Victorians

Question 1

Tennyson: Dramatic Monologue

Answer 1

“Ulysses”
Reveals personality: condescending “savage race” (4) “common duties” (40); prideful “honoured of them all” (10); restless “idle king” (1) “always roaming” (12); ambitious “work of noble note” (52); brave “strove with Gods” (53)
Persons spoken to: the reader; the mariners “My mariners” (45), “you and I are old” (49)
Persons spoken about: “savage race” (4) “aged wife” (3) “well-loved” (35) son
SPECIAL FEATURES
-Switches listeners
-takes a well known character and develops him further

Question 2

Tennyson: Ballad

Answer 2

“The Lady of Shallot”
Narrative language: “She left… /She made/… She saw” (109-11)
Descriptive language: “willows whiten, aspens quiver” (10) “fields of barley and rye/ that clothe the wold and meet the sky” (2-3)
Lyrical: AAAABCCCB, lines of 4 metrical feet
SPECIAL FEATURES
-use of Arthurian legend: “SIr Lancelot” (77) “Camelot” (5)
-archaic diction: “wold” (3) “churls” (51)
-dramatic image concludes each part: “The mirror cracked from side to side” (115)
-allegory

Question 3

Tennyson: Confessional

Answer 3

“Crossing the Bar”
Descriptive language: tide “seems asleep” (5) “moaning of the bar” (3)
Meditative language: tide “I hope to see my Pilot face to face” (15) “may there be no sadness” (11)
Autobiographical detail:
SPECIAL FEATURES
-descriptive and meditative language are unified: “The flood may bear me far” (14)
-death is personified: “Sunset and evening star, / And one clear call from me!” (1-2)
-sea represents a spiritual journey: “embark” (12) “put out to sea” (4) “Pilot” (15) title

Question 4

Tennyson: Occasional

Answer 4

“The Charge of the Light Brigade”
Publicly known occasion: a battle during the Crimean War in which the British calvary was decimated “All in the valley of Death / rode the six hundred.” (3-4)
SPECIAL FEATURES
-extensive repetition: “Cannon” (18-20) “Theirs” (13-15)
-unusual metric stress (dactyl): “‘Forward the, Light Brigade!’” (5)

Question 5

Arnold: Dramatic Monologue

Answer 5

“Dover Beach”
Reveals personality: sad “eternal note of sadness” (14); critical recession of “The Sea of Faith” (21); vulnerable “naked” (28); hopeful “let us be true / To one another” (29-30); perceptive “beautiful” (32) “neither joy nor love” (33)
Persons spoken to: “love” (29) “Come to the window” (6) “Listen” (9)
Persons spoken about: “naked shingles of the world” (28) “Sophocles” (15)
SPECIAL FEATURES
-theme (mundane reality vs. unchanging beauty): “calm” sea and the “fair” moon vs. “ignorant armies” “human misery”
-classical reference: “Sophocles” (15)
-elaborate metaphor: sea of faith, naked shingles
-coda: “darkling plain” (35) “where ignorant armies clash by night” (37)

Question 6

Arnold: Elegy

Answer 6

"Memorial Verses"
Commemorates the death:
Original structuring device:
SPECIAL FEATURES
-classical allusions
-alliteration
-circular structure
-associative imagery

Question 7

Arnold: Confessional

Answer 7

"The Scholar Gypsy"
Descriptive language:
Meditative language:
Autobiographical detail:
SPECIAL FEATURES
-folk hero:
-coda:
-pastoral:
-archaic language:
-journey motif:
-allusions to Wordsworth:
-romanticizing the past:

Question 8

Browning: Dramatic Monologue

Answer 8

"My Last Duchess"
Reveals personality:
Persons spoken to:
Persons spoken about:
SPECIAL FEATURES
-based on a historical figure:
-art as a symbol:

Question 9

Browning: Ballad

Answer 9

"How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix"
Narrative language:
Descriptive language:
Lyrical:
SPECIAL FEATURES
-folk hero:
-color imagery:
-imagery of the sun: