochester, making fun of human pretension, anthropocentrism -aftermath of civil war leads to revulsion against violence and killing -women writers can shift 18th c culture, public sphere to become feminized, marked by conventionally female values

book 4

-Houhnyms and Yahoos -H. are perfect, rational society, ideal world, Gulliver as Hythloday looking in -celebration of ideals allows us to question them -H. like 18th c english, value friendship and benevolence -rational, controlled emotions, no erotic love -love is for your species, for the nation -marriages all arranged, marriage is for procreation and not love -parent-child bond is a rational one, child taken away to be educated -government is simple, no bureaucracy -they have no letters, just oral knowledge, their knowledge is stripped down, just empirical, unlike Laputians -no abstract or speculative knowledge, no concept of lying and falsehood, no such thing as opinion, only objective truth -no word for evil except to say yahoo-esque -but H. are great oral poets, very creative -Gulliver gets new perspective on his species, sees human species as barbaric

the world of swift

-2 forms of lit production in 18th c worldview, novel and satire -novel is anti-civil war, represents prosperous unified nature -made possible by spread of literacy and entry of women into literary scene -interest in character made possible by Renaissance individualism -"novel" means progress, enlightenment -evolves from epics and romances, but more lifelike, middle class characters -realistic, novelistic interest in capturing life (Gulliver's detail mocks this) -shows that everyday life is worth talking about, analyzing and capturing -delight in the everyday, the material world

Henry Vaughan, the Retreat

-Edenic childhood that can't be returned to -tries to recover lost world, get back into the garden -country divided by war, people also divided

the modern discipline of poli sci

-Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke -idea that government meant to serve our interests -create new worlds, Revolution becomes possible failure of English Revolution, maybe proves Thomas More is right -Milton says otherwise; More is wrong! Revolution fails but change is still possible -strange syntax, blank verse: put new demands on us with poetic style -rewrite old story in a ay to make us question traditions -representation of ideal world, Eden, God creates it for us to feel at home -but some feel Milton's Eden is unconvincing, we all have our own ideas of how perfect world's look -garden as paradise, we are in harmony with natural world, wood too wild but city too fake -looks at lush garden of Adonis -at the centre of the Paradise is a couple, like in Spenser's venus and Adonis, but Milton's couple are real people, dramatic characters, active in the garden -Adam and Eve work, have sex, eat, talk -emphasize these peculiar activities -early church fathers said there was no sex in the garden and sex came from the fall -Milton sees Eden as a sensual world -they go to bed and make love in bower, perfect world has sex in it unfortunately, because Milton is a sexy dude (in the Holden Caulfield sense, "My roommate is a sexy fellow and I am very sexy myself") -other representations say they absolutely did NOT, and they didn't have to work before the fall either, they had pastoral shepherd lifestyles: they never work, just sing -Jonson's To Penshurst, no one works in this perfect world, the fish come rushin' straight outta the river straight into your hand -Milton says we have to work though -their work is pleasant labour, they tend the garden -gardens, to make them grow, you must cut them back (paradox), the garden needs them to stop getting overgrown and thus grow sterile -by gardening, Adam and Eve can shape their world -they are not passive as in Jonson's world, they remake the world God made -dignity, agency over the animals -they are creations but also creators -Caedmon's hymn remember, God as creator is a model for writers -Milton's muses are Biblical, God as creator is the role model for him, but also for Adam and Eve -they do creative work in the garden, and also speak elegantly, play with words -an ideal world, everyone is a poet, naturally artistic -love lyric from Eve suggests that first explicit human creator is a woman -inverts Petrarchan love poetry conventions, here we see woman celebrating man -their love is the generating force of the garden -p. 2009 description of them, unequal sex (though at first they seem exactly the same, then sudden hierarchy established)

Pope

-Mr. Zeugma, uses many obscure poetic rhetorical devices, rare in other writers -he seems highly rhetorical, but he is not artificial -master of rhetoric, Castiglione's sprezzatura -steer poetry from excess and uncouthness of Donne and Milton -he loves Milton though, but he's trying to tidy up rough, sprawliness of Milton -try to be elegant, civilized and neat -Pope creates many memorable lines -Pope not trying to express original ideas, but ideas often thought but ne'er so well expressed -pass down traditional wisdom -reduce glories of the world to "women's toys" -reduction, elephant becomes woman's comb etc -translates Homer, makes classical works available -born a Catholic, must make a living off his writing, translation of Homer is a bestseller and he becomes a country gentleman

samuel richardson

-Pamela, Clarissa, novel characters get realistic and complex -middle class characters -bildungsroman, novel of development, is at centre of 18th c novel -novel deals with character growth, progress -new focus on progress in this time, if society can, so can people

An Essay on Man

-Pope's credo on human nature, don't rise above your station -presumptions to rise above limitations, not good -idea that we are autonomous individuals, he rejects it, we need to be part of a whole -Pope finds Civil War a symptom of excess individualism -describes chain of being, everyone should stay in their assigned place or else cosmos will collapse -Pico introduces ideas of mobility, move up and down chain -but Pope says no, stay where you are -chains allow freedom, he says, paradox -epics, tragedies are too grand and presumptuous, poets of the day are staying humble

poli sci begins, 17th c

-Rochester: Hobbsian -give up individuality for protection of society, says the restoration -Sidney says art brings ppl together, Orpheus -semi divine and the first human poet -his art tames nature -poetry is what makes us human -alternative to Hobbes -Dryden said art underlies social order -music creates world -rewriting Genesis (Caedmon) -Jarring atoms, unified by God's "tuneful voice" -world is lifeless without art, needs to animate -harmony means agreement but also musical -talks about the effect of instruments, especially human voice -the 1st stanza is repetition, cyclic, frame, containment -poetry brings angels, heaven and earth joined by art -world is a place or order, music and poetry begin and end the world -thus dryden hates bad poetry -rise of satire -Dryden says bad poet threatens order of universe, health of nation

To Althea, from Prison

-Satan had been heroic but also a philosophical stoic, must have power over your own thoughts, then no one can touch you -popular in Rome -stoicism epitomized by the last lines of To Althea -stirring, rousing and often quoted -this philosophy is often popular among defeated peoples, retreat from reality into the mind -limitations of stoicism, seems defeatist, can't change the world because it doesn't matter -poetry itself as a retreat

