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ENGL 3820 Midterm – Flashcards

William Jordan

8 July 2022

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Spenserian stanza

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DEFINITION - Byron (Childe Harold) - After Edmund Spenser, author of the Fairie Queen (1590-96) - 9 lines in stanza - 1st 8 are in iambic pentameter (10 syllables, broken into 2 syllable 2 "feet") - Final line in alexandrine with 12 syllables - "ababbcbcc"

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Free Indirect Discourse

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DEFINITION A way of narrating characters' thoughts or utterances that combines some of the features of third?person report with some features of first?person direct speech, allowing a flexible and sometimes ironic overlapping of internal and external perspectives. - Jane Austen

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Romanticism and Romantic Literature

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DEFINITION - Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Lyrical Ballads - A movement in the arts and literature which originated in the 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual - The Romantic movement or style in art, literature, or music; the distinctive qualities or spirit of this movement

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Intertext

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DEFINITION - A text considered in the light of its relation in terms of allusion to other texts; a body of such texts considered together - E.g., in Mansfield Park: Lover's Vows

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Gothic Literature

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DEFINITION - A style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, as well as romantic elements, such as nature, individuality, and very high emotion. - Can be defined as writing that employs dark and picturesque scenery, startling and melodramatic narrative devices, and an overall atmosphere of exoticism, mystery, and dread. - Seen especially in Poe and Bronte

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The "In Memoriam" Stanza

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DEFINITION - A *stanza of four iambic* tetrameter lines rhyming abba, used by Tennyson in the sequence of lyrics - ABBA, each stanza in the work is cyclical, beginning with one idea, moving on, then returning. This return is seen in both the ideas and the poetic structure, and mirrors cycles of grieving

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Anaphora

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DEFINITION The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive verses, clauses, or paragraphs - esp. In Whitman's Song of Myself

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Parataxis

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DEFINITION words or phrases placed side by side, without subordination

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Slant Rhyme

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DEFINITION - near rhymes, as those used in Dickinson's poetry. - She herself alludes to this poetic device when she wrote, "Tell all the truth but tell it slant — / Success in Circuit lies." Here, slant means not merely close rhyme but also her oblique way of writing.

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Elegy

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DEFINITION - A song of lamentation, especially a funeral song or lament for the dead. - seen in Tennyson's "In Memoriam"

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Giftbook

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DEFINITION 19th century collections of poetry and etchings. They became a sort of national project, an attempt to create an American literature distinct from European literature.

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Transcendentalism

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DEFINITION - A strain of Romanticism that took root among writers in mid-19th-century New England, largely led by Emerson, who asserted that the natural and material world exists to reveal universal meaning to the individual soul via one's subjective experiences. He promoted the poet's role as seer, a "transparent eyeball" that received insight intuitively through his or her perception of nature; - seen in Whitman

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Dramatic Monologue

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DEFINITION - it is like a soliloquy; the speaker of the poem is a persona quite different from the actual poet and is affected for sympathy - first used in Victorian poetry by Tennyson, as in "Ulysses;"

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The Novel

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DEFINITION - a long work of fiction, typically emphasizing narrative and characters, typically with some degree of realism. - Austen's Mansfield and Bronte's Wuthering are examples of novels so far. - Writers like Poe and Diaz have explicitly defined their work in shorts stories against the novel. - For Poe, the ss (and the poem) are better suited to his goal of achieving an effect as each is brief enough to be read in one sitting, and for Diaz, the ss's brevity and abrupt ending (just as you're beginning, you've ended) reflect the disjointed nature of actual lives, which the novel in its length cannot achieve

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Acrostic

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DEFINITION A (usually short) poem (or other composition) in which the initial letters of the lines, taken in order, spell a word, phrase or sentence

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Sentimental Literature

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DEFINITION - Any novel that exploits the reader's capacity for tenderness, compassion, or sympathy to a disproportionate degree by presenting a beclouded or unrealistic view of its subject. - Exalted feeling above reason and raised the analysis of emotion to a fine art. - The domestic novel/The seduction novel

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Return of the Repressed

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DEFINITION - seen especially in Gothic fiction; a phrase borrowed from Freudian psychoanalysis, meaning that certain impulses (especially sexual ones, according to Freud) were sublimated and diverted to other goals, but were also so strong that they would eventually re-emerge, now as the uncanny (partially personal and partially alien) - Seen in Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," as Brown's life based on repressed desires, social forces, and knowledge of history and the foundations of civilization

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Goody's Lady's Book

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DEFINITION - published by Sarah Josepha Hale, who only published US authors and used copyright Where Poe published - American publication that, from 1830 to 1898 pioneered a format still employed by magazines devoted to women's issues.

