Syllabus: Survey of English Literature
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This purpose of this course is to provide students with an opportunity to read and discuss a wide range of English literature written from about 700 to 1800 CE, or roughly from Beowulf to the end of the neoclassical era. This literature, from three different cultural eras, is among the most important elements of our cultural past, and it is more usable, more illuminating, more various, enjoyable, and influential, than any similar body of writing in our language. In the past, people did things differently, thought differently, adopted different priorities from ours. It is like a foreign country, but one where (after about 1350) we can read the language.
For the sake of acquiring some understanding of modern forms of literary criticism, everyone will present class reports based on the critical methods discussed in Beidler's editioin of Chaucer's writings related to the Wife of Bath.
There will be four quizzes, counting 30% of the grade. Students must take all quizzes. Only the top three grades will count, provided all four are passed, but every failing grade counts. Any material assigned may appear on a quiz; when you a find a Q next to an item that means that it may well appear on a quiz; a boldface Q next to listed items means that they are very likely to appear on quizzes. Note that the Q or Q applies to the whole list, not just to the last title; thus, any of the lyrics of Herbert may appear. In some cases, however, e.g. Shakespeare's sonnets, the Q appears next to individual items which are much likelier to appear on quizzes.
Class participation, including presentation of a class report, counts 10 %.
One way to take part in class without actually talking is by way of "short takes," brief discussions that a student posts on e-mail to the instructor. You can write up a comment or question, in anything from 50 to 300 words, raising an issue or offering an interpretation. For instance, you may wish to point out ways in which an author's life is directly reflected in his or her works; this is a possible approach to Bede, Chaucer, Julian, More, Wyatt, Spenser, Marlowe, Jonson, Donne, Herbert, Milton, Dryden, Swift, Pope, Boswell, and Cowper. For a biographical short take you should go beyond what is given in the text. Other possible topics include examination of individual ambiguities and ironies, reflections on different ways to stage individual scenes in a play, detection of inconsistencies or confusions, remarks on the theme, rhetorical form or logical structure of a work, etc.
There are three required papers, one on form or style, one on theme or character, and one comparing works from different eras on some definite basis. One paper should be about 3,000 words long and counts 20% of the grade. The others should be about 1,500 words long and count 10% each. The papers may be written in any order but one of them must treat an author from before 1500 and one an author from after 1600. Two of these papers should make significant use of secondary sources, including books and journal articles, not just of materials from the internet. Specific topics should be determined in consultation with the instructor well in advance of the due date. Students who have not obtained approval of a topic, and, where necessary, of the secondary literature to be consulted, by five classes before the due date of the paper, will be assigned a topic, irrevocably.
Students who seriously plan to attend law school or to do graduate study of any area of literature or history should consider writing a single research paper, about 5,000 words long, in lieu of the three shorter papers. Consult with the instructor about a suitable topic as early as possible.
Extra credit, up to 20%, may be earned in one of the following ways:
Compose a sonnet, on any single topic (nothing x-rated, please), adhering strictly to the Shakespearean norm.
Compose a heroic recitation of 15-20 lines in strict adherence to the Old English alliterative epic pattern.
Compose a coherent reflective or satirical poem, at least 16 lines long, in strict heroic couplets.
Survey any three plays by Shakespeare (let me know which plays you have chosen, to avoid duplication) and report to me on the places where women characters speak. Indicate the Act and Scene, the actual number of lines spoken by each female character, and the subjects treated; e.g. in Henry VI, Part II, Joan of Arc discusses military matters in most of her speeches, but engages in sorcery once (but I have not indicated where she speaks or mentioned the other female characters).
The standard of achievement for extra credit is high; only grades of A and A- will be recorded. Each extra credit project will count 10% and will replace one lower grade; but extra credit writing will not replace an F on any quiz or paper.
Students must avoid plagiarism in all of their work in the course. Students guilty of plagiarized writing will fail the course and may be charged with an Honor violation.
In a sense we are doing three short courses rather than a single one. Of the writings covered from the Old English period, only the Latin works of Bede were available to later authors. The Norman conquest in 1066 led to a gradual disappearance of Old English. Cathedral and monastery libraries and a few government records collections preserved Old English texts - chronicles, laws, sermons, translations of Scripture and of Latin writings, and poems - until the Reformation, but after about 1200 nobody could read them. Eventually only four large collections of Old English poetry survived, and one of these was discovered in Italy, in the cathedral library at Vercelli, presumably left there by an English pilgrim to Rome.
Middle English writings did not vanish as completely as did Old English. Langland and Chaucer were very widely read during the Tudor period, and the miracle plays had considerable influence on the Elizabethan theatre. Other Middle English writings, however, dropped completely out of sight, and very many works were destroyed at the Reformation. By the end of the 17th century only Chaucer and Malory were widely read.
From More to the end of the course, however, and in fact up to present time, the most important authors of each era were familiar, sometimes to the point of expert knowledge, with their predecessors. Shakespeare, Spenser and Donne were familiar with the works of More, Wyatt, Surrey, Ascham and others. Pope and Johnson produced good editions of Shakespeare. Sir Walter Scott edited the works of Dryden; Dickens admired the novels of Fielding; Keats was immersed in the plays of Shakespeare. Only in the 20th century have the Old English writings become widely available,and only in the 1990's has Beowulf been translated by a major poet. Similarly, the 20th century, generally the last half of it, is the first time that substantial numbers of poets, novelists, and dramatists have been influencedby the Pearl-poet, whose works were only discovered in the single surviving manuscript in 1829 and only competently edited or translated since the 1920's. The two closely related works of Julian of Norwich were not widely published in translation, or accurately edited in Middle English, until after 1960. The best text of Malory (and sole surviving manuscript) was only discovered in the 1930's; Margery Kempe's book was also discovered in 1934, and there have been a few other 20th-century finds. Translations and good editions of many Anglo-Latin, Irish, Welsh and Norman French works only became available recently. It is fair to say that the full breadth of English literature has not been available for study until after 1960.
These eras were more publicly religious than the modern age, but secular subjects and outlooks were never absent from their literature and were sometimes dominant. Very broadly, one can say that in the Old English period the literary imagination is still learning how to assimilate Christian faith and often demonstrates some discomfort in deciding where and how to apply Christian teaching. The fourteenth century balances secular and pious themes in almost all major authors; Julian of Norwich is the only figure whose works are exclusively religious. The important literature of the 15th and early 16th centuries is almost entirely secular, even in the work of Saint Thomas More, and with the obvious exception of the biblical translations and the less obvious exception of two major episodes in Malory. From 1570 to 1700 secular and pious themes are again roughly balanced, but not in every author; Jonson and Shakespeare are almost entirely secular, Milton, Herbert and Vaughan are exclusively devout. In the eighteenth centuryl the major writers, except Fielding and Johnson, approach life and literature from a secular point of view. This is even true of those, e.g. Swift and Pope, whose personal Christian convictions are clear.
