World Literature 2 – Flashcards

The best model is "To Penhurst" by Ben Johnson. A poem in which the author compliments a wealthy patron or a friend through a description of his country house. Describing from a distance

Though predicated on the description of a landscape or piece of scenery, topographical poetry often, at least implicitly, addresses a social or political issue or the meaning of nationality in some way. The description of elements in the landscape thus becomes a poetic vehicle through which a personal interpretation is delivered.

Someone in the 17th century who owned a big country house which represented power. Poets would right about their estates to gain sponsorship and status. Patrons would retreat to their houses when the city became too much.

members of the aristocracy and supported the crown, poems centered around sensual, romantic love and also the idea of carpe diem. Cavalier means showing arrogant or offhand disregard, carefree and nonchalant. Big poets were Thomas Carew, Richard Lovelace, Robert Herrick, and John Suckling. They emulated Ben Jonson. They concentrated on the pleasures of the moment, This endorsement of living life to the fullest, for Cavalier writers, often included gaining material wealth and having sex with women. They were more apt to say what they meant in clear terms. They wrote short refined verses and the tone was easy-going. Main intent of their poetry was to glorify the crown. The opposite of Metaphysical poets.

*a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent exponents include Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.* **The Enlightenment was an age of unprecedented optimism in the potential of knowledge and reason to understand and change the world (see Enlightenment). The movement flourished across Western Europe, especially in France and England. For the first time in history, all fields of knowledge were subjected to unrelenting critical examination (which continues to this day).** -Classical French literature flourished especially in the form of drama, culminating in the comic dramatist Molière (pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin), greatest of French playwrights. -Voltaire (pen name of François Marie Arouet) battled many forms of injustice, including religious and political discrimination, arbitrary imprisonment, and torture. He is known primarily for his many philosophical and satirical works, including novels, short stories, and essays. -Irish-English author Jonathon Swift, perhaps the most widely famous satirist in history, penned many works of satirical prose on a wide range of issues; a key personal grievance was English mistreatment of the Irish.

an artistic form that criticizes vice and folly through the use of irony, mockery, or wit. It exposes folly, the absurdity of a habit or custom or policy, by speaking from the very position of the power endorsing the habit, custom, or policy. Satire is not sarcasm; rather, it fully endorses the position from which it speaks. Satire is an equal opportunity aggressor; rarely is a group left unscathed by the satirist. (Modest Proposal)

Using logic and reason, as well as economic data. (Modest Proposal) He uses numbers to support the idea of eating children so the poor in Ireland will suffer less.

To reduce a position to a point of absurdity. (Modest Proposal)

Telos (end or purpose): comic telos is the end, or the final purpose, towards which a comedy tends. The comic telos is order, unity, happiness, marriage, sex, and children. Everything in a comedy is meant to move the audience along, away from then towards this end. Plot Structure: Perceived order---disorder----restored. The city---- Green world-----Restored City. Blocking characters prevent the union of lovers. Unjust Law. Disruption of Great Chain of Being. Comedies often move from a city to a Green World, characterized by lush vegetation, inverted social roles and loosely structured order. Inversion. Reaches its peak during this part of the plot. Deus Ex Machina (god from the machine)- reference to early comedies wherein a god, at the point of absolute disorder, is lowered via pulley onto the stage to set all things right (king in tartuffe). This action restores the city and social order, imparts the lesson and allows the audience no less than the characters to see their folly. Group Focus: The societies we create are good, and the goal should be to correct and support group members as a whole. Usually ends with the banishment of Villain/Blocking Character/Unjust law/etc. "Comedies hold a mirror to society, while tragedies are a lamp, illuminating what is dark within ourselves." Group focus mirrors the comic telos in its emphasis on banquets, marriages (or promised marriages), and procreation, all throwbacks to comedy's Greek origins (komos - a song of revelry). The Seeds of Tragedy: in a comedy, we recognize the errors the protagonist is making, and we see the bad things that can happen because of it. Types: Comedy of Manners, Comedy of Humours, and Romantic Comedy.