Aphra Behn

-Woolf is super gay for her -follows footsteps of Lanyer, paves the way for Wollstonecraft -unknown about her life, Aphra is pen-name, associated with sex work -most prolific writer of period other than Dryden -worked as government spy, used to living many lives -she says being uneducated made her like Shakespeare, natural genius -she was not apologetic; her name was Aphra for Christ's sake! She flaunted her scandalous publicness -presents self as racy, a gimmick for the theatre -draws off Rochester, the Disappointment -in Rochester, the woman Corinna is barely present, just him talking to his own cock -Behn shows female perspective of the cock affair -begins looking like The Ecstasy, very sexy, but then the bodies fail -for Donne, sexual act itself is sacred and binds us spiritually -but here, from the female POV, sexual act drives us apart -Oroonoko, about horrors of slavery, but also beginnings of the novel -Oroonoko seems like a hero, warrior, also civilized, loves his wife -about conflict between worlds

Allusion to Moses

-a writer, but also a revolutionary -leads Israelites out of captivity to Promised Land -explains Milton's goal for his readers, not bound to old ways of thinking -Satan also wants to free his people, daring -conflict between moral absolutes, good and evil, not armies -simpler world, we know who the good and bad guys are from the start

Affliction (1) by Herbert

-about becoming a minister -at first seemed very easy -childlike innocence in faith, simple ideas in the world, no grief or fear -there was no month but May-- like a nursery rhyme, naïveté -suddenly something changes: sorrow happens later in life, unsure why -sudden mood swing from one extreme to another -at first he felt as master of the universe, now feels like nothing, useless and helpless, midlife crisis -line 57: I read and sigh and wish I were a tree -Herbert looks to natural world with envy, simplicity, clear function of trees -feels distance from nature, out of sync, alienated, doesn't know what he can do, what he's supposed to do -brief moment of rebellion, leave the service -then returns to God, he loves God and can't ignore this -the answer to every problem is love, esp. God's love -Herbert is a poetic reformer, rejection of 16th c artificiality -style as simple and clear as month of May -anticipate Romantic idea of poetry as language of everyday speech

rise of women writers

-according to greek legend, first writer was a woman, Sappho -but England, women given little opportunity to write, though always exceptions -Queen Elizabeth, sis Mary, Lady Jane Grey, Thomas More's daughter Margaret get literary education -increased literacy over vernacular Bible, women encouraged to read in Reformation -growing body of women readers shapes trajectory of literature -women learn to read but not necessarily how to write -reading and writing are considered different skills -18th c builds up momentum for women writers -hard for social stuff, women seen as transgressing bible if they write -early women writers are very defensive and apologetic -Aemilia Lanyer uses apology polemically

gulliver's travels

-adventures come from Romance, but he's a novelistic character -prides himself on lack of art, embellishment -he's a mediocre guy and that's okay -set up as honest, practical Englishman, empiricist, prides self on information -he's a doctor, scientific objectivity, analytic mind -learns languages very fast -skill in power of observation -Lilliputians are mathematicians, Gulliver also likes math, being precise -bombarding us with details, many numbers -he likes keeping exact records -give full picture of world he visits, goes into as much detail as possible, he wants to tell us everything, seems obsessive -spoofs the desire for scientific objectivity, desire to capture reality -mock the novel, which attempts to capture life faithfully -he tells us more about bodily functions than we care to know, for the truth of it -obsessiveness makes him unreliable narrator -he's a chameleon, he changes scale, Gulliver is a dynamic character, but not bildung/progress -he's unstable, mutable -at the beginning he is well balanced to point of dullness, mediocre, middle class -inability to keep this -reveals pettiness and delusions of grandeur -new perspectives reveal to him his own grossness -giants make him aware of himself, slides into self-loathing -targeting type of writing in Robinson Crusoe, which was read by many as a true history, of a man helped by a native named Friday, survives through self-reliance and rugged individualism -Gulliver as spoof of Crusoe, makes fun of idea of making it on your own

the imperfect enjoyment, by rochester

-also an occasional poem, ha ha -based on poem by Ovid, actually pretty conventional -Aphra Behn wrote a response, the failed sex act from the female perspective -Rochester works within tradition, but new: about premature ejaculation -funny but also unsettling -bawdy, but not celebration of the body: he hates this flesh prison -body can't be controlled, has mind of it's own, alienated from the self -rages at his own thingy -true to lewdness, untrue to love -curses himself and his cock, wishes self cuckolded, Corinna will find new lover -funny, but disturbing self-division undermines the surface hedonism -truly rochester is a guy who likes drinking more than sex -the body as a crippled carcass

gulliver as a character

-antisocial -leaves home to make money but gets bit by wanderlust -comes home to impregnate wife and then runs off again -symbolic idea of travel, journey, implies bildung -chaucer's pilgrimage -gulliver thinks he will grow on his journey and expand his horizons -but that doesn't happen, he descends into madness, anti-progress

Dryden's "Mac Flecknoe"

-attack Shadwell and Flecknoe -wrong direction, epitome of bad taste -Flecknoe recently dead, Shadwell as next bad writer -omits name (Sh-) to avoid libel -this is satirical, and Dryden is an idealist and a satirist -Richard Flecknoe has just died, and he epitomizes bad poetry -Dullness, also word used by Pope -does not move us as Sidney says poetry must -Thomas Shadwell is the worst poet though -this mock epic is a genre of growing popularity -begins by setting poem against comic forces, Shadwell and Flecknoe as monarchs -compared to Aneas and Romulus -bad poetry destroys potential for true epics, which are no longer being written -rule of Flecknoe to son, succession, poetic tradition is inherited -Shadwell claims he will continue to maintain Dullness, keep up the bad work son, Flecknoe blesses him -describes their poetry as tautological, bloated and long-winded -ends fathers speech abruptly -Flecknoe drops down, sinks stage trap door trick, flushed down the toilet -fart and excrement jokes, revolve around wind, which is both excremental and insubstantial (he's all flatulence and hot air) -Dryden and Pope take bad poetry very seriously -differentiation of high and low begins, Dryden and Pope try to refine readers sensibilities -they hate poets who pander to new readers and wish to educate these poor swains -based on assumption that literature guides the nation -policing distinction, shatter Shadwell's delusions of grandeur -in the line of bad English poets, Shadwell son of Flecknoe -but Pope is Dryden's son in the line of good poetry

gulliver: the man, the legend

-average joe just living, he's naive and too impressed by class but overall not the worst -travel gives fresh eyes, sees pettiness of english life -sees through human dreams of learning and science -realizes humans are yahoos deep down -journey of enlightenment, eyes opened -but result is alienation and madness -Pico della Mirandela thought humans could do anything they wanted, move up and down in society, but Gulliver believes the opposite, he belongs nowhere -although at the end everyone he meets is so sweet, but they disgust him all the same -they all smell so bad, he can't believe he ever had sex and made babies -keeps family away, revulsion, enjoys being alone with his horses -satire on the novel, but also satire on satire itself -satire is the same as any other thing tries to transcend mortality, which cant be done -swift doesn't believe science and knowledge help us, just let us be barbaric in more sophisticated ways -anticipates romantics and antebellum lit even

