History of English Literature

History of English LiteratureI. Anglo-Saxon Period

(449---1066)

II. Medieval Period

(1066---1485)III. English Renaissance

(1485---1625)

Elizabethan Age (1558---1602)IV. 17th Century (Period of English Bourgeois Revolution; Puritan Age) (1625---1660)

V. Neoclassical Period (Restoration and 18th century) (1660---1798)

VI. Romantic Period (1798---1832)

VII. Victorian Age (1833---1901)

VIII. 20th century What and How to Learn in This Course? 1. Historical background and literary trends in every period

2. Representative writers and their important works in each literary trend

3. How to appreciate and analyze literary works

4. Necessary literary terms

5. Extensive reading outside class

Part I. Anglo-Saxon Period (449---1066)

Historical Background:

Making of England

2. Old English literature: Beowulf

Making of EnglandThe Britons: the early inhabitants

The Roman Conquest

(55 B.C.- 410 A. D.) The English Conquest

2. Beowulf , National Epic of EnglandProtagonist

Subject matter (main incidents)

Theme

Poetic FormAlliteration()

Repetition of consonants, esp. at the beginning of words or stressed syllables. Like any other forms of repetition, alliteration serves 2 purposes: (1), it is pleasing to the ear and can produce a distinct musical quality; (2), it can emphasize the words in which it occurs. It is a great help to memory. Alliteration is an important poetic device in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

For example:

sweet smell of success;

poor but proud;

green as grass;

Money makes the mare go;

And sings a solitary song /That whistles in the wind(Wordsworth);

And heathens only hope, hell(BeowulfEpicA long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. It has historical root. Meanwhile, it incorporates myth, legend and folk tale.Many epics were transmitted orally by song and recitation before they were written down. Among the great epics of the world may be mentioned Homers Iliad and Odyssey, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and John Miltons Paradise Lost.

Part II. The Anglo-Norman Period (1066---1485)Historical Background

Literary Types 1.Medieval Romance

2. Popular BalladsRepresentative Poet: Geoffrey Chaucer

Norman Conquest and its Influence On English Language

2. On English Society

Literary Type 1: Romance

Social Background

Content of RomanceRomance CyclesSocial Background:

Feudal England

Middle Ages was a period of great warfare. Lack of strong government divided the people into feudal states. Because of the constant warfare between these states, the concept of the knight came into being. A knight is simply a mounted warrior. Young men were taught to wear heavy armor, ride a war-horse, and fight with sword and lance . With the rise of the knight came the rise of chivalry, the knightly code of behavior. The chivalrous knight was supposed to be loyal to his

feudal state and God, virtuous, brave,selfless, and protector of the weak.

Literary Type 2:Popular balladBallad in literature: short, narrative poem usually relating a single, dramatic event. Two forms of the ballad are often distinguishedthe folk ballad, dating from about the 12th cent., and the literary ballad, dating from the late 18th cent.

The Folk Ballad

Primarily based on an older legend or romance, this type of ballad is usually a short, simple song that tells a dramatic story through dialogue and action, briefly alluding to what has gone before and devoting little attention to depth of character, setting, or moral commentary. It uses simple language, an economy of words, dramatic contrasts, epithets, set phrases, and frequently a stock refrain. The familiar stanza form is four lines, with four or three stresses alternating and with the second and fourth lines rhyming.

The Literary Ballad

The literary ballad is a narrative poem created by a poet in imitation of the old anonymous folk ballad. Usually the literary ballad is more elaborate and complex; the poet may retain only some of the devices and conventions of the older verse narrative. Literary ballads were quite popular in England during the 19th cent.

Ballad Stanza: A ballad stanza has 4 lines: the 1st and 3rd lines have 4 stressed words or syllables; the 2nd and 4th lines have 3 stresses and rhyme.

RefrainA repeated line, phrase or group of lines, which recurs at regular intervals through a poem or song, usually at the end of a stanza. The less technical term is 'chorus'.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 -1400)Life

Major Works

The Canterbury TalesChaucers Contribution to English LiteratureThe Canterbury TalesOutline of the Story

The General Prologue

Social Significance of the Work

Language and Form

ImageWords or phrases or any expressions that create pictures in the readers mind are images. Images can appeal to senses: seeing, hearing, touch, taste, smell and movement.

Spring---Thomas Nashe

Spring, the sweet spring, is the years pleasant king,

Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring.

Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and May make country houses gay,

Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,

And we hear ay birds tune this merry lay:

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and May make country houses gay,

Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,

And we hear ay birds tune this merry lay:

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!The non-literal uses of language such as similes, metaphors, personifications, apostrophe, allusion and other figures of speech are also images.

Fog---Carl Sandburg

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits lookingover harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Images can create atmosphere/mood and convey theme through verbal pictures.

Image is the soul of the significance of a poem.

These are the opening lines with which the narrator begins the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales. The imagery in this opening passage is of springs renewal and rebirth. Aprils sweet showers have penetrated the dry earth of March, hydrating the roots, which in turn coax flowers out of the ground; Zephyrs, the warm, gentle west wind, have breathed life into fields and wood; The sun is shining brightly and genially; and the birds chirp merrily. These fresh and vigorous images combine to provide readers with a picture of the return of spring.

The Knight:

I am of the highest social standing of the pilgrims. I am the epitome of chivalry. Chaucer idealizes me. I am always modest and never boorish. I am going to Canterbury to give thanks to God for keeping me safe during all my exploits.

The Squire:

I am the son of the Knight and am quite a ladys man. I am twenty years old and very proud of my appearance. (Some call me a dandy.) I will be a candidate for knighthood. I sing lusty songs, compose melodies, and ride a horse well.

The Yeoman:

I am the attendant to the Knight and the Squire. I look like Robin Hood. I am also an expert woodsman and an excellent shot with a bow and arrow.

The Nun (Prioress):

I am the first Church figure and the first woman to be mentioned. My Christian name is Madame Eglante. I am a gentle lady well-educated and well-mannered. I try to imitate the ladies at Court. I am very tender hearted, especially toward animals. I have three hound dogs whom I treat very well. I try never to drop food on My clothes. You can tell from my description that I secretly long for a more worldly life.