Economically, the ages covered by this course are almost entirely pre-capitalist. Investment in anything but land or a family trade was unusual, almost impossible. Changes in technology and in business practice were slow. In the late twelfth century watermills began to be introduced in a few places in Europe; within about a century they spread all over the continent (and then they stopped; they were only introduced widely in India in the last thirty years, by a specialist in the history of medieval science and technology, Jean Gimpel). The mills were soon used not only for grain but for malt, and before long there were also fulling mills (look this word up and you will learn the career of the ancestors of people named Fuller). Once cam shafts were introduced, apparently in the thirteenth century, millers knew what they would have to know for the next several centuries. A merchant of the late Middle Ages, once he learned the Italian innovation of double-entry bookkeeping, might not need to learn any further new technique for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, there was substantial change in the economic life of the people over this long age. Look at the trades pursued by the pilgrims in Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales and ask yourself, how many of them would have had a place in Beowulf's world, about 600 years earlier?
Politically the break comes between the Old English period, when there was nothing closely similar to a modern nation, and the Middle English period, when England, Ireland and France had boundaries close to what they have today, legal traditions, languages, class distinctions, alliances, and ways of looking at life that are recognizably in some continuity with those of our time. When Chaucer was a young man he worked for King Edward III of England, who died in 1377; every king of England since then has been a direct descendant of Edward, and in this course we examine literature produced in times when the king (or, rarely, the ruling queen) had real and substantial authority over the government, although in the eighteenth century this power was steadily declining toward the near-figurehead status of British royalty today. The Old English kingdoms, like those of the Spear-Danes, Half-Danes, Geats, etc.of Beowulf, were unstable in territory, dynastic relationships, religious adherence, military power, and governmental form; the last term hardly applies to some of them. By about 1160 England was governed by a largely Norman aristocracy and a Norman king, but under traditional English common law; it was a single nation, highly respecful of education, much more productive of writers than of composers or visual artists, Catholic until the 1530's, much involved in maritime commerce, often confronting Ireland, Scotland or France militarily, and often allied with one or more of them. Universities were introduced in the early 13th century, and the two then established, Oxford and Cambridge, are still the most prominent by far (contrast the U.S.A., where our earlist college, Harvard, is our most famous and distinguished university, but many of our other early colleges did not survive, or are now respectable and highly valued, e.g. William and Mary or Bowdoin, but not among the most influential schools). By about 1570 the unwritten British Constitution developed a clear trajectory toward most aspects of its present form; even public roles for women and religious tolerance were beginning to be considered, although they were much later in realization than most other political realities.
We will do our best to follow this schedule:
Sept. 1 Introduction to the course and to Beowulf
4-6 Beowulf and other Old English writings, including selections from Bede
Sept. 8 Introduction to Middle English and to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (SGGK)
11-13 Marie de France, the Ancrene Riwle, and SGGK
Sept. 15-25 Chaucer (No class Sept. 22; a take-home hour test will be distributed Sept. 20)
Sept. 27 Class reports begin. There will be two or three class reports daily until all have been given; names will be chosen by lot, so all must be prepared by Sept. 27. Langland
29 Lyrics; Julian of Norwich; Mystery plays
Oct. 2 Malory
Oct 4 First paper is due today.
Introduction to the Tudor era, esp. Elizabethan literature, and to Early Modern English; Thomas More
6 Wyatt, Surrey, Hoby
9-11 Spenser, Sidney, Greville, Drayton
13 Raleigh, Marlowe, Campion, Nashe
Oct. 16-20 Shakespeare. There will be a quiz on Tudor and Elizabethan literature in one of these classes.
Oct. 23 Jonson
25 Webster
27-30 Donne
Nov. 1 Second paper is due today.
Bacon, Browne, Burton
3 Herrick and other Cavalier poets
6-8 Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw
10 Marvell
Nov. 13-15 Milton
17 Milton, Bunyan
Nov. 20 Quiz on early 17th century literature. Introduce Restoration; Dryden
27 Dryden, Swift
29 Third paper is due today.
Addison, Steele. Introduce the Age of Enlightenment; Pope
Dec. 1 Pope
4 Pope, Johnson
6 Johnson and Boswell. Final quiz
8 Boswell, slave narratives, preromantics
9 Final examination
My office hours, in Bowman 317, are: Mon., Wed., Fri, 12:30-3:00 P.M., and by appointment. I have classes MWF at 8 and 9 A.M. Telephone: 5341; 540-464-4466. E-mail: pomara@bridgewater.edu
Beowulf. There are three segments to the poem, the first two treating the hero's youthful adventures and the third describing his last battle and death. In all three segments he confronts preternatural monsters in the main story (at least in the usual interpretation; a minority view holds that the dragon in the third section is really a morally monstrous man). In all three segments, especially the third, the main story is often interrupted by digressions, in most of which Beowulf and other heroes confront ordinary human enemies. There are several biblical references, all to the Old Testament; the author is clearly a Christian, but his heroes are unaware of Christ despite their devotion to the one God. How is this religious ambiguity related to themes of courage and wisdom,to the stroies of monsters, to the principal digressions?
The Wanderer. Q Are there two speakers or just one?
The poem moves from feeling, to event, to memories. At least one speaker is a solitary exile. Consider how the poem treats these themes: silence, fidelity, desire for glory, longing for comfort and for escape from poverty. Which memories are related to these themes, those of friendship and kin, of feasts and song, of receiving advice, of observing death? how is the dream material integrated into the conscious discussion?
The nature references are chiefly to the cold sea, frost and snow, birds. The mention of ruins is associated with both past and future and with the slow growth of wisdom. What has been lost, military security, royal favor, festivity, has been replaced by high walls decorated with pagan symbols, a woman who leaves the scene quickly, weapons, storms, winter, the night. Which of these ideas is associated with the references to God as Creator, as righteous judge, as culture guardian, and to the sources of hope in wisdom, good counsel, and happiness after death?
The Dream of the Rood. Q This is one of the few early poems in any Germanic language that is entirely a dream-vision, although pagan Latin poems of dreams were not unusual. It is the first Christian dream-vision poem.
The speaker dreams of Jesus as a young hero, and imagines the Crucifixion as a fierce struggle in which Jesus is both victim and victor. Whom is he fighting? What is the evidence that he has won? How is the Cross envisioned? How does the cosmic importance of the Cross, understood theologically, relate to the historical fact that it was an instrument of torture and of death? When the Cross itself speaks, what perspective on the Redemption does it proclaim? What parallel is suggested between the Cross and the Savior? There is a further parallel of opposites, since everyone involved with the Cross is both a sinner, somehow responsible for Christ's suffering, and a beloved friend, offered safety at the Judgment. How does the poem indicate the confidence that we can have in Christ as Savior?
This poem present a new inflection of several themes, e.g. solitude, bereavement, that appear elsewhere in more secular Old English poems. Be prepared to discuss this.
How is the poem organized? Does the speaker learn anything from his dream? Is the poem didactic, or a praise-poem like many of the Psalms, or a conversion narrative?
Marie de France: p 126 Lanval.
Lanval is Arthur's vassal. The Feast of Pentecost 950 days after Easter) is celebrated at Carlisle because the Scots and picts are attacking. This realistic little detail is easier to appreciate if you find Carlisle on a map. Lanval is the only member of the Round Table who isn't rich and contented, and we meet him going out on his own for a ride and a little nap, ways of coping that we may recognize now among people who aren't sure of their friends or their funds. Beyond these elements, the story is largely a wish-fulfilment fantasy, although there are at least three different wishes involved and they turn out not to be fully compatible. What does Lanval want most? What does he obtain, and how? There are several moments in the story that correspond to themes of much modern fiction: friends that aren't any help, the erotic appeal of the boss's wife, a charge of homosexuality, a stupid remark and its awful consequences. The escape theme, the behavior of Arthur, Gwenever, and Gawain, and Lanval's surprising change of status are all features that reappear in mahy Arthurian tales.
Julian of Norwich p 355
What does it mean to call this writing a work of mysticism? Comparing it with a mystical work that you may already know, the first Epistle of John, can you detect any important differences of theme or attitude? What problems is Julian trying to solve by her writing?
Malory p 419 Q
The passages in our text are memorable and deservedly popular but they are somewhat misleading for newcomers to Arthurian stories, which are usually neither as military nor as devout as this. Is Malory's story-telling technique, his way of introducing characters, ideas, and problems and highlighting the significance of each episode, comparable to those of Marie de France and Chaucer? In the light of your experience of more recent Arthurian tales, do you find anything surprising about Malory? What evidence can you give for Malory's moral seriousness? Malory may have believed that the Arthurian tales had a firm basis in history; after all, he had seen the Round Table with his own eyes (the one he saw is still preserved at Winchester). He made many changes in his sources, however, and he must have understood that many details in his source and in his own work were fictional or legendary.
Everyman p 445 Q
Clearly this play is meant to teach us - all of us - how to prepare for death. The subject must have been treated in many sermons, and it appears in many surviving proverbs, songs, letters, essays and stories. Can it be compared with the pardoner's Tale? How is dramatic interest maintained in treating this familiar material?
There were several successful literary trajectories from the fourteenth through the fifteenth centuries. The Chaucerian spirit, of a deep investment in narratives of romantic, satirical and ethical interest, survived best in Scotland, in the works of James I and Robert Henryson. Also in Scotland the linked traditions of Arthurian romance, of Christmas story, and of knightly adventure related in alliterative verse with tail-rhyme, survived and apparently flourished, although only a few works survive today. In England the Chaucerian imitators were generally feeble. The Wycliffite and anti-Wycliffite schools of religious instruction and debate, and the Piers Plowman tradition of social reformist and anti-clerical verse, came close to merging into a single stream, but not much of this writing is imaginatively powerful; it belongs to the history of ideas more directly than to literary history. Religious lyric poetry survived, but did not develop impressively, nor did the mystical prose writing that has so many remarkable fourteenth-century representatives. In the early years of the fourteenth century there was a great amount of Arthurian prose narrative composition, again at very low literary temperatures. The one tradition that lasted throughout this era with immense success was that of the popular religious drama, and there are several true masterpieces in this form, from the drama collections of Brome, Wakefield and York. These plays are like Chaucer and Langland in this respect, that social satire and brilliant psychological insight mingle with deeply pious exposition of Christian teaching, but they are far more explicit than Chaucer about the Faith, and far better organized as stories than most of the events in Langland.
Almost at the end of the century, the Arthurian tradition reached a final and astonishing flowering in Malory, especially in Caxton's edition of Malory. The Morte D'Arthur was composed while Malory was in prison, where, apparently, he belonged, since he seems to have been a career criminal. There he whiled away the time by studying French versions of the Arthurian saga, as well as a few English works. His book was masterly but more long-winded and less well-organized than it appears in the first printed edition (something nobody realized until a manuscript was discovered in the 1930's). Not long after he finished it, somebody, possibly Malory himself, possibly Caxton, revised and tightened it, so that the first edition is our greatest model of interlinked narratives, mingling knightly, erotic, and devotional motives, with exciting stories, fascinating characters, well-paced and subtle prose style, and a nobly sorrowful and mysterious conclusion, as Lancelot and Guenevere die as repentant members of monasteries, and Arthur is carried off to an unknown, unreachable refuge. Spenser tried without success to revive the Arthurian theme, and many other authors have returned to it. Even today some readers find pleasure in Tennyson's version, which I regard as pallidly skillful but wearisome, and in the twentieth century T.H. White achieved real success with his return to these stories, while many others, even writers of the calibre of John Steinbeck, have failed to make them say very much. On the whole, the end of the fifteenth century must be seen as the end of a literary era; while Middle English was giving way to Modern English, and late medieval forms of inspiration survive only in the popular drama, and to a limited extent in the devout essay. (On mystical and devout writing at the beginning of the Renaissance, see R.W. Chambers, "On the Continuity of English Prose from Alfred to More and his School" This old and neglected essay is still a helpful introduction to one of the few signs of life maintained by the literary imaginatiion at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century).
The 15th and early 16th centuries had almost no successful religious poetry except in the mystery plays. Effective religious poetry from about 1580 on is almost all of one type: baroque imagery, short lyrics (Crashaw composed a very few exceptions), anxious or mystical, until the arrival of Milton, after whom long argumentative poems become more common than mystical lyrics.
Edmund Spenser.
Skip The Shepherd's Calendar, pp. 617-622
The Faerie Queene is strongly didactic, next to the works of Milton the most didactic major poetry in English, emphasizing holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice, courtesy, etc. All of these virtues are presented as hard-won in struggle against external enemies and internal impulse; virtue is admirable because it is difficult.
pp 628-772, Book 1, on the Redcross Knight, is the most famous story that Spenser ever wrote, although the story of Britomart, the warrior maiden, is a close second. The narrative is speedy, with many incidents, frequent references to Scripture, a completely serious approach to knight-errantry and the rules of chivalry, both of which had long vanished from the world before Spenser was born, and an entire absence of direct reference to the real world. Read pp. 628-641 and learn the characteristics of the Spenserian stanza, which was later adopted by Keats and other poets, though never for a narrative as long and elaborate as Spenser's story. Note especially these sections: Canto 1.13 identification of the wandering wood; 14 error; 17-20 combat; 21 the simile of the Nile; 22 renewed flight; 23 simile of the shpherd; 24 the kill; 25-26 death of the selfish imps; 27-28 escape from the wood; 29-30 the old man; 31 description of a wicked knight; 32-35 rest with the false hermit Archimago; 36-43 the magician and the house of Morpheus; 44-48 the lusty dream; 49-55 address by the false Una. Q
Skip the famous Bower of Bliss section, which mostly runs in place.
