Foundations of English Exam #2

How does Swift highlight this change in perspective due to science?

"[...]one private pocket which escaped their search [...] a pair of spectacles, pocket telescope Swift is as interested in the technology that changes perspectives as society is at the time

Romanticism

1789, Romantic Period begins A Counter to the Enlightenment of Augustan, which highlighted wit and satire that seems jaded. Thus, mid 18th century literature turns to childhood, nostalgia, and innocence. A characteristic of the Romantic Period includes 1. The popularity of the Sentimental Novel, like Samuel Richardson's Pamela or Goethe, Sorrows of Young Werther. The Sentimental Novel rises out of the culture that questions whether rationalism undermines what it means to be human 2. Child Consciousness

Sylvia Plath

1932-1963 imaginary, newly, wildly, and subtly created the heroine ego confronting the sublime, taking the domestic and making it horror, tacking subjects that are private and taboo Works Morning Song: a baby's cry Daddy: Relates to her fathers German roots to an oppressive relationship with him, constantly referring to herself as a Jew, and then compares him to the man she marries and relates that marriage to a "resurrection" of her toxic father. In the end she "is through" Words Parliament Hill Fields Blackberry Child Metaphors

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A French man who believed that Human beings are naturally good & free & can rely on their instincts. Government should exist to protect common good, and be a democracy Rousseau has important discourse upon the origins and foundations of the inequality among mankind, 1761 Social customs, not any sin, are the root of Evil considering the choices that we have made leads us to inequality. Nature and natural laws can be used as a guide to right and reason and to pinpoint a time before human choice corrupted the natural and right way of life Equiano paints the picture that his education has lead him towards this Utopia and he uses the materials he reads for his own narrative

Romanticism

A broad term referring to a set of beliefs, attitudes, and values associated with a shift in Western Culture that was characterized by a reaction against Enlightenment rationalism and emphasized emotion, innovation, nature, the individual, and the subjective experience -Literary movement in Europe, Russia, and America -End of the 18th-19th Century -Arose first in Germany and England and then formed in America and other European Countries -England's Romantic Period (1798-1837) -America's Romantic Period (1828-1865) Differences Between Romantic Artists -Romantics rejected many of the artistic forms and conventions associated with Classism and Neoclassicism and its constriction of art -Some urged Revival in Medievalism while others for freedom from tradition -Some turned literature into a vehicle of the fancy and mode of Escapism: Coleridge and Wordsworth drew a distinction between fancy and imagination, fancy being ignorance based and imagination being the source of creativity artists have Similarities Between Romantic Artists -Shared ideas that spontaneous writing was essential to a true representation of subjective experience (original expression and everyday language) -Romantics prized individualism and self expression and saw themselves as sensitive and unappreciated. Thus the heroes and heroines that were written during this time period shared their authors feelings of isolation from society -An affinity for the Gothic and Grotesque with moods of decay, suspense, terror, and violent love that is destructively passionate (Cathy and Heathcliff). The grotesque also involves the bizarre and unnatural. Works of literature also involve a freedom of spirit, mystery, instincts, individuality, and the sublime Counter to Romantics: Realism -objectivity -self centered, sentimentalism

Apostrophe

A rhetorical figure in which the speaker directly, and often emotionally, addresses a person who is dead, absent, an imaginary nonhuman entity, or a place or concept (abstract idea or ideal) -can be personified -invocation involves an explicit request for aid in writing made to a supernatural entity 1. Addressing death 2. Can be used for Nature 3. Addressing an absent lover 4. Addressing love

Literature of Sensibility

A term most commonly used to refer to 18th Century (1700's) Literature that emphasized emotional sensibility and charitable feelings, particularly as manifested in the sentimental comedy and the sentimental novel -Drew on the ideals of philosophers Anthony Ashley Cooper and Third Earl of Shaftesbury, who asserted the natural benevolence of humankind are in reaction to two philosophical currents during the 1700's 1. Stoic Rationalism: privileged reason and alignment with natural law 2. Thomas Hobbes: English philosopher characterized humanity as selfish and self-interested -Sentimental literature exalted benevolence, sympathy and sensibility as inherent human traits, showing characters acting very sensibly to elicit the audience's pity or joy -Deathbed scenes, fainting virgins, reformed prostitutes, and blushing brides Movies such as -Its a wonderful life -Old yeller -My girl

Science Fiction/ Speculative Fiction

A type of fiction that utilizes science or pseudoscience in this world, or another, with realistic and fantastic elements to explore the question "what if" Kingsley Amis: science fiction deals with a situation that could arise int he world we know, but is hypothesized on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, whether human or extraterrestrial in origin Encompasses many themes: utopian, dystopian, journeys to unknown worlds, time travel, alien invasions and encounters, wars of mass destruction of lands or cultures, questions of identity, and (d)evolution of humanity Journey to new worlds: Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift) Human identity: Frankenstein, The Last Man (Mary Shelley), Kindred (Octavia Butler)