The Wife of Bath:

Bath is an English resort city. I am somewhat deaf because my 5th husband hit me (14th c. wife abuse). I am an excellent seamstress and weaver. I have been on pilgrimages to Jerusalem,Rome, etc. I am gap-toothed which is a sign of luck. You decide if Im lucky Ive had 5 husbands! I enjoy a good joke. I give love advice. Im always first at the alter to give my offerings. I love to wear bright crimson stockings and wrap heavy sashes about my body. I told the story that had the

moral that husbands should obey their wives..

Major Elements for Analyzing Poetry

GenreStructure

Image

Tone

Musical Characteristics

1) Rhythm

2) Rhyme

3) Other Sound Effects

language

Theme

Musical Characteristics-Metrical Rhythm

Rhythm refers to the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables. In poetry, the rhythm of Lines is described through two terms: meter and foot. MeterThe regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Usually a stressed syllable is marked with , and an unstressed syllable is marked with . Names for some common Meters:

Iamb(iambic): She walks| in beau|ty, like |the night

Of cloud|less climes |and star|ry skies;

---Byron

Shall I |compare |thee to |a sum|mers day? Thou art |more love|ly and |more tem|perate:

---Shakespeare

trochee(trochaic): Tell me |not in |mournful |numbers,

Life is |but an |empty |dream!

For the |soul is |dead that |slumbers,

And things |are not |what they |seem.

---Longfellow

anapest(anapestic): As I came| to the edge |of the woods.

The Assy|rian came down |like a wolf |on the fold, And his co|horts were gleam|ing in pur|ple and gold.

dactyl(dactylic): Just for a |handful of |silver he |left us,

Just for a |riband to |stick in his |coat.

FootA unit of poetic meter of stressed and unstressed syllables is called a foot.

Names for some feet:

trimeter: 3 feet tetrameter: 4 feet

pentameter: 5 feet hexameter: 6 feet

heptameter: 7 feet octameter: 8 feet

The number of feet in a line, coupled with the name of the foot, describes the metrical qualities of that line.

RhymeThe repetition of the same vowel sound in words, including the last stressed vowel and all the speech sounds following that vowel: gay, day, play; wall, fall; bowed, proud; season, treason. It includes end rhyme and internal rhyme.

End RhymeIf the rhyme occurs at the ends of lines, it is called end rhyme.

Example 1:

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

---William Blake

Example 2:

With rue my heart is laden

For golden friends I had,

For many a rose-lipt maiden

And many a lightfoot lad.

---Housman

Rhyme SchemeThe pattern of rhymes in a poem is called rhyme scheme, indicated by small letters such as abcb or aabb or abab or abba.

Internal RhymeInternal rhyme occurs within the verse-line.

Spring, the sweet spring, is the years pleasant king,Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,

Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing.

---T. Nashe

StructureNo. of LinesWhat Its CalledWhat It Is

2Rhymed couplet2 lines with identical rhymes

2Heroic couplet2 iambic pentameter lines with identical rhymes

3Triplet or tercet3 linesany rhyme scheme or meter

3Terza rimaRhyme schemeaba bcb cdc ded

4quatrain4 lines-any rhyme scheme, any length and meter

4Ballad stanzaRhyme scheme---abcb

6sestet6 lines

8octave8 line stanza

8Ottava rima8 linesiambic pentameter; rhyme schemeabab abcc

9Spenserian stanza

14sonnet

Tone: It is the mood and attitude of the poet or speaker towards his subject. Tone is decided by overall analysis of all the elements involved in the poem(diction, sentence patterns, images, and so on). It is described in ordinary language, such as cold, melancholy, cynical, calm, confident, angry, serious, ironic , solemn , objective , humorous , boastful, etc.

Chaucers ContributionHistorical BackgroundRenaissance and Humanism

Summary of Literary Creations

1) Thomas More

2) The Flowering of English Literature

Poetry

Prose

Poetical Drama

Old England in Transition: Political, Religious, Economic, Commercial

Thomas More(1478-1535)The Flowering of English Literature

Poetic Genre

Poems, according to their forms and contents, can be divided into several categories. Obviously, these categories are not absolutely clean-cut ones, each sharing some elements with others. Conventionally, poetry is classified into three major domains: Lyrical, Narrative and Dramatic. But there are poems which belong to none of the domains.Any poem is in a sense lyrical. In Greek a lyric is a song to be accompanied with a lyre. Usually, a lyric is short, within 50 or 60 lines. Lyrics treat the thoughts and feelings, usually powerful emotions of the poet or some invented speaker. They include sonnet, elegy, ode, pastoral and many others.SonnetA sonnet is a lyric of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme.

Narrative PoemIf a poem mainly tells a relatively complete story, it is called a narrative poem. There are three major subclasses of narratives: Epic, Metrical Romance, and Ballad.Dramatic Poetry

Poetic utterance in drama written in verse. Poets: Philip SidneyEdmund Spenser

William Shakespeare

Poets Poet :Edmund SpenserAMORETTI, SONNET #75By Edmund Spenser

One day | I wrote | her name | upon | the strand,

But came | the waves | and wash | ed it | away:

Agayne | I wrote | it with | a sec | ond hand,

But came | the tyde, | and made | my paynes | his pray.

Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalize,

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eek my name be wiped out likewise.

Not so, (quod I) let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse, your virtues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name.

Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew.

1594

The Shepherds CalendarPastoral: It deals with the simple and unspoiled life of the shepherds or countryside.The Faire Queene

Allegory: A tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning, and a symbolic meaning. Spenserian StanzaEach stanza has 9 lines. Each of the first 8 lines is in iambic pentameter form and the ninth line is in iambic hexameter (alexandrine). The rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc.

Prose

Francis Bacon() John Lyly()

Bacons Of Studies: A Brief Summary

The text focuses on one controlling idea---studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. And closely around the focus are five major issues:(1) the proper or improper ways of studies;(2) different men have different ideas about studies;(3) ways of reading;(4) different characters coined by studying various subjects;(5) the conquest of human defect through effective studies. Forceful & persuasive compact & precise Of Studies reveals to us Bacons mature attitude towards learning. Bacons language is neat precise & weighty. It is wellarranged & enriched by (Biblical) allusionsmetaphors &cadence.