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Byronic Hero

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DEFINITION - a character-type found in his celebrated narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; he is a boldly defiant but bitterly self-tormenting outcast, proudly contemptuous of social norms but suffering for some unnamed sin. - Emily Brontë's Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1847) is a later example

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Ballad Stanza

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DEFINITION - 4 lines, ABCB, composing a popular narrative song passed down orally, though manufactured ballads in Lyrical Ballads

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(Summary) William Wordsworth "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

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SUMMARY In the first stanza, the speaker says wistfully that there was a time when all of nature seemed dreamlike to him and that that time is past. In the second stanza, he says that he still sees the rainbow, and that the rose is still lovely; the moon looks around the sky with delight, and starlight and sunshine are each beautiful. Nonetheless the speaker feels that a glory has passed away from the earth. In the third stanza, the speaker says that, while listening to the birds sing in springtime and watching the young lambs leap and play, he was stricken with a thought of grief; but the sound of nearby waterfalls, the echoes of the mountains, and the gusting of the winds restored him to strength. He exhorts a shepherd boy to shout and play around him. In the fourth stanza, he addresses nature's creatures, and says that his heart participates in their joyful festival. In the fifth stanza, he proclaims that as children, we still retain some memory of that place, which causes our experience of the earth to be suffused with its magic—but as the baby passes through boyhood and young adulthood and into manhood, he sees that magic die. In the sixth stanza, the speaker says that the pleasures unique to earth conspire to help the man forget the "glories" whence he came. In the seventh stanza, the speaker beholds a six-year-old boy and imagines his life, and the love his mother and father feel for him. He sees the boy playing with some imitated fragment of adult life. In the eighth stanza, the speaker addresses the child as though he were a mighty prophet of a lost truth, and rhetorically asks him why, when he has access to the glories of his origins, and to the pure experience of nature, he still hurries toward an adult life of custom and "earthly freight." In the ninth stanza, the speaker experiences a surge of joy at the thought that his memories of childhood will always grant him a kind of access to that lost world of instinct, innocence , and exploration. In the tenth stanza, bolstered by this joy, he urges the birds to sing, and urges all creatures to participate in "the gladness of the May." In the final stanza, the speaker says that this mind—which stems from a consciousness of mortality, as opposed to the child's feeling of immortality—enables him to love nature and natural beauty all the more, for each of nature's objects can stir him to thought, and even the simplest flower blowing in the wind can raise in him "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

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William Wordsworth "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

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QUOTE There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparell'd in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it has been of yore; -— Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

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William Wordsworth "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

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QUOTE Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind....

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William Wordsworth "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

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QUOTE "Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the day, a Master o'er a Slave...."

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(Summary) This Is How You Lose Her: "The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars"

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SUMMARY - Junior's past college life where he had just broken up with Magda - She broke up with Junior because he cheated on her with Cassandra (from work) - Tries to get back together with Magda and takes her on a vacation to his home of Santo Domingo to try to salvage the relationship but it doesn't work

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(Summary) This Is How You Lose Her: "Nilda"

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SUMMARY - Yunior is about to enter high school - Story is centered around his brother, Rafa, who is dating Nilda - Junior wants to befriend Nilda because he doesn't like his brother and thinks he's a monster - Rafa gets diagnosed with cancer

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(Summary) This Is How You Lose Her: "Alma"

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SUMMARY - shortest story that details Junior's brief relationship with Alma - she found out Yunior cheated on her after reading his journal - he tries to convince her that it was just a draft of a story

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(Summary) This Is How You Lose Her: "Otravida , Otravez"

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SUMMARY - only story that isn't told by Junior, but rather Yasmine (Dominican immigrant) - Yasmine is dating a married man, Ramon and they end up buying a house together and find themselves yearning for more and missing their lives in the Dominican Republic - Yasmine is a character that Yunior made up

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(Summary) This Is How You Lose Her: "The Pura Principle"

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SUMMARY - setting: Rafa just found out he has cancer - Rafa tries to get a legitimate job while Yunior is selling drugs - while at work, the cancer comes back and Rafa collapses at work and Pura, an Indian with dreams of marrying someone to get her citizenship, helps Rafa - Junior's mother hates Pura, but he marries her anyway and is kicked out of the house but still supported by his mom - They have a kid together, Rafa ends up back in the hospital where Pura never visits and they separate once Rafa comes home

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(Summary) This Is How You Lose Her: "Invierno"

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SUMMARY - setting: Rafa and Yunior first meet their father, who was very strict and didn't let the family leave the house (he lives in America) - the mother and sons didn't do well with this and when it stormed they left the house and explored the neighborhood

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(Summary) This Is How You Lose Her: "The Cheater's Guide to Love"

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SUMMARY - Yunior's adult over 5 years after break up with his finance - 1st year: finance breaks up with him after she found out he had cheated on her with over 50 women over the past 6 years - 2nd year: Yunior is depressed and his friend Elvis helps him - he ends up getting into another relationship with a woman but she ends it when she finds the racist things he says in his journal - she leaves him but then returns pregnant, has the child and leaves and waits to tell him that it isn't his until after she has it - During this time, Elvis finds out his child was fathered by another man, but it ends up not actually being his child - Yunior is constantly trying to find other ways to deal with his depression through physical activities (running and yoga) but keeps getting injured - Yunior moves to Boston and decides to write about all of his relationships, deciding to call the book "The Cheater's Guide to Love"

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": The Sun the Moon and the Stars

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QUOTE "I'm not a bad guy. I know how that sounds -- defensive, unscrupulous -- but it's true. I'm like everybody else: weak, full of mistakes, but basically good. Magdalena disagrees, though. She considers me a typical Dominican man: a sucio, an a**hole" (3)

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": The Sun the Moon and the Stars

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QUOTE "See, many months ago, when Magda was still my girl, when I didn't have to be careful about almost anything, I cheated on her with this chick who had tons of eighties freestyle hair" (3).

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": The Sun the Moon and the Stars

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QUOTE "This was not the Magda I knew. The Magda I knew was super courteous. Knocked on a door before she opened it. "I almost shouted, What is your f***ing problem!" (12).

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": The Sun the Moon and the Stars

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QUOTE This is the Cave of the Jagua, the Vice-President announces in a deep, respectful voice. The birthplace of the Taínos. I raise my eyebrow. I thought they were South American. We're speaking mythically. (24)

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": The Sun the Moon and the Stars

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QUOTE "Even kicked the historicals. This is where Trujillo and his Marine pals slaughtered the gavilleros, here's where the Jefe used to take his girls, here's where Balaguer sold his soul to the devil. And Magda seemed to be enjoying herself. " (11)

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": The Sun the Moon and the Stars

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QUOTE "You know how it is. A smelly bone like that, better off buried in the backyard of your life." (3)

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": Nilda

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QUOTE " . . . she'd always been one of those semi-retarded girls who you couldn't talk to without being dragged into a whirlpool of dumb stories. . . . She had big stupid lips and a sad moonface and the driest skin. Always rubbing lotion on it and cursing the moreno father who'd given it to her." (30)

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": "Introduction" to The Best American Short Stories 2016 (collab)

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QUOTE "The novel, after all, can absorb a whole lot of slackness and slapdash and still kick massive ass, but a short story can unravel over a pair of injudicious sentences." (Díaz, "Introduction," xiii)

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": "Introduction" to The Best American Short Stories 2016 (collab)

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QUOTE "To me, this form captures better than any other what it is to be human -- the brevity of our moments, the cruel irrevocability when those times places and people we hold most dear slip through out fingers" (Díaz, "Introduction," xiv)

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": "Introduction" to The Best American Short Stories 2016 (collab)

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QUOTE "Some friends have told me that their lives resemble novels. That's super-cool. Mine, alas, never has. Maybe it's my Caribbean immigrant multiplicity, the incommensurate distances between the worlds I inhabit, but my life has always worked better when understood as a collection of stories than anything else. Thing is, I'm all these strange pieces that don't assemble into anything remotely coherent. Hard for me to square that kid in Santo Domingo climbing avocado trees with the teen in Central NJ brining a gun to school with the man who now writes these words on the campus of MIT. Forget the same narrator-- these moments don't feel like they're in the same book or even the same genre" (xiv)

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Nadine Gordimer on the Short Story

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"Short story writers have known—and solved by the nature of their choice of form—what novelists seem to have discovered in despair only now: the strongest convention of the novel, prolonged coherence of tone, to which even the most experimental of novels must conform unless it is to fall apart, is false to the nature of whatever can be grasped of human reality. How shall I put it? Each of us has a thousand lives and a novel gives a character only one. For the sake of the form" (Gordimer, "The Flash of the Fireflies")

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": Alma

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QUOTE "You, Yunior, have a girlfriend named Alma, who has a long tender horse neck and a big Dominican ass that seems to exist in a fourth dimension beyond jeans." (47)

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": Alma

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QUOTE "Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die." (50)

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": The Sun the Moon and the Stars

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QUOTE "You no deserve I speak to you in Spanish" (4).

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": Drown (other book by Diaz)

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QUOTE "Seeing the country he'd been born in, seeing his people in charge of everything, he was unprepared for it. The air whooshed out of his lungs. For nearly four years he'd not spoken his Spanish loudly in front of the Northamericans and now he was hearing it bellowed and flung from every mouth" (Díaz, "Negocios," in Drown, 198)

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": Otravida, Otravez

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QUOTE "He sits on the mattress, the fat spread of his ass popping my fitted sheets from their corners. His clothes are stiff from the cold, and the spatter of dried paint on his pants has frozen into rivets. He's been talking about the house he wants to buy, how hard it is to find one when you're Latino. When I ask him to stand up so I can fix the bed, he walks over to the window. So much snow, he says. I nod and wish he would be quiet" (53).

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": Otravida, Otravez

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QUOTE "Ana Iris once asked me if I loved him and I told her about the lights in my old home in the capital, how they flickered and you never knew if they would go out or not. You put down your things and you waited and couldn't do anything really until the lights decided. This, I told her, is how I feel" (68).

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Junot Diaz "This Is How You Lose Her": The Pura Principle

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QUOTE "Talk about a total mystery. Wasn't like my brother had some incredible work ethic that needed exercising. The only job Rafa had ever had was pumping to the Old Bridge whitekids, and even on that front he'd been super chill. If he wanted to keep busy, he could have gone back to that -- it would have been easy, and I told him so. We still knew a lot of whitekids over in Cliffwood Beach and Laurence Harbor, a whole dirtbag clientele, but he wouldn't do it. What kind of legacy is that? "Legacy? I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Bro. you're working at the Yarn Barn!" (99).

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(Summary) Lyrical Ballads: Samuel Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Marinere

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SUMMARY - 3 guys are on their way to a wedding when a Mariner stops them to tell them story - he was on a boat to Antarctica in a bad storm - accidentally shorts the albatross and bad stuff starts to happen and the crew hangs the dead albatross around the Mariner's neck to remind him of his error - they are dying of thirst and finally see a ship, which the Mariner calls out (sucks his own blood_ but its a ghost ship driven by Death and Life-in Death - everyone on the ship dies - Mariner was the only one who didn't die because he unconsciously blessed the slimy snakes - angels fill all the dead bodes (supernatural spirit) - a rescue boat saves him, driven by the "hermit" - teaching a lesson to the wedding guest to always say his prayers and love other people and other things - the wedding guest doesn't go to the wedding and wakes up a "sadder and wiser man"

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(Summary) Lyrical Ballads: William Wordsworth: Goody Blake and Harry Gill

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SUMMARY - Harry Gill's teeth always chatter, he is always cold no matter how many layers he wears and no matter how warm it is - Goody Blake was very old and poor and malnourished - coah was expensive in Dorsetshire - Goody Blake lives alone but no one knows why (she's also a woman) - She sometimes takes sticks for fire from Harry Gill, who suspects this and plans vengeance - Harry Gill is cruel and not an atheist - Harry Gill will never in his life be warm - was Harry always cold because he was always outside trying to catch Goody Blake or was it because of her curse?

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(Summary) Lyrical Ballads: William Wordsworth: We Are Seven

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SUMMARY - conflict between rational adult and child - begins by asking what a child know about death - little cottage girl - 8 years old and has thick curly hair, makes the speaker happy, has 7 siblings including herself - speaker asks where the others are: two are in a town called Conway, two are at sea, and two lie in a church yard, she and her mother live near the graves - he is confused because if two are dead, how are there still 7 of them - 1st sibling (Jane) died from sickness - 2nd sibling (John) died too - always says "we are seven" even though the speaker tells her they're dead

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(Summary) Lyrical Ballads: William Wordsworth : Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey

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SUMMARY - full title: lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798. - has been 5 years since he last visited - the memories of this place (emphasis on nature) have a large impact on him - believes that his memory of the woods may make him vain - he used to only care about nature, now he sees it as more powerful - we find out at the end that he's accompanied by his sister (Dorothy Wordsworth) - Written a day before Bastille Day

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William Wordsworth, The Prelude (Lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a country in romance!

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William Wordsworth, from "Resolution and Independence" (Lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE A gentle answer did the old Man make, In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew: And him with further words I thus bespake, "What occupation do you there pursue? This is a lonesome place for one like you." Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes. His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, But each in solemn order followed each, With something of a lofty utterance drest— Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach Of ordinary men; a stately speech; Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use, Religious men, who give to God and man their dues. He told, that to these waters he had come To gather leeches, being old and poor: Employment hazardous and wearisome! And he had many hardships to endure: From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor; Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance; And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.

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William Wordsworth, "Advertisement" (Lyrical Ballads)

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William Wordsworth, "Advertisement" (Lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE "The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure. Readers accustomed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers. . . will perhaps frequently have to struggle with feelings of strangeness and awkwardness: they will look round for poetry, and will be induced to enquire by what species of courtesy these attempts can be permitted to assume that title."

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Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)

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QUOTE Let Observation with extensive View, Survey Mankind from China to Peru; Remark each anxious Toil, each eager Strife, And watch the busy scenes of crouded Life; Then say how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate, O'erspread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate, Where Wav'ring Man, betray'd by vent'rous Pride, To tread the dreary Paths without a Guide; As treach'rous Phantoms in the Mist delude, Shuns fancied Ills, or chases airy Good.

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Samuel Johnson, "The Vanity of Human Wishes" (Lyrical Ballads)

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William Wordsworth, "Lines written a small distance from my house" (Lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE It is the first mild day of March: Each minute sweeter than before, The red Breast sings from the tall larch That stands beside our door.

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Samuel Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817) (Lyrical ballads)

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QUOTE "The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real.... For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters and incidents were to be such as will be found in every village and its vicinity, where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them or to notice them, when they present themselves."

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Samuel Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817) (Lyrical ballads)

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QUOTE Coleridge's poems in particular to display "persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic... a semblance of truth sufficient to procure... that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith"

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William Wordsworth, Goody Blake and Harry Gill (Lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE "She prayed, her withered hand uprearing, While Harry held her by the arm-- "God! who art never out of hearing, O may he never more be warm!" The cold, cold moon above her head, Thus on her knees did Goody pray; Young Harry heard what she had said: And icy cold he turned away. He went complaining all the morrow That he was cold and very chill: His face was gloom, his heart was sorrow, Alas! that day for Harry Gill! That day he wore a riding-coat, But not a whit the warmer he: Another was on Thursday brought, And ere the Sabbath he had three."

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William Wordsworth, "We Are Seven" (Lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE "A simple Child, dear brother Jim That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death? I met a little cottage Girl: She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head. She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad: Her eyes were fair, and very fair; —Her beauty made me glad. "Sisters and brothers, little Maid, How many may you be?" "How many? Seven in all," she said, And wondering looked at me. "And where are they? I pray you tell." She answered, "Seven are we; And two of us at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea. "Two of us in the church-yard lie, My sister and my brother; And, in the church-yard cottage, I Dwell near them with my mother." "You say that two at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea, Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell, Sweet Maid, how this may be." Then did the little Maid reply, "Seven boys and girls are we; Two of us in the church-yard lie, Beneath the church-yard tree." "You run about, my little Maid, Your limbs they are alive; If two are in the church-yard laid, Then ye are only five." "Their graves are green, they may be seen," The little Maid replied, "Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, And they are side by side. "My stockings there I often knit, My kerchief there I hem; And there upon the ground I sit, And sing a song to them. "And often after sun-set, Sir, When it is light and fair, I take my little porringer, And eat my supper there. "The first that died was sister Jane; In bed she moaning lay, Till God released her of her pain; And then she went away. "So in the church-yard she was laid; And, when the grass was dry, Together round her grave we played, My brother John and I. "And when the ground was white with snow, And I could run and slide, My brother John was forced to go, And he lies by her side." "How many are you, then," said I, "If they two are in heaven?" Quick was the little Maid's reply, "O Master! we are seven." "But they are dead; those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven!" 'Twas throwing words away; for still The little Maid would have her will, And said, "Nay, we are seven!"

