Lecture One I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize The Faerie Queene by Spenser.

2. To let the students know more about Edmund Spenser II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. The Faerie Queene 2. English Lit in Old and Middle Ages (A Brief Introduction) III. Time Allotment 1. Course and Middle age lit introduction (1 period) 2. Detailed study and explanation of The Faerie Queene (1 period) IV. Teaching Notes Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser Context Edmund Spenser was born around 1552 in London, England. We know very little about his family, but he received a quality education and graduated with a Masters from Cambridge in 1576. He began writing poetry for publication at this time and was employed as a secretary, first to the Bishop of Kent and then to nobles in Queen Elizabeth's court. His first major work, The Shepheardes Calender, was published in 1579 and met with critical success; within a year he was at work on his greatest and longest work, The Faerie Queene. This poem occupied him for most of his life, though he published other poems in the interim. The first three books of The Faerie Queen were published in 1590 and then republished with Books IV through VI in 1596. By this time, Spenser was already in his second marriage, which took place in Ireland, where he often traveled. Still at work on his voluminous poem, Spenser died on January 13, 1599, at Westminster. Spenser only completed half of The Faerie Queene he planned. In a letter to Sir John Walter Raleigh, he explained the purpose and structure of the poem. It is an allegory, a story whose characters and events nearly all have a specific symbolic meaning. The poem's setting is a mythical "Faerie land," ruled by the Faerie Queene. Spenser sets forth in the letter that this "Queene" represents his own monarch, Queen Elizabeth. Spenser intended to write 12 books of the Faerie Queene, all in the classical epic style; Spenser notes that his structure follows those of Homer and Virgil. Each Book concerns the story of a knight, representing a particular Christian virtue, as he or she would convey at the court of the Faerie Queene. Because only half of the poem was ever finished, the unifying scene at the Queene's court never occurs; instead, we are left with six books telling an incomplete story. Of these, the first and the third books are most often read and critically acclaimed. Though it takes place in a mythical land, The Faerie Queen was intended to relate to Spenser's England, most importantly in the area of religion. Spenser lived in post-Reformation England, which had recently replaced Roman Catholicism with Protestantism (specifically, Anglicanism) as the national religion. There were still many Catholics living in England, and, thus, religious protest was a part of Spenser's life. A devout Protestant and a devotee of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, Spenser was particularly offended by the anti-Elizabethan propaganda
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that some Catholics circulated. Like most Protestants near the time of the Reformation, Spenser saw a Catholic Church full of corruption, and he determined that it was not only the wrong religion but the anti-religion. This sentiment is an important backdrop for the battles of The Faerie Queene, which often represent the "battles" between London and Rome. Questions for Study 1. The Faerie Queene is a strongly Protestant work in which Spenser intentionally incorporates his own beliefs into the Story. What has made the poem popular among readers of all faiths, not just Protestants? While Spenser spends a good deal of time attacking the Catholic Church, he makes it clear that there is a greater overall evil that threatens mankind, the very basic evil of sin. This is the dragon that Redcrosse defeats at the end of Book I. By broadening the battle to good versus evil, the spiritual part of man's existence, Spenser expands his audience far beyond the narrow range of Elizabethan Protestants. 2. What is Spenser's view of pagan (non-Christian) virtue? Does it have any value to him? Yes and no. Spenser is quick to recognize that native virtue (as usually represented by forest creatures or people brought up in the forest) is oriented toward the good. By comparison to the many perverse characters in the poem, this is commendable, but it pales in comparison to the virtue of the Christian heroes. Natural virtue is good as a building block toward the true religion, but if it falls short, it is worthless, mere idolatry. 3. In what ways are the stories of Redcrosse and Britomart parallel? 4. What is Spenser's view of "courtly love"? Courtly love is the love of Arthurian romances and their Italian counterparts, sources that Spenser used extensively. However, he tends to represent courtly love as superficial and even silly, a far cry from pure Christian love. See the ridiculous task that the Squire of Dames tells Satyrane he must perform for his lady (III.vii.53-61)--such devices were common to courtly love stories, and Spenser only mocks them. 5. The allegory indicates that Holiness cannot survive without Chastity; does Chastity depend upon Holiness? There is little or no reference to God or Christ in Book III, as compared to Book I; what are the indications that Chastity remains a Christian virtue? Is Britomart as much of a Christian warrior as Redcrosse?

Lecture Two I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize Dr. Faustus, Sonnet 18 and The Merchant of Venice and Hamlet 2. To let the students know more about Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. Dr. Faustus, Sonnet 18 and The Merchant of Venice and Hamlet 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of Marlowe and Shakespeare 3. Introduction to sonnet, a lyrical poetry III. Time Allotment
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1. Dr. Faustus (1 period) 2. Sonnet 18 and The Merchant of Venice and Hamlet (1 period) IV. Teaching Notes Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Context Born in Canterbury in 1564, the same year as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe was an actor, poet, and playwright during the reign of Britains Queen Elizabeth I (ruled 15581603). Marlowe attended Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University and received degrees in 1584 and 1587. Traditionally, the education that he received would have prepared him to become a clergyman, but Marlowe chose not to join the ministry. For a time, Cambridge even wanted to withhold his degree, apparently suspecting him of having converted to Catholicism, a forbidden faith in late-sixteenth-century England, where Protestantism was the state-supported religion. Queen Elizabeths Privy Council intervened on his behalf, saying that Marlowe had done her majesty good service in matters touching the benefit of the country. This odd sequence of events has led some to theorize that Marlowe worked as a spy for the crown, possibly by infiltrating Catholic communities in France. After leaving Cambridge, Marlowe moved to London, where he became a playwright and led a turbulent, scandal-plagued life. He produced seven plays, all of which were immensely popular. Among the most well known of his plays are Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, and Doctor Faustus. In his writing, he pioneered the use of blank versenonrhyming lines of iambic pentameter which many of his contemporaries, including William Shakespeare, later adopted. In 1593, however, Marlowes career was cut short. After being accused of heresy (maintaining beliefs contrary to those of an approved religion), he was arrested and put on a sort of probation. On May 30, 1593, shortly after being released, Marlowe became involved in a tavern brawl and was killed when one of the combatants stabbed him in the head. After his death, rumors were spread accusing him of treason, atheism, and homosexuality, and some people speculated that the tavern brawl might have been the work of government agents. Little evidence to support these allegations has come to light, however. Doctor Faustus was probably written in 1592, although the exact date of its composition is uncertain, since it was not published until a decade later. The idea of an individual selling his or her soul to the devil for knowledge is an old motif in Christian folklore, one that had become attached to the historical persona of Johannes Faustus, a disreputable astrologer who lived in Germany sometime in the early 1500s. The immediate source of Marlowes play seems to be the anonymous German work Historia von D. Iohan Fausten of 1587, which was translated into English in 1592, and from which Marlowe lifted the bulk of the plot for his drama. Although there had been literary representations of Faust prior to Marlowes play, Doctor Faustus is the first famous version of the story. Later versions include the long and famous poem Faust by the nineteenth-century Romantic writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, as well as operas by Charles Gounod and Arrigo Boito and a symphony by Hector Berlioz. Meanwhile, the phrase Faustian bargain has entered the English lexicon, referring to any deal made for a short-term gain with great costs in the long run. Study Questions & Essay Topics Study Questions
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1. Is Doctor Faustus a Christian tragedy? Why or why not? Doctor Faustus has elements of both Christian morality and classical tragedy. On the one hand, it takes place in an explicitly Christian cosmos: God sits on high, as the judge of the world, and every soul goes either to hell or to heaven. There are devils and angels, with the devils tempting people into sin and the angels urging them to remain true to God. Faustuss story is a tragedy in Christian terms, because he gives in to temptation and is damned to hell. Faustuss principal sin is his great pride and ambition, which can be contrasted with the Christian virtue of humility; by letting these traits rule his life, Faustus allows his soul to be claimed by Lucifer, Christian cosmologys prince of devils. Yet while the play seems to offer a very basic Christian messagethat one should avoid temptation and sin, and repent if one cannot avoid temptation and sinits conclusion can be interpreted as straying from orthodox Christianity in order to conform to the structure of tragedy. In a traditional tragic play, as pioneered by the Greeks and imitated by William Shakespeare, a hero is brought low by an error or series of errors and realizes his or her mistake only when it is too late. In Christianity, though, as long as a person is alive, there is always the possibility of repentanceso if a tragic hero realizes his or her mistake, he or she may still be saved even at the last moment. But though Faustus, in the final, wrenching scene, comes to his senses and begs for a chance to repent, it is too late, and he is carried off to hell. Marlowe rejects the Christian idea that it is never too late to repent in order to increase the dramatic power of his finale, in which Faustus is conscious of his damnation and yet, tragically, can do nothing about it. 2. Scholar R.M. Dawkins once called Faustus a Renaissance man who had to pay the medieval price for being one. Do you think this is an accurate characterization of Marlowes tragic hero? Doctor Faustus has frequently been interpreted as depicting a clash between the values of the medieval world and the emerging spirit of the sixteenth-century Renaissance. In medieval Europe, Christianity and God lay at the center of intellectual life: scientific inquiry languished, and theology was known as the queen of the sciences. In art and literature, the emphasis was on the lives of the saints and the mighty rather than on those of ordinary people. With the advent of the Renaissance, however, there was a new celebration of the free individual and the scientific exploration of nature. While Marlowes Faustus is, admittedly, a magician and not a scientist, this distinction was not so clearly drawn in the sixteenth century as it is today. (Indeed, famous scientists such as Isaac Newton dabbled in astrology and alchemy into the eighteenth century.) With his rejection of Gods authority and his thirst for knowledge and control over nature, Faustus embodies the more secular spirit of the dawning modern era. Marlowe symbolizes this spirit in the plays first scene, when Faustus explicitly rejects all the medieval authoritiesAristotle in logic, Galen in medicine, Justinian in law, and the Bible in religionand decides to strike out on his own. In this speech, Faustus puts the medieval world to bed and steps firmly into the new era. Yet, as the quote says, he pay[s] the medieval price for taking this new direction, since he still exists firmly within a Christian framework, meaning that his transgressions ultimately condemn him to hell. In the plays final lines, the Chorus tells us to view Faustuss fate as a warning and not follow his example. This admonition would seem to make Marlowe a defender of the established religious values, showing us the terrible fate that awaits a Renaissance man who rejects God. But by investing Faustus with such tragic grandeur, Marlowe may be suggesting a different lesson. Perhaps the price of rejecting God is worth it, or perhaps Faustus pays the price for all of western