There are only a few directly Arthurian references in the whole poem. Note p. 814, references to real locations, Carmarthon, Dynevor,Cadoxton, and p. 821, the first literary reference to tobacco.
pp 833-9 Book 3, Canto 6, from stanza 29, the Garden of Adonis, examine the ideas of the life cycle, the seasons, and planetary influence. The movement from chaos to springtime and a simultaneous harvest, and the myth of Venus and Adonis, are deeply associated.
pp 842 ff. In Book 3, Canto 11,stanzas 9-11, the mystery of evil is described by Scudamore, the knight whose shield is love. This is followed, Book 3, canto 12, by a procession of allegorical abstractions, Fancy, Desire, Doubt, Danger, Fear, Hope, etc. How are these abstractions related to the theme of love? Can you explain the order in whcih they appear?
p 828 Spenser's sonnets are unusual for the time, and for almost every time, in that they are love poems to his wife, i.e. they treat a successful love. Note the physical intimacy of 64, the careful placement of a single hiatus in Like as a huntsman, 67, the devotional piety of Most glorious Lord of life 68. Can you find a Shakespearean parallel for 75, One day I wrote her name upon the sand?
p 868 Epithalamion has exactly 24 stanzas, one for each hour. The social and the intimately personal dimensions of marriage are both treated.
Sir Philip Sidney, pp. 921-933
Read: Sonnets 20, 21, 31, 41, 47; "Thou blind man's mark"; "Leave me, O love." Q
How do these poems involve friendship, observation of nature, personal prowess, and self-mockery in the experience of love? The last two poems may be understood as palinodes. What does this term mean and how does it apply here?
Michael Drayton, pp. 967-969
Read: "Since there's no help," and "To the Virginian Voyage".
Indicate some distinctively Elizabethan features of Drayton's poetry.
Christopher Marlowe, pp. 989-1025
Read: "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love" and Faustus (skip scenes 4, 6, and 9). Q
Why is Faustus willing to sell his soul to the devil? What does he desire more than power or sexual pleasure?
Faustus enjoys mockery of those with beliefs and preferences different from his own; he frequently returns to various topics of discussion with Mephistophelis; he rejects more than one opportunity to repent and be saved; he observes an allegory of the seven Deadly Sins. Which of his adventures demonstrates his conflicted attitudes to learning?
William Shakespeare
We will study both of the plays in the text. It is a good idea to watch a film of each if you have not recently seen them performed.
King Lear
This is a play about the mystery of evil, but it does not offer any explanation;contrast the attitudes of Spenser and Milton when they treat the subject.
There is much use of imagery of eyes and sight. Can you suggest some reasons for this feature?
Several of the evil characters engage in "wolfish" behavior and there is a lot of beast imagery, but the worst crimes in the play call for high levels of intelligence; they are offenses against family life, patriotism, and nature. There are few direct references to God or to society, but the play examines what it would be like if tried to live as though we did not need the "additions" of civilaztion to nature: clothes, shelter, trustworthy friends and family, everything that enables us to plan responsibly for the future.
The Gloucester subplot also, obviously, employs blindness imagery and also examines the terribly fact that cruelty and unfaithfulness may be embarked on by people who are sane and intelligent. Unlike the main Lear plot, it puts more emphasis on smiling villainy, i.e. on long-lasting hypocrisy, and on insult. The two plots are brought together thematically through the presence of the loyal fool and madman, the theme of generational transition, and the frequent references to "nothing." Q There are many important specifically dramatic elements - confrontations, changes of mood and locale, surprise, recognition.
Read the following sonnets, pp. 1031-1042: 18, Shall I compare thee to a summer's day
19, Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws
29, When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes
30, When to the sessions of sweet silent thought Q
33, Full many a glorious morning have I seen
55, Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
65, Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
71, No longer mourn for me when I am dead
73, That time of year thou may's in me behold
87, Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing Q
94, They that have power to hurt, and will do none
98, From you I have been absent in the spring
106, When in the chronicle of wasted time
107, Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
116, Let me not to the marriage of true minds
127, In the old age black was not counted fair
129, The expence of spirit in a waste of shame
130, My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
138, When my love swears that she is made of truth Q
144, Two loves I have of comfort and despair
146, Pour soul, the center of my sinful earth
Shakespeare declares himself confident that his poems will always be read (although apparently he had nothing to do with their publication and there isn't much evidence that they circulated in manuscript, as did the love poems of Donne and of many others at this time). What features of the poems themselves are the basis of his boast? What aspects of a love relationship are treated in the poems assigned? Shakespeare wrote these poems in his thirties and forties; how do you account for the frequent reference to the old age of the poet (e.g. in 71 and 73)? Do the poems ever associate the author, the friend, or the dark lady with problems and events of the time? The poems sometimes draw attention to the fact that they are indeed poems, and that it is important for the author to be recognized as a writer. Does he offer his beloved any reasons for returning his love? Does he claim that he understands his own feelings? Does he ever write a palinode?
There are several bad books on the sonnets, and a few excellent ones. Books by Booth, Hubler, Jovanovich and Vendler, all available for study in my office, are excellent. Vendler's is accompanied by a CD of her interpretive readings of many of the sonnets.
John Donne
Skip The Undertaking, The Indifferent, Song p 1242, Air and Angels, Break of Day (but notice the famous ll. 3-4), A Valediction of Weeping, Love's Alchemy, The Blossom, Satire 3, The Storm, The Anatomy of the World, Holy Sonnets 5, 19,and in Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, Meditations 4 and 19..
Quiz topics: eccentric imagery, paradox, exaggeration, quick shifts of topic, allusion, tone and pace, speech rhythms, stanza patterns - both uncommon and simple.
p 1236 The Flea. Note the three moments of the seduction scene.
The Good Morrow. The exaltation of love is made very specific; what are the dimensions of life that Donne puts lower than love?
p 1237 Song.
p 1239 The Sun Rising. Here too love is exalted over other realities.
How many differences can you detect among these first four poems? Q
p 1240 The Canonization. There are several references here to experiences that have nothing to do with love: anti-Catholic jokes, seafaring, commercial efforts, etc. How is this poem different from other exaltations of love?
p 1245 A Nocturnal upon Saint Lucy's Day. This poem employs inclusion, startting and ending with the same image. Can you analyze the rest of its structure? Q
p 1247 The Bait. In what way is this a poem of role reversal?
