Revision For AS Exam Flashcards
Thomas More
Utopia. Latin 1516, english 1551
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Introduced sonnets to England. «Whoso List to Hunt»
Henry Howard, earl of Surrey
Invented the english sonnet form (3 quatrain, a couplet)
Edmund Spenser
The Shepheardes Calender, 1579
The Faerie Queene, 1590
Pastoral poems and epic romance
Sir Philip Sidney
Pastoral romance (the old arcadia, 1580)
The first english sonnet sequence (Astrophel and stella, 1581)
The first classic of literary criticism (the Defence of Poesy, 1582)
Sir Walter Ralegh
Christopher Marlowe
George Puttenham
Anne Finch
Puttenham : the arte of english poesie, 1589. Rare Record of elizabethan taste and theory, defines what good poetry is.
Authors of the elizabethan age (not ann finch)
Dante Alighieri (XIIIe)
Petrarch (XIVe)
Inventors of the italian Sonnet
Lover in despair, blazon, ordered form to express inner disorder
Love, introspection
Shakespeare
Famous sonnet cycle : 1609. (1-17 young man w plea to procreate, 18 theme of mutability) and magical power of poetry, immortability through writing
=> authorship ? Circulation of sonnets in groups.
Edmund Bolton
1600, As withereth the Primrose by the River.
Evanescence, realms of human life linked w nature
Emblem
Memorable combination of texts and images into a composite picture.
Short motto—picture—epigram.
Didactic function, persuasion, memory. To know the truth quickly
Thomas Platter
1599, saw a shakespeare play : julius caesar.
Criticism of social hierarchy as god-given order. Tyranny, etc in ancient times (aimed at queen elizabeth though)
Using the stage conf. To turn the audience into an affective community
John Donne (1572-1631)
Metaphysical poet. Dean of st-paul’s cathedral
«The Flea» (persuasion, sex)
«A valediction : forbidding Mourning» (movement of spheres, easing the goodbyes, sex)
«Batter my heart» (religious and violent images, rel to god w military language, self abnegation)
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
Metaphysical poet.
«To his coy mistress» 1649-60
Persuasion, mutability, imperial riches, physical love, anti petrarchism
George Herbert (1593-1633)
English poet, priest of the church of england
«Easter wings» : pattern poem, salvation, redempting power of faith, climax (first human kind, then speaker)
«The Pulley» : restlessness of mankind for god to exist, he wouldn’t exist if humans weren’t tired. Pun : REST w 2 meanings
Conceits, unusual contexts, ingenuine comparisons that aren’t just, unexpected stuff.
Imagery, paradoxe, puns, play w language, argument and persuasion
Spontaneous thought
Metaphysical poetry
New world encounters influences
The savage
America
Imagination
John Donne’s Elegy XIX
Shakespeare’s «The Tempest» 1610 (caliban)
Michel de Montaigne «Of cannibals»
Exploration literature (non-fiction)
- Richard Haklyut: the principal navigations, voyages and discoveries of the english nation, 1589
Conveying the exp of a new place to other people - Letters from Christopher Colombus
- Bartolomé de las Casas: «the Pearl Fishers», cruel inslavement of natives, explicit
Discourse of wonder and appropriation
The Renaissance
XVIIe c.
Promotion literature
Promotion literature:
-Captain John Smith : description of new england 1616. (Influence on imagination, pocahontas)
General history of virginia, new england and the summer isles, 1624
- thomas Harriot : a brief and true report of the new found land of virginia, 1588
Aphra Behn
First female writer XVIIe that made money out of it.
Oroonoko , public fascination, in global imagination. Novel in south america, west african man tricked into ship to surinam. Rebelion, heroism, nobility of oroonoko, quest for freedom w wife.
Slavery not institutionnalized, questioned yet, prefigures racist social structure: wealth of white depends on enslavement of black…
Exoticism, firsthand exp, smart protag. Acc to european standards to make him relatable
The Age of Reason (1650-1750)
Rise of natural sciences and enlightenment thought
Civil war — commonwealth (1649-60) — restoration period—glorious revolution (1688) , 89 bill of rights — 1707 act of union (engl and scots) — 1707 Queen anne
Oliver Crowmell — charles II
Newly attained glory of british culture and litt.
John Milton
Age of reason, «Paradise lost» 1667-74
Long epic poem based on bible and litt. Models from Antiquity. IN ENGLISH, christian heroism, national poetry
Georgian era (1714- 1830s)
Empiricism (john locke, isaac newton)
- Protestant heir after queen anne, hanoverian kings : george-s (4), arch and design
Augustan age (golden age), early to mid 18th century
Neoclassicism
Roman models of augustan age (27-14 BC), imitation = best art.
Rules, canons, framework, harmony, elevated subjets, artificial way of writing using rhetorical means. Order, symetry
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Augustan Age
«An Essay on man», 1733
Philo. Reasonning, logical thought, postion of humans at the centre, knowledge of oneself. Human goodness despite evil.
HEROIC COUPLETS: iambic pentameter in rhymed pairs
4 epistle
«The rape of the Lock», 1712 mock heroic
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
«Gulliver’s travels» 1735
«A modest proposal» 1729 => Satire, about poverty and anti irish sentiment. Serious tone, argumentative text but w irony and critique. Social problm of poverty and political causes. Absurdity, children offered as food. So political discussion
Joseph Addison (1672-1729)
«The Spectator» periodical published by him and Richard Steele. 1711-1712.
News and comments on manners, morals, lit. Comprehensive attention to aspects of english life. Insight into society
- «the royal exchange» 1711 london, a cosmopolitan place, desrc of society, patroitism, hub
Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729)
The Tatler, periodical 1711-1713. Good manners from the SP of human civilization and gentlemany taste (rule-setting ?)
- also in the spectator, embodiment of types and stereotypes of society (meta comprehension of it)
1665 plague
1666 great fire of London
Urban sprawl
Urbanisation
GRUB STREET
Circulating libraries
Also coffeehouses
1660 charles II, returning, re opened theatres (closed in 1642) ! Thriving, women actresses (Nell Gwynn)
neoclassisist adaptation of plays, rediscovery of Shakespeare
Other features of eighteenth c.
Self education, first dicitionnaries (johnson), encyclopaedia Britannica
Structuring and ordering of knowledge
The Grand Tour. Confrontation
The Picturesque, scenic pleasure
Women writers:
Anne Finch (1661-1720)
Charlotte Lennox (1730-1804)
Frances Burney (1752-1840)
Novelists
XVIIIe :
Part I : colonial writing
Industrial stirrings
Part 2: rise of the novel
Sentimentalism
The epistolary genre
Emergence of the public sphere
Coffee houses, meetings of middle class men
Change in sexual relations
Slavery, growth of the empire
Late XVIIe c.
1772 Somersett’s case, slavery not legal on brit. Soil
1807: abolition of slave trade in british colonies
1833: slavery abolition act
Important years (3)
James Grainger (scot, 1721)
«The Sugar-Cane», 1764
Sugar trade = goldmine for the empire
Long poem (557 lines), pastoral style, ancient models. About growth and harvest of the plant.
He managed the estate of his wife.
Awareness, sympathy for the plight of slaves but no action is taken.
Black Atlantic
Ship. Triangular slave trade btwn america, africa, & europe. Hardships, cruelty and bondage..
Paul Gilroy: ship = living micro cultural, political system in motion. Microcosm
Black culture: ethnics thrown together, transcultural, transatlantical : hybrid culture
Olaudah Equiano (gustavus vassa)
Born either in Nigeria of South Carolina in 1745.
Purchased to become a sailor, buys his freedom. Activism against slave-trade
=> «interesting narrative» : central text for this movement, info from other slaves. Depiction of cruelties, reality of slavery: chronological narrative, testimonial, description. => realism to provoke emotion
Slave narrative
Most famous : Olaudah Equiano: «interesting narrative of the life of ….,or…. The african, written by himself (1789)
Wide readership, sentimental appeal, relevant for action at the time, self transformation (// conversion narrative, autobiography,..) popular genres, but from another pov.
Religion = the common bond, used to show equality of slaves and readers + source of consolation
The Novel (history) (XVIIIe)
Industrialisation, expansion of production and of printing, access to books, periodicals.
Emergence of the novel + novel culture
Growing literacy => reading becomes a social activity
The Novel (Ian Watt)
Sucess of novel = rise of the bourgeois subject, of interest in the self in the XVIIIe. Individuals and their experience of the world.
1st novel : robinson crusoe ?
Context: precursory forms (diary,epistolary,accounts of travel, non-fiction + tales, anecdotes, sketches, short fiction) = novel
New sense of subjectivity, bourgeois individualism, need for orientation/guidance w new liberty of choice => novel is a mirror of process of self-development ?
2 examples of novels in the XVIIIe (see their own cards)
With very long titles
- Daniel Defoe «the life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe» 1719
- Samuel Richardson: «Pamela, or virtue rewarded» 1740. An epistolary novel
Sentimentalism (as opposed to empirism/rationalism)
Ethical tradition from the scottish enlightment. Intuition and human inner capacity to feel as means to know the truth.
David Hume, etc for philosophers
Bond of emotion, shared feeling is stronger than logic & rationality.
Examples of sentimentalism (writers & novels) (second part of the XVIII)
Laurence Sterne : Tristram Shandy
Frances Burney : Evelina
J-J Rousseau : Julie
J.W. Von Goethe : Die Leiden des jungen Werther
XVIIIe : popularity of diaries and letters as a mode of introspection and self-betterment
Puritan origins: «the pilgrim’s progress», J. Bunyan (1678)
Letters: Mary Montagu (1754)
Epistolary fiction : la nouvelle héloïse or «Pamela» (1740)
Scrutinizing the self, not only for spiritual purposes, showing what the right conduct is ?
Pamela, or virtue rewarded
S. Richardson, 1740. Not calling it a novel, rather a real story in his time.
Scandal bc liberal depiction of female privacy
Discourse: virtue= woman’s main capital, the man is the rake.