Dryden

-b. 1631, too young to fight, but know milton and Marvell -writes formal poem lamenting Cromwell, then to celebrate king, opportunism, ambivalence to authority -converts to Catholicism to please James II, loses offices under William and Mary, but doesn't convert back -supports self by prolific writing, plays and translations -much occasional poems, tied to his time -footnotes needed to make sense of it all, limits the endurance of the poems -Shakespeare not tied to his time at all, a man for all ages

current events

-backlash of morals of Charles II's court, epitomized by Rochester -Dryden seeking middle ground -couplet strikes the right balance -reflects his worldview, becomes dominant -after 1688 glorious revolution, Anne's death in 1714 with no heir -her nearest Protestant relative is German, speaks no English: George I -danger of Germanic ancestry means in ww2 the family name of the royals is changed to Windsor -worry that Georgie is not English -we've now had scots, Dutch, and French kings, long tradition of foreigners on throne -DeFoe says there's no such thing as true born Englishman -he writes a poem to calm these anxieties and concerns of this period -Englishness in doubt as England becomes powerful, great epoch of European nationalism -Hanoverians, Georges 1-4 in a row -England takes modern form under Georges -in Rape of the Lock, Belinda's toiletries come from all over the world, int'l trade -commerce at heart of nation, merchants unify the world (Donne would hate it) -redesign towns to become places of shopping and business -women targeted as consumers, participate more in public life -18th c, more chances for entertainment, shift in manners -early lit celebrated masculine martial vigour, but now we celebrate men of sensibility, civil self, and epics are out of touch -Sir Plume, fiddling with trifles, meaningless motions, ineffectuality

book 3

-becomes more episodic -attacks on 18th c scientific progress, spoofs on idea that we can improve -floating island of laputa, people with heads in clouds -so much abstract speculation that they need servants to keep them alert -servants make sure they don't fall and kill themselves, bring you down to earth -Laputans live on mathematical principles, geometric bodies and distorted and angular -clothes made by theory, fit ill -won't build houses practically, just wacky calculations -they have no imagination, pure math, just scientists -king not interested in hearing about Gulliver's world, no curiosity -british distrust of theory over common sense and empiricism -improvers just make people miserable -attempt to abridge process of learning, attempts to standardize the english language, make it modern -movements to stabilize language, doctor johnson's dictionary

Buildup to Milton

-before 16th c, English lit develops slowly -Tudors bring stability -renovate, innovate, make it new -17th c, experimentation, sensual libertine Herrick, Carew, and the religious Herbert -debates on function of poetry, urgent political question: who/what is England? Who speaks for them? -John Milton wants to be poetic voice of England -Genesis is not English story, unless indirectly -people will always choose slavery over freedom, says Milton (and Rousseau) -makes epic modern, with ancient tale -classical subjects by now tired, too ancient, also un-Christian -uses form out of step with the day, blank verse (developed by Surrey, mastered by Shakespeare) -in 1660's, dominant form of poetry/drama is rhyming couplet (Jonson) -people dislike form of Paradise Lost when published in 1660's -like Herbert, Milton is poetic reformer -Herbert wants to baptize poetry, but Milton, like Carew, as liberator of poetry -choice of form is a blow for freedom -ancient liberty recovered from "modern bondages of rhyming" -England going wrong way in poetics AND politics, says Milton -condemns rhyme, which seems Puritanical of him -he says it's jingly and artificial -says couplets enchain the mind, we foreground sound over sense, pleasure over instruction -rhyme makes us docile, captive -Milton wants no rhyme: complex, demanding verse form in contrast to easy, predictable rhyme -blank verse keeps you guessing, allows freedom of movement, veers off -couplet chops thought up into small manageable idea fragments -Milton makes extended, complex ideas of thought, get lost in the poetry -makes your mind do things it usually does not do -this is closest verse form to everyday speech, allows conversations to grow in a natural way -frees our minds by pushing them in new directions -Milton sees writing this as continuing to fight the revolution, free our minds -poetry to make us active subjects -rejecting rhyme sets us apart from Spenser's epic, but Milton does admire ol' Spens -also tries to find a space in the epic for love, representation of women and gender difference -but this feels more classical than Spenser, like he's going back to Homer and Virgil -Milton invokes tradition, then changes it -this is a Biblical epic, Muses are from Oreb and Sinai (not Helicon), not Homeric -invokes the same muse that inspires Moses (a literary precursor, writer of first 5 verses of the Bible) -Milton claims his epic will be something no one else has ever tried to do -justify the ways of God to Men, very audacious -Milton assumes as a Christian that he can see further than classical pagan writers -also specific individual superiority claimed, Vates, poet as prophet -privileged access to god, clarify mysteries of Christianity

Paradise Lost Recap So Far

-challenge for Milton, new spin on Genesis, the oldest story in the book -how can he create suspense when we all know the ending? -in the bible, there is no attempt at suspense. -Milton draws things out in conversation -Bible gives us one fluid fall but Milton gives us 2 falls: Eve in 300 lines and Adam in 100 -2 falls for different reasons -Eve has desire to use hr reason, failure of logic, but Adam's fall is an emotional one, very melodramatic of him (some over the top alliteration) -Adam reacts very quickly -"I with thee have fixed my lot", he has to do whatever Eve does -Adam's language is narcissistic, he listened to Eve's creation story and read himself into it -the fall reveals that they are 2 individuals, but Adam sees them as one flesh (she is the one with some independence, not him) -he fears their separation and doesn't want her to go where he can't follow

Herbert and Donne

-come closer to Calvinism -Calvin says God is all powerful, nothing we can do to achieve our own salvation -relieves us of worry and responsibility -affirms Gods omnipotence -makes man impotent, powerless -but for both poets, writing is active, reaching out to God -Donne active in passivity, demands that God do something -both say actions DO matter -period of intense religious debate, interpretations of Bible -Reformation twofold: creates pathological horror of Catholicism (can never return to it), but also revolutionary momentum -vernacular language: people decide they disagree with church of England too -create groups: Ranters, Diggers, many outlandish and progressive ideas -some very socialistic, dream about making a better world -Thomas More had mocked those better worlds -but many thought England could be remade -beginning of modern poli sci, Machiavelli, Locke etc. -who are the English? Aristocrats, middle, lower class-- who speaks for England? -all these figures die before Civil War

literary criticism

-consolidates in this period -theoretical component, Pope, what IS art -practical component: which authors are worth reading, which are not -18th century canon not the same as today's canon, but begins it all -poets glorify who they like -Surrey had glorified Wyatt, Spenser on Chaucer, Milton on Spenser -MacFlecknoe, Dryden makes fun, parodic genealogy of the bad writers -18th c is also the era of modern editions of classics and English writers like Shakespeare and Milton -Johnson gives critical appraisal in his prologue to Shakespeare -Shakespeare being published with footnotes etc. like the classics -critics make sure good writers are accessible, point out which poets are bad, want them excreted from the canon (excreted, poop jokes in MacFlecknoe) -worst art of the time is Dullness, which seems innocuous but is nit -aesthetic plainness that leads to moral numbness, nation of dunces