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culture, allowing it to enter a new, more secular era. 3. Discuss the character of Mephastophilis. How much of a role does he play in Faustuss damnation? How does Marlowe complicate his character and inspire our sympathy? Mephastophilis is part of a long tradition of fascinating literary devils that reached its peak a century later with John Miltons portrayal of Satan in Paradise Lost, published in the late seventeenth century. Mephastophilis seems to desire Faustuss damnation: he appears eagerly when Faustus rejects God and firms up Faustuss resolve when Faustus hedges on his contract with Lucifer. Yet there is an odd ambivalence in Mephastophilis. Before the pact is sealed, he actually warns Faustus against making the deal, telling him how awful the pains of hell are. In a famous passage, when Faustus remarks that Mephastophilis seems to be free of hell at the moment, Mephastophilis retorts, Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Thinkst thou that I, who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells In being deprived of everlasting bliss? (3.7680) Again, when Faustus expresses skepticism that any afterlife exists, Mephastophilis assures him that hell is real and terrible. These odd complications in Mephastophiliss character serve a twofold purpose. First, they highlight Faustuss willful blindness, since he dismisses the warning of the very demon with whom he is bartering over his soul. In this regard, his remark that hell is a myth seems particularly delusional. At the same time, these complications inspire a kind of pity for Mephastophilis and his fellow devils, who are damned to hell just as surely as Faustus or any other sinful, unrepentant human. These devils may be villains, but they are tragic figures, separated forever from the bliss of Gods presence by their pride. Indeed, Mephastophilis and Faust are similar figures: both reject God out of pride, and both suffer for it eternally. Suggested Essay Topics 1. How does Faustus use the magical gifts that he receives? How are the uses to which he puts his powers significant? What do they suggest about his character or about the nature of unlimited power? 2. What is the role of the comic charactersRobin, Rafe, the horse-courser, and the clown, for example? How does Marlowe use them to illuminate Faustuss decline? 3. When does Faustus have misgivings about his pact with Lucifer? What makes him desire to repent? Why do you think he fails to repent? 4. Is God present in the play? If so, where? If not, what does Gods absence suggest? 5. Discuss the role of Faustuss soliloquiesparticularly his speeches about the different kinds of knowledge in scene 1 and his long soliloquies in scene 12in shaping our understanding of his character. 6. Is Faustus misled by the devils, or is he willfully blind to the reality of his situation? William Shakespeares Sonnets Context Life and Times of William Shakespeare Likely the most influential writer in all of English literature and certainly the most important
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playwright of the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England. The son of a successful middle-class glovemaker, Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further. In 1582, he married an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had three children with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright. Public and critical success quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603) and James I (ruled 1603-1625); he was a favorite of both monarchs. Indeed, James granted Shakespeare's company the greatest possible compliment by endowing them with the status of king's players. Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, and died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two. At the time of Shakespeare's death, such luminaries as Ben Jonson hailed him as the apogee of Renaissance theatre. Shakespeare's works were collected and printed in various editions in the century following his death, and by the early eighteenth century his reputation as the greatest poet ever to write in English was well established. The unprecedented admiration garnered by his works led to a fierce curiosity about Shakespeare's life; but the paucity of surviving biographical information has left many details of Shakespeare's personal history shrouded in mystery. Some people have concluded from this fact that Shakespeare's plays in reality were written by someone else--Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford are the two most popular candidates--but the evidence for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken seriously by many scholars. In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as the author of the 37 plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. The legacy of this body of work is immense. A number of Shakespeare's plays seem to have transcended even the category of brilliance, becoming so influential as to affect profoundly the course of Western literature and culture ever after. The Sonnets Shakespeare's sonnets are very different from Shakespeare's plays, but they do contain dramatic elements and an overall sense of story. Each of the poems deals with a highly personal theme, and each can be taken on its own or in relation to the poems around it. The sonnets have the feel of autobiographical poems, but we don't know whether they deal with real events or not, because no one knows enough about Shakespeare's life to say whether or not they deal with real events and feelings, so we tend to refer to the voice of the sonnets as "the speaker"--as though he were a dramatic creation like Hamlet or King Lear. There are certainly a number of intriguing continuities throughout the poems. The first 126 of the sonnets seem to be addressed to an unnamed young nobleman, whom the speaker loves very much; the rest of the poems (except for the last two, which seem generally unconnected to the rest of the sequence) seem to be addressed to a mysterious woman, whom the speaker loves, hates, and lusts for simultaneously. The two addressees of the sonnets are usually referred to as the "young man" and the "dark lady"; in summaries of individual poems, I have also called the young man the "beloved" and the dark lady the "lover," especially in cases where their identity can only be surmised. Within the two mini-sequences, there are a number of other discernible elements of "plot": the speaker urges the young man to have children; he is forced to endure a separation from him; he competes with a rival poet for the young man's patronage and affection. At two points in the sequence, it seems that the young man and the dark lady are actually lovers themselves--a state
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of affairs with which the speaker is none too happy. But while these continuities give the poems a narrative flow and a helpful frame of reference, they have been frustratingly hard for scholars and biographers to pin down. In Shakespeare's life, who were the young man and the dark lady? Historical Mysteries Of all the questions surrounding Shakespeare's life, the sonnets are perhaps the most intruiguing. At the time of their publication in 1609 (after having been written most likely in the 1590s and shown only to a small circle of literary admirers), they were dedicated to a "Mr. W.H," who is described as the "onlie begetter" of the poems. Like those of the young man and the dark lady, the identity of this Mr. W.H. remains an alluring mystery. Because he is described as "begetting" the sonnets, and because the young man seems to be the speaker's financial patron, some people have speculated that the young man is Mr. W.H. If his initials were reversed, he might even be Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, who has often been linked to Shakespeare in theories of his history. But all of this is simply speculation: ultimately, the circumstances surrounding the sonnets, their cast of characters and their relations to Shakespeare himself, are destined to remain a mystery. The Sonnet Form A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem, traditionally written in iambic pentameter--that is, in lines ten syllables long, with accents falling on every second syllable, as in: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" The sonnet form first became popular during the Italian Renaissance, when the poet Petrarch published a sequence of love sonnets addressed to an idealized woman named Laura. Taking firm hold among Italian poets, the sonnet spread throughout Europe to England, where, after its initial Renaissance, "Petrarchan" incarnation faded, the form enjoyed a number of revivals and periods of renewed interest. In Elizabethan England--the era during which Shakespeare's sonnets were written--the sonnet was the form of choice for lyric poets, particularly lyric poets seeking to engage with traditional themes of love and romance. (In addition to Shakespeare's monumental sequence, the Astrophel and Stella sequence by Sir Philip Sydney stands as one of the most important sonnet sequences of this period.) Sonnets were also written during the height of classical English verse, by Dryden and Pope, among others, and written again during the heyday of English Romanticism, when Wordsworth, Shelley, and particularly John Keats created wonderful sonnets. Today, the sonnet remains the most influential and important verse form in the history of English poetry. Two kinds of sonnets have been most common in English poetry, and they take their names from the greatest poets to utilize them: the Petrarchan sonnet and the Shakespearean sonnet. The Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two main parts, called the octave and the sestet. The octave is eight lines long, and typically follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, or ABBACDDC. The sestet occupies the remaining six lines of the poem, and typically follows a rhyme scheme of CDCDCD, or CDECDE. The octave and the sestet are usually contrasted in some key way: for example, the octave may ask a question to which the sestet offers an answer. In the following Petrarchan sonnet, John Keats's "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," the octave describes past events--the speaker's previous, unsatisfying examinations of the "realms of gold," Homer's poems--while the sestet describes the present--the speaker's sense of discovery upon finding Chapman's translations: Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
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Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse have I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-Silent, upon a peak in Darien. The Shakespearean sonnet, the form of sonnet utilized throughout Shakespeare's sequence, is divided into four parts. The first three parts are each four lines long, and are known as quatrains, rhymed ABAB; the fourth part is called the couplet, and is rhymed CC. The Shakespearean sonnet is often used to develop a sequence of metaphors or ideas, one in each quatrain, while the couplet offers either a summary or a new take on the preceding images or ideas. In Shakespeare's Sonnet 147, for instance, the speaker's love is compared to a disease. In the first quatrain, the speaker characterizes the disease; in the second, he describes the relationship of his love-disease to its "physician," his reason; in the third, he describes the consequences of his abandonment of reason; and in the couplet, he explains the source of his mad, diseased love--his lover's betrayal of his faith: My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desp'rate now approve Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure am I, now reason is past care, And frantic mad with evermore unrest, My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly expressed; For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. In many ways, Shakespeare's use of the sonnet form is richer and more complex than this relatively simple division into parts might imply. Not only is his sequence largely occupied with subverting the traditional themes of love sonnets--the traditional love poems in praise of beauty and worth, for instance, are written to a man, while the love poems to a woman are almost all as bitter and negative as Sonnet 147--he also combines formal patterns with daring and innovation. Many of his sonnets in the sequence, for instance, impose the thematic pattern of a Petrarchan sonnet onto the formal pattern of a Shakespearean sonnet, so that while there are still three quatrains and a couplet, the first two quatrains might ask a single question, which the third
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quatrain and the couplet will answer. As you read through Shakespeare's sequence, think about the ways Shakespeare's themes are affected by and tailored to the sonnet form. Be especially alert to complexities such as the juxtaposition of Petrarchan and Shakespearean patterns. How might such a juxtaposition combination deepen and enrich Shakespeare's use of a traditional form? Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Summary The speaker opens the poem with a question addressed to the beloved: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" The next eleven lines are devoted to such a comparison. In line 2, the speaker stipulates what mainly differentiates the young man from the summer's day: he is "more lovely and more temperate." Summer's days tend toward extremes: they are shaken by "rough winds"; in them, the sun ("the eye of heaven") often shines "too hot," or too dim. And summer is fleeting: its date is too short, and it leads to the withering of autumn, as "every fair from fair sometime declines." The final quatrain of the sonnet tells how the beloved differs from the summer in that respect: his beauty will last forever ("Thy eternal summer shall not fade...") and never die. In the couplet, the speaker explains how the beloved's beauty will accomplish this feat, and not perish because it is preserved in the poem, which will last forever; it will live "as long as men can breathe or eyes can see." Commentary This sonnet is certainly the most famous in the sequence of Shakespeare's sonnets; it may be the most famous lyric poem in English. Among Shakespeare's works, only lines such as "To be or not to be" and "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" are better-known. This is not to say that it is at all the best or most interesting or most beautiful of the sonnets; but the simplicity and loveliness of its praise of the beloved has guaranteed its place. On the surface, the poem is simply a statement of praise about the beauty of the beloved; summer tends to unpleasant extremes of windiness and heat, but the beloved is always mild and temperate. Summer is incidentally personified as the "eye of heaven" with its "gold complexion"; the imagery throughout is simple and unaffected, with the "darling buds of May" giving way to the "eternal summer", which the speaker promises the beloved. The language, too, is comparatively unadorned for the sonnets; it is not heavy with alliteration or assonance, and nearly every line is its own selfcontained clause--almost every line ends with some punctuation, which effects a pause.
