Term
|
Definition
The final line of a Spenserian stanza is an alexandrine.
Twelve meters or six iambic feet. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| the use of a repeated consonant or sound, usually at the beginning of a series of words |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A reference to someone or something, usually literary |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The assigning of human attributes, such as emotions or physical characteristics, most often plants and animals. It differs from personification in that it is an intrinsic premise and an ongoing pattern applied to a nonhuman character throughout a literary work. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| One of the neoclassical principles of drama. Decorum is the relation of style to the content in the speech of dramatic characters. For example, a character's speech should be appropriate to his/her social station. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A derogatory term used to describe poorly written poetry of little or no literary value. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A work, especially a poem, written to celebrate a wedding. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Characterizes writing that is self-consciously laden with elaborate figures of speech. This was a popular and influential mode of speech and writing in the late 16th Century.
Ex: The character of Polonius in Hamlet speaks in euphemisms. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lines rhymed by their final two syllables. A pair of lines ending "running" and "gunning" would be an example of a feminine rhyme. |
|
|
Term
| Flat and Round Characters |
|
Definition
| Terms coined by EM Forster to describe characters built around a single dominant trait (flat) and those shaded and developed with greater psychological complexity (round). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Georgic poems deal with people laboring in the countryside, pushing plows, raising crops. etc. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Aristotle's term for what is popularly called the tragic flaw. Hamartia differs from tragic flaw in that hamartia implies fate, whereas tragic flaw implies an inherent psychological flaw in the tragic character. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
A repeated descriptive phrase, as found in Homer's epics.
Ex: Rosy-fingered dawn |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A term derived from Samuel Butler's Hudibras. It refers to the couplets of rhymed tetrameter lines, or more generally to any deliberate, humorous, ill-rhymed, ill-rhythmed couplets. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A deliberate exaggeration |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An understatement created through double negative |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A speech addressed to someone that is not present, or to an abstraction, like "History!" |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A German term meaning an education novel. It typically follows a person over a period of years from naivete and inexperience through the first struggles with the harsher realities and hypocrisies of the adult world |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The pause that breaks a line of poetry, usually in Old English verse |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
A term for a phrase that refers to a person or object by a single important feature of the person.
Ex: The pen is mightier than the sword.
The pen stands in for the written word. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Principles of dramatic structure derived (and applied somewhat too strictly) from Aristotles Poetics. They are called the neoclassical unities because of their popularity in the neoclassical movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The essential unities are time, place, and action. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A type of poem that takes the form of an elegy (a lament for the dead) sung by a shepherd. In this conventionalized form, the sheperd who sings the elegy is a stand-in for the author, and the elegy is for another poet. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A work that deals with the lives of the people, especially shepherds, in the country or in nature. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A term coined by John Ruskin; it refers to ascribing emotion and agency to animate objects. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Giving an inanimate object human qualities or form. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A novel, typically loosely constructed along an incident-to-incident basis, that follows the adventures of a more or less scurrilous rogue whose primary concerns are filling his belly and staying out of jail. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The main character, usually a hero. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A form of humorous poetry, using very short, rhymed lines and a pronounced rhythm, made popular by John Skelton. The only real difference between a skeltonic and a doggerl is the quality of the thought expressed. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The rhythm created and used in the 19th century by Hopkins. Like Old English verse, sprung rhythm fits a varying number of unstressed syllables in a line--only stresses count in scansion. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A term referring to phrases that suggest an interplay of the senses, like Hot Pink or Golden Tones. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
A phrase that refers to a person or object by a single important feature.
Ex: a pair of ragged claws in Prufrock is a crab |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The perspective form which a story is written. Literature is most often written from the first person or third person. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
The typical stanza of the folk ballad. The length of the lines in ballad stanzas, just as in sprung rhythm poetry and Old English Poetry, is determined by the number of stressed syllables only.
ABCB |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
The stanza composed of four lines or iambic tetrameter
ABBA |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
8 line stanza (usually iambic pentameter)
ABABABCC |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Seven-line iambic pentameter
ABABBCC |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Nine-line stanza. The first 8 lines are iambic pentameter and the final line is an alexandrine. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Consists of three-line stanzas with an interlocking rhyme scheme proceeding aba bcb cdc ded, etc |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Unrhymed iambic pentameter verse. Ex: Tennyson's Ulysses |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Unryhmed verse without and strict meter.
Ex: Song of Myself by Walt Whitman |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Verses characterized by the internal alliteration of lines and a strong midline pause called a caesura. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| 14 line poem rhyming abbaabba cdecde. The first 8 lines are called the octave and the last six are called the sestet, |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A 12 line poem with a final rhyming couplet. ABAB DCDC EFEF GG |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| 14 lines: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A 19 line form: aba aba aba aba aba abaa. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| 39-line poem of six stanzas of six lines each and a final stanza of three lines. Rhyme plays no part in a sestina. Instead one of six words of each of the poem's lines is used as the end word according to a fixed pattern. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| "Helping Verb" Ex: I AM working on it. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a verb acting as a noun clause (usually the -ing form of the verb).
Ex: Eating worms is bad for your health. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| verb used for issuing commands |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Plain old verb in present tense |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| an unconjugated verb with "to" in front of it |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| further information about the subject (a verb and its cohorts) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
verb used to express conditional or counterfactual statements
Ex: If I were a rich man |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
A word that introduces a subordinate clause
Ex: "Since you're awake, I'll just turn on the TV." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
A group of words acting as a noun
Ex: Playing the banjo is cool. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Expression of direct address Ex: Sit, Ubu, Sit! |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Keywords: Mirror, phallus, signifiers/signified, substitution, desire, jouissance, object petit a, and the three orders: imaginary, symbolic, and real, to name a few. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Keywords: Class, proletariat, means of production, bourgeoisie, imperialism, dialectical materialism |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Keywords: ideology, especially encoded ideology supporting the dominant class. |
|
|
Term
| Archetype or Myth Criticism |
|
Definition
| Joseph Campbell and Northrop Frye; they look for recurring symbols, motifs, character types, and plots. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Keywords: The intentional fallacy, the affective fallacy, the heresy of paraphrase, close reading |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Semiotics, sign, signifier, signified |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Deconstruction, erasure, trace, bracketing, differancem, slippage, dissemination, logocentrism, indeterminacy, decentering, mimesis, alterity, marginality, desire, and lack. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Implied or ideal reader, horizon of expectation |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
The Creation:
Day 1: Light and Darkness
Day 2: Heaven (firmament)
Day 3: Earth (dry land), complete with grass and trees
Day 4: Lights in the heaven
Day 5: Animals of the sea and sky
Day 6: Beasts of the earth and man
Day 7: Rested |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The people of Shem try to build a tower that will reach heaven. God punishes them for their arrogance and punishes them by making them speak different languages and spreading them over the globe. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Sarah recommends that her husband Abraham have a son with their slave Hagar. They have a son named Ishamael. Then Sarah gets preggers and they have Isaac. God asks him to sacrifice Isaac, but the angel stops him in time. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| documents the major events in the life of Moses and the 10 commandments, Aaron, the golden calf, the ark of the convenant, manna, Mount Sinai, rams blood, and the breaking of the first two tablets. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Satan proposes to test on of God's loyal subjects. God strips away Job's wealth and family. After Job proves true, God restores all his riches. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| These four books of the Bible detail the first kings of Israel, annointed by Samuel, who was the last of the Hebrew Judges. Sail was the first of the kings, followed by David when Saul was killed by the Phillistines. David kills Goliath before he was king, and later is credited with composing some of the Psalms. The later King Solomon was David's son by Bathseheba. David's son Absalom tries to rebel against him, and the story is retold by Dryden and Faulkner |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Set during the Babylonian captivity of Jersulem. Can be split into the Court tales of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and Daniel's interpretation of dreams. Daniel rises from a servant to to confidant to the King. He predicts an upcoming famine. He is appointed by King Darius as one of the three presidents of the Kingdom. The others cast him into the Lion den. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| God orders Jonah to go to Ninevah and Jonah refuses. The tries to run away but God sends a fish to swallow him up. Ties to Moby Dick. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The place were Jesus prays and is handed over to the Romans by Judas Iscariot. Judas kisses Jesus and is paid 30 pieces of siilver. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The daughter of Herod who requested the head of John the Baptist on a plate. Christian traditions depict her as an icon of dangerous female seductiveness, for instance depicting as erotic her dance mentioned in the New Testament (in some later transformations further iconised to the dance of the seven veils), or concentrate on her lighthearted and cold foolishness that, according to the gospels, led to John the Baptist's death. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
is the subject of a prominent miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death. The sisters send word to Jesus that Lazarus, "he whom thou lovest," is ill.[6] Instead of immediately traveling to Bethany, according to the narrator, Jesus intentionally remains where he is for two more days before beginning the journey.
When Jesus arrives in Bethany, he finds that Lazarus is dead and has already been in his tomb for four days. He meets first with Martha and Mary in turn. Martha laments that Jesus did not arrive soon enough to heal her brother and Jesus replies with the well-known statement, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die". Next encountering Mary, Jesus is moved by her sorrow. The narrator here gives the famous simple phrase, "Jesus wept". |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| the discourse of Jesus recorded in Matt. 5–7, including the Beatitudes (Blessed are the poor in spirit, etc) and the Lord's Prayer. Together, the Beatitudes present a new set of ideals that focus on love and humility rather than force and exaction; they echo the highest ideals of Jesus' teachings on spirituality and compassion. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| also known as the Lost Son, is one of the parables of Jesus. It appears in only one of the Canonical gospels of the New Testament. a younger son is given his inheritance. After wasting his fortune (the word 'prodigal' means 'wastefully extravagant'), the son returns home and repents. It is the third and final part of a cycle on redemption. "But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The object of Hamlet's affections, though also the recipient of the famous, Get thee to a nunnery line. Her father is Polonius (whom Hamlet kills by accident), and her brother is Laertes. She eventually goes crazy and drowns in a lake. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Hamlet's best friend and confidant. IT is suggested at the end of the play that Horatio will tell Hamlet's story: "And let me speak to th' yet unknowing word. How these things came about." |
|
|
Term
| Rosencrantz and Guildenstern |
|
Definition
| Also Hamlet's friends, important because they are sent to England with Hamlet with instructions that the recipient of the letter should kill him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are instead killed in his place after Hamlet alters the letter. Tom Stoppard adapted a play about them. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The prince of Norway who is constantly pressing on the Danes from without. He appears at the end of Hamlet looking to meet with Claudius be instead finds all the characters dead on stage. Hamlet crowns Fortinbras King of Denmark and Fortinbras buries him honorably. |
|
|
Term
| Hamlet's Play within a Play |
|
Definition
| Alternately called "The Murder of Gonzago" and "The Mousetrap" |
|
|
Term
| "Yet do I fear thy nature / It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness/ To catch the nearest way." |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing." |
|
Definition
| Lines from Macbeth after the death of Lady Macbeth |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Othello, Desdemona, Cassio (his lieutenant), Iago (the villain). Iago convinces Othello that Desdemona and Cassio are having an affair. Othello strangles Desdemona and kills himself. Iago is carried away. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Harold Bloom sees Iago as the forebear to Milton's Satan/ |
|
|
Term
| "For when my outward action doth demonstrate / The native act and figure of my heart / In compliment extern, 'tis not long after / But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve / for daws to peck at. I am not what I am.: |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| "She swore in faith 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange/ 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful." |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| "I hate the Moor . . ." "Men should be what they seem, / Or those that be not, would they might seem none!" |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| "O! beware, my lord of jealousy; / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on . . ." |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| "I kissed thee ere I killed thee, no way but this, / Killing myself, to die upon a kiss." |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Baptista, merchant in Padua, has two daughters: Bianca and Katherina. Bianca is in love with Lucentio, but she can't marry until Kate does. Petruccio marries her, takes her to Verona and breaks Kate down. Clue: Lots of Italian sounding -io names in this play |
|
|
Term
"You lie, in faith, for you are called plain Kate,
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst,
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in all of Christendom,
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate--
For dainties are all cates, and therefore 'Kate' . . . |
|
Definition
| Petrucchio in Taming of the Shrew |
|
|
Term
K: "Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot,
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease."
P: Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate. |
|
Definition
| Dialogue from Taming of the Shrew |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Performed in 1611; Colonial Contexts, classified as a Romance |
|
|
Term
| "You taught me language, and my profit on't / Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you / for learning me your language!" |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| "O Wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! / O brave new world / That such people in't" |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Characters in Richard III |
|
Definition
Richard, Duke of Gloucester
His brother, King Edward IV
Clarence, other brother
Richmond, later Henry VII
Elizabeth
Margaret of Anjou
Duchess of York (mother) |
|
|
Term
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. |
|
Definition
| Richard III's opening lines of the play. It is the only play to start with a silolquy by the main character. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;" |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red ;
. . .
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| (1749–1832), German poet, playwright, novelist, philosopher, and scientist. Involved at first with the Sturm und Drang movement; His Faust has been called the greatest long poem of modern European literature. His other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| German playwright, producer, and poet. From his late 20s Brecht remained a lifelong committed Marxist who, in developing the combined theory and practice of his 'epic theatre', synthesized and extended the experiments of Erwin Piscator and Vsevolod Meyerhold to explore the theatre as a forum for political ideas and the creation of a critical aesthetics of dialectical materialism. Epic Theatre proposed that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", and often mistranslated as "alienation effect"). This involved, Brecht wrote, "stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them".[61] To this end, Brecht employed techniques such as the actor's direct address to the audience, harsh and bright stage lighting, the use of songs to interrupt the action, explanatory placards, and, in rehearsals, the transposition of text to the third person or past tense, and speaking the stage directions out loud. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| (1265–1321), Italian poet; full name Dante Alighieri. He wrote The Divine Comedy ( c. 1309–20), an epic poem that describes his spiritual journey through Hell and Purgatory and finally to Paradise. His love for Beatrice Portinari is described in Vita nuova ( c. 1290–94). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The Divine Comedy describes Dante's journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso), guided first by the Roman poet Virgil and then by Beatrice, the subject of his love and of another of his works, La Vita Nuova. While the vision of Hell, the Inferno, is vivid for modern readers, the theological niceties presented in the other books require a certain amount of patience and knowledge to appreciate. Purgatorio, the most lyrical and human of the three, also has the most poets in it; Paradiso, the most heavily theological, has the most beautiful and ecstatic mystic passages in which Dante tries to describe what he confesses he is unable to convey (e.g., when Dante looks into the face of God: "all'alta fantasia qui mancò possa"—"at this high moment, ability failed my capacity to describe" |
|
|
Term
| Chief God; God of the Sky |
|
Definition
Greek: Zeus
Roman: Jupiter |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Lord of the dead, underworld |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Goddess of the Hearth/Home |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| God of Healing, intellectual pursuits, fine arts, prophesy, sun and light |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| God of the smiths and weavers |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Goddess of the Underworld |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| God of goatherds and shepherds |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
daughters of Zeus and Eurynome:
Aglaia (Splendor), Euphrosyne (Mirth), Thalia (Good Cheer) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Clio (History), Urania (Astronomy), Melpomene (Tragedy), Thalia (Comedy), Terpsichore (Dance), Calliope (Epic Poetry), Erato (Love Poetry), Polyhymnia (Songs to the Gods), Euterpe (Lyric Poetry) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Choose a man's destiny and life span |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Ruled the earth before the Olympians overthrew them |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| One of the three classes of water nymphs, along with the Nereides and Oceanides. |
|
|
Term
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove |
|
Definition
| Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" |
|
|
Term
To draw no envy, SHAKSPEARE, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame ;
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much. |
|
Definition
| Ben Jonson's "To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare" |
|
|
Term
I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our stage!
My SHAKSPEARE rise ! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room :
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read, and praise to give. |
|
Definition
| Ben Jonson's "To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare" |
|
|
Term
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names : but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread
And shake a stage : |
|
Definition
| Ben Jonson's "To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare" |
|
|
Term
He was not of an age, but for all time !
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm !
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines ! |
|
Definition
| Ben Jonson's "To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare" |
|
|
Term
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please ;
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give Nature all ; thy art,
My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part. |
|
Definition
| Ben Jonson's "To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare" |
|
|
Term
My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion : and, that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil ; turn the same,
And himself with it, that he thinks to frame ;
Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn ;
For a good poet's made, as well as born. |
|
Definition
| Ben Jonson's "To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare" |
|
|
Term
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there !
Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage
Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light. |
|
Definition
| Ben Jonson's "To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare" |
|
|
Term
DISPLAY thy breasts, my Julia—there let me
Behold that circummortal purity,
Between whose glories there my lips I'll lay,
Ravish'd in that fair via lactea. |
|
Definition
| Robert Herrick's "Upon Julia's Breasts" |
|
|
Term
WHENAS in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free ;
O how that glittering taketh me ! |
|
Definition
| Robert Herrick's "Upon Julia's Clothes" |
|
|
Term
HER eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee ;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. |
|
Definition
THE NIGHT-PIECE, TO JULIA.
by Robert Herrick |
|
|
Term
Then, Julia, let me woo thee,
Thus, thus to come unto me ;
And when I shall meet
Thy silv'ry feet
My soul I'll pour into thee. |
|
Definition
THE NIGHT-PIECE, TO JULIA.
by Robert Herrick |
|
|
Term
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity. |
|
Definition
| Andrew Marvell "To his Coy Mistress" |
|
|
Term
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run. |
|
Definition
To his Coy Mistress
by Andrew Marvell |
|
|
Term
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. |
|
Definition
"ELEGY WRITTEN IN
A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD"; Thomas Gray |
|
|
Term
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. |
|
Definition
| THomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" |
|
|
Term
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. |
|
Definition
| Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" |
|
|
Term
The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melacholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God. |
|
Definition
| Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Long narrative about sustained heroism. Ex: Homer's Iliad |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Also called the epic question. An address to the muse and a request for help for the poet. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Translation: in the middle of the action. Background information is supplied as the narrative unfolds. Ex: The Iliad starts with the siege of Troy |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The background information and the descriptions of equipments or participants that are often in the form of a long list. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Descriptions that are highly stylized. This, like any simile, is a comparison, but the epic simile carries the comparison to an extraordinary length. |
|
|
Term
Now gentle gales
Fanning thir odoriferous wings dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmie spoiles. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at Sea North-East windes blow
Sabean Odours from the spicie shoare
Of Arabie the blest, with such delay
Well pleas'd they slack thir course, and many a League
Cheard with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles. |
|
Definition
| Example of an Epic Simile. From Milton's Paradise Lost |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege, the earlier events, such as the gathering of warriors for the siege, the cause of the war and similar, tending to appear near the beginning, and the events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles' looming death and the sack of Troy, prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly approaching the end of the poem, making the poem tell a more or less complete tale of the Trojan War.