The Apparition. How is this poem similar in theme to Wyatt's typical attitude? Where does it go further than Wyatt toward alarming experience?
p 1248 A Valedictiion forbidding Mourning. The final image of the compasses is famous. Is there any logic or coherent emotional development in the poem?
p 1249 The Ecstasy. This poem moves from memory of a picnic to a persuasion to making love; i.e. it is a seduction poem. Does Donne employ this theme often? Can you find other seduction poems in the text? Q
p 1251 The Funeral. This poem and the next attach love to the theme of death. Does Donne often employ this theme? Q
p 1253 The Relic. Compare the use of Catholic imagery here with The Canonization.
p 1254 Elegy on his Mistress. This poem appears to be a serious, colloquial speech of farewell. Compare it to Shakespearean soliloquy.
p 1256 To his Mistress Going to Bed. This poem combines clever, even intellectual jokes with direct, even crude solication of sex. Is it a love poem?
Donne's religious poems were probably written, most of them anyway, later than his love poetry. They are frequently concerned with death, sickness, fear of hell, expectation of the end of the world itself, and sometimes with the doctrine that man was made in the image of God, an image that can grow indistinct through sin or more complete and vivid through virtue. The unity of all Christian believers is important in Meditation 17. Several of the poems are individually famous and were sometimes taken as texts for sermons, even in recent years. Do these poems use the devices of wide allusive reference, paradox, ingenious debating points, that appear in the love poems?
Ben Jonson
p 1295 Masque of Blackness - this poem is an amusing and finely crafted patriotic trifle. Skip it.
p 1303 Volpone. This is one of the most important non-Shakespearean comedies, maybe the most important of all, from its time.
p 1305 I.1 Volpone is paradoxically boasting and abasing himself at one and the same time, but he doesn't know it. He addresses gold as saint, soul of the world, cause of all good; is this deliberately blasphemous? He is a clever swindler; what does he have to boast about? Mosca praises him and expands on the boast, claiming that Volpone destroys nothing. What kind of swindler is still worse than Volpone?
Skip I.2
p 1311, I.3 When Voltore gives Volpone silver plate, Mosca praises lawyers. What for?
p 1313, I.4. Can you find a powerful moment of dramatic irony in this scene? What vices are satirized in the figure of Corbaccio? Do these attacks reflect on Volpone too?
The rest of the play has some great moments, although the scenes with Celia and Bonario aren't much, but it isn't necessary to study the play further for this course. It would be wise to read the final Act.
Among the lyrics and meditative poems, read: p 1396, On my First Son; p 1397 To Lucey . . . with Donne, on the value of literature; p 1398 Inviting a Friend; 1402 To Celia, one of the most famous of all lyrics, and often sung; p 1410 the Cory/Morison ode Q; p 1414 the most famous poetic praise of Shakespeare, except possibly for Milton's.
John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi
p 1432 If you feel that you need more background than is given here, consult Kaufman's collection of essays on Elizabethan drama, and the material on Webster in T.S. Eliot's selected essays.
p 1433 Act I.i Compare Antonio's notion of the role of a royal councillor with that of Thomas More. What aspects of the characters of Antonio, Bosola, and the Cardinal are brought out at this beginning of the play?
p 1436 I.ii Skip ll. 1-54. Bosola accepts Ferdinand's pay, realizing that the work will at least require spying if not killing.
I.iii The Duchess is warned against remarriage. Why is this warning ironic? Antonio demonstrates his manliness in an unusual way; how?
p 1446 II.i-ii Skip these scenes, in which Bosola realizes that the Duchess is pregnant and she is then delivered of a son.
p 1452 II.iii When Antonio and Bosola quarrel, what does Bosola learn from reading a sheet of paper that he was not meant to see? What does he fail to realize?
p 1454 II.iv Consider the ironies in this scene of the Cardinal and his mistress.
p 1457 II.v What are the reactions of Ferdinand and the Cardinal when they discuss the Duchess's newborn child? How is Bosola different from them? At this point, which characters in the play are initiating action and which are reacting?
p 1459 III.1 Q
p 1462 III.ii This is a crucial scene of revelations and planning. Ferdinand overhears the Duchess as she teases Antonio, rebukes her and leaves. The Duchess pretends that Antonio's accounts have been mishandled and sends him into exile, although Bosola praises him. Up to this point has anyone beenacting sincerely? Cariola warns them of danger, but once Bosola has learned of the marriage they plan a pretended pilgrimage. Should we take Cariola seriously? At the end Bosola is alone on stage, and in Shakespearean soliloquies it is common for a character to think through an issue and reach a decision. Bosola now declares that he will betray the Duchess. Is this effectively parallel to the Shakespearean soliloquy?
p 1470 III.iii Is this scene, in which the Cardinal learns that his sister has remarried, and which seems to be about courage, effective as comic relief?
p 1472 III.iv The Duchess is banished along with Antonio. Q
p 1473 III.v Antonio and the Duchess, like King Lear, have few followers left. They separate. Bosola captures her. Is there any crudity in the speeches at the end? Anything genuinely moving?
p 1477 IV.1 Ferdinand and Bosola persecute the Duchess sadistically, using a dead man's hand, and Bosola, but not her own brother, finds her suicidal despair, and his own role in causing it, horrifying and wants to comfort her. Bosola still hopes that somehow he can escape from the wrongs he has done, repent and be saved.
p 1481 IV.ii In this scene of the execution of the Duchess there are several sadistic and weird elements, the madmen, the strangling of the children, Ferdinand's odd rebuke, Bosola's spoken repentance and his final solitary speech. is this speech a true soliloquy? Q
p 1490 V.i As in Antony and Cleopatra, the lovers die in separate acts of the play. At this point Antonio still hopes for a reconciliation.
p 1492 V.ii More insanity, this time Ferdinand's, and more efforts by Bosola and the Cardinal to avoid either the reality or the appoearance of the guilt of murder. More conspiracy (by Julia and Bosola), and more murder, this time by poison. Bosola has still not definitively chosen sides; he agrees to kill Antonio but still hopes to join him and to receive the grace of repentance. Only once more does a major character try to step back from sin; one of the major themes is the power of sin to entrap a person and to close off the way to repentance even if the sinner is emotionally drawn to it.
p 1501 V.iii Antonio plans to see the Cardinal, the last step in his path to destruction.
p 1502 V.iv There are several allusions to King Lear in this scene. The Cardinal feels guilty for what he has already done but plans to kill Bosola, who mistakenly kills Antonio. No one is left who ought to escape.
p 1504 V.v As in Hamlet, there are so many corpses as the end of this play that Delio, a minor character, has to announce the sententious conclusion. Bosola kills the Cardinal; he and Ferdinand mortally wound one another.
This play may remind you of a modern horror movie. Does it encourage you to expand your reflections beyond the fates of these specific people, most of them monstrous? Does it suggest anything about power, class conflict, the oppression of women, the relation of willful violence to insanity? Most readers consider it far inferior to Shakespeare but well ahead of most other tragedies of that age. Is the play coherent in action and credible in motive? Is the language genuinely poetic?
Jacobean and Caroline literature
The government was in bad shape, wasteful, arbitrary, religiously persecuting and bullying, not fully aware of the needs of the people or concerned for their interests, inclined toward foreign military adventures, and widely unpopular long before the civil war in the 1640's..
The ideas of the philosophers of the time, the microcosm, the four humors, experiment (Gabriel Harvey, Galileo, Newton etc.), the prevalence of melancholy, the ordered great chain of being, appear in the lyric poetry and the nonfictional prose but not affirmed in the drama.
Lyrics were composed for aristocratic coteries, esp.by Donne (his love poems go back to the end of the ELizabethan era), Herbert, the heirs of Sidney. The sonnet sequence declined, except for the religious poems of Donne. The tone and style of the lyric became much more varied and complex; readers valued wit, colloquialism, dramatic situations, intense argument (not always serious), learning, conceits, paradox. The poems are often truly metaphysical, concerned with genuine philosophic attitudes on being, truth, nature, permanence and change, illusion and reality, God and the universe, God and humanity, justice and nature, etc.
There is an aristocratic poetic of extensive learning, logic, good technique, aplomb, surprise without offense, vigor, variety of imagery, and concern for friendship.
Drama disappears as successful literature after the early 1620's, and the theatres are closed by law in the late 1640's. After 1660 the theatres reopened but good literary drama does not reappear until the 1680's and does not last long.
Culture: Latin classics and to some extent Greek, political discussions, sermons, heroic and romantic prose tales, theological controversy, editions of Chaucer and Langland, the theatre.
The text has a good discussion, p 1528, of prose style; it applies to Bacon, Burton, Hobbes, somewhat to Browne, and to some of the prose wroks of Milton. It also applies to two important Catholic mystics of the period, Augustine Baker, O.S.B. and his pupil Gertrude More, O.S.B., a descendant of Thomas More. Both of them went into exile in the Low Countries in order to enter monastic communities that were illegal in England, but they wrote in English and Baker spent many years as a missionary in England. Baker's long work was condensed and published shortly after his death and has been influential in teaching prayer since the 1650's. Gertrude More died before she was thirty and left only a few writings, still not widely available.
The most interesting religious prose is not that of controversy but of exposition (Thomas Hooker and others), reflection (Thomas Browne, Izaak Walton), and sermons (Lancelot Andrewes, John Donne etc.). Books of meditation and personal journals were more important in the mid-17th century than ever before or after, although they have risen to prominence again in our time. There were many new Protestant sects; the Anglicans and the Catholics disagreed bitterly among themselves and with one another, and the government was called on both to tolerate and to persecute those who were or were not Puritans, Anglicans, Calvinists, ceremonial in their worship, accepting of sports and dancing, etc. Milton is the only one of these debaters whose work, e.g. "Areopagitica," anybody willingly reads today. There is also a vast amount of political controversy, much of it intersecting with the religious discussions, e.g. the writings of Winstanley. This material is important for intellectual and social history and a few items are of interest as background to the literature.
Francis Bacon.
Read p 1531 Of Truth; 1533 Of great Place; 1535 Of Negotiation (esp. interesting for future lawyers); 1541 Of Studies.
p 1544 from Novum Organum, be sure that you understand the meaning of the idols of the cave (individual oddities, excesses and weaknesses), the marketplace (errors based on treating words as things), and the theatre (errors derived from misapplied study). Can you give examples of any of these from modern life? Where does Bacon combine theological and immediately practical arguments, and for what purpose? Where does he rely on his own political experience? Bacon recommends that we be self-critical, observant and courteous. Does he do so for the sake of virtue, or for practical advantage?
Thomas Browne, pp. 1570-1578
Why does he prefer the Church of England to other Christian groups?
How does he associate theology with prayer, the sense of mystery, the study of natural science and scripture?
Consider his use of imagery, e.g. of a ship; his defense of religious ceremony, his defense of tolerance, even of Catholic practices, and his exaltation of charity.
How does Browne justify his claim that he is a Christian? What does he advocate in ceremony, theology, hope of salvation?
Omit "Urn Burial."
Thomas Hobbes, pp. 1590-92
How does Hobbes explain the nature of human rivalry? What are our usual reasons for mutual conflict? What are the effects of the war of all against all on culture and civilization? What is the difference between such conflicts and the normal course of national rivalries and conflicts, even wars?
Does Hobbes's understanding of human nature represent a change from the thinking of Spenser, Sidney, Jonson or Browne? Why is it distinctively Hobbesian to think of human life as by nature "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" (1592)? Consider the Hobbesian explanation of the war of all against all, the meanings of justice, right, liberty and covenant, the motives of competition and therefore of violence, and the relationships of individual and state-sponsored forms of violence to human culture and civilization.
Skip Introduction and Ch. 15
George Herbert, pp. 1595-1615
Read: Redemption, Easter Wings, Affliction I, Prayer I, Church Monuments, Denial, Virtue, Man, The Collar, The Pulley, The Flower, Discipline, Love 3. Q
Many of these poems are written in the first person singular. How can one tell that they are intended for use by the readers and not just a subjective expression of the poet's own feeling? Herbert had politically powerful connections and prepared himself for a great public career, but his hopes came to nothing and he spent the last few years of his short life as the pastor of a small country church. How are these circumstances reflected in the themes, imagery, forms, and tone of his poems?
From the point of view of technique, one of these poems is markedly different from all the others. Extra credit for whoever identifies the poem and describes the difference.
Note his skill in versification, learning, wide range of theme, form, tone and type of irony. How does he attach his biblical themes to the society of his own time and circumstances? How does he link the themes of love of Christ and repentance?
p 1599 Affliction - a history of spirituality, a sudden resolve to give up on Christ and to find another master, then a plea for salvation, or for absolute separation from Christ. Is this sequence of feelings credible/ Has it any secular parallel?
p 1601 Prayer. What is the form of this poem? Is there anything surprising about its technique? Any rhetorical progression? Can you account for the last phrase, "something understood"?
p 1602 Church Monuments. This poem relies on paradox, death as motion, and on metonymy, a heap of dust, as well as on metaphors drawn from social life, burial, breath, and school. But what is the actual subject? how does this subject relate to the form of the poem?
p 1603 Denial. Describe the form of this poem. The speaker is confident that God will respond to him. how do the similes and metaphors used build up his confidence?
p 1604 Man. How do the ideas of health, harmony, and the microcosm fit together here? Is the religious material integral to the poem as a whole?
p 1609 The Collar. This poem differs markedly in tone, variety of line length, and use of rhyme from most of herbert's other works (but formally he is quite varied anyway). Do these differences from an expected pattern prepare us for the sudden shift at the end?
p 1613 Discipline. What different uses of blood imagery, and of imagery of shooting, appear here?