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Sonnet 18 is the first poem in the sonnets not to explicitly encourage the young man to have children. The "procreation" sequence of the first 17 sonnets ended with the speaker's realization that the young man might not need children to preserve his beauty; he could also live, the speaker writes at the end of Sonnet 17, "in my rhyme." Sonnet 18, then, is the first "rhyme"--the speaker's first attempt to preserve the young man's beauty for all time. An important theme of the sonnet (as it is an important theme throughout much of the sequence) is the power of the speaker's poem to defy time and last forever, carrying the beauty of the beloved down to future generations. The beloved's "eternal summer" shall not fade precisely because it is embodied in the sonnet: "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see," the speaker writes in the couplet, "So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." Questions for Study Sonnet 18 is one of the most famous poems in the English language. Why do you think this is the case? How does the speaker use natural imagery to create a picture of the young man's beauty? In Sonnet 1, the speaker argues that the only way for the young man to defy the ravaging power of time is to reproduce, but in later sonnets, he seems to think that the permanence of his poetry will preserve the young man's beauty for all time. Why is the speaker so concerned with the ravages of time? How do the sonnets portray time? How can they claim to defy it? Discuss the portrayal of beauty in the sequence as a whole. Is beauty an immortal ideal, or is it vulnerable to time? How is beauty valued differently in a poems like Sonnets 1, 18, and 60 than in a poem like Sonnet 146? How does "beauty" contrast with "worth"? How is beauty treated in Sonnet 130? Sonnet 94 is one of the most difficult, and in many ways one of the most ambiguous, of all the sonnets. What are the speaker's feelings for the people "that have pow'r to hurt and will do none"? What is the significance of the summer's flower? Compare and contrast two "moral" sonnets, 129 and 146. How does the latter poem's anxiety about outward appearrance relate to the former's ashamed admission of lust? Discuss the theme of love in the sonnets. Do the young man sonnets express a different ideal of love than the dark lady sonnets? Is the ideal of love described in Sonnet 116--without which the speaker "never writ, nor no man ever loved"-- constant throughout the sonnets? Think about the ways in which the speaker uses the sonnet form to embody a series of metaphors. How do poems such as Sonnet 60 and Sonnet 73 divide their metaphors among the various parts of the sonnet? The Mechant of Venice Shakespeares works were collected and printed in various editions in the century following his death, and by the early eighteenth century, his reputation as the greatest poet ever to write in English was well established. The unprecedented admiration garnered by his works led to a fierce curiosity about Shakespeares life, but the dearth of biographical information has left many details of Shakespeares personal history shrouded in mystery. Some people have concluded from this fact and from Shakespeares modest education that Shakespeares plays were actually written by someone elseFrancis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford are the two most popular -candidatesbut the support for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken seriously by many scholars. In the absence of credible evidence to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as the author of the thirty-seven plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. The legacy of this body of work is
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immense. A number of Shakespeares plays seem to have transcended even the category of brilliance, becoming so influential as to affect profoundly the course of Western literature and culture ever after. Merchant of Venice Suggested Essay Topics 1. Discuss the relationship between Antonio and Bassanio. What does their friendship reveal about their characters? 2. Examine Shylocks rhetoric. Pay special attention to the quality of his languagehis use of metaphor and repetition, for instance. How do his speeches reflect his character as a whole? 3. Compare and contrast Venice and Belmont. What is the significance of these distinct settings in the play? 4. Analyze the way that time passes in The Merchant of Venice, paying special attention to conflicts between time in Venice and Belmont. Are there any inconsistencies, and if so, how does the play handle them? 5. To what extent is Shylock defined by his Jewishness? To what extent is he defined by his profession? 6. Discuss Portias character. How does she compare to the men around her? Is Bassanio a worthy husband for her? 7. Discuss how the trial scene reveals a conflict between justice and mercy. Is the conflict resolved? If so, how? Hamlet Study Questions 1. Shakespeare includes characters in Hamlet who are obvious foils for Hamlet, including, most obviously, Horatio, Fortinbras, Claudius, and Laertes. Compare and contrast Hamlet with each of these characters. How are they alike? How are they different? How does each respond to the crises with which he is faced? 2. Many critics take a deterministic view of Hamlets plot, arguing that the princes inability to act and tendency toward melancholy reflection is a tragic flaw that leads inevitably to his demise. Is this an accurate way of understanding the play? Why or why not? Given Hamlets character and situation, would another outcome of the play have been possible? 3. Throughout the play, Hamlet claims to be feigning madness, but his portrayal of a madman is so intense and so convincing that many readers believe that Hamlet actually slips into insanity at certain moments in the play. Do you think this is true, or is Hamlet merely play-acting insanity? What evidence can you cite for either claim? Suggested Essay Topics 1. Think about Hamlets relationship with Ophelia. Does he love her? Does he stop loving her? Did he ever love her? What evidence can you find in the play to support your opinion? 2. Consider Rosencrantz and Guildensterns role in the play. Why might Shakespeare have created characters like this? Are they there for comic relief, or do they serve a more serious purpose? Why does the news of their deaths come only after the deaths of the royal family in Act V, as if this news were not anticlimactic? Is it acceptable for Hamlet to treat them as he does? Why or why not? 3. Analyze the use of descriptions and images in Hamlet. How does Shakespeare use descriptive
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language to enhance the visual possibilities of a stage production? How does he use imagery to create a mood of tension, suspense, fear, and despair? 4. Analyze the use of comedy in Hamlet, paying particular attention to the gravediggers, Osric, and Polonius. Does comedy serve merely to relieve the tension of the tragedy, or do the comic scenes serve a more serious thematic purpose as well? 5. Suicide is an important theme in Hamlet. Discuss how the play treats the idea of suicide morally, religiously, and aesthetically, with particular attention to Hamlets two important statements about suicide: the O, that this too too solid flesh would melt soliloquy (I.ii.129158) and the To be, or not to be soliloquy (III.i.5688). Why does Hamlet believe that, although capable of suicide, most human beings choose to live, despite the cruelty, pain, and injustice of the world?

Lecture Three I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize poems by John Donne and John Milton. 2. To let the students know more about the two poets II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. Death be not Proud 2. Paradise Lost and others 3. The term: epic, metaphysical poetry III. Time Allotment 1. Donnes poems (1 period) 2. Detailed study and explanation of Miltons poems (1 period) IV. Teaching Notes John Donnes Poetry Context John Donne was born in 1572 to a London merchant and his wife. Donne's parents were both Catholic at a time when England was deeply divided over matters of religion; Queen Elizabeth persecuted the Catholics and upheld the Church of England established by her father, Henry VIII. The subsequent ruler, James I, tolerated Catholicism, but advised Donne that he would achieve advancement only in the Church of England. Having renounced his Catholic faith, Donne was ordained in the Church of England in 1615. Donne's father died when he was very young, as did several of his brothers and sisters, and his mother remarried twice during his lifetime. Donne was educated at Hart's Hall, Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn; he became prodigiously learned, speaking several languages and writing poems in both English and Latin. Donne's adult life was colorful, varied, and often dangerous; he sailed with the royal fleet and served as both a Member of Parliament and a diplomat. In 1601, he secretly married a woman named Ann More, and he was imprisoned by her father, Sir George More; however, after the Court of Audiences upheld his marriage several months later, he was released and sent to live with his wife's cousin in Surrey, his fortunes now in tatters. For the next several years, Donne moved his family throughout England, traveled extensively in France and Italy, and attempted unsuccessfully to gain positions that might improve his financial situation. In 1615, Donne was ordained a priest
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in the Anglican Church; in 1621, he became the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, a post that he retained for the rest of his life. A very successful priest, Donne preached several times before royalty; his sermons were famous for their power and directness. For the last decade of his life, before his death in 1630, Donne concentrated more on writing sermons than on writing poems, and today he is admired for the former as well as the latter. (One of his most famous sermons contains the passage beginning, "No man is an island" and ending, "Therefore ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.") However, it is for his extraordinary poems that Donne is primarily remembered; and it was on the basis of his poems that led to the revival of his reputation at the beginning of the 20th century, following years of obscurity. (The renewed interest in Donne was led by a new generation of writers at the turn of the century, including T.S. Eliot.) Donne was the leading exponent of a style of poetry called "metaphysical poetry," which flourished in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Metaphysical poetry features elaborate conceits and surprising symbols, wrapped up in original, challenging language structures, with learned themes that draw heavily on eccentric chains of reasoning. Donne's verse, like that of George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and many of their contemporaries, exemplifies these traits. But Donne is also a highly individual poet, and his consistently ingenious treatment of his great theme--the conflict between spiritual piety and physical carnality, as embodied in religion and love--remains unparalleled. Analysis John Donne, whose poetic reputation languished before he was rediscovered in the early part of the twentieth century, is remembered today as the leading exponent of a style of verse known as "metaphysical poetry," which flourished in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. (Other great metaphysical poets include Andrew Marvell, Robert Herrick, and George Herbert.) Metaphysical poetry typically employs unusual verse forms, complex figures of speech applied to elaborate and surprising metaphorical conceits, and learned themes discussed according to eccentric and unexpected chains of reasoning. Donne's poetry exhibits each of these characteristics. His jarring, unusual meters; his proclivity for abstract puns and double entendres; his often bizarre metaphors (in one poem he compares love to a carnivorous fish; in another he pleads with God to make him pure by raping him); and his process of oblique reasoning are all characteristic traits of the metaphysicals, unified in Donne as in no other poet. Donne is valuable not simply as a representative writer but also as a highly unique one. He was a man of contradictions: As a minister in the Anglican Church, Donne possessed a deep spirituality that informed his writing throughout his life; but as a man, Donne possessed a carnal lust for life, sensation, and experience. He is both a great religious poet and a great erotic poet, and perhaps no other writer (with the possible exception of Herbert) strove as hard to unify and express such incongruous, mutually discordant passions. In his best poems, Donne mixes the discourses of the physical and the spiritual; over the course of his career, Donne gave sublime expression to both realms. His conflicting proclivities often cause Donne to contradict himself. (For example, in one poem he writes, "Death be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so." Yet in another, he writes, "Death I recant, and say, unsaid by me / Whate'er hath slipped, that might diminish thee.") However, his contradictions are representative of the powerful contrary forces at work in his poetry and in his soul, rather than of sloppy thinking or inconsistency. Donne, who lived a generation after Shakespeare, took advantage of his divided
