ENGL110

FEATURES OF OLD ENGLISH IN BEOWULF

-Allieteration in Old English is important: two verses ("half-verses") are connected through alliteration. -Compound nouns: combination of two words that mean the same thing, useful to alliterative poet who needs many words to express the same thing (ex. "hron-rade" (whale road) refers to the sea) -Kingship is an important theme throughout Beowulf -Kingship = considered to refer to the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of most humans in most societies

History of King Arthur

-Arthur has the virgin marry on his shield. Therefore, God is on their side. -Malory is knight and in prison, where he writes Motre Darthur. It was an English prose, intended to take complicated story and lay out beginning to end. Got rid of all things that weren't of interest. Didn't get rid of the Holy Grail quest. Wasn't interested in the love. Interested in guys going out and killing things, relationships between them, family ties, feud.

The Wanderer vs The Dream of the Rood

-As in The Wanderer, the speaker is alone, and laments the loss that is part of the human condition, but the Christian tenor of the poem allows him to imagine a new hall filled with warmth and companionship, this time with Christ in heaven -The Dream of the Rood can be seen as an example of remediation, as there is a version of part of it, carved in runic letters, on the Ruthwell Cross, a stone preaching cross; we talked about how the cross literally materializes the poem

COMPARISON: Last Battle lecture (Tennyson and Ciardi): REPETITION

-As in our last lecture on Tennyson, we explored how he makes use of repetition: here it is used to reinforce an impression of chaos, and sound effects work in conjunction with the repetition of key words to suggest equivalences between opposites (friend and foe, golden youth and ghost) For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew; And some had visions out of golden youth, And some beheld the faces of old ghosts Look in upon the battle; and in the mist Was many a noble deed, many a base, And chance and craft and strength in single fights

Monomyth

-Campbell held that numerous myths from disparate times and regions share fundamental structures and stages, which he summarized in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.[3] -Stages: a call to adventure, a road of trials, achieving the goal, a return to the ordinary world, application of the boon, in which the hero uses what has been gained to improve the world. -Connection: In Beowulf, pride is a good thing, leads to good results.

Elizabeth I

-Elizabeth I (1533, r. 1558-1603) and her deliberate attempts to craft her image and focus national will, identity, and pride in/ on that image -Elizabeth carefully crafted her own image as the Virgin Queen, attracting to herself the kind of devotion which, before the Reformation, might have attached to saints She skillfully played potential suitors off against each other, never marrying and thus preserving her power

Goblin Market

-Evening by evening Among the brookside rushes, Laura bow'd her head to hear, Lizzie veil'd her blushes: Crouching close together In the cooling weather, With clasping arms and cautioning lips, With tingling cheeks and finger tips. "Lie close," Laura said, Pricking up her golden head: "We must not look at goblin men" Laura and Lizzie both react modestly (blushing) to the goblins' cries, but note that by the end of this section, Laura is "pricking up" her head even as she repeats the warning not to stray

John Ciardi's Lancelot in Hell: FREE VERSE

-Free verse has no regular meter or rhyme scheme to give it structure; sometimes, the irregularity mirrors the treatment of the subject matter (it can, for example, highlight confusion and alienation)

COMPARISON: Last Battle lecture (Tennyson and Ciardi)

-We compared the treatment of the same battle in John Ciardi's modern poem Lancelot in Hell -We considered the ways in which Ciardi's poem rejects the idealism of the tradition from which it springs -We considered how both Tennyson and Ciardi used various poetic devices to underline moments of despair and alienation, as well as, in Tennyson's case, to close on a note of hope

Caesura in Idylls

-We looked at how Tennyson uses these elements to draw a contrast between Guinevere and Arthur. Notice how Guinevere's lightness of mind and character is suggested by the sequence of short phrases; contrast this to the strong initial stress (But/ Ar/ thur) when our perspective shifts to the king. The run-on suggests the overwhelming nature of Arthur's emotion; it is followed by a series of strong, simple statements, underlined by the repetition of "and," characterizing the decisiveness of the king's actions, as well as the action verbs associated with Arthur at the caesuras: And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms, But heard the call, and came: and Guinevere Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass; But since he neither wore on helm or shield The golden symbol of his kinglihood, But rode a simple knight among his knights, And many of these in richer arms than he, She saw him not, or marked not, if she saw, One among many, though his face was bare. But Arthur, looking downward as he past, Felt the light of her eyes into his life Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitched His tents beside the forest. Then he drave The heathen; after, slew the beast, and felled The forest, letting in the sun, and made Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight And so returned.