Drama

The highest glory of the English Renaissance

Christopher Marlowe

William Shakespeare

Ben Johnson

Christopher Marlowe

the first great English Dramatist

famous tragedies: Doctor Faustus

The Jew of Malta

Tamburlaine

He perfected the blank verse & made it the principal medium of English drama

Marlowe's Doctor Faustus about 1589 generally considered his best play was based on a medieval legend of a man selling his soul to the devil. The play's dominant moral is human rather than religious. It celebrates the human passion for knowledge power & happiness it also reveals man's frustration in realizing the high aspirations in a hostile moral order. Tamburlaine is a play about an ambitious & pitiless Tartar conqueror in the fourteenth century who rose from a shepherd to an overpowering King. By depicting a great hero with high ambition & sheer brutal force in conquering one enemy after another Marlowe voiced the supreme desire of the man of the Renaissance for infinite power & authority.AchievementsMarlowe's greatest achievement lies in that he perfected the blank verse & made it the principal medium of English drama. His second achievement is his creation of the Renaissance hero for English drama. The theme of his works is the praise of the Renaissance spirit.

His influence A man of wide learning Marlowe was one of the extra ordinary poets & playwrights of his time. "Marlowe's mighty line" as Ben Jonson called his blank verse was one of the most important contributions to the art of English literature.

1564--1616Brief IntroductionLife

Works

Periods of Dramatic Composition

Great Comedies

Great Tragedies

Histories

Sonnets

Brief Introduction

The greatest writer of plays who ever lived.

His friend & fellow playwright Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare was "not of an age but for all time."

The 18th-century English essayist Samuel Johnson described his work as "the mirror of life."

The 19th-century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoke of "myriad-minded Shakespeare."

The 20th-century English dramatist George Bernard Shaw stressed his "enormous power over language."

4 Periods of Shakespeares Dramatic Composition (textbook)Great Comedies

Great Tragedies

Summary of HamletAct I: The Ghost Sets Events in Motion King is dead

Claudius marries Gertrude

Kings ghost appears

Hamlet must avenge his fathers murder

Act II: Plots Within Plots and A Play Within a Play

Hamlet acts strangely

Hamlet plans to trap ClaudiusAct III:Evidence, Hesitation and A First Death Hamlet rejects Ophelia

Actors perform the play within a play

Claudius is guilty

Hamlet doesnt kill Claudius

Hamlet kills Polonius

Act IV: Ophelia Goes Mad and Everything Falls apart Queen thinks Hamlet is Crazy

Ophelia dies

Claudius and Laerties plot against Hamlet

Act V: A Pile of Corpses Hamlet and Horatio discuss death

Laertes and Hamlet duel

Both are poisoned

Queen is poisoned

Hamlet kills Claudius

Only Horatio lives to tell the storyHamletGenerally regarded as Shakespeares most popular play on the stage for it has the qualities of a "blood-and-thunder" thriller & a philosophical exploration of life & death. And the timeless appeal of this mighty drama lies in its combination of intrigue emotional conflict & searching philosophic melancholy.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Background of the Soliloquy

His father, the King, has died.

His mother, the Queen, has remarried within two months of the King's passing, an act which has disturbed young Hamlet.

To make it worse, she has married the King's brother, Hamlet's uncle, who is now the King of Denmark.

As Hamlet's despair deepens, he learns (through the appearance of his dead fathers ghost) that the old King was murdered by the new King.

Hamlet's growing awareness of the betrayal of his mother and evil of Claudius leads to a deepening depression and madness.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortuneOr to take armsagainst a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? To dieto sleepNo more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heartache, andthe thousand natural shocks

Summary

This speech connects many of the plays main themes, including the idea of life and death, the difficulty of knowing the truth in a spiritually ambiguous universe, and the connection between thought and action. In addition to its crucial thematic content, this speech is important for what it reveals about the quality of Hamlets mind. His deeply passionate nature is complemented by a relentlessly logical intellect, which works furiously to find a solution to his misery. Here, he turns to a logical philosophical inquiry and finds it equally frustrating.

Six Aspects of Hamlet's character (also see the textbook)

His Introspection His "Madness"

His Puns and Paradoxes

His Thoughts of Death

His Delay

His Thoughts about Women

Goethe

Hamlet represents the type of man whose active energy is paralysed by excessive intellectual activity: Sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought.

Freud And Oedipus Complex

Legend of Oedipus

Oedipus, the son of king of Thebes, is exposed as a suckling, because an oracle had informed the father that his son, who was still unborn, would be his murderer. He is rescued, and grows up as a kings son at a foreign court, until, being uncertain of his origin, he, too, consults the oracle, and is warned to avoid his native place, for he is Destined to become the murderer of his father and the husband of his mother. On the road leading away from his supposed home he meets King of Thebes, and in a sudden quarrel strikes him dead. He comes to Thebes, where he solves the riddle of the Sphinx,who is barring the the way to the city, whereupon he is elected king by the grateful Thebans, and is rewarded with the hand of queen. He reigns for many years in peace and honour, and begets two sons and Two daughters upon his unknown mother, until at last a plague breaks out which causes the Thebans to consult the oracle anew. The messengers bring the reply that the plague will stop as soon as the murderer of the king Is driven from the country. It is Gradually displayed that Oedipus himself is the murderer and he is the son of the Murdered king and the queen. Shocked by the abominable crime which he has unwittingly committed, Oedipus blinds himself, and departs from his native city.

Freuds Interpretation of Hamlet

What is it, then, that inhibits him in accomplishing the task which his fathers ghost has laid upon him? Here the explanation offers itself that it is the peculiar nature of this task. Hamlet is able to do anything but take vengeance upon the man who did away with his father and has taken his fathers place with his mother the man who shows him in realisation the repressed desires of his own childhood. The loathing which should have driven him to revenge is thus replaced by self-reproach, by conscientious scruples, which tell him that he himself is no better than the murderer whom he is required to punish. I have here translated into consciousness what had to remain unconscious in the mind of the hero;

Sonnet

Two Basic Sonnet PatternsEnglish (or Shakespearean)Italian (or Petrarchan)Structure

An Italian sonnet is composed of an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet.

A Shakespearean sonnet is composed of three four-line quatrains and a concluding two-line couplet.

The thought and feeling expressed in each sonnet form typically follow the divisions suggested by their structural patterns.

