esseys1

1. Discuss Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess” within the literary and cultural context of the Victorian age. - The poem is the draatic monolog of duke and the and the envoy sent by the count to negotiate the terms of wedding between his daughter and the duke. Through this poem we can see the authors attempt to recreate the spirit of the renaissance (enyojment in art, luxury, wealth, aristocracy, lack of respect for human life). - One of the novelities of the poem is its colloquial language. In this poem he uses language which reveals the personality of the duke, rather then using dramatic monolog to express a kind of attitude of the whole Victorian Period, which is the case in Tennyson’s „Ulysses“. - The story about last buches is a worning to the conut and his daughter. If she behaves in the same way as the late duchess, the same destiny will happen to her. We can feel the arrogance and the lack of respect for human life and a real admiration for the works of art. The poem can also be read as insight to duke’s personality and his wish to transorm life into immortal art. The duke is a person which only likes „static“ beauty, just a beauty without soul, something that he can possess and controle completely. So, only life in a form of art is acceptable for him. - „My Last Duchess“ is the poem in which the poet tries to reveal himself of the dramatic persona using the technique which is very similar to a modern technique, the streem of consciousness. This was the revolutionary tehnique in victorian period. - Browning has more in mind then simply creating a colorfull character and placing him in a picturesque historical scene. The Italian Renaissance held a particular facination for Browning and his contemporaries. Like some of Browning fellow Victorians, the Duke sees sin lurking in every corner. - Browning borrows much from the Renaissance past. The Renaissance was a time when morraly dissolute like the Duke exercised absolute power, and as such it is a fascinating study for the Victorians. - A poem like „My Last Duchess“ engages its readers on a psychological level. Because we only hear the Duke, we must put together a story, ourselves. Browning forces his reader to become involved in the poem in order to understand it, and this adds to the fun reading his work. - „My Last Duchess“ comprises rhyming pentamentar lines. The rhymes do not create a sence of closure when they come, but rather remain a subtle driving force behind the Duke’s compulsive revelations. The Duke is quite a performer. He uses the force of his personality to make horrifying information seem marely colorfuk, but the primary aim of the posem is revelation of Duke’s true character.

1

2. Give a survey of Victorian poetry in terms of authors and themes they

explored in their poems. -

-

-

The Victorian period describes the events in the time of Queen Victoria’s reign from 1837- 1901. The term Victorian has connotations of repression and social confirmity, however in the realm of poetry these labesls are somehow misplaced. The Victorian age provided a significant development of poetic ideals such as the increased use of the sonnet as a poetic form, which later had influence on modern poets. Poets of the Victorian period were to same extent influenced by the Romantic poets such as Keats, Blake, Shelley and Wordsworth. Wordsworth was Poet Laureate until 1850 so he can be viewed as a bridge between the Romantic period and the Victorian period. The period of Victorian poetry was an important period in the history of