Final study guide

 

EN 205 Final Review

 

  1. Paradise Lost by John Milton 1897-1901, 1943-64, 1987-92 lines 1-265, 2003-2024
    1. Book I…
      1. Man’s disobedience. Touches upon prime causes of his fall-Satan
      2. Poem begins with Satan and his angels now fallen into Hell
  • Satan and his angels on the burning lake
  1. Pandemonium is built
  2. Satan sees God as a tyrant, monarchial…didn’t view God as Almighty until he lost the battle against Him
  3. God is vengeful
  1. Book III
    1. God sees Satan rising from Hell and going to Earth…He can see what will come of this…
    2. Jesus is at his right hand
  • God says the only way man can be saved is by a sacrifice…Jesus offers himself up
  1. Satan changes into a cherub and deceives Uriel, an archangel, who points out the way to Paradise
  1. Book IV
    1. Setting is in Eden
    2. Sin (Satan’s daughter) is like Eve
      1. Both described as attractive grace
      2. Eve is prefigured by grace…kind of
      3. It’s as if Eve has already fallen by the general way she’s described
  • Adam and Eve aren’t equal “not equal as their sex not equal seemed
  1. Look divine and tall
    1. Adam’s hair: round from his parted forelock, shoulder length, neat
    2. Eve’s hair: golden tresses wore disheveled but in wonton ringlets (something already going wrong) …waved as the vine curls her tendrils…goes to her waist…her hair is like the vegetation
  2. Adam made from God and Eve is made for Adam not God…she isn’t getting unmediated access of God like Adam
  3. Adam made for contemplation and valor…think strong and brave
  • Eve is made for sweetness, softness, and grace
  • Adam’s hair shows he is superior…Eve seems like she doesn’t know what she’s doing
  1. Eve is made in Adam’s image and doesn’t have complete access to God
  2. Satan has a sense he can’t be forgiven …God says he won’t be forgiven
  1. An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope…2665-68, 2713-21
    1. Heroic couplet 1732-34
    2. Attempts to vindicate God’s ways to man
    3. Pope was a professional poet, crippled, and Catholic
    4. Satirical poet…king of satire
    5. Chain of being
      1. An orderly universal hierarchy that extends from God at the top to the basest creature on Earth
      2. Whatever is, is right
    6. 17-34
      1. can’t think more than what we have had through experiences
      2. through world’s unnumberedà vastness of god
        1. God’s knowledge is immense…have you seen other planets
        2. ***great chain
        3. uses rhetorical question throughout poem
  • humans don’t have knowledge of the future better to not know bad events are coming = metaphor of the lamb who licked the hand that was about to kill it…give us hope for the future if we don’t know bad is a-comin’ 77-81
  1. If man moves beyond his position in the chain of being the balance will be broken and the whole chain will break…domino effect 244-46…for whom does this chain break
  2. Does think God is just =…bad things happen to good people…yet cry if man’s unhappy and God’s unjust
  3. Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, yet cry, if man’s unhappy God’s unjust. Man is prideful…man believes entire world is crafted to serve manà Pope doesn’t like
  • Blames God more for bad people…reverse of what we think…why blame God for some things and not others
  1. From the slides:
    1. Argues for a Chain of Being, an orderly universal hierarchy that extends from God at the top down to the basest creature on earth
    2. Originally a classical idea from ancient Greece and Rome, but widely discussed and revamped in the 18th century
  • God is at the top, then the angels, followed by humans, who have a sort of middle position on the chain
  1. Despite its seemingly chaotic appearance, the universe is rational and orderly: “Whatever IS, is Right” (294)
  • Milun by Marie De France 142-54, 140-2…. fake and convenient deaths
    1. Marie writes a lot about adultery
    2. Integrationà family was together
    3. Disintegrationà illegitimate child, child tries to find him (Milun goes on adventure)
    4. Reintegrationà son and dad finds one another and reunite with mom
    5. 2 reunions à father and son and family
    6. unnamed lady made decision to part, she makes decision for child…sawà he makes decision…exchange letters in a swan
    7. dad decides wedding
    8. Milun goes away by his own accord
    9. Final decision to get back together could be either
    10. Son (milun and noble girl’s child) was raised by beloved sister
    11. Milun goes away after he delivers the son to the sister and his lover is married off…She could be sold into slavery or tortured if her sexual relationship with Milun were discovered…the woman doesn’t even have enough freedom to die
  1. Lanval by Marie De France 154-67
    1. Fairy Mistress…a common element in celtic literature
      1. Geis: prohibition on him … can’t tell anyone about her or he will never see her again
      2. Much of Lanval’s behavior was uncharacteristic to what was believed typical of a medieval knight…his character shifted the view of male gender roles by Lanval representing vulnerability instead of the woman
  • Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, tries to seduce lanval and he denies her…she accuses him of homosexuality…he tells her about the lady that loves him and breaks his geis..the lady saves lanval in the end by appearing when he is about to be condemned to death
  1. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 183-96, 196-209, 209-15 line 1401…215-238
    1. Integration: unity at the beginning in King Arthur’s court
    2. Gawain is put to the test…pearl, patience, and purity are poems
    3. Beheading game story in it
    4. Hubrisàexaggerated pride and self confidence
    5. Wagerà chop off green knight’s head and Gawain has to be subject to the same thing…Gawain has to find green knight to fulfill promise
    6. King Arthur’s court is where the great and good gathered…luminous, chivalrous, courteous, wonderful, nobler, rowdy, joyous, prideful, prestigious, vibrant…Green knight mocked Arthur’s court
    7. Gawain does fulfill promise but doesn’t get his head chopped off and instead just gets cut as a symbol…
  2. Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia by sir Philip Sidney
    1. Sidney put into the work more of his thoughts on statecraft (responsibilities of a king or queen, evils of rebellion, duties of ministers, judges, and advisors of state than his description of the arcadia as mere entertainment suggests…
    2. Prince of Macedon: pyrocles falls in love with Philoclea, daughter of Dailius and Gynecia, king ad queen of Arcadia. To gain enterence to the royal household he disguises himself as the Amazon woman Zelmane. Basilus falls in love with Zelmane, Gynecia sees through his disguise and falls in love with pyrocles himself
  • Countess of Montgomery’s Urania by Mary Wroth 1560-66
    1. Breaks the romance convention of a plot centered on courtship, portraying instead married heroines and their love relationships, both inside and outside of marriage.
    2. Urania goes into a cave and finds a man weeping over his lost love he was also writing a sonnet… In a cave…
  • Whoso list to hunt, Sir Thomas Wyatt 646-7, 649
    1. The speaker keeps going after a deer he is hunting even though he is losing interest…he knows he won’t catch the doe but neither will anyone else who tries. The female deer represents a woman.
