Neo Classical Poetry

Question 1

“Ode on the Death of Fair infant Dying of a cough.” is a poem by?

Answer 1

John Milton

Question 2

On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity is a poem by?

Answer 2

John Miton

Question 3

Mock-violent dismissal of melancholy, it describes a day in life of the cheerful man, uses mythology and pastoral style, showing a contested life

Answer 3

L’ Allegro by John Miton

Question 4

What is Miton’s Euphroryne about?

Answer 4

mirthful daughter of the west wind and dawn, he uses folklore and classical mythology

Question 5

What is Milton’s Il Penseroso is about?

Answer 5

Contemplation and grave intellectual activity

Symbols used- Moonlight, dark woods, the song of the nightingale, curfew, fire lighting in dark room.

Question 6

Jonsonian Masque. A mask presented at Ludslow Castle) for Earl of Bridewater for inauguration as Lord President of Wales

Answer 6

Camus -1637 by Miton
• The story begins by presenting Comus, the son of the God Bacchus and a nymph.
• Comus grew up to be cunning and driven by desire and is known for deceiving travellers turning them into animals when they drink his potion.
• The Lady got lost from her brothers when she encountered Comus who appeared before her as a common man. Comus tells her that he can help her by giving her shelter.
• In his castle Comus tries to tempt her to drink the potion. She remains chaste.

Question 7

Lycidas is dedicated to?

Answer 7

Edward King
7 is a pastoral elegy.
• Dedicated to the memory of Edward King, friend of Milton’s at Cambridge who drowned when his ship sank in the Irish Sea off the coast of Wales in August 1637.
• The poem is 193 lines in length, and is irregularly rhymed. Republished in 1645.
• Edward King is a Pastoral character
Milton questions the incompetence of unworthy people who are misleading the young talents.
• Calliope could not protect her son Orpheus against Thracian Bacchanals
• It ends with a Christian consolation of Lycidas’s place in heaven and then it returns to the poet piping his sad song about future determination

Question 8

• “Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. (opening Lines)

“And now the sun had stretch’d out all the hills,
And now was dropp’d into the western bay;
At last he rose, and twitch’d his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.”
These are lines from

Answer 8

Lycidas

Question 9

When was the first version of Paradise Lost published?

Answer 9

1667

• A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books

Question 10

What is Paradise Lost about?

Answer 10

• The poem concerns the biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton’s purpose, stated in Book I, is to “justify the ways of God to men.”
• The poem is written in in medias res (Latin for in the midst of things).
• Milton’s story has two narrative arcs, one about Satan (Lucifer) and the other following Adam and Eve.

Question 11

What are different books of Paradise Lost about?

Answer 11

• Book 1 and Book 2 has speeches of Satan and his followers
• It begins after Satan and the other rebel angels have been defeated and banished to Hell.
• In Pandæmonium, the capital city of Hell, Satan employs his rhetorical skill to organize his followers; he is aided by Mammon and Beelzebub. Belial and Moloch are also present. At the end of the debate, Satan volunteers to corrupt Mankind by entering Garden of Eden.
• Book 3 is scene of heaven and Eden, God gives logical answers to the questions raised, he says that Man is made with free will by him, therefore the fall is inevitable, which amounts to punishment and then redemption
• Book 4 shows Eden in all its glory through Satan’s eyes
• Book 5 and 6 has Raphael accounting the war in the heaven
• Book 7 has Raphael’s account of creation
• Book 8: Adam tells Raphael his own experience of creation
• Book 9: Difference between Adam and Eve- suggests that Satan suggested the eating of apple in form of a toad in eve’s mind when she was asleep.
• Book 10: Fall and recovery of Adam and Eve.

Question 12

Paradise Regained is about?

Answer 12

first published in 1671. The volume in which it appeared also contained the poet’s closet drama Samson Agonistes.

Question 13

When was Absolem and Achitophel published?