The Kid Author

Ai (speaker of the marginalized, abused, and poor)

Picaresque Novel

An episodic novel about a rogue-like wanderer who lives off his wits. This novel also realistically accounts/recounts the adventures of a carefree but engaging rascal who manages to barely escape -generally episodic -there is unity through the episodic scenes with the constant central character who comes from a lower class and lives by his wit rather than through honesty and handwork (an example of how wit is viewed negatively in this context) -the characters do not grow or develop -generally in the first person POV -generally satirical, often towards class structure -contains true to life settings and details that give the genre a realistic texture -emerged as a genre in 16th century Spain -this genre is a rejection from romantic ideals such as Chivalrous Knights as heroes Ex: Don Quixote, Moll Flanders Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) -monthly comic books and daily comic strips provide a continuing episodic structure like the picaresque novel

Slave Narrative

An oral/ written narrative by a former slave that recounts their lives in slavery and their escape -became popular during the 18th and 19th Century (England abolished slavery in the 1830's and America in the 1860's) -the genre was the most prominent in the 30 years leading up to the Civil War (America 1861-1865), after which slavery was abolished by the 13th amendment -books placed emphasis on the cruelty and hypocrisy of slave owners, the abuse and suffering of slaves, and the separation from their families, as well as a yearning for freedom, education, and Christian beliefs and values -some were didactic and meant to convince those in power to abolish slavery -critics argued were these books autobiographical? Events might be out of chronological order and dialogue might be fictionalized or characters might be flat stereotypes? Literary Examples given by Bedford -Uncommon Suffering and Surprise Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man (1760): Focused on the writers captivity among Florida Indians and Spanish colonists in Cuba -Narrative and the Life of Frederick Douglass EXAMPLE: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written By Himself

A Walk in the Workhouse

Charles Dickens

Childhood within the Romantic Era

Childhood is now as escape from manhood or adulthood in general, a new perspective of image of the child that is different from the enlightenments rationalistic views or the indictment of the church and its image of child as potentials for sin Childhood is one of the spaces to return to, and the other is nature

Wit

Derived from Old English "Witan" meaning "to know", a term whose meaning has changed over time -Middle Ages: Intellect or intelligence vs knowledge -Renaissance: Wisdom -17th Century: Creativity or fancy, ingenious twists and turns, associated with metaphysical poets -Neoclassical Period (18th Century): Judgmental, reason, and the ability to articulate commonly held truths in an original and persuasive manner Today: Paradoxical and intelligent view of wit EXAMPLES: The Spectator (1711): Joseph Addison -True wit: revealing similarities between apparently unlike ideas -False wit: associating unlike words through ornamental devices, such as puns A Description of a City Shower, Jonathan Swift -his description of a cloud being a drunkard puking upon the city is witty and original Alexander Pope's "Essay On Criticism" -Expression is the dress of thought, and still Appears more decent as more suitable... (Part 2, ll. 320-21) -Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, The sound must seem an Echo to the sense... (ll. 366-67) -True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd, What oft was thought but ne'er so well express'd. (ll. 299-300) -Pope focuses writing as a form of wit and saying things in a new way, a way in which has never been said before.

Neoclassical Period

English Literary history from 1660-1798 Usually divided into 3 literary eras 1. Restoration age (1700) 2. Augustan Age (First half of the 18th Century) 3. Age of Johnson (Second half of the 18th Century) Major writers include Joseph Addison, who is an essayist, playwright; John Dryden, a poet, critic, and playwright; Samuel Johnson, a poet, essayist, and lexicographer Includes comedies of manners and literature can often be satyrical, like Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift Online Source: Understanding the Neoclassical era helps us better understand its literature. This was a time of comfortableness in England. People would meet at coffee houses to chat about politics, among other topics, and sometimes drink a new, warm beverage made of chocolate! It was also the beginning of the British tradition of drinking afternoon tea. And it was the starting point of the middle class, and because of that, more people were literate. People were very interested in appearances, but not necessarily in being genuine. Men and women commonly wore wigs, and being clever and witty was in vogue. Having good manners and doing the right thing, particularly in public, was essential. It was a time, too, of British political upheaval as eight monarchs took the throne. -The Enlightenment coincides with the first half of the Neoclassical Era

What does Equiano embody as a writer?

Equiano embodies the Enlightenment and Enlightenment ideals. He is also a figure that has the ability to look forward and look back. Asa writer, he takes ownership of Romantic views on Paradise lost, much like Shelley and Blake read the text as. Equiano is not afraid to use literature in a purposeful way and making a claim for himself in a group that has previously excluded him before.

What is the impact of Equiano's Book Tour?