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Samuel Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (Lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE "Mr. Wordsworth... was to ... give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a felling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention to the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world around us."

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Samuel Coleridge's "The Ryme of the Ancyent Marinere" (Lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE He holds him with his glittering eye— The wedding guest stood still And listens like a three year's child; The Marinere hath his will. The wedding-guest sate on a stone, He cannot chuse but hear: And thus spake on that ancyent man, The bright-eyed Marinere.

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Samuel Coleridge's "The Ryme of the Ancyent Marinere" (Lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE The Marineres gave it biscuit-worms, And round and round it flew: The Ice did split with a Thunder-fit; The Helmsman steered us thro'.

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William Wordsworth: lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

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William Wordsworth: lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE how oft-- In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart-- How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee!

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William Wordsworth: lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE For thou art with me here upon the banks Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister!

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William Wordsworth: lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (lyrical Ballads)

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QUOTE --in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance— If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence—wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

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(Summary) Lord Byron and George Gordon: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos 3

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SUMMARY - Ada is the muse - Childe Harold is older and his journey is from Dover to Waterloo, then following the Rhine River into Switzerland - Waterloo inspires Byron's consideration of battlefields and bloodshed - cites the heroism of Hon. Major Frederick Howard - Harold spends tie considering that there is still someone he loves, despite his general distaste for others - while in Switzerland, he acknowledges General Francois - Then defends the spirit of individualism - returns to his main subject, contemplating Jean-Jacques Rousseau, political philosopher from Geneva, while he is in Lake Leman - he is another man misunderstood by the vulgar minds of his contemporaries - nature is overarching the scene - the natural world of its laws become the "great equalizer" among men, as nature demonstrates her power in the storm and earthquake while men hide in fear - Nature can also be seen as the works and struggles of men writ large and so is connected to, if separate from, human life - he reveals in the end that his muse is not with him on his trip

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(Summary) Lord Byron and George Gordon: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos 4

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SUMMARY - About Harold's journey into Italy: Venice, Arqua, Ferrara, Florence and lastly Rome - Venice: cultural ghost town peopled by mighty shadows of literary giants such as Shakespeare - Arque: home of Petrarch - Ferrara: beloved town of poet Tasso - Florence: pays homage to the great men buried in the Bascillca of Santa Croce - expressed outrage that Dante, who was exiled, was therefore not buried in "ungrateful Florence" - Rome: visit to Rome takes up half the Canto - describes the various dictators from ancient times until he recent past - compares Napoleon to a kind of bastard Caesar (returning to his theme of liberty's struggle against tyrants) - poem ends at the ocean, harking once again to nature as an image of freedom and sublimity - Byron wants us to visit great places - ocean also serves as a contrast to the list civilizations Byron has visited

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Lord Byron and George Gordon: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos 1

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QUOTE A fictitious character is introduced for the sake of giving some connexion to the piece; which, however, no pretension to regularity. It has been suggested to me by friends, on whose opinions I set a high value, that in this fictitious character, 'Childe Harold', I may incur the suspicion of having intended some real personage: this I beg leave, once for all, to disclaim -- Harold is the child of imagination, for the purpose I have stated. In some very trivial particulars, and those merely local, there might be grounds for such a notion; but in the main points, I should hope, none whatever.

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Lord Byron and George Gordon: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos 4

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QUOTE With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith's 'Citizen of the World', whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined, that I had drawn a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether -- and have done so. (p. 146)

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Lord Byron and George Gordon: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos 3

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QUOTE Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again, With nought of hope left, but with less of gloom; The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb, Had made Despair a smilingness assume, Which, though 'twere wild, -- as on the plunder'd wreck, When mariners would madly meet their doom With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck, -- Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check. (p. 108)

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Lord Byron and George Gordon: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos 3

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QUOTE Stop! -- for thy tread is on an Empire's dust! An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below! Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust? Nor column trophied for triumphal show? None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, As the ground was before, thus let it be; -- How that red rain hath made the harvest grow! And is this all the world has gained by thee, Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory? (p. 108)

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Lord Byron and George Gordon: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos 3

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QUOTE There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gather'd then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! Did ye not hear it? -- No; 'twas but the wind Or the car rattling o'er the stony street; On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet - But, hark! -- that heavy sound breaks in once more As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! Arm! it is -- it is -- the cannon's opening roar! (p 110)

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Lord Byron and George Gordon: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos 3

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QUOTE Sky, mountain, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye! With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul To make these felt and feeling, well may be Things that have made me watchful; the far roll Of your departing voices, is the knoll Of what in me is sleepless, -- if I rest. But where of ye, oh tempests! is the goal? Are ye like those within the human breast? Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest? Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me, -- could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, All that I would have sought, and all I seek, Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe -- into one word, And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; But as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. (pp. 132-33)