a dramatic convention that writers of Moliere's time employed. Characters are based on role rather than psychology and are not really believable, the hypocrite, the clever maid, the blustering young man, the foolish father, the naive young girl, etc. Plot structure is not designed for believability, but for pleasure and for teaching a particular lesson, the pleasure of surprise, the restoration of just order. Social conventions: degree of authority expressed by the father, absolute power over a daughter's marital choices, a wife's chastity, son's economic status rests on the father's will, mirrors the role of a king in a country, The french saw the family/domestic structure as a mirror of society as a whole. **Consisting of five or three acts in which the attitudes and customs of a society are critiqued and satirized according to high standards of intellect and morality. The dialogue is usually clever and sophisticated, but often risqué. Characters are valued according to their linguistic and intellectual prowess.**

A character type that appears repeatedly in a particular literary genre, one which has certain conventional attributes or attitudes. The focus is on the group not the individual. Examples: Soubrette (the saucy maid), Nosy mother (any mother-in-law character), Hot tempered son, Trickster, Self righteous father, rational outsider.

Parents act like children; Reason supplanted by emotion; Servants act as masters; Masters act as servants.

Republican/Democratic/Socialist Utopian (United States) Imagination Spontaneity, Enthusiasm, self-expression Solitude, individual freedom Emotional/Natural Organic Exotic/Supernatural/Fantastic Poet as prophet/visionary/seer Lyrical style/confessional Concept of the poet and poetry changed. Poetic Spontaneity and Freedom Shift in Subject Matter Glorification of the Commonplace Fascination with Supernatural Apocalyptic Expectations

Dedication: Nobody is going to virtuously follow a law or do a duty that they do not understand! to see one half of the human race excluded by the other from all participation of government was a political phenomenon that, according to abstract principles, it was impossible to explain. Part 1: If "God" had created a human being evil from the get-go, then that would be a pretty odd God, and certainly not worth worshipping! It would really actually ham-string the entire human race, for how would we know whether or not we had been "created evil"? the inherent goodness and rationalism of all human beings - social conventions corrupt us over time. Part 2: More on bodily exercise and the problems that come from the lack of it: "if girls were allowed to take sufficient exercise, and not confined in close rooms till their muscles are relaxed, and their powers of digestion destroyed". Part 8: Both are based on blind submission to authority and to take things based solely on the fact that it comes from an authority. Women give more credit to certain names like officers do in the military. the acceptance of a woman's "inferior" position allows the man, like a tyrant, to more easily bully her, just as a ranking officer (or a drill sergeant) may be able to bully lower ranking recruits and those recruits take that abuse as a necessary evil. Some officers take more care of their appearance rather than their leadership. Part 11: "they both acquire manners before morals, and a knowledge of life before they have, from reflection, any acquaintance with the grand ideal outline of human nature. The consequence is natural; satisfied with common nature, they become a prey to prejudices, and taking all their opinions on credity, they blindly submit to authority. So that, if they have any sense, it is a kind of instinctive glance, that catches proportions and decides with respect to manners, but fails when arguments are to be pursued below the surface, or opinions analyzed". Part 12: Radical comes from root, root of the problem. it's a system that has not changed in many years that both men and women have bought into and that is, as she has shown, actually moving men and women AWAY from one another instead of towards one another as human beings. People are not allowed to think. "Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants ... are in the right when they endeavor to keep women in the dark, because [tyrants] only want slaves ... [W]omen have been duped by their lovers, as princes by their ministers, whilst dreaming that they reigned over them" (136). Part 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10- none

The goal of an education should be, in her mind, moved forward by "understanding" (our innate rationalism) and moving towards strengthening the "body" and the "habits of virtue" (or morals) so that one practices both "independent[ly]." The importance of having a family for a woman but of the necessity of being well educated and strong in order to govern it appropriately. Women are taught to be pretty but what will happen to them when that is no longer enough for their husbands. A woman's current education makes her worthy of worship, but it is a false worship that makes them "intoxicated" with false praise on their ability to stick within convention. It's important to note that Wollstonecraft believes that men are just as circumscribed by social convention and "education" as women are; the outcome in the relationship between the sexes is the same. Education, as it is currently practiced for Wollstonecraft, "tend[s] ... to degrade one half of the human species, and render women pleasing at the expense of every other solid virtue." She extends her argument even to a man's education - they are rarely themselves, due to current educational practices, more than children, so a woman looking to a man for "understanding" really is not looking at the best example! - One characteristic of a woman's education that is problematic is its lack of "order." There's no growth, there's no building of one idea upon the other in a woman's education - no sense of coherence.

