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Eng 226 midterm novak - 10/3/17

Terms in this set (36)

"Preface" to Lyrical ballads by William Wordsworth
explains theory of poetry/ defends unusual style & subjects.
Composition of lyrical ballads: choice of subject matter(limited to experience of common life in country/ ordinary subjects treated in extraordinary ways),goal of emphasizing the purpose of poetry as art ("spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings") /romantic revolt; identifying the qualities that make someone a true poet. For Wordsworth, poetry must reflect spontaneity and an "overflow of powerful feelings." Passion is key, as are mood and temperament.
"Expostulation and Reply" by William Wordsworth
Wordsworth's deep faith in the ideals of romanticism/"why" shows how matthew is expostulating (or reasoning with someone to change their mind)/ matthew tells william to stop wasting time in nature and come read books to get knowledge; books are the only source of knowledge; it's dead knowledge
"Tables Turned" by William Wordsworth
William telling matthew to drop his books and come to nature/ most important things are learned through nature and experience rather than books; ABAB; repetition and rhyme
Nature is your teacher
"We are seven" William Wordsworth
The speaker meets an eight-year old girl and begins a friendly chat. He asks the little girl how many brothers and sisters she has, and she declares that "we are seven." The speaker asks where all of her siblings are, and learns that two of them are actually dead. The speaker insists that the little girl has only four, and not six siblings, but the girl is resolute: her dead brother and sister still count. They argue a bit, and the speaker gets emphatic, exclaiming that "two are dead!" But the little girl has the last word and sticks to her guns. The poem ends with her declaration that "Nay, we are seven!"
"Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth
declaration that five years have passed since he last visited this location(Banks of the Wye during a Tour), encountered its tranquil, rustic scenery, and heard the murmuring waters of the river/ talks about objects he sees and their effects/ describes how memory of these worked upon him in his absence from them/ in company of sister & tells her to remember him this way w nature
Written in blank verse- poem doesn't rhyme
1st stanza- describing the way the abbey and the land that he is revisiting
Beautiful landscape, absent for 5 years
Themes; man and the natural world, transformation, memory and the past,
-word "again" continuously repeated= repeating the same experiences
"Ode: Intimations of Immortality" by William Wordsworth
The speaker begins by declaring that there was a time when nature seemed mystical to him like a dream but now all is gone; even though he can still see beauty of nature, something is different (saddened by birds singing)/soon resolves not to be depressed bc only puts a damper on beauty/ wrong to be sullen, should make earth happy/ then feels something is amiss&wonders if its a dream/ children have close connection w heaven, earth makes us forget where we came from/ sees boy and his life of imitation, asks him why he's rushing to be an adult
Idealism vs reality; refers to the preexistance of the soul, violating the christian belief
Irregular rhyme scheme
Suggest immortality - recollecting childhood memories
Ode- a poem of praise
Looking in nature, talks about the things he can't see anymore
-first two stanzas paraphrase; to a child everything is marvelous, fascination, like a dream but after childhood you can't get that mind back
"the little black boy" (Songs of Innocence and Experience) by William Blake
(innocence) black boy comparing himself to white boy (at first finds himself wanting)/ soul=light(innocence)/ mother says color is a gift/ wait for day they can put off cloud and truly love
Not Blake's thoughts; voiced through black boy and his mother
Logic of racism and racial inequality; commissioned to illustrate an anti-slavery book
Race is intertwined with the way we talk; the problems with this; how it's internalized
After death free from burden of black/white race burden; in heaven race is shed to be pure
"the chimney sweeper" (songs of innocence and experience) by William Blake
(innocence) small boy sold into chimney sweeping business when mom dies/another chimney sweeper(tom) has a dream about chimney sweepers locked in black coffins until angel arrives to set them free/ at end after dream, they're comforted that their lives will improve
Ties blackness to class
The consolation that if we do our work on Earth we will all be white and happy in heaven