  1. Into & Alas! So all things now do hold their peace, Henry Howard Earl of Surrey 661-664
    1. The speaker’s inner torment is contrasted with the peacefulness of God’s creations…his torment is caused by his love for a woman
  2. To His Coy Mistress, Andrew Marvell, 1789-90,1796-97
    1. Carpe diem poem
    2. Witty and urbane speaker
    3. Balanced and artful couplets
    4. Rapid shifts from the world of fantasy to the charnal house of reality raising questions as to whether this is a clever seduction poem or probing of existential angst…., and whether Marvell intends to endorse or critique the speaker’s view of passion and sex
    5. In the poem, speaker is trying to convince lover to act on her passions…he doesn’t want to see her die a virgin…they won’t be young forever so they need to act upon it while they can
  3. King Lear, Shakespeare 1166-70, 1251-77, 1277-1309, 1309-39
    1. Shakespeare borrowed from other people and made them better
    2. Historicalàannesley case…Lear had a happy ending…love test doesn’t have much of a purpose…Shakespeare’s Lear would’ve shocked the audience…2 versions of Lear: folio (100 lines not in quarto) and quarto (contains 300 lines not in folio)…Nahum Tate rewrote Lear to give it a happy ending and his version was performed for 100s of years…one a family drama the other more a kingdom drama (statesman) folio version was this…
      1. Kent mad at turmoil between father and daughter
    3. Act I & II
      1. A family drama and kingdom drama
      2. Kent vouched for Cordelia “be Kent unmannerly when Lear is mad”…commits to plain speech “bowed to flattery” à Lear a pushover…flattery from daughters who falsely say they love Lear…shaves beard…fights Oswald, tripped him then Act II he just started fighting him and accuses Oswald of trying to rise above his position
  • Oswald was going to deliver letters to Regan so Goneril and Regan mistreat Lear equally. Kent is upset bc Oswald carries letters against the king
  1. Edmund plots against brother by forging letter from Edgar that says he wants to kill Gloucester (their dad) and Edgar gets exiled as a result and dresses as a beggar “poor Tom” who escaped from an insane asylum…Edmund cuts himself to make it more believable…Edmund was the one who told Edgar to leave
  2. Gloucester’s house is the main scene location in Act II
  3. Words or images repeated
    1. Nature is unnatural. See/sight/eyesight…Gloucester has eyes plucked out by Cornwall…”nothing and nothingness
    2. Nature or natural
    3. Environment…”in our nature” à instinctive
    4. Unnatural…forced/fake
    5. Where nature doth where merit challenge Quarto and Folio write this line differently F adds the word nature…line is unclear whether or not nature is in conflict with merit
      1. If it was merit it would be Cordelia and if its nature then it would be divided evenly amongst 3 daughters
    6. Nature aligned with destinyà eclipse…Elizabethans would believe astronomical event would foretell something unnatural in life
    7. Edmund believes in individual uncontrolled destiny…nature doesn’t exist
  4. Acts III & IV
    1. Money and power
    2. Talked about where power comes from and what makes someone powerful
  • In Lear
    1. Power comes from inheritance
    2. Edmund rises and falls…framed brother…makes other seem lower…conflict between old and new order
    3. Fate…Edmund argues and it also works against him
    4. Money
      1. Financial resources to get kingdom
      2. 1320 line 86-87 Nature is above art in that respect…there’s your press money…
      3. 1321 line 144: Lear knows Gloucester has no money…Gloucester gave the rest to Edgar…Edgar worries that Gloucester will die from the stress of just thinking about falling off a cliff
      4. overall idea about money or power this play promotes? Power corrupts the best and attracts the worst
      5. socialism support
        1. 1310 line 70 do distribution…dost thou know dover
        2. and show the heavens more just… 1299 31-35
          1. say no to fate and get rich to put themselves in the place of the poor
  • Oswald was trying to move up socially
  1. Lear exposed to hardship he changes his ideas
  1. Act V
    1. Most dramatic
    2. Gloucester’s heart bursts (dead)
  • Wheel has come full circleàlady fortune
  1. Limited good society- Gloucester’s lines…only so much to go around
  2. Gloucester tends to blame the heavens
  3. Edmund doesn’t blame the heavens but at the end of the play he talks about fortune
  • Lear blames gods…priest like king…Lear loses faith in the gods
  • Mary Honywood blackboard
    1. Older brother not very good…Lear similarities…real sense of karma
    2. Oldest gets most land…father keeps some money for himself (440 pounds)…not a writer’s duty to make the world better…catharsisà purging of emotions
  • Sam Johnsen’s
    1. Unities: action, time, and place…2 of the 3 unities Shakespeare breaks
    2. Play shouldn’t jump locations
    3. Shakespeare breaks unities in Learà subplots: Gloucester and his sons and Lear and his daughters…location changes
    4. Johnsen doesn’t think Lear is justified in breaking unities
    5. Tragedy invokes pity and fear
  • Ben Johnson’s Volpone 2841-43, 2936-47
    1. City comedyà more realistic…fable…takes place in Venice
    2. Main theme is money…proto capitalism
    3. Gold is even brighter than the sun…makes me do crazy things…hell worth it if you have enough gold
    4. Gets money by pretending to be sick and everyone wants his money so they bring him gifts
    5. Castrone was venetian…mosca a fly or parasite…corbaccio a raven, ravens abandon young, can’t hear well, gullible…corvino crow…gets jealous easily but prostitutes wife…peregrine on outskirts during fight…politic would be- thug, schemer, over sharer…all characters except benario and Celia care only about money…volpone a fox
    6. Benario interrupts volpone from trying to rape Celia
    7. Lady would be- over sharer, wants last word every time
    8. Lady would be and luxury
      1. Politic would be and is wife are basically parrots
    9. Commodified bodies
      1. Corvino doesn’t believe in honor, touch gold wont diminish its value, old decrepit wretch- volpone…other people have to feed him
        1. Celia wants to protect honor, says he’ll hand a slave with his wife outside (try to destroy her honor)
      2. In the end justice is served and mosca becomes a slave and Volpone is thrown in jail
    10. Wife’s Lament 120-22
      1. Her husband, who is also lord of the people, up and left for unknown reasons. The wife is filled with sadness and when she set out to find him their people stopped her and forced her to live in a cave in a forest…she doesn’t seem to terribly upset by being exiled to a cave in the forest…it just adds to her sadness but she feels like her whole life is a bucket of tears anyways now…so, now she has a place she can weep…woe to all who have to suffer the longing for a loved one.
  • wife of bath’s prologue and tale 282-310
    1. Main interests- husbands and sex…knight raped a woman and had to figure out what all women want
    2. I can be beautiful and unfaithful or ugly and faithfulà whatever she wants
    3. Marriage isn’t sinful…make this argument against the church fathers especially st. Paul
    4. 3 husbands old and 2 aware young…all die
    5. she has the longest prologue…takes virginity off its pedestal
    6. gets interrupted twice during her prologue…
    7. 5th husband beats her…she confirms medieval woman standards…5th husband reads a book about women and they fight over it
    8. first marriage at 12…old, wealthy, and boring…cheats on them…economic reasons to marry a widow…
    9. 4th husband makes her jealous so she makes him jealous…5th was a clerk
    10. similarities between knight and prologueà don’t give over woman control…knight like all her husbands…
    11. if women have mastery then they have equality…equality vs matriarchy
    12. knight obeying lady…wife of bath is presenting equality in marriage
    13. authority vs experienceà Jacob married more than 1 woman and so did Solomon… Men and women are the same they just look different…chastity is frailty…quotes St. Paul and how he advocated for virginity…if you can’t control temptations then its better to get married than burn with lust
    14. genitals there for a purposeà procreation or sex
    15. argues for polygamy…against virginity and for men to have complete dominance over wives
    16. progressive tale bc she tries to equalize roles with men…argues against church…women’s experience in marriage is a valid counterpart to the authority of the male writers
  • Arraignment of women, Swetnum 1650-52
    1. Sarcastic tone
    2. Women were made a helper unto man…yeah, someone who just helps spend all a man’s hard earned pay.
    3. Women made from the rib of man, crooked nature because of it…she procured man’s fall
    4. Those who marry do well, those who don’t do better
  • A Muzzle for Melastomus, Rachel Speight 1652-55
    1. Accuses swetnum of “dishonoring God by palpable blasphemy and perverting scripture…” accuses him of not interpreting scripture correctly, and for having a bad argument
    2. Woman didn’t know she was naked until after man sinned
    3. A woman sinned against herself, God, and her husband…Adam sinned against himself and God…. she had no malicious intent to share the fruit but wanted Adam to partake in her happiness.