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nature to become the greatest metaphysical poet of the seventeenth century; among the poets of inner conflict, he is one of the greatest of all time. Metaphysical poets ( 17 ) Any of the poets in 17th-century England who inclined to the personal and intellectual complexity and concentration that is displayed in the poetry of John Donne, the chief of the Metaphysicals. Others include George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, John Cleveland, and Abraham Cowley. Their work is a blend of emotion and intellectual ingenuity, characterized by conceit or "wit"--that is, by the sometimes violent yoking together of apparently unconnected ideas and things so that the reader is startled out of his complacency and forced to think through the argument of the poem. Metaphysical poetry is less concerned with expressing feeling than with analyzing it, with the poet exploring the recesses of his consciousness. The boldness of the literary devices used-especially obliquity, irony, and paradox--are always reinforced by a dramatic directness of language, whose rhythm is derived from that of living speech. Esteem for Metaphysical poetry never stood higher than in the 1930s and '40s, largely because of T.S. Eliot's influential essay "The Metaphysical Poets" (1921). In this essay Eliot pointed out that the works of these men embody a fusion of thought and feeling that later poets were unable to achieve because of a "dissociation of sensibility," which resulted in works that were either intellectual or emotional but not both at once. In their own time, however, the epithet "metaphysical" was used pejoratively: in 1630 the Scottish poet William Drummond of Hawthornden objected to those of his contemporaries who attempted to "abstract poetry to metaphysical ideas and scholastic quiddities." At the end of the century, John Dryden censured Donne for affecting "the metaphysics" and for perplexing "the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy when he should engage their hearts . . . with the softnesses of love." Samuel Johnson, in referring to the learning that their poetry displays, also dubbed them "the metaphysical poets," and the term has continued in use ever since. For an attempt to establish the justice of this term in relation to their work, Sir Herbert Grierson's Metaphysical Poems and Lyrics of the 17th Century (1921) and James Smith's essay "On Metaphysical Poetry" in Determinations (ed. F.R. Leavis, 1934) are of interest. Copyright 1994-2000 Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. Paradise Lost by John Milton Context Miltons Life John Milton was born on December 9, 1608, in London. Miltons father was a prosperous merchant, despite the fact that he had been disowned by his family when he converted from Catholicism to Protestantism. Milton excelled in school, and went on to study privately in his twenties and thirties. In 1638 he made a trip to Italy, studying in Florence, Siena, and Rome, but felt obliged to return home upon the outbreak of civil war in England, in 1639. Upon his return from Italy, he began planning an epic poem, the first ever written in English. These plans were delayed by his marriage to Mary Powell and her subsequent desertion of him. In reaction to these events, Milton wrote a series of pamphlets calling for more leniency in the churchs position on divorce. His argument brought him both greater publicity and angry criticism from the religious establishment in England. When the Second Civil War ended in 1648, with King Charles
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dethroned and executed, Milton welcomed the new parliament and wrote pamphlets in its support. After serving for a few years in a civil position, he retired briefly to his house in Westminster because his eyesight was failing. By 1652 he was completely blind. Despite his disability, Milton reentered civil service under the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, the military general who ruled the British Isles from 1653 to 1658. Two years after Cromwells death, Miltons worst fears were realizedthe Restoration brought Charles II back to the throne, and the poet had to go into hiding to escape execution. However, he had already begun work on the great English epic which he had planned so long before: Paradise Lost. Now he had the opportunity to work on it in earnest. It was published in 1667, a year after the Great Fire of London. The greatness of Miltons epic was immediately recognized, and the admiring comments of the respected poets John Dryden and Andrew Marvell helped restore Milton to favor. He spent the ensuing years at his residence in Bunhill, still writing prolifically. Milton died at home on November 8, 1674. By all accounts, Milton led a studious and quiet life from his youth up until his death. Education Thanks to his fathers wealth, young Milton got the best education money could buy. He had a private tutor as a youngster. As a young teenager he attended the prestigious St. Pauls Cathedral School. After he excelled at St. Pauls he entered college at Christs College at Cambridge University. At the latter, he made quite a name for himself with his prodigious writing, publishing several essays and poems to high acclaim. After graduating with his masters degree in 1632, Milton was once again accommodated by his father. He was allowed to take over the familys estate near Windsor and pursue a quiet life of study. He spent 1632 to 1638his mid to late twentiesreading the classics in Greek and Latin and learning new theories in mathematics and music. Milton became fluent in many foreign and classical languages, including Italian, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon, and spoke some Dutch as well. His knowledge of most of these languages was immense and precocious. He wrote sonnets in Italian as a teenager. While a student at Cambridge, he was invited in his second year to address the first year students in a speech written entirely in Latin. After Cambridge, Milton continued a quiet life of study well through his twenties. By the age of thirty, Milton had made himself into one of the most brilliant minds of England, and one of the most ambitious poets it had ever produced. Early Works In his twenties, Milton wrote five masterful long poems, each of them influential and important in its own separate way: On the Morning of Christs Nativity, Comus, Lycidas, Il Penseroso, and LAllegro. Through these poems, Milton honed his skills at writing narrative, dramatic, elegiac, philosophical, and lyrical poetry. He had built a firm poetic foundation through his intense study of languages, philosophy, and politics, and fused it with his uncanny sense of tone and diction. Even in these early poems, Miltons literary output was guided by his faith in God. Milton believed that all poetry served a social, philosophical, and religious purpose. He thought that poetry should glorify God, promote religious values, enlighten readers, and help people to become better Christians. Aside from his poetic successes, Milton was also a prolific writer of essays and pamphlets. These prose writings did not bring Milton public acclaim. In fact, since his essays and pamphlets argued
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against the established views of most of England, Milton was even the object of threats. Nevertheless, he continued to form the basis for his political and theological beliefs in the form of essays and pamphlets. Politics Miltons political ideals are expressed in the many pamphlets he wrote during his lifetime. He championed the absolute freedom of the individualperhaps because he had been so often betrayed by the institutions in which he put his trust. His distrust of institutions was accompanied by his belief that power corrupts human beings. He distrusted anyone who could claim power over anyone else, and believed that rulers should have to prove their right to lead other people. Milton was an activist in his middle years, fighting for human rights and against the rule of Englands leaders, whom he believed were inept. Knowing he was not a fighter, he demonstrated his activism by writing lengthy, rhetorical pamphlets that thoroughly and rigorously argue for his point of view. Although he championed liberty and fought against authority throughout his career, in theory he believed in a strict social and political hierarchy in which people would obey their leaders and leaders serve their people. He believed that leaders should be leaders because they are better and more fit to rule than their subjects. But despite these rigid views of authority, Milton believed that the social hierarchy that actually existed in his day was extremely corrupt, and he directly challenged the rule of Charles I, the king of England during much of Miltons lifetime. Milton argued that Charles was not, in fact, fit to lead his subjects because he did not possess superior faculties or virtues. Religion Milton took public stances on a great number of issues, but most important to the reading of Paradise Lost are his positions on religion. In Miltons time, the Anglican Church, or Church of England, had split into the high Anglican, moderate Anglican, and Puritan or Presbyterian sects. Milton was a Presbyterian. This denomination called for the abolishment of bishops, an office that exists as part of the Catholic and Anglican churches. Milton, however, gradually took his views further, ultimately calling for the removal of all priests, whom he referred to as hirelings. Milton despised the corruption he saw in the Catholic Church, repeatedly attacking it both in his poetry and prose. In Lycidas, he likens Catholics to hungry wolves leaping into a sheeps pen, an image similar to his depiction of Satan leaping over the wall of Paradise in Paradise Lost, Book IV. He saw few problems with the division of Protestants into more and smaller denominations. Instead, he thought that the fragmentation of churches was a sign of healthy self-examination, and believed that each individual Christian should be his own church, without any establishment to encumber him. These beliefs, expressed in a great number of pamphlets, prompted his break with the Presbyterians before 1650. From that point on, Milton advocated the complete abolishment of all church establishments, and kept his own private religion, close to the Calvinism practiced by Presbyterians but differing in some ways. Miltons highly individual view of Christianity makes Paradise Lost simultaneously personal and universal. In his later years, Milton came to view all organized Christian churches, whether Anglican, Catholic or Presbyterian, as an obstacle to true faith. He felt that the individual and his conscience (or right reason) was a much more powerful tool in interpreting the Word of God than the example set by a church. Throughout Paradise Lost, Milton expresses the idea that Adam and Eves fall from grace was actually fortunate, because it gives individual human beings the opportunity to redeem themselves by true repentance and faith. The importance of remaining
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strong in ones personal religious convictions, particularly in the face of widespread condemnation, is a major theme in the later Books of Paradise Lost, as Michael shows Adam the vision of Enoch and Noah, two followers of God who risk death to stand up for him. Paradise Lost also presents a number of Protestant Christian positions: the union of the Old and New Testaments, the unworthiness of mankind, and the importance of Christs love in mans salvation. Nonetheless, the poem does not present a unified, cohesive theory of Christian theology, nor does it attempt to identify disbelievers, redefine Christianity, or replace the Bible. Instead, Miltons epic stands as a remarkable presentation of biblical stories meant to engage Christian readers and help them to be better Christians. Women and Marriage Much of Miltons social commentary in Paradise Lost focuses on the proper role of women. In Book IV he makes clear that he does not think men and women are equals, alluding to biblical passages that identify man as the master of woman. Although Milton viewed women as inferior to men, believing that wives should be subservient to their husbands, he did not see himself as a woman-hater. In Paradise Lost, he distances himself from the misogyny popular in his timethe belief that women are utterly inferior to men, essentially evil, and generally to be avoided. Miltons character Adam voices this harsh view of womankind, but only after the fall, as an expression of anger and frustration. Put simply, Miltons early views in Paradise Lost may be misogynistic by todays standards, but he nevertheless presents Eves wifely role as an important one, as Adam and Eve help one another to become better and more complete individuals. Miltons views on marriage are mainstream today, but they were viewed as shocking and heretical in his own time. Milton was a pioneer for the right of divorce in an age when divorce was prohibited by nearly all denominations. In fact, the only grounds for a lawful divorce in Miltons time was usually sexual incompatibility due to unlawful relations with other parties. But in his Doctrine of Discipline and Divorce, Milton expresses his belief that any sort of incompatibility sexual, mental, or otherwiseis justified grounds for a divorce. In the same essay, he argues that the main purpose of marriage is not necessarily procreation, as most people thought at that time, but to bring two people together in completion. He felt that conversation and mental companionship were supremely important in a marriage, and admits that his first marriage might have failed due to a lack in this regard. He also argued that the partners in a marriage must complement each other. His portrayal of Adam and Eve after the fall is a vivid example of his belief that two people can complement each other, smoothing out one anothers faults and enhancing each others strengths. The Epic At the early age of sixteen, Milton already aspired to write the great English epic. As he read the classical epics in schoolHomers Odyssey and Iliad and Virgils Aeneid he began to fantasize about bringing such artistic brilliance to the English language. Milton considered many topics for his epic. Early on, he thought that the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table was a noble topic. Then, as he grew slightly older, he hoped to write an epic about Oliver Cromwell, who took control of England in 1653 after helping to dethrone and execute King Charles. Judging from these two topics, it is clear that Milton wanted to write his epic on a distinctly British topic that would inspire nationalist pride in his countrymen. Such a topic would also mimic Homers and Virgils nationalist epics of strong, virtuous warriors and noble battles. However, Milton abandoned both of these ideas, and for a time gave up the
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notion of writing an epic at all. But in the mid-1650s, Milton returned to an idea he had previously had for a verse play: the story of Adam and Eve. He concluded that the story might fail as a drama but succeed as an epic. In 1656 the blind Milton began to recite verse each morning to one of his two daughters, who wrote his poem down for him. Milton continued to dictate Paradise Lost for several years, finishing in 1667 when it was first published in ten books. Milton soon returned to revise his epic, redividing it into twelve books (as the classical epics were divided), and publishing it in its authoritative second edition form in 1671. Later in 1671 he published his final work: Paradise Regained, the sequel to his great epic. Due to his strong religious beliefs, Milton thought that this work surpassed Paradise Lost in both its art and its message, though most readers today would disagree. Study Questions & Essay Topics Study Questions 1. Satan is the most well-developed character in Paradise Lost. Is he a sympathetic character? Examine one of his soliloquies and identify the character traits and poetic techniques that make him seem appealing or forgivable. 2. Trace the appearance of autobiographical details in Paradise Lost. How are these details important to the story? What is the identity and role of the narrator? 3. Traditional Christian belief holds that the Son and the Father are two parts of the same God, but Milton presents the Son as a fundamentally separate entity from God the Father. How does this distinction affect the plot of Paradise Lost? Suggested Essay Topics 1. Milton places great emphasis on mans autonomous reason and free will. Do Adam and Eve show evidence of being ruled by reason before the fall? 2. Examine the passages in which Milton discusses the nature of women as compared to men. Do you think it is correct to label Milton a misogynist? 3. Paradise Lost includes many characters who can be easily compared and contrasted with each other. For instance, God and Satan stand as complete opposites; Satan, Sin, and Death form an evil version of the Holy Trinity; Adam and Eve seem to be far from equally made and disposed for life in Paradise; even God the Father and God the Son have differences. Pick one of these pairs and describe their differences as well as their similarities. 4. Based on the text of Paradise Lost, how do you think Milton would justify his alterations of and additions to the Bible, given the fact that he was a devout Christian?

Lecture Four I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize works by John Bunyan and Alexander Pope 2. To help students know more about the two writers II. Main Teaching Tasks
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1. Brief introduction to the works 2. Detailed study of the selected works 3. Term: satirical and ironical writing III. Time Allotment 1. One hour introduction 2. One hour detailed study and explanation IV. Teaching Notes Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English essayist, critic, satirist, and one of the greatest poets of Enlightenment. Pope wrote his first verses at the age of 12. His breakthrough work, AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM (1711), appeared when he was twenty-three. It included the famous line "a little learning is a dangerous thing." Pope's physical defects made him an easy target for heartless mockery, but he was also considered a leading literary critic and the epitome of English Neoclassicism.

Lecture Five I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help students to understand, appreciate and criticize Robinson Crusoe by Defoe and Gullivers Travels by Swift. 2. To introduce major elements of novels II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. Selected Readings of Robison Crusoe and Gullivers Travels 2. Terms: novel, novelette, short story and point of view: the first person narration III. Time Allotment 1. Discussion of the selected reading (1.5 period) 2. Introduction to the literary terms (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe Context Daniel Defoe was born in 1660, in London, and was originally christened Daniel Foe, changing his name around the age of thirty-five to sound more aristocratic. Like his character Robinson Crusoe, Defoe was a third child. His mother and father, James and Mary Foe, were Presbyterian dissenters. James Foe was a middle-class wax and candle merchant. As a boy, Daniel witnessed two of the greatest disasters of the seventeenth century: a recurrence of the plague and the Great Fire of London in 1666. These events may have shaped his fascination with catastrophes and survival in his writing. Defoe attended a respected school in Dorking, where he was an excellent student, but as a Presbyterian, he was forbidden to attend Oxford or Cambridge. He entered a dissenting institution called Mortons Academy and considered becoming a Presbyterian minister. Though he abandoned this plan, his Protestant values endured throughout his life despite discrimination and persecution, and these values are expressed in Robinson Crusoe. In 1683,
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Defoe became a traveling hosiery salesman. Visiting Holland, France, and Spain on business, Defoe developed a taste for travel that lasted throughout his life. His fiction reflects this interest; his characters Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe both change their lives by voyaging far from their native England. Defoe became successful as a merchant, establishing his headquarters in a high-class neighborhood of London. A year after starting up his business, he married an heiress named Mary Tuffley, who brought him the sizeable fortune of 3,700 pounds as dowry. A fervent critic of King James II, Defoe became affiliated with the supporters of the duke of Monmouth, who led a rebellion against the king in 1685. When the rebellion failed, Defoe was essentially forced out of England, and he spent three years in Europe writing tracts against James II. When the king was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and replaced by William of Orange, Defoe was able to return to England and to his business. Unfortunately, Defoe did not have the same financial success as previously, and by 1692 he was bankrupt, having accumulated the huge sum of 17,000 pounds in debts. Though he eventually paid off most of the total, he was never again entirely free from debt, and the theme of financial vicissitudesthe wild ups and downs in ones pocketbook became a prominent theme in his later novels. Robinson Crusoe contains many reflections about the value of money. Around this time, Defoe began to write, partly as a moneymaking venture. One of his first creations was a poem written in 1701, entitled The True-Born Englishman, which became popular and earned Defoe some celebrity. He also wrote political pamphlets. One of these, The Shortest Way with Dissenters, was a satire on persecutors of dissenters and sold well among the ruling Anglican elite until they realized that it was mocking their own practices. As a result, Defoe was publicly pilloriedhis hands and wrists locked in a wooden devicein 1703, and jailed in Newgate Prison. During this time his business failed. Released through the intervention of Robert Harley, a Tory minister and Speaker of Parliament, Defoe worked as a publicist, political journalist, and pamphleteer for Harley and other politicians. He also worked as a spy, reveling in aliases and disguises, reflecting his own variable identity as merchant, poet, journalist, and prisoner. This theme of changeable identity would later be expressed in the life of Robinson Crusoe, who becomes merchant, slave, plantation owner, and even unofficial king. In his writing, Defoe often used a pseudonym simply because he enjoyed the effect. He was incredibly wideranging and productive as a writer, turning out over 500 books and pamphlets during his life. Defoe began writing fiction late in life, around the age of sixty. He published his first novel, Robinson Crusoe, in 1719, attracting a large middle-class readership. He followed in 1722 with Moll Flanders, the story of a tough, streetwise heroine whose fortunes rise and fall dramatically. Both works straddle the border between journalism and fiction. Robinson Crusoe was based on the true story of a shipwrecked seaman named Alexander Selkirk and was passed off as history, while Moll Flanders included dark prison scenes drawn from Defoes own experiences in Newgate and interviews with prisoners. His focus on the actual conditions of everyday life and avoidance of the courtly and the heroic made Defoe a revolutionary in English literature and helped define the new genre of the novel. Stylistically, Defoe was a great innovator. Dispensing with the ornate style associated with the upper classes, Defoe used the simple, direct, fact-based style of the middle classes, which became the new standard for the English novel. With Robinson Crusoes theme of solitary human existence, Defoe paved the way for the central modern theme of alienation and isolation. Defoe died in London on April 24, 1731, of a fatal lethargyan unclear diagnosis that
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may refer to a stroke. Study Questions & Essay Topics Study Questions 1. Defoe has his hero practice two different types of writing in the novel. One type is the journal that Crusoe keeps for a few chapters until his ink runs out. The other is the fuller type of storytelling that makes up the bulk of the novel. Both are in the first-person voice, but they produce different effects. Why does Defoe include both types? What does a comparison between them tell us about the overall purpose of the novel? 2. Crusoe expresses very little appreciation of beauty in the novel. He describes the valley where he builds his bower as pleasant, recognizes that some of his early attempts at pottery making are unattractive, and acknowledges that Friday is good-looking. But overall, he shows little interest in aesthetics. Is this lack of interest in beauty an important aspect of the character of Crusoe, or of the novel? 3. Crusoe spends much time on the island devising ways to escape it. But when he finally does escape, his return to Europe is anticlimactic. Nothing he finds there, not even friends or family, is described with the same interest evoked earlier by his fortress or farm. Indeed, at the end of the novel Crusoe returns to the island. Why does Defoe portray the island originally as a place of captivity and then later as a desired destination? Suggested Essay Topics 1. Although he is happy to watch his goat and cat population multiply on his island, Crusoe never expresses any regret for not having a wife or children. He refers to his pets as his family, but never mentions any wish for a real human family. While he is sad that his dog never has a mate, he never seems saddened by his own thirty-five years of bachelor existence. Does Crusoes indifference to mating and reproduction tell us anything about his view of life, or about the novel? 2. Although Crusoe proudly reports that he allows freedom of religion on his island, giving his Catholic and pagan subjects the right to practice their own faiths, he describes Friday as a Protestant. He attempts to rid his servant of his belief in the pagan god Benamuckee. Why does Crusoe generally show religious tolerance, but insist on Fridays Protestantism? 3. During the return voyage to England from Lisbon at the end of the novel, Crusoe and his traveling party encounter a bear that is frightening until Friday turns it into an amusing spectacle. His teasing of the bear, which prompts the groups laughter, is the first example of live entertainment in the novel. There is no mention of Friday trying to amuse Crusoe on the island. Does this episode foreshadow a new role for Friday after he moves to Europe from the Caribbean? What is Defoe trying to symbolize in having Crusoe bring Friday with him to Europe at all? 4. In many ways Crusoe appears to be the same sort of person at the end of the novel as he is at the beginning. Despite decades of solitude and exile, wars with cannibals, and the subjugation of a mutiny, Crusoe hardly seems to grow or develop. Is Crusoe an unchanging character, or does he change in subtle ways as a result of his ordeal? 5. Crusoes religious illumination, in which he beholds an angelic figure descending on a flame, ordering him to repent or die, is extremely vivid. Afterward he does repent, and his faith seems sincere. Yet Defoe complicates this religious experience by making us wonder whether it is instead a result of Crusoes fever, or of the tobacco and rum he has consumed. We wonder whether the vision may be health- or drug-related rather than supernatural and divine. Why does Defoe mix the
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divine and the medical in this scene? Does he want us to question Crusoes turn to religion? Gullivers Travel by Jonathan Swift Study Questions & Essay Topics Study Questions 1. How does Swift use language and style for the purpose of satire? How does his style change as the story progresses? 2. Does Gulliver change as the story progresses? Does he learn from his adventures? 3. Is Gulliver an everyman figure or does he have a distinctive personality of his own? Suggested Essay Topics 1. Why is Gulliver so eager to assert his own countrys importance to the Brobdingnagians? How does this desire compare to the Lilliputians desire to assert their importance to Gulliver? 2. What is the significance, if any, of the order in which Gullivers journeys take place? How does each adventure build on the previous one? 3. What is the allegorical significance of the floating island of Laputa? 4. Why does Gulliver keep traveling despite his many misfortunes? 5. Why does Gulliver want to stay with the Houyhnhnms? Does his desire make sense in light of the other societies he has visited? 6. How do the Lilliputians view the threat that Gulliver represents?

Lecture 6 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize Chapter VIII, Book Four of 2. To let the students know more about Henry Fielding and Richard Brinsley Sheridan II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. Tom Jones and Act 4, Scene III of The School for Scandal 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of Henry Fielding and Richard Brinsley Sheridan 3. Introduction to Modern novel and play III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes Context Henry Fielding was born in 1707 to Lieutenant George Fielding and his wife Sarah, who was herself the daughter of nobility. Socially, the family hovered at the edges of high society, but they had decidedly middle-class means. Fielding lost his mother in 1718, and his father remarried just a year later and began immediately to raise a new family. That same year Fielding began his education at Eton. Fielding seems to have been an avid reader and an overly lively student, often flogged for his
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amorous escapades. Fielding's pursuit of women did not, however, prevent him from absorbing vast quantities of Greek and Latin, or from pursuing the beginnings of a career in drama. His first play, Love in Several Masques, was produced in February of 1728 at the Drury Lane Theater, with encouraging results. Fielding would go on to write over twenty plays and farces, the most successful of which was The Tragedy of Tragedies, or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great. In the meantime, however, Fielding spent some time between 1728 and 1729 in Holland at the University of Leyden as a law student. His father may have been unable to support him through the completion of his degree, and so Fielding was forced to fall back on his talents as a writer and theater manager to support himself. Fielding's life took a major turn in 1734 with his marriage to Charlotte Cradock. Fielding loved Cradock passionately, and their short life together was marked by intense affection and, at times, intense misery. Despite the responsibilities Fielding faced as a father and husband, his extravagant and reckless nature kept him and his family wavering on the edge of destitution. In order to provide for them, Fielding hurriedly finished his study of the law, and in 1740 was called to the bar. He began to eke out a living as a barrister, supplementing this work with extensive writings for political journals such as The Champion and later, the Jacobite's Journal. Fielding's first major novel, The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his Friend, Mr. Abraham Adams, was published in 1742. The novel was conceived as a satire poking fun of the insanely popular novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Fielding's rival Samuel Richardson, but its characters and plot developed independently of that text. Two years later, Fielding's wife Charlotte succumbed to a fever and died. Although Fielding remained heart-broken, he eventually married Mary Daniel, the faithful housekeeper who had looked after him and his first wife even in their moments of extreme poverty. This marriage was a happy one, but Fielding never stopped loving Charlotte, and he would model his two major female characters, Sophia and Amelia, on her. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling was published in 1749. Almost every aspect of Fielding's own life is apparent in the novel, from the love and reverence he had for his first wife to his extensive knowledge of the Southwestern part of England. Even Tom Jones himself clearly shows the markings of Fielding, exhibiting the same careless good nature as well as a deeply entrenched awareness of poverty and the reversals of fortune. In this same year, Fielding was appointed magistrate for Middlesex. Although he had satirized the law and lawmakers throughout his career as a dramatist and novelist, Fielding appears to have been an exemplary magistrate. He was honest, and wrote several influential tracts that reveal his deep interest in alleviating the widespread problems of poverty and crime in England. As evidenced by Tom Jones, Fielding was also extremely interested in English politics, particularly in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, when the displaced Stuart family attempted to restore themselves to the throne by ousting George II. Despite the demands of a family, a profession, and his rapidly deteriorating health, Fielding managed to publish his last novel, Amelia, in 1751. Although it is considered inferior to Fielding's two earlier novels, Amelia was an immediate commercial success, and Fielding's own favorite among his writings. Fielding's work as a magistrate began to take up more of his time and energyhe engaged in an apparently successful campaign against robber gangs in London in 1753 and published an extensive Proposal for making effective provision for the Poor. His health was rapidly deteriorating dues to a devastating combination of gout, asthma, jaundice, and dropsy. Fielding's
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doctor advised him to avoid England's harsh winters, and Fielding decided to go to Portugal. Leaving behind the children from his second marriage, accompanied only by his wife, his first daughter Harriet, and two servants, Fielding left England in the summer of 1754. Ever industrious, he documented his final travels in what would be published posthumously as The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, and the account took him almost to the moment of his death. Henry Fielding died on October eight of the same year, in Junqueira, near Lisbon. Suggested Essay Topics Fielding wrote Tom Jones at a time when people read to be instructed in questions of morality. Does Fielding advocate certain values and morals in his novel, or does he reject such an approach? How does Fielding portray the relationship between city and country in Tom Jones? Although there was much debate during Fielding's time about exactly what constituted a "novel," there was some consensus that it was a work of prose that charted the everyday events of people's lives. Does Tom Jones fit into such a definition? What do you think Fielding's actual purpose was in writing the chapters that preface each of his eighteen books in Tom Jones? How does this purpose agree with or deviate from his stated purpose? Discuss the relationship between the narrator and the reader of Tom Jones. How important is this relationship to the overall impact of the novel?

Lecture 7 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize romanticism poetry by William Blake and the sentimental poetry by Thomas Gray 2. To let the students know more about characteristics of poetry in English romantic period II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper (one from Song of Innocence and the other from Song of Experience) and The Tyger 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of Blake and Gray 3. Introduction to sentimental and romanticist poetry III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes Songs of innocence and experience by William Blake Context William Blake was born in London in 1757. His father, a hosier, soon recognized his son's artistic talents and sent him to study at a drawing school when he was ten years old. At 14, William asked to be apprenticed to the engraver James Basire, under whose direction he further developed his innate skills. As a young man Blake worked as an engraver, illustrator, and drawing
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teacher, and met such artists as Henry Fuseli and John Flaxman, as well as Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose classicizing style he would later come to reject. Blake wrote poems during this time as well, and his first printed collection, an immature and rather derivative volume called Poetical Sketches, appeared in 1783. Songs of Innocence was published in 1789, followed by Songs of Experience in 1793 and a combined edition the next year bearing the title Songs of Innocence and Experience showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Blake's political radicalism intensified during the years leading up to the French Revolution. He began a seven-book poem about the Revolution, in fact, but it was either destroyed or never completed, and only the first book survives. He disapproved of Enlightenment rationalism, of institutionalized religion, and of the tradition of marriage in its conventional legal and social form (though he was married himself). His unorthodox religious thinking owes a debt to the Swedish philosopher Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), whose influence is particularly evident in Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In the 1790s and after, he shifted his poetic voice from the lyric to the prophetic mode, and wrote a series of long prophetic books, including Milton and Jerusalem. Linked together by an intricate mythology and symbolism of Blake's own creation, these books propound a revolutionary new social, intellectual, and ethical order. Blake published almost all of his works himself, by an original process in which the poems were etched by hand, along with illustrations and decorative images, onto copper plates. These plates were inked to make prints, and the prints were then colored in with paint. This expensive and labor-intensive production method resulted in a quite limited circulation of Blake's poetry during his life. It has also posed a special set of challenges to scholars of Blake's work, which has interested both literary critics and art historians. Most students of Blake find it necessary to consider his graphic art and his writing together; certainly he himself thought of them as inseparable. During his own lifetime, Blake was a pronounced failure, and he harbored a good deal of resentment and anxiety about the public's apathy toward his work and about the financial straits in which he so regularly found himself. When his self-curated exhibition of his works met with financial failure in 1809, Blake sank into depression and withdrew into obscurity; he remained alienated for the rest of his life. His contemporaries saw him as something of an eccentric--as indeed he was. Suspended between the neoclassicism of the 18th century and the early phases of Romanticism, Blake belongs to no single poetic school or age. Only in the 20th century did wide audiences begin to acknowledge his profound originality and genius. Study Questions 1. Discuss Blake's use of auditory imagery in the poems, and cite one example 2. Comment on Blake as a social critic. 3. What were (and are) the effects of Blake's mode of publishing his poems with handcrafted colored engravings? 4. Comment on Blake's use of the ballad form. 5. What are Blake's favorite images of innocence, and how does he use them? 6. Discuss Blake's use of simple sentence structure and diction in these poems. What is the overall effect of this stylistic decision? What keeps the poems themselves from being simple? 7. How does Blake portray nature? How does the conception of nature differ in the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience? 8. Are Blake's poems symbolic? Explain your answer.
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9. How does Blake use repetition in the Songs of Innocence and Experience? 10. How does Blake portray childhood? 11. What can you discern from these poems about Blake's views on religion?