"the chimney sweeper" (songs of innocence and experience) by William Blake (experience)
State power builds on misery
"the garden of love" (songs of innocence and experience) by William Blake
(experience) visits a garden he would visit in his youth only to find it overrun with briars, symbols of death in the form of tombstones, and a close minded clergy
Talk about graveyards/gardens, death,
Christianity is a negative religion; all the things you can't do; religion of death, not alive; religion of prohibition not jesus
"london" (songs of innocence and experience) by William Blake
(experience) dismal place filled with crying infants, poor chimney sweepers, violent soldiers, and prostitutes/ everywhere there's "marks of weakness, marks of woe"/ calls london to repent of its wickedness, its oppression of the poor, and its cultivation of vice, or be destroyed
A-B rhyme scheme
Kind of sad
Ban: 1) prohibition 2) marriage bans
Marriage is the problem
Guilt and innocence
More traditional
"A vindication of the rights of women" by Mary Wollstonecraft
overcoming women's oppression&denied their potential/ education/ women buy into their oppression they do not have the tools to vindicate their fundamental rights or the awareness that they are in such a condition/ women indulge in silliness and causes people to view them as bottom of society
Not like modern feminism; not girl power; critical of women
women and men have different roles in society
doesn't like the term natural bc it confuses the terms natural and cultural; "it arises" not born w it
appeals to universal standard of virtue; only 1 virtue; not male and female virtue; reason and virtue tied together
Importance of women educating their sons
"washing day" by Anna Barbauld
two views: (1)how the people surrounding the author feel towards the chores to be done that day (2) view from the author when she was a child, observing all that is happening/ joy and innocence of childhood/neg feeling about washing day&marriage/men don't see the tasks as tiresome/ BUT child doesn't remember this day as dreadful/ (hot air balloon-- child bubbles)
- Describes surroundings
- Couplets
Mock epic: epic tone but for ordinary subjects; invocation of Muse
The Domestic Muse sounds like gossip/babbling; slipshot measure: loosely prattling on, no clear form, bad poetry
Disconnect between domestic poetry and epic tone
Connecting a childhood domestic feminine event to a historic manly scientific event; comparing women's domestic work to men; deflating men and inflating women; women's work is just as important as men's
"Epistles on women" by Lucy Aiken
history through feminist perspective/ men's degradation of women has hindered the growth of civilization/ men can't degrade women without degrading themselves
- Speaking to Anna writer of "washing day"
- How femininity and ignorance are related → Wollstonecraft
- Serve men → heaven giving superiority to men → Monarchy- divine right of Kings
- Baring children
- Creation story- how it worked out → Adam and Eve's dialogue
- Cain and Abel → Men and women were equal until the first murder → wasn't women who screwed up first → Most theologians believe Eve was created as less than man bc she came from Adam → Eve eating apple and sharing it
"Biographia Literaria" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
discusses wordsworth's poetry, says wordsworth's claims about people aren't true but still says he's a great poet/ literary criticism/divides imagination in primary and secondary (primary: common to all humans)/ creative impulse enables art
"kubla kahn" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
how man travelled to land of Xanadu where found a pleasure dome made of ice located in sunny area (contrast)/this dome gives him relief from this atmosphere/ wants to revive song, believes song will transfer him to dream world which he could build the dome in air/ diff poem bc it brings up the dangers in nature
Inspired by profound sleep
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
old ancient mariner stops a wedding guest on their way to a reception/ tries to tell the man (&his two companions) a woeful tale/ tale= set sail from native land w 200 others, all was fun until they reached equator, a storm hit &hit them to rime-an icy patch of ocean, saw albatross&it followed them then he shot it, then things turned bad(sailors dropped dead), when prayed things got better/ when he tells story he's relieved from agony/ best way to be close with God is respect all His creatures
"Christabel" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
christabel rescues geraldine from forest/ geraldine acting strange, then suddenly gets better after drinking the wine/ preyer/ warns against excess of emotion/ fairy like child that delights father(christabel- child)/fathers delight in child-excessive love can quickly turn into excessive bitterness and unkindness
"Ozymandis" by Percy bysshe Shelley
met a traveler who had been to an antique land, seen a vast but ruined state/ statue he saw was of Ozymandis "king of kings"/statue- only legs remaining, face in sand/ all that was left was the wrecked statue, just sand/ things are just creation that will soon pass away
"Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Shelley
strong &fearsome west wind/sees himself like the wind/ he desires to be lifted up like the wind/ asks wind to play upon him, wants to share wind's spirits/ be able to spread his power&words
"Adonais" by Percy Shelley
elegy for john keats/hoping Keats' spark of brilliance reverberates through the generations of future poets and inspires revolutionary change throughout Europe/ says critics of Keat's work -responsible for his death/ Keats is someway still alive (in nature and through work)/ Christlike-other poets look to him
"Defense of Poetry" by Percy Shelley
philosophical analysis of the role of the poet as a special kind of person, one who can see the essential harmonies of the world beneath the discordant images people find in their everyday lives/evelation of truth about life and the promotion of universal betterment/ true poet is a visionary
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats
a man is whispering sweet nothings to a grecian urn/He thinks the pot is married to a guy named "Quietness," but they haven't had sex yet, so the marriage isn't official. He also thinks that the urn is the adopted child of "Silence" and "Slow Time."/the urn is a historian and tells stories(painted stories on it)/man starts to not like urn bc it's "cold"/ when he's dead urn will continue to tell stories/ repeats same lesson to every generation
Resembles parts of important vases, sculptures and paintings
Beauty is truth, truth beauty (line 49) - an overstatement representing the limited point of view on the urn
Talking to urn; resistance to narrative
Transcends time
"Winning" line 18 bc they are frozen (immortal) even though he can't consummate his love he will always be in love; real sex/love leaves us "cloy'd" wanting more or we didn't get enough; cloying: too much
Who is speaking? Urn? Poet? Who is it addressed to?
"Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats
feels disoriented after listening to song of nightingale (drunken)/ bittersweet happiness thinking of nightingale's carefree life/wants to drink wine and fade into forest with nightingale, escape worries/uses poetry to escape/thinks it wouldn't be bad to die in dark forest/ nightingale can't die bc many generations should hear it/ nightingale then flies away and he feels abandoned, imagination isn't strong enough by himself
"Ode on Melancholy" by John Keats
warns the reader not to try to relieve the pain of melancholy/suggests that the reader contemplate the sad shortness of life/joy is always brief&beauty doesn't last forever/melancholy always attached to joy and pleasure, in order to experience joy have to experience grief and pain
Don't kill yourself
Joy: defined by always "bidding adieu"
pleasure : turns to "poison" even as we consume it
Like the grape: in order to experience joy, you have to destroy it, Melancholy and joy aren't opposites
"Keat's Letters" John Keats
used letter-writing as a way of synthesizing his thoughts and philosophy/wrote to friends and family/ influenced his poetry
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
created monster to have friend or someone like him/ similar to relationship with God and man/looks like monster bc doesn't look like us(beautiful features poorly put together)/lots of books deals with issues of reproduction/likeness--> sense of identity/not a lot of women in story
William Wordsworth
"preface" to lyrical ballads
"expostulation and reply"
"the tables turned"
"we are seven"
"tintern abbey"
"Ode: Intimations of Immortality"
William Blake
Songs of Innocence and Experience:
"The Little Black Boy"
"The Chimney Sweeper"
"The Garden of Love"
"London"
Mary Wollstonecraft
A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Anna Barbauld
"Washing-Day"
Lucy Aiken
Epistles on Women
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Biographia Literaria
"Kubla Kahn"
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
"Christabel"
Percy Shelley
"Ozymandis"
"Ode to the West Wind"
"Adonais"
Defense of Poetry
Mary Shelley
Frankenstein
John Keats
"Ode on a Grecian Urn"
"Ode to a Nightingale"
"Ode on Melancholy"
Letters
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