Henry Vaughan
p 1622 The World. This poem comments on art, society, politics, vice, and readiness for salvation, all in the context of allegorical reflections on time and the will of God. What puzzle is the poem claiming to solve?
John Milton
Areopagitica p. 1802. Public debate is valuable because in this life truth is various, hard to attain, and best reached when several approaches are taken. Milton's main concern is for religious discussion. Does his analysis apply more broadly, to economic, social and other issues that are now part of our public discourse? Do we engage in free debate on the Miltonic model? Does debate have the good effects that he anticipated?
Skip the essay on church government.
Milton's poetry is hard for us to read because he exploits all the knowledge available to him - not only the Bible and various aspects of history that we have studied, but the Greek, Latin, Italian and French literary classics, the philosophy, political theory, science and theology of his time, and much else. His prosody is varied and subtle, but regular; his rhetoric is elaborate, geared specifically to various forms of persuasion, and extremely complex; his syntax is largely based on Latin models (look what he does with participles; look very hard) and is sometimes baffling.
In "Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity" it is interesting to see the pagan gods disappear but you may skip this poem.
p 1782 L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. These two poems are obviously paired. What specific features of parallelism do you detect? Which of these poems moves from a close focus to a more distant view? How do they use myth, legend, popular pastimes, elite expressions of art and culture, irony? What is the time span envisioned in each of them? In one poem Milton imagines himself at a harvest dance, an aristocratic party, a play, and a music recital. In the other he anticipates a solitary nocturnal walk, another hike in a forest, study of philosophy and of other subjects. He mentions spending time in a university library, in a church, and in a hermitage where as an old man he will study astronomy and medicine. Can you relate any of these interests to "Lycidas," p. 1790, the great elegy that expresses a vocation to poetry and to theology?
p 1814-15 Three ways of using the sonnet: On his blindness, On the late massacre in Piedmont, Methought I saw my late espoused saint. Q
In Paradise Lost he is less concerned to tell a story, since everybody knew the story, than to construct an argument and to achieve a mission. He wanted to convince his readers to adhere to his specific Neo-Calvinist form of Protestant Christianity. The word "Protestant" is derived from the term "protest"; Milton accepted this and was indeed committed to a stern protest against what he regarded as Catholic and Anglican false teachings and abuses. "Protest," however, derives from the Latin protestare, a verb that may be translated "to stand on behalf of, to declare as true," and Milton was most concerned with Protestantism in this sense, an affirmative declaration of the Christian truths that were, according to his convictions, vital for justice and order in society and for eternal salvation. These argumentative elements, this adversarial stance toward the political and religious establishment, distinguish him from other epic poets, such as Homer and Virgil, and from Chaucer, but they place him a bit closer to Dante and Langland.
Paradise Lost. Read Books One and Two complete. How are the devils distinguished from one another? Q
Hell is described before heaven. What are the main features of Milton's hell? At I.84 ff., What are Satan's first topics of discussion? Note that he refers to God as the thunderer, the victor, our foe, etc., but never uses the terms "God," "Creator," "Lord." Beelzebub, l. 128 ff., is a different demon; this is not another name for the same devil. he does refer to God as "heaven's king," a phrase that Satan would want to avoid. He admits that the result of their defeat, in their rebellion against God, is endless misery. how does he explain it? What does he now anticipate? How does Satan correct him?
p 1858 III.ll. 1-55, the hymn to light and lament on blindness; skip ll. 56-79; read ll. 80-134 the Arminian theology of grace; ll. 135-343 the heavenly discussion of the fate of the human race. Skip ll. 344-415.
p 1867 Read ll. 416-693, the Fool's Paradise, and the overview of Earth and the Sun. [On p. 1872 the footnote reference to the Book of Enoch should indicate that this work was never accepted as biblical.] What rhetorical qualities and personal capacities does Satan demonstrate in his speeches? Skip from Uriel's reply to the end.
p 1874 IV: Read two passages, ll. 31-130 Satan's despair. Is Milton writing here as a missionary?
p 1882 ll.358-491 Satan's first view of Adam and Eve. How is the fiend affected by his observation?
p 1906 V: Read ll. 506-907 Raphael explains obedience, creation, the role of Christ, preparation for the war in heaven, and the faith of the angel Abdiel. Why does he emphasize these points in instructing Adam and Eve? Q
Skip VI, the war in heaven, VII, the creation of Earth, and VIII, the creation of Adam and Eve
p 1961 IX. This is the story of the Fall and should be read complete. Q Examine especially Milton's boast ll. 1-47; Satan's admiration of Earth ll. 48-178; Eve's confidence and Satan's determination, ll. 270-493; 494- end the actual Fall, including the important difference between Eve's motives and Adam's and the careful sequence of consequences, from pleasure to fear and quarrelling.
p 1991 In X read only the indicated passages: In ll. 230-382 Sin and Death grow stronger. There is a Homeric simile, ll. 289-311, that deserves study. p 2006, ll. 914-1104, Adam and Eve are reconciled. What does this mean for them? How is it brought about?
Skip XI.
In XII the emphasis becomes more social and political, although theological teaching remains prominent. Consider the value and meaning of the ideas of liberty, law and salvation, and the degree of understanding that the poem imagines that the earliest human beings possessed when Eden was only a memory. Examine p 2030, ll. 1-37, p. 2040, ll 469-573, and p 2044, ll 624-649.
Satan has a clear cosmic objective; so does God. Does Adam have any cosmic project?
Marvell
p 1686 Bermudas. Observe the reasons for thinking that God has led the colonists to a nicer place than England: there is no religious persecution, the weather is fine, the land is fertile, and the Gospel is preached.
p 1688 The Nymph Complaining. The troopers have killed wantonly, the fawn has hidden in her garden.
p 1691 To his Coy Mistress. The standard analysis emphasizes the logical structure, if, but, therefore, of this poem.
p 1682 The Definition of Love. The opening paradox, Despair and Impossibility as active parents, seems to control the whole poem. Does this make sense?
p 1683 The Picture of Little T.C. Where do drama and anxiety enter this initially confident and seemingly placid poem?
