Untitled Flashcards Set

Renaissance

A cultural and artistic movement in England from the late 15th to early 17th century.

Metaphysical Poets

Poets in 17th century England characterized by personal and intellectual complexity, especially exemplified by John Donne.

Romanticism

An 18th/19th-century movement in literature that revolted against Neo classicism, focusing on emotional matter in imaginative forms.

Regency Period

The period from 1811 to 1820 when George, Prince of Wales, ruled as Regent after King George III went insane.

Victorian Period

The era of Queen Victoria’s reign from 1820 to 1914 marked by expanding education and a questioning of religion and politics.

Modernism

Literary production in the interwar period that deals with the modern world and breaks down traditional literary forms.

Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet

A sonnet form consisting of an octave and a sestet with a specific rhyme scheme.

English (Shakespearean) Sonnet

A sonnet form consisting of three quatrains and a final couplet with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef.

Wit in Poetry

The clever and often humorous expression of ideas, characterized in Metaphysical poetry by the violent yoking of seemingly unconnected ideas.

Character Foil

A literary device where a character's qualities contrast with those of another character, highlighting their differences.

Frankenstein Themes

Major themes include the dangers of unchecked ambition in science, the consequences of alienation, and the critique of gender roles.

Mrs. Dalloway Themes

Exploration of mental health issues, social class disparities, and the trauma of war, particularly PTSD.

Feminist Message in Frankenstein

The representation of women primarily to reflect male dominance and societal expectations of gender roles.

Shakespeare

Key writer during the Renaissance known for his plays and sonnets that explore human nature and emotion.

Metaphysical Conceit

An extended metaphor that makes a surprising connection between two seemingly dissimilar things, prominent in Metaphysical poetry.

Imagery

Descriptive language that appeals to the senses and creates visual representations within literature.

Stream of Consciousness

A narrative technique used in Mrs. Dalloway that presents the flow of thoughts and feelings running through a character's mind.

PTSD

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, highlighted in Mrs. Dalloway through the character Septimus, as a response to the trauma of war.

Independence of Women in Pride and Prejudice

The struggle for women to achieve agency and independence, as reflected in the characters’ relationships and societal expectations.

Humanism

A Renaissance belief in human value, self-worth, and individual dignity that influenced art and literature.

Class Dynamics in Pride and Prejudice

The impact of social class on relationships and perceptions between the Bennet and Bingley families.

Youth and Beauty in The Picture of Dorian Gray

Themes exploring the superficiality of youth and the moral corruption associated with an obsession with appearance.

Writers of the Renaissance

• William Shakespeare 

• John Donne 

• Christopher Marlowe

• Edmund Spenser

• Thomas Wyatt 

• Ben Johnson 

• Francis Bacon

Characteristics of the Renaissance period

• Wit: clever, humor 

• beauty 

• Truth 

• Humanism: belief in self, human value, individual dignity

• Mythology 

• Exploration

Writers of the metaphysical period

• Vaughn, Cleveland, Cowley, Marvell, Herbert, Crashaw

Characteristics of the metaphysical period

• Emotion, intellectual, ingenuity, characterized by conceit or wit

• Less concerned with expressing feeling than analyzing it with poet exploring the recesses of his consciousness 

Writers of the romanticism period

• William Blake 

• William Wordsworth 

• Samuel Coleridge 

• Percy Bysshe Shelley 

• William Godwin 

• John Keats

Characteristics of the romanticism period

• Focal Points: imagination, emotion, and freedom

• Other Attributes: subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism, spontaneity, freedom from rules; solitary life rather than life in society

• The beliefs that imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty; love of and worship of nature

• Fascination with the rest, especially the myths and mysticism of the middle ages

writers of regency period

Jane Austen

Characteristics of the regency period

• War with France: ¼ million men serving in the army, pervades Austen’s texts

• The Landed Gentry: concerns over property, money, and status

• Though industrialization and urbanization had begun to take hold at the end of the 18th century Landed Gentry was most influential

• Marriage and Gender Roles: Questions of land ownership and inheritance 

Characteristics of modernism

Characteristics:

• Construction out of fragments (myth or history, experience or perception, pervious artistics works)

• Notable for: what it omits, explanations, interpretations, connections 

• Begin arbitrarily, to advance without explanation and to end without resolution

Consists of: vivid segments, juxtaposed without cushioning or integrating transitions

writers of modernism

Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Dorothy Richardson

characteristics of the victorian era

• Class - based society 

• Growing number of people able to vote 

• A growing state and economy 

• Britain’s status as the most powerful empire in the world

writers of the victorian era

• Charles Dickens

• Oscar Wilde

• Matthew Arnold 

• George Eliot 

• Thomas Hardy 

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning