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Chief conventions of the country house poem in Jonson’s “To Penshurst”
Barnyard imagery; natural catalogues (animals)
Ideal archetype of rural society; praises owner of countryhouse
Themes of hospitality and family
Chief conventions of the cavalier poem
Love and honor as dominant subjects
Dashing, courtly persona
Lighthearted, witty, melodious, polished, and epigrammatic, often pronouncing a carpe diem theme.
ex) Robert Herrick’s “Corinna’s Going A-Maying” + John Suckling’s “Why so pale and wan, fond lover?”
Traits of Herrick’s “The Hock-Cart, or Harvest Home”
Iambic tetrameter
Country house genre
Pastoral poem
Rhymed couplets (suggests harmony)
Single stanza
Subtext satirizes Puritans
Main theme and argument of Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”
Theme: Life is fleeting and beauty forfeits to time. It’s best to live in the moment.
Argument: Narrator persuades their lover to make love with them.
Donne’s poems and their metaphysical conceit
“Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward”: Compares the human soul to a sphere—a planet that orbits God
“The Sun Rising”: The universe revolves around a couple’s bed
Important quotes from Leviathan by Hobbes
“Scientia potentia est. Knowledge is power.”
“Hell is truth seen too late.”
The meaning of “Leviathan”
A large, powerful, and monstrous sea creature that appears in the Bible. In the context of Hobbes’ work, it embodies a government in which kings have all the power.
Milton’s chief elegy
“Lycidas,” which is a pastoral elegy
Pastoral elegy conventions
Depiction of nature and its cruelty
Repeated invocations of the muses
Descriptions of flowers
Discusses the deceased
Milton’s argument in Areopagitica
Milton’s argument is a philosophical opposition to censorship written in response to Parliament passing a law which refused the publication of any material until it was approved by an official censor. Milton’s writing argues this is detrimental to society at large since it limits learning opportunities and free thought.
“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”
Milton’s purpose in Paradise Lost
“To the height of this great argument I may assert eternal providence and justify the ways of God to man.”
Six epic convention in Paradise Lost
In media res: Begins the epic discussing Satan and how he was thrown out of Heaven into Hell after the invocation of the muse and stating his purpose. Only afterwards does he begin the fall of man.
Invocation of the muse: “Sing Heav’nly Muse” invoking the Holy Spirit instead using a classic Greek muse.
Statement of the theme/purpose: “To the height of this great argument I may assert eternal providence and justify the ways of God to man.”
Epic question: “For one restraint, lord of the world besides?”
Epic catalogue: Lists the animals Satan sees in the Garden of Eden including dogs, snakes, wolves, lions, sheep, etc.
Epic simile: He compares Satan's size/bulk to a titan—Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size, Titanian, or Earth-born, that…”
Arguments in Book II of Paradise Lost
Moloch: wanted open war with God and was desperate for revenge
Belial: Did not want to go to war with God; better off in Hell
Mammon: Middle ground; suggested they build a better Heaven in Hell to make God jealous/angry
Beelzebub: On Satan’s side to get revenge on God with some sort of action
Satan: Wants revenge on God; decides to destroy his new creations Adam and Eve on Earth
Felix culpa in Paradise Lost
Also called the fortunate fall, it is when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and sinned
Displays the necessity of humankind's obedience to God.
The reason for the lack of Puritan poetry and the wealth of Anglican poetry
Puritans didn’t believe in anything that didn't come directly from the Bible so they never believed in the importance of poetry in a society.
The English Civil War
1641-1649
A series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (“Roundheads”) and Royalists (“Cavaliers”)
Mainly over the manner of England’s governance and issues of religious freedom.
Part of the wider Wards of the Three Kingdom
List the Stuart kings in order (no dates)
James I
Charles I
Charles II
James II
William III and Mary II
Anne
The Restoration
Took place in 1660 after the Puritan Commonwealth was destroyed
Charles II was placed back onto the throne.
1603
Queen Elizabeth died and James 1 ascended the throne beginning the 17th century.
Maryland in the 17th Century
King Charles granted the land to Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore) in 1632
Named “Maryland” to honor Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of King Charles I.
Founded as a haven for English Catholics to worship and conduct business without fear of persecution
The Ark and the Dove and landed on St. Clement's Island (In Saint Mary’s county)
The Declaration of Right of 1689’s influence on the US Constitution
The Declaration of Rights
granted sovereignty to parliament
established free election of parliament
the rights of subjects to keep and bear arms
habeas corpus (protects against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment)
prohibited excessive bail, and cruel and unusual punishment
Our Declaration of Independence has these same rights granted to our people and are governed partially by Congress (essentially like the British Parliament).
What great change in the English monarchy occurred in 1689 after William and Mary took the throne?
The Glorious Revolution occurred, which permanently established Parliament as the ruling power of England. It dissolved the monarchy.
Two traditional poles of satiric tone
Juvenalian Satire: bitter and angry criticism of corruption of humans and institutions. Derives from Roman poet Juvenal.
The Dunciad by Alexander Pope
Horatian Satire: light, gentle, witty, produces sympathetic laughter. Derived from Roman poet Horace
Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift
Persona in satire
The persona is a satiric voice that speaks in first person directly to another character or readers.
Does not mean that the author is the one speaking in their work; it is usually a masking of them.
Ex) “A Modest Proposal” by Johnathan Swift: Swift creates a character who argues that eating young children will prevent hunger in Ireland and create taxes for England. He doesn't actually believe this but is satirizing rationalism.
List three literary consequences of Grub Street in the 18th Century
Modern periodical press (newspapers, magazines) was founded there
Realism: made common people heroes and “drafted the blueprints for fiction’s future”
“Occasioned the legal values on which the modern free press is founded” (AKA, inspired the USA’s First Amendment)
Harsh Satire: created and popularized this in literature throughout the century
List three reasons for the importance of the coffee house in 18th-century London.
Created a public forum for discussing politics and challenging government elites.
Developed a short, direct, and witty style of speech. This style of speech led to the understated, dry humor still present in England.
From rules posted and the preferred conduct in the coffee houses, a new social code was created which blended reasonableness, good judgment, and wit.
Coffee houses also democratized learning and made popular essays easier to access for the general public.
The technique of parody in Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”
“Parody” is a satiric technique that ridicules a work by mocking and imitating its style.
Swift’s inflates the stereotypical Protestant Englishman’s when he ridicules the Irish and takes the word of a “knowing American.”
Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope as a mock epic
Uses the classical epic conventions of
invoking a muse
posing a question
arming of the hero scene
supernatural involvement
a battle scene
an epic speech.
Social and moral argets in Rape of the Lock
The upper-class is too absorbed in themselves and their luxuries; they act like beauty is a religion.
It mocks letters of love, trivial literary talk, and vanity.
Lampoon satire
Caustic ridicule of the character or personal appearance of a person.
ex) “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
Mock epic satire
Inflation of a low subject by a high style
ex) Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
Travesty satire
Deflation of a high subject to a low style
ex) Butler’s Hudibras
Parody satire
Mock of literary style by exaggerated imitation
ex) Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Burlesque satire
Ridiculous exaggeration specifically in incongruity between subject and style.
ex) Dryden’s MacFlecknoe
Estates satire
Ridicules a general class of people (social status and occupations)
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Define verbal irony as exemplified in a specific Augustan work
Verbal irony is a figure of speech that conveys a meaning opposite to its literal meaning.
In Jonathon Swift's A Modest Proposal, he says "I rather recommend buying the children alive and dressing them hot from the knife, as we did roasting pigs" to mock the rationalism of selling children.
Technical features of the heroic couplet
Two verses of ten syllables each
Iambic pentameter
End rhymed – often a verb that has weight and impact
Middle style – formal, conversational speech with is neither vulgar nor elegant (coffee house talk)
Variety – varying caesura, syllables (light v. heavy), and tonal quality and phonemic elements (long v. short sounds).
Figures of speech – similes were preferable and used for clarity
Cite a work by Pope, quote a heroic couplet from it, and analyze it in terms of its prosody.
The Rape of the Lock: “Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; / Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.”
Two 10 syllable lines
End stop (semicolon and period)
Iambic pentameter
Memorably captures the thought that physical beauty pales in comparison to the personality/lasting qualities
Scriblerus Club (Swift, Pope, and Gay)
They were Tories who were traditionalist, conservative, and aristocratic.
The Scriblerus Club satirized pretentious and scholarly jargon through their works.
Swift: Prose satirist; used Juvenalian satire In “A Modest Proposal”
Pope: Poetic satirist; used mock epic in Rape of the Lock
Gay: Dramatic satirist; The Beggar’s Opera as a parody of Italian operas
Shift from Augustan to Romantic poetry
Literary Sensibility: Driven by the un-Hobbesian belief that benevolence is an innately human element and central to moral experience is sympathy. Includes emotions for the beauty of nature/art. Seen as a symbol of one's gentility.
Jean-Jacques Rousseauu’s notion that humanity in a state of nature is naturally good and benevolent and is corrupted by society.
John Locke’s empiricist notion of human knowledge (“tabula rasa,” for example, meaning “blank slate”—all knowledge comes from experience or perception)
Four Romantic tendencies in Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
Preference for the rural instead of urban
The solitary and the contemplative over the social
Imagination
Contemplation
Notice and sympathy for the poor and common people
Four examples of satire in “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat”
Horation satire: Named after Roman poet Horace; is gentle, more sprightly than angry and is aimed at traits of general human nature
Parody: mocks the high styles of the ode
Travesty: reduces foolish ladies to cats
Burlesque: a mocking imitation of convention of the funeral elegy through imagery on vase
Four qualities of James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson
Extensive reports on Johnson’s conversations
Collection of entries in Boswell’s diaries
Common man as the “hero” (though written with more complexity)
Captures unlikely literary friendship between Boswell (libertine) and Johnson (Tory)
Maryland’s official nickname
Old line state (?)
George Washington bestowed the name "Old Line State" and associated Maryland with its regular line troops, the Maryland Line, who served courageously in many Revolutionary War battles.
Satan’s main character traits in specific instances
Prideful, hateful, resolute, stubborn, and childish: When it comes to getting revenge on God and his actions/feelings towards Heaven
Courageous, thoughtful, persuasive, clever, ambitious: How he acts with the Devils to get them to follow his plan of revenge against God
1605
The Gunpowder plot—a failed attempt to assassinate King James I of England during the Opening of Parliament in November 1605.
Done to end the persecution of Roman Catholics by the English government.
1611
Publication of the King James Bible and the dissolution of Parliament
1660
Charles II restored to the English throne and the end of the protectorate.
1665
An outbreak of the Bubonic Plague spread across Europe killing thousands of people and creating mass graves
1666
The Great Fire of London destroyed one third of London and killed thousands.
1649
England declared a Commonwealth and free state; abolished monarchy
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