Along with the Odyssey, also attributed to Homer, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the eighth century BC.[1] The Iliad contains over 15,000 lines, and is written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek with other dialects. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
In the Iliad, the son of King Atreus of Mycenae and Queen Aerope; the brother of Menelaus and the husband of Clytemnestra. When Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was abducted by Paris of Troy, Agamemnon was the commander of the Greeks in the ensuing Trojan War. The Iliad tells the story of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles in the final year of the war. Agamemnon took an attractive slave, Briseis, one of the spoils of war, from Achilles. Achilles, the greatest warrior of the age, withdrew from battle in revenge and nearly cost the Greek armies the war. Although not the equal of Achilles in bravery, Agamemnon was a representative of kingly authority. As commander-in-chief, he summoned the princes to the council and led the army in battle. He took the field himself, and performed many heroic deeds until he was wounded and forced to withdraw to his tent. His chief fault was his overwhelming haughtiness; an over-exalted opinion of his position that led him to insult Chryses and Achilles, thereby bringing great disaster upon the Greeks.
After the capture of Troy, Cassandra, doomed prophetess and daughter of Priam, fell to Agamemnon's lot in the distribution of the prizes of war. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad. The Homeric epic only covers a few weeks of the war, and does not narrate Achilles' death. It begins with Achilles' withdrawal from battle after he is dishonored by Agamemnon, the commander of the Achaean forces. Agamemnon had taken a woman named Chryseis as his slave. Her father Chryses, a priest of Apollo, begged Agamemnon to return her to him. Agamemnon refused and Apollo sent a plague amongst the Greeks. The prophet Calchas correctly determined the source of the troubles but would not speak unless Achilles vowed to protect him. Achilles did so and Calchas declared Chryseis must be returned to her father. Agamemnon consented, but then commanded that Achilles' battle prize Briseis be brought to replace Chryseis. Angry at the dishonor (and as he says later, because he loved Briseis)[10] and at the urging of Thetis, Achilles refused to fight or lead his troops alongside the other Greek forces. At this same time, burning with rage over Agamemnon's theft, Achilles prayed to his mother Thetis to convince Zeus to help the Trojans gain ground in the war, so that he may regain his honor. Enraged over the death of Patroclus, Achilles ended his refusal to fight and took the field killing many men in his rage but always seeking out Hector. With the assistance of the god Hermes, Hector's father, Priam, went to Achilles' tent to plead with Achilles to permit him to perform for Hector his funeral rites. The final passage in the Iliad is Hector's funeral, after which the doom of Troy was just a matter of time. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Odysseus has traditionally been viewed in the Iliad as Achilles's antithesis: while Achilles's anger is all-consuming and of a self-destructive nature, Odysseus is frequently viewed as a man of the mean, renowned for his self-restraint and diplomatic skills. He is more conventionally viewed as the antithesis of Telamonian Ajax (Shakespeare's "beef-witted" Ajax) because the latter has only brawn to recommend him, while Odysseus is not only ingenious (as evidenced by his idea for the Trojan Horse), but an eloquent speaker, a skill perhaps best demonstrated in the embassy to Achilles in book 9 of the Iliad. And the two are not only foils in the abstract but often opposed in practice; they have many duels and run-ins (for examples see the next section) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| In the Iliad, Ajax (a Greek) is notable for his abundant strength and courage, seen particularly in two fights with Hector. In Book 7, Ajax is chosen by lot to meet Hector in a duel which lasts most of a whole day. Ajax at first gets the better of the encounter, wounding Hector with his spear and knocking him down with a large stone, but Hector fights on until the heralds, acting at the direction of Zeus, call a draw: the action ends without a winner and with the two combatants exchanging gifts, Ajax giving Hector a purple sash and Hector giving Ajax a sharp sword. After Achilles, Ajax is the most valuable warrior in Agamemnon's army (along with Diomedes), though he is not as cunning as Nestor, Diomedes, Idomeneus, or Odysseus, he is much more powerful and just as intelligent. He commands his army wielding a huge shield made of seven cow-hides with a layer of bronze. Most notably, Ajax is not wounded in any of the battles described in the Iliad, and he is the only principal character on either side who does not receive personal assistance from any of the gods who take part in the battles. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Homer's Iliad is the most expansive source for Menelaus' exploits during the Trojan War. In Book 3, Menelaus challenges Paris to a duel for Helen's return. Menelaus soundly beats Paris, but before he can kill him and claim victory Aphrodite spirits Paris away inside the walls of Troy. In Book 4, while the Greeks and Trojans squabble over the duel's winner, Athena inspires the Trojan Pandarus to kill Menelaus with his bow and arrow. Menelaus is wounded in the abdomen, and the fighting resumes. Later, in Book 17, Homer gives Menelaus an extended aristeia as the hero retrieves the corpse of Patroclus from the battlefield.
According to Hyginus, Menelaus killed eight men in the war, and was one of the Greeks hidden inside the Trojan Horse. During the sack of Troy, Menelaus killed Deiphobus, who had married Helen after the death of Paris. While looking for Helen, Menelaus resolved to kill her: Euripides tells that when he found her, however, her striking beauty prompted him to drop his sword and take her back. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Diomedes is the key fighter in the first third of the epic. According to some interpretations, Diomedes is represented in the epic as the most valiant soldier of the war, who never committed hubris. He is regarded as the perfect embodiment of traditional heroic values because he displays virtues such as courage while fighting in the front ranks for honor and glory, respect for his commander Agamemnon and the gods, and finally self-restraint/humility to remain within mortal limits. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| When the tide of war turned away from the Acheans, and the Trojans threatened their ships, Patroclus convinced Achilles to let him don Achilles' armor and lead the Myrmidons into combat. In his lust for combat, Patroclus pursued the Trojans all the way back to the gates of Troy, defying Achilles' order to break off combat once the ships were saved. Patroclus was stunned by Apollo, wounded by Euphorbos, then finished off by Hector. At the time of his death, Patroclus had killed 53 enemy soldiers. After retrieving his body, which had been protected on the field by Odysseus and Ajax (Telamonian Aias), Achilles returned to battle and avenged his companion's death by killing Hector. Achilles then desecrated Hector's body by dragging it behind his chariot instead of allowing the Trojans to honorably dispose of it by burning it. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| In the Iliad, he often gives advice to the younger warriors and advises Agamemnon and Achilles to reconcile. He is too old to engage in combat himself, but he leads the Pylian troops, riding his chariot, and one of his horses is killed by an arrow shot by Paris. He also had a solid gold shield. Homer frequently calls him by the epithet "the Gerenian horseman." At the funeral games of Patroclus, Nestor advises Antilochus on how to win the chariot race. |
|
|
Term
| "Alas! the gods have lured me on to my destruction. ... death is now indeed exceedingly near at hand and there is no way out of it- for so Zeus and his son Apollo the far-darter have willed it, though heretofore they have been ever ready to protect me. My doom has come upon me; let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter. |
|
Definition
| Words spoken by Hector before his last battle in the Iliad |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Brother of Paris and son of Priam. He pushes the Greeks back to their fleet of ships and eventually kills Patroclos. An enraged Achilles kills Hector and defiles the corpse. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| In the Iliad, Aeneas is the leader of the Trojan's Dardanian allies (Trojans — descendants of Dardanus), as well as a third cousin and principal lieutenant of Hector, son of the Trojan king Priam. In the poem, Aeneas' mother Aphrodite frequently comes to his aid on the battlefield; he is a favorite of Apollo. Aphrodite and Apollo rescue Aeneas from combat with Diomedes of Argos, who nearly kills him, and carry him away to Pergamos for healing. Even Poseidon, who normally favors the Greeks, comes to Aeneas' rescue after he falls under the assault of Achilles, noting that Aeneas, though from a junior branch of the royal family, is destined to become king of the Trojan people. His flight leads to the founding of Rome |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a son of Priam and Hecuba. He was a prince of Troy, and the greatest of Priam's sons after Hector and Paris. Deiphobus killed four men of fame in the Trojan War. In the Trojan War, described in the Iliad, he along with his brother Helenus led a group of soldiers at the siege of the newly-constructed Argive wall and killed many, also wounding the hero Achean Meriones. As Hector was fleeing Achilles, Athena took the shape of Deiphobus and goaded Hector to make a stand and fight. Hector, thinking it was his brother, listened and threw his spear at Achilles. When the spear missed, Hector turned around to ask his brother for another spear, but Deiphobus had vanished. It was then Hector knew the gods had deceived and forsaken him, and he met his fate at the hand of Achilles. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
In Homer's Iliad, Paris is portrayed as unskilled and cowardly. His brother Hector frequently criticizes him for this, though Paris readily admits his shortcomings in battle. The fact that he prefers to use a bow and arrow emphasizes this, since he does not follow the code of honor of the other heroes, and it is speculated that in order to hit Achilles, he hit him from behind. Tradition holds that Paris killed Achilles later in the war. Many accounts attribute it to an arrow guided by Apollo.
Early in the epic, Paris and Menelaus duel in an attempt to end the war without further bloodshed. Menelaus easily defeats Paris, though Aphrodite spirits him away before Menelaus can finish the duel. Paris is returned to his bedchambers where Aphrodite forces Helen to be with him. Later he is mortally wounded. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The aged King of Troy. When Hector is killed by Achilles, the Greek warrior treats the body with disrespect and refuses to give it back. Zeus sends the god Hermes to escort King Priam, Hector’s father and the ruler of Troy, into the Greek camp. Priam tearfully pleads with Achilles to take pity on a father bereft of his son and return Hector’s body. He invokes the memory of Achilles’ own father, Peleus. Priam begs Achilles to pity him, saying "I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before — I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son."[2] Deeply moved, Achilles relents and returns Hector’s corpse to the Trojans. Both sides agree to a temporary truce, and Achilles gives Priam leave to hold a proper funeral for Hector complete with funeral games. He promises that no Greek will engage in combat for 11 days, but on the 12th day of peace, the mighty war between the Greeks and the Trojans would resume. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a lieutenant and friend of Hector during the Trojan War. he is apparently a commoner, or in any event not a member of the royal house of Troy. a prudent commander whose advice is ignored; he is Hector’s foil. Homer gives no foreshadowing of Polydamas's final fate, nor is he mentioned in most of the later poems dealing with the aftermath of the war, leaving the reader to infer that he perished in the general slaughter after the fall of Troy to the Greek forces. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| In Homer's Greek epic the Iliad, Polydorus is depicted briefly as a foe to Achilles. According to this source, Polydorus was the youngest son of Priam, and thus his father would not let him fight. Achilles, however, sees him on the battlefield showing off his great speed running through the lines and spears him, ending his life. Seeing his brother Polydorus’ death causes Hector to challenge Achilles |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children.[1] These children included several major characters of Homer's Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris, and the prophetess Cassandra. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| daughter of Zeus and Leda, , wife of Menelaus and sister of Castor, Polydeuces and Clytemnestra. Her abduction by Paris brought about the Trojan War. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Homer's rendering of Andromache portrays her as a perfect wife, giving Hector sound advice regarding the defense of Troy which he disregards in favor of meeting the Greeks in the field of battle.[3] When she hears of Hector's death, she is embroidering flowers into a purple cloak, demonstrating her distinction from Helen, who is portrayed embroidering a battle scene earlier in the epic. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy. While Cassandra foresaw the destruction of Troy (she warned the Trojans about the Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and her own demise), she was unable to do anything to forestall these tragedies since no one believed her. Coroebus and Othronus came to the aid of Troy out of love for Cassandra. Cassandra was also the first to see the body of her brother Hector being brought back to the city. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
When Achilles led the assault on that city during the Trojan War, her family died at his hands;[2] she was subsequently given to Achilles as a war prize.
According to Book 1 of the Iliad, when Agamemnon was compelled by Apollo to give up his own woman, Chryseis, he demanded Briseis as compensation. This prompted a quarrel with Achilles that culminated with Briseis' delivery to Agamemnon and Achilles' protracted withdrawal from battle. His absence had disastrous consequences for the Greeks. Despite Agamemnon's grand offers of treasure and women, he did not return to the fray until the death of Patroclus. In the Iliad, Achilles loves Briseis, comparing their relationship with that of man and wife (he refers to her as his wife and bride often) and explicitly to that of Menelaus and Helen, which was, after all, what the war is about. Achilles is angry at Agamemnon, and seethes with rage in his tent: understandably made furious by the thought of Agamemnon sleeping with Briseis. When Achilles returns to the fighting to avenge Patrocles' death and Agamemnon returns Briseis to him, Agamemnon swears to Achilles that he and Briseis never shared a bed. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his long journey home following the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War.[2] In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage. He blinds the Cyclops, which enrages Posideon, loses 11 of his ships to a war with giants, gets stuck with Circe for a year, lists to Sirens' song, and then loses all of his men when they kill Zeus' sacred cows. He is detained by Calypso for seven years and goes home. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Virgil; O n the Mediterranean Sea, Aeneas and his fellow Trojans flee from their home city of Troy, which has been destroyed by the Greeks. They sail for Italy, where Aeneas is destined to found Rome. As they near their destination, a fierce storm throws them off course and lands them in Carthage. Dido, Carthage’s founder and queen, welcomes them. Aeneas relates to Dido the long and painful story of his group’s travels thus far. e tells how he escaped the burning city with his father, Anchises; his son, Ascanius; and the hearth gods that represent their fallen city. Dido, a Phoenician princess who fled her home and founded Carthage after her brother murdered her husband, falls in love with Aeneas. They live together as lovers for a period, until the gods remind Aeneas of his duty to found a new city. He determines to set sail once again. Dido is devastated by his departure, and kills herself. As the Trojans make for Italy, bad weather blows them to Sicily, where they hold funeral games for the dead Anchises. Aeneas descends into the underworld, guided by the Sibyl of Cumae, to visit his father. He is shown a pageant of the future history and heroes of Rome, which helps him to understand the importance of his mission. The arrival of the Trojans in Italy begins peacefully. King Latinus, the Italian ruler, extends his hospitality, hoping that Aeneas will prove to be the foreigner whom, according to a prophecy, his daughter Lavinia is supposed to marry. ut Latinus’s wife, Amata, has other ideas. She means for Lavinia to marry Turnus, a local suitor. Amata and Turnus cultivate enmity toward the newly arrived Trojans. Meanwhile, Ascanius hunts a stag that was a pet of the local herdsmen. A fight breaks out, and several people are killed. Turnus, riding this current of anger, begins a war. While the Trojan leader is away, Turnus attacks. Aeneas returns to find his countrymen embroiled in battle. Pallas, the son of Aeneas’s new ally Evander, is killed by Turnus. Aeneas flies into a violent fury, and many more are slain by the day’s end. When the two leaders face off, however, the other men begin to quarrel, and full-scale battle resumes. Aeneas is wounded in the thigh, but eventually the Trojans threaten the enemy city. Turnus rushes out to meet Aeneas, who wounds Turnus badly. Aeneas nearly spares Turnus but, remembering the slain Pallas, slays him instead. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A great admirer of Homer; he wanted to write an epic poem that would be for the Romans what the Iliad and the Odyssey were for the Greeks. He learned for Homer and his Aeneid shares many of the same epic qualities. He has tremendous influence and inspires Dante, Milton, George Bernard Shaw, etc. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Aeschylus; Clytemnestra, angry with her husband for killing their daughter and bringing home Cassandra as a concubine, conspires with her lover Aegisthus to kill Agamemnon, who had it fucking coming to him. |
|
|
Term
| Choephoroe or the Libation Bearers |
|
Definition
| Aeschylus; Based on the advice of an oracle, Orestes (the exiled son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra) decides to avenge his father's death. He and sister Electra murder their mother and her lover, but Orestes is tormented by the Furies. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus which concerns the end of the curse on the House of Atreus: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Orestes is tormented by Furies for matricide. Orestes finds a refuge and a solace at the new temple of Apollo in Delphi, and the god, unable to deliver him from the Erinyes' unappeasable wrath, sends him along to Athens under the protection of Hermes, while he casts a drowsy spell upon the pursuing Erinyes in order to delay them. Clytemnestra's ghost appears to the sleeping Erinyes, urging the Furies to continue hunting. As they surround him, Athena intervenes and brings in eleven Athenians to join her in forming a jury to judge her supplicant.[8] Apollo acts as attorney for Orestes, while the Erinyes act as advocates for the dead Clytemnestra. During the trial, Apollo convinces Athena that, in a marriage, the man is more important than the woman, by pointing out that Athena was born only of Zeus and without a mother. Athena votes last and casts her vote for acquittal; after being counted, the votes on each side are equal, thus acquitting Orestes as Athena had earlier announced that this would be the result of a tie. She then persuades the Erinyes to accept the verdict, and they eventually submit. Athena then leads a procession accompanying them to their new abode and the escort now addresses them as "Semnai" (Venerable Ones), as they will now be honored by the citizens of Athens and ensure the city's prosperity. Athena also declares that henceforth tied juries will result in the defendant being acquitted, as mercy should always take precedence over harshness. The curse is played out. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Sophocles (Greek); THe Oracles prophesies that King Laius will have a son who will kill Laius and marry Queen Jocasta. Instead of killing the newborn Oedipus, they give him up for adoption. Oedipus is made aware of the oracle, and goes wandering, where he gets into an argument and kills his father, then a stranger to him. As a man, Oedipus solves the sphinx's riddle and marries the Queen as a prize. He has four kids with his mother. When the incest is revealed, Jocasta commits suicide and Oedipus blinds himself. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Sophocles (Greek); Oedipus goes to Colonus with daughters Antigone and Ismene. His sons fight each other to the death for his vacated throne. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Sophocles (Greek); Despite the penalty of death, Antigone attempts to bury her brother. King Creon, her uncle, banishes her to a cave, where she hangs herself. Creon's son Haemon, her lover, stabs himself in grief. |
|
|
Term
I sing of warfare and a man at war.
From the sea-coast of Troy in early days
He came to Italy by destiny,
To our Lavinian western shore,
A fugitive, this captain, buffeted" |
|
Definition
| With these opening lines of the Aeneid, Virgil enters the epic tradition in the shadow of Homer, author of the Iliad, an epic of the Trojan War, and the Odyssey, an epic of the Greek hero Ulysses’ wanderings homeward from Troy. By naming his subjects as “warfare and a man,” Virgil establishes himself as an heir to the themes of both Homeric epics. |
|
|
Term
Did you suppose, my father,
That I could tear myself away and leave you?
Unthinkable; how could a father say it?
Now if it pleases the powers about that nothing
Stand of this great city; if your heart
Is set on adding your own death and ours
To that of Troy, the door’s wide open for it. |
|
Definition
| In this passage from Book II of Virgil's the Aeneid, which precedes Aeneas’s flight from burning Troy with his father upon his back, Virgil distinguishes Aeneas for his piety. This sense of duty has two components. The first is a filial component: Aeneas is a dutiful son to Anchises, and he wants to escape with him to safety. Aeneas makes it plain that his strong sense of family loyalty will not allow him to abandon Anchises. The second is a social component: Anchises, Aeneas argues, cannot choose to stay and die at Troy without affecting many others. |
|
|
Term
Roman, remember by your strength to rule
Earth’s peoples—for your arts are to be these:
To pacify, to impose the rule of law,
To spare the conquered, battle down the proud. |
|
Definition
| From Virgil's the Aeneid; This passage is part of the speech Anchises delivers to Aeneas in the underworld, in Book VI, as he unfolds for his son the destiny of Rome. Virgil places his own political ideals in the mouth of the wise father, warning that the Roman nation should be more merciful than violent, even in its conquests. Virgil here propounds the values for which he wants Rome to stand, and which he believes he has, in his own time, let guide him. Anchises’s rhetoric here about the Roman Empire’s justification for its conquering of other peoples expresses the same justification that Aeneas and the Trojans make for settling in Rome. They defend their invasion by arguing that they bring justice, law, and warfare—with which they “pacify” and “battle down”—to the conquered. |
|
|
Term
Amata tossed and turned with womanly
Anxiety and anger. Now [Allecto]
Plucked one of the snakes, her gloomy tresses,
And tossed it at the woman, sent it down
Her bosom to her midriff and her heart,
. . .
