Romance and the Essay Flashcards
When was Johnson’s ‘History of Rasselas’ published?
1759
What four things does Johnson associate with his present-day audience in the opening of ‘Rasselas’?
‘fancy’, ‘hope’, ‘youth’, and the ‘present day’
What does Imlac the poet say about the value of the past?
‘to judge rightly of the present we must oppose it to the past’
What does Nichol Smith call ‘Rasselas’?
‘an expanded essay’
What does Imlac say about literature as a didactic resource?
‘every idea is useful for the inforcement or decoration of moral or religious truth’
What does Johnson say is the author’s duty in a 1750 edition of ‘The Rambler’?
‘to vary the dress and situation of common objects’
How does Johnson characterise romances in a 1750 edition of ‘The Rambler’?
they ‘are the entertainments of minds unfurnished with ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of impressions’
What does Johnson say is the best way of structuring didactic writing in no. 137 of ‘The Rambler’?
‘The chief art of learning… is to attempt but little at a time’
What does Stuart Curran says is characteristic of romance as a genre, also applicable to the essay?
‘the universal thirst of humanity for its ideals’
What is an example of an aphorism/lesson from Johnson’s ‘The Fountains: A Fairy Tale’?
‘wit was sweeter, than riches, spirit, or beauty’
When was Johnson’s ‘Fountains’ fairy tale published?
1766
When were the first two cantos of ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ published?
1812
When was the third canto of ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ published?
1816
When was the fourth canto of ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ published?
1818
How does Byron describe Harold in the preface to cantos 1-2?
‘un-knightly’
How does Byron characterise the first two cantos?
‘merely experimental’
What does Byron want to do in canto 4, according to his preface?
‘to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar [Italy]’
What changes about the title between the publications of canto 2 and 3?
Byron drops the ‘Romaunt’
What does Byron do to the form, according to Peter Manning?
‘Byron empties out the romaunt, writing within the form while depriving it of its sustaining ideology’
When were the collected ‘Essays of Elia’ by Lamb published?
1823
What does Lamb call himself in the essay ‘Imperfect Sympathies’?
‘a bundle of prejudices’
What does Lamb say about Johnson as essayist in a letter?
He ‘deals out of opinion… perpetually obtruding his own particular view of life for universal truths’
Where did Lamb get the name ‘Elia’?
from an Italian man with whom he worked in the South Sea house
What did William Hazlitt say about Lamb in his ‘Spirit of the Age’?
‘The streets of London are his fairy land… he has contrived to weave its tritest traditions into a bright and endless romance!’