Thus an Italian sonnet may state a problem in the octave and present a solution in its sestet.

A Shakespearean sonnet will usually introduce a subject in the first quatrain, expand and develop it in the second and third quatrains, and conclude something about it in its final couplet.

Rhyme Scheme

A Shakespearean sonnet is rhymed ababcdcdefefgg.

An Italian sonnet is rhymed abbaabba in the octave, and the sestet has various rhyme patterns such as cdecde or cdcdcd.

Commentary on Sonnet 18The poet makes his beloved immortal by means of his poetry. This theme is a conventional one in Elizabethan sonnets. But Shakespeare and Spenser treat it in an original and individual manner. Spenser starts from a concrete situation and uses dialogue to make his point. Shakespeare writes a monologue in the form of an address. It contains a carefully reasoned argument which, as in many of Shakespeare's sonnets, moves in a series of steps. The first line, a question, proposes a comparison between Shakespeare's beloved and a summer season. Summer is chosen because it is lovely and pleasant. In the second line the comparison is restricted: in outward appearance and character the beloved person is more beautiful and less extreme than summer. The reasons for the restriction are given in the next four lines which describe the less pleasant aspects of summer. In the seventh and eighth lines Shakespeare complains that every beauty will become less one day. The ninth line takes up the comparison with summer again: summer has by now become the summer of life. The comparison turns into a contrast by referring back to the seventh. The poet's assurance becomes even firmer in lines eleven and twelve, which contain a promise that death will be conquered. 'Eternal lines' refers to lines of poetry but also suggest lines of shape. It points forward to the triumphant couplet which explains and summarizes the theme: poetry is immortal and makes beauty immortal. Because of the step by step arguments Shakespeare's conclusion makes the impression of great certainty. His method is more rational and logical than Spenser's. Spenser does not try to argue or prove his theme.

Shakespeares Literary Achievements1 Characterization His major characters are neither merely individual ones nor type ones they are individuals representing certain types. Each character has his or her own personalities meanwhile they may share features with others. The soliloquies in his plays fully reveal the inner conflict of his characters. Shakespeare also portrays his characters in pairs. Contrasts are frequently used to bring vividness to his characters.The women in the plays are vivid creations each differing from the others. Shakespeare was fond of portraying "mocking wenches" such as Kate of the Taming of the Shrew Rosaline of Loves Labors Lost & Beatrice of Much Ado About Nothing but he was equally adept at creating gentle & innocent women such as Ophelia in Hamlet Desdemona in Othello & Cordelia in King Lear. His female characters also include the treacherous Goneril & Regan the iron-willed Lady Macbeth the witty & resourceful Portia the tender & loyal Juliet & the alluring Cleopatra.

2 Plot ConstructionShakespeares plays are well known for their adroit plot construction. He seldom invents his own plots instead he borrows them from some old plays or storybooks or from ancient Greek & Roman sources. There are usually several threads running through the play thus providing the story with suspense & apprehension.3 LanguageIn Shakespeares time English grammar & spelling were not yet formalized so Shakespeare could freely intercharge the various parts of speech using nouns as adjectives or verbs adjectives as adverbs & pronouns as nouns. Such freedom gave his language an extraordinary flexibility which enabled him to express his thoughts as easily in poetry as in prose.Most of Shakespeares dramatic poetry is in blank verse. His blank verse is especially beautiful & mighty

He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary & idiom. His coinage of new words & distortion of the meaning of the old ones also create striking effects on the reader.

Quotations from Shakespeare

The memory be green. Hamlet, 1. 2 A little more than kin, and less than kind. Hamlet, 1. 2

Frailty, thy name is woman! Hamlet, 1. 2

I will speak daggers to her, but use none; (Act III. Scene II.)

O! speak to me no more;These words like daggers enter in mine ears;(Act III. Scene IV.)

The course of true love never did run smooth". ( A Midsummer Nights Dream. Act I, Scene I) What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet (Romeo and Juliet. Act II, Sc. II)

The Merchant of Venice Act IV. Scene I.Youll ask me, why I rather choose to haveA weight of carrion flesh than to receiveThree thousand ducats: Ill not answer that:But say it is my humour: is it answerd?

What if my house be troubled with a rat,And I be pleasd to give ten thousand ducatsTo have it band? What, are you answerd yet?

Some men there are love not a gaping pig;Some, that are mad if they behold a cat;And others, when the bagpipe sings i the nose,Cannot contain their urine: for affection,Mistress of passion, sways it to the moodOf what it likes, or loathes. Now, for your answer:I bear Antonio, that I follow thusA losing suit against him. Are you answerd?

Venus and Adonis

The Rape of Lucrece

Ben Johnson()

Part IV. 17th Century

Historical Background

Literary Characteristics 1) Puritan literature

2Metaphysical Poetry

3Cavalier Poets 4) Literature in Restoration period

Puritans

Puritans was the name given in the 16th century to the more extreme Protestants within the Church of England who thought the English Reformation had not gone far enough in reforming the doctrines and structure of the church; they wanted to purify their national church by eliminating every shred of Catholic influence. Eventually the Puritans went on to attempt purification of the self and society as well.

Puritanism (textbook)

Puritan Literature --- John Milton (1608-1674) ()

Life and Works

Masterpieces: Paradise Lost

Paradise Regained

Samson AgonistesHis Life and Works: 3 Stages1. Cambridge Days(Allegro & IL Penseroso) ; Private Study at Horton; Travel on the Continent.

2. Entry into Political Conflict (1639-1660); In 1652 he suffered great personal tragedy with the total loss of his eyesight & the death of his wife & infant son : Pamphlets, Prose Work(Areopagitica) and Sonnets (On His Blindness, On His Deceased Wife, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont).3. After the Restoration: 3 Masterpieces.Paradise Lost

1. Story

2. Image of Satan

3. Interpreting Themes

Satan, hero or devil?A Hero

What though the field be lost?All is not lost: the unconquerable will,And study of revenge, immortal hate,And courage never to submit or yield:

Blake claimed that Milton had unconsciously, but justly, sided with the Devil (representing rebellious energy) against Jehovah (representing oppressive limitation).

