British Literature Unit 3 Notes: Chapter 1

• Author is Robert Herrick 

• Personifies flowers, sun and youth 

• He says to get married while you are young like a flower because as you get older, you will wilt like a flower

• “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a flying:”

To the Virgins, to make much of time

• Author is Richard Lovelace 

• Personifies war like a women 

• He says that his mistress should still love and appreciate him even though he is leaving her to go to war because he loves honor.

• “I could not love thee (Dear) so much, Loved I not honor more”

To Lucasta: Going to the Wars

• Travelled the continent acquiring languages, possibly tutoring, and avoiding the Civil War entirely 

• Most of his poetry published posthumously; acknowledged as a major poet only in the twentieth century 

• Poetry links pre- and post- Restoration poetic styles, assimilating and past and heralding the future

Andrew Marvell

a poem in which a single character speaks, either to himself or another character, about a particular topic or incident

Dramatic monologue

the character or person who voices a poem

Speaker

• Author is Andrew Marvell

• He is trying to convince his mistress to have romantic relations with him because time is flying 

• He personifies time 

• “Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness lady, were no crime.”

To His Coy Mistress

• Most significant author of the restoration era 

• His epic Paradise Lost is a great masterpiece of English literature 

• One of England’s most learned poets, fluent in multiple ancient and contemporary languages and very broadly read 

• Ideas have heavily informed the modern concept of freedom of the press

John Milton

a short publication that includes arguments and information on a single topic

Pamphlet

• Author is John Milton 

• Argues why plays and reading books should not be banned 

• We should be able to read things that may not be Biblically correct because we as Christians should have discernment 

• “Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth the severest discipline that can be exercised in any hermitage, ye cannot make them chaste, that came not thither so: such great care and wisdom is required to the right management of this point.”

Areopagitica

• Author is John Milton 

• Feels like a failure at the beginning of the poem because he is blind. He feels like his blindness is holding him back from accomplishing anything great. 

• “God doth not need either man’s work or his own gifts; who best bear his mild yoke they serve him best. His state is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed and post over land and ocean without rest: they also serve who only stand and wait.” 

• Patience is also accomplishing what God has for us.

Holy Sonnet 19

• Author is John Milton 

• The work uses the classical epic conventions: hero larger than life, a setting broad in scope, supernatural elements, a journey or battle, and themes addressing topics central to human existence. 

• In paradise lost, instead of using typical rhyme, Milton uses blank verse (Unrhymed iambic pentameter).

• The epic hero of the story is God, not Satan. 

• Theme: provides evidence for why there is sin in the world

• “That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, and justify the ways of God to men.” 

• Uses epithet by referring to Satan as a serpent

• “The infernal Serpent”

Paradise Lost

written in the tradition of classical epics: unique in subject matter, hero, and style, weaving both classical and Protestant English traditions

Literary epic

an author chooses a word to refer to a character in a story to foreshadow what is going to happen later in the story

Epithet

• Became known as the main architect of the British Navy 

• Kept a personal diary for almost a decade, chronicling important events as well as everyday ones 

• Through his diary,we gain valuable insight in Pepys and his age

Samuel Pepys

• Author is Samuel Pepys 

• 1665- The Bubonic Plague 

• 1666- The Great Fire of London 

• Uses sensory details to describe what is happening in his diary. 

• Shows how people have been affected with the plague and how people he knew have died. 

• Gives vivid descriptions of what is happening during the fire and what it looks like after the fire.

The Diary

informal daily record of a person’s life

Diary

descriptions appealing concretely to the five senses

Sensory details