ALLITERATION, ASSONANCE, CONSONANCE in Idylls

-We looked at how these effects are used in the lines that emphasize Arthur's first triumphs: And Arthur and his knighthood for a space Were all one will, and through that strength the King Drew in the petty princedoms under him, Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned I also scanned the last line for you, and illustrated how the sound patterns meshed with the metre to build an overwhelming impression of strength:

The Wanderer

10th Century manuscript - Exeter Book - Speaker in story is in exile because his lord is dead: in the poem, he reflects on the joys of the past, and contrasts them to the loneliness of the present -The hall is central to the speaker's sense of loss: it was a place of warmth, companionship, and comfort, in contrast to the harsh, wintry world in which he now moves. Nature is not seen as beautiful or desirable, but as a hostile contrast to the now-lost joys of the hall - alked about how the alliteration characteristic of Old English poetry serves to connect the list of things lost; repetition of the phrases "Hwaer cwom" (where are) and "Eala" (Alas) underlines the idea of loss -Christianity being presented as an answer to the loss lamented in poems like these - talked about the use of the contrast between the hall and the hostile natural world in this passage as a culturally-appropriate way to convey what the speakers felt Christianity had to offer

The Dream of the Rood

10th Century manuscript - Vercelli Book -The speaker has a vision in which the cross (the "rood") speaks to him and describes the crucifixion of Christ -Christ is depicted as a warrior (rather than as a patient sufferer): the words used to describe him include hero, warrior, king, lord, and he is repeatedly described as strong and resolute; Christ triumphs over the Cross in the same way a warrior like Beowulf triumphs over his enemies

Prose

A form of language which applies ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rythmic structure

Step 3 in These Writing

ANSWER YOUR QUESTION IN WRITING

Step 2 in These Writing

ASK A QUESTION ABOUT THE ELEMENT YOU NOTICED -What does this phrase mean? -What does this passage say about heroism?

Step 4 in These Writing

ASK FURTHER QUESTIONS OF YOUR ANSWER

Metatheatricality

An awareness of the theatricality/ artificiality/ constructedness of plays is a feature of early modern drama: this awareness is called metatheatricality A famous instance of metatheatricality is found in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, when Prospero, who has just staged a pageant using the spirits of the island, puns on the globe/ Globe connection: Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air:  And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

Goblin Market

Christina Rosetti -Christina Rossetti was devoutly religious, and Goblin Market, first published in 1862, can be read as conventionally Victorian in its moral lesson: the good sister is the one who resists temptation, does not stray from the path, and accepts her womanly duties gladly Laura is said to be "Like a vessel at the launch/ When its last restraint is gone," suggesting the dangers when women are not appropriately confined or restricted

Break of the Day in the Trenches

Isaac Rosenberg -shows the poet reflecting grimly, through the rat, on the inevitable fate of the "Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes." Rosenberg was killed in 1918.

Motre Darthur

Thomas Mallory -We discussed how Arthur's earliest appearances present him as a formidable warrior defending both the British and Christianity against non-Christian, Saxon invaders: there is a nationalist flavour, at least potentially, in the story from the start -In his earliest appearances, Arthur is a warrior king of a sort familiar to us from epic/ heroic texts like Beowulf, but in later adaptations, the "romance" strain comes to dominate - Chivalry has by Malory's day come to be a code of courtly, knightly behavior: chivalrous knights were expected to behave honorably and generously, to be loyal to their lords and their companions, to be virtuous, and to protect the weak

Last Battle lecture (Tennyson)

We explored Tennyson's representation of the final battle in the Idylls of the King, considering how the end of the poem juxtaposes a nightmarish battle, full of expressions of despair and doubt, with a final assertion of hope

Goblin Market: SIMILIE & REPETITION

When she does stray, a simile likens her to, among other things, a boat being cast out into the current: Laura stretch'd her gleaming neck Like a rush-imbedded swan, Like a lily from the beck, Like a moonlit poplar branch, Like a vessel at the launch When its last restraint is gone. The repetition of "Like", followed by the "when" creates a sense of irresistible forward motion

The Hobbit

J.R.R. Tolkien -I picked out various hero-tale elements in the narrative that could be traced back to Tolkien's professional knowledge of medieval literature. We discussed the Scandinavian origins of the shape-shifter Beorn and his Heorot-like hall, the Anglo-Saxon riddling tradition, the named swords, the role of eagles in medieval Welsh literature, and the connection between the story of Sigurd and the dragon Fafnir, and Bilbo's conversation with Smaug. I pointed to elements which domesticated some of these conventions to Bilbo's world: Beorn's treasure is in food, not gold; Bilbo's own sword is called Sting, a less grand name than Glamdring or Orcrist I connected what Tolkien has to say about goblin inventions (p. 83) with Tolkien's dislike of machinery, as well as with his war experiences. I noted that a distrust of machinery and "progress" is a characteristic of much post-war fantasy, including that written by Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis

The Sandman

Neil Gaiman -We also considered the metaphysical elements of the story. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with first principles, including ontology (the nature of existence) and cosmology (the origin, structure, and laws of the universe) -Dream is a power, one of the Endless; the stories Gaiman tells about the Endless often confront metaphysical questions. I quoted a passage from another number in the series, when - Dream explains to Desire the role of the Endless: "We of the endless are the servants of the living—we are NOT their masters. WE exist because they know, deep in their hearts, that we exist. When the last living thing has left this universe, then our task will be done. And we do not manipulate them. If anything, they manipulate us. We are their toys. Their dolls, if you will." -Here, as in his novel American Gods (quoted in the essay questions), Gaiman explores the connection between powers and belief/ the imagination Dream's role as lord of the dreamworld leads us inevitably to think about questions concerning what constitutes the "real"

Beowulf

No true author, we just used a graphic novel by Garth Hinds

COMPARISON: Last Battle lecture (Tennyson and Ciardi): ONOMATOPOEIA

Onomatopoeia is the use of words that sound like what they describe ("bees buzz"): we explored the sound patterns (also including alliteration, assonance, and consonance) in these lines: And ever and anon with host to host Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash Of battleaxes on shattered helms, and shrieks After the Christ

Step 5 in These Writing

PUT YOUR THESIS INTO THE THESIS FRAME -"In this essay, I argue..."

The Soldier

Rupert Brooke -We then moved on to consider what happened when that chivalric ethos, taught to young men in schools and through literature, encountered the brutal reality of trench warfare. Rupert Brooke's The Soldier accords with the idealistic view of romantic self-sacrifice in war in its formal elegance, calm tone, and pastoral imagery.

COMPARISON: Last Battle lecture (Tennyson and Ciardi): SPONDEE

SPONDEE A spondee is a metrical foot composed of two strong stresses: we scanned the final line of the Idylls to show how Tennyson finally replaces the chaos of the last battle with an assertion of hope: And the new sun rose bringing the new year.

End-stopped

a line is end-stopped if pause in reading (end of syntactic unit) coincides with end of line of verse; all of the lines in this example are end-stopped And there the King will know me and my love, And there the Queen herself will pity me, And all the gentle court will welcome me, And after my long voyage I shall rest! (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King)

Enjambment

a line shows enjambment if sense carries over end of line of verse into next line (also called run-on line); all of the lines in this example run on ... Horses screamed like cats, and men ran through their own dust like darks howling. My country went up in flames to the last rick and roof, and the smoke was my own breath in me scorching the world bare. (John Ciardi, Lancelot in Hell)

Ballad

a poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas. Traditional ballads are typically of unknown authorship, having been passed on orally from one generation to the next as part of the folk culture.

Iambic Pentameter

a poetic meter consisting of five metrical feet, dominated by iambic stress And hold | their man | hoods cheap | whiles an | y speaks That fought | with us | upon | Saint Cris | pin's day. (William Shakespeare, Henry V)

Feminine Rhyme

a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable at the end of a line of verse; see also masculine rhyme Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.— (Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est)

Metaphor

a word or expression denoting one thing literally, applied to another thing without making the comparison explicit (that is, without using "like" or "as"; see also simile) I fed the best meat in England to carrion crows (John Ciardi, Lancelot in Hell)

Onomatopoeia

word whose sound closely resembles word it denotes: there are several examples in these lines Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash Of battleaxes on shattered helms, and shrieks After the Christ (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King)

Elizabeth I

•She was the daughter of Henry the 8th •One of the greatest crisis, 1588, the invasion of the Spanish Armada •Speech from her awaiting the Armada, rode through her troops and delivered the speech. •The English beat them, the Armada ships were damaged by a storm •It was a partly religious war. Spain catholic, English protestant •God confirming the righteousness of their cause, because the Armada ships got ruined from storm

Thomas Mallory favorite phrase

- One of Malory's favourite phrases, when describing love or lust, is "out of measure"; he tends to see male/ female relationships in terms of how they disrupt the bonds among men

Eirik the Red's Saga

-Icelandic sagas, which are prose narratives that tell of the Viking Age, from about 870 to 1000 -Unlike Beowulf, the sagas are in prose: saga is related to the verb "to say," and the sagas favour a straightforward, plain style; description is rare, and so can be a useful guide to what is particularly important to the teller. -Like Beowulf, the sagas show a world poised between "pagan" religion and Christianity, but the tension occurs within the world of the saga, rather than between the (pagan) story being told and its Christian author -The sagas are in prose, but they include bits of skaldic poetry (skald is the word for poet): these may be intended as authenticating devices, because poetry was thought to preserve historical truth. -The skaldic poems in Eirik the Red's Saga use kennings, as in Old English poetry: for example, "the skilled hawk of the sand-heaven" in one of Thorhall's poems is a kenning for "ship" -Eirik the Red's Saga records Viking attempts to explore and settle in "Vinland," now thought to be North America; the saga sometimes pauses to describe the land being explored and claimed, and emphasizes this colonial aspect through the characters' naming of the lands they come across The "skraelings" are the native peoples of North America encountered by the Viking settlers: they could be the ancestors of the Innu of northern Labrador The descriptions of the skraelings suggest that the Vikings see the skraelings as partly like them, and partly as the Other; for example, trade turns quickly to hostility and war

Elizabeth's Image

-One way Elizabeth's image was reinforced was through literature; we read part of the preface to Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, in which the Faery Queen is said to be Glory generally, and Elizabeth in particular -I also told you about the story, in The Faerie Queene, of Britomart, the female knight who represents Chastity -Elizabeth also used the circulation of her image to reinforce her subjects' tendency to imagine their nation as materialized in her person: we looked at a range of famous portraits of Elizabeth, discussing their symbols.