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Lord Byron and George Gordon: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos 4

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QUOTE Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. There is the moral of all human tales; 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, First Freedom, and then Glory -- when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption, -- barbarism at last. And History, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page, -- 'tis better written here, Where gorgeous tyranny hath thus amass'd All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask -Away with words! draw near, Admire, exult -- despise -- laugh, weep, -- for here There is such matter for all feeling: -- Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, Ages and realms are crowded in this span, This mountain, whose obliterated plan The pyramid of empires pinnacled, Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van Till the sun's rays with added flame were fill'd! Where are its golden roofs! where those who dared to build? (p179)

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Lord Byron and George Gordon: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos 4

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QUOTE The beings of the mind are not of clay; Essentially immortal, they create And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved existence: that which Fate Prohibits to dull life, in this our state Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, First exiles, then replaces what we hate; Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. (p 149)

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Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

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Characters: - Fanny Price - Sir Thomas Bertram - Lady Bertram - Edmund Bertram - Maria Bertram (engaged to Rushworth but runs away with Henry) - Julia Bertram (elopes with Yates) - Tom Bertram - Mrs. Norris - Mary Crawford - Henry Crawford - William Price - Susan Price - Rushworth - Yates: proposes they put on a play Lovers' Vows Characters: - Agatha: Maria - Frederick: Henry Crawford - Baron - Anshault: Edmund - Amelia: Mary

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Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

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QUOTE "[Mrs Prices's] eldest was a boy of ten years old, a fine spirited fellow who longed to be out in the world; but what could she do? Was there any chance of his being hereafter useful to Sir Thomas in the concerns of his West Indian property? No situation would be beneath him—or what did Sir Thomas think of Woolwich? Or how could be a boy be sent out to the East?"

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Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

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QUOTE Fanny: "'If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speaking incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other or our intelligences. We are to be sure a miracle every way—but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting, do seem peculiarly past finding out.' Miss Crawford untouched and inattentive had nothing to say." - talking about memory - maybe Jane Austen wanted to experiment with making the heroine not your typical heroine

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Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

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QUOTE "Tom listened with some shame and some sorrow, but escaping as quickly as possible, could soon with cheerfulness reflect, 1st, that he had not been half so much in debt as some of his friends; 2ndly, that his father had made a most tiresome work of it; and 3dly, that the future incumbent, whomever he might be, would, in all probability, die very soon." - example of free indirect discourse

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Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

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QUOTE "Fanny could not wonder that Edmund was at the Parsonage every morning; she would gladly have been there too, might she have gone in uninvited and unnoticed, to hear the harp; neither could she wonder that, when the evening stroll was over, and the two families parted again, he should think it right to attend Mrs. Grant and her sister to their home, while Mr. Crawford was devoted to the ladies of the Park; but she thought it a very bad exchange; and if Edmund were not there to mix the wine and water for her, would rather go without it than not. She was a little surprised that he could spend so many hours with Miss Crawford, and not see more of the sort of fault which he had already observed, and of which she was almost always reminded by a something of the same nature whenever she was in her company; but so it was. Edmund was fond of speaking to her of Miss Crawford, but he seemed to think it enough that the Admiral had since been spared; and she scrupled to point out her own remarks to him, lest it should appear like ill-nature. The first actual pain which Miss Crawford occasioned her was the consequence of an inclination to learn to ride, which the former caught, soon after her being settled at Mansfield, from the example of the young ladies at the Park, and which, when Edmund's acquaintance with her increased, led to his encouraging the wish, and the offer of his own quiet mare for the purpose of her first attempts, as the best fitted for a beginner that either stable could furnish. No pain, no injury, however, was designed by him to his cousin in this offer: she was not to lose a day's exercise by it. The mare was only to be taken down to the Parsonage half an hour before her ride were to begin; and Fanny, on its being first proposed, so far from feeling slighted, was almost over-powered with gratitude that he should be asking her leave for it." p. 62-3

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Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

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QUOTE "Fanny, feeling all this to be wrong, could not help making an effort to prevent it. "You will hurt yourself, Miss Bertram," she cried; "you will certainly hurt yourself against those spikes; you will tear your gown; you will be in danger of slipping into the ha-ha. You had better not go." Her cousin was safe on the other side while these words were spoken, and, smiling with all the good-humour of success, she said, "Thank you, my dear Fanny, but I and my gown are alive and well, and so good-bye." Fanny was again left to her solitude, and with no increase of pleasant feelings, for she was sorry for almost all that she had seen and heard, astonished at Miss Bertram, and angry with Mr. Crawford. 93-94 - At Sotherton, Rushworth's home - the ha-ha

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Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

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QUOTE "Did you not hear me ask him about the slave trade last night?" "I did—and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther." "And I longed to do it—but there was such a dead silence!" p. 184 - Antigua: sugar harvesting (where most of Bertram's wealth came from), very small but very valuable - Jane Austen's father had a sugar cane plantation in Antigua - this quote is odd because Austen never takes about the slave trade in her novels and Fanny is not outspoken

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Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

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QUOTE "Certainly, my home at my uncle's brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices I saw enough. Now do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat." p. 56 - dirty joke that all naval officers are homosexual that Mary Crawford makes - odd for this to be such a cruel joke because many of Austen's family members are in the navy

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Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

