Poems Context Flashcards
What is some context in ‘Non Sum Qualis…’ that would suggest barriers to love is a theme?
- when Dowson was 23 he proposed to a family friend who was a minor
- obsessive/ forbidden love
While Dowson was at Oxford, what group was he a member of? What was their focus?
- The Rhymers’ club
- rejected literary naturalism and embraced experimental modes of writing
When was the point of Dowson’s decline?
- after the death and suicide of his parents
Ernest Dowson was involved in the Decadent movement. What was the 19th century artistic and literary movement inspired by?
- Gothic tradition
- symbolism
- aestheticism
How did aestheticism and decadence shock the Victorian establishment?
- challenging traditional values
- foregrounding sensuality
- promoting artistic, sexual and political experimentation
What are key features/ focuses of the Decadent movement?
- artificial imagery
- interest in perversity, paradox and in transgressive modes of sexuality
- classical references
19th-century saw earth-shattering scientific advances, this progressed blind faith in science and technology to solve problems. How did the Decadence movement react against this?
- Decadent imagination developed around the social and intellectual instability and uncertainty emerging after the scientific progression
What personal grief would suggest that John Keats was particularly conscious of his own mortality?
- death of his brother from TB
How does medieval literature connect women and water?
- water is used to weaken men
What genre/ style did Keats belong to?
- Romanticism (leading figure)
After Keats was infected with TB, he became acquainted with Fanny Brawne. How was their relationship?
- intimate and passionate, though unconsummated
- he was too ill and too poor to marry her
What are some features of Romanticism?
- emphasis on emotion and individualism
- glorification of all past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical
- authentic emotion
What was Romanticism a reaction to?
- partly to the Industrial Revolution, aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, scientific rationalisation of nature
What are some quintessentially Romantic concerns included in some of Keats’ great odes?
- beauty of nature
- relationship between imagination and creativity
- response of the passions to beauty and suffering
- transience of human life in time
How does Keats revive features of medieval literature?
- classic dream sequence in ballad form
What is the relevance of Hardy’s poem ‘At an Inn’ being written in 1898 and his wife’s death in 1912?
- it’s possible that his feelings for his secretary are close to love but cannot be public due to the sanctity of marriage
How is Thomas Hardy described?
- a Victorian realist
What were some of Hardy’s influences?
- Romanticism (especially Wordsworth)
- Charles Dickens
‘The Ruined Maid’ was written by Hardy in 1866, very early in his writing career. What relevance does this have?
- even as a young man he was ahead of his time in his views on women
- Victorian society had one acceptable rule for women, whereas Hardy was forcing his reader to question these conventional values
What was a particular focus of Hardy’s writing? How did Hardy use literature?
- exploring the effects of different social ills
- used it as a way of exploring the nature of contemporary society: its attitudes and moral codes
- especially focuses on the hypocrisy of Victorian society
How does Hardy’s writing show a shift from Romantic sensibility?
- focused more on accurately portraying the world and exploring its social and moral make-up, rules and hypocrisies
Within ‘The Ruined Maid,’ how is it evident that there was an attempt for literature to explore the differing experiences of people across the country and society?
- efforts made to represent the speech patterns of particular regions and social groups
- much broader social focus
What were some of the strict elements of Victorian morality promoted by Queen Victoria?
- wanted to promote image of a quiet, religious family unit with very clearly defined gender roles
How was the term “fallen women” used? How did the definition develop in the 19th century?
- to describe a woman who has ‘lost her innocence’ and fallen from the grace of God
- meaning came to be closely associated with loss/ surrender of a woman’s chastity
- fallenness was a result of a woman’s deviation from social norms
What did Victorian morality comment about a woman’s sexuality?
- to be socially and morally acceptable, a woman’s sexuality and experience should be entirely restricted to marriage
Who was Christina Rossetti influenced by?
- Romantic poets
- Italien writers
What kind of difficulties did Rossetti face in her life?
- financial difficulties
- wasn’t unusual to die young (ie. death was more frequently experienced due to high death rates)
- had a nervous breakdown
What kind of ideas and values did she take from the Pre-Raphaelite movement? How was her poetry inspired by this?
- more natural and realistic, harking back to early Renaissance
- serious, heartfelt
- rich details, clear and simple language/ rhyme schemes, medieval images etc
How did her Anglo-Catholic beliefs influence her poetry? (especially relevant for Remember)
- spiritual outweighs the material, partly influential in regards to death
What kind of poet was Byron?
- Romantic
Why was he described as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’?
- flamboyant
- numerous love affairs with rumours surrounding them
- breakdown of marriage
How do Byron’s Romantic values impact on ‘She Walks in Beauty’?
- glorification of nature - “like the night” “raven tresses”
- necessity of light and dark - search for harmony and balance
What event is said to have inspired ‘She Walks in Beauty’?
- sight of cousin-by-marriage wearing mourning clothes
What kind of poet is Burns?
- early Romantic
Which circumstance inspired ‘Ae fond kiss’?
- genuine platonic love with Nancy who left for Jamaica to reconcile with her husband
Why is Burns often classed as a proto-Romantic?
- sensitivity
- value of feeling and emotion
- spontaneity
In what way could Blake be considered pre-Romantic?
- deeply philosophical
Outline Blake’s attitudes to religion. How does this impact ‘The Garden of Love’?
- incredibly, but deeply distrustful of the Church of England
- explicitly references a ‘priest’
- rejected nature of organised Church
- believed religious and social laws were unjust
What are the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience - where is the ‘Garden of Love’ featured?
- two collections of poetry with similar ideas
- exploration into how society corrupts innocence
- Songs of Experience
How would you define Rochester as a ‘libertine’?
- one who indulges freely in sensual pleasures without regard to moral principles
What does Rochester respond to and reject?
- Puritan morality and society
How does Donne break traditional conventions?
- breaks many ‘rules’ of love poetry
- rethinks love in a theatrical way
How does ‘The Flea’ fit into the literary conventions of metaphysical poetry?
- large amount of wit
- aimed to shock
- based on conceit
- inclusion of hyperbole
- unusual analogy
- direct language
How would you describe Lovelace? (The Scrutiny)
- Cavalier poet
How would you characterise the Cavalier poets?
- morally lax
- wish to express the joy and simple gratification of celebratory things
- enjoying life is far more important than following moral codes
- shallow
- superficial
- supercilious
- blase
What tends to be the focus of Cavalier poetry?
- focuses more on conduct and manners/ relations between people
How might we characterise Non Sum Qualis as a Decadent poem?
- mindless pleasure with underlying pain
Why does Wyatt use the sonnet form?
- it is the contemporary form of expressing love
What does Keats do with the conventions of a courtly love poem?
- he plays with them
A sense of madness and wild/ violent images are used in Downson’s poem, what literature are they typical of?
- fin de siecle (ie. end of the century)
How do we know that Lovelace can be interpreted as a satirical poet?
- the hyperbolic tone reinforces this interpretation
What kind of love could you consider Rossetti’s poem to explore?
- agape/ selfless love