Answer 13

Part 1681
The poem tells the Biblical tale of the rebellion of Absalom against King David; in this context it is an allegory on King Charles II and the Exclusion Crisis (1679-1681).
• Charles portrayed as King David
and Earl of Shaftesbury as Achitophel.
Duke of Manmouth as Absalom
and Buckingham as Zimri.
The poem also references the Popish Plot (1678) and the Monmouth Rebellion(1685).
• blame for the rebellion on Shaftesbury,
Charles a very reluctant and loving man who has to be king before father.
• In the prologue, “To the Reader”, Dryden states that “the true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction”.
• Through biblical allusions: ancient fatherhood with current events not only to show a precedent, but also to show how it connects with a royal’s responsibilities.
• Dryden uses the fatherly indulgence of David (lines 31-33) to explore the legitimacy of Absalom’s succession.

Question 14

Who wrote the second part of Absolem and Achitophel?

Answer 14

Nahum Tate 1682

Question 15

Mac Fleknoe attacks?

Answer 15

Thomas Shadwell

It was written in 1687 and published in 1682

Question 16

What were the disagreements between Shadwell and Dryden?

Answer 16

“1) their different estimates of the genius of Ben Jonson, 2) the preference of Dryden for comedy of wit and repartee and of Shadwell, the chief disciple of Jonson, for humours comedy, 3) a sharp disagreement over the true purpose of comedy, 4) contention over the value of rhymed plays, and 5) plagiarism

Question 17

All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was call’d to Empire, and had govern’d long:
In Prose and Verse, was own’d, without dispute
Through all the Realms of Non-sense, absolute.

Answer 17

Mac Flecknoe lines 1 to 6

Question 18

Religio Laici or A Layman’s Faith is a prequel to?

Answer 18

Hind and the Panther
published in 1682
The poet argues for the credibility of the Christian religion and against Deism, and for the Anglican Church against that of Rome

Question 19

The Hind and the Panther: A Poem, in Three Parts was published in?

Answer 19

1687
• At some 2600 lines it is much the longest of Dryden’s poems, translations excepted, and perhaps the most controversial.
• Dryden became a Catholic from genuine conviction rather than political time-serving, in so far as his call for an alliance of Anglicans, Catholics and King against the Nonconformists directly contradicted James II’s policy of appealing to the Nonconformists as allies against the Church of England.

Question 20

Summary of Hind and the Panther?

Answer 20

• 1) Roman Catholic church appears as “A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged”,
• Church of England as a panther, the Independents as a bear,
the Presbyterians as a wolf,
the Quakers as a hare,
the Socinians as a fox,
the Freethinkers as an ape,
and the Anabaptists as a boar;
• 2) second part deals with the controversial topics of church authority and transubstantiation.
• 3) third part argues that the Crown and the Anglican and Catholic Churches should form a united front against the Nonconformist churches and the Whigs

Question 21

Some poems by John Dryden?

Answer 21

A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” (1687) and “Alexander’s Feast” or The Power of Music” shows the effect of music on Alexander (1697).
• Pindaric Ode: “To the pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady, Mrs. Anne Killigrew” (1686).

Question 22

Hudibras was published in?

Answer 22

1663 first part
1664 2nd
1678 third
by Samuel Butler

Question 23

What is Hudibras about?

Answer 23

• Burlesque romance,
an attack on puritanism,
different sects are passionate about their own doctrine.
people who are ignorant but still violently support their opinions.
In argument between Puritan knight Hudibras and squire Ralph, he targeted the rhetorical studies happening in Cambridge.

Question 24

Pope was suffering from?

Answer 24

Pott’s disease

Question 25

Messiah (from the Book of Isaiah, and later translated into Latin by Samuel Johnson) was published in?

Answer 25

1712 by Pope

Question 26

The Rape of the Lock was first published in?

Answer 26

1712 and revised in 1714
Dedicated to Arabella Fermor who inspired the character of Belinda. A mock-epic, The poem brought into focus the onset of acquisitive individualism and conspicuous consumption, where purchased goods assume dominance over moral agency.

Question 27

The Rape of the Lock is based on?

Answer 27

• It was based on an actual event recounted to the poet by Pope’s friend, John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre, were both from aristocratic recusant Catholic families, at a time in England when, under such laws as the Test Act, all denominations except Anglicanism suffered legal restrictions and penalties.

Question 28

The poem includes character sketches of “Atticus” (Joseph Addison) and “Sporus” (John Hervey). Addison is presented as having great talent that is diminished by fear and jealousy; Hervey is sexually perverse, malicious, and both absurd and dangerous

Answer 28

Epistle to Arbuthnot

Question 29

Dunciad (1728) had a sequel named?

Answer 29

New Dunciad 1743

Question 30

Different books of Dunciad

Answer 30

• Book 1 opens with Goddess Dullness is worried about the bad poetry and thinks of Bays(Cibber) to succeed Elkanah Settle who died.
• Book 2 describes games instituted by the queen on Cibber’s coronation.
• Book 3 deals with Cibber’s vision of the past, present and future triumphs of Dullness, here Pope satirises many people and institutions he didn’t like.

Question 31

John Thomson’s poems?

Answer 31

• Winter (1726), Summer (1727), Spring (1728) and Autumn (1730)
• Uses Miltonic Blank verse to describe the countryside at different seasons of the year with meditations about man.
• “Poem Sacred to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton”
• Castle of Indolence (1748) descriptive-narrative poem.

Question 32

John Dyre’s poems?

Answer 32

“The Fleece” a poem in four books, describing the care and shearing of sheep, getting wool and weaving.

Question 33

Some other neo-classical poets?

Answer 33

• John Philips (1676-1709) Cyder (1708), on growing of apples and the making of Cider.
• John Armstrong’ Art of Preserving Health (1744)
• Matthew Green – The Spleen (1737)- melancholy and its cure
Edward Young (1683-1765)- “The Complaint; or Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality. (1742-46)
William Shenstone (1714-63): Promfret’s Choice, The Schoolmistress (1737) in imitation of Spenser.
William Collins (1721-59) “Persian Eclogues (1742), “Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects” (1746), Ode to Pity, Ode to Fear, Ode to the Poetical Character

Question 34

Thomas Gray’s poems?

Answer 34

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”: The poem starts off as an address to the college and recollects his youth
• “On the Death of a Favourite Cat” high formal diction, mock-heroic, burlesque.
• “The Hymn to Adversity”, “The Progress of Poesy”

Question 35

Summary f Elegy written in Country Churchyard?

Answer 35

The poem begins in a churchyard with a speaker who is describing his surroundings in vivid detail.
The speaker emphasises both aural and visual sensations as he examines the area in relation to himself. As the poem continues, the speaker begins to focus less on the countryside and more on his immediate surroundings. His descriptions move from sensations to his own thoughts as he begins to emphasise what is not present in the scene; he contrasts an obscure country life with a life that is remembered. This contemplation provokes the speaker’s thoughts on the natural process of wastage and unfulfilled potential. The speaker focuses on the inequities that come from death, obscuring individuals, while he begins to resign himself to his own inevitable fate. As the poem ends, the speaker begins to deal with death in a direct manner as he discusses how humans desire to be remembered. As the speaker does so, the poem shifts and the first speaker is replaced by a second who describes the death of the first. An epitaph is included after the conclusion of the poem. The epitaph reveals that the poet whose grave is the focus of the poem was unknown and obscure. Circumstance kept the poet from becoming something greater, and he was separated from others because he was unable to join in the common affairs of their life

Question 36

“The Traveller” (1764), The poem surveys different European countries. It is a poem by?

Answer 36

Oliver Goldsmith

Heroic Couplet

Question 37

“London” (1739), “The Vanity of Human Wishes”: The Vanity of Human Wishes” are poems by?

Answer 37

Dr Samuel Johnson

Question 38

Summary of The vanity of human wishes?

Answer 38

the speaker surveys all of mankind, and examines the way in which all kinds of dreams and wishes and ambitions come to nothing. The poem is loosely divided up into sections which deal with different kinds of power and ambition.

Question 39

Table Talk is a poem by?

Answer 39

William Cowper

Question 40

George Crabe wrote?

Answer 40

The Village

on poverty and suffering of people from the Suffolk coastal area.