Summary of Beowulf

-Our edition = used a freer prose translation of original. -Story originated as a oral poem.

REPETITION in Idylls

-Poets may repeat words or phrases for effect. We looked at how Tennyson uses repetition to show Elaine asserting herself in death: only her act of self-willed death allows her to assert her personhood. -The passage also repeats the word "there," suggesting the significance of her entry into the Arthurian world as part of her self-definition: And no man there will dare to mock at me; But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me, And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me; Gawain, who bad a thousand farewells to me, Lancelot, who coldly went, nor bad me one: And there the King will know me and my love, And there the Queen herself will pity me, And all the gentle court will welcome me, And after my long voyage I shall rest!

The Role of Victorian Ideas in Idylls

-Tennyson's original conception for the Idylls imagined the tales grouped around "good" and "bad" women -Elements that some readers identify as "Victorian" in Tennyson's treatment include his very negative treatment of Guinevere (and of other women); his emphasis on duty and on the bonds between men; his mistrust of sensuality and passion. -We considered the role Victorian ideas about chivalry had in Victorian education and imperialism, and looked ahead to the deployment of those ideals in the propaganda surrounding World War I -We began with the story of Elaine, noting the following elements: • Elaine lives in "fantasy"; unlike her brother Lavaine, she has no active outlet for her love for Lancelot • Guinevere is unworthy of both Arthur and Lancelot; she is capricious, jealous, sensual, selfish • Elaine is physically attracted to Lancelot, and Tennyson plays up his attraction • Elaine can assert herself only through her death: we noted the emphasis on the personal pronoun in her own imagining of her death

Robert Browning's Poem

-Tension between hope and dispair -Point of poem: pass all enemies and obstacles and in the end you will be saved -Driven to an unknown goal -Human nature destroys the landscape of optimism

Idylls of the King

-The Idylls are an adaptation of Thomas Malory's 15th-century Morte Darthur, along with other Arthurian texts from the Middle Ages; they are a product of, and shaped for, the renewed interest in the Middle Ages in the 19th century

John Ciardi's Lancelot in Hell: REGISTER & DICTION

-The register of language refers to the level of language used; to the formality or informality of the word choices. We discussed the effect of the appearance of prosaic, mundane words in the description of the final battle in Ciardi's poem: That noon we banged like tubs in a blast from Hell's mouth. Axes donged on casques, and the dead steamed through their armor their wounds frying. Horses screamed like cats, and men ran through their own dusk like darks howling. -We also pointed to how sound effects worked in the above lines: alliteration and consonance on a plosive ("b"), and onomatopoeia ("banged") draw attention to the word "tubs": the form is underlining the deflation of knightly, chivalric activity and idealism, and this deflation is a major theme of the poem

Elizabethan Symbols

-the pelican: believed to feed its children with its own blood, hence a symbol of how the sovereign sacrifices herself for her people (also a popular image in the Middle Ages for Christ) • the phoenix: believed to rise alive from its own ashes • the sieve: referring to the story of a vestal virgin who proved her purity by carrying water in a sieve without spilling a drop • pearls: a symbol of purity • maps, globes: signs of Britain's imperial power • serpent: a symbol of wisdom

Speech at Tilbury

-the speech Elizabeth gave to her troops at Tilbury, before the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588; she appeared to concede to beliefs about the weakness of women, but then presented herself as a king

Blank Verse

verse that does not rhyme, but with regular metre; most often, blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter (an example is Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King)