Lecture 8 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize poetry by Wordsworth and Coleridge 2. To let the students know more about Wordsworth and Coleridge II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways, and The Solitary Reaper and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of Wordsworth and Coleridge 3. Introduction to types of poetry III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Devon in 1772. His father, a clergyman, moved his family to London when Coleridge was young, and it was there that Coleridge attended school (as he would later recall in poems such as "Frost at Midnight"). He later attended Cambridge but left without completing his studies. During the politically charged atmosphere of the late eighteenth century--the French Revolution had sent shockwaves through Europe, and England and France were at war--Coleridge made a name for himself both as a political radical and as an important young poet; along with his friends Robert Southey and William Wordsworth, he became one of the most important writers in England. Collaborating with Wordsworth on the revolutionary Lyrical Ballads of 1798, Coleridge helped to inaugurate the Romantic era in England; as Wordsworth explained it in the 1802 preface to the third edition of the work, the idea of poetry underlying Lyrical Ballads turned the established conventions of poetry upside down: Privileging natural speech over poetic ornament, simply stated themes over elaborate symbolism, emotion over abstract thought, and the experience of natural beauty over urban sophistication, the book paved the way for two generations of poets, and stands as one of the milestones of European literature. If Wordsworth represents the central pillar of early Romanticism, Coleridge is nevertheless an important structural support. His emphasis on the imagination, its independence from the outside world and its creation of fantastic pictures such as those found in the "Rime," exerted a profound influence on later writers such as Shelley; his depiction of feelings of alienation and numbness helped to define more sharply the Romantics' idealized contrast between the emptiness of the city--where such feelings are experienced--and the joys of nature. The heightened understanding of these feelings also helped to shape the stereotype of the suffering Romantic genius, often further characterized by drug addiction: this figure of the idealist, brilliant yet tragically unable to attain his own ideals, is a major pose for Coleridge in his poetry.

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Study Questions 1.Coleridge writes frequently about children, but, unlike other Romantic poets, he writes about his own children more often than he writes about himself as a child. With particular reference to "Frost at Midnight" and "The Nightingale," how can Coleridge's attitude toward children best be characterized? How does this attitude relate to his larger ideas of nature and the imagination? 2. Many of Coleridge's poems--including "Frost at Midnight," "The Nightingale," and "Dejection: An Ode"--achieve their effect through the evocation of a dramatic scene in which the speaker himself is situated. How does Coleridge describe a scene simply by tracing his speaker's thoughts? How does he imbue the scene with a sense of immediacy? 3. How does Coleridge's poetry differ from the Romantic archetype articulated by Wordsworth in the preface to Lyrical Ballads? How does it resemble that archetype? 4. What are some of the ways in which we can interpret the peculiarities of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"--the archaisms, the side notes, etc.? Which interpretation seems most convincing? Why? 5. In many ways, "Kubla Khan" is a poem whose interpretation depends on a knowledge of events that occurred outside of the poem itself. How does the story of the person from Porlock affect the ways in which the poem can be understood? Is it possible to find any significance in "Kubla Khan" without knowledge of Coleridge's opium dream? 6. Coleridge is often described as a "poet of the imagination." What does this appellation mean? What role does imagination play in Coleridge's work, both as a source and as a subject? 7. How does Coleridge create metaphors from natural objects and scenes? How does this practice support or conflict with his explicit opinions about the human tendency to impose our feelings upon nature, as in "The Nightingale"? Lecture 9 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize poetry by Byron and Shelley 2. To let the students know more about Byron and Shelly II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. George Gordon Byron, Song for the Luddites and The Isles of Greece (from Don Juan,III) and Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Song, Men of England and Ode to the West Wind 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of the two poets 3. Introduction to terms: Byronic hero, terza rima III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes Lecture 10 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize poetry by John Keats and the six
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novels by Jane Austen 2. To let the students know more about Keats and Austen II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. John Keats, Ode to Grecian Urn and Jane Austen, An excerpt from Chapter I of Pride and Prejudice 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of Keats and Austen 3. Introduction to terms: odes, novel elements continued III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes Ode on a Grecian Urn Summary In the first stanza, the speaker stands before an ancient Grecian urn and addresses it. He is preoccupied with its depiction of pictures frozen in time. It is the "still unravish'd bride of quietness," the "foster-child of silence and slow time." He also describes the urn as a "historian" that can tell a story. He wonders about the figures on the side of the urn and asks what legend they depict and from where they come. He looks at a picture that seems to depict a group of men pursuing a group of women and wonders what their story could be: "What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? / What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?" In the second stanza, the speaker looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man playing a pipe, lying with his lover beneath a glade of trees. The speaker says that the piper's "unheard" melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time. He tells the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover because he is frozen in time, he should not grieve, because her beauty will never fade. In the third stanza, he looks at the trees surrounding the lovers and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves. He is happy for the piper because his songs will be "for ever new," and happy that the love of the boy and the girl will last forever, unlike mortal love, which lapses into "breathing human passion" and eventually vanishes, leaving behind only a "burning forehead, and a parching tongue." In the fourth stanza, the speaker examines another picture on the urn, this one of a group of villagers leading a heifer to be sacrificed. He wonders where they are going ("To what green altar, O mysterious priest...") and from where they have come. He imagines their little town, empty of all its citizens, and tells it that its streets will "for evermore" be silent, for those who have left it, frozen on the urn, will never return. In the final stanza, the speaker again addresses the urn itself, saying that it, like Eternity, "doth tease us out of thought." He thinks that when his generation is long dead, the urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic lesson: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." The speaker says that that is the only thing the urn knows and the only thing it needs to know. Form "Ode on a Grecian Urn" follows the same ode-stanza structure as the "Ode on Melancholy," though it varies more the rhyme scheme of the last three lines of each stanza. Each of the five stanzas in "Grecian Urn" is ten lines long, metered in a relatively precise iambic pentameter, and divided into a two part rhyme scheme, the last three lines of which are variable. The first seven
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lines of each stanza follow an ABABCDE rhyme scheme, but the second occurrences of the CDE sounds do not follow the same order. In stanza one, lines seven through ten are rhymed DCE; in stanza two, CED; in stanzas three and four, CDE; and in stanza five, DCE, just as in stanza one. As in other odes (especially "Autumn" and "Melancholy"), the two-part rhyme scheme (the first part made of AB rhymes, the second of CDE rhymes) creates the sense of a two-part thematic structure as well. The first four lines of each stanza roughly define the subject of the stanza, and the last six roughly explicate or develop it. (As in other odes, this is only a general rule, true of some stanzas more than others; stanzas such as the fifth do not connect rhyme scheme and thematic structure closely at all.) Study Questions 1. Jane Austens original title for the novel was First Impressions. What role do first impressions play in Pride and Prejudice? 2. Analyze how Austen depicts Mr. Bennet. Is he a positive or negative figure? 3. Discuss the importance of dialogue to character development in the novel. Suggested Essay Topics 1. Discuss the importance of social class in the novel, especially as it impacts the relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy. 2. Though Jane Austen satirizes snobs in her novels, some critics have accused her of being a snob herself. Giving special consideration to Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins, argue and defend one side of this issue. 3. Pride and Prejudice is a novel about women who feel they have to marry to be happy. Taking Charlotte Lucas as an example, do you think the author is making a social criticism of her eras view of marriage? 4. Giving special attention to Wickham, Charlotte Lucas, and Elizabeth, compare and contrast male and female attitudes toward marriage in the novel. 5. Discuss the relationship between Mrs. Bennet and her children, especially Elizabeth and Lydia. 6. Compare and contrast the Bingley-Darcy relationship with the Jane-Elizabeth relationship. 7. Compare and contrast the roles of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mrs. Bennet. Lecture 11 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize novels by Charles Dickens and Bronte Sisters 2. To let the students know more about the novelists II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. Charles Dickens, An Excerpt from Chapter III of Oliver Twist and Charlotte Bronte, Chapter XXIII of Jane Eyre, and Emily Bronte, Chapter XV of Wuthering Heights 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of the novleists 3. Introduction to terms: realism, critical realism, novel elements continued III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period)
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IV. Teaching Notes Study Questions & Essay Topics Study Questions 1. In what ways is Jane Eyre influenced by the tradition of the Gothic novel? What do the Gothic elements contribute to the novel? 2. What do the names mean in Jane Eyre? Some names to consider include: Jane Eyre, Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield, Reed, Rivers, Miss Temple, and Ferndean. Suggested Essay Topics 1. Discuss Jane as a narrator and as a character. What sort of voice does she have? How does she represent her own actions? Does she seem to be a trustworthy storyteller, or does Bront require us to read between the lines of her narrative? In light of the fact that people who treat Jane cruelly (John Reed, Mrs. Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst) all seem to come to unhappy endings, what role does Jane play as the novels moral center? 2. In what ways might Jane Eyre be considered a feminist novel? What points does the novel make about the treatment and position of women in Victorian society? With particular attention to the books treatment of marriage, is there any way in which it might be considered anti-feminist? 3. What role does Janes ambiguous social position play in determining the conflict of her story? What larger points, if any, does the novel make about social class? Does the book criticize or reinforce existing Victorian social prejudices? Consider the treatment of Jane as a governess, but also of the other servants in the book, along with Janes attitude toward her impoverished students at Morton. 4. Compare and contrast some of the characters who serve as foils throughout Jane Eyre: Blanche to Jane, St. John to Rochester, and, perhaps, Bertha to Jane. Also think about the points of comparison between the Reed and Rivers families. How do these contrasts aid the development of the books themes? Study Questions & Essay Topics Study Questions 1. Many of the names in Wuthering Heights are strikingly similar. For example, besides the two Catherines, there are a number of Lintons, Earnshaws, and Heathcliffs whose names vary only slightly. What role do specific names play in Wuthering Heights? 2. In many ways, Wuthering Heights structures itself around matched, contrasting pairs of themes and of characters. What are some of these pairs, and what role do they play in the book? 3. Analyze the character of Edgar Linton. Is he a sympathetic figure? How does he compare to Heathcliff? Is Catherine really in love with him? Suggested Essay Topics 1. Discuss the novels narrative structure. Are the novels narrators trustworthy? Why or why not? With particular reference to Nellys story, consider what might be gained from reading between the lines of the narration. What roles do the personalities of the narrators play in the way that the story is told? 2. What role does social class and class ambiguity play in Wuthering Heights? To what extent is Heathcliffs social position responsible for the misery and conflict so persistent in the book? 3. Discuss revenge in Wuthering Heights. In what ways is it connected to love? What is the nature