Reason/Rationalism- Reason must be capable of being grasped by all, and cannot be simply said to be rational and accepted as such: "for unless [women] comprehend it, unless their morals be fixed on the same immutable principle as those of man, no authority can make them discharge it in a virtuous manner". Nobody is going to virtuously follow a law or do a duty that they do not understand! The inherent goodness and rationalism of all human beings - social conventions corrupt us over time. Blind Submission- Both are based on blind submission to authority and to take things based solely on the fact that it comes from an authority. Women give more credit to certain names like officers do in the military. the acceptance of a woman's "inferior" position allows the man, like a tyrant, to more easily bully her, just as a ranking officer (or a drill sergeant) may be able to bully lower ranking recruits and those recruits take that abuse as a necessary evil. Some officers take more care of their appearance rather than their leadership.

the poems from Innocence and Experience are Illuminated Poems. Pictures seen with the poems they accompany, just reading them does not do the entire work justice. All were hand painted water color and made from engravings. The poems are coupled with images which would accompany them and enhance their meaning while delivering a stunning visual experience.

The two sets of poems are showing two contrary states of the human soul. Part of his philosophy is accepting the divided sense of self. Contrary: alternative, opposite, bewildered. His big vision was to merge science and religion into one religion. No side is ever taken over the other, they both must be understood. Even though innocence may be closer to god, it is necessary to get rid of it at some point. In the Lamb there is a safety in knowing that there is answer but in the Tyger there is no answer and that is scary. How do we reconcile that God made something so innocent and something so fearful to live on the planet together? You must find the space between the Lamb and Tyger or equalize them in your mind.

The Industrial Revolution — the changes in the making of goods that resulted from substituting machines for hand labor — began with a set of inventions for spinning and weaving developed in England in the eighteenth century. Literary writers of this era mostly concerned about the social issues which rise as the impact of industrialization and urbanization. The working class people lived in a poor condition of slum which scattered everywhere in the cities. To respond to this condition, William Blake wrote a poem entitled The Chimney Sweepers which portrays the misery of a child labor. The growing cities, the enhancement of technology, and the effects of the industrialization changed the direction of the literary work. In the industrial revolution, writers used literature as a mean of criticism. Thus, the themes were mainly about social issues, nature, and technology. Furthermore, as the works were written by common people, dedicated to common people, and about common people; the language used in the literary works is mostly vernacular language and do not put much emphasis on structure and musical devices.

A formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea. Wordsworth (Ode: Intimations of Immortality): A single, unified strain of exalted lyrical verse, directed to a single purpose, and dealing with one theme. ... The ode is elaborate, dignified, and imaginative. ... The irregular ode [includes] [f]reedom within the strophe ... but the strophes are rules unto themselves, and all claims to a stanza pattern may be discarded. *Wordsworth's belief that life on earth is a dim shadow of an earlier, purer existence, dimly recalled in childhood and then forgotten in the process of growing up.* Shelley (Ode to the West Wind): sonnet 1: wind and leaves, sonnet 2: wind and clouds, sonnet 3: wind, current/waves, sonnet 4: wind does not equal poet, sonnet 5: wind equals poet. Sonnet 1: You have to bury seeds before they are able to grow again. Sonnet 2: You need clouds to bring water but storms can also cause death and destruction. Sonnet 3: Currents break things down under the sea but waves can also be good. Sonnet 4: The other things get warped back into the cycle but he gets stuck on the thorns of life. Sonnet 5: Shelley wants the wind of the world to blow through him and blow his seeds throughout the universe so they can later grow again. Keats (Ode on A Grecian Urn): negative capability, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. An Ode is a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter. Stanza 1: It holds a legend, a correlation to make, he sees the limits of poetry. Stanza 2: The man and the woman are in a constant state of anticipation, they are stuck in a perfect moment cause nothing can go wrong, He is setting up tensions that he is not resolving. Stanza 3: Keats is stuck in time but that means nothing ever changes/ everything stays good. Stanza 4: He introduces death and the anticipation of it. The town has been emptied of people, they are never coming back on the urn at least. Stanza 5: People are going to come and go and they bring there own opinion. He characterizes the movement around it as woe. However, the Urn is still and doesn't change but changes in the minds of those who see it. Koans are empty of any moving, there is no way to reason out a moral. This poem combines tension of movement with words, Keats moves around the urn but the urn stays still.

