Princeton Review Facts Flashcards
“But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”
Andrew Marvell from “To His Coy Mistress”
List these authors in order of the dates they were active, from past to present:
Charles Lamb Elizabeth Gaskell Sherwood Anderson Andrew Marvell Ernest Hemingway
Andrew Marvell 1621-1678 Charles Lamb 1775-1834 Elizabeth Gaskell 1810-1865 Sherwood Anderson 1876-1941 Ernest Hemingway 1899-1961
“No coward soul is mine
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere”
Emily Bronte, from
“No Coward Soul Is Mine”
“Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
Beauty within itself should not be wasted;
Fair flowers that are not gather’d in their prime
Rot and consume themselves in little time.”
Shakespeare, from Venus and Adonis
“Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.”
Denise Levertov, 1964
“The Secret”
This alludes to another famous work, what is it?
The Sound and The Fury
By William Faulkner
The Sound and The Fury alludes to the lines: “it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
What famous work does this allude to?
Tender is the Night
By F. Scott Fitzgerald
Tender Is the Night alludes to a phrase from Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale.”
What famous work does this allude to?
For Whom the Bell Tolls
By Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bell Tolls alludes to: “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee,” from a sermon by John Donne.
What famous work does this allude to?
Things Fall Apart
By Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart alludes to the line, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” from William Butler Yeats’s “The Second Coming.”
The stanza below comes from which poem? Who wrote it?
“Young Juan wandered by the glassy brooks
Thinking unutterable things; he threw
Himself at length within the leafy nooks
Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew;
There poets find material for their books,
And every now and then we read them through,
So that their plan and prosody are eligible
Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible.”
The stanza comes from Don Juan, Lord Byron’s long, comic masterpiece. The verse form employed is ottava rima. By the way, Byron (and his pals Keats ans Shelley) genuinely disliked Wordsworth; they felt betrayed by the political turnabout that saw the once freethinking Wordsworth become a crusty reactionary in his later years.
What are the three main schools of literary theory?
The three main schools of literary theory are Marxist, Linguistic, and Psychological.
What does Marxist theory concentrate on?
Marxist theory concentrates on the economic situation in which literature is written and read.
What does Psychological concentrate on?
Psychological criticism investigates the personality and the biography of the author and reader as sources of overarching meaning.
What does Linguistic theory concentrate on?
Linguistic criticism examines the philosophy of language and linguistics.
Whose epitaph is this?
Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbeare,
To digg the dust enclosed heare.
Bless be ye man yt spares thes stones.
And curst be he yt moves my bones.
William Shakespeare’s epitaph
The Iliad in 39 words:
Agamemnon and Achilles of Sparta besiege Troy because Paris of Troy stole married Helen of Sparta. Achilles’s best friend dies as the Trojans beat back the Spartan Greeks (including Odysseus). Achilles avenges his death by killing Paris’s brother, Hector.
The Odyssey in 45 words:
Odysseus tries to return home after sacking Troy (see Iliad). Cursed by Poseidon, he drifts at sea for ten years, has various adventures, and finally gets home to find wife Penelope fending off avid suitors. He and son Telemachus get rid of the lot.
Agamemnon in 26 words:
Clytemnestra, angry with husband Agamemnon for sacrificing their daughter and for bringing home his prescient love slave Cassandra, conspires with her lover Aegisthus to murder Agamemnon.
Choephoroe (“The Libation Bearers”) in 36 words:
Based on the advice of an oracle, Orestes (Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’s exiled son) decides to avenge his father’s murder. He and sister Electra murder Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, but Orestes is tormented by the Furies.
The Eumenides (“Benevolent Ones”) in 41 words:
Athena presides over a precedent-setting murder trial: Orestes vs. the Furies for the murder of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. The jury is hung. Athena decides in favor of Orestes but placates the Furies by offering to share the ruling of Athens.
Oedipus the King in 56 words:
The Oracle prophesies that King Laius will have a son who will kill Laius and marry Queen Jocasta. But instead of killing newborn Oedipus to avoid the prophesy, they give him up for adoption. Grown-up Oedipus solves a sphinx’s riddle and marries the Queen. When the incest is revealed, Jocasta commits suicide and Oedipus blinds himself.
Oedipus at Colonus in 21 words:
Oedipus goes to Colonus with daughters Antigone and Ismene. His sons fight each other to the death for his vacated throne.
Antigone in 33 words:
Despite penalty of death, Antigone attempts to bury her brother Polyneices. King Creon, her uncle, banishes her to a cave where she hangs herself. Creon’s son Haemon, her lover, stabs himself in grief.
Beowulf in 19 words:
Beowulf slays monster Grendel and becomes king. Years later, he is killed by a dragon and Wiglaf becomes king.