    4. By woman Satan will be conquered aka Jesus
    5. Male and female are all in one in Christà Paul
    6. Eve made from Adam’s rib, nearest his heart, to be his equal…she didn’t resemble anything but man (so she didn’t look like a fish or anything therefore she is equal) …woman made to glorify God and glorify God through her body…she is a companion to man
  • Will Gouge 1655-60
    1. Serious tone…uses Bible but is serious about it…book of the courtier-how to act…text designed to instruct…women made from rib…close to heart, but head superior to the head in many respects…most excellent part of the body next to the head
    2. Made distinction between equality and equity…equity meaning shares in something…wife has share in family but father is similar to God and God is superior to Mary therefore husband is above wife…extent of subjectionà even a bad husband is superior to his wife
  1. Amelia Lanyer 1430-36
    1. Adam was told not to eat the fruit, not Eve…If Adam is superior he should’ve been able to resist…Eve was curious and wanted knowledge
    2. Why women shouldn’t be accused by menà don’t be so harsh to women because you came from women and were nourished by women
    3. …both layer and Pilate’s wife have a dream about it
    4. pg 1432à men came from women
    5. pg1433à Christ came from a woman…no man was involved in the conception of Christ…she’s less radical…defending women more
    6. Lanyer and the fall
      1. Women were obedient…Adam was king of the Earth and knew not to eat the fruit (didn’t say no) Eve gave him the fruit because she was full of love…If eve did err it was for knowledge and Adam fell just because it was pretty….
      2. Similar to Speightà wasn’t malicious when she get Adam to eat the fruit…man took knowledge from the woman…if eve was evil, she was made from Adam so he’s evil
  • Man betrayed God by condemning Jesus…she finishes poem brining back childbirth
  • Some reflections upon marriage Mary Astell 2420-24
    1. Most marriages are unhappy but a good number aren’t…men tend to qualify a spouse based off of what she will bring, how many acres, and how much money…there could be no real kindness between those who can agree to make each other miserable (on those who marry for love)…estates shouldn’t be the main or only consideration for a spouse…happiness doesn’t depend on wealth.
    2. No difference between marrying for money and marrying for love of beauty bc man doesn’t act according to reason in either case.
    3. If you marry for beauty, bad for you because beauty doesn’t last…if you marry for wit bad again because it won’t always be agreeable
    4. Neither sex is always in the right
    5. “what poor woman is ever taught that she should have a higher design than to get her a husband” … “a husband is such a wonder-working name as to make an equality, or something more, whenever it is pronounced.”
    6. If women were taught the world they would marry more discreetly and behave themselves better in a married state
    7. If women were to become more educated they’d become too good for men. Stupid to think this…If women become more educated this should encourage men to rise up and to stop wasting their time…women more difficult to be corrupted
    8. If women were given time to think about their options they may not marry off in haste…honorable for a woman to give up her desires and go to the holy life
  • Reflections Upon Marriage Mary Astell, 3018-22
    1. “is it by exhorting women not to expect to have their own will in anything, but to be entirely submissive when once they have made choice of a lord and master, though he happens not to be so wise, so kind, or even so just a governor as was expected?”
    2. man guided by appetites not reason…don’t do what they ought but what they can
    3. man doesn’t think lower of himself because another has superior power…or not capable of a post of honor because he isn’t preferred to it…
    4. If a state doesn’t have absolute sovereignty, why does a family?… if all men are born free how come women are born slaves…
    5. Widows and maids without fathers owe their subjection to who…whoever it is he needs to teach them to improve their reason…it will be beneficial for all in the long run…women aren’t united well enough to form an insurrection…women come to love their chains…but they have a bit of “masculine ambition”
    6. Women who are fine with being submissive should be left alone…don’t even try to get them to a different level of understanding…these women are called “very women or good devout women”
    7. “author of nature and fountain of all perfection never designed that the mean and imperfect, but that the most complete and excellent, of his creatures in every kind should be standard to the rest.”

 

 

english final study guide