P Cards Flashcards
The Republic
Plato, The Republic
Socrates is the main character and the narrator of the action.
Divided into 10 books.
The principle of justice-the principle of the organization of the Good Life-is the central theme of The Republic. Other themes, however, are inextricably interwoven with the theme of justice. There is the theme of knowledge; the well-ordered life must be guided by wisdom. And wisdom, in turn, depends on a particular kind of education.
Also, there are the themes of the place of poetry and art in a good society and of the philosopher’s relationship to the political community. In sum, The Republic is an examination of the Good Life, that is, of the possibility of harmonizing the various excellences of human souls and societies into avisionary model of the Good Life for all.
An Essay on Criticism
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism
Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” is a didactic poem in heroic couplets, begun, perhaps, as early as 1705, and published, anonymously, in 1711. It is his response to an ongoing critical debate, which centered on the question of whether poetry should be “natural” or written according to predetermined “artificial” rules inherited from the classical past.
The poem commences with a discussion of the rules of taste which ought to govern poetry, and which enable a critic to make sound critical judgements. In it Pope comments, too, upon the authority which ought properly to be accorded to the classical authors who dealt with the subject; and concludes that the rules of the ancients are in fact identical with the rules of Nature: poetry and painting, that is, like religion and morality, actually reflect natural law.
Pope then proceeds to discuss the laws by which a critic should be guided–insisting, as any good poet would, that critics exist to serve poets, not to attack them. He then provides, by way of example, instances of critics who had erred in one fashion or another. What, in Pope’s opinion (here as elsewhere in his work) is the deadliest critical sin–a sin which is itself a reflection of a greater sin? All of his erring critics, each in their own way, betray the same fatal flaw.
The final section of the poem discusses the moral qualities and virtues inherent in the ideal critic, who is also the ideal man–and who, Pope laments, no longer exists in the degenerate world of the early eighteenth century.
The Dunciad
Alexander Pope, The Dunciad (1688-1744)
Basically a mock-epic making fun of bad writers. He and Swift and some others formed the Scriblerus club dedicated to the ridicule of folly. The first lines of the Dunciad follow:
YET, yet a moment, one dim Ray of Light
Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night!
Of darkness visible so much be lent,
As half to shew, half veil the deep Intent.
Ye Pow’rs! whose Mysteries restor’d I sing, [5]
To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing,
Suspend a while your Force inertly strong,
Then take at once the Poet and the Song
The Rape of the Lock
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
The strongest defence of Pope came from Byron. If there were a general wreck of English literature, he wrote to his publisher, the English would rush to save Shakespeare and Milton, but the rest of the world would save Pope’s work first, because Pope was ‘the moral poet of all civilisation’. Byron was ready to defend Pope against all comers, and pretty much on any grounds – as a poet of imagination and invention, as well as the poet of good sense – but in particular he insisted that what others called Pope’s artificiality was in truth his faultlessness’.
Belinda arises to prepare for the day’s social activities after sleeping late. Her guardian sylph, Ariel, warned her in a dream that some disaster will befall her, and promises to protect her to the best of his abilities. Belinda takes little notice of this oracle, however. After an elaborate ritual of dressing and primping, she travels on the Thames River to Hampton Court Palace, an ancient royal residence outside of London, where a group of wealthy young socialites are gathering for a party. Among them is the Baron, who has already made up his mind to steal a lock of Belinda’s hair. He has risen early to perform and elaborate set of prayers and sacrifices to promote success in this enterprise. When the partygoers arrive at the palace, they enjoy a tense game of cards, which Pope describes in mock-heroic terms as a battle. This is followed by a round of coffee. Then the Baron takes up a pair of scissors and manages, on the third try, to cut off the coveted lock of Belinda’s hair. Belinda is furious. Umbriel, a mischievous gnome, journeys down to the Cave of Spleen to procure a sack of sighs and a flask of tears which he then bestows on the heroine to fan the flames of her ire. Clarissa, who had aided the Baron in his crime, now urges Belinda to give up her anger in favor of good humor and good sense, moral qualities which will outlast her vanities. But Clarissa’s moralizing falls on deaf ears, and Belinda initiates a scuffle between the ladies and the gentlemen, in which she attempts to recover the severed curl. The lock is lost in the confusion of this mock battle, however; the poet consoles the bereft Belinda with the suggestion that it has been taken up into the heavens and immortalized as a constellation.
Remembrance of Things Past
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
Marcel Proust was born to bourgeois parents living in Paris. His father was a doctor and his mother came from a rich and cultured Jewish family. In 1912 Proust produced the first volume of his seven-part major work, A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (Remembrance of Things Past). The massive story of 3 000 pages occupied the last decade of his life. Remembrance of Things Past does not have a clear and continuous plot line. The narrator is Marcel. He is not Proust but resembles him in many ways. Marcel is initially ignorant - only slowly does he begin to grasp the essence of the hidden reality. At the end he is preparing to write a novel which is like the one just presented to the reader. Marcel’s childhood memories start to flow when he tastes a madeleine cake dipped in linden tea such as he was given as a child. “And as soon as I had recognised the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine.”
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Pope is one of the major figures of the Restoration, and his poem “The Rape of the Lock” will almost certainly be on your exam. Apart from “The Rape of the Lock,” Pope has a number of works that have a high probability of showing up.
Note that Pope wrote almost exclusively in heroic couplets, like many Restoration poets. Noting that a poem is written in heroic couplets is a good step toward identifying a work of Pope’s