Lecturing in 1818 on the history of English poetry, Hazlitt named Satan as the most heroic subject that ever was chosen for a poem and implied that the rebel angels Heaven-defying resistance was the mirror image of Miltons own rebellion against political tyranny.

A year later, Percy Shelley maintained that Satan is the moral superior to Miltons tyrannical God, but he admitted that Satans greatness of character is flawed by vengefulness and pride.

A Devil

The progression, or, more precisely, regression, of Satans character from Book I through Book X gives a much different and much clearer picture of Miltons attitude toward Satan.

For Milton, Satan is the enemy who chooses to commit an act that goes against the basic laws of God.Satan commits this act not because of the tyranny of God but because he wants what he wants rather than what God wants. Satan is an egoist. His interests always turn on his personal desires. A true Promethean / Romantic hero has to rebel against an unjust tyranny in an attempt to right a wrong or help someone less fortunate. If Satan had been Prometheus, he would have stolen fire to warm himself, not to help Mankind. Similarly, Satans motives change as the story advances. At first, Satan wishes to continue the fight for freedom from God. Later glory and renown. Next, the temptation of Adam and Eve is simply a way to disrupt Gods plans. And, at the end, Satan seems to say that he has acted as he has to impress the other demons in Hell. This regression of motives shows quite a fall.

Satan also regresses or degenerates physically. Satan shifts shapes throughout the poem: cherub ravening cormorant in the tree of life (an animal but able to fly) lion and tiger (earth-bound beasts of prey, but magnificent) toad and snake (reptilian and disgusting)

These changes visually represent the degeneration of his character.Satanic Hero

In his depiction of Satan, Milton unintentionally created a heroic type (villain-hero), after which many later writers patterned their protagonists.

Characteristics 1. Majestic2. Noble/Dignified3. Energetic/Charismatic: persuasive and seductive4. Egotistical: self-glorification, pridehe is proud of his great abilities5. Defiant of Natural Order: over-reaches himself6. Fallen and Corrupted: delights in evil as a means of revenge and self-glorification7. An Outcast: pitiable, noble being who has fallen and is isolatedTheme?The Importance of Obedience to GodIn essence, Paradise Lost presents two moral paths that one can take after disobedience: the downward spiral of increasing sin and degradation, represented by Satan, and the road to redemption, represented by Adam and Eve.

Mans Fall as Fortunate Fallthen wilt thou not be loth

to leave this Paradise, but shalt possess

paradise within thee, happier far.

(Paradise Lost)

Good and evil1 we know in the field of this World grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is . . . involvd and interwoven with the knowledge of evill. . . . And perhaps this is that doom which Adam Fell into of knowing good and evill, that is to say of knowing good by evill. As therefore the state of man now is; The knowledge and survey of vice is in this

world . . . necessary to the constituting of human vertue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth.(Areopagitica )

John Miltons Sonnet-On His BlindnessEnjambmentA run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next. An enjambed line differs from an end-stopped line in which the grammatical and logical sense is completed within the line.

Summary of MiltonPuritan Literature --- John Bunyan()

Ch. 1 Christian flees from the City of Destruction

Ch. 2 Christian is pursued by Obstinate and Pliable

Ch. 3 Christian and Pliable converse along the way

Ch. 4 Christian and Pliable at the Slough of Despond

Ch. 5 Christian encounters Mr. Worldly-Wiseman

Ch. 6 Christian seeks after the Town of Morality

Ch. 7 Christian arrives at the Wicket-gate

Ch. 8 Christian is instructed at the House of Interpreter

Ch. 9 Christian arives at the Place of Deliverance

Ch. 10 Christian overtakes Simple, Sloth, and Presumption

Ch. 11 Christian converses with Formalist and Hypocrisy

Ch. 12 Christian ascends the Hill Difficulty

Ch. 13 Christian is approached by Timorous and Mistrust

Ch. 14 Christian meets lion-sized opposition

Ch. 15 Christian resides at the Palace Beautiful

Ch. 16 Christian enters into battle with Apollyon

Ch. 17 Christian confronts the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Ch. 18 Christian overtakes and converses with Faithful

Ch. 19Christian and Faithful converse with Talkative

Ch. 20Evangelist reappears to give timely warning

Ch. 21Christian and Faithful on trial at Vanity Fair

Ch. 22Christian and Hopeful converse with By-endsCh. 23The silver mine at the hill Lucre Ch. 24The monument to Lot's wife

Ch. 25Christian and Hopeful are captured by Giant Despair

Ch. 26Christian and Hopeful at the Delectable Mountains

Ch. 27Christian and Hopeful first encounter Ignorance

Ch. 28The terrifying end of Turn-away

Ch. 29The colorless testimony of Little-faith

Ch. 30Christian and Hopeful are snared by the Flatterer

Ch. 31Christian and Hopeful meet returning Atheist

Ch. 32Christian and Hopeful cross the Enchanted Ground

Ch. 33The comforting delights of Beulah Land

Ch. 34Christian and Hopeful encounter the River of Death

Ch. 35Christian and Hopeful are welcomed into Heaven

Ch. 36The fearful end of Ignorance

Ch. 37Conclusion

Allegory

A tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities.Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning, and a symbolic meaning. Some other elaborate and successful specimens of allegory are:Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene; Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub; Aesop 's Fables.

Theme The Pilgrims Progress is the most successful religious allegory in the English language. Its purpose is to urge people to comply with Christian doctrines & seek salvation through constant struggles with their own weakness & all kinds of social evils. It is not only about something spiritual but also beats much relevance to the time. Its predominant metaphor-life as a journey-is simple & familiar.

"Vanity Fair" is the most famous part of The Pilgrims Progress. It tells how Christian & his friend Faithful come to Vanity Fair on their way to heaven" a fair where in should be sold all sorts of vanity & that it should last all the year long therefore at this fair all such merchandise sold as houses lands trades places honors preferments titles countries kingdoms lusts pleasures & delights of all sorts as harlots wives husbands children masters servants lives blood bodies souls silver gold pearls precious stones & what not." As they refuse to buy anything but truth they are beaten & put in a cage & then taken out & led in chains up & down the fair. They are sentenced to death-to be put to the most cruel death that can be invented." Vanity Fair" is a satirical picture of English society law & religion in Bunyans day.

Metaphysical PoetsName given to a group of English lyric poets of the 17th cent. The term was first used by Samuel Johnson (1744). Metaphysical poetry typically employs unusual verse forms, elaborate and surprising metaphorical conceits, and learned themes discussed according to eccentric and unexpected chains of reasoning. The finest works of the metaphysical poets combine intellectual subtlety with great emotional power. Although the imagery of metaphysical poetry is frequently strained the language is often as natural & direct as ordinary speech. Their work has considerably influenced the poetry of the 20th cent.

ConceitA conceit is a metaphor or simile that is made elaborate (far-fetched), often extravagant. It also means any fanciful poetic image. A conceit may strike the reader as weird at first glance, but proves appropriate in the end.Samuel Johnson described their conceits as

a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.

the metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show learning was their whole endeavor.

Metaphysical PoetsJohn Donne

George Herbert

Henry Vaugham

Edward Herbert

Thomas Carew

Richard Crashaw

Andrew Marvell

Richard Lovelace

Sir John Suckling

Metaphysical Poetry---John Donne(,1572-1631)No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; ..any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.The Flea

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is ;It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.Thou know'st that this cannot be saidA sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;

This flea is you and I, and thisOur marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

In the same way that virtuous men die mildly and without complaint, he says, so they should leave without "tear-floods" and "sigh-tempests," for to publicly announce their feelings in such a way would profane their love.

The speaker says that when the earth moves, it brings "harms and fears," but when the spheres experience "trepidation," though the moving is greater, it is innocent.

The love of "dull sublunary lovers" cannot survive separation, for it removes that which constitutes the love itself; but the love he shares with his beloved is so refined and "Inter-assured of the mind" that they need not worry about missing "eyes, lips, and hands."

Though he must go, their souls are still one, and, therefore, they are not enduring a breach, they are experiencing an "expansion"; in the same way that gold can be stretched by beating it "to aery thinness," the soul they share will simply stretch to take in all the space between them.

If their souls are separate, he says, they are like the feet of a compass: His lover's soul is the fixed foot in the center, and his is the foot that moves around it. The firmness of the center foot makes the circle that the outer foot draws perfect: "Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end, where I begun."

Commentary

"A Valediction: forbidding Mourning" is one of Donne's most famous and simplest poems . Donne professed a devotion to a kind of spiritual love that transcended the merely physical. Here, anticipating a physical separation from his beloved, he invokes the nature of that spiritual love to ward off the "tear-floods" and "sigh-tempests" that might otherwise attend on their farewell. The poem is essentially a sequence of metaphors and comparisons, each describing a way of looking at their separation that will help them to avoid the mourning forbidden by the poem's title. First, the speaker says that their farewell should be as mild as the uncomplaining deaths of virtuous men, for to weep would be "profanation of our joys." Next, the speaker compares harmful "Moving of th' earth" with innocent "trepidation of the spheres," equating the first with "dull sublunary lovers' love" and the second with their love, "Inter-assured of the mind." Like the rumbling earth, the dull sublunary (sublunary meaning literally beneath the moon and also subject to the moon) lovers are all physical, unable to experience separation with losing the sensation that comprises and sustains their love. But the spiritual lovers "Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss," because, like the trepidation (vibration) of the spheres (the concentric globes that surrounded the earth in ancient astronomy), their love is not wholly physical. Also, like the trepidation of the spheres, their movement will not have the harmful consequences of an earthquake. The speaker then declares that, since the lovers' two souls are one, his departure will simply expand the area of their unified soul, rather than cause a rift between them. If, however, their souls are "two" instead of "one", they are as the feet of a drafter's compass, connected, with the center foot fixing the orbit of the outer foot and helping it to describe a perfect circle. The compass (the instrument used for drawing circles) is one of Donne's most famous metaphors, and it is the perfect image to encapsulate the values of Donne's spiritual love, which is balanced, symmetrical, intellectual, serious, and beautiful in its polished simplicity. Like many of Donne's love poems (including "The Sun Rising" and "The Canonization"), "A Valediction: forbidding Mourning" creates a dichotomy between the common love of the everyday world and the uncommon love of the speaker. Here, the speaker claims that to tell "the laity," or the common people, of his love would be to profane its sacred nature, and he is clearly contemptuous of the dull sublunary love of other lovers. How does Donne distinguish between physical and spiritual love? Which does he prefer? (Think especially about "The Flea" and "A Valediction: forbidding Mourning.") "Physical love" is love that is primarily based upon the sensation or the presence of the beloved or that emphasizes sexuality; in "The Flea," Donne celebrates the physical side of love when he tries to convince his beloved to sleep with him. In the "Valediction," Donne describes a spiritual love, "Inter-assured of the mind," which does not miss "eyes, lips, and hands" because it is based on higher and more refined feelings than sensation. In the "Valediction," Donne is critical of "dull sublunary" physical love, which could not survive in the absence of the beloved, and expresses a profound preference for spiritual love, which is much rarer--it is not the love of the common men and women. But there are certainly erotic moments in Donne's writing (The graphically sexual "To His Mistress, on Going to Bed" comes to mind) when he would seem to prefer the erotic to the intellectual.

Literature in Restoration PeriodAge of Dryden John Dryden: a classicist

Part V. The 18th Century LiteratureSocial and Cultural Background

Achievements in Literature

1) Neo-Classicism:

Poetry, Essay,

Rise of realistic novel,

Drama 2) Sentimentalism

3) Gothic Novel 4) Pre-RomanticismPage 126

It may be defined as the displacement of hard labor by machine power in many of the processes of manufacture and mining. Vast economic and social changes were made by which a medieval agricultural society was transformed into a modern industrial society. It was to break up the harmony of the social order and to bring new classes into being. The population of the middle class greatly expanded.

18th Century Middle Class

With the development of capitalism, the social and moral values of the middle-class people became dominant in the society. They believed in self-restraint, self-reliance and hard work. For them the whole meaning of life was to work, to economize and to accumulate wealth.

EnlightenmentThe 18th-century England is known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France & swept through the whole Western Europe at the time. The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15th & 16th centuries. Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modem philosophical & artistic ideas. The enlighteners celebrated reason or rationality equality & science. They advocated universal education.