Doctor Faustus

Christopher Marlowe - The medieval cycle dramas (series of plays based on biblical events) and Everyman or Morality plays (single plays in which personifications of vices and virtues compete for man's soul) are important precursors - In Marlowe's day, England was a Protestant nation, and Doctor Faustus explores issues of free will, predestination, and moral choice in a Calvinist framework -Certainly the play seems to foreground knowledge and its potential dangers, in a way that seems to suggest we need to be careful about our choices: the Prologue makes an allusion to Icarus who, seeking to fly too near the sun, dies when his wax wings melt and he plummets into the sea Faustus is associated from the start with books: he discards the Bible and the usual texts of humanistic learning, and is attracted to occult books: we talked about whether the audience's awareness of the prop books (wooden models rather than real books, perhaps) might be another metatheatrical moment that could cause reflection on Faustus and his choices -Faustus is "ravish'd" by magic and "desires" the lavish books: is desire a problem in the play? Faustus is a glutton, saying of himself, 2.1.11, "The god thou servs't is thine own appetite" But Faustus gets nothing real from Mephastophilis: the demon can provide spectacle, as can Faustus later on, but he answers none of Faustus's questions about who created the world -Lucifer stages the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins, another spectacle -Faustus seems to use his powers mostly for foolish and frivolous ends, though he does conjure up a vision of Alexander the Great so convincing that the king, despite Faustus having told him he cannot conjure up "true substantial bodies," nevertheless takes the spectacle for reality -This is the power—and the danger—of the theatre; it can convince us that we are seeing the real, even when it tells us we are simply witnessing spectacle, illusion

Free-verse

verse with no regular metre or rhyme scheme to give it structure (an example is John Ciardi's Lancelot in Hell)

The Faerie Queene

Edmund Spenser

Speech to the Troops at Tilbury

Elizabeth I

FRANKENSTEIN VS FAUSTUS

Frankenstein can be connected to a figure like Marlowe's Doctor Faustus: like Faustus, he is brilliant and well-educated, and like Faustus, his ambitions lead him beyond the scope of the normal education He often seems to feel—and this is another connection to Marlowe's play—that he was fated to take the path he has pursued, often referring to destiny (we looked at passages on pp. 63, 70, 77, 187-87, 204, 215) The focus on education—which applies to characters other than Frankenstein and the creature—seems to suggest that we can take control of our lives and destinies: how does this theme fit with Frankenstein's frequent references to fate? Bits and pieces of Romantic poetry appear in the novel (p. 85, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner; p. 117, Percy Bysshe Shelley's Mutability; pp. 166-67, William Wordsworth's Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey) Romantic poetry can be characterized by an interest in strong feeling, often prompted by the contemplation of the natural world, and in particular of the "sublime"; the descriptions of scenery on pp. 99, 114-15, and 165 are examples The creature instinctively loves the natural world: how does this fact affect how we respond to him? The creature, like Grendel in Beowulf, is a vengeful outsider, but unlike Grendel, he does not begin as evil At the end of the novel, the monster refers to himself, p. 219, as a fallen angel; he becomes like Adam in the lines that are the epigraph of the novel, in that he moves past the injustice of what was done to him, to recognize his crimes (p. 220); by contrast, Frankenstein says, "I have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it blameable" (p. 216)

COMPARISON: Last Battle lecture (Tennyson and Ciardi): EXTENDED METAPHOR

Guenevere is compared to a horse in an extended metaphor; the comparison underlines the traditional misogyny in the treatment of Guenevere. Note that her name is never mentioned, though Arthur's is. The poem resolves in suggesting that the essence of the battle ("iron to iron") is not in the "love" story, but in the basic, aggressive encounter of man to man

The Story of King Arthur

How Arthur was conceived: Uther was at war, then fell in love with Igraine. Out of measure = love beyond measure. •Uther's love for her makes him go to war, dabble in magic, trick a woman into sleeping with him. •Uther is roth (angry). Igraine is a good woman and Uther is angry. He is losing sight except for everything he desires. •He gets sick but Malory makes it seem like we are unsympathetic. •Sent for Merlin: his job is to bring the conception of Arthur. Gets Uther to promise to deliver the baby to him and in return he changes his appearance. •Merlin takes baby away to be brought up by Sir Ector, his wife takes care of him. •When Uther dies: merlin gets the lords to come to the church on Christmas where the sword shows up. Arthur takes the sword and gives it to Sir Kay, his brother. He tells the truth then Arthur tries. It takes several goes. •The kings that oppose Arthur say he's a bastard and a boy and Merlin a witch. Saying there's something inappropriate as king. Arthur kills the kings that oppose him. -After settling the civil war Arthur needs to get married. And Merlin as an advisor asks who? Guenever. Merlin says its bad but then where a man's heart is set it set. Sounds romantic. Malory is suspicious of love. -Roman war part: most English part. Romans ask for tribute: Arthur says no and goes to kill them. -Lucidius's army is bad because it has monsters and Muslims from the Middle East, making Arthur look like he's fighting for the good of god. Mallory is interested between the men's bonds and what complicates them.