Blake believed that his poetry could be read and understood by common people, but he was determined not to sacrifice his vision in order to become popular. William Wordsworth, poetry is "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility." From reason and imagination, man may recognize beauty, and it is through beauty that civilization comes. Language, Shelley contends, shows humanity's impulse toward order and harmony, which leads to an appreciation of unity and beauty. Those in "excess" of language are the poets, whose task it is to impart the pleasures of their experience and observations into poems. Shelley argues, that civilization advances and thrives with the help of poetry. Keats: Poetry is an attempt to read the beautiful or subline without the gurdon of imagining the logical or narrative thought process. He does not imply that poetry is illogical or lacks narration.

Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Shelley believes that the poetic experience is one that comes to a man from the gods and tears the veils from ordinary nature so that the poet can see the hidden truths of the universe. Since such vision is denied to the average man, the poet also is the true seer and legislator of the world to whom all men must look if they seek truth or order. Shelley claims that poetry is divine in origin and comes only through the gift of inspiration; he also adds that, since the poet is the instrument of the divine, the most moral and best men alone have been raised to the role of poet, as the result of divine grace. Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds. . . . It is, as it were, the interpenetration of a diviner nature through our own

His father was James Mill, who studied with and helped popularize the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, the "Father of Utilitarianism."A moral and ethic founded on the idea that an action is right that produces the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. "Good" here usually means "happiness." Although John S. Mill early in life was a great proponent of Utilitarianism (and he retained some of its basic tenets in life) he did experience a "conversion" of sorts early in his life that moved him away from his father's philosophy and into his own more Libertarian philosophy.

Legal subordination- Legal means laws which are usually based on cultural and social ideas, "regulates existing social relations between the two sexes". There is a problem with one sex ruling over 100% of the population. Legal=Custom. "It may not be my best side, but it is what my father or husband likes so that is the part I show." And it may be confidently said that thorough knowledge of one another hardly ever exists, but between persons who, besides being intimates, are equals. The naturalness of the dominance of men- reference to slavery as the same thing as the subjection of women. Mill is a radical. He wants to prove that customs can change and things that are unnatural aren't necessarily wrong. Women "voluntarily" subject to men: some people in his time think women accept living under the existing laws of subordination but Mills corrects them to say that many women are not okay with it. In his time Mill says that women are taught to fit a mold of beauty to get a man. Mill says that people are no longer born into their place, they are free to become whatever they want to be. Mill compares the education of women to that of growing a plant in a greenhouse, you can mold it and exaggerate the preferable characteristics to men. The men are the greenhouse and the women are the plants, however the greenhouse is not natural, and it is artificial. However, some forget this is what has been done to them and what they see in women is usually false cause their naturalness has probably never been set free. Also, men would base their knowledge of women on what they learn from their wife. However, it isn't right to make conclusions about women based on the one women you know. Those who attempt to force women into marriage are bound not to have a good marriage. If women liked to be married then they would volunteer, you shouldn't have to force women into marriage and make it into a lesser of two evils question rather than what makes them happy.