Slipping between her gown and her smooth breasts
. . .
While the infection first, like dew of poison
Fallen on her, pervaded all her senses,
Netting her bones in fire. |
|
Definition
| From Virgil's Aeneid; This vivid and disturbing description of the means by which the Fury Allecto incites Amata’s rage against Aeneas occurs in Book VII. Virgil plays on our senses, using images of fire, disease, poison, and sex to describe the passionate anger Amata feels at seeing her daughter’s proposed marriage thwarted and at hearing that a Trojan exile is to become part of her household. Virgil expresses the idea of being hot with anger by employing the images of things that, literally or figuratively, can heat a human’s blood. The invisible snake deployed by Allecto acts to enhance emotions already latent within Amata, since Amata already feels “womanly / Anxiety and anger” of her own. Even though Amata has perfectly good reason to despise Aeneas and the Trojans, Virgil explains her hatred by placing it physically in her body, suggesting that she incites war in the way she does because there is something wrong inside her. The snake unleashed by Juno essentially has a sexual encounter with Amata—it is as though Juno has impregnated Amata with madness. |
|
|
Term
When two bulls lower heads and horns and charge
In deadly combat . . .
. . .
[They g]ore one another, bathing necks and humps
In sheets of blood, and the whole woodland bellows.
Just so Trojan Aeneas and the hero
Son of Daunus, battering shield on shield,
Fought with a din that filled the air of heaven. |
|
Definition
| This passage from Book XII, in which Virgil describes Aeneas and Turnus locked together in the heat of battle, exemplifies a literary device Virgil employs throughout the poem: the epic simile. Virgil’s similes are extended comparisons of an element of action or a character to an abstract or external image or concept. These similes are often drawn from rural landscapes and farm life, and they often use the phrase “just so” as a connector. They give Virgil’s writing a descriptive richness by lingering at great length on some detail that might not otherwise have been illuminated. Often, Virgil uses the similes to give an interior depth to his characters, showing us by means of an analogy what it feels like to be that character in a given moment. This particular epic simile describes the intense battle between Aeneas and Turnus. By comparing these two warriors to bulls, Virgil conveys the potent, animalistic nature of their struggle. |
|
|
Term
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove—
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,
the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun
and the Sungod blotted out the day of their return.
Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
start from where you will—sing for our time too. |
|
Definition
| With these words Homer's The Odyssey begins. The poet asks for inspiration from the Muse and imagines her singing through him. An ancient epic poem states at the outset, in capsule form, the subject of the work to follow, and this epic is no exception. The Odyssey announces its subject matter in a different fashion from the Iliad. Whereas Homer’s first epic treats Achilles’ rage, this one focuses on a “man of twists and turns.” It chronicles not battles, the stuff of Achilles’ brief life, but a long journey through “[m]any cities” and “many pains,” the kind of test worthy of a resourceful hero like Odysseus. The opening lines foreshadow how the epic will end—with all of Odysseus’s men dead except Odysseus himself—and provide a reason for these deaths |
|
|
Term
So then,
royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, man of exploits,
still eager to leave at once and hurry back
to your own home, your beloved native land?
Good luck to you, even so. Farewell!
But if you only knew, down deep, what pains
are fated to fill your cup before you reach that shore,
you’d stay right here, preside in our house with me
and be immortal. Much as you long to see your wife,
the one you pine for all your days . . . |
|
Definition
| Calypso makes this final plea to Odysseus in Book 5 of Homer's The Odyssey, begging him to stay with her, and her temptation trumps all those Odysseus has seen before (5.223–232). She not only promises to save him from having to face future woes but to give him what no other human character in the Odyssey has: immortality. But Odysseus is not interested. All he wants is his home and wife, even though he admits in ensuing lines that Penelope cannot match Calypso in beauty. Calypso’s plea embodies the tension in Odysseus’s journey. He wants to see his wife and home again, but he also presumably wants all the tempting things Calypso has to offer. That she asks him one last time whether he wants to leave suggests (even if the question is just rhetorical) that she knows her offer is tempting, but the fact that Odysseus can refuse it and embrace all the “pains” she foretells shows how compelling his homecoming really is. |
|
|
Term
“But you, Achilles,
there’s not a man in the world more blest than you—
there never has been, never will be one.
Time was, when you were alive, we Argives
honored you as a god, and now down here, I see,
you lord it over the dead in all your power.
So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles.” |
|
Definition
| This exchange comes as part of the conversation between Achilles and Odysseus when the latter journeys to the underworld in Book 11 (11.547–558). (The entire event is told as a flashback to the Phaeacians by Odysseus.) The heroes muse on the differences between the two worlds they now inhabit, and each finds the grass greener on the other side. Odysseus envies Achilles’ strength and the glory that it won him; Achilles envies Odysseus for being alive. The differences reflect the change in outlook between the Iliad and the Odyssey. The first epic celebrates the glory (kleos) that comes from winning battles, and the mighty Achilles is naturally the focus. In the Odyssey, whose focus is the wily Odysseus, that earlier outlook is implicitly criticized. Achilles did win great glory, but it came at the cost of an early death, and he would do anything now to return to earth and live a life without glory. |
|
|
Term
Of all that breathes and crawls across the earth,
our mother earth breeds nothing feebler than a man.
So long as the gods grant him power, spring in his knees,
he thinks he will never suffer affliction down the years.
But then, when the happy gods bring on the long hard times,
bear them he must, against his will, and steel his heart.
Our lives, our mood and mind as we pass across the earth,
turn as the days turn . . . |
|
Definition
| Odysseus utters these words to the suitor Amphinomus shortly after defeating the “Beggar-King” Irus in Book 18 (18.150–157). Odysseus is himself in disguise as beggar, and his words here help maintain that cover. The words have additional meaning, however, for both Amphinomus and Odysseus. For Amphinomus, they foreshadow death. He is plundering the land of others, living a careless life, much as the beggar once did, but he too is a feeble man, and he is destined for a fall. The words are a prophecy to Amphinomus, and a warning; he does not miss their meaning, as he walks away “fraught with grave forebodings” (18.176). For Odysseus, on the other hand, the words do not foretell the future but recount the past and, perhaps, explain the lesson it has taught him. At the hour of his greatest triumph, the beginning of his nostos (“homeward journey”) from the city he had helped sack, his life “turn[ed]” and the gods began his suffering. He endured only by “steel[ing] his heart,” and he knows now that at such moments that is all that can be done. |
|
|
Term
Just as I
have come from afar, creating pain for many—
men and women across the good green earth—
so let his name be Odysseus . . .
the Son of Pain, a name he’ll earn in full. |
|
Definition
| With these words in the middle of Book 19, Homer explains the origin of Odysseus’s name (19.460–464). They are actually spoken by his grandfather Autolycus, who named the hero when he was an infant. The name implies that pain, like dark hair or some other physical attribute, is in some way in his blood. the Odyssey suggests that Odysseus has indeed earned his name “in full.” |
|
|
Term
Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. |
|
Definition
| The first lines of an ancient epic Homer's The Iliad typically offer a capsule summary of the subject the poem will treat, and the first lines of The Iliad conform to this pattern. Indeed, Homer announces his subject in the very first word of the very first line: “Rage.” He then locates the rage within “Peleus’ son Achilles,” delineates its consequences (“cost the Achaeans countless losses . . .”), links it to higher forces and agendas (“the will of Zeus”), and notes its origin (when “the two first broke and clashed, / Agamemnon . . . and brilliant Achilles”). Interestingly, although these lines purport to focus on a human emotion, they interpret this emotion as unfolding in accordance with the expression of Zeus’s will. Similarly, Homer conceives of the entire epic as the medium through which a divine being—a Muse—speaks. |
|
|
Term
We everlasting gods . . . Ah what chilling blows
we suffer—thanks to our own conflicting wills—
whenever we show these mortal men some kindness. |
|
Definition
| Ares voices this lament after being wounded by Diomedes in The Iliad. His plaint concisely captures the Homeric relationship between gods and men and, perhaps, Homer’s attitude toward that relationship. Homeric gods frequently intervene in the mortal world out of some kind of emotional attachment to the object of that intervention. Here, Ares describes this emotion as simply a desire to do “kindness,” but kindness toward one mortal often translates into unkindness toward another—hence Ares’ wound at the hands of Diomedes. Ares’ appearance here as a kind of spoiled child provides just one example of Homer’s portrayal of the gods as temperamental, sulky, vengeful, and petty—a portrayal that may seek to describe and explain the inequities and absurdities in life on earth. |
|
|
Term
Mother tells me,
the immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet,
that two fates bear me on to the day of death.
If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy,
my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies.
If I voyage back to the fatherland I love,
my pride, my glory dies. . . . |
|
Definition
| Achilles also fears the consequences in store for him if he remains in Troy. His mother, Thetis, has told him that fate has given him two options—either live a short but glorious life in Troy or return to Phthia and live on in old age but obscurity. As he confronts this choice, the promise of gifts and plunder—cattle, fat sheep, stallions—doesn’t interest him at all. Such material gifts can be traded back and forth, or even taken away, as his prize Briseis was. In contrast, the truly precious things in the world are those that cannot be bought, sold, seized, or commodified in any way. These include glory and life itself. At this point in the epic, Achilles has chosen life over glory, and he explains that he plans to return to Phthia. However, the allure of glory later proves irresistible when he finds a compelling occasion for it—avenging the death of his beloved friend Patroclus. |
|
|
Term
There is nothing alive more agonized than man
of all that breathe and crawl across the earth. |
|
Definition
| Zeus speaks these words to the horses of Achilles’ chariot, who weep over the death of Patroclus in Book 17. Grim as they are, the lines accurately reflect the Homeric view of the human condition. Throughout The Iliad, as well as The Odyssey, mortals often figure as little more than the playthings of the gods. Gods can whisk them away from danger as easily as they can put them in the thick of it. It is thus appropriate that the above lines are spoken by a god, and not by a mortal character or the mortal poet; the gods know the mortals’ agony, as they play the largest role in causing it. |
|
|
Term
Remember your own father, great godlike Achilles—
as old as I am, past the threshold of deadly old age!
No doubt the countrymen round about him plague him now,
with no one there to defend him, beat away disaster.
No one—but at least he hears you’re still alive
and his old heart rejoices, hopes rising, day by day,
to see his beloved son come sailing home from Troy. |
|
Definition
| With these words, spoken in the middle of Book 24, Priam implores Achilles to return Hector’s corpse for proper burial. He makes himself sympathetic in Achilles’ eyes by drawing a parallel between himself and Achilles’ father, Peleus. |
|
|
Term
| They killed an honored man by cunning, so they die by cunning, caught in the same noose. |
|
Definition
| Orestes speaks these words as he begins to outline his plan for killing Aigisthos in The Libation Bearers. It is significant that in laying out this plan, he makes no mention of what he intends to do about Clytamnestra. However, while he does not address it directly, he alludes to his intention to kill his mother in this quote, as he speaks of the killers in the plural form. |
|
|
Term
| But you, when your turn in the action comes, be strong. When she cries 'Son!' cry out 'My father's son!' Go through with the murder—innocent at last. (lines 827–830) |
|
Definition
| The chorus speaks these words in their last ode before the climax of The Libation Bearers. After praying to Zeus, the household gods, Apollo and Hermes, the chorus addresses Orestes (figuratively, not literally.) Anticipating Clytamnestra's emotional hold over her son, the chorus warns him that when she appeals to him as a mother, he should deny his bond to her and call himself Agamemnon's son only. This way, he will not really be guilty of matricide, as Clytamnestra has been discredited as his mother. Since Clytamnestra has taken on the attributes of a man and violated the safety of the home, she no longer has a right to the privileges of a mother and deserves to die like a man. |
|
|
Term
| Wait, my son—no respect for this, my child? The breast you held, drowsing away the hours, soft gums tugging the milk that made you grow? |
|
Definition
| Clytamnestra says these words as Orestes is dragging her towards the body of Aigisthos in order to murder her alongside her lover In the Libation Bearers. After taking on the attributes of a calculating man throughout the Agamemnon and calling for an axe to fight off Orestes, Clytamnestra here reverts to her maternal role in a last ditch attempt to fend off death. |
|
|
Term
| For word of hate let word of hate be said, cries Justice. Stroke for bloody stroke must be paid. The one who acts must suffer. Three generations long this law resounds. |
|
Definition
| The chorus says these words at the end of their first section in the kommos. They are the mouthpieces of the primitive law of retribution, which mandated that blood be paid for with blood. One who failed to avenge the murder of a kinsman was as guilty as if he had committed the crime himself. Justice demands that evil deeds be punished by further evil deeds. The chorus says these words in order to stir up hate and anger in Orestes and Electra in The Libation Bearer. |
|
|
Term
| My own flesh and blood—dear sister, dear Ismene, how many griefs our father Oedipus handed down! Do you know one, I ask you, one grief that Zeus will not perfect for the two of us while we still live and breathe? There’s nothing, no pain—our lives are pain—no private shame, no public disgrace, nothing I haven’t seen in your grief and mine. |
|
Definition
| Antigone; Antigone’s first words in Antigone, “My own flesh and blood,” vividly emphasize the play’s concern with familial relationships. Antigone is a play about the legacy of incest and about a sister’s love for her brother. Flesh and blood have been destined to couple unnaturally—in sex, violence, or both—since Oedipus’s rash and unwitting slaying of his father. Antigone says that griefs are “handed down” in Oedipus’s family, implicitly comparing grief to a family heirloom. |
|
|
Term
| Anarchy—show me a greater crime in all the earth! She, she destroys cities, rips up houses, breaks the ranks of spearmen into headlong rout. But the ones who last it out, the great mass of them owe their lives to discipline. Therefore we must defend the men who live by law, never let some woman triumph over us. Better to fall from power, if fall we must, at the hands of a man—never be rated inferior to a woman, never. |
|
Definition
| Antigone; This is one of Creon’s speeches to the Chorus. The word “anarchy” (in Greek, anarchia) literally means “without a leader.” The Greek word is feminine and can be represented by a feminine pronoun, which is why Creon, speaking of anarchy, says, “She, she destroys cities, rips up houses. . . .” Because Creon uses the feminine pronoun, he sounds as if he might be talking about Antigone, and maintaining order is certainly connected, in his mind, with keeping women in their place. Creon sees anarchy as the inevitable consequence when disobedience of the law is left unpunished. Creon sees this feminine disobedience as something that upsets the order of civilization on every possible level. |
|
|
Term
| Fear? What should a man fear? It’s all chance, chance rules our lives. Not a man on earth can see a day ahead, groping through the dark. Better to live at random, best we can. And as for this marriage with your mother—have no fear. Many a man before you, in his dreams, has shared his mother’s bed. Take such things for shadows, nothing at all— Live, Oedipus, as if there’s no tomorrow! |
|
Definition
| Oedipus the King; The audience, familiar with the Oedipus story, almost does not want to listen to these self-assured lines, spoken by Jocasta, wherein she treats incest with a startling lightness that will come back to haunt her. What makes these lines tragic is that Jocasta has no reason to know that what she says is foolish, ironic, or, simply, wrong. The audience’s sense of the work of “fate” in this play has almost entirely to do with the fact that the Oedipus story was an ancient myth even in fifth-century b.c. Athens. The audience’s position is thus most like that of Tiresias—full of the knowledge that continues to bring it, and others, pain. |
|
|
Term
| People of Thebes, my countrymen, look on Oedipus. He solved the famous riddle with his brilliance, he rose to power, a man beyond all power. Who could behold his greatness without envy? Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him. Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last |
|
Definition
| Oedipus the King; These words, spoken by the Chorus, form the conclusion of Oedipus the King. That Oedipus “solved the famous riddle [of the Sphinx] with his brilliance” is an indisputable fact, as is the claim that he “rose to power,” to an enviable greatness. In underscoring these facts, the Chorus seems to suggest a causal link between Oedipus’s rise and his fall—that is, Oedipus fell because he rose too high, because in his pride he inspired others to “envy.” |
|
|
Term
| Stop, my children, weep no more. Here where the dark forces store up kindness both for living and the dead, there is no room for grieving here—it might bring down the anger of the gods. |
|
Definition
| Oedipus at Colonus; Theseus’s short speech from the end of Oedipus at Colonus argues that grieving might not be a good thing—a sentiment unusual in the Theban plays. Sophocles’ audience would have seen, before this speech, the most extreme consequences of excessive grief: Antigone’s death, Haemon’s death, Eurydice’s death, Jocasta’s death, Oedipus’s blinding, Oedipus’s self-exile. The rash actions of the grief-stricken possess both a horror and a sense of inevitability or rightness. |
|
|
Term
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:
A violet by a mosy tone
Half hidden from the eye!
---Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me! |
|
Definition
| William Wordsworth's "She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways" (1800) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Theme: The death of a lovely person unknown to society. Other poems in the sequence: "She Dwelt among Untrodden Ways," "Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known", "Three Years She Grew", "A Slumber Did my Spirit Seal", and "I Traveled AMong Unknown Men" |
|
|
Term
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| He works his work, I mine. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, |
|
Definition
| THE SECOND COMING by Yeats |
|
|
Term
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? |
|
Definition
| THE SECOND COMING by Yeats |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| (750) Beowulf slays monster Grendel and becomes King. Years later, he is killed by a dragon and Wiglaf becomes king. |
|
|
Term
In the end each clan on the outlying coasts
beyond the whale-road had to yield to him
and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
And a young prince must be prudent like that,
giving freely while his father lives
so that afterwards in age when fighting starts
steadfast companions will stand by him
and hold the line. Behaviour that’s admired
is the path to power among people everywhere. |
|
Definition
| Beowulf; This excerpt, which expounds the virtues of the early Danish king Beow, illustrates the kind of political prudence that characterizes Hrothgar, who is a descendant of Beow. The heroic code’s system of loyalties entails a very specific political and diplomatic structure. Generosity is valued greatly in a king, but there is no attempt to disguise the fact that it is motivated by the need to maintain the support of a band of retainers. |
|
|
Term
Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better
to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.
For every one of us, living in this world
means waiting for our end. Let whoever can
win glory before death. When a warrior is gone,
that will be his best and only bulwark. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
________ got ready,
donned his war-gear, indifferent to death;
his mighty, hand-forged, fine-webbed mail
would soon meet with the menace underwater.
It would keep the bone-cage of his body safe: |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Do not give way to pride.