«Shamela» (H. Fielding) as satire ==> P= sincere figure of modesty or a manipulative woman playing a role ?
Mariage plot: v important & difficult topic, esp for middle class women. (Desires+social expectations)
Epistolary novel
V popular in the XVII and XVIIIe
Features: immediacy, conversation tone, direct convo without a narrator, space for individual to unravel their thought.
Intimate, trustful account => but is writing a letter that private ? Instrumental in Pamela (hiding it in her bosom)
Robinson Crusoe, 1719
Source: alexander Selkirk, whose story was published in The Englishman (r.steele)
-earliest novel ? Survival, self-made man.
- development Of the modern subject + puritan backdrop
- keeping stock of stuff, survival guide thanks to descriptions, adventure story
- 8 voyages, is enslaved, is a slave owner, (journey: W. Rogers «a cruising voyage around the world» 1719.
Charlotte Lennox (1730-1804)
Novelist, translator (from french), liked by peers
«The female quixote» (don quixote, cervantes) w Arabella, naivety, funny, chivalric ideas. Illustrates a concern about the novel at the time (romantic fiction thought to be reality)
Social conventions ? 1 decision in a woman’s life : marriage, esp for middle class women (marry well)
Lady Mary Montagu (1689-1762)
Of noble descent, holds salons, travel to Istanbul (ottoman empire), 1 y without husband : letters, transculturation from a female perspective. Never feels excluded. Travel writing, exploration
The XVIIIe summary
-Slave narrative (equiano vs defoe)
-Expansion of print market, more genres, reachability (=> the novel)
New readership (women too)
-Public debates on social and political stuff : changes in laws and attitude.
- women’s situation changing ? Women writers out of their realm
- novel, community, nation building, sense of belonging
Autobiographical writing
Term first used in 1798. Only one form of all the types of life-writing. Definition bound w gender => male, western, middle class. Fic or fact ? An artful construction. + cultural patterns, self-fashionning.
Margaret Cavendish (1624-1673)
Controversial and notorious woman, writer supported by her husband. Several modes of writing in her works
- role-transcending behaviour, apology as an ideal wife, speaking about her own writing
«A true relation», 1656.
Royalist, aristocrat husband. Fake modesty ? Contemplative nature, melancholy. Made into the canons of her century.
Mary Rich (1625-1678)
Countess of Warwick
Puritan writing, god, simple truth, plain style. Conversion narrative. Self scrutiny to intensify spiritual experiences.
«Some Specialities in the Life of M. Warwicke», 1674
Selected few belief, thoughts of eternity
Graveyard poetry and the early gothic
Term for a group of works from the XVIII and early XIX c. (Gothic novels debut in 1770s-80s)
Reflective sensibility on the theme of human mortality, in graveyards, burials.
In the past, scary, supernatural, ghosts, catholic influence. Male vilain vs damsel in distress scenario
Gothic novel / romance : définition
A story of terror and suspence, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastry. (Gothic-medieval architecture associated here with supertition)
- challenging the supposed stability and happiness of capitalist bourgeois society
Still a v popular genre
Strange places, power struggles, terror vs horror, sexual desires and wicked ways
Thomas Gray
«Elegy written in a Country Churchyard» (1751)
Early gothic stirrings.
- melancholy, light at the end, not morbid yet, pastoral dimension, quiet contemplation. Resembles the gothic imagination bc it’s a nocturnal scene.
Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
«The Castle of Ortanto», 1764
Set in medieval times, italy => unknown place, catholiscism has more room for imagination than puritanism.
Deaths, statues, atmosphere of terror and gloom.
Mysterious origins of the manuscript to add on to the fear, for framing purposes => frame narrative.
Maiden in distress, lustful villain. Loss of reason
Matthew Lewis
«The Monk», 1796
Corrupt monk, sexuality, seduction, dark plotting but also virtue : dichotomy morally btwn Abrosio and Antonia.
Dark: murder, rape, complicated plot, demonic presence too. For entertaining purposes. Also catholicism
Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823)
The female gothic: dev of female identity maintained and constructed in gothic spaces.
English novelist, pioneer of gothic fiction
«The Mysteries of Udolpho», 1794
Emily orphan, native france, count montoni the bluebeard figure.
Heroin is self empowered, lift secrets, …
+ sublime landscapes
Edmund Burke
The Sublime (aesthetic concept, picturesque beautiful and wild combined)
- «Philosophical Enquiry», 1757.
- discussion of what’s beautiful to our perception
- effect : threat, dark and gloomy atmosphere, detailed description, natural env. charged with emotions. Solitude of the self, fear/awe, vast and powerful landscapes.
The sonnet
«A lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of 14 iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate rhyme sheme.»
- italian / petrarchan sonnet: octave + sestet
- english / shakespearian sonnet : 3 quatrains and a concluding couplet : abab cdcd ee
Variant : the spenserian sonnet.
Introduced by th.wyatt in england, english sonnet invented by h.howard.