It was made up of a group of authors who wrote and published between about 1820 and 1860, when the U.S. was still finding its feet as a new nation. The American Romantics were preoccupied with questions of democracy and freedom. the U.S.'s natural landscape also influenced the writers of this movement in special ways. Individualism and Democracy. 1. the Novel 2. Formal Experimentation 3. Symbolism 4. Nature 5. Individualism 6. Emotion 7. imagination 8. the American Revolution 9. Democracy and Freedom 10. The Frontier

a poem that does not rhyme or have a regular meter. "...rather than forming sentences broken up in accordance with conventions of rhyme or meter, each line is a statement complete in itself"

is the repetition of words at the beginning of lines.

The long line--sometimes associated with a unit of breath or speech; promotes inclusiveness. Rather than forming sentences broken up in accordance with conventions of rhyme or meter, each line is a statement complete in itself. "Take a deep breath, then as you exhale, make up your line. When you take a new breathe, start a new line."

The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth, have probably the fullest poetical nature. The U.S. themselves are essentially the greatest poem. The poet alone as capable of healing and uniting the nation. That system STILL has its problems, but all other systems (including our Federal one) have worse problems. Westerners think they own a universal democratic model. However, their confidence vanishes whenever they try to export it. Worse, this claim hampers their examination of both their own eventful history and the questions raised by non-Western democratic experiences.

Decadence belittles nature in the name of man-made artistry and artifice. Decadence scorns the idea of ideals. Greater purpose is not found in Decadent writings. The protagonists of Decadent novels are focused on the accumulation of exotic luxuries and pleasure. This idea of never having enough applies to material excess and indulgent behavior in Decadent literature. Decadence's main focus is the description. Decadents emerged out of the Symbolists because of the lifestyle they lived. He defined this group as those who had been influenced heavily by Baudelaire, though they were also influenced by Gothic novels and the poetry and fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.

Symbolism views nature as a means of elevation from the banal realities of life. Symbolists use natural imagery to describe transcendent ideas. the focus is dreams and ideals. The word dreaming is repeated in Mallarme's "Apparition" multiple times. In "The Windows," Mallarme talks about this disgust of contentment with comfort and this unquenchable desire for transcendence. Symbolism is more concerned with the emotions evoked from the work than the actual content of what it describes. The words are just "symbols" for greater ideas that use words as a vehicle for communication. Symbolists believed that art should represent absolute truths that could only be described indirectly. Thus, they wrote in a very metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. *The Symbolists started in France and ended in "fin de siècle" (the end of the century). They wanted to use words and poetry to feel images and feelings. There is not a one to one correlation between a word and what they mean. Words are whatever humans say they mean. The word cat means something different in other languages. Words are used for pointing to something beyond them. Suggestions rather than concrete descriptions. They were like the Romantics, but the Symbolists weren't so sure about the pure and that corrupt things were just a part of our society and we have to accept that. You must disorder your senses to arrive at the unknown. Decadents emerged out of the Symbolists because of the lifestyle they lived. *

the mixing up of the senses, the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body. (Keats)

Tragedy is a type of drama that presents a serious subject matter about human suffering and corresponding terrible events in a dignified manner. Characteristics: a heartbreaking ending, Catharsis- Purging of pity and fear, Hubris- overweening/blinding pride, Hamartia- tragic flaw, Sympathetic character- we don't have to like or agree with them but it requires us to understand why he or she made the choices he or she made.