For a brief while your strength is in bloom
but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow
illness or the sword to lay you low,
or a sudden fire or surge of water
or jabbing blade or javelin from the air
or repellent age. Your piercing eye
will dim and darken; and death will arrive,
dear warrior, to sweep you away. |
|
Definition
| Beowulf; Hrothgar's sermon |
|
|
Term
| Characters: Grendel, Hrothgar, Beaw, Scyld Scefing, Heorot, and Wiglaf |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| William Langland, 1380: a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse divided into sections called "passus" (Latin for "step"). Piers is considered by many critics to be one of the early great works of English literature along with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight during the Middle Ages. concerns the narrator's intense quest for the true Christian life, from the perspective of mediæval Catholicism. This quest entails a series of dream-visions and an examination into the lives of three allegorical characters, Dowel ("Do-Well"), Dobet ("Do-Better"), and Dobest ("Do-Best"). A man named Will falls asleep and has a vision of a tower set upon a hill and a fortress (donjon) in a deep valley; between these symbols of heaven and hell is a "fair field full of folk", representing the world of mankind. In the early part of the poem Piers, the humble plowman of the title, appears and offers himself as the narrator's guide to Truth. The latter part of the work, however, is concerned with the narrator's search for Dowel, Dobet and Dobest. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Geoffrey Chaucer; 1387; Middle English |
|
|
Term
| The Knight in the Canterbury Tales |
|
Definition
| The Knight rides at the front of the procession described in the General Prologue, and his story is the first in the sequence. The Host clearly admires the Knight, as does the narrator. The narrator seems to remember four main qualities of the Knight. The first is the Knight’s love of ideals—“chivalrie” (prowess), “trouthe” (fidelity), “honour” (reputation), “fredom” (generosity), and “curteisie” (refinement). The Knight has fought in the crusades. Ironically, though a soldier, the romantic, idealistic Knight clearly has an aversion to conflict or unhappiness of any sort. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The Pardoner rides in the very back of the party in the General Prologue and is fittingly the most marginalized character in the company. His profession is somewhat dubious—pardoners offered indulgences, or previously written pardons for particular sins, to people who repented of the sin they had committed. Along with receiving the indulgence, the penitent would make a donation to the Church by giving money to the pardoner. Chaucer’s Pardoner is a highly untrustworthy character. He sings a ballad—“Com hider, love, to me!” The narrator is not sure whether the Pardoner is an effeminate homosexual or a eunuch (castrated male). After telling the group how he gulls people into indulging his own avarice through a sermon he preaches on greed, the Pardoner tells of a tale that exemplifies the vice decried in his sermon. Furthermore, he attempts to sell pardons to the group—in effect plying his trade in clear violation of the rules outlined by the host. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| One of two female storytellers (the other is the Prioress), the Wife has a lot of experience under her belt. She has traveled all over the world on pilgrimages. Not only has she seen many lands, she has lived with five husbands. She is worldly in both senses of the word: she has seen the world and has experience in the ways of the world, that is, in love and sex. Although she is argumentative and enjoys talking, the Wife is intelligent in a commonsense, rather than intellectual, way. Through her experiences with her husbands, she has learned how to provide for herself in a world where women had little independence or power. The chief manner in which she has gained control over her husbands has been in her control over their use of her body. The Wife uses her body as a bargaining tool, withholding sexual pleasure until her husbands give her what she demands. |
|
|
Term
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote . . . |
|
Definition
| Opening lines to The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Arcite and Mars fight Palamon and Venus for the love of Emily (who loves neither of them). Arcite wins but dies. Palamon gets to marry Emily. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Stout and brawny, the Miller has a wart on his nose and a big mouth, both literally and figuratively. He threatens the Host’s notion of propriety when he drunkenly insists on telling the second tale. Indeed, the Miller seems to enjoy overturning all conventions: he ruins the Host’s carefully planned storytelling order; he rips doors off hinges; and he tells a tale that is somewhat blasphemous, ridiculing religious clerks, scholarly clerks, carpenters, and women. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Described as modest and quiet, this Prioress (a nun who is head of her convent) aspires to have exquisite taste, making her materialistic. Her table manners are dainty, she knows French (though not the French of the court), she dresses well, and she is charitable and compassionate. She wears a brooch that says "Love conquers all." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Told in a staid rhyme royal, it concerns a little boy killed by Jews for singing Christian hymns. The boy continues to sing even after his throat is cut. The phrase "murder will out" comes from this story. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Like the Second Nun, the Nun’s Priest is not described in the General Prologue. His story of Chanticleer, however, is well crafted and suggests that he is a witty, self-effacing preacher. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A Fable about Chaunticleer, a handsome vain rooster noted for his singing. The beautiful Perteltote, Chaunticleer's favorite hen; and sir Russell, a fox. Chaunticleer dreams that he'll be eaten by a fox. Perteltote shames him for being a coward and believing in his dreams. The fox comes along, and flatters Chaunticleer into singing with his eyes closed, then Sir Russell snatches him up and runs away. Just as the fox is about the swallow the rooster, he opens his mouth to gloat. THe rooster escapes and won't be fooled by the fox again. It is a mock-heroic that parodies some conventions of the Iliad. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The Merchant trades in furs and other cloths, mostly from Flanders. He is part of a powerful and wealthy class in Chaucer’s society. He talks about Business and profits, though he is actually and secretly in debt. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The merchant's tale's prologue features an opinion from the merchant about the nature of marriage. His attitude is marked by dislike for the sacrament, and he feels that marriage is primarily a detriment to men. His attitude is apparently due to the dislike of his wife. January, an old knight, marries May, a young girl. Damian, one of January's servants is immediately taken by May and falls ill due to the thought that he may not have her. After a time, Damian seeks out May and tells her his feelings, and she joins him in the lust. hortly after May and Damian begin their affair, January loses his sight. Due to his jealousy and paranoia, he insists that May be constantly by his side and will not go anywhere without his hand on her. The day comes and January goes into the garden with May, under the pretense of wanting to enjoy each other. May decides she wants fruit from a tree above, and asks January to lift her into the tree, where Damian is waiting. The two quickly begin having sex, and two gods on a nearby hill discuss the activities. One of the gods, Pluto, declares that he will grant January his sight so that he may see the unfaithful behavior of his wife. Proserpina declares that she will provide May with a striking response that will leave January with no argument. The two gods carry through with their plan, and upon January's regaining of sight, he sees May and Damian. May comes down and explains that once January regained his sight, he was not seeing clearly and merely hallucinated May and Damian in the tree. To this, January could not respond in anger and instead forgave her and moved past the event. The tale ends here with an epilogue that reiterates the merchant's dislike of marriage and woman's deceitful ways. |
|
|
Term
| The Wife of Bath's Prologue |
|
Definition
| She establishes herself as an authority on marriage, due to her extensive personal experience with the institution. Since her first marriage at the tender age of twelve, she has had five husbands. She says that many people have criticized her for her numerous marriages. he Wife of Bath has her own views of Scripture and God’s plan. She says that men can only guess and interpret what Jesus meant when he told a Samaritan woman that her fifth husband was not her husband. With or without this bit of Scripture, no man has ever been able to give her an exact reply when she asks to know how many husbands a woman may have in her lifetime. God bade us to wax fruitful and multiply, she says, and that is the text that she wholeheartedly endorses. After all, great Old Testament figures, like Abraham, Jacob, and Solomon, enjoyed multiple wives at once. She admits that many great Fathers of the Church have proclaimed the importance of virginity, such as the Apostle Paul. But, she reasons, even if virginity is important, someone must be procreating so that virgins can be created. Leave virginity to the perfect, she says, and let the rest of us use our gifts as best we may—and her gift, doubtless, is her sexual power. She uses this power as an “instrument” to control her husbands. Of her five husbands, three have been “good” and two have been “bad.” The first three were good, she admits, mostly because they were rich, old, and submissive. She laughs to recall the torments that she put these men through and recounts a typical conversation that she had with her older husbands. She would accuse her -husband of having an affair, launching into a tirade in which she would charge him with a bewildering array of accusations. If one of her husbands got drunk, she would claim he said that every wife is out to destroy her husband. He would then feel guilty and give her what she wanted. All of this, the Wife of Bath tells the rest of the pilgrims, was a pack of lies—her husbands never held these opinions, but she made these claims to give them grief. Worse, she would tease her husbands in bed, refusing to give them full satisfaction until they promised her money. She admits proudly to using her verbal and sexual power to bring her husbands to total submission. |
|
|
Term
“Wommen desiren to have sovereyntee
As wel over hir housbond as hir love,
And for to been in maistrie hym above.” |
|
Definition
| From the Wife of Bath's Tale |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| King Arthur's knight commits a rape. Tp escape sentencing, he must discover what women desire most. He marries an old witch for the answer: sovereignty; she then turns into a beautiful woman. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| John is jealous and highly possessive of his sexy eighteen-year-old wife, Alisoun. One day, the carpenter leaves, and young Nicholas and Alisoun begin flirting. She agrees to sleep with him when it is safe to do so. She is worried that John will find out, but Nicholas is confident he can outwit the carpenter. A merry, vain parish clerk named Absolon also fancies Alisoun. He serenades her every night, buys her gifts, and gives her money, but to no avail—Alisoun loves Nicholas. Nicholas tells John he has had a vision from God and offers to tell John about it. He explains that he has foreseen a terrible event. The next Monday, waters twice as great as Noah’s flood will cover the land, exterminating all life. icholas instructs John to fasten three tubs, each loaded with provisions and an ax, to the roof of the barn. On Monday night, they will sleep in the tubs, so that when the flood comes, they can release the tubs, hack through the roof, and float until the water subsides. Nicholas also warns John that it is God’s commandment that they may do nothing but pray once they are in the tubs—no one is to speak a word. As soon as the carpenter begins to snore, Nicholas and Alisoun climb down, run back to the house, and sleep together in the carpenter’s bed. In the early dawn, Absolon passes by and asks for a kiss. Absolon leaps forward eagerly, offering a lingering kiss. But it is not her lips he finds at the window, but her “naked ers [arse]” (3734). Nicholas, having gotten up to relieve himself anyway, sticks his rear out the window and farts thunderously in Absolon’s face. Absolon brands Nicholas’s buttocks with the poker. Nicholas leaps up and cries out, “Help! Water! Water!” (3815). John, still hanging from the roof, wakes up and assumes Nicholas’s cries mean that the flood has come. He grabs the ax, cuts free the tub, and comes crashing to the ground, breaking his arm. The noise and commotion attract many of the townspeople. The carpenter tells the story of the predicted flood, but Nicholas and Alisoun pretend ignorance, telling everyone that the carpenter is mad. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Three immoral drunkards set out to find Death, who has taken one of their drinking buddies. THey are told to look for death under a certain tree, but instead they find a large pile of treasure. The three men manage to murder each other in trying to increase their share of the treasure. At the conclusion of the tale the pardoner tries to get the host to pay for the opportunity to handle some of the relics. The host responds that he'd rather have the pardoner's severed testicales so that he might bury them in pig shit. The Knight reconciles their argument. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A reeve was similar to a steward of a manor, and this reeve performs his job shrewdly—his lord never loses so much as a ram to the other employees, and the vassals under his command are kept in line. However, he steals from his master. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A greedy miller named Simkin has his wife and daughter enjoyed by a pair of clerks, John and Alan, whom he'd swindled earlier. The story is the reeve;s response to the miller's tale of the foolish carpenter. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The Clerk is a poor student of philosophy. Having spent his money on books and learning rather than on fine clothes, he is threadbare and wan. He speaks little, but when he does, his words are wise and full of moral virtue. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Grisleda, a patient wife, endures the trails of her needlessly jealous husband, the Marquis Walter. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The Physician is one of the best in his profession, for he knows the cause of every malady and can cure most of them. Though the Physician keeps himself in perfect physical health, the narrator calls into question the Physician’s spiritual health: he rarely consults the Bible and has an unhealthy love of financial gain. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Virginia has her father kills her in order to avoid falling into the clutches of Apius, an evil judge. |
|
|
Term
The Firste Moevere of the cause above,
Whan he first made the faire cheyne of love,
Greet was th’effect, and heigh was his entente.
. . .
For with that faire cheyne of love he bond
The fyr, the eyr, the water, and the lond
In certeyn boundes, that they may nat flee. |
|
Definition
| The Knight's Tale; Theseus's explanation of why Emily must marry Palamon. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| he story’s protagonist, Arthur’s nephew and one of his most loyal knights. Although he modestly disclaims it, Gawain has the reputation of being a great knight and courtly lover. He prides himself on his observance of the five points of chivalry in every aspect of his life. Gawain is a pinnacle of humility, piety, integrity, loyalty, and honesty. His only flaw proves to be that he loves his own life so much that he will lie in order to protect himself. Gawain leaves the Green Chapel penitent and changed. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| He is an ambiguous figure: he says that he comes in friendship, not wanting to fight, but the friendly game he proposes is quite deadly. He attaches great importance to verbal contracts, expecting Sir Gawain to go to great lengths to hold up his end of their bargain. The Green Knight shows himself to be a supernatural being when he picks up his own severed head and rides out of Arthur’s court, still speaking. At the same time, he seems to symbolize the natural world, in that he is killed and reborn as part of a cycle. At the poem’s end, we discover that the Green Knight is also Bertilak, Gawain’s host, and one of Morgan le Faye’s minions. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| he sturdy, good-natured lord of the castle where Gawain spends Christmas. We only learn Bertilak’s name at the end of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The poem associates Bertilak with the natural world—his beard resembles a beaver, his face a fire—but also with the courtly behavior of an aristocratic host. Boisterous, powerful, brave, and generous, Lord Bertilak provides an interesting foil to King Arthur. At the end of the poem we learn that Bertilak and the Green Knight are the same person, magically enchanted by Morgan le Faye for her own designs. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Bertilak’s wife attempts to seduce Gawain on a daily basis during his stay at the castle. Though the poem presents her to the reader as no more than a beautiful young woman, Bertilak’s wife is an amazingly clever debater and an astute reader of Gawain’s responses as she argues her way through three attempted seductions. Flirtatious and intelligent, Bertilak’s wife ultimately turns out to be another pawn in Morgan le Faye’s plot. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The Arthurian tradition typically portrays Morgan as a powerful sorceress, trained by Merlin, as well as the half sister of King Arthur. Not until the last one hundred lines do we discover that the old woman at the castle is Morgan le Faye and that she has controlled the poem’s entire action from beginning to end. As she often does in Arthurian literature, Morgan appears as an enemy of Camelot, one who aims to cause as much trouble for her half brother and his followers as she can. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The king of Camelot. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Arthur is young and beardless, and his court is in its golden age. Arthur’s refusal to eat until he hears a fantastic tale shows the petulance of youth, as does Arthur’s initial stunned response to the Green Knight’s challenge. However, like a good king, Arthur soon steps forward to take on the challenge. At the story’s end, Arthur joins his nephew in wearing a green girdle on his arm, showing that Gawain’s trial has taught him about his own fallibility. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Arthur’s wife. The beautiful young Guinevere of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight seems to have little in common with the one of later Arthurian legend. She sits next to Gawain at the New Year’s feast and remains a silent, objectified presence in the midst of the knights of the Round Table. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Great wonder grew in hall
At his hue most strange to see,
For man and gear and all
Were green as green could be. |
|
Definition
| Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |
|
|
Term
Gawain was glad to begin those games in hall,
But if the end be harsher, hold it no wonder,
For though men are merry in mind after much drink,
A year passes apace, and proves ever new:
First things and final conform but seldom. |
|
Definition
| Sire Gawain and the Green Knight |
|
|
Term
The good knight on Gringolet thought it great luck
If he could but contrive to come there within
To keep the Christmas feast in that castle fair
and bright. |
|
Definition
| Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |
|
|
Term
“Sir, if you be Gawain, it seems a great wonder—
A man so well-meaning, and mannerly disposed,
And cannot act in company as courtesy bids,
And if one takes the trouble to teach him, ‘tis all in vain.
That lesson learned lately is lightly forgot,
Though I painted it as plain as my poor wit allowed.”
“What lesson, dear lady?” he asked all alarmed;
“I have been much to blame, if your story be true.”
“Yet my counsel was of kissing,” came her answer then,
“Where favor has been found, freely to claim
As accords with the conduct of courteous knights.” |
|
Definition
| Gawain and the host’s wife have this exchange on the second morning of Gawain’s game with the host. The lady’s comments highlight the tension between courtesy and chastity, a tension she exploits in an attempt to get what she wants. |
|
|
Term
But if a dullard should dote, deem it no wonder,
And through the wiles of a woman be wooed into sorrow,
For so was Adam by one, when the world began,
And Solomon by many more, and Samson the mighty—
Delilah was his doom, and David thereafter
Was beguiled by Bathsheba, and bore much distress; |
|
Definition
| Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |
|
|
Term
And one and all fell prey
To women they had used;
If I be led astry,
Methinks I may be excused. |
|
Definition
| Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Sir Thomas Malory (1470): In the title, he acknowledges that it is French source, but writes in MIddle English. It recounts the legends surrounding Arthur. It is written in prose, while Gawain is in the bob and wheel form. Malory wrote the work while in prison and seems to have drawn from English sources as well as the French book he acknowledges. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A nine line stanza rhyming ababbcbcc. It ends in an Alexandrine. |
|
|
Term
The reward of sin is death? That’s hard.
Si peccasse negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis veritas.
If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves, and there’s no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.
What doctrine call you this? Che sarà, sarà:
What will be, shall be! Divinity, adieu!
These metaphysics of magicians,
And necromantic books are heavenly! |
|
Definition
| Faustus speaks these lines near the end of his opening soliloquy. In this speech, he considers various fields of study one by one, beginning with logic and proceeding through medicine and law. Seeking the highest form of knowledge, he arrives at theology and opens the Bible to the New Testament, where he quotes from Romans and the first book of John. However, Faustus neglects to read the very next line in John, which states, “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). By ignoring this passage, Faustus ignores the possibility of redemption, just as he ignores it throughout the play. |
|
|
Term
MEPHASTOPHILIS: Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
O Faustus, leave these frivolous demands,
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul.
FAUSTUS: What, is great Mephastophilis so passionate
For being deprivèd of the joys of heaven?
Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude,
And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess. |
|
Definition
| Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe |
|
|
Term
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self-place; for where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be.
. . .
All places shall be hell that is not heaven.
FAUSTUS: Come, I think hell’s a fable.
MEPHASTOPHILISs.: Ay, think so still, till experience change thy mind. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss:
Her lips sucks forth my soul, see where it flies!
Come Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven be in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena! |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.
O I’ll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down?
See, see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah my Christ—
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ;
Yet will I call on him—O spare me, Lucifer |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Ugly hell gape not! Come not, Lucifer!