Post Civil War

-create more civil society where disagreements could be diffused by debate -idea that we could not discuss religion and politics in polite conversation begins here -social code of reasonableness: the Enlightenment -civility, good manners, good taste -cultivation of ideas that are gentle and collect people, sensibility, sentiment etc. -poetic desire for order, couplets -literature both reflects and shapes ideology, literature as civilizing force, refines the wildness of human nature -social impact of literature grows, huge variety of literature -much lit has no lofty ideals of Dryden, split between high and low literature emerges -need to police literature, educate readers so they can discern what is good -emergence of the novel, Samuel Johnson says it appeals since it is realistic, but not necessarily moral as Sidney said it should be -literature as means to direct taste, identify what makes literature an art rationally and scientifically -increasing specialization of knowledge produces study of English Lit as separate discipline in universities

Genesis

-creation myth, explanatory, why there is evil in the world -problem specific to monotheism -if God made evil, it would undermine his good -if he didn't make it, another God must be ruining his omnipotence -solution: make evil the fault of humans -God made the world good, we messed it up -humans causing the fall: our actions matter, we are agents (Milton is anti-Calvinist) -subject matter is transnational, hubristic -but also specific to English revolution, about our choices and the slavery of the monarchy

goldsmith, the deserted village

-death of a way of life, also elegiac evocations of milton -poet can absorb and transform a style from a previous generation -no reconciliation as in pope -here pathos, contrast, sentiment -mourn the great divide that runs through england -split of high and low, old/natural way of life (pastoral), and new commercial/modern way -extension of dunciad, society drained of what had animated it -funeral procession of everything that's important -18th c is draining, eradicating everything that is important -response to Dryden's anis mirabilis, where he had said london must burn so we can rebuild it -goldsmith describes the corruption of female bodies as a metaphor for society -corruption, decadence and sex work -in this world, where does poetry possibly fit in? -writing poetry is a way to remake the world, to see the world anew -poetry is a form of understanding the world, make sense of it all

Pope's Essay on Criticism

-definition of what he thinks critics should do -links it back to Aristotle's poetics -Aristotle as explorer who maps out framework of lit criticism, contours later to be filled in by other critics, just filling in details now -also Horace, dulce et utile, twin roles as poet and critic -role of the early critic, to be a handmaid of art -health of society and health of lit are linked, and critic controls both -fall of Rome stopped the development of that literature and culture -Erasmus, one of first humanists to make way for birth of art -boom in artistic production and critical thinking -traces line from himself back to Aristotle -neoclassicism, term that sounds clear but is hard to define, varies by country and by art form -aesthetics of England 1660-1800, before the Romantics -art has rules and is orderly, that's where the pleasure comes from -goal of art is to copy nature -line 68: first follow nature... at once the source and the end and the test of art -unerring nature, still bright, it's unchanged, orderly -not so different from what philosopher does, Essay on Man -all nature is but art, unknown to the harmony underneath nature, and critic further enunciates this -but he warns, many neoclassicists copy the classics, as Virgil began by copying Homer as he found Homer had perfectly captured nature already -they idealize the past and wonder if progress can work -debate: Ancients vs. Moderns, which art is greater? -in Classical/Medieval world, no concept of progress: Aristotle already discovered everything, all downhill from here -Renaissance proves the opposite, if science can progress, then so can art -Pope is very good spokesman for many 18th c ideals -he is not an original thinker. there are unchanging truths, if we can see the principles we will understand -the highest art is not limited to its period, Shakespeare is for all ages etc. -reaction against 17th c thought, multiplicity of competing truths -Pope's essay on criticism Book 2, "True wit is what often thought but ne'er so well expressed", you agree but had never been able to articulate it before -English literary criticism begins with poets themselves, Pope has double identity as critic and poet -Ben, Sam Johnson, Dryden too, part of the British tradition that began with Bacon, empirical knowledge -derive theory from practices -create a theory in order to justify their own practice -create market, create tastes that will enjoy their own works -a good poet's made as well as born, Jonson set many of these ideas in play, including couplet, idea of poet as social critic -evaluate practical work of the poets

satire against reason and mankind, by rochester

-directed at anthropocentrists -reason prevents naturalism and enjoyment -wishes he could be an animal -reason leads us usually into error and delusions of grandeur -we should be guided by our senses, not our intellect -inevitably will end to disappointment, goes back to Hobbes on humanity

important questions to top off

-do arts progress and develop as does science? -can we use scientific model to discuss arts? -change in literary form since beginning, but is it progress? -pope sees middle ages as dark ages, but we know this isn't true -themes of old english poetry remain -interest in anglo-saxon poetry comes again in the romantic period -anglo saxon lit is vibrant, complex, but ended by norman conquest -new english literature builds slowly, differently, of a mix of languages -french poetics donate rhyme -chaucer as a new start for it all -sets up couplet as dominant form for english lit -Dryden, Spenser etc. look up to him -from Chaucer on we see the way poets build on each other -thomas wyatt imports sonnet from italy, petrarch -reworked by surrey, then donne -then polished and refined by dryden, pope -metaphor of evolution implies advancement, but the metaphor of genealogy / family tree, Chaucer as the father; does not imply simple progress -swift said early stuff was better, it was simpler, original and natural

swift again

-doesn't believe in progress, is an ancient (not a modern) -irishman, believes modern world silly and self-absorbed -irritated by any form calling itself novel, a symptom of everything he hates in society

prose writing

-dominates poetry for first time in history, novel -poets concerned poetry being devalued, with rise of novel, lit is becoming prosaic, banal and mundane -fear the loss of the spirit of poetry -novel shows literary production changes, you can make a living -commodification, pope worried it creates dullness, to sell more books -next generation of poets violently react against pope -liminal position of late enlightenment, early romantic, twilight zone of poetry

dunciad again

-dystopia look at: what if bad writers took over England -Dullness is George II, who supports decadence, represents both -Dullness represents many writers as Pope writes, whoever he hates at the time -my sons, be selfish, proud and dull: selfishness and dullness go together for Pope -create world of dunces where we morally fall asleep, stupor dulls our senses -undoing of the creation of the world by Caedmon's Hymn -universal darkness covers all, world goes back into chaos, after art, morality goes -no colour left in the world, Pope's idea of a world without art -Pope says enemy of art is selfishness, found in the commercial world -suspicious of Renaissance ideas of individualism, too much of this corrodes social values, Pope conservative -people no longer know their place in the world

swift

-genius for satire, Gulliver is social/political satire, also a literary satire, making fun of the novel -critics argue about where the first novel is -Renaissance, don Quixote-- is this a novel? -even ancient world had novels -novel related to other genres, like the epic -novels draw on the dramatic tradition -draw on the romance, in French, novel is un roman -novels often deal with love and romance -treatment of subjects: epic/romance not realistic, but the novel is -Johnson writes on this realism, problematic he says -new readers have taste for contemporary stories, fascination with the new, wish to detach from violent uncouth past -the novel to reflect on new values -often associated first with women, feminization of public sphere -wife of bath liked reading romances, in 18th c women read AND write novels from the start -you need classical education to write poetry, epic, but anyone can write a novel, which comes from observation and experience