They believed that human beings were limited, dualistic, imperfect, and yet capable of rationality and perfection through education. Literature at the time, heavily didactic and moralizing, became a very popular means of public education. Famous among the great enlighteners in England were those great writers like Pope, Addison, SwiftJohnson.

Neo-Classicism

In the field of literature the Enlightenment Movement brought about a revival of interest in the old classical works. This tendency is known as neoclassicism. According to the neoclassicists all forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek & Roman writers Homer Virgil & so on& those of the contemporary French ones. They believed that the artistic ideals should be order logic restrained emotion & accuracy & that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity. This belief led them to seek proportion unity harmony & grace in literary expressions in an effort to delight instruct & correct human beings. Thus a polite urbane witty & intellectual art developed.

Characteristics of Neoclassical Literature (See page128)

PoetAlexander Pope (1688-1744)

one of the first to introduce rationalism to England

the greatest poet of his time

strongly advocated neoclassicism

Perfected heroic couplet

Good at satire and epigram

major works:

SatireSatire is a particular use of humor for overtly moral purposes. It seeks to use laughter to expose those moral excesses, those corrigible sorts of behaviors, which transgress what the writer sees as the limits of acceptable moral behavior. Satire became the fashion for all forms of writing in 18th century England. Pope and Swift are the two masters of satire. It answers well the purpose of the enlightenment in public education in moral, social and cultural life. It is also an effective weapon for arguments of all kinds and verbal attacks on enemies of both the partys and the personal. The best satires of the age are noted for all their wittiness of remark and adeptness of technique. Richard Steele

(1672-1729)

Joseph Addison

(1672-1719)

Rise of Realistic NovelRealistic Novel and its Social Background

Kinds of Novel in 18th Century

Representative Novelists

The Realistic Novel

The mid-century was predominated by a newly rising literary form the modern English novel which contrary to the traditional romance of aristocrats gives a realistic presentation of life of the common English people. This-the most significant phenomenon in the history of the development of English literature in the eighteenth century - is a natural product of the Industrial Revolution & a symbol of the growing importance & strength of the English middle class.

Realistic Novels

Pioneering efforts of British novel

John Bunyan: Pilgrim's Progress (a prose work, but in some ways it resembled the first form of British novel.)

Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe

Jonathan Swift: Gullivers Travel

Maturity of novel

Samuel Richardson: Pamela

Henry Fielding: Tom Jones

Defoe

Robinson CrusoeAn adventure story very much

in the spirit of the time.

Robinson Crusoe is here a real hero: a typical 18th century middle-class man.

He is the very prototype of the empire builder, the pioneer colonist. In describing Robinson Crusoes life on the island, Defoe glorifies human labour and the puritan fortitude.

Classification of Novels: Picaresque Novel

Picaresque novels originated in Spain where the novel about the rogue or picaro was a recognized

form. The characteristic of a picaresque novel are loosely linked episodes, intrigue, fights,amorous adventures. The driving force comes from a wild or a roguish rejection of the settled bourgeois life, a desire for the open road, with adventures in inn Bedrooms and meetings with questionable wanderers.

Jonathan Swift

generally considered the greatest prose satirist in English literature

Novel: Gullivers Travels

Pamphlet: A Modest Proposal

Art of Swifts Satire

Gullivers Travels A satire by Jonathan Swift. Lemuel Gulliver, an Englishman, travels to exotic lands, including Lilliput (where the people are six inches tall), Brobdingnag (where the people are seventy feet tall), the flying land of Laputa and the land of the Houyhnhnms (where horses are the intelligent beings, and humans, called Yahoos, are mute brutes of labor).

The Lilliputians symbolize humankinds wildly excessive pride in its own puny existence.

Some aspects of Brobdingnagians are disgusting, like their gigantic stench and the excrement left, but others are noble, like the queens goodwill toward Gulliver and the kings commonsense views of politics. The Brobdingnagians symbolize a dimension of human existence visible at close range, under close scrutiny.

The Laputans represent the folly of theoretical knowledge that has no relation to human life and no use in the actual world.

The Houyhnhnms represent an ideal of rational existence, a life governed by sense and moderation of which philosophers since Plato have long dreamed. Gullivers intense grief when he is forced to leave them suggests that they have made an impact on him greater than that of any other society he has visited.

As a whole the book is one of the most effective & devastating criticisms & satires of all aspects in the English & European life - socially politically religiously philosophically scientifically & morally. Its social significance is great & its exploration into human nature profound.

A Modest Proposal

An essay by Jonathan Swift, often called a masterpiece of irony. Swift emphasizes the terrible poverty of eighteenth-century Ireland by ironically proposing that Irish parents earn money by selling their children as food.

The phrase a modest proposal is often used ironically to introduce a major innovative suggestion.

Samuel Richardson

Pamela, Virtue Rewardeda new thing in several ways.Clarissa Classification of Novel: Psychological Novel

Novels that dwell on a complex psychological development and present much of the narration through the inner workings of the characters mind.

Classification of Novel: Epistolary NovelIt consists of the letters the characters write to each other.

Henry Fielding(1707-1754His major novels

The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams, comic epic in prose

The History of Jonathan Wild the Great, pointing out the Great Man is no greater than a great gangster.

His masterpiece on the subject of human nature

The History of Amelia, the story of the unfortunate life of an idealized woman.

Fieldings achievement in English novel (see textbook)Dramatist: Sheridan

The only important English dramatist of the 18th century

The Rivals and The School for Scandal, two comedies of manners, are regarded as important links between the masterpieces of Shakespeare and those of Bernard Shaw. Morality is his constant theme.

Samuel Johnson(1709-1784)Samuel Johnson commonly called Dr. Johnson was one of the greatest figures of 18th-century English literature. He was an energetic & versatile writer. He had a hand in all the different branches of literary activities. He was a poet dramatist prose romancer biographer essayist critic lexicographer & publicist.

Sentimentalism1. The nature of Sentimentalism (or see textbook)One of the important trends in the middle and later decades of the 18th century. It presented a new view which prized feeling over thinking, passion over reason, and personal instincts of "pity, tenderness, and benevolence" over social duties.

Literary work of the sentimentalism, marked by a sincere sympathy for the poverty-stricken,expropriated peasants, wrote the "simple annals of the poor.