Domestic Tragedy- death at the end of the play, we should say poor Hedda at the end of the play but Ibsen makes it difficult. Auntie Juju (Julia/Miss Tesman)- raised George, babys him, and is overly proud of his accomplishments. She is superficial. She thinks very highly of Hedda but she changes herself to please Hedda. Seems like her life is dependent on helping others. She expects George to have a baby. She is willing to give up her own house so that Hedda can have a house that suits her. She buys Hedda a really expensive house. Hedda Gabler (Tesman)- kid of general Gabler. Married to George Tesman. Sometimes uses her dad as a step up. She is constantly being complimented by the people around her. She has lived in a world of privilege all her life. Hedda doesn't sometimes want all the praise. She entertains the creepiness of Judge Brack. Doesn't like being pregnant with Georges chid. There is a disgust over the talk of children with George and Hedda. (very lengthy stage directions). The play is set in the fall which has the feeling of "things are coming to there natural end". Hedda Gabler is the title character of the play which means she is the tragic focus of the play. She is the sympathetic character in this play. She does some really crappy things to people but we have to figure out why she does what she does. The comment/insult she made about about Aunt Julies hat was purposeful rather than an accident as we thought before. Ibsen shows us that she lacks freedom throughout the entire play. She acts out over the fact that she wants control over something even if its just an insult. Judge Brack in a way has financial control over George and Hedda because he negotiated the deal on their house. Hedda married George cause she was tired of dating and George was there and he was going to get a place at a university. Lovborg coming back on seen is causing a problem with Georges job prospect. He is making it a competition and George doesn't like it. Mrs. Elvsted is the mistress of her own house. She is the muse of Lovborg. Hedda at one time made Lovborg an alcoholic. Thea has the opposite affect on him. Thea has control over things unlike Hedda. Hedda has even lost the control she had on Lovborg. It seems though that he doesn't like being good and liking talking about the bad things with Lovborg. She can't be good so she lives through others and that's what gets her through. Hedda is a mess and wrecks every life she comes into contact with. Even though George is Heddas husband he really has the least connection and has the most subdued reaction to her death. Hedda gave Eilert the pistol that he kills himself with. He thinks he has lost his book and he is so upset, Hedda actually burned it. Hedda doesn't want to say the pistol is stolen because she would have to admit that Eilert was in the house alone with her which is socially unacceptable. The reactions to her death make it seem like no one actually cared about Hedda Gabler. They never knew about Hedda as a person but as an object. She is in Judge Brack's power because he knows that Hedda gave Eilert the pistol. When she plays the music it is her last chance to work out. They act like Heddas death is nothing and it is socially not okay. She used the expression "people just don't do that" when she was talking about Aunt Julies hat. Ibsen compares Heddas death to that of leaving a hat out. Thea and George want to put Elierts book back together and Hedda is not involved. Hedda wanted to be a vehicle for someone to do something beautiful with in life. She thinks she has brought something good out in Eilert and made him kill himself, but then she finds out that his death was "ugly". Hedda was pregnant, was this world really one for bringing a child into.

The term modernism refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-World War One period. The ordered, stable and inherently meaningful world view of the nineteenth century could not, wrote T.S. Eliot, accord with "the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history." Modernism thus marks a distinctive break with Victorian bourgeois morality; rejecting nineteenth-century optimism, they presented a profoundly pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray. This despair often results in an apparent apathy and moral relativism. Modernism is often derided for abandoning the social world in favour of its narcissistic interest in language and its processes. Recognizing the failure of language to ever fully communicate meaning ("That's not it at all, that's not what I meant at all" laments Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock), the modernists generally downplayed content in favour of an investigation of form. It is impossible for them to say what they want to say.

Going inside the mind of characters, revealing innermost thoughts, feelings and sensations. the author lays out for the reader the unbroken flow of a character's mind. As a technique it can involve little proper grammar, unusual punctuation, abrupt changes of theme, and random sentence structure. Stream of consciousness, memories popping up.

You give your life reason however you are responsible for all of your choices. In the story nature isn't giving them a reason to live, they are giving it to themselves. A philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.

the human condition stripped of all externally imposed value systems. The anxiety we feel is because we make the choices based on a value system that was imposed on us. What happens when we take away all the stuff on the outside, who are we really. A philosophical concept that refers to man's attempt to find reason in his life, which is thwarted by his humanely limited constraints.

Bearing witness, look at the landscape. Moral values disappear, no heroes in the traditional sense in this story (people attempt to make grand gestures but fail), nobody escapes dehumanization, no morality but there are ethics (situational ethics). The first person narrator implies we are supposed to bond with the narrator but doing all the things he hates others doing we are put in that awkward situation and we are supposed to be the others as disgusting but we are doing the same things. The people of Canada are trying to follow a code of ethics (regulatory enforcement), not morals (doing good no matter what). One can be moral but not be ethical and vise versa. The normal things seem so bad in this situation.