Equiano goes on the first modern book tour in Great Britain and has the power to appeal to regular folk. Through his book tour, he can appeal to the mass public rather than just the King. As he goes from city to city, he makes a list of subscribers in every city to show that he has growing support along the way. Many can view his actions as that of a good business man rather than just a man that purely wants equality for other African Americans that come after him. In his Thank You letters, he uses statements like "we have sold" a certain number of books by going door to door, the "we" invoking other people to join him and showing that this is a group effort. He is trying to make an average Reader an active abolitionist, for the first time in the Novels history, forcing someone to ACT because of the book rather than stay complacent or just contemplate on the ideas.

Discourse of subjects and objects

Equiano stages the reformation of curiosity, which is important to his subjectivity and his understanding of his place in the world. The Enlightenment period grounds itself in a political rule that values the individual and their subjectivity, yet Equiano does not have subjectivity, he is not a subject. He is an object. pg.22 pg.44 pg.48 Equiano is configuring himself as a subject and he does this through writing and education. This fashioning of curiosity is reflected in the transformation of the definition of curiosity in the OED. Its transformation goes from something that is sinful and something that should be avoided to something that is desired and shows an eagerness to learn. Curiosity is now a good thing and shows an ability to study and learn and prove that there is a capacity of reason.

How does Equiano struggle with his subjectivity?

Equiano struggles with his subjectivity, as seen by the objects around him being imbued by his master. There is a staging/ depiction of his own curiosity and making it innocent, as Rousseau would believe, and that allows Equiano to explore the objects around him Equiano is speaking to us through the Narrative voice as an older subject. We are his equals (W.E.B DuBois). DuBois also constructs this idea of a double consciousness that is a defining characteristic of the voices of the oppressed. It is a way of looking at one self through the perspective of others or to realize the different forms of yourself. With Equiano, we are told his story from the perspective of an educated man, looking back at his life as a slave and playing on his ignorance and all he has learned through his education.

Author of God's Grandeur

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Author of The Coora Flower

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)

Text of Metaphors

I'm a riddle in nine syllables, An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils. O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers! This loaf's big with its yeasty rising. Money's new-minted in this fat purse. I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf. I've eaten a bag of green apples, Boarded the train there's no getting off.

"Other", the

In psychoanalytic criticism, that which defines the limits and subject, or self, and from which the subject seeks confirmation of its existence and agency- the subject only exists in relation to the Other, which both defines the self through differences and engenders a yearning for unification 20th Century French psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan, who contended that humans have no sense of self separate from the world surrounding them until they reach the "mirror stage" of childhood Refers to any person or category of people seen as different from the dominant social group; this often leads to the marginalization, or oppression of the person or group. "Other" is also the psychoanalytic criticism defines and limits the subject or self for which subject seeks confirmation of its existence and agency -subject only exists in relation to the other -Jacques Lacan -any person seen as different than dominant society -the other can be defined by race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, disability...

Spiritual Autobiography

Is a genre of non-fiction prose that dominated Protestant writing during the seventeenth century, particularly in England, particularly that of dissenters. The narrative follows the believer from a state of damnation to a state of grace; the most famous example is perhaps John Bunyan's Grace Abounding (1666). Because so many autobiographies were written, they began to fall into a predictable pattern. The "formula" began with a sinful youth, "followed by a gradual awakening of spiritual feelings and a sense of anxiety about the prospects for one's soul."[1] The person would repent, fall again into sin, repent, and sin again; such cycles could last for years. The Bible was often a source of comfort or fear during this time. Finally, the person had a conversion experience, an "epiphany, often of an emotionally shattering character, by which individuals came to realize that they had been singled out by God for salvation."[1] Life was not necessarily easy after this, but it was a good deal less traumatic. These overarching narratives were seen to be not only relevant to human life, but also to human history. Those who practiced this type of spiritual autobiography believed that "history repeats itself not only in man's outward, group existence, but in the spiritual life of individuals."[2] The spiritual autobiography's intense focus on the individual has led scholars to see it as a precursor to the novel, with later writers such as Daniel Defoe writing fictionalized accounts of a character's spiritual journey, such as Robinson Crusoe. Moreover, because, as G. A. Starr argues, English Protestantism had rejected the "otherworldliness" of Catholicism "and insisted on the compatibility of earthly and spiritual callings," the "utterly mundane activities could be drawn upon to illustrate and enforce religious duties." This also contributed to the growth of what we now know as the novel.[3] Class Notes: Rose in the 1670's and started the Roots of the Novel, began with the Quakers