"Tam Lin": key symbols

Janet plucks a rose: the rose is traditionally associated with sex; in going to Carterhaugh despite the warnings about the sexual danger that awaits there, she could be said to be claiming her own sexuality  Janet wears green, a colour associated with sex and also with regeneration in both pre- Christian and Christian systems When Janet draws Tam Lin from the well, thus reclaiming him from the fairies, the poem's system of symbols allows us to read it both in terms of a story of sexual initiation, and in terms of Christian redemption (Tam Lin experiences a second baptism, which liberates him from the demonic fairies) The combination of symbolic resonances associated with sex and with salvation allow us to see Janet as a positive female figure; contrast this emphasis with the negative attitudes we have been discussing towards women in the Arthurian world as imagined by Tennyson

Goblin Market

Jeanie and her fate show the end result of a lack of restraint: She pined and pined away; Sought them by night and day, Found them no more, but dwindled and grew grey; Then fell with the first snow, While to this day no grass will grow Where she lies low: I planted daisies there a year ago That never blow... She thought of Jeanie in her grave, Who should have been a bride; But who for joys brides hope to have Fell sick and died In her gay prime, In earliest winter time With the first glazing rime, With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time. Notice how these two sections dealing with Jeanie's fate pile up rhymes on the same sounds (-ay, -ow in the first case, -ime in the second): the relentless repetition underlines the inevitability of the tragic consequences of a moral fall

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

John Keats

Tam Lim

John Keats -"Tam Lin" is a very old ballad, a Scottish story dealing with the common motif of the fairy lover, a narrative poem, often set to music -There are many accounts of men taken by fairies; the fairy otherworld is understood to be a place of seduction and delight, often dangerous to mortal men. -Keats uses the figure of the fairy lover in such a way as to call to mind the growing fascination with vampires; the poem's system of symbols also allows us to read the poem in terms of the appeal and dangers of imaginative creation.

Paradise Lost

John Milton

Step 1 in These Writing

NOTICE SOMETHING IN THE WRITING -Interesting-engages a theme of the course

Guinevere

Lord Tennyson

Lancelot & Elaine

Lord Tennyson

The Passing of Arthur

Lord Tennyson

To the Queen

Lord Tennyson

Malory's idea of the Arthurian World

Malory treats the end of the Arthurian world as the result of malice and bad luck: he seems to resist the idea of the affair; later, Arthur fights Mordred despite warnings, and the focus is on the "wicked day of destiny."

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley -The mirror scene at the end of that film, in which Frankenstein (at first) sees the creature when gazing into the mirror, points to a common interpretation of the story, in which the monster is an expression of some part of his creator; this kind of doubling is suggested in many adaptations of the novel, as well as in the novel itself -The creature in the novel turns to evil because of rejection, and a persistent concern with education—both Frankenstein's and the creature's—runs through the novel; we also talked about how Mary Shelley's background, as the daughter of two famous thinkers, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, might have contributed to that theme

Goblin Market

Premature aging and death in the result—the fact that no flowers grow on her grave suggest that her death is both mortal and spiritual—she has lost everything, both the hopes of a fruitful life on this earth, and salvation in the next life, through her attraction to the goblin men and to the fruits they offer The fruits represent sensual delight in many forms, though certainly the fact that the poem deals exclusively with female temptation makes sexuality a key concern: Jeanie (and nearly Laura) echo the fall of Eve

Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower Came

Robert Browning -an example of a Victorian poem that seemed disillusioned with the chivalric idealism of works like Tennyson's Idylls of the King. -the speaker's despair is reflected in his description of the landscape, which he sees as blighted, diseased, and warped. Many of the poems we read for this class suggest, through their descriptions of landscape, the speaker's state of mind.

Recalling War

Robert Graves -Robert Graves survived the war. Recalling War was written in 1938. It is a meditation by a survivor, written as Europe is on the brink of another conflict. We considered the images relating to children in the last lines: war is a foolish game, and war is also the thing that eats young men (children), as the guns eat away at the landscape.

They

Siegfried Sassoon -Siegfried Sassoon did see action, and was bitterly disillusioned by his experiences. We looked at the declaration he wrote against the war in June 1917:  "I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the contrivance of agonies which they do not, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize." Sassoon's poem They contrasts the voice of the bishop, who represents the official sanction of the "lie" denounced by Wilfred Owens in Dulce et Decorum est, with "the boys," whose parade of disabilities stand in stark contrast to the official story; there is deep irony in the final line, "The ways of God are strange." Sassoon survived the war.

Blank Verse in Idylls

The Idylls are written in blank verse; that is, unrhymed iambic pentameter An iamb is a foot, a unit of metre/ combination of stresses. An iamb is a rising metre (it has a weak and then a strong stress): the human heart-beat is often used to describe the combination: we looked at two lines from a speech from Henry V as an example of iambic pentameter: And hold | their man | hoods cheap | whiles an | y speaks That fought | with us | upon | Saint Cris | pin's day.