To Lucasta, Going to the Wars

-he must go and fight, aristocratic code of honour: old fashioned -Satan is the kind of hero for Lovelace to identify with -Chaucer's knight to be replaced by the middle class Gulliver, but not yet! -the Odysseus war hero is to be replaced by a merchant hero -Lovelace looks back on an old world and sighs prettily

an horation ode

-poem tied to specific event, return of cromwell from england, occasional poem -roots poetry in specific historical moment -from royalist sympathizer to a revolutionary: what a transition! -king is divisive, Cromwell as unifying force -dealing with the Irish, England has trouble with its peripheries -Katherine Phillips sympathetic to Charles, says England has gone too far -everything a mess, so we are relieved when Cromwell returns -ode goes back to classical times -2 kinds of odes are pindaric (meant to be sung, public, celebrate heroes) and horatian (private, meditative, less structured) -formally very different -Marvell names the Horatian ode, which is form it is, but it is about a public event -public and private just won't stay separate these days -compares Cromwell to Caesar and Hannibal,classic military leaders, but they were on different sides -confusion: Cromwell as enemy and leader/hero -Caesar identified with both Charles and Cromwell -opening sets up oppositions between both war and peace -not a time for private life, but for public action -books are gone, the armour is brought out -Marvell telling himself to give up on poetry and take a public stand -poetry as inglorious arts of peace -ends up being analogy for war -the poem seeks to understand momentous change -Cromwell as classical hero, triumphal return from Ireland -Cromwell as force of nature, erupted and can't be curbed or contained (explosive, restless, violent) -burning through the air he went, Cromwell as explosion that causes Revolution -imagery of natural force and disaster, Revolution as natural, Cromwell as agent of change -in line 50, "he" means Cromwell -line 57, "He" refers to Charles, confusing shift -subterraneously shifts focus and allegiance -identifies 2 men who are mortal enemies, 2 things that can't coexist simultaneously. neither can live while the other survives -war as conflict between 2 types of men -Charles is art, Cromwell is nature -Charles as actor; he may be saying Cromwell is the real thing as Charles is just a pretender -but he is also impressed by how well Charles plays his part -makes own death into aesthetic scene, Charles makes it meaningful, beautiful, giving himself some control -they are set up as opposites but also identical, Caesar is both of them -there were different Caesars of course, Charles as Julius, assassinated by the republicans, and cromwell as augustus -cromwell as man who acts, Charles as actor -who should we feel sympathetic for? -Marvell has ambivalence, can see that they both had roles to play -point of no return in middle, come together, new Caesar takes over in a natural cycle -Charles' death as beginning of the English republic -Charles is a man of the past, Cromwell of the future -Marvell admires Charles but does not idealize him, has no nostalgia -Cromwell's defeat of Irish is good omen, proof of his success -what Cromwell did EARNS him a right to rule because he knows how to serve, both fate and the people -Cromwell as servant now, becomes a falcon, not a volcano -tamed and used for benefits of people, no longer dangerous -Marvell cheers him on -not a cheering ending though, Cromwell can never rest, power won by the sword must be maintained by the sword -awfulness of the civil war -destroyer of old order, maker of new: necessitates constant vigilance -new form of government, authority comes not from birth, but from merit -but merit must constantly fight for recognition in a meritocracy -constantly defend against future greater usurper, he has left idyllic world of inglorious peace -occasional poem, aware that moments pass, things change, Marvell accepts this -rhyming couplets, decadence Milton HATED

Jordan 182 (1712) by Herbert

-elliptical -story about sacrament of baptism, reads Christians -purify and baptise poetry in River Jodan to sanctify -fiction and false hair, winding stairs, he wants to write poetry NOT about these fake things -wants to write poetry direct and frank, doesn't play games -poetry to reflect real life experience -attacks pastoral, wants to write about real shepherds -shepherd imagery evokes Christ, be subject of his poetry will always be God -does not want to use obscure metaphors -Jonsonian, wants to show what he believes in -but he's not that frank and candid, look at the end of Affliction (1), beginning of Jordan (1) -it's hard to get at the essentials -limited repertoire of titles -resolution in Affliction (1), is temporary, it will happen again -Jordan: we are always crossing, we never get to Promised Land -looks for big and important imagery, thoughts burnish, sprout and swell -self-conscious as a writer, wants to get the right metaphors -wants to get at God, but also show off his wit like Donne -there is much ego involved in writing, much of his own invested in work -describes writers block, struggle w problem and not get anywhere -when he writes he gets tangled up in himself -his ending reminds us of Sidney, Astrophil and Stella, "fool said my muse to me, look in your heart and write" -he says we must write from own experience -God is Herbert's muse here, but he sees God as his friend -God says, stop trying to be so clever, just copy out God's love -fussing and bustling, lose sight of what really matters -Sidney was writing in beginning of English Renaissance individualism -Herbert, like Bacon, now skeptical -Herbert sees individual alone always gets into trouble -manic depression -not imperative to God like Donne, more helpless

18th c poetry

-emphasis on plain style -rise of science, desire to streamline poetic diction -Lagadians have taken this to an extreme -cut out middle man with words, just use things to represent themselves -you have to carry so much stuff around to show each other, gets pretty heavy -Lagado also has math school, pills as shortcuts to learning -Lagado is all about shortcuts to wisdom, none of which work -then gulliver finds people who live forever, and he thinks they must be very wise -but actually it is a nightmare, they age, decay, become bitter and self-absorbed -zombies on edge of society -undoing illusions about human greatness -sees through his dreams folly

poetry of the civil war

-escapism, nostalgia for courtly life that was never fully restored

Wartime Writers

-esp. Milton, most of his life about war -ambitious, wants to do something great -career side-swept by history -advocates by changes in law and government -sides with Revolution and works for Cromwell's government -could have been executed by Charles II, writings banned -exile from public means he can write now, completes Paradise Lost (failed revolution) -early on, considers writing an epic, Sidney says best and most accomplished kind of poetry