Author of Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift

Careful observers may foretell the hour (By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower: While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more. Returning home at night, you'll find the sink Strike your offended sense with double stink. If you be wise, then go not far to dine; You'll spend in coach hire more than save in wine. A coming shower your shooting corns presage, Old achès throb, your hollow tooth will rage. Sauntering in coffeehouse is Dulman seen; He damns the climate and complains of spleen. Meanwhile the South, rising with dabbled wings, A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings, That swilled more liquor than it could contain, And, like a drunkard, gives it up again. Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope, While the first drizzling shower is born aslope: Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean Flirts on you from her mop, but not so clean: You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop To rail; she singing, still whirls on her mop. Not yet the dust had shunned the unequal strife, But, aided by the wind, fought still for life, And wafted with its foe by violent gust, 'Twas doubtful which was rain and which was dust. Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid, When dust and rain at once his coat invade? Sole coat, where dust cemented by the rain Erects the nap, and leaves a mingled stain. Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down, Threatening with deluge this devoted town. To shops in crowds the daggled females fly, Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy. The Templar spruce, while every spout's abroach, Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach. The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While seams run down her oiled umbrella's sides. Here various kinds, by various fortunes led, Commence acquaintance underneath a shed. Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs. Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits, While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by fits, And ever and anon with frightful din The leather sounds; he trembles from within. So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed, Pregnant with Greeks impatient to be freed (Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do, Instead of paying chairmen, run them through), Laocoön struck the outside with his spear, And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear. Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow, And bear their trophies with them as they go: Filth of all hues and odors seem to tell What street they sailed from, by their sight and smell. They, as each torrent drives with rapid force, From Smithfield or St. Pulchre's shape their course, And in huge confluence joined at Snow Hill ridge, Fall from the conduit prone to Holborn Bridge. Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud, Dead cats, and turnip tops, come tumbling down the flood.

Jonathan Swift, A Description of a City Shower

Gulliver's Travails

Just as Equiano is transformed through his own curiosity and subjectivity, the genre of the novel goes through a similar change throughout the 18th Century as Hooks microscope is discovered. Science changes our subjectivity and suddenly, the flea, a detested little animal, looks more detailed and majestic under a microscope

Augustan Age

Literary age of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, all of whom wrote during the reign of the Ancient Roman Empire) -The 2nd of 3 literary eras within the Neoclassical Period, separating the Restoration Era and the Age of Johnson -First half of the 18th Century -Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift -The authors during this time modeled themselves after classical authors and predecessors, emphasizing the importance of society, balance, propriety, civility and wit

Text of The Kid

My sister rubs the doll's face in mud, then climbs through the truck window. She ignores me as I walk around it, hitting the flat tires with an iron rod. The old man yells for me to help hitch the team, but I keep walking around the truck, hitting harder, until my mother calls. I pick up a rock and throw it at the kitchen window, but it falls short. The old man's voice bounces off the air like a ball I can't lift my leg over. I stand beside him, waiting, but he doesn't look up and I squeeze the rod, raise it, his skull splits open. Mother runs toward us. I stand still, get her across the spine as she bends over him. I drop the rod and take the rifle from the house. Roses are red, violets are blue, one bullet for the black horse, two for the brown. They're down quick. I spit, my tongue's bloody; I've bitten it. I laugh, remember the one out back. I catch her climbing from the truck, shoot. The doll lands on the ground with her. I pick it up, rock it in my arms. Yeah. I'm Jack, Hogarth's son. I'm nimble, I'm quick. In the house, I put on the old man's best suit and his patent leather shoes. I pack my mother's satin nightgown and my sister's doll in the suitcase. Then I go outside and cross the fields to the highway. I'm fourteen. I'm a wind from nowhere. I can break your heart.

What is new about the novel?

Not all of what the novel is is new when we think about it in relation to much older forms like Thomas Moore's Utopia Novel contains an element of realism, as Swift uses when he claims Gulliver's Travels are as "true as if Mr. Gulliver spoke it"(5). In this way, Swift is already playing on a trope of the novel, an old fashioned beginning that Equiano himself uses. This is in stark contrast to what we have heard from Sir Philip Sydney in A Defense of Poesy, when he claims that Poesy is not a realistic literature, it is fiction. But, the novel makes a point of writing literature that is real This realism highlights the idea that the Novel is a product of its time, the Neoclassical and Augustan Age, that is characterized by taking reality seriously. The Novel reflects a time period of seeking the Truth.

Kindred

Octavia Butler

Sentimental Novel

One of the literary manifestations of Sentimentalism and the literature of sensibility in the 18th Century -appeals to the middle class in its emphasis on the importance of good conduct and reward for adhering to moral standards -held emotions at a high regard and a mark of the virtuous Example given by Bedford Samuel Richardson pioneered the genre in epistolary novel, Pamela. Samuel Richardson's definition of "slaves" also reflects his view of the sensibilities of the 18th Century. The definition is one that is abstract and makes slavery seem distant, somehow managing to fit the immoral acts of slavery within the box of moral standards during the Era of Sentimentalism -In the 19th Century, Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1811) Satirized the genre and concepts of sensibility -In her slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), Harriet Jacobs drew on the techniques and conventions of the sentimental novel in order to represent her vulnerability to the sexual advances of white men and invoke the reader's empathy

What is paratexual self-fashioning?