King Arthurs Quest for the Holy Grail

The Quest for the Holy Grail shifts chivalric values from the martial to the spiritual: Lancelot, the greatest knight, cannot succeed because of his sin with Guenevere. Malory shows us Arthur's concerns over losing his war band in the Quest

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds in sequence of nearby words Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King)

SANDMAN & JOHN MILTON

The Sandman series features Shakespeare twice, writing for Dream; first he creates A Midsummer Night's Dream, and at the end of Dream's life, The Tempest. Prospero's famous, metatheatrical lines from The Tempest have many resonances for Gaiman's project: Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. The references to John Milton's Paradise Lost allow Gaiman to explore questions relating to good and evil -We discussed how the visual contrasts between Dream and Lucifer complicate our expectations of good and evil; we connected the treatment of Dream's sister Death to the same issue, as she is an appealing and unthreatening figure rather than the "Grim Reaper" we might normally expect -Dream recognizes, at the end of Preludes and Nocturnes, that he has responsibilities, as does his sister Death; unlike Milton's Satan, he accepts his role and finds fulfillment in it, though he remains a complex and troubled character

Enjambment

The effect is also present in rhyming verse, as this example shows If at his counsel I should turn aside Into that ominous tract which, all agree, Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly I did turn as he pointed: neither pride Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, So much as gladness that some end might be. (Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came)

FRANKENSTEIN - THE MODERN PROMETHEUS/INTERTEXTUALITY

The novel has a subtitle—"the modern Prometheus"—and an epigraph, a quotation from Paradise Lost: we discussed the significance of these features "The modern Prometheus" is an allusion to a figure from Greek mythology, the Titan who (at the behest of Zeus) created man, and then stole fire from the gods in order to help his creation evolve: he was punished by being chained to a rock, and every day Zeus's eagles would eat his liver (which would grow back every night) To the Romantics, Prometheus was a hero, and a rebel against authority: Mary's husband Percy wrote a lyrical drama called Prometheus Unbound: I showed you these lines from the Epilogue to the play:  To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory. These lines can also be connected to the Romantic fondness for Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, and the epigraph of the novel is taken from that poem: Paradise Lost is, then, an intertext for Frankenstein We talked about how the novel is in some ways stitched together from many other literary references (rather like the creature is made up of many parts); intertextuality becomes significant when texts are in conversation with each other in some way, when one text uses a reference to another to frame its own themes/ concerns The novel's epigraph come from a part in Milton's poem when, after the Fall, Adam is lamenting his creation and demanding to know why has was made; in Paradise Lost, Adam moves on to acknowledge God's goodness and his own failings, but Mary Shelley's quotation does not include that moment The Miltonic intertext obviously applies to the creature, who calls Frankenstein to account for creating him, and it also applies to Frankenstein, who explicitly compares himself to Satan, the fallen angel

"Belle Dame": key symbols

The opening and closing stanzas of the poem are filled with images of death and decay; the "lily" in stanza three suggests death The central stanzas use rhyme and sound effects to underline the intoxication of the knight. Note the many examples of alliteration and assonance in the lines below, and the onomatopoeic effect of zone/ moan, further underlined by the very short final lines: I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew; And sure in language strange she said, I love thee true. The fairy song, the manna, and the enchantment can all be read as pointing symbolically to the process of imaginative creation

Goblin Market - Symbols

The poem's richly sensual symbols also seem to pull in another direction, tugging against the apparently didactic goals of the moral allegory The poem actually opens with the goblin men's cries, and their appeals are made to us before we know we are not to listen to them Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpeck'd cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheek'd peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries; - All ripe together In summer weather, - Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy This passage appeal to all the senses; the list-like quality produced by the lines ending on -berries piles up the sensory delights The appeal to buy in the face of mornings and evenings that fly by recalls the tradition of carpe diem poetry (carpe diem means seize the day; poems in this tradition often encourage readers to enjoy the delights of the body while they still can)

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonants in sequence of nearby words; see also consonance Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King)

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Willfred Owen -takes its title from a Latin phrase meaning "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." The title suggests a world like Brookes's imagining of the war—a world in which young men willingly make noble sacrifices, with no reference to the horrible realities. Owens's poem, however, stresses the mud, chaos, gas, and grotesque death characteristic of the war as Owens had come to know it, and declares the sentimental patriotism of Brooke "a lie." Owens was killed in 1918.

Henry V

William Shakespeare

Women in Eirik the Red's Saga & Beowulf

Women are much more prominent in the sagas than they are in Beowulf: we discussed the roles of Aud the Deep Minded, Freydis, and Gudrid, as well as the importance accorded to the wise woman by the long descriptive passage attached to her

Personification

ccurs when inanimate object or abstract concept is spoken of as if endowed with human attributes; also called prosopopoeia Droll rate, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies. (Isaac Rosenberg, Break of Day in the Trenches)

metonymy

literal term for one thing applied to another with which it is usually associated, eg., "the crown" for a ruler

Similie

omparison between two different things using like or as Bent double, like old beggars under sacks (Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est)

Consonance

repetition of consonant sounds in nearby words; see also alliteration The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King)

Masculine Rhyme

single stressed syllable at the end of line of verse There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met To view the last of me, a living frame For one more picture! in a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all. And yet Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set (Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came)

Caesura

strong pause or break within poetic line And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms, But heard the call, || and came: || and Guinevere (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King)

Meter

structure of rhythm of stresses into recurrence of regular units

The Faeire Queene

•Unfinished •An allegory is an extended metaphor •He wrapped the story in a frame that Arthur has a vision of the faerie queen •He wraps elements of the legendary past of Arthur in Elizabeth's construction of herself and nation •She reinforced her image in portraits which had symbols and clues in them •Pelican symbolizes redemption, and Christ because the pelican will feed its family with its own blood.