I’ll burn my books—ah, Mephastophilis! |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Donne; The speaker tells his beloved to look at the flea before them and to note “how little” is that thing that she denies him. For the flea, he says, has sucked first his blood, then her blood, so that now, inside the flea, they are mingled; and that mingling cannot be called “sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead.” The flea has joined them together in a way that, “alas, is more than we would do.” In the flea, he says, where their blood is mingled, they are almost married—no, more than married—and the flea is their marriage bed and marriage temple mixed into one. “Cruel and sudden,” the speaker calls his lover, who has now killed the flea, “purpling” her fingernail with the “blood of innocence.” The speaker asks his lover what the flea’s sin was, other than having sucked from each of them a drop of blood. He says that his lover replies that neither of them is less noble for having killed the flea. It is true, he says, and it is this very fact that proves that her fears are false: If she were to sleep with him (“yield to me”), she would lose no more honor than she lost when she killed the flea. |
|
|
Term
MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ; |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tomb or hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse ;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms ;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for love ; |
|
Definition
| The Canonization. John Donne |
|
|
Term
BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere. |
|
Definition
| John Donne. The Rising Sun |
|
|
Term
Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it. |
|
Definition
| John Donne. "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" |
|
|
Term
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do. |
|
Definition
| John Donne. "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" |
|
|
Term
BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new. |
|
Definition
| John Donne; Divine Meditation 14 |
|
|
Term
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful
Seat, Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen
Seed, In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s Brook that flow’d
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my advent’rous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th’ Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme. |
|
Definition
| Paradise Lost, Opening Invocation to the Muse; John Milton |
|
|
Term
So much the rather thou Celestial Light
Shine inward, and the mind through all powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight. |
|
Definition
| make up part of Milton’s second and longest invocation, which is also his most autobiographical and symbolic. Milton refers to light simultaneously as divine wisdom and literal light. When he speaks about his blindness he refers to both his inward blindness, or lack of divine wisdom, and his literal blindness, or loss of eyesight. |
|
|
Term
. . . though both
Not equal, as thir sex not equal seem’d;
For contemplation hee and valor form’d,
For softness shee and sweet attractive Grace,
Hee for God only, shee for God in him:
His fair large Front and Eye sublime declar’d
Absolute rule; and Hyacinthine Locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clust’ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
Shee as a veil down to the slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevell’d, but in wanton ringlets wav’d
As the Vine curls her tendrils, which impli’d
Subjection, but requir’d with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best receiv’d,
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet reluctant amorous delay. |
|
Definition
| Milton's Paradise Lost; the description of Adam and Eve |
|
|
Term
So spake our Father penitent, nor Eve
Felt less remorse: they forthwith to the place
Repairing where he judg’d them prostrate fell
Before him reverent, and both confess’d
Humbly their faults, and pardon begg’d, with tears
Watering the ground, and with their sighs the
Air Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign
Of sorrow unfeign’d, and humiliation meek. |
|
Definition
| These lines at the end of Book X, first spoken by Adam, and then narrated by Milton, relate Adam and Eve’s decision to pray to God for forgiveness and their subsequent action of prayer. This point in the story finds Adam and Eve choosing between obedience and disobedience. Their repentance allows them to be forgiven, and their forgiveness allows for the possible redemption of humankind. These lines present the first step in humankind’s long search for salvation. |
|
|
Term
This having learnt, thou hast attained the sum
Of Wisdom; hope no higher, though all the Stars
Thou knew’st by name, and all th’ ethereal Powers,
All secrets of the deep, all Nature’s works,
Or works of God in Heav’n, Air, Earth, or Sea,
And all riches of this World enjoy’dst,
And all the rule, one Empire: only add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add Faith,
Add Virtue, Patience, Temperance, add Love,
By name to come called Charity, the soul
Of all the rest: then wilt though not be loth
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A paradise within thee, happier far. |
|
Definition
| These lines are spoken by Michael to Adam in Book XII just before Adam and Eve are led out of Paradise. Michael tries to explain to Adam that even though Eve and him have fallen from grace and must leave Paradise, they can still lead a fruitful life. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a 1644 prose polemical tract by English author John Milton against censorship. Areopagitica is among history's most influential and impassioned philosophical defences of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression, which was written in opposition to licensing and censorship and is regarded as one of the most eloquent defences of press freedom ever written. published November 23, 1644, at the height of the English Civil War |
|
|
Term
| For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. |
|
Definition
| Areopagitica by John Milton |
|
|
Term
| [A]s good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| [T]hough all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play on the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? |
|
Definition
| Areopagitica by John Milton |
|
|
Term
| I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. |
|
Definition
| Areopagitica by John MIlton |
|
|
Term
| Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when he ascended, and his Apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb, still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do, till her Master's second coming [...] |
|
Definition
| Areopagitica by John Milton |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| (A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634) is a masque in honour of chastity, written by John Milton. It was first presented on Michaelmas, 1634, before John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater at Ludlow Castle in celebration of the Earl's new post as Lord President of Wales. The plot concerns a lady lost in the woods who, upon falling asleep, is captured by the lecherous Comus and carried back to face a series of erotic harassments. |
|
|
Term
Mortals that would follow me,
Love virtue, she alone is free,
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the Sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would stoop to her |
|
Definition
| Famous last lines of Milton's Comus |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy. The poem is 193 lines in length, and is irregularly rhymed. While many of the other poems in the compilation are in Greek and Latin, "Lycidas" is one of the poems written in English. By calling Edward King "Lycidas," Milton follows “the tradition of memorializing a loved one through Pastoral poetry, a practice that may be traced from ancient Greek Sicily through Roman culture and into the Christian Middle Ages and early Renaissance.”[2] Milton describes King as “selfless,” even though he was of the clergy – a statement both bold and, at the time, controversial among lay people. |
|
|
Term
n this Monody the Author bewails a
learned Friend, unfortunatly drown'd in his Passage
from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637. And by
occasion fortels the ruine of our corrupted
Clergy then in their height. |
|
Definition
| From Lycidas; John Milton |
|
|
Term
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear,
I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
He must not flote upon his watry bear
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of som melodious tear. |
|
Definition
| Lycidas (1637) by John Milton |
|
|
Term
But O the heavy change, now thou art gon,
Now thou art gon, and never must return!
Thee Shepherd, thee the Woods, and desert Caves,
With wilde Thyme and the gadding Vine o'regrown,
And all their echoes mourn. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of Noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious dayes; |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth.
And, O ye Dolphins, waft the haples youth.
Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar,
So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled Ore,
lames in the forehead of the morning sky: |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come |
|
Definition
| a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan and published in February, 1678. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature. |
|
|
Term
But must I needs want solidness, because
By metaphors I speak? Were not God’s laws,
His gospel laws, in olden time held forth
By types, shadows, and metaphors? |
|
Definition
| Bunyan defends the content of Pilgrim's Progress from those who might accuse him of playing with mere fantasies. Bunyan denies that his book must “want,” or lack, solidity simply because it uses a metaphorical style. He affirms that metaphors can go hand in hand with serious thought. |
|
|
Term
| Here is a poor burdened sinner. I come from the City of Destruction, but am going to Mount Zion, that I may be delivered from the Wrath to come; I would therefore, Sir, since I am informed that by this Gate is the Way thither, know if you are willing to let me in? |
|
Definition
| Christian introduces himself to the gatekeeper Goodwill with these lines in Pilgrim's Progress. The quotation forcefully displays Christian’s sense of identity and his sense of who he is in the world. Christian does not think of mentioning his own name in his introduction. Partly he does not think of his name because he represents all Christian pilgrims in this allegory. Christian is an Everyman, and he does not need a name because he symbolizes all. |
|
|
Term
Should onely rule, who most resembles me:
Sh—— alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dullness from his tender years.
Sh—— alone, of all my Sons, is he
Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Sh—— never deviates into sense |
|
Definition
| MacFlecknow; John Dryden; Mock Epic |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a landmark poetic political satire by John Dryden. Uses Biblcial characters to analogize a political crisis during the regin of Charles II. Absalom is the Duke on Monmouth, Achitophel is the Earl of Shaftesbury, and King David is Charles the II. Essentially, the hedonistic Charles spent so much tim eon his mistress that he had plenty of offspring, but no legitimate (Protestant) heir, which left his Catholic brother, James II, successor to the throne. Dryden uses heroic couplets. |
|
|
Term
Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear,
A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care:
Not so the rest; for several mothers bore
To godlike David several sons before.
But since like slaves his bed they did ascend, [15]
No true succession could their seed attend.
Of all the numerous progeny was none |
|
Definition
| Absalom and Achitophel by Dryden |
|
|
Term
the Almighty, nodding, gave consent,
And peals of thunder shook the firmament.
Henceforth a series of new time began,
The mighty years in long procession ran;
Once more the godlike David was restored,
And willing nations knew their lawful lord. |
|
Definition
| Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| William Wycherley; Characters: Mr. Horner, Mr. Pinchwife, Sir Jasper Fidget, Mrs. Squeamish, and Mrs. Dainty Fidget |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Restoration Comedy by George Etherage (1676) featuring Mr. Dorimant, Sir Fopling Flutter, and Mrs. Loveit. Sir Fopling, the flamboyant flop of the hour, Freshly returned from being "cultured" in Paris, Fopling attempts to emulate the love 'em and leave 'em style of Dorimant. Meanwhile Dorimant has plans to use Fopling in a scheme to lose his current lover Miss Loveit in order to seek out a new conquest. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a play written by British playwright William Congreve. It premiered in 1700 in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. It is widely regarded as being one of the best Restoration comedies written and is still performed sporadically to this day. Characters: Millamant, Mirabell, Mr. Fainall, Lady Wishfort, Foible, and Mincing. The play is based around the two lovers Mirabell and Millamant. In order for the two to get married and receive Millamant's full dowry, Mirabell must receive the blessing of Millamant's aunt, Lady Wishfort. Unfortunately, she is a very bitter lady, who despises Mirabell and wants her own nephew, Sir Wilful, to wed Millamant. Other characters include Fainall who is having a secret affair with Mrs. Marwood, a friend of Mrs. Fainall's, who in turn once had an affair with Mirabell. Waitwell is Mirabell's servant and is married to Foible, Lady Wishfort's servant. Waitwell pretends to be Sir Rowland and, on Mirabell's command, tries to trick Lady Wishfort into a false engagement. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| is a play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on May 8, 1777. Characters: Sir Peter Teazle, Maria, Lady Sneerwell, Sir Benjamin Backbite, and Charles Surface. Lady Sneerwell and Joseph are plotting to alienate Maria from Charles by putting out rumors of an affair between Charles and Sir Peter's new young wife, Lady Teazle. Sir Oliver describes his plan to visit each of the brothers incognito in order to test their characters. He will disguise himself as their needy relative Mr. Stanley, and ask each for his help. After Lady Teazle tells her that she (Lady Teazle) is withdrawing from the School for Scandal, Lady Sneerwell leaves in a rage, and Joseph follows, supposedly to keep her from further malicious attacks. Charles and Maria are reconciled. Charles makes no promises about reforming, but indicates that Maria's influence will keep him on a "virtuous path." The concluding line assures the audience that "even Scandal dies, if you approve." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Jonathan Swift (1726); travels include Lilliput and its tiny people, Brobdingnag, with its giants, Laputa the flying island, the struldburgs who cannot die, the houyhnhnms (horses), and the yahoos (brute humans) |
|
|
Term
| "The Vanity of Human Wishes" |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| The Lives of the English Poets |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Samuel Johnson; a melancholy novel about the Prince of Abyssinnia's unsuccessful quest for a happy and fulfilling choice of life (Johnson wrote it in a week to raise only for his mother's funeral) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| James Boswell; he discusses Johnson in an easy and genial style. It treats us to snatches of Johnson in conversation. |
|
|
Term
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed. |
|
Definition
| The Lamb by William Blake |
|
|
Term
’Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean
The children walking two & two in red & blue & green
Grey headed beadles walk’d before with wands as white as snow
Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow |
|
Definition
| Holy Thursday by William Blake |
|
|
Term
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk or jew.
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too. |
|
Definition
| "The Divine Image" by William Blake |
|
|
Term
My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child:
But I am black as if bereav’d of light. |
|
Definition
| "The Little Black Boy" by William Blake |
|
|
Term
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
s this a holy thing to see,
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine.
And their fields are bleak & bare.
And their ways are fill’d with thorns.
It is eternal winter there. |
|
Definition
| Holy Thursday; William Blake |
|
|
Term
And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.
The Gods of the earth and sea,
Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain |
|
Definition
| The Human Abstract by William Blake |
|
|
Term
I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy. |
|
Definition
| The Sick Rose, by William Blake |
|
|
Term
Visions of the Daughter of Albion
Characters |
|
Definition
| Oothoon, Bromion, Theotormon |
|
|
Term
"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,
Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.
Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing
from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell." |
|
Definition
| From William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" |
|
|
Term
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
"The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction" |
|
Definition
| The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally regarded as the first gothic novel, initiating a literary genre which would become extremely popular in the later 18th century and early 19th century. Thus, Castle, and Walpole by extension is arguably the forerunner to such authors as Charles Robert Maturin, Ann Radcliffe, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and Daphne du Maurier. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The process of summing up and revealing, in some sense, the true causes of many seeming impossibilities at the work's end. It becomes an important feature of the Detective Story. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1796. It was written before the author turned 20, in the space of 10 weeks. The story concerns Ambrosio - a pious, well-respected monk in Spain - and his violent downfall. He is undone by carnal lust for his pupil, a woman disguised as a monk (Matilda), who tempts him to transgress, and, once satisfied by her, is overcome with desire for the innocent Antonia. Using magic spells, Matilda aids him in seducing Antonia, whom he later rapes and kills. Matilda is eventually revealed as an instrument of Satan in female form, who has orchestrated Ambrosio's downfall from the start. Ambrosio finds out by the devil that the woman that he had raped and killed, Antonia, was indeed his sister. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Jane Austen. Characters: Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, Lucy Steele, Edward Ferris, John Willoughby, and Colonel Brandon. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Jane Austen: Fanny Price, the Betrams of Mansfield Park, and Mrs. Norris |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Jane Austen; Emma Woodhouse ("handsome, clever and rich"), Mr. Knightley, Miss Bates, Frank Churchill, Harriet Smith, and Jane Fairfax |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Jane Austen; Catherine Morland, the Allens, Henry Tilney, and John Thorpe. It is a parody of Anne Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Jane Austen; featuring Sir Walter, Elizabeth, and Anne Elliot, Frederick Wentworth, and Kellynch Hall (the manor that the Elliot family is forced to let to deal with mounting bills) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and Essayist Charles Lamb. Called the Lake poets because of their residence in the Lake District of England. |
|
|
Term
| Preface to the Lyrical Ballads |
|
Definition
| an essay, composed by William Wordsworth for the second edition (published in January 1801, and often referred to as the "1800 Edition") of the poetry collection Lyrical Ballads, and then greatly expanded in the third edition of 1802. |
|
|
Term
| The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to chuse incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| "[D]escribe [those incidents] […] in a selection of language really used by men." |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| "[T]hrow over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way." |
|
Definition
| Preface from Lyrical Ballads |
|
|
Term
| "[M]ake these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature." |
|
Definition
| Preface from Lyrical Ballads |
|
|
Term
"But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!"
'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, "Nay, we are seven!" |
|
Definition
| We are Seven by William Wordsworth |
|
|
Term
| Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood |
|
Definition
| a poem by William Wordsworth, completed in 1804 and published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). The poem was completed in two parts, with the first four stanzas written among a series of poems composed in 1802 about childhood. The first part of the poem was completed on 27 March 1802 and a copy was provided to Wordsworth's friend and fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who responded with his own poem, Dejection: An Ode, in April. |
|
|
Term
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more. (lines 1–9) |
|
Definition
| Opening lines to Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immorality; he ode begins by contrasting the narrator's view of the world as a child and as a man, with what was once a life interconnected to the divine fading away. |
|
|
Term
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; (lines 22–26) |
|
Definition
| In the second and third stanzas of Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality, the narrator continues by describing his surroundings and various aspects of nature that he is no longer able to feel. He feels as if he is separated from the rest of nature until he experiences a moment that brings about feelings of joy that are able to overcome his despair |
|
|
Term
A single Field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream? |
|
Definition
| Wordsworth's Ode: An Intimations of Immortality; Though they appear to be similar, one asks where the visions are now ("Where is it now") while the other doesn't ("Whither is fled"), and they leave open the possibility that the visions could return. |
|
|
Term
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy |
|
Definition
| Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality; apriori memory (Aristotle's concept) |
|
|
Term
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. |
|
Definition
| Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality; he stanza describes how a child is able to see what others do not see because children do not comprehend mortality, and the imagination allows an adult to intimate immortality and bond with his fellow man |
|
|
Term
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
. . .
hanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. |
|
Definition
| Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality; The poem concludes with an affirmation that, though changed by time, the narrator is able to be the same person he once was |
|
|
Term
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! |
|
Definition
| William Wordsworth: The World Is Too Much with Us (1807) |
|
|
Term
I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. |
|
Definition
| William Wordsworth: The World Is Too Much with Us (1807) |
|
|
Term
IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder--everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not. |
|
Definition
| "IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE" Wordsworth; This poem is thought to have originated from a real moment in Wordsworth’s life, when he walked on the beach with the daughter he had not known for a decade. But he declares that this fact does not make her “less divine”—childhood is inherently at one with nature, worshipping in the unconscious, inner temple of pure unity with the present moment and surroundings. |
|
|
Term
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay. |
|
Definition
London, 1802; Wordsworth
The poem has two main purposes, one of which is to pay homage to Milton by saying that he can save the entirety of England with his nobility and virtue. The other purpose of the poem is to draw attention to what Wordsworth feels are the problems with English society. According to Wordsworth, England was once a great place of happiness, religion, chivalry, art, and literature, but at the present moment those virtues have been lost. Wordsworth can only describe modern England as a swampland, where people are selfish and must be taught about things like "manners, virtue, freedom, power." Wordsworth compliments Milton by comparing him to things found in nature, such as the stars, the sea, and "the heavens." For Wordsworth, being likened to nature is the highest compliment possible. |
|
|
Term
I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. |
|
Definition
| Wordsworth "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" |
|
|
Term
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood, 20
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. |
|
Definition
| I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud; Wordsworth |
|
|
Term
BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound. |
|
Definition
| Wordsworth's THE SOLITARY REAPER |
|
|
Term
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more. |
|
Definition
| THE SOLITARY REAPER by William Wordsworth |
|
|
Term
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink. |
|
Definition
| Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
|
|
Term
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all. |
|
Definition
| Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Samuel Taylor Coleridge: the moral of the story |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| an autobiography in discourse by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which he published in 1817. The book contains his celebrated and vexed distinction between 'imagination' and 'fancy'. Chapter XIV is the origin of the famous critical concept of a 'willing suspension of disbelief'. He believes that imagination is the supreme faculty of the human intellect, and its cultivation is both the prerequisite and aim of poetry. Coleridge understands imagination to be more than the operation of mere fantasy; it is the process of keenly perceiving the pheomena of the world and self, and then re-expressing phenomena through the creative faculties of the poet's whole being, the mind and the soul, the rational and the irrational. |
|
|
Term
| "For not this man and that man, but all mean make up mankind, and their united tasks the task of mankind." |
|
Definition
| Sartor Resartus, Thomas Carlyle, 1831 |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Victorian Essayist; A prolific writer, whose opinions exerted consider influence on the thought of his day. Sartor Resartus is a philosophical work in the guise of fiction, similar to the approach taken by Kierkegaard in Either/Or, or Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra. Carlyle was influence by German philosophy. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Thomas Carlyle's major work (meaning 'The tailor re-tailored'); urported to be a commentary on the thought and early life of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (which translates as 'god-born devil-dung'), author of a tome entitled "Clothes: their Origin and Influence" , but was actually a poioumenon.[1] Teufelsdröckh's Transcendentalist musings are mulled over by a skeptical English editor who also provides fragmentary biographical material on the philosopher. The work is, in part, a parody of Hegel, and of German Idealism more generally. However, Teufelsdröckh is also a literary device with which Carlyle can express difficult truths. Characters: Blumine: The siren who, Calypso-like, seduced Teufelsdroeckh at the commencement of his career, but who also helped him see that it is not in sentiment, however fine, that the soul's cravings can find satisfaction; Dumdrudge: Dumdrudge is an imaginary village where the natives drudge away and say nothing about it, as villagers all over the world contentedly do; Hofrath: is a loose, zigzag figure, a blind admirer of Teufelsdroeckh's, an incarnation of distraction distracted, and the only one who advises the editor and encourages him in his work; a victim to timidity and preyed on by an uncomfortable sense of mere physical cold, such as the majority of the state-counsellors of the day were; Weissnichtwo: German for Know-not-where) is an imaginary European city, viewed as the focus, and as exhibiting the operation, of all the influences for good and evil of the time, described in terms which characterised city life in the first quarter of the 19th century; so universal appeared the spiritual forces at work in society at that time that it was impossible to say where they were and where they were not, and hence the name of the city, Know-not-where. Also the Everlasting Yea and the Everlasting No. |
|
|
Term
| John Henry, Cardinal Newman |
|
Definition
| One of the Victorian Essayists; he converted from the Anglican faith to Roman Catholicism. His Apologia Pro Vita Sua details the reasoning behind his controversial switch.Newman also wrote an important and eloquent essay espousing the value of a liberal arts education entitled The Idea of a University. He is known for his rigourous clarity and he breaks down ideas point by point. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| s the classic defence by John Henry Newman of his religious opinions, published in 1864 in response to what he saw as an unwarranted attack on him, the Catholic priesthood, and Roman Catholic doctrine by Charles Kingsley. The work quickly became a bestseller and has remained in print to this day. The work was tremendously influential in turning public opinion for Newman, and in establishing him as one of the foremost exponents of Catholicism in England. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| John Henry Newman: 1854. A defense of Liberal Arts rationally laid out in pamphlet. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham, although his conception of it was very different from Bentham's. Hoping to remedy the problems found in an inductive approach to science, such as confirmation bias, he clearly set forth the premises of falsification as the key component in the scientific method. Mill was also a Member of Parliament and an important figure in liberal political philosophy. In his early 20s, he went through a serious bout of depression, on that he attributed to his education, which had favored logic over art and emotion. Mill's account of melancholy in his Autobiography is famous. He is also the author of On Liberty, "What is Poetry?", and The Subjection of Women. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| (1859) is a philosophical work by British philosopher John Stuart Mill. It was a radical work to the Victorian readers of the time because it supported individuals' moral and economic freedom from the state. Perhaps the most memorable point made by Mill in this work, and his basis for liberty, is that "over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign". Mill is compelled to make this assertion in opposition to what he calls the "tyranny of the majority", wherein through control of etiquette and morality, society is an unelected power that can do horrific things. Mill's work could be considered a reaction to this social control by the majority and his advocacy of individual decision-making over the self. The famous Harm Principle, or the principle of liberty, is also articulated in this work: the state or any other social body has no right to coerce or restrict the individual unless the individual causes harm to others, crucially, the individual's own physical or moral harm is not justification for constriction of their liberty. All branches of liberalism—as well as other political ideologies—consider this to be one of their core principles. However, they often disagree on what exactly constitutes harm. |
|
|
Term
The freedom to think as one wishes, and to feel as one does. This includes the freedom to opinion, and includes the freedom to publish opinions known as the freedom of speech,
The freedom to pursue tastes and pursuits, even if they are deemed "immoral," and only so long as they do not cause harm,
The "freedom to unite" or meet with others, often known as the freedom of assembly. |
|
Definition
| J S Mill's human liberties, as laid out in Of Liberty |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| JS Mill, a work that defines poetry as the expression of the self, to the self, as opposed to eloquence, which is the expression of the self to another. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| One of the Victorian Essayists, as well as the author of Dover Beach. Arnold is best recognized by his content and not his style. His works tend to call on prior ages, especially the ancient Greeks, as models of virtue and culture. Arnold is big on culture and he attacks Philistinsim and he sings the praises of classical "sweetness and light." The phrase "sweetness and light" comes from Culture and Anarchy, but Arnold took it from Swift's Battle of the Books. |
|
|
Term
| "Such, I say, is the wonderful virtue of even the beginnings of perfection, of having conquered even the plain faults of our animality, that the religious organisation which has helped us to do it can seem to us something precious, salutary, and to be propagated, even when it wears such as a brand of imperfections on its forehead as this." |
|
Definition
| Culture and Anarchy, Matthew Arnold, 1869 |
|
|
Term
| "Culture [...] is a study of perfection . . . [Culture] seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light [...]" |
|
Definition
| Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold |
|
|
Term
| The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically. |
|
Definition
| Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
(1843) is book on art by John Ruskin which argues that recent painters emerging from the tradition of the picturesque are superior in the art of landscape to the old masters. The book was primarily written as a defence of the later work of J.M.W. Turner. Ruskin used the book to argue that art should devote itself to the accurate documentation of nature. In Ruskin's view Turner had developed from early detailed documentation of nature to a later more profound insight into natural forces and atmospheric effects.
Ruskin added later volumes in subsequent years. Volume two (1846) placed emphasis on symbolism in art, expressed through nature. The second volume was influential on the early development of Pre-Raphaelitism. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| John Ruskin; Rejection of mechanisation and standardisation informed Ruskin's theories of architecture, and his emphasis on the importance of the Medieval Gothic style. He praised the Gothic for what he saw as its reverence for nature and natural forms; the free, unfettered expression of artisans constructing and decorating buildings; and for the organic relationship he perceived between worker and guild, worker and community, worker and natural environment, and between worker and God. Nineteenth-century attempts to reproduce Gothic forms (such as pointed arches), attempts which he had helped to inspire, were not enough to make these buildings expressions of what Ruskin saw as true Gothic feeling, faith, and organicism. Even its crude and "savage" aspects were proof of "the liberty of every workman who struck the stone; a freedom of thought, and rank in scale of being, such as no laws, no charters, no charities can secure." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Ruskin coined this term in Modern Painters III (1856) to describe the ascription of human emotions to inanimate objects and impersonal natural forces, as in "the wind sighed" |
|
|
Term
| The House of Seven Gables |
|
Definition
| By Nathaniel Hawthorne; features the Pyncheons, especially Hepzibah. Other names are old Maule, Phoebe, Holgrave, and Clifford. The story's theme is that of the sins of the fathers visited upon later generations. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Melville; a handsome sailor undone by his own goodness and the plottings of the repulsive Claggart. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.[1] His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality. Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and–in addition to publishing his poetry–was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Though the first edition was published in 1855, Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass,[1] revising it in several editions until his death. Among the poems in the collection are "Song of Myself", "I Sing the Body Electric", and in later editions, Whitman's elegy to the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". |
|
|
Term
I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my Soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease . . . . observing a spear of summer grass. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I believe in you my soul . . . . the other I am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.
Loafe with me on the grass . . . . loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want . . . . not custom or lecture, not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself;
They do not know how immortal, but I know. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the Soul.
The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself . . . . the latter I translate into a new tongue. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
The atmosphere is not a perfume . . . . it has no taste of the distillation . . . . it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever . . . . I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,
Echos, ripples, and buzzed whispers . . . . loveroot, silkthread, crotch and vine, (section 1) |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
I mind how we lay in June, such a transparent summer morning;
You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart,
And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Call me Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael or any other name you please—it is not a matter of importance. |
|
Definition
| A Room of One's Own; Woolf |
|
|
Term
| It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare. |
|
Definition
| A Room of One's Own; Woolf |
|
|
Term
| Life for both sexes—and I look at them, shouldering their way along the pavement—is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion that we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. |
|
Definition
| A Room of One's Own; Woolf |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The figure of Judith Shakespeare is generated as an example of the tragic fate a highly intelligent woman would have met with under those circumstances. In light of this background, she considers the achievements of the major women novelists of the nineteenth century and reflects on the importance of tradition to an aspiring writer. A survey of the current state of literature follows, conducted through a reading the first novel of one of the narrator's contemporaries. Woolf closes the essay with an exhortation to her audience of women to take up the tradition that has been so hardly bequeathed to them, and to increase the endowment for their own daughters. |
|
|
Term
| A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man |
|
Definition
| Joyce; semi-autobiographical; featuring Stephen Dedalus. Engages in free indirect discourse to the extreme. A late dialogue contains the following famous line, take by many to be Joyce;s basic artistic credo: "The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or being or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Continues the story of Stephen Dedalus, who is figured as the Telemachus figure to Leopold Bloom's Odysseus. The novel follows the travels of Bloom throughout Dublin on an unremarkbale day in 1904. The novel is analogous to Homer's epic and each of the pisodes of the books is based on an episode in the epic. One of the most famous lines is "yes I said yes I will Yes." This is the line at the conclusion of the "Penelope" episode, a long stream of consciousness from the perspective of Leopold's wife Molly Bloom. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Faulkner; Addie Bundren has died, and to honor her wishes, the Bundren family attempts to transport her to Jefferson, where she wishes to be buried. It is narrated from the perspective of 15 different narrators including Addie from beyond the grave. Other important characters include the Tulls and Rev. Whitfield. The title is an allusion to Homer;s Odyssey. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Faulkner; concerns itself with the life and death of Thomas Sutpen, a poor white who moves to Mississippi with the intention of becoming rich and powerful. Sutpen does so. He has slaves, power, and a plantation. As so much is ruptured for the American SOuth after the Civil War, Supten is unable to restore his home to its former glory, and the story becomes tangled in the literal and figurative pairings of Sutpen and his slaves. Quinten Compson is the primary narrator. He tells the story to his Harvard roommate Shreve in fragments, with some help from his fathers, his grandfather's memorys, and Rose Coldfield. |
|
|
Term
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper. |
|
Definition
| "The Hollow Men" by TS Eliot |
|
|
Term
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign? |
|
Definition
| "Ash Wednesday" Eliot after his conversion to Anglicanism |
|
|
Term
| Tradition and the Individual Talent |
|
Definition
| Criticism by TS Eliot; Eliot posits that, though the English tradition generally upholds the belief that art progresses through change - a separation from tradition, literary advancements are instead recognized only when they conform to the tradition. Eliot, a classicist, felt that the true incorporation of tradition into literature was unrecognized, that tradition, a word that "seldom... appear[s] except in a phrase of censure," was actually a thus-far unrealized element of literary criticism. For Eliot, the term "tradition" is imbued with a special and complex character. It represents a "simultaneous order," by which Eliot means a historical timelessness – a fusion of past and present – and, at the same time, a sense of present temporality. A poet must embody "the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer," while, simultaneously, expressing his contemporary environment. Great works do not express the personal emotion of the poet. The poet does not reveal his own unique and novel emotions, but rather, by drawing on ordinary ones and channeling them through the intensity of poetry, he expresses feelings that surpass, altogether, experienced emotion. This is what Eliot intends when he discusses poetry as an "escape from emotion." Since successful poetry is impersonal and, therefore, exists independent of its poet, it outlives the poet and can incorporate into the timeless "ideal order" of the "living" literary tradition. |
|
|
Term
| "Hamlet and His Problems" |
|
Definition
| Criticism by TS Eliot; Eliot presents the phrase "objective correlative." The theory is that the expression of emotion in art can be achieved by a specific, and almost formulaic, prescription of a set of objects, including events and situations. A particular emotion is created by presenting its correlated objective sign. The author is depersonalized in this conception, since he is the mere effecter of the sign. And, it is the sign, and not the poet, which creates emotion. Whereas the conventional definition of talent, especially in the arts, is a genius that one is born with. Not so for Eliot. Instead, talent is acquired through a careful study of poetry, claiming that Tradition, "cannot be inherited, and if you want it, you must obtain it by great labour." Eliot asserts that it is absolutely necessary for the poet to study, to have an understanding of the poets before him, and to be well versed enough that he can understand and incorporate the "mind of Europe" into his poetry. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Enjambment or enjambement is the breaking of a syntactic unit (a phrase, clause, or sentence) by the end of a line or between two verses. It is to be contrasted with end-stopping, where each linguistic unit corresponds with a single line, and caesura, in which the linguistic unit ends mid-line. The term is directly borrowed from the French enjambement, meaning "straddling" or "bestriding". Enjambment is sometimes referred to as a "run-on line".
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays.
Despite Cummings' consanguinity with avant-garde styles, much of his work is quite traditional. Many of his poems are sonnets, albeit often with a modern twist, and he occasionally made use of the blues form and acrostics. Cummings' poetry often deals with themes of love and nature, as well as the relationship of the individual to the masses and to the world. His poems are also often rife with satire.
As well as being influenced by notable modernists including Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, Cummings' early work drew upon the imagist experiments of Amy Lowell. Later, his visits to Paris exposed him to Dada and surrealism, which in turn permeated his work. Cummings also liked to incorporate imagery of nature and death into much of his poetry. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
In Antiquity, this drama was attributed to Aeschylus, but is now considered by some scholars to be the work of another hand, perhaps one as late as ca. 415 BC.[1] Despite these doubts of authorship, the play's designation as Aeschylean has remained conventional. The tragedy is based on the myth of Prometheus, a Titan who was punished by the god Zeus for giving fire to mankind.
The play is composed almost entirely of speeches and contains little action since its protagonist is chained and immobile throughout. At the beginning, Kratos (strength), Bia (force), and the smith-god Hephaestus chain the Titan Prometheus to a mountain in the Caucasus and then depart. According to the author, Prometheus is being punished not only for stealing fire, but also for thwarting Zeus's plan to obliterate the human race. This punishment is especially galling since Prometheus was instrumental in Zeus's victory in the Titanomachy.
Finally, Hermes the messenger-god is sent down by the angered Zeus to demand that Prometheus tell him who threatens to overthrow him. Prometheus refuses, and Zeus strikes him with a thunderbolt that plunges Prometheus into the abyss. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a four-act play by Percy Bysshe Shelley first published in 1820, concerned with the torments of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus and his suffering at the hands of Zeus. It is inspired by Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and concerns Prometheus' release from captivity. Unlike Aeschylus' version, however, there is no reconciliation between Prometheus and Zeus. Instead, Zeus is overthrown, which allows Prometheus to be released. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark novel which perfected his stream of consciousness technique and combined nearly every literary device available in a modern re-telling of The Odyssey.[citation needed] Other major works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His complete oeuvre includes three books of poetry, a play, occasional journalism, and his published letters.
Ulysses has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire [Modernist] movement".[55]
Some scholars, most notably Vladimir Nabokov, have mixed feelings on his work, often championing some of his fiction while condemning other works. In Nabokov's opinion, Ulysses was brilliant,[56] Finnegans Wake horrible[57]—an attitude Jorge Luis Borges shared.[58] In recent years, literary theory has embraced Joyce's innovation and ambition. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Gabriel Conroy attends a party, and later, as he speaks with his wife, has an epiphany about the nature of life and death. At 15–16,000 words this story has also been classified as a novella. James Joyce |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a verse drama by William Butler Yeats in blank verse (with some lyrics). It was dedicated to Maud Gonne, Yeats' lifelong love.
The play is set ahistorically in Ireland during a famine. The idealistic Countess of the title sells her soul to the devil so that she can save her tenants for starvation and from damnation for having sold their own souls. After her death, she is redeemed as her motives were altruistic and ascends to Heaven. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a tragedy by Oscar Wilde. The original 1891 version of the play was in French. Three years later an English translation was published. The play tells in one act the Biblical story of Salome, stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who, to her stepfather's dismay but to the delight of her mother Herodias, requests the head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the dance of the seven veils. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1893. The story centers on the relationship between Mrs Kitty Warren, a brothel owner, described by the author as "on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman" and her daughter, Vivie. Mrs Warren is a middle-aged woman whose Cambridge-educated daughter, Vivie, is horrified to discover that her mother's fortune was made managing high-class brothels. The two women make a brief reconciliation when Mrs Warren explains her impoverished youth, which originally led her into prostitution. The reconciliation ends when Vivie learns that the highly profitable business remains in operation. Vivie walks out of her mother's life, apparently for good. |
|
|
Term
| Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin |
|
Definition
His writings, on a variety of subjects, inspired scholars working in a number of different traditions (Marxism, semiotics, structuralism, religious criticism) and in disciplines as diverse as literary criticism, history, philosophy, anthropology and psychology. Although Bakhtin was active in the debates on aesthetics and literature that took place in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, his distinctive position did not become well known until he was rediscovered by Russian scholars in the 1960s.
Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics: polyphony and unfinalizability
During his time in Leningrad, Bakhtin shifted his focus away from the philosophy characteristic of his early works and towards the notion of dialogue. It is at this time that he began his engagement with the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Art is considered to be Bakhtin’s seminal work, and it is here that Bakhtin introduces three important concepts.
First, is the concept of the unfinalizable self: individual people cannot be finalized, completely understood, known, or labeled. Though it is possible to understand people and to treat them as if they are completely known, Bakhtin’s conception of unfinalizability respects the possibility that a person can change, and that a person is never fully revealed or fully known in the world. Readers may find that this conception reflects the idea of the "soul"; Bakhtin had strong roots in Christianity and in the Neo-Kantian school led by Hermann Cohen, both of which emphasized the importance of an individual's potentially infinite capability, worth, and the hidden soul.
Second, is the idea of the relationship between the self and others, or other groups. According to Bakhtin, every person is influenced by others in an inescapably intertwined way, and consequently no voice can be said to be isolated.
Third, Bakhtin found in Dostoevsky's work a true representation of "polyphony", that is, many voices. Each character in Dostoevsky's work represents a voice that speaks for an individual self, distinct from others. This idea of polyphony is related to the concepts of unfinalizability and self-and-others, since it is the unfinalizability of individuals that creates true polyphony
Also: Heteroglossia and Chronotope |
|
|
Term
| The Adventures of Augie March |
|
Definition
is a novel by Saul Bellow. It centers on the eponymous character who grows up during the Great Depression. This picaresque novel is an example of bildungsroman, tracing the development of an individual through a series of encounters, occupations and relationships from boyhood to manhood.
The story describes Augie March's growth from childhood to a fairly stable maturity. Augie, with his brother Simon and the mentally abnormal George have no father and are brought up by their mother who is losing her eyesight, and a tyrannical grandmother in very humble circumstances in the rough parts of Chicago. Augie drifts from one situation to another in a free-wheeling manner—jobs, women, homes, education and lifestyle.