Writers of sentimentalism justly criticized the cruelty of the capitalist relations and the gross social injustices brought about by the bourgeois revolutions.

But they attacked the progressive aspect of this great social change in order to eliminate it and sighed for the return of the patriarchal times which they idealized.

2. Social background of SentimentalismSharp social contradictions began to take shape and to threaten the short-lived social stability in the early decades of the 18th century. The continuous, large-scale enclosures of land resulted in rural bankruptcy.

The poverty and misery of the exploited and unemployed labouring masses in the cities increased.

The Enlightenment which believed in educating the people to be kind and righteous and upheld reason as the cure-all for all social wrongs and miseries declined.All this led to skepticism and disbelief in the myth about the bourgeois society as the best of all possible worlds.

Lack of a better or more sound substitute for reason as the instrument to reform the none-too-satisfactory or even highly unsatisfactory society, sentiment was indulged in at least as a sort of relief for the grieves and heart-aches felt toward the world's wrongs.

Hence sentimentalism in literature.

Literary Forms in SentimentalismProse Fiction: By Laurence Sterne Oliver Goldsmith

Poetry: By Thomas Gray

Oliver Goldsmith

Lawrence SterneA Sentimental Journey

Tristram Shandy()

Oliver Goldsmith(1730?-1774)Poem: The Deserted Village

Novel: The Vicar of Wakefield

Comedies: She Stoops to Conquer

Collection of Essays: The Citizen of the WorldElegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray

Major Elements for Analyzing Poetry

GenreStructure

Image

Tone

Musical Characteristics

1) Rhythm

2) Rhyme

3) Other Sound Effects

language

Theme

Genre: Elegy: Poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual. An elegy is a type of Lyric poem, usually formal in language and structure,and solemn or even melancholy in tone.

Commentary: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray ranks high among the most popular English poems in the 18th century.The whole poem is full of the gentle melancholy which marks all early romantic poetry. It contains altogether 32 quatrains of iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme of abab for each stanza.

In order to create the atmosphere of melancholy, Gray uses his own techniques: 1. In the first three stanzas, the poet with great art selects those natural phenomena which cast additional gloom upon the scene. He presents us a picture of twilight in a country churchyard: the lowing herd, the droning flight of the beetle, the drowsy tinklings from a distant fold, the moping owl in an ivy-mantled tower. All these natural objects, either directly or by contrast, reflect the mood of man---romantic melancholy. Here, nature is background for the display of emotion. 2. The poet also chooses some long vowels and diphthongs to create its own melancholic tone which permeates the whole elegy. These sounds make the poet meditate upon the lives of the common people who are buried there. 3. Furthermore, Thomas Gray uses end-stopped lines which sound firm and finished. The termination of the end-stopped lines beautifully enacts the completion of the things. This technique of writing here hints that the lives of the poor come to an end. In all, it is for the sake of the Sentimental mood.

Throughout the whole poem, the author shows his great sympathy for the poor, the lowly and the unrenowned in these graves, while he expressed his unmistakable censure upon the great, thepowerful and the wealthy who in their lifetime have contempt for the common people or brought havoc to the country. He stresses the fact that death is inevitable and that everyone is equal before death no matter who he is.

Language: The poem abounds in images & arouses sentiment in the bosom of every reader. Though the use of artificial poetic diction & distorted word order make understanding of the poem somewhat difficult the artistic polish---the sure control of language imagery rhythm & his subtle moderation of style & tone---gives the poem a unique charm of its own.

Gothic Novel? Pre-RomanticismPre-romanticism

Representatives: William Blake

Robert Burns

Preromanticism covers the years from approximately the middle of the eighteenth century to the early 1790s. In this period rigid notions about style and the absolute authority of religion and science began to yield to an emphasis on personal thoughts and feelings, often triggered by observation of nature. Before that people thought of themselves mainly according to their set roles in society rather than as individuals. Interest in the uniqueness of individuals also extended into respect for folk culture, and an area that gained great attention was the collection and preservation of folk songs. Robert Burns, for example, devoted much of his later life to transcribing and editing old Scottish airs. William BlakeAuguries of InnocenceTo see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

The complete 1794 collection was called Songs of Innocence and Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Broadly speaking the collections look at human nature and society in optimistic and pessimistic terms, respectively - and Blake thinks that you need both sides to see the whole truth. The Lambfrom Songs of Innocence Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice: Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made theeLittle Lamb I'll tell thee, Little Lamb I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child: I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee.

Psalm 23 (Psalm of David)The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. from The Old Testament

Tyger (see textbook)

Hints to understand this poem:

The capitalization of the second Tyger, the alliteration of the hard consonant sounds, indicate strength. burning bright," "burnt the fire of thine eyes," "twist the sinews of they heart," and "furnace was they brain," is figurative language, it is an intentially exaggerated image of the tyger creation.

The poem contains six stanzas, each containing two pairs of rhyming couplets (pair of successive lines or verse). This creates a sense of rhythm and continuity throughout the poem. From my point of view, I believe that William Blake writes this poem in this particular rhythm to mimic the motion of the tiger he is describing and to add a more dramatic effect.

hammering beat

In the final stanza, Blake repeats the original burning question, creating a more powerful awe by substituting the word dare for could:

The Chimney Sweeper From Songs of InnocenceWhen my mother died I was very young,And my father sold me while yet my tongueCould scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said,"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, - That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,And he opened the coffins and set them all free;Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,And got with our bags and our brushes to work.Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.Chimney Sweeper in Songs of Experience (Textbook)

Analysis of "The Chimney Sweeper"William Blake wrote "The Chimney Sweeper" of "Songs of Innocence" in 1789. In the next to last line of the first stanza, the cry "'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!" is the child's attempt at saying "Sweep! Sweep!," which was the chimney sweeper's street cry. This poem shows that the children have a very positive outlook on life. They make the best of their lives and do not fear death. This is quite the opposite in its companion poem in "Songs of Experience" which was written in 1794. In this poem, the child blames his parents for putting him in the position he was in. He is miserable in his situation and he also blames "God & his Priest & King". This point of view is different from that of its companion poem because the chimney sweeper has been influenced by society and has an "experienced" point of view.

Robert BurnsAuld Lang Syne

by Robert Burns

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne,

Well take a cup o kindness yet,

For auld lang syne!