Paratext is a framing that is added to the main text and tells you how to read/ understand the text. it supports Equiano's narrative. Equiano created and starts the apparatus of the slave narrative. The beginning paratext is evidence of this. He uses the picture of him, in upper class, educated, European clothing, to validate his voice as the author of this text. He knows the audience that he is writing to and trying to appeal to their culture. It also shows that he has ownership of the text. The picture also elicits pathos and shows that African American authors are as real as white authors and their arguments are valid. His clothing also showcases Status. The text "Written By Himself" also shows ownership. The long list of subscribers also shows that Equiano is not alone in his fight to abolish slavery. He has other people, people who are high society members, who are also abolitionists. He is also appealing to God, to show that Slavery is an immoral act unsupported by God and Christianity. He is also appealing to the parliament in order to call for real legal change within the system of slave trade. All of the people mentioned in the paratext agree with, validate, and support Equiano.

Parody vs. Satire

Parody should be in the form that is satirizing but Satire does not need to abide by the form that it is critiquing, such as the Truman Show

How does Gulliver's Travels reveal a commentary on rationalism?

Pg. 59-60 The Lilliputians sour on Gulliver and they decide that they want to get rid of him Gulliver/ Swift recounts the way in which the Lilliputians have decided on his Punishment in a rationalistic way, despite the severity of the punishment of starving and blinding him being severe Swift could be exploring the idea of official language to mask the deeper irrational acts. The Lilliputians even say that the act of "starving you by degrees should be a kept a secret" from the records, showing that they are aware that their actions might be appalled as a punishment. This could be a subtle jab at the slave trade, an industry rampant in the midsts of the Enlightenment.

Author of This Be the Verse

Philip Larkin

Plot vs Story (REVISE)

Plot is the arrangement and interrelation of events in a narrative work that engages the reader's attention and interest while also providing a framework for the exposition of the author's message, or theme, and for other elements such as characterization, symbol, and conflict -frees the author from chronology -enables author to present their chosen subject in whatever way they see fit to elicit the desired emotional response from their reader Story is the events in which makes up the plot, in chronological order, with an emphasis on establishing causality that makes the story more convincing -the raw material in which plot is constructed Syuzhet vs Fabula -Plot vs Story, as labeled by Russian Formalists -literary devices such as rhythmic patterns, syntax, and imagery can convert a story into a plot Aristotle says that effective plots must have three effective parts, a beginning, middle, and end, that are complete alone and do not need to correlate temporally to one another -most people agree with Aristotles claim that plot should have a beginning, middle, and end, even if it begins in "media res" -plot must have unity and should not be episodic, but is not limited to the story line. If it a section of the piece were removed, something would seem to be missing. 19th and 20th Century: Aristotles identification of plot as the primary dramatic element faced increasing challenge -critics viewed plot as a means to showcase characters (Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights 1847) -other critics thought that plot should reflect part play -plot does not exist in the absence of conflict

Sumblime

Quality of greatness that elevates a reader to a higher plane -Elevation of the subject -Loftiness of language -Takes reader out of themselves Derives from 5 principles of sources 1. Grandeur of thought 2. Strong passions 3. Figures of speech 4. Dignified expression, diction 5. Majesty and elevation of structure Applies to nature and its infinity rather than the beauty (Edmund Burke) -terror and almost unknowable spirit of nature Contravenes the ends of our power of judgement (Kant) Aesthetic of the sublime is influenced by "Gothic Literature"

Sentimentalism

Refers to work that play excessively and unconvincingly on an audience's emotions, especially pity and sympathy. Sentimentalism varies from Era to Era -Critics claim that sentimentalism is used when motivation is not established and exploits and exaggerates sensibility and is susceptible to feeling rather than reason EXAMPLES: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe

Primitivism (REVISE)

Relies on good nature but corrupted by society -Reliant on emotion -Glorification of nature and is the antithesis of materialism and artifice -ideals political and social change a recurrent theory or belief, as in philosophy or art, that the qualities of primitive or chronologically early cultures are superior to those of contemporary civilization.

How has the definition of "Slave" changed over time?

Samuel Johnsons Definition of Salve is one that has interesting classical, metaphysical ideas that seem distant and in the past Samuel Webster Dictionary (1806) definition of Slave: Subject to the will of another, purchased, has a master, is part of a barbarous and wicked business. There are more ethnical and realistic claims to the idea of a slave

Slave Narratives

Slave narratives are the one true American Novel, just like Jazz is the one true American genre of music. Those who were part of the abolitionist society helped publish slave narratives in order to convince the general public of the atrocities of slave narratives Equiano is a major influencer of those who write slave narratives after him, such as William and Ellen Craft, Harriet Jacobs, and Frederick Douglass. Equiano had a broad influence and kicked off an entire genre and tradition. His books and speeches were widely popular during this time.