Augie March's path seems to be partly self made and partly comes around through chance. In lifestyle he ranges from near adoption by a wealthy couple who spoil him, to a struggle for existence stealing books and helping out friends in desperate straits. His most unusual adventure is his flight to Mexico with the wild and irrepressible Thea who tries to catch lizards with an eagle. Thea attempts to convince Augie to join her in this seemingly impossible task.
His jobs include general assistance to the slightly corrupt Einhorn, helping in a dog training parlour, working for his brother at a coal-tip, and working for the Congress of Industrial Organizations until finally he joins the merchant navy in the war.
Augie attracts and gets involved with a string of different women. Firstly a casual acquaintance as a youth, he gets engaged to a wealthy cousin of his brother's wife. However, through a scandal not of his fault, he is discarded. After a casual affair with Sophie, a Greek hotel maid, he is swept off by Thea, whom he had met when living with the rich Renlings and who forecast their relationship even though he loved her sister. After the fiasco in Mexico, where he suffered a terrible accident on a horse, he and Thea began drifting apart; he spending his time playing cards and she hunting for snakes and lizards in the mountains. Their inevitable split came the night he agreed to drive another woman, Stella, to another town to escape her troubled boyfriend. After the break-up, Augie returned to Chicago and picked back up with the Sophie until joining the merchant navy and heading to New York. There he met up with Stella again and married her.
All through the book, Augie is encouraged into education, but never quite seems to make it; he reads a great deal for himself and develops a philosophy of life. Something or somebody always tends to crop up, turning his path before Augie seriously considers returning to education.
During the war, his ship is sunk and he suffers a difficult episode in a lifeboat with a man who turns out to be a lunatic. After rescue, he returns to Stella and the book ends with them living a slightly dubious existence in France, he involved in some fairly shady business deals and she attempting to pursue a career in acting. |
|
|
Term
| One Thousand and One Nights |
|
Definition
| The main frame story concerns a Persian king and his new bride. He is shocked to discover that his brother's wife is unfaithful; discovering his own wife's infidelity has been even more flagrant, he has her executed: but in his bitterness and grief decides that all women are the same. The king, Shahryar, begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning, before she has a chance to dishonour him. Eventually the vizier, whose duty it is to provide them, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins (and only begins) a new one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion, postpones her execution once again. So it goes on for 1,001 nights. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money. Raskolnikov argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime, while ridding the world of a worthless parasite. He also commits this murder to test his own hypothesis that some people are naturally capable of, and even have the right to do, such things. Several times throughout the novel, Raskolnikov justifies his actions by connecting himself mentally with Napoleon Bonaparte, believing that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes. Published in two volumes a decade apart (in 1605 and 1615), Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. In one such list, Don Quixote was cited as the "best literary work ever written".
Don Quixote, the protagonist of the novel, is a retired country gentleman nearing fifty years of age, living in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and housekeeper. While mostly a rational man of sound reason, reading Romances in excess, or books of chivalry, has had a profound effect on Don Quixote, leading to the distortion of his perception and the wavering of his mental faculties. In essence, he believes every word of these books of chivalry to be true, though for the most part, the content of these books is clearly false. Otherwise, his wits, in regards to everything other than chivalry, are intact.
Second quest
Don Quixote plots an escape. Meanwhile, his niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate, and the local barber secretly burn most of the books of chivalry, and seal up his library pretending that a magician has carried it off. Don Quixote approaches another neighbor, Sancho Panza, and asks him to be his squire, promising him governorship of an island. The uneducated Sancho agrees, and the pair sneak off in the early dawn. It is here that their series of famous adventures begin, starting with Don Quixote's attack on windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants.
Don Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho Panza, 1863, by Gustave Doré
In the course of their travels, the protagonists meet innkeepers, prostitutes, goatherds, soldiers, priests, escaped convicts, and scorned lovers. These encounters are magnified by Don Quixote’s imagination into chivalrous quests. Don Quixote’s tendency to intervene violently in matters which do not concern him, and his habit of not paying his debts, result in many privations, injuries, and humiliations (with Sancho often getting the worst of it). Finally, Don Quixote is persuaded to return to his home village. The author hints that there was a third quest, but says that records of it have been lost. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| an 1864 poem written by the British poet Robert Browning. It deals with Caliban, a character from Shakespeare's The Tempest, and his reflections on Setebos, the brutal god he believes in. Some scholars see Browning as being of the belief that God is in the eye of the beholder, and this is emphasized by a barbaric character believing in a barbaric god. Others feel that he was satirizing theologians of his time, who attempted to understand God as a reflection of themselves; this theory is supported by the epigraph, Psalm 50:21, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself." This could be taken as God mocking Caliban (and Browning's contemporaries) for their methods of attempting to understand Him. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Most, but not all, northern and west European ballads are written in ballad stanzas or quatrains (four-line stanzas) of alternating lines of iambic (an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable) tetrameter (eight syllables) and iambic trimeter (six syllables), known as ballad meter. Usually, only the second and fourth line of a quatrain are rhymed (in the scheme a, b, c, b), which has been taken to suggest that, originally, ballads consisted of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s. Bigger was always getting into trouble as a youth, but upon receiving a job at the home of the Daltons, a rich, white family, he experienced a realization of his identity. He thinks he accidentally killed a white woman, runs from the police, rapes and kills his girlfriend and is then caught and tried. "I didn't want to kill," Bigger shouts. "But what I killed for, I am! It must've been pretty deep in me to make me kill."
Wright gets inside the head of "brute Negro" Bigger, revealing his feelings, thoughts and point of view as he commits crimes and is confronted with racism, violence and debasement. The novel's treatment of Bigger and his motivations conforms to the conventions of literary naturalism.
While not apologizing for Bigger's crimes, Wright is sympathetic to the systemic inevitability behind them. The novel is a powerful statement about racial inequality and social injustices so deep that it becomes nearly impossible to determine where societal expectations/conditioning end and free will begins. As Bigger's lawyer points out, there is no escape from this destiny for his client or any other black American, since they are the necessary product of the society that formed them and told them since birth who exactly they were supposed to be. "No American Negro exists," James Baldwin once wrote, "who does not have his private Bigger Thomas living in his skull." Frantz Fanon discusses this feeling in his 1952 essay L'Experience Vecue du Noir, or "The Fact of Blackness". "In the end," writes Fanon, "Bigger Thomas acts. To put an end to his tension, he acts, he responds to the world's anticipation." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| is an autobiography by Richard Wright. The author explores his childhood and race relations in the South. Wright eventually moves to Chicago, where he establishes his writing career and becomes involved with the Communist Party. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| is an autobiographical short story by Joseph Conrad. It was written in 1898 and included as the first story in the 1902 volume Youth, a Narrative, and Two Other Stories. This volume also includes Heart of Darkness and The End of the Tether, which are concerned with maturity and old age, respectively. "Youth" depicts a young man's first journey to the East. It is narrated by Charles Marlow who is also the narrator of Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim and Chance. It is a seafaring story in which the main character undergoes a terrible ordeal at sea and loves it beacause he is young and craces experience and having his mettle tested. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Her work deals sensitively with loneliness and the plight of the eccentric. Notable works: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), The Member of the Wedding (1946), and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1951). Her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South. Her other novels have similar themes and are all set in the South.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the debut 1940 novel by American author Carson McCullers. Written in Charlotte, North Carolina, in houses on Central Avenue and East Boulevard,[1][2] it is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia. The struggles of four of John Singer's acquaintances make up the majority of the narrative. They are: Mick Kelly, a tomboyish young girl who loves music and dreams of buying a piano; Jake Blount, an alcoholic labor agitator; Biff Brannon, the observant owner of a diner; and Dr. Benedict Copeland, an idealistic African American doctor. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a novella written by Henry James, originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1888, with its first book publication later in the same year. One of James' best-known and most acclaimed longer tales, The Aspern Papers is based on an anecdote that James heard about a Shelley devotee who tried to obtain some valuable letters written by the poet. Set in Venice, The Aspern Papers demonstrates James' ability to generate suspense while never neglecting the development of his characters.
A nameless narrator goes to Venice to locate Juliana Bordereau, an old lover of Jeffrey Aspern, a famous and now dead American poet. The narrator presents himself to the old woman as a prospective lodger and is prepared to court her niece Miss Tita (renamed Miss Tina in later editions), a plain, somewhat naive spinster, in hopes of getting a look at some of Aspern's letters and other papers kept by Juliana. Miss Tita had denied the existence of any such papers in a letter to the narrator and his publishing partner, but he believes she was dissembling on instructions from Juliana. The narrator eventually discloses his intentions to Miss Tita, who promises to help him.
Later, Juliana offers to sell a miniature portrait of Aspern to the narrator for an exorbitant price. She doesn't mention Jeffrey Aspern's name, but the narrator still believes she possesses some of his letters. When the old woman falls ill, the narrator ventures into her room and gets caught by Juliana as he is about to rifle her desk for the letters. Juliana calls the narrator a "publishing scoundrel" and collapses. The narrator flees, and when he returns some days later, he discovers that Juliana has died. Miss Tita hints that he can have the Aspern letters if he marries her.
Again, the narrator flees. At first he feels he can never accept the proposal, but gradually he begins to change his mind. When he returns to see Miss Tina, she bids him farewell and tells him that she has burned all the letters one by one. The narrator never sees the precious papers, but he does send Miss Tina some money for the miniature portrait of Aspern that she gives him. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a comedy written by the celebrated playwright Aristophanes lampooning intellectual fashions in classical Athens. The Clouds can be considered not only the world's first extant 'comedy of ideas'[5] but also a brilliant and successful example of that genre.[6] The play gained notoriety for its caricature of the philosopher Socrates ever since its mention in Plato's Apology as a factor contributing to the old man's trial and execution. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. The Frogs tells the story of the god Dionysus, despairing of the state of Athens' tragedians, and allegedly recovering from the disastrous Battle of Arginusae. He travels to Hades to bring Euripides back from the dead. He brings along his slave Xanthias, who is smarter, stronger, more rational, more prudent, and braver than Dionysus. The play opens as Xanthias and Dionysus argue over what kind of complaints Xanthias can use to open the play comically. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
(c. 1559 – 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets. Chapman is best remembered for his translations of Homer's Iliad, Odyssey, and Batrachomyomachia.
The High Priest of Homer. |
|
|
Term
| Childe Harold's Pilgrimage |
|
Definition
| a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands. In a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. The title comes from the term childe, a medieval title for a young man who was a candidate for knighthood. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| 1500 years older than Beowulf; an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much later. The story revolves around a relationship between Gilgamesh and his close male companion, Enkidu. Enkidu is a wild man created by the gods as Gilgamesh's equal to distract him from oppressing the citizens of Uruk. Together they undertake dangerous quests that incur the displeasure of the gods. Firstly, they journey to the Cedar Mountain to defeat Humbaba, its monstrous guardian. Later they kill the Bull of Heaven that the goddess Ishtar has sent to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. |
|
|
Term
| The Song of the Nibelungs |
|
Definition
| an epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| New England Poet, novelist, and diarist |
|
|
Term
| Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented |
|
Definition
| a novel by Thomas Hardy, first published in 1891. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A geocentric model in which the stars and other heavenly bodies are fixed upon nested spheres that rotate about the earth. They made music |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Born in Massachusetts, Du Bois graduated from Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D in History, the first African American to earn a doctorate at Harvard. Later he became a professor of history and economics at Atlanta University. As head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910, he was founder and editor of the NAACP's journal The Crisis. Du Bois rose to national attention in his opposition of Booker T. Washington's alleged ideas of accommodation with Jim Crow separation between whites and blacks and disfranchisement of blacks in the South, campaigning instead for increased political representation for blacks in order to guarantee civil rights, and the formation of a black intellectual elite who would work for the progress of the African-American race. The emigrated to Ghana. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
was a seminal African American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 "Ode to Ethiopia", one poem in the collection Lyrics of Lowly Life.
Dunbar's work is known for its colorful language and use of dialect, and a conversational tone, with a brilliant rhetorical structure.
"Sunshine on de medders,
Greenness on de way;
Dat's de blessed reason
I sing all de day."
Look hyeah! What you axing'?
What meks me so merry?
'Spect to see me sighin'
W'en hit's wa'm in Febawary? |
|
|
Term
| James Mercer Langston Hughes |
|
Definition
an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that "Harlem was in vogue".
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I danced in the Nile when I was old
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
(born October 7, 1934), formerly known as LeRoi Jones, is an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism.
Critics of his work have alternately described such usage as ranging from being vernacular expressions of Black oppression to outright examples of the racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism they perceive in his work. Contemporary. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a realistic novel written by William Dean Howells in 1885 about the materialistic rise of Silas Lapham from rags to riches, and his ensuing moral susceptibility. Silas earns a fortune in the paint business, but he lacks social standards, which he tries to attain through his daughter's marriage into the aristocratic Corey family. Silas's morality does not fail him. He loses his money but makes the right moral decision when his partner proposes the unethical selling of the mills to English settlers.
Howells is known to be the father of American realism, and a denouncer of the sentimental novel. The love triangle of Irene Lapham, Tom Corey, and Penelope Lapham highlights Howells' views of sentimental novels as unrealistic and deceitful. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1920, and taking its title from a line of the Rupert Brooke poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive Princeton University student who dabbles in literature. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking.
This book is written in three parts.
"Book One: The Romantic Egotist"—the novel centers on Amory Blaine, a young Midwesterner who, convinced that he has an exceptionally promising future, attends boarding school and later Princeton University. He leaves behind his eccentric mother Beatrice and befriends a close friend of hers, Monsignor Darcy. While at Princeton he goes back to Minneapolis where he re encounters Isabelle Borgé, a young lady whom he met as a little girl and starts a romantic relationship with her, but after a few days he becomes disillusioned by her and returns to Princeton.
"Interlude"—Following their break-up, Amory is shipped overseas, to serve in the army in World War I. Fitzgerald had been in the army himself, but the war ended while he was still stationed on Long Island. Amory's experiences in the war are not described, other than to say later in the book that he was a bayonet instructor.
"Book Two: The Education of a Personage"—After the war, Amory Blaine falls in love with a New York debutante named Rosalind Connage. Because he is poor, however, this relationship collapses as well; Rosalind decides to marry a wealthy man instead. A devastated Amory is further crushed to learn that his mentor Monsignor Darcy has died. The book ends with Amory's iconic lament, "I know myself, but that is all." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Fitzgerald; It was his fourth and final completed novel, and was first published in Scribner's Magazine between January-April, 1934 in four issues. The title is taken from the poem "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats.
Dick and Nicole Diver are a glamorous couple who take a villa in the South of France and surround themselves with a circle of friends, mainly Americans. Also staying at the resort are Rosemary Hoyt, a young actress, and her mother. Rosemary gets sucked into the circle of the Divers; she falls in love with Dick and is also adopted as a close friend by Nicole. Dick first toys with the idea of an affair with Rosemary at this point, which he finally acts upon years later.
However, Rosemary senses something is wrong with the couple, which is brought to light when one of the guests at a party reports having seen something strange in the bathroom. Tommy Barban, another guest, comes loyally to the defense of the Divers. The action involves various other friends, including the Norths, where a frequent occurrence is the drunken behavior of Abe North. The story becomes complicated when Jules Peterson, a black man, is murdered and ends up in Rosemary's bed, in a situation which could destroy Rosemary's career. Dick moves the blood-soaked body to cover up any implied relationship between Rosemary and Peterson.
Once into the book, the history of the Divers emerges. Dick Diver was a doctor and psychoanalyst and had taken on a complicated case of neuroses. This was Nicole, whose complicated, incestuous relationship with her father is suggested as the cause of breakdown. As she becomes infatuated with Dick, Dick is almost driven to marry her as part of the cure. Strong objections are raised: Nicole is an heiress and her sister thinks Dick is marrying her for her money. They do marry, and Nicole’s money pays for Dick's partnership in a Swiss clinic and for their extravagant lifestyle. However, Dick gradually develops a drinking problem. He gets into fights and trouble with the police in various incidents and is bought out of the clinic by his partner. The opening episode almost marks the crossover point whereby Dick becomes the weaker partner, progressively failing in what he attempts while Nicole becomes stronger. Dick's behaviour becomes embarrassing as he mishandles situations with the children and friends. Eventually Nicole has an affair with Tommy Barban, and divorces Dick to marry Barban. Nicole survives, while Dick drifts into ever diminishing circumstances. The underlying theme is then how one person has become strong by destroying another—a point emphasized cynically by Nicole's sister, who having seen Dick originally as the parasite, finally remarks that "That was what he was educated for." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| 1909) was Gertrude Stein's first published work. The book is separated into three stories, "The Good Anna," "Melanctha," and "The Gentle Lena." The three stories are independent of each other, but all are set in the fictional town of Bridgepoint. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor. He is recognised as a saint within the Catholic Church and is commemorated by the Church of England as a "Reformation martyr".[2] He was an opponent of the Protestant Reformation and in particular of Martin Luther and William Tyndale.
More coined the word "utopia" – a name he gave to the ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in Utopia, published in 1516. He opposed the king's separation from the Catholic Church and refused to accept the king as Supreme Head of the Church of England, a status the king had been given by a compliant parliament through the Act of Supremacy of 1534. He was imprisoned in 1534 for his refusal to take the oath required by the First Succession Act, because the act disparaged the power of the Pope and Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In 1535, he was tried for treason, convicted on perjured testimony, and beheaded.
Intellectuals and statesmen across Europe were stunned by More's execution. |
|
|
Term
| Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners |
|
Definition
| a Puritan spiritual autobiography written by John Bunyan. It was written while Bunyan was serving a twelve-year prison sentence in Bedford gaol for preaching without a license and was first published in 1666. The title contains allusions to two Biblical passages: 'Grace Abounding' is a reference to Romans 5:20, which states 'Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound' (KJV) and 'Chief of Sinners' refers to 1 Timothy 1:15, where Paul refers to himself by the same appellation. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
is an 1864 short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Notes is considered by many to be the first existentialist novel. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is told in monologue form, or the underground man's diary, and attacks emerging Western philosophy, especially Nikolay Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?.[1] The second part of the book is called "Àpropos of the Wet Snow," and describes certain events that, it seems, are destroying and sometimes renewing the underground man, who acts as a first person, unreliable narrator.
The Underground Man became a common character type in many of the works that followed the novella. He is present in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in the milder form of the character Constantin Levin, in Anton Chekhov's Ward No. 6, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Joseph Heller's Catch-22 as Yossarian the 28-year-old Army Air Corps Captain, as Sergio, in Edmundo Desnoes' "Memories of Underdevelopment" and in Richard Wright's short story The Man Who Lived Underground.