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of love in the novel, that it can be so closely connected to vengeance? 4. Think about the influence of the physical landscape in the novel. What role do the moors play in the development of the story, and in the presentation of the characters? How does Catherines abiding love of the moors help us to understand her character? What do the moors come to symbolize in the novel? Lecture 12 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize poetry by Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning 2. To let the students know more about the poets II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. Alfred Tennyson, Break, Break, Break, Crossing the Bar and Ulysses and Robert Browning, My Last Duchess, Meeting at Night and Parting at Morning 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of the poets 3. Introduction to terms: dramatic monologue and modernist poetry III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes Ulysses This poem is written as a dramatic monologue: the entire poem is spoken by a single character, whose identity is revealed by his own words. The lines are in blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter, which serves to impart a fluid and natural quality to Ulysses's speech. Many of the lines are enjambed, which means that a thought does not end with the line-break; the sentences often end in the middle, rather than the end, of the lines. The use of enjambment is appropriate in a poem about pushing forward "beyond the utmost bound of human thought." Finally, the poem is divided into four paragraph-like sections, each of which comprises a distinct thematic unit of the poem. Cross the Bar Tennyson wrote Crossing the Bar in 1889, three years before he died. The poem describes his placid and accepting attitude toward death. Although he followed this work with subsequent poems, he requested that "Crossing the Bar" appear as the final poem in all collections of his work. Tennyson uses the metaphor of a sand bar to describe the barrier between life and death. A sandbar is a ridge of sand built up by currents along a shore. In order to reach the shore, the waves must crash against the sandbar, creating a sound that Tennyson describes as the "moaning of the bar." The bar is one of several images of liminality in Tennyson's poetry: in "Ulysses," the hero desires "to sail beyond the sunset"; in "Tithonus", the main character finds himself at the "quiet limit of the world," and regrets that he has asked to "pass beyond the goal of ordinance." The other important image in the poem is one of "crossing," suggesting Christian connotations:
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"crossing" refers both to "crossing over" into the next world, and to the act of "crossing" oneself in the classic Catholic gesture of religious faith and devotion. The religious significance of crossing was clearly familiar to Tennyson, for in an earlier poem of his, the knights and lords of Camelot "crossed themselves for fear" when they saw the Lady of Shalott lying dead in her boat. The cross was also where Jesus died; now as Tennyson himself dies, he evokes the image again. So, too, does he hope to complement this metaphorical link with a spiritual one: he hopes that he will "see [his] Pilot face to face." The ABAB rhyme scheme of the poem echoes the stanzas' thematic patterning: the first and third stanzas are linked to one another as are the second and fourth. Both the first and third stanzas begin with two symbols of the onset of night: "sunset and evening star" and "twilight and evening bell." The second line of each of these stanzas begins with "and," conjoining another item that does not fit together as straightforwardly as the first two: "one clear call for me" and "after that the dark!" Each of these lines is followed by an exclamation point, as the poet expresses alarm at realizing what death will entail. These stanzas then conclude with a wish that is stated metaphorically in the first stanza: "may there be no moaning of the bar / When I put out to sea"; and more literally in the third stanza: "And may there be no sadness of farewell / When I embark." Yet the wish is the same in both stanzas: the poet does not want his relatives and friends to cry for him after he dies. Neither of these stanzas concludes with a period, suggesting that each is intimately linked to the one that follows. The second and fourth stanzas are linked because they both begin with a qualifier: "but" in the second stanza, and "for though" in the fourth. In addition, the second lines of both stanzas connote excess, whether it be a tide "too full for sound and foam" or the "far" distance that the poet will be transported in death. Study Questions 1. How did Tennyson's poetry change after he became Poet Laureate in 1850? 2. Tennyson said that as a child he was haunted by "the passion of the past." In what ways can Tennyson be considered a poet of the past? 3. How did Tennyson respond to the scientific advances of his day? 4. In what ways was Tennyson an heir to the Romantic generation? In what ways did he differ from his predecessors? 5. How did the death of Arthur Henry Hallam impact Tennyson's poetry? 6. How does the refrain change in the various stanzas of "Mariana"? Do these changes indicate any sort of development or progression in the poem? Robert Browning : Study Questions 1. Why is Browning so interested in the Renaissance? 2. Think about how Browning uses language. What kinds of meter and other poetic forms does he use? Why is his language so often rough and "un-poetic"? 3. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the dramatic monologue form. What kinds of subject matter does it best address? What kinds does it address less aptly? What is the relationship between drama and poetry? 4. Describe the relationship between morality and art in Browning's poetry. What does Browning have to say about the subject? How do his poems work in this regard? Why does Browning so often choose painters as the speakers for his monologues? Why not choose
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poets? Lecture 13 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize novels by George Eliot and Thomas hardy and the Play by George Bernard Shaw 2. To let the students know more about the novelists and the playwright II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. George Eliot, an Excerpt from Chapter XXVIII of Middlemarch and Thomas Hardy, an Excerpt from Chapter XIX of Tess of the DUrbervilles and George Bernard Shaw, an Excerpt from Act II of Mrs. Warrens Profession 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of the novelists and the playwright 3. Introduction to terms: psychoanalytical novels III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes PP 298-330 Lecture 14 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize poetry by William Butler Yeats and the novel by John Galsworthy 2. To let the students know more about the poet and the novelist II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. John Galsworthy, an Excerpt from Chapter 13 of The Man of Property and William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree and Down by the Salley Gardens 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of the poet and novelist III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes Sailing to Byzantium Summary The speaker, referring to the country that he has left, says that it is "no country for old men": it is full of youth and life, with the young lying in one another's arms, birds singing in the trees, and fish swimming in the waters. There, "all summer long" the world rings with the "sensual music" that makes the young neglect the old, whom the speaker describes as "Monuments of unageing intellect." An old man, the speaker says, is a "paltry thing," merely a tattered coat upon a stick, unless
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his soul can clap its hands and sing; and the only way for the soul to learn how to sing is to study "monuments of its own magnificence." Therefore, the speaker has "sailed the seas and come / To the holy city of Byzantium." The speaker addresses the sages "standing in God's holy fire / As in the gold mosaic of a wall," and asks them to be his soul's "singing-masters." He hopes they will consume his heart away, for his heart "knows not what it is"--it is "sick with desire / And fastened to a dying animal," and the speaker wishes to be gathered "Into the artifice of eternity." The speaker says that once he has been taken out of the natural world, he will no longer take his "bodily form" from any "natural thing," but rather will fashion himself as a singing bird made of hammered gold, such as Grecian goldsmiths make "To keep a drowsy Emperor awake," or set upon a tree of gold "to sing / To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Or what is past, or passing, or to come." Form The four eight-line stanzas of "Sailing to Byzantium" take a very old verse form: they are metered in iambic pentameter, and rhymed ABABABCC, two trios of alternating rhyme followed by a couplet. Commentary Sailing to Byzantium is one of Yeats's most inspired works, and one of the greatest poems of the twentieth century. Written in 1926 and included in Yeats's greatest single collection, 1928's The Tower, "Sailing to Byzantium" is Yeats's definitive statement about the agony of old age and the imaginative and spiritual work required to remain a vital individual even when the heart is "fastened to a dying animal" (the body). Yeats's solution is to leave the country of the young and travel to Byzantium, where the sages in the city's famous gold mosaics (completed mainly during the sixth and seventh centuries) could become the "singing-masters" of his soul. He hopes the sages will appear in fire and take him away from his body into an existence outside time, where, like a great work of art, he could exist in "the artifice of eternity." In the astonishing final stanza of the poem, he declares that once he is out of his body he will never again appear in the form of a natural thing; rather, he will become a golden bird, sitting on a golden tree, singing of the past ("what is past"), the present (that which is "passing"), and the future (that which is "to come"). A fascination with the artificial as superior to the natural is one of Yeats's most prevalent themes. In a much earlier poem, 1899's "The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart," the speaker expresses a longing to re-make the world "in a casket of gold" and thereby eliminate its ugliness and imperfection. Later, in 1914's "The Dolls," the speaker writes of a group of dolls on a shelf, disgusted by the sight of a human baby. In each case, the artificial (the golden casket, the beautiful doll, the golden bird) is seen as perfect and unchanging, while the natural (the world, the human baby, the speaker's body) is prone to ugliness and decay. What is more, the speaker sees deep spiritual truth (rather than simply aesthetic escape) in his assumption of artificiality; he wishes his soul to learn to sing, and transforming into a golden bird is the way to make it capable of doing so. Sailing to Byzantium is an endlessly interpretable poem, and suggests endlessly fascinating comparisons with other important poems--poems of travel, poems of age, poems of nature, poems featuring birds as symbols. (One of the most interesting is surely Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," to which this poem is in many ways a rebuttal: Keats writes of his nightingale, "Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! / No hungry generations tread thee down"; Yeats, in the first stanza of "Sailing to Byzantium," refers to "birds in the trees" as "those dying generations.") It is important to note that the poem is not autobiographical; Yeats did not travel to Byzantium (which
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was renamed Constantinople in the fourth century A.D., and later renamed Istanbul), but he did argue that, in the sixth century, it offered the ideal environment for the artist. The poem is about an imaginative journey, not an actual one. Lecture 15 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize poetry by T.S. Eliot and the novel by D.H. Lawrence 2. To let the students know more about the poet and the novelist II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and D. H. Lawrence, an Excerpt from chapter ten of Sons and Lovers 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of the poet and novelist III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes PP. 396-81

Lecture 16 I. Teaching Objectives 1. To help the students to understand, appreciate and criticize the novels by James Joyce 2. To let the students know more about the novelist II. Main Teaching Tasks 1. James Joyce, Araby from Dubliners 2. Major characteristics and their contributions to English Lit of the novelist 3. Terms: Stream of consciousness, modernism, and modernist novels continued III. Time Allotment 1. Selected readings (1.5 period) 2. Term introduction (0.5 period) IV. Teaching Notes Stream of consciousness The writer who tries to catch this full flow of perception is using a technique known as stream of consciousness. Joyces later and most famous novel, Ulysses, in which Stephen Dedalus reappears, is written using this technique. The method is not fully developed in A Portrait, although the novel is moving toward it when Stephen is bracing himself to confront the rector. He was walking down along the matting and he saw the door before him. It was impossible: he could not. Here, without warning, we pass directly from what Stephen sees to what he thinks. Stream of consciousness and other new techniques developed by writers such as James Joyce have
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affected all modern fiction to some degree, even though the majority of novels still follow the traditional pattern. Under the influence of earlier writers, such as the French novelist Flaubert, Joyce tried to remove the authors voice altogether. In A Portrait much of the usual padding disappears and, as mentioned earlier, the action is restricted to key episodes in the heros life. Everything is seen through the consciousness of Stephen. There are no transitional passages between one episode and the next, and dialogue, narrative, and interior monologue frequently merge into each other.

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