What is meant by the "age of reason"?

Slavery was juxtaposed by the Enlightenment. What is important about the spiritual autobiography is the historical significance of the individual and the internal scrutiny of the individual. This internal scrutiny is not requires during Chaucer's time when everyone had a Role within a group and everyone lived by archetypes. During the Medieval times, there was a clear path with Christianity (Chaucer). You made it to heaven through good works and repenting. During the time of Reformation, of Protestantism, there was either the Agency of Salvation or the lack of Agency with Predestination, so whether you made it to heaven fell to hell became determined by the individual, thus leading to the Spiritual Autobiography (Faustus and Equiano)

An introduction to Gulliver's Travels (1726)

Swift satirizes aspects of the courts, new science, and the new form of the novel through the wild, imaginative, and adventurous travels of Gulliver Because of Swifts early critique on a form that is just emerging, he is a definitive author in the middle of the Enlightenment, yet he is poised between the boundaries of the Enlightenment and the Romantic Eras. In order to satirize the novel, Swift had a keen eye for the tropes that were emerging within the novel There is controversy on whether it is right to call Gulliver's Travels a Novel or a Parody/ Utopian Fiction

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Text from God's Grandeur

Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.—Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone.

Text from Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth

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

Text from Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth Analysis "though absent long" showcases a return to nature "sensations, feelings, and pleasures," are all very romantic "and even the motion of our human blood, we see into the life of things" in Nature we discover more about ourselves -am association with youth and the voice of an older poet and his unification with nature brings innocence and experience -nature is Sublime

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, not any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.

Text from Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth Analysis -there is an emphasis on individual, subjective experience as the root of poetic expression

Among this congregation were some evil-looking young women, and beetle-browed young men; but not many — perhaps that kind of characters kept away. Generally, the faces (those of the children excepted) were depressed and subdued, and wanted colour. Aged people were there, in every variety. Mumbling, blear-eyed, spectacled, stupid, deaf, lame; vacantly winking in the gleams of sun that now and then crept in through the open doors, from the paved yard; shading their listening ears or blinking eyes with their withered hands; poring over their books, leering at nothing, going to sleep, crouching and drooping in corners. There were weird old women, all skeleton within, all bonnet and cloak without, continually wiping their eyes with dirty dusters of pocket-handkerchiefs; and there were ugly old crones, both male and female, with a ghastly kind of contentment upon them which was not at all comforting to see. Upon the whole, it was the dragon, Pauperism, in a very weak and impotent condition; toothless, fangless, drawing his breath heavily enough, and hardly worth chaining up. When the service was over, I walked with the humane and conscientious gentleman whose duty it was to take that walk, that Sunday morning, through the little world of poverty enclosed within the workhouse walls. It was inhabited by a population of some fifteen hundred or two thousand paupers, ranging from the infant newly born or not yet come into the pauper world to the old man dying on his bed.

Text of A Walk in the Workhouse, Charles Dickens

"poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation,"

Text of Lyrical Ballad, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge Is the manifesto of the Romantic movement that emotes recollection and tranquility

The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom— Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings Of waters—with a sound but half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume, In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves. II Thus thou, Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine— Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale, Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene, Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame Of lightning through the tempest;—thou dost lie, Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, Children of elder time, in whose devotion The chainless winds still come and ever came To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging To hear—an old and solemn harmony; Thine earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweep Of the aethereal waterfall, whose veil Robes some unsculptur'd image; the strange sleep Which when the voices of the desert fail Wraps all in its own deep eternity; Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion, A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame; Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, Thou art the path of that unresting sound— Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange To muse on my own separate fantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings, Holding an unremitting interchange

Text of Mont Blanc, Percy Bysshe Shelley Analysis -Mont Blanc is a high peak in Europe -Line 116, in the race of man, everything is moving -1-40: Opens with contemplation of Mountain. Ravine and is still and solemn -Section 5: power

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West! How many various-fated years have passed, What happy and what mournful hours, since last I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast, Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes I never shut amid the sunny ray, But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey, And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes, Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way, Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs: Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

Text of Sonnet to the River Otter, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!" So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep. There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said, "Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair." And so he was quiet, & that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight! That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack, Were all of them locked up in coffins of black; And by came an Angel who had a bright key, And he opened the coffins & set them all free; Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run, And wash in a river and shine in the Sun. Then naked & white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind. And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy, He'd have God for his father & never want joy. And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark And got with our bags & our brushes to work. Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm; So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

Text of The Chimney Sweeper

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o'ergrown With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!) And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light, Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve Serenely brilliant (such would Wisdom be) Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed! The stilly murmur of the distant Sea Tells us of silence. And that simplest Lute, Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark! How by the desultory breeze caressed, Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise, Such a soft floating witchery of sound As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing! O! the one Life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere— Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so filled; Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air Is Music slumbering on her instrument. And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, And tranquil muse upon tranquility: Full many a thought uncalled and undetained, And many idle flitting phantasies, Traverse my indolent and passive brain, As wild and various as the random gales That swell and flutter on this subject Lute! And what if all of animated nature Be but organic Harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of all? But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject, And biddest me walk humbly with my God. Meek Daughter in the family of Christ! Well hast thou said and holily dispraised These shapings of the unregenerate mind; Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring. For never guiltless may I speak of him, The Incomprehensible! save when with awe I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels; Who with his saving mercies healèd me, A sinful and most miserable man, Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid!

Text of The Eolian Harp, Samuel Taylor Coleridge Analysis -the central metaphor is that Coleridge is a poet that, like a harp that plays in the wind, is merely a vessel for inspiration from nature, in contrast with the power of interpretation Wordsworth Promotes

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Text of Tyger, William Blake Hint: Thing of the image in the slides. Blake is also known for his visuals Analysis -Reads like a child's poem, channelling the childless popular in the Romantic Era -Its radical beliefs of God creating beauty and danger -there is awe and admiration, the sublime -repetition and ritualistic -the aposiopesis, line break, showcases how language itself breaks down with this power

What was the Enlightenment period and what were its contradictions?

The Enlightenment can be defined as the end of Milton's life to the beginning of the French Revolution Equiano embodies the Enlightenment There was a deep rooted irony within the Enlightenment in which the ideas that "all men are created equal" yet there was still slavery. So, are slaves not considered men? The Enlightenment also brought about the creation of Racialized slavery. Most of the slavery of the past was not racialized (the Romans) There is the theory of the teleological process in which history is a progression towards Enlightenment (the British Whigs believed in this). This theory claims that there is a continual human progress towards Enlightenment. This might necessarily not be the case. For example, women's rights are not historically better than they were before. Chronologically, it is a cycle. We move in a cyclical manner, an ebb and flow of Enlightenment

Colonialism and Speculative Fiction

The dominant view is not the only valuable one Gadamer "the fundamental prejudice of the Enlightenment is the prejudice of prejudice Swift is aware of the abuses of power during this time, even more do due to his Irish origins "beyond the pail" and the Irish being the "other" for the English

How has Milton's Paradise Lost set the stage for the narrative, or the novel?

The end of Paradise Lost, the scene in which Adam and Eve are wandering in this lonely world, is a scene of individual psychology and domesticity. This is the grounds for the novel. There is an emphasis on choice. The novel showcases humans like us, in contrast to the Archangels and heavenly figures we say in Paradise Lost who we cannot imagine to be like us (hence the use of the epic simile to stretch our imagination in order to even fathom the idea of them) The question within Paradise Lost, of how it is that the world we inhabit became a place of pain and suffering, is the question that is attempted to be resolved or explained through the Novel. Our world is a product of our choices and, through literature, we can interrogate our choices and Reform them (Enlightenment) The Great X Novel captures the consciousness of the X, unlike that the Epic does in capturing humanity as a whole

Royal Society and New Science (1660-present)

The image showed in class was of Joseph Wrights Experiment on Bird, a depiction of an experiment done by the Royal Society, Robert Boyle being one of its founders This image is horrifying and the viewer is confronted with the potential in humanity to use science and what cost we will take for knowledge Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and the origins of Royal Society, reform of language, development of inductive method ("The Scientific Method") Bacon feels that language has become sloppy and that we must move away from argument and towards experiment, away from metaphor and poetry and toward practical writing Boyle, 1621-97 Hooke, 1632-1703

Subaltern (Post-Colonial)

The lower or colonized classes who have little access to their own means of expression and are thus dependent upon the language and methods of the ruling class to express themselves. Gayatri Spivak suggests that the subaltern is denied access to both mimetic and political forms of representation." Because of this, writing can be a hierarchical system in which only some people have a voice

Significance of literature and theory in the 20th and 21st Century

The most famous linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure established a key concept in linguistics langue is a system of sings that exist in abstract space, The Academy in Gulliver's Travels is interested in heightening the specificity of language like Francis Bacon Parole is language in action within society 20th Century theory and literature is interested in the gap between the concept and the sound image/ the signified and the signifier/ the word and the image. There will always be a gap, these concepts are not intimately related because there is no natural association to each-other, they are arbitrary Then, how do we know how to learn them? You learn through negation, distinguished from other items, arriving at a closer approximation

Text of This Be the Verse

They **** you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were ****ed up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself.

What to the openings of the Great American Novels explore?