Livin' in a post-fruit world

-eve is more selfish now, thinks about her own pleasure -their relationship is different, and she no longer enjoys her subordination -she thought she might not give him the fruit, overthrow the power imbalance -she sees inferiority needs to be remedied -but the fruit doesn't make her more independent, and she also becomes clingier -she'll never let him out of her sight again -their relationship is crumbling as they disagree, but civil argument: they can resolve their difference satisfactorily -mutual accusations, no end to their battle of the sexes, no resolution -blame each other, use reductive arguments, blames Eve's perverse wanderings -Eve said, why didn't you command me not to go at all? -misogyny as consequence of the fall, Adam as the first misogynist -it gets a lot worse in book 10 -Milton showing us an Eden he thinks is perfect so that the fall is tragic, not all readers feel that -sketches his vision of what our world essentially is like -another angel comes to give adam and eve a history lesson -emphasize that eve's action doesn't win freedom for women, and in fact leads to division of labour and stricter domination -now men will labour outside, women literally in labour inside, division of spheres, private and public life

revolution, milton style

-fall did not produce a world of knowledge and reason -world where might rules right -a perfect world is one where men and women are equal, but also separate, and can argue -when they leave Eden they go hand in hand again -relationship is repaired, but pretty penultimate word solitary, now they are profoundly alienated from the garden, from God, from themselves and especially from one another -intimacy no longer possible -Milton is unable to effect changes politically, so he turned to poetry -other writers write to resist changes Milton envisions, Edenic, Royalists see other worlds as only escapist imaginary ones -under Cromwell, a way of life being destroyed by the Puritans and by people like Milton

book 9

-for once, eve speaks first and suggests division of labour -Adam feels vulnerable without her, needs her more than she needs him -Eve falls when she is alone, so maybe she's not as strong as she thinks (again, Milton with the bad discourse) -in Genesis, the fall, fruit, all happen in like one sentence -once Eve falls, Adam's fall is inevitable, one continuous motion of picking the fruit and shoving it down his throat -Milton divides up the fall, Adam and Eve fall at separate times because they are different people -Satan is happy to get Eve alone and makes her fall first -Satan is a misogynist clearly, better chance with weaker sex, also that she is narcissistic and he can manipulate her with that -but Milton shows that Eve's fall is not narcissistic (thanks for throwing us a tiny bone Johnny boy) -she is turned off when he over-praises her, creeps her out, and thinks flattery is not intelligent -he argues with her logically then about prohibition of the tree, and this logic is what really gets her motor going (John Donne would be SO proud) -Adam tells us about prohibition in the 1st conversation they have, so we know -Tree of Knowledge, suspicious to deny them knowledge, what's Big Brother hiding up there hey Evie? -Satan interprets that God is the worst and he desires ignorance in his 2 faves. Eve resents this thought -Adam and Eve are given lots of info from Raphael however, Adam thanks him for this knowledge, so they are not totally in the dark -the Wife of Bath would say, info you are told (authority) is not the same as experience. They want to know what love is -they are not perfect beings since they are dynamic and growing like their garden -Eve gets pretty defensive, she knows from experience, which is better -there are certain things that we can't know from experience though, they are beyond our own worlds: such as death! knowing about horrible things -how to know about evil without succumbing to it? -we can imagine things to know things we don't know, says Milton, he knows about evil but obviously he himself is not Satan (debatable) -think about things we don't know in real life -Adam and Eve could have known evil without fruit, but Satan tempts Even to try to learn by herself from experience -he says Prohibition on tree doesn't make sense, God meant it as a metaphor Hazel Grace and Satan says he's not serious about it -God will applaud your initiative! -his argument is good, but it is based on a lie. He has not himself eaten the fruit.

Mary Sidney

-never claims to have written original work, unlike Lanyer -writing on Bible still opens doors -Christianity inspires much poetry -God's creation of world as prototype for the poet -Christianity offers spaces for women -Catholic women saints, Virgin Mary -Reformation questions misogynistic readings of the Bible -Paradise Lost queries illogical inferiority of Eve -Lanyer writes Hail Christ, King of the Jews -Lanyer very self-conscious about what readers will say -Old Testament did have many women characters -New Testament Christ is begotten of and raised by women, spends his life surrounded by women, presents evidence that Bible celebrates and not vilifies women -says Queen should see Bible as exonerating their sex -but tough to read Eve, Lanyer says that Pontius Pilate crucified Christ despite what his wife warned -Pilate actually is more guilty than Eve, he knew what he was doing and Eve did not know what would happen. "She, poor soul, by cunning was deceived" -Eve falls by pure innocence, had good intentions, fault was only too much love -but Pilate was not ignorant, all men should be blamed for what Pilate did -men and women equally guilty, says Lanyer -poem about women and to women (The Queen), Lanyer assumes most of her readers are women -points out that women often ridicule each other -under Liz, women are oppressed, and Liz was an exception to prove the rule -she sees Paradise as a perfect and pastoral world with only women, like Lesbos -Aemilia Lanyer was gay

yahoos

-never seen anything so gross, they are basically human beings -Gulliver as scientific observer, sees grossness of Yahoo human body -dirty, stupid, malicious -natural class consciousness, lecherous -horror when he sees that he is one of them -but at least they have primitive vigour, he has weakness and corrupted reason to boot -H. disgusted by his descriptions of European civilization, war, civil society, lawyers, doctors and politicians -humans have been abusing reason -humans lower than animals, more bestial -horses as perfect animal, horse as symbol of reason, human as animality: reverse usual horse/man relationship -image of man on horse usually means reason controlling animal passions H. disgusted that Europeans ride horses -like Rochester, undermine anthropocentrism -we have just enough reason to do bad things to each other -we are worse than animals -he sees truth of human nature, customs -he begins to hate mankind, enlightened, intense self-loathing

a song for st. cecilia's day

-ode for music on st. day, november 22 -variation on pindaric ode -all Dryden poetry is public -not introspective, not private life -self only exists in public -society shapes us, civil/social self -music and poetry are sister arts

