Honors Brit Lit Poetry Test #1

Renaissance tensions

Renaissance tensions

religious tensions: between Catholics and protestants (and Puritans)

economic tensions: between old money (especially Church0, heavily taxed landowners, and new money merchants profiting from expanding trade routes and new industries

political tensions: between supporters of the King (Cavaliers) and Parliament (Roundheads)

genres during this time period

drama; poetry (Sonnet, Epic, Lyric/pastoral), essays (Satire), diary entries

Sonnet

14 line poem, often structured in quatrains and couplets

regular rhyme scheme (English (Shakespearean) Sonnet

romantic and personal themes

volta

a turn in a sonnet (change of mood) usually in line 8 or 12

iambic pentameter

sonnets are written in it; a line with five iambs and ten syllables: 5 stressed, 5 unstressed

John Donne

born Catholic in protestant era (eventually converted by King James; became Angelicin priest

highly educated: almost graduated from Cambridge and Oxford; completed law school but never graduate

odd jobs; member of Parliament, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Court Secretary, Soldier in Spanish wars

married Ann More: secretly and at great cost; 12 children

champion of metaphysical poetry (religious and secular)

also known for sermons and essays

Cavalier (Caroline) poetry

ornamental, lyric style

melodious sound and ton

themes of courtly love, war, honor

return to classical forms (ode, pastoral) and themes (carpe diem)

Marlowe, Raleigh, Herrick, Marvell

metaphysical poetry

reaction to “artificial” Cavalier poetry

natural/conversational language used to explore introspective themes; conceit

ex: John Donne

War of the Three Kingdoms (1642-1651)

Charles I avoids calling Parliament for a decade

rebellion in Scotland (and secret treaties)

Charles I arrested for treason and executed in 1649

Charles II goes into exile

the Long Parliament (1640-1660)

Parliament continues without disbanding, despite frequent skirmishes with the king

Oliver Cromwell, “Lord Protector” (for life): devoutly Puritan, Commonwealth and Protectorate, Irish Invasion (1649)

Richard Cromwell: lacked authority, lasted nine months

political situation after civil war

Restoration in 1660: returned Charles II to the British throne and ended Interregnum

The Indemnity and Oblivion Act (1660): pardoned all crimes during the Interregnum except murder, rape, piracy, and witchcraft

John Milton

educated: masters from Cambridge, Grand Tour

married Mary Powell: published establishing the efficacy of divorce (Areopagitica in 1644)

pamphleteer and poet: patronage and politics

charged with translating Parliamentarians’ message into Latin (and fighting with Charles II in pamphlets

blindness: glaucoma?, Andrew Marvell wrote for him

Paradise Lost

epic poem first published in 1667; one thousand lines of blank verse, split into 10 or 12 books

conforms to epic tropes: in medias res, universal (battle) and personal (domestic) conflicts, allusions inverted syntax, epic hero?

two narratives: Satan and Adam and Eve

writen to “justify the ways of God to men”

alliteration

same letter or sound a the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

apostrophe

speaker addresses so either an absent person ormeone who can’t respond (non human object, idea, or being)

contrast

the juxtaposition of two opposing elements (used to highlight differences)

irony

difference between what something appears to mean s. what it really means

reader knows more than the characters

hyperbole

exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally

mood

how the audience feels or is supposed to feel

paradox

self-contradictory phrase or concept that contains some truth

ex: Death, you are dead

personification

inanimate objects are given human-like qualities

pun

play on words (words that sound alike or with more than one meaning)

repetition

repeating words, phrases, lines, or stanzas

rhyme

repetition of syllables/sounds at the end of a line

(epic) simile

symbol

something that s generally recognized to represent a certain a idea

tone

conveys the authors attitude toward a subject, speaker, or audience

anaphora

the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses

chaismus

the figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point

conceit

an extended metaphor that makes surprising connection between two dissimilar things

enjambment

the continuation of a sentence without pause beyond the end of a line