They explore a rebirth, a knowing of the world that is particular to the author and contains an ownership or writing and ideas communicated. The novel explores subjective positioning

Analysis of a "Description of a City Shower"

This poem by Jonathan Swift reflects the realism of the time, an incredibly descriptive retelling of what happens when it rains in a poorly planned urban environment. The rain is not romanticized, but dreaded, because it overflows the gutters, causes traffic jams and arthritis. The imagery throughout is dull, like the dead cats and the clouds that seem like drunkards puking on the city. Everything being described is against the pastoral beauty of literature past. This type of writing is common to the time because authors were obsessed with Wit

How does Swift relate to Equiano?

Through Gulliver's Travels, Swift emphasizes that the novel is a form in which the self can be fashioned, much like Equiano does within his novel in finding a self separate from that of a slave. Equiano also fashions self through nonfiction forms in relation to the texts of Milton and Pope that he common places.

How does Equiano use literary history?

Through the use of literature snd through humanistic common placing practices, authors like Equiano can take ownership of other authors texts as a write. pg. 60 pg. 73 pg. 80 pg. 83 Equiano quotes the great works of his own time to make contact with the General public. It is interesting to see how in all of these quotations, Equiano's sympathies lie with the character that is being oppressed (in the case of Paradise Lost, with Satan, the fallen angel). He is an author who is using the materials he has been exposed through with his education with creativity and agency.

Text of the Coora Flower

Today I learned the coora flower grows high in the mountains of Itty-go-luba Bésa. Province Meechee. Pop. 39. Now I am coming home. This, at least, is Real, and what I know. It was restful, learning nothing necessary. School is tiny vacation. At least you can sleep. At least you can think of love or feeling your boy friends against you (which is not free from grief.) But now its Real Business. I am Coming Home. My mother will be screaming in an almost dirty dress. The crack is gone. So a Man will be in the house. I must watch myself. I must not dare to sleep.

Biography of William Blake

William Blake valued art and writing, as showcased in his songs of childhood and innocence

On the Origins of Species By Means of Natural Selection

Work By Charles Darwin

Lyrical Ballads, Tintern Abbey

Works By William Wordsworth

Sonnet to the River Otter and Eolian Harp

Works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

God's Grandeur, Spring, The Starlight Night

Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Works of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Analysis -Frankensteins Monster is the sublime because he evokes terror, but what he represents in human power -We encounter the monster moving through Sublime spaces such as glaciers in the Arctic and then we move back in time through the Swiss Alps

Isolation, To Marguerite, Dover Beach (a response being Anthony Hecht's Dover Bitch)

Works of Matthew Arnold

To Wordsworth, Monte Blanc, Ozymandias

Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley

All Religions are One, Holy Thursday, The Tyger, The Chimney Sweeper

Works of William Blake

Blast

Wyndham Lewis The scattered chaotic topography mixed with war time propaganda highlighted the Great War

What is the Sublime?

an effect of beauty in grandeur (being grand)/ feeling of awe, reverence, vastness, and power beyond human comprehension Longinius, "A lofty passage does not convince the reason of the reader, but takes him out of himself. That which is admirable ever confounds our judgment, and eclipses that which is merely reasonable or agreeable. To believe or not is usually in our own power; but the Sublime, acting with an imperious and irresistible force, sways every reader whether he will or no." (On the Sublime) Edmund Burke, "WHATEVER is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime." (Philosophical Inquiry) Kant: "The most important and vital distinction between the sublime and the beautiful is certainly this: . . . whereas natural beauty . . . conveys a finality in its form making the object appear, as it were, preadapted to our power of judgment . . . that which . . . excites the feeling of the sublime . . . may appear . . . to contravene the ends of our power of judgment . . . and to be, as it were, an outrage on the imagination . . . (Critique of Judgment, I, ii, sec. 23)

Parts in Gulliver's Travels where there is a shift in perspective

pg. 72-73: To the Lilliputians, he is large and monstrous, but Among the Brobdingnags, he is small. There might yet be other worlds that humanity has not discovered that will shift our perspectives. pg. 76-77: An evaluation on the changing perspectives of Pores, in which the Brobdingnags have visible pores and freckles and the breasts of the woman are huge. This is a magnified perspective, no doubt influenced by Hook's microscope. But, Gulliver recognizes that he too must have looked like that to the Lilliputians pg. 151: On Laputa in Academy of Lagado, all of these men are creating silly inventions, my favorite of which is a process that teaches the blind how to smell and sense by touch colors 155-157: A creation of the writing engine; "that this invention had employed all his thoughts from his youth; that he had emptied the whole vocabulary into his frame, and made the strictest computation of the general proportion there is in books between the numbers of particles, nouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech

How does Equiano prompt people to act?

pg. 79 pg. 83 pg. 84 Rhetorical Analysis Slavery is unjust and cruel