Satan

-often shown as a huge monster as in Dante -artists to convey monstrous nature of evil -but if evil was so monstrous, no one would ever do anything bad -Milton's evil is complex and attractive -use epic similes (extended)-- satan as vulture who... (gives extra narrative about said vulture) -these similes as parallel subplots, never decorative -used a lot for Satan in books 1 and 2 -compares Satan to many monsters to show his great size, which is simple-- compare him to other big things -imbeds conventional representation of Satan in us, as monster -but he does not look or sound like a monster but as conventional epic hero -valiant leader, has many rebels (in epic catalog), fighter who won't give up, has a lot of good lines (eloquent) -create sympathy for the devil, makes him appealing, Romantics saw Satan as hero and as a revolutionary, he seems a lot like Milton himself -God seems very unappealing -by repping Satan as epic hero, critique epic traditions, what classic guys said is good turns out to be evil -hard to tell good and evil apart, how to tell apart false and real Florimell's etc -how to be good in the world if good and evil look alike? -what is the essence of evil? how to define it? not an abstraction, but we must confront it ourselves -how can there be evil in world if it was made my a good God? -because of serpent, Eve -serpent as Satan, a fallen angel -but why did Lucifer fall? -Adam and Eve fall caused by earlier fall -fight God indirectly by tempting Adam and Eve -Satan goes on Odyssean journey, but meets odd creature at gates of hell -in Book 1, we hear Satans speech, but not much physical description -p. 1978, figures begin to be described' -Line 666, moving into register of allegory, these figures are Sin and Death -tells us about Satan's character -Sin looks like good on top, but underneath produces things that destroy her-- evil is self-destructive -Sin wasn't always like this, she popped out of Satan's head -she is a beautiful goddess fair, very attractive, Satan sees her as his perfect image, he impregnates her -while this is happening, War breaks out -she gives birth to Death and other monsters that consume her, she becomes ugly old witch -narcissism, incest, since evil is self-involved and self-destructive -sin is created lovely, becomes monster, also becomes allegorical figure -kind of like metamorphosis of Malbecco, perversion of love, nature of obsession -allegory to represent inner life

Lanyer

-one of first trying to make it in a mans world -most women writers aristocrats -Lanyer tries to make a living on writing -grows up in court, but daughter of a musician -always in financial trouble after her marriage -1st English woman to publish volume of original poems -many male poets think publishing is vulgar, only do it under duress, and they are also apologetic for this -for women it is even more vulgar, women who go into public must be promiscuous -Lanyer acknowledges this -admits that "a woman's writing of divinest things", people will see her as "defective" -says openly from the start that she's not a good writer, "all unlearned have adventured this" -poem to apologize to Queen Liz for being unlearned, she writes only from nature -and yet this is a strength, art as true to nature, and women write by nature not by art -she implies that men are artificial and women natural -slyly saying she does better than men and is more honest -honestly she is gay for Elizabeth

book 2

-opposites, brobdingnag -he's read homers odyssey, expects cyclops, but the giant are very civilized and enlightened -they are appalled by smallness and pettiness of the English class system -Gulliver begins to see grossness of England, he's grossed out by bodies of giants but also by his own -he realizes now how Lilliputians must have seen him, as gross and smelly -he becomes really self-conscious, now he pees behind the bushes and becomes prissier

behn

-oroonoko too short for novel/novella, but evolutionary form between romance and epic -genre is unstable, looks forward and back -strong political agenda, but romanticization of the whole situation, language comes out of Romance -Oroonoko is bridging 2 types of heroes, "caesar", superman, warrior and classical hero of epics, but in other ways the medieval hero: chivalric, honour, comes from a warrior world -but he's oddly domestic, a monogamous loving husband, romantic figure, between Romance and novel -manly and wild, natural, kills monsters, his naturalness and innocence makes him vulnerable, but also well-educated by Frenchmen, good manners, doesn't drink, likes company of women -transition in Behn's time between 2 world views -Behn conservative like Pope and Swift, distrusting commerce -attack on slavery -Oroonoko's world has slavery, acceptable kind, based on enslaving people defeated in war (honourable) -but new kind of slavery based on commodification, not based on defeat in battle, and THIS is bad, says Behn -commodification of life and of people is Behn's issue -Oroonoko, however, is not realistic like a novel character

18th C

-reaction against the whole entire 17th -determined never to repeat this violence -first years of Restoration are volatile -succession not secure, Charles II invited back in 1660 and dies in 1685 -no legitimate born heirs, so succeeded by brother James, a Catholic: YIKES! -very little bloodshed surprisingly, Limeys are learning to chill -James has 2 protestant daughters from a previous marriage, male heir from his catholic marriage -Parliament crowns William and Mary of Orange and James flees -Anne, mary's sister, goes up after the Oranges, but no one has any kids in this bunch, and Queen Anne is the last of the Stuart line -1688, getting rid of King through a Bloodless/Glorious Revolution -changes more than the previous bloody one, more control onto Parliament -monarchs can't mess around like Charles I did anymore -drawing a line between barbaric 17th c feudal world of violent religious strife. This is a new modern world. -people feel polite and civilized -political differences become institutionalized, controlled, 2 party system, Whigs and Tories -Whigs are capitalists, Tories are landowners -new discovery on individualism, expression -how to control individualism within society? -17th c valued stoic individualism, but 18th c dislikes conflict -new values of sociability, politeness -more and more people living in cities, regulate life -shift in heroic ideal -in the 17th c, hero is idea of the 16th c knight or earlier -now the hero is a merchant and a good husband, like Oroonoko (domestic) -heroism of commerce glorified the growing middle class -Adam Smith, a nation of shopkeepers -back to Beowulf, heroes were all volatile warriors, but now heroes are well behaved and control themselves

mary wroth

-repurposes sonnet, form of male point of view -writes the female perspective of Astrophil and Stella: Pamphilia and Amphilanthus -how it feels to love someone who is unfaithful -cavendish had also repurposed male genres -The Blazing World, by Wroth, a fantasy of empowerment -Wroth also wrote scientific treatises

Civil War

-rifts go back a long way -conflict of values, religious belief -Puritans see materialism and sensuality of court as ungodly -religious issues inherently political -growing middle class wants their interests recognized -want distribution of power and freedom among people, King unwilling -Donne, Jonson and Herbert would be shocked by the war -war ends 1649 with trial and execution of a king -many writers of this period reforming old traditions, break from the past -chance to build brave new world -even many revolutionaries feels it is wrong to kill a king, who has been anointed by God, broken divine rule -dead kings easily idealized, martyrs and saints -probably should have read Thomas More more carefully, ideals are hard to implement

back to pope

-rise of modern lit criticism, says much of it comes from France -French believed works should be tightly unified, Aristotle's poetics and such, Tartuffe -action of a work especially a pay should be unified, take place in 1 spot and over 24 hours -Sidney complained that Elizabethan plays are all over the place, wild plots -Pope says the French are a people born to serve, English liked to compare themselves to France to come off better -France is absolutist monarchy, England after the Glorious Revolution is more free -Pope says French are too rule-obsessed, English are freedom seekers -laws should not be incompatible with freedom