Like many of Dostoyevsky's novels, Notes from Underground was unpopular with Soviet literary critics due to its explicit rejection of utopian socialism[4] and its portrait of humans as irrational, uncontrollable, and uncooperative. His claim that human needs can never be satisfied, even through technological progress, also goes against Marxist beliefs. Many existentialist critics, notably Jean-Paul Sartre, considered the novel to be a forerunner of existentialist thought and an inspiration to their own philosophies. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary and philosophical existentialism. His work continues to influence fields such as Marxist philosophy, sociology, critical theory and literary studies. Sartre was also noted for his long polyamorous relationship with the feminist author and social theorist Simone de Beauvoir. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature but refused it. |
|
|
Term
| In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past |
|
Definition
| is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its considerable length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine." The novel is widely referred to in English as Remembrance of Things Past but the title In Search of Lost Time, a literal rendering of the French, has gained in usage since D. J. Enright adopted it in his 1992 revision of the earlier translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. The complete story contains nearly 1.5 million words and is one of the longest novels in world literature. The novel recounts the experiences of the Narrator while growing up, participating in society, falling in love, and learning about art. Rather ordinary events. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language. His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety: themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.
He wrote in both verse and a highly lyrical prose. Among English-language readers, his best-known work is the Duino Elegies; his two most famous prose works are the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. He also wrote more than 400 poems in French, dedicated to his homeland of choice, the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Highly poetic style. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Its theme and outlook are often cited as examples of existentialism, though Camus did not consider himself an existentialist; in fact, its content explores various philosophical schools of thought, including (most prominently and specifically) absurdism, as well as determinism, nihilism, naturalism, and stoicism.
The title character is Meursault, an Algerian ("a citizen of France domiciled in North Africa, a man of the Mediterranean, an homme du midi yet one who hardly partakes of the traditional Mediterranean culture")[2] who seemingly irrationally kills an Arab man whom he recognises in French Algiers. The story is divided into two parts: Meursault's first-person narrative view before and after the murder, respectively. Disaffected narrator. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Known for his examinations of bourgeouis life in 19th century Paris. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900. Their wistful evocation of doomed youth in the English countryside, in spare language and distinctive imagery, appealed strongly to late Victorian and Edwardian taste, and to many early 20th century English composers (beginning with Arthur Somervell) both before and after the First World War. Through its song-setting the poetry became closely associated with that era, and with Shropshire itself.
Housman was counted one of the foremost classicists of his age, and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars of all time.[1] [2] He established his reputation publishing as a private scholar and, on the strength and quality of his work, was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London and later, at Cambridge
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow. |
|
|
Term
| Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
|
Definition
| an 1893 novel by American author Stephen Crane. Often called a novella because of its short length, it was Crane's first published book of fiction. Because the work was considered too risqué by publishers, Crane, who was 21 years old at the time, had to finance the publication of the novel himself. The novel takes place in the Bowery, a New York neighborhood in lower Manhattan. The story opens with Jimmie, at this point a young boy, trying to fight a gang of boys from an opposing neighborhood all by himself. He is saved by his father, and comes home to his sister Maggie, his toddling brother Tommie, his brutal and drunken father and mother, Mary Johnson. The parents terrify the children until they are shuddering in the corner. Years pass, the father and Tommie die, and Jimmie hardens into a sneering, aggressive, cynical youth. He gets a job as a teamster. Maggie begins to work in a shirt factory, but her attempts to improve her life are undermined by her mother's drunken rages. Maggie begins to date Jimmie's friend Pete, who has a job as a bartender and seems a very fine fellow. He takes her to the theater and the museum. One night Jimmie and Mary accuse Maggie of "Goin to deh devil." Jimmie goes to Pete's bar and picks a fight with him (even though he himself has ruined other boys' sisters). As the neighbors continue to talk about Maggie, Jimmie and Mary decide to join them in badmouthing her instead of defending her. Later, Nellie, a "woman of brilliance and audacity" convinces Pete to leave Maggie, whom she calls "a little pale thing with no spirit." Thus abandoned, Maggie tries to return home but is rejected by her mother and scorned by the entire tenement. In a later scene, a prostitute, implied to be Maggie, wanders the streets, moving into progressively worse neighborhoods until, reaching the river, she is followed by a grotesque and shabby man. The next scene shows Pete drinking in a saloon with six fashionable women "of brilliance and audacity." He passes out, whereupon one, possibly Nellie, takes his money. In the final chapter, Jimmie tells his mother that Maggie is dead. The mother exclaims, ironically, as the neighbors comfort her, "I'll forgive her!" |
|
|
Term
| Shakespeare's birth and death |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Erewhon: or, Over the Range |
|
Definition
a novel by Samuel Butler, published anonymously in 1872. The title is also the name of a country, supposedly discovered by the protagonist. In the novel, it is not revealed in which part of the world Erewhon is, but it is clear that it is a fictional country. Butler meant the title to be read as the word Nowhere backwards, even though the letters "h" and "w" are transposed, therefore Erewhon is anagram of nowhere. It is likely that he did this to protect himself from accusations of being unpatriotic, although Erewhon is a satire of Victorian society. ntended to be ambiguous. At first glance, Erewhon appears to be a utopia, yet it soon becomes clear that this is far from the case. Yet for all the failings of Erewhon, it is also clearly not a dystopia, such as that depicted by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. As a satirical utopia, Erewhon has sometimes been compared to Gulliver's Travels (1726), a classic novel by Jonathan Swift; the image of utopia in this latter case also bears strong parallels with the self-view of the British Empire at the time. It should also be compared to William Morris' novel News from Nowhere.
Erewhon satirizes various aspects of Victorian society, including criminal punishment, religion and anthropocentrism. For example, according to Erewhonian law, offenders are treated as if they were ill whilst ill people are looked upon as criminals. Another feature of Erewhon is the absence of machines; this is due to the widely shared perception by the Erewhonians that they are potentially dangerous. This last aspect of Erewhon reveals the influence of Charles Darwin's evolution theory; Butler had read On the Origin of Species soon after it was published in 1859. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man. Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work and his talent for administration, to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and subsequently King James II. On 1 January 1660, Pepys began to keep a diary. He recorded his daily life for almost ten years. The women he pursued, his friends and his dealings are all laid out. His diary reveals his jealousies, insecurities, trivial concerns, and his fractious relationship with his wife. It is an important account of London in the 1660s. The juxtaposition of his commentary on politics and national events, alongside the very personal, can be seen from the beginning. His opening paragraphs, written in January 1660, |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| is the title of Honoré de Balzac's (1799–1850) multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a fictional character from La Comédie humaine series of novels by Honoré de Balzac. He appears as a main character in Le Père Goriot (1835) and his social advancement in the post-revolutionary French world depicted by Balzac can be followed through Rastignac's various appearances in other books of the series.
Rastignac is initially portrayed as an ambitious young man of noble (albeit poor) extraction who is at times both envious of and naive about high society. Although he is ready to do anything to achieve his goals, he spurns the advice of Vautrin (the series' dark criminal mastermind) and instead uses his own wits and charm (especially through relationships with women, such as his cousin madame de Beauséant) to arrive at his ends. His eventual social success in the fictional world of the Comédie humaine is frequently contrasted with the tragic failure of another young parvenu in the series: Lucien de Rubempré (who accepts the aid of Vautrin and ends his life by his own hands).
In French today, to refer to someone as a "Rastignac" is to call them an ambitious "arriviste" or social climber. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818 (see 1818 in poetry) in the January 11 issue of The Examiner in London. It is frequently anthologised and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem. It was written in competition with his friend Horace Smith, who wrote another sonnet entitled "Ozymandias" seen below.
The central theme of "Ozymandias" is the inevitable complete decline of all leaders, and of the empires they build, however mighty in their own time.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
an English poet and forger of pseudo-medieval poetry. He died of arsenic poisoning, either from a suicide attempt or self-medication for a venereal disease.
He soon conceived the romance of Thomas Rowley, an imaginary monk of the 15th century, and adopted for himself the pseudonym Thomas Rowley for poetry and history. Rowley's dramatic interludes were written for studies. In 1769 Chatterton sent Rowley's History of England, allegedly by Rowley, to Horace Walpole, who was briefly taken in. On 24 August 1770, he retired for the last time to his attic in Brook Street, carrying with him the arsenic which he drank, after tearing into fragments whatever literary remains were at hand. He was only 17 years and nine months old; but the best of his numerous productions, in prose and verse, seem very mature. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| French novelist; pseudonym of Amandine-Aurore Lucille Dupin, Baronne Dudevant. Her earlier novels, including Lélia (1833), portray women's struggles against conventional morals; she later wrote a number of pastoral novels, such as La Mare au diable (1846). Sand had a ten-year affair with Chopin. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| French writer of novels and plays, also often associated with the Theater of the Absurd. He is one of the great antisocial authors and spent a lot of time in jail. In his writing, he turns morals on their heads, aestheticizig vice, crime, and cruelty in baroque prose. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Playwright; his plays are typically set in upper-middle class Russian homes. Although Chekov wrote intrically plotted plays, he was unparralleled in his ability to convey the inner life of his characters though dialogue. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| American novelist; Considered one of the Lost Generation writers, Dos Passos published his first novel in 1920, One Man's Initiation: 1917. It was followed by an antiwar story, Three Soldiers, which brought him considerable recognition. His 1925 novel about life in New York City, titled Manhattan Transfer, was a commercial success and introduced experimental stream-of-consciousness techniques into Dos Passos's method. These ideas also coalesced into the U.S.A. Trilogy (see below), of which the first book appeared in 1930. In 1928, Dos Passos spent several months in Russia studying their socialist system. He was a leading participator in the April 1935 First Americans Writers Congress sponsored by the Communist-leaning League of American Writers, but he eventually balked at the idea of the control that Stalin would have on creative writers in the United States. Dos Passos's political and social reflections in the novel are deeply pessimistic about the political and economic direction of the United States, and few of the characters manage to hold onto their ideals through the First World War. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a 1947 semi-autobiographical novel by English writer Malcolm Lowry (1909–57). The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac (the Aztec name of Cuernavaca), on the Day of the Dead.
Surrounded by the helpless presences of his ex-wife, his half-brother and acquaintances, he descends into a mescal-soaked purgatory, moving inexorably towards his tragic fate.
His self-destructiveness reflects a spiritual struggle born of wilful abnegation and passivity, a depressed, existential acquiescence to the futility of positive action. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent movement, Rimbaud influenced modern literature, music and art. He was known to have been a libertine and a restless soul, travelling extensively on three continents before his death from cancer just after his 37th birthday.
"I'm now making myself as scummy as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I'm working at turning myself into a seer. You won't understand any of this, and I'm almost incapable of explaining it to you. The idea is to reach the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. It involves enormous suffering, but one must be strong and be a born poet. It's really not my fault." Rimbaud's poetry influenced the Symbolists, Dadaists and Surrealists, and later writers adopted not only some of his themes, but also his inventive use of form and language. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a book consisting of two short novels by Christopher Isherwood: Goodbye to Berlin and Mr Norris Changes Trains. It was published in 1945.
The Berlin Stories was chosen as a Time 100 Best English-language novels of the 20th century.
The two novellas are set in Berlin in 1931, just as Adolf Hitler was moving into power. Berlin is portrayed by Isherwood during this transition period of cafes and quaint avenues, grotesque nightlife and dreamers, and powerful mobs and millionaires.
The Berlin Stories was the starting point for the John Van Druten play I Am a Camera, which in turn went on to inspire the film I Am a Camera as well as the stage musical and film versions of Cabaret.
The character Sally Bowles is probably the best-known character from The Berlin Stories because of her later starring role in the Cabaret musical and film, although in The Berlin Stories, she is only the main character of one short story in Goodbye to Berlin. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| He is best known for his trilogy, the Oresteia (458 bc), consisting of the tragedies Agamemnon, Choephoroe, and Eumenides. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences.[3] The first and most highly acclaimed, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her first seventeen years. It brought her international recognition, and was nominated for a National Book Award. She has been awarded over 30 honorary degrees and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her 1971 volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry. His best-known work is The Dream Songs. Berryman's first major work, in which he began to develop his own unique style of writing, was Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, published in 1956. In the long, title poem, which first appeared in Partisan Review in 1953, Berryman addressed the 17th century American poet Anne Bradstreet, combining the history of her life with his own fantasies about her (and inserting himself into her life story). Berryman's major poetic breakthrough came after he began to publish the first volume of The Dream Songs, 77 Dream Songs, in 1964. The dream song form consisted of short, eighteen-line lyric poems in three stanzas. Each stanza also contained its own irregular rhyme scheme and irregular meter. 77 Dream Songs (and its sequal His Toy, His Dream, His Rest) centers on a character named "Henry" who bears a striking resemblance to John Berryman. However, Berryman was careful about making sure that his readers realized that "Henry" was not his equivalent, but rather a fictional version of himself (or a literary alter ego). In an interview, Berryman stated, "Henry does resemble me, and I resemble Henry; but on the other hand I am not Henry. You know, I pay income tax; Henry pays no income tax. And bats come over and they stall in my hair — and fuck them, I'm not Henry; Henry doesn't have any bats." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| After leaving her teaching position, she fulfilled her literary ambitions. She wrote a volume of poetry with her sisters (Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, 1846) and in short succession she wrote two novels. Agnes Grey, based upon her experiences as a governess, was published in 1847. Her second and last novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall appeared in 1848. Anne's life was cut short with her death of pulmonary tuberculosis when she was 29 years old. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide.noted for poems, such as “The Jolly Beggars” (1786) and “Tam o' Shanter” (1791), and for old Scottish songs that he collected, including “Auld Lang Syne.” |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
an English mock heroic narrative poem from the 17th century written by Samuel Butler. The work is a satirical polemic upon Roundheads, Puritans, Presbyterians and many of the other factions involved in the English Civil War. The work was begun, according to the title page, during the civil war and published in three parts in 1663, 1664 and 1678, with the first edition encompassing all three parts in 1684 (see 1684 in poetry).[1] The Mercurius Aulicus (an early newspaper of the time) reported an unauthorised edition of the first part was already in print in early 1662.[2]
Published only four years after Charles II had been restored to the throne and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell being completely over, the poem found an appreciative audience. The satire is not balanced as Butler was fiercely royalist and only the parliamentarian side are singled out for ridicule. Butler also uses the work to parody some of the dreadful poetry of the time.
The epic tells the story of Sir Hudibras, a knight errant who is described dramatically and with laudatory praise that is so thickly applied as to be absurd, and the conceited and arrogant person is visible beneath. He is praised for his knowledge of logic despite appearing stupid throughout, but it is his religious fervour which is mainly attacked. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Many of the songs and love poems are addressed to the still-unidentified “Celia,” a woman who was evidently Carew's lover for years. The poems to Celia treat the urgency of courtship, making much of the carpe diem theme. Others commend Celia through simile, conceit, and cliché. The physical pleasures of love are likewise celebrated: “A Rapture” graphically documents a sexual encounter through analogy, euphemism, and paradox, while “Loves Courtship” responds to the early passing of virginity. A number of Carew's poems are concerned with the nature of poetry itself. His elegy on John Donne has been praised as both a masterpiece of criticism and a remarkably perceptive analysis of the metaphysical qualities of Donne's literary work. English poet and playwright Ben Jonson is the subject of another piece of critical verse, “To Ben. Iohnson, Upon Occasion of His Ode of Defiance Annext to His Play of The New Inne.” This poem, like the elegy on Donne, is concerned with both the style and substance of the author's literary works as well as with personal qualities of the author himself. Among Carew's occasional, public verse are his addresses to ladies of fashion, commendations of the nobility, and laments for the passing of friends or public figures, such as Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet", whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem Yardley-Oak. He was a nephew of the poet Judith Madan.
While Cowper found refuge in a fervent evangelical Christianity, the inspiration behind his much-loved hymns, he often experienced doubt and feared that he was doomed to eternal damnation. His religious sentiment and association with John Newton (who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace") led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered. His poem "Light Shining out of Darkness" gave the English language the idiom "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
"logic of metaphor"
modernist in the vein of TS Eliot
Difficult to understand |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia (The Divine Comedy). His Divine Comedy, originally called Commedia and later called Divina by Boccaccio, is considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.[1]
In Italy he is known as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet") or just il Poeta. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also known as "the three fountains" or "the three crowns". Dante is also called the "Father of the Italian language". |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| was an English poet, soldier, artist, and unsuccessful courtier. He is considered the most important poet of the early Elizabethan era, following Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and leading to the emergence of Philip Sidney.[1] He was the first poet to deify Queen Elizabeth I, in effect establishing her cult as a virgin goddess married to her kingdom and subjects.[2] His most noted works include A Discourse of the Adventures of Master FJ (1573), an account of courtly sexual intrigue and one of the earliest English prose fictions; The Supposes, (performed in 1566, printed in 1573), an early translation of Ariosto and the first comedy written in English prose, which was used by Shakespeare as a source for The Taming of the Shrew; the frequently anthologised short poem "Gascoignes wodmanship" (1573); and "Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English" (1575), the first essay on English versification |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
an English writer and poet. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem Rose Aylmer, but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity. As remarkable as his work was, it was equaled by his rumbustious character and lively temperament.
n a long and active life of eighty-nine years Landor produced a considerable amount of work in various genres. This can perhaps be classified into four main areas – prose, lyric poetry, political writings including epigrams and Latin. His prose and poetry have received most acclaim, but critics are divided in their preference between them.
Landor’s prose is best represented by the Imaginary Conversations. He drew on a vast array of historical characters from Greek philosophers to contemporary writers and composed conversations between pairs of characters that covered areas of philosophy, politics, romance and many other topics. These exercises proved a more successful application of Landor’s natural ability for writing dialogue than his plays. Although these have many quotable passages the overall effect suffered because he never learned the art of drama.
Landor wrote much sensitive and beautiful poetry. The love poems were inspired by a succession of female romantic ideals – Ione, Ianthe, Rose Aylmer and Rose Paynter. Equally sensitive are his “domestic” poems about his sister and his children.
In the course of his career Landor wrote for various journals on a range of topics that interested him from anti-Pitt politics to the unification of Italy. He was also a master of the epigram which he used to good effect and wrote satirically to avenge himself on politicians and other people who upset him.
Landor wrote over three hundred Latin poems, political tracts and essays, but these have generally been ignored in the collections of his work. Landor found Latin useful for expressing things that might otherwise have been “indecent or unattractive” as he put it and as a cover for libellous material. Fellow classical scholars of the time put Landor’s Latin work on a par with his English writing. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| (ca. 1332 – ca. 1386) is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| nder Queen Mary, he was burnt at the stake, becoming one of the three Oxford Martyrs of Anglicanism. |
|
|
Term
| Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence |
|
Definition
known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18. The extraordinary breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title which was used for the 1962 film based on his First World War activities.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Revolt in the Desert
English Translations of Homer |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST. His novels include his pre-World War I-era novel Tarr (set in Paris), and The Human Age, a trilogy comprising The Childermass (1928), Monstre Gai and Malign Fiesta (both 1955), set in the afterworld. A fourth volume of The Human Age, The Trial of Man, was begun by Lewis but left in a fragmentary state at the time of his death. He also wrote two autobiographical volumes, Blasting and Bombardiering (1937) and Rude Assignment: A Narrative of my Career up-to-date (1950). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| an English poet and novelist who was best known for his novel Under the Volcano |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| an English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism. |
|
|
