Midterm fall22 Flashcards
True Wit is Nature to advantage dress’d
What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d;
Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
As shades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.
Alexander Pope, “Essay on Criticism”
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die)
Expatiate free o’er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A wild, where weeds and flow’rs promiscuous shoot;
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye Nature’s walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.
Alexander Pope, “Essay on Man”
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
William Blake, “London”
Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in
that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more
emphatic language
William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads
It will undoubtedly appear to many persons that I
have not fulfilled the terms of an engagement thus voluntarily contracted
William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads
According to the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, which two features of poetry will Wordsworth not use?
- personification
- poetic diction
Of vagrant Dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
William Wordsworth, “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey”
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years.
Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey”
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne’er deserts the wise and pure;
Coleridge, “This Lime-tree Bower My Prison”
Oh! happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more!—And you, ye well-known trees!—but you will continue the same.—No leaf will decay because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we can observe you no longer!—No; you will continue the same; unconscious of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade!—But who will remain to enjoy you?
Marianne, Sense and Sensibility
Scarcely had she so determined it, when the figure of a man on horseback drew her eyes to the window. He stopt at their gate. It was a gentleman, it was Colonel Brandon himself. Now she could hear more; and she trembled in expectation of it. But it was not Colonel Brandon; neither his air, nor his height. Were it possible, she must say it must be Edward. She looked again. He had just dismounted: she could not be mistaken,—it was Edward. She moved away and sat down. “He comes from Mr. Pratt’s purposely to see us. I will be calm; I will be mistress of myself.”
Free Indirect Discourse, Elinor, Sense and Sensibility
If sense is intelligence, what is sensibility? In other words, if Marianne is our character for sensibility, what does that amount to?
M assumes that her natural inclinations must be good and right
Authentic (or impulsive)
Driven by emotion and displays her emotion
Sensitivity had previously been associated with the upper classes, but now it can be displayed by anybody
Had he been only in a violent fever, you would not have despised him half so much. Confess, Marianne, is not there something interesting to you in the flushed cheek, hollow eye, and quick pulse of a fever?
Elinor says this to Marianne about Colonel Brandon -
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
William Blake, The Divine Image
The Gods of the earth and sea
Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree;
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain.
William Blake, The Human Abstract