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QUOTE Her poor mother now did not look so very unworthy of being Lady Bertram's sister as she was but too apt to look. It often grieved her to the heart to think of the contrast between them; to think that where nature had made so little difference, circumstances should have made so much, and that her mother, as handsome as Lady Bertram, and some years her junior, should have an appearance so much more worn and faded, so comfortless, so slatternly, so shabby. p. 379 - when Fanny goes home for the first time

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(Summary) Nathaniel Hawthorne: "The Minister's Black Veil"

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SUMMARY - story begins with a sexton (officer of the church charged with the maintenance of its building and surrounding graveyard), who is in front of the meeting house raining a bell. Supposed to stop raining bell when Reverend Mr. Hooper comes into sight. - Confused when Hooper shows up wearing a black field that is covering his whole face but his mouth and chin. - his sermon is on secret sin, which scares the congregation because of their fear of their own sins - after the sermon, a funeral is held for the lady who just died, where Hooper turns his veil into a more appropriate one - that night a wedding happens, but Hooper arrives in a vail again, which glooms everyone - everyone is still talking about the minister but no one asks about it other than his fiancee, Elizabeth. She tries to get him to take it off but he will not even when they're alone and won't tell why he wears it. Eventually she gives up and calls off the engagement. - Benefit of the field is that Hooper gained a lot of converts because they felt they were behind a black veil with him - all through life the black veil had hung between him and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and women's love and kept him in that the saddest of prisons, his own heart; and it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his dark-some chamber and shade him from the sunshine of eternity - even though Elizabeth broke off the engagement, she never marries and still keeps track of Hooper - When he is deathly ill, she comes to his side and her and Reverend ask him to take off the veil, but he refuses. They all wore black veils and he was buried in it.

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(Summary) Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Young Goodman Brown"

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SUMMARY - takes place in 17th century Puritan New England and addresses the Calvinist/Puritan beliefs - begins at dusk in Salem Village, Massachusetts as Young Goodman Brown leaves his wife of 3 months, Faith, for an unknown errand in the forrest - in the forrest, he meets a man who resembles him who carries a black servant-shaped stuff - they encounter Goody Cloyse (old woman) who Young Goodman Brown had known as a boy who had taught him his catechism (learning intro to the sacraments used in christian religious teachings of children) - she complains about the need to walk and the man rudely throws his staff on the ground for her and quickly leaves with Goodman - other townspeople go into the woods that night and he hears his wife's voice and goes running through the trees, scared that Faith is lost - around midnight he finds the townspeople doing a ceremony (witch sabbath) and they call Goodman and Faith forward because they are the only ones not initiated - he calls to heaven to save them and the scene vanishes and they're back in his home in Salem and doesn't know where the previous night was a dream or not but is unsure if he still lives in a Christian community - he loses his faith in his wife, along with all of humanity and lives his life wary of everyone around him

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(Summary) Nathaniel Hawthorne: "My Kinsman, Major Molineux"

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SUMMARY - the story exemplifies the darkest times of American development - In 1732, Robin, a youth, arrives by ferry to Boston seeking his kinsman, Major Molineux, an official in the British Colonel government, who has promised him work, but no one in town tells him where the major is - a rich man threatens Robin with prison and an innkeeper calls him a runaway bond-servant - at the inn, he meets a man with a face described as looking like a devil - two protrusions emanating from his forehead (like horns), eyes burning like a fire in a cave - he runs in the man later, but this time his face is painted black and red - he finally is told that his kinsman will soon pass by, he waits at the top of church steps where he is greeted by the first polite gentleman he has met all night - the two men then hear the roar of an approaching mob. At its head is the man with the red and black face and in its midst is Major Molineux, tarred and feathered. The crowd is in uproar and everyone is laughing. Robin begins to laugh but then his eyes meet with the major who knows him immediately. - disillusioned, Robin asks the gentleman the way back to the ferry but the latter restraints him, saying that it is still possible for him to thrive without his kinsman's protection

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Minister's Black Veil

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QUOTE "Know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from the world: even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it."

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Minister's Black Veil

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QUOTE "If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough,' he merely replied; "and if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?'"

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Minister's Black Veil

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QUOTE "Mr. Hooper, a gentlemanly person of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band and brushed the weekly dust from his Sunday's garb." - transgressive sexuality

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Minister's Black Veil

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QUOTE "'How strange,' said a lady, 'that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face!'" - transgressive sexuality

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Minister's Black Veil

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QUOTE "As his plighted wife, it should be her privilege to know what the black veil concealed." - transgressive sexuality

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Minister's Black Veil

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QUOTE "The color rose into her cheeks, as she intimated the nature of the rumors that were already abroad in the village."

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Minister's Black Veil

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QUOTE "The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them. A subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought." (370)

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown

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QUOTE "'Dearest heart,' whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, 'pr'y thee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she's afeard of herself, sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year!'"

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown

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QUOTE " . . . they tell me, there is a nice young man to be taken into communion tonight"

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown

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QUOTE "Good, Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that's no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem. And it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip's war."

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown

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QUOTE "This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds; how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widow's weeds, has given her husband a drink at bed-time, and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their father's wealth; and how fair damsels - blush not, sweet ones! - have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest to an infant's funeral"

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown

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QUOTE "By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin, ye shall scent out all the places - whether in church, bed-chamber, street, field, or forest - where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood-spot"

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John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity, 1630

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"We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us."