What use does it make of skill and knowledge? Q This poem has recently been used by John Ashbery.
p 1698 Is it paradoxical or just offensive to say that keeping a garden is better than love, good company, or honor?
p 1700 An Horatian Ode. If you have time to read translations of three or four odes by Horace, that will help. The poem depicts Cromwell as a restless warrior and killer, and Charles I as a noble victim and a just inheritor of authority, but also as an actor. The poem has a wide scope, including the Irish, the Scots, even the rest of Europe, and seems to conclude by taking Cromwell's side, somewhat unexpectedly. Is the point of view coherent? Q
Upon Appleton House is brilliant but extremely long, worth study if you have the time.
Dryden
Skip pp. 2073-75.
In "Absalom and Achitophel" note the rapid, clear, harsh use of the biblical parallel. It is advisable to read the biblical source along withi the poem. How is the biblical material used in the portraits of Shaftesbury, ll. 144-229? What of the portrait of Zimri, ll. 533-568?
Skip ll. 230-532.
p 2099 The satire in "MacFlecknoe" is literary rather than political, and nobody now cares just how bad Flecknoe and Shadwell were as poets. Does this satire still apply to anything in our culture?
pp. 2114-18 Does the essay on poetry help you to read any actual poems? Skip pp. 2119-20.
p. 2121 What are Dryden's principal insights into Chaucer? Do you agree with his views? Why?
Jonathan Swift
Swift defends classic standards of thought and expression and a stable, traditional order in society, but he favors social reform wherever it would make for greater justice and would be more likely to offer hope of betterment to the poor. He loathes political and religious fanaticism.
Skip Part III of Gullivers Travels.
In Part IV, the horses are models of intelligence, the Yahoos are dreadful examples of undisciplined appetite and passion.
links
There are many ways of discussing literature. I have tried to describe a few of them humorously, but most of these overlapping forms of discussion have a legitimate place.
Boring from within. The critic unpacks and repeats every obvious statement in the text, taking all ironies seriously.
He tells the little horse the whole story. The critic reports his or her own reactions, in disregard of the reader's concerns and requirements.
Story of my life. The critic finds an application, usually of a psychological or moral type, for every major aspect of the text.
Getting into shape. The scholar exmaines the work in order to acquire a new skill, say of philosophic analysis.
Staying in condition. Having acquired the skill, the scholar uses it from time to time for fear of getting rusty.
I read it and I'm glad! (Defiant applause for minor or despised work; the critic thinks that the novels of Chesnutt are well written and insightful, that the poetry of Aubrey de Vere is technically skillful, musical and moving, that the playsof Philip Barry retain their humorous elan and their power to illuminate human problems).
You've got to read this, it will make you a (Christian, feminist, liberal, socialist, vegetarian . . .).
Readers approach works that are new to them with various attitudes, not all of which are usually reflected in critical discussion. Some of the most frequent approaches are these:
This is fun. Where can I find more of it? The reader wants to know whether Chaucer's other tales are much like the ones assigned, or whether all of Shakespeare's sonnets offer such enjoyment to those who like to unravel puzzles, etc.
This is fascinating. Tell me more. The reader wants to read another story about conflict in the Scottish borderlands, or about King Arthur, or another saint's life, another set of speculative essays, another sex comedy, etc.
This is instructive and helpful. Fill me in thoroughly.
Once you get the hang of it, this book offers a great escape.
Authors are not all alike. Some have the attitude that they want to show you how to look at some social reality. Chaucer, Cervantes, Stendhal and Dickens are good examples. Others - Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, George Eliot, Conrad - want to show you now History, Nature or God looks at it.
Nobody starts out by liking everything that someone has described as literature, and nobody ends up that way either. All of us find some works, even works that have been highly praised, boring or irritating or merely trivial. Most of us find genuine merit in at least a few works of literature. Tastes change over time; people say "I used to enjoy the stories of J.D. Salinger but I am tired of them now" or "I never understood why George Eliot had such a great reputation until my third time through Middlemarch, and now I think that she is the greatest novelist after Dickens." So a few distinctions are in order.
You are a fan, or an enthusiast, if you read an author's works repeatedly, read all of them, or almost all of them, with approximately equal enthusiasm, and love to discuss them with other readers. You are particularly interested in the author's development, in the major features of plot, character and insight into life of his or her works, and in the effects that appear in your own and others' lives from immersion in these works. In this sense, there are many fans of Jane Austen.
You are a student if you have a fan's interests, plus these: you are curious about the author's personal life and educational and social background, and you spend some time analyzing the author's style and the formal properties of his or her work. You have formed definitie opinions about some of the interpretive problems of these works, and you have examined some of the scholarly and critical discussion that has grown up around them. An annotated critical edition of the works ismore attractive to you than the bare text; from time to time you look up reference sources to learn something of the political events, trends of thought, and social issues of the author's time and place.
In most ways students, and experts, who are students who have carried their interest to the next level, have preserved everything that they had when they began as fans. There is one great difference, however: fans want to convert other people to their enthusiasm and they are at least a little jealous of the popularity of other similar authors. A Jonson fan realizes that Shakespeare is a far greater dramatist, but is likely to feel a bit annoyed at the enthusiasm of Marlowe and Webster fans, and may even regard Jonson's lyric and meditative poems, and his prose writings, as not far inferior to Shakespeare's sonnets and to the prosier plays. Students and experts take it for granted that their chosen specialty is worth their devotion and don't become jealous at the studies of others. A Sidney scholar realizes that many more people are committed to the study of Edmund Spenser, a Herbert expert knows that the world has many more Donne specialists, but normally they don't complain.
Identifications: Beowulf, The Seafarer, The Wanderer, The Dream of the Rood, Bede the Venerable, Wulfstan, Alfred the Great, Battle of Maldon; oral formula, kenning, alliterative line, oral heroic epic, elegy, digression, understatement, dream vision; comitatus, heroism, peace-weaver, monster, warrior, mead-hall. The Vercelli Book, Cotton Vitellius A.XV, the Exeter Book.
Romance of the Rose, Marie de France, Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl-poet, miracle plays, Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Wycliff, Malory; courtly love, roles of women in society, fabliau, beast fable, Cottonian library, Cotton Nero A.X.; Harley MS; Thornton MSS; Scots Chaucerians; French and Italian influences; Christian mysticism, especially of the Cross; ancient Greek and Roman lore; reformism, especially in Wyclif and Langland
More, Wyatt, Elyot, Hoby, Ascham, Spenser, Sidney, Tottel's Miscellany, Englands Helicon, Tottels Miscellany, Marlowe, Jonson, Webster, Campion, Herrick, Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Marvell, Walton, Browne, Bacon, Hobbes, Burton. Greek influence; Italian influence; the Reformation, especially Calvin, Tyndale, Cranmer, Hooker; exploration.
Milton, Bunyan, Dryden, Swift, Pope, Johnson, Boswell, Gray, Cowper, Smart