Poetry Test

The Aim of the Spectator

Addison

Dictionary of the English Language

Johnson

On Spring

Johnson

Journal of the Plague Year

Defoe

The Rape of the Lock

Pope

An Essay on Man

Pope

Gulliver’s Travels

Swift

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Gray

Excerpt from The Diary

Pepys

The Life of Samuel Johnson

Boswell

Dictionary

writing that lists and defines words and usually proves information about their pronunciations, history, and usage

Biography

a book that tells the life story of someone other than the writer

Mock Epic

a long, humorous, narrative poem that treats a trivial subject in the grand elevated style of a true epic.

Standard elements of an epic: heroic actions, gods and goddesses, international adventures

Diary

a daily account of a writer’s experiences and reacttions

Satire

writing that uses wit and humor to expose and ridicule human vice and folly to try to bring about change, can be light and good-humored or bitter and unsparing

Essay

a short, non-fiction work about a particular subject, written prose that explores a topic as if the author were letting you overhear his/her thoughts; may be formal or informal

Elegy

a serious, solemn work that mourns someone’s death or reflects a serious theme

Epitaph

writing on a tombstone about the person buried there

“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.’

Essay on Man

“Such was Samuel Johnson, a man whose talents, acquirements, and virtues, were so extraordinary, that his moral character is considered the more he will be regarded by the present age, and by posterity, with admiration and reverence.”

Life of Samuel Johnson

“Full many a gem of purest say serene, the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“…and to remember, that a blighted spring makes a barren year, and that the vernal flowers, however beautiful and gay, are only intended by nature as preparatives to autumnal fruits.”

On Spring

“There is another set of men that I must likewise lay a claim to, whom I have lately called the blanks of society.”

Aims of the Spectator

“…if you will venture upon that score, name of God go in, for, depend upon it, it will be a sermon to you, it may be, the best that ever you heard in your life.”

Journal of the Plague Year

“…yet he would rather lose his kingdom that be privy to such a secret, which he commanded me, as I valued my life, never to mention to anyone.”

Gulliver’s Travels

“When those fair suns shall set, as set they must, and all those tresses shall be laid in dust, this lock, the muse shall consecrate to fame, and midst the stars inscribe Belinda’s name.”

The Rape of the Lock