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: My Kinsman, Major Molineux

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QUOTE Robin "attempted to imagine how that evening of ambiguity and weariness, had been spent by his father's household. . . He heard the old thanksgiving for daily mercies, the old supplications for their continuance, to which he had so often listened in weariness, but which were now among his dear remembrances. He perceived the slight inequality of his father's voice when he came to speak of the Absent One; he noted how his mother turned her face to the broad and knotted trunk, how his elder brother scorned, because the beard was rough on his upper lip, to permit his features to be moved; how his younger sister drew down a long hanging branch before her eyes; and how the little one of all . . . burst into clamorous grief"

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: My Kinsman, Major Molineux

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QUOTE "'From the country, I presume, Sir?' said he, with a profound bow. 'Beg to congratulate you on your arrival, and trust you intend a long stay with us. Fine town here, Sir, beautiful buildings, and much that may interest a stranger. May I hope the honor of your commands in respect to supper?'"

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: My Kinsman, Major Molineux

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QUOTE "The man sees a family likeness! the rogue has guessed that I am related to the Major!' thought Robin, who had hitherto experienced little superfluous civility"

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: My Kinsman, Major Molineux

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QUOTE "He was an elderly man, of large and majestic person, and strong, square features, betokening a steady soul; but steady as it was, his enemies had found the means to shake it. His face was pale as death, and far more ghastly; the broad forehead was contracted in his agony, so that the eyebrows formed one dark grey line; his eyes were red and wild, and the foam hung white upon his quivering lip. His whole frame was agitated by a quick, and continual tremor, which his pride strove to quell, even in those circumstances of overwhelming humiliation."

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: My Kinsman, Major Molineux

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QUOTE "The contagion was spreading among the multitude, when, all at once, it seized upon Robin, and he sent forth a shout of laughter that echoed through the street"

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Nathaniel Hawthorne: My Kinsman, Major Molineux

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QUOTE "'No, my good friend Robin, not to-night, at least,' said the gentleman. 'Some few days hence, if you continue to wish it, I will speed you on your journey. Or, if you prefer to remain with us, perhaps as you are a shrewd youth, you may rise in the world, without the help of your kinsman, Major Molineux'"

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(Summary) Edgar Allen Poe: Ligeia

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SUMMARY - told by an unnamed narrator who describes the qualities of Ligeia, a beautiful and intellectual woman, raven-haired and dark eyes. He thinks he remembers meeting her in some large old decaying city near the Rhine but is unable to recall anything about the history of Ligeia, including her family's name but remembers her beauty - herbeauty is not conventional, he describes her as emancipated, with some strangeness. He describes her face in detail from her faultless forehead to the divine orbs of her eyes. - They marry and she impresses her husband with her immense knowledge of physical and mathematical science and proficiency in classical languages. She begins to show him the knowledge of metaphysical and forbidden wisdom. - After an unspecified length of time Ligeia becomes ill, struggles internally for human mortality and eventually dies. - he is grieving and refurbished an abbey in England and soon enters into a loveless marriage with the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine. - in the 2nd month of the marriage, Rowena suffers from anxiety and fever, one night when she is about to faint, the narrator pours her a goblet of wine - drugged with opium, he sees (or thinks he sees) drops of a brilliant and ruby colored fluid fall into the goblet. Her condition rapidly worsens and a few days later dies. - as the narrator keeps vigil overnight, he notices a brief return of color to Rowena's cheeks. She repeatedly shows signs of reviving, before relapsing into death. - as he attempts resuscitation, the revivals become progressively stronger, but the relapses more final. As dawn breaks and the narrator is sitting emotionally exhausted the shrouded body revives once more, stands and walks into the middle of the room. When he touches the figure, its head bandages fell away to reveal masses of raven hair and dark eyes. Rowena has transformed into Ligeia.

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Edgar Allen Poe: Valentine's Eve, 1846

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QUOTE For her these lines are penned, whose luminous eyes, Bright and expressive as the stars of Leda, Shall find her own sweet name that, nestling, lies Upon this page, enwrapped from every reader. Search narrowly these words, which hold a treasure Divine--a talisman, an amulet That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-- The words--the letters themselves. Do not forget The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor. And yet there is in this no Gordian knot Which one might not undo without a sabre If one could merely understand the plot. Upon the open page on which are peering Such sweet eyes now, there lies, I say, perdu, A musical name oft uttered in the hearing Of poets, by poets--for the name is a poet's too. In common sequence set, the letters lying, Compose a sound delighting all to hear-- Ah, this you'd have no trouble in descrying Were you not something, of a dunce, my dear-- And now I leave these riddles to their Seer. - acrostic poem - spells out Frances Sergeant Osgood

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Poe, review of Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales, 1842

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QUOTE As the novel cannot be read at one sitting, it cannot avail itself of the immense benefit of totality. Worldly interests, intervening during the pauses of perusal, modify, counteract and annul the impressions intended....In the brief tale, however, the author is enabled to carry out his full design without interruption. During the hour of perusal, the soul of the reader is at the writer's control.

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Edgar Allen Poe: Ligeia

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QUOTE "And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigour? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."

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Edgar Allen Poe: Ligeia

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QUOTE "I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when or even precisely where I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering."

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Edgar Allen Poe: The Masque of the Red Death

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QUOTE "To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor...."

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Edgar Allen Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher

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QUOTE "A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall."

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