Post-Restoration

-rochester represents relief from Puritanism -theatres reopen and women begin to act onstage -time of freedom, but rochester also has dark side to hedonism -aware he's not free, can't control his body, got some cock issues, can't control his mind or reason either -he dies young, and so does his type of poetry thank god -Dryden defines Restoration literature, and Rochester hates him

book 4

-satan begins to sound Shakespearean, debates options with self -might even repent, go back to heaven and garden of eden, decides against it -but it shows that his fate and character are not fixed -but like Sin, he becomes more fixed and cartoonish until he disappears from the last 2 books -evil for Milton is dehumanizing, lose ourselves and become abstract obsessions -Adam and Eve also dramatic characters, but also archetypes -they become more human and individual throughout (opposite of Satan) -they seem static, p. 2009 in first depiction -they first seem equal, look divine -but not equal! sex not equal seemed, he for God only, she for God in him -starts off the same, but then not

Pope, the Dunciad

-satire as form of criticism goes back to Horace -also a mock epic -dangerous consequences of the worst of modern art -leads to moral decline -Pope is conservative, accept your place in hierarchy of the chain of being -attacks spread of commercialism -discuss this in Rape of the Lock, people obsessed with trifles

Eve's place

-secondary to Adam because Milton is a bad man -in book 4, she always speaks second and begins by emphasizing her subordination -calls Adam her head, her guide -but the Bible never explicitly said that women are secondary now did it -wife of Bath would have said we only get male interpretations so no wonder! -as women get more literate, they begin to think about this Bible business and critique it -sea made before earth, but sea isn't better than earth, that's just sequence. -idea of progress is popular with the forward thinking ladies of the time: Eve as improvement on Adam (Satan uses this argument against Eve, which does show that it is a good and logical one) -Eve is a poet, she gets to tell the story of Genesis from her point of view in Paradise Lost -in her story, Adam is not there at all at first, she is happy that way and independent -she is deeply attracted to her own reflection, and self-sufficient -disturbing parallel with Satan's love for sin, his own perfect image: also Narcissus -she realizes she could have been like Narcissus but a voice, probably God, tells her instead to go to Adam -she's like alright but then Adam is a Big Disappointment so she decides to return to her sexy watery image -Adam has to woo her, win her, coax her: there are some problems with their relationship from the start (number one is that Adam is clearly not attractive in any way) -many interpretations of why this is: women must be brainwashed by the patriarchy into entering heterosexual relations at all -misogynists like Freud say it shows women are essentially narcissistic -Milton leaves it kinda open to interpret, which is good because then the feminists and the wives of Bath can rub their hands all over it if they want to -they are now 2 separate people, walking hand in hand anyways -different writers all have different idea of the perfect image of intimacy -for Milton it is holding hands (Donne likes it to be having sex but he's a nasty fellow and a terrifically sexy guy) -Eve's creation shows her to be naturally independent anyways

satire

-skeptical about claims to new civility -believe that human nature is consistent, better education doesn't change us -cultural shifts don't mean we are enlightened -fear of smugness, complacency, more sophisticated forms of barbarism -for instance, number of crimes punishable by the death was increased in this period, it's not a kind society like it pretends to be -Gulliver-- a novel or an anti-novel? -investigates what he thinks is wrong in society -engages politically, especially Lilliputian government

the novel

-spread of literacy leads to journals, newspapers and a wider audience -much reading takes place in public: clubs, coffee houses -development of libraries, availability -Joseph Addison starts the Spectator journal, popularizes high literature -the Aims of the Spectator: bring high lit to wider audience -circulation in the thousands now -danger of corruption fought by literature, civilizing function -laments neglect of women's education -they lack intellectual stimulation, women's minds have been wasted

Margaret Cavendish

-the Poetess's Hasty Resolution -common female strategy of self deprecation, represents self as sign of vanity -self-mockery, build self a pyramid of fame -but men would present stuff like this without irony, so who's laughing now -here statement suggests narcissism -she sees a conflict to publish or not, vanity vs. reason, and vanity wins -now she says she regrets publishing, men say this too -wipe off my tears with handkerchief of praise! -makes fun of the way audience will expect her to feel -she really thinks he work is good, deserves praise -Lanyer and Cavendsih try to head off attacks they anticipate, they are cunning -easiest and safest for women to write religious stuff, medieval women do this -Mary Sidney translates the Bible and works of other men, edits the works of her brother

william collins, ode on the political character

-thinks on role of poet and imagination -how to write in modern enlightened age? -poetry being driven out, the world is too scientific -looks back on Spenser and Milton, rough energetic poetry being left behind -image of Florimell's girdle, chastity, which Collins reshapes as as girdle of fancy -only true poets can wear it -poet made as well as born, says Jonson, Collins says not everyone can be a poet, and a true poet is inspired and chosen by fancy -poet has prophetic loins, gods gift, flaming visions, very romantic ideas -inspired genius poets to create ecstatic wonder -idea of godlike gift, poet is like god -fancy is gods partner, works with imagination, all the way back to Caedmon -invokes creation scene -he worries that modern poets are too technical, he wants to have poetic energy like milton and spenser -landscape of poetry is on margins, exotic landscape, isolated, wild, natural, overgrown, supernatural forces -but he still can't get into Milton's landscape of imagination, the enlightenment has cut him off -poem ends bleakly, can't go backwards or forwards -romantics love all this, they love milton and they love spenser -collins calls this an ode, structurally pindaric, tension between structure and wildness he imagines -but pindaric ode is public, this is private poem, though it should be of public concern -elegiac tone of melancholy, typical of liminal quality -end in gloom

grey elegy written in a country churchyard

-typical in setting, graveyard, think of mortality -set in evening, liminal poets love this -between light of enlightenment, dark of unknown future, evening poets -see shadows ignored by the enlightenment -celebrating the unknown life, record the simple and low life -setting up obligation of literature to give voices to others

Marvell as a poet

-very little published in his lifetime, posthumous mostly, and he never asked for that -so why write at all? no social role -postmodern almost, much of his writing is about poetry

Milton's epic

-very public kid of poetry, too much showing off for Herbert -epic after WW2 and Vietnam is no longer relevant and is imperialist -in 21st century it comes back in novel and in film -epic changes through English lit history -later we will see it in mock epics like the Rape of the Lock -evolves into the novel -tradition is not static, it must evolve -in 17th c, they already saw the epic as outdated, classical roots odious to Christian writers -after Civil War, very skeptical of traditional modes of heroism -Milton seemed old-fashioned, but he's determined to write modern epic -detaches epic from nationalistic roots -influenced by Spenser, first thought of writing an epic on King Arthur -decides to retell first 3 books of Genesis

early restoration

-war over, Cromwell dead, a king back on the throne -disillusionment, skepticism -Charles II is a party boy, court very free and open -the English are tired of Puritanism-- so they turn to carpe diem and hedonism -earl of Rochester supports this madness, pleasure is the point of life -glimpsed by royalists, Carew's rapture, also Lovelace (love made in the fist age: jackin' it is what Petrarchans do when they don't get laid. Hey, it's stoic and self-sufficient!) -change inconstant lover into a rake, Earl of Rochester, pornographic party boy