The Story of Motre Darthur

•Uther Pendragon falls in lust with Igraine, the wife of one of the most important of his dukes. •Uther declares war on the duke because the duke is not willing to surrender his wife. The duke runs to his castle and hides his wife. •Uther is overcome with love sickness and he is miserable, so he gets his court magician, merlin, to help him. Merlin changes Uthers appearance to make him look like the duke. •The duke is out fighting a war for the king. The king travels to the dues castle and pretends to be the duke. Uther then has sex with Igraine. •Uther leaves to kill the duke and then returns to marry her. •Igraine discovers she's pregnant, she is perplexed. Uther tells her the truth and says that he is the father of the baby. •She gives birth to Arthur. In some versions of the story, Merlin makes a deal with Uther, Merlin wants the baby. Uther takes Arthur away as a baby and gives it to one of his minor lords. In other versions, that doesn't happen. In both cases, the question for Arthur to rule is an issue. •Uther dies when Arthur is 14. Many of the barons believe that he is a bastard. •The sword in the stone becomes the moment to demonstrate his right to rule. Originally, he pulls the sword but people don't believe it so they make him do it at specific religious dates (feasts). It takes 5 attempts to prove him. At that point, the people decide that it is enough and claim him as king. •Arthur fights the Saxons and many wars. Saxons are non-Christian. Once defeating them Arthur starts to concur the rest of Europe to finance his war band. •Great knights gathered to his court because of his reputation. They become the knights of the round table. The knights get in a fight to where they have to sit at the table; they all want to be the closest to sit next to Arthur. Executes the knights that are fighting over this. •Arthur gets married. She is the most beautiful woman in Britain. Merlin warns Arthur about the future with his future wife. He tells him everything that is going to happen but Arthur goes ahead anyway. •His knights go on quest in search of adventures. They ride off to a namely forest and encounter witches monsters, giants, etc. and come back and tell adventures to everyone. •The Holy Grail appears. At dinner one night, the lights go out and then this grail floats into the room. Suddenly everything is great then it disappears. Holy grail represented as a cup. They have a vision about the grail, and then they go off in search of the grail in Britain. Hermits pop up on the way and give advice to tell where they went wrong. They tell the knights that they cannot even think about women because they need to be virgins. •One knight has a dream about bulls. The black bulls fail because they are not virgins, so only 3 succeed. •They look for the Holy Grail. Many die, and 3 of them find the Holy Grail. •Once they found the Holy Grail, what is left is a reduced demoralized court. •The affair between Sir Launcelot and Guenever is revealed. Now Arthur sentences his wife to death by burning. •Arthur finds them in her room; however, Sir Launcelot is strong and fights his way out of the room. •She is sentenced to burn on the stake, but she knows that Sir Launcelot lance will come and save her. Launcelot and his war band attack and rescue her from the stake, but Launcelot accidentally kills a couple of knights. These knights are the brothers of Sir ...... •One of the brothers who survived wont let Arthur settle, he wants justice. •Mordred is the one who reveals the affair between Sir Launcelot and Guenever. He is Arthur's son because Arthur sleeps with his half sister because he didn't know. •Merlin tells Arthur that he did wrong and that this boy will destroy the round table. Then Arthur sentences all babies to be killed. Except he doesn't kill his son because they missed him. The fall of the round table is punishment for Arthur's sin. Mordred tries to ruin the round table because Arthur ordered the death of all babies Mordred's age. This is his motive. •Final battle: everyone dies. Mass slaughter. Arthur kills Mordred but Mordred fatally hits Arthur. Sir Bedivere is left and Arthur gives him the Excalibur to throw back into the lake. •Arthur is dying, at which point, 4 queens show up and they take him to Avilion to be healed. The idea is that he is not dead and he will come back when his country needs him. •Guenever retreats and becomes a nun and Sir Launcelot retreats to a monastery and becomes a priest. He feels bad about what he has done and he shrinks. Stops eating, eventually he dies. Another person at the monastery has a dream where lance a lot goes to heaven. •Merlin is imprisoned for eternity by a woman he falls in love with. He does this even though he knows it will happen. Merlin ideology: what is to be, will be. •Merlin is necessary to the plot because he makes things happen. •Merlin is the son of the very highest woman in society, and a demon. He was intended to be the antichrist. His mother was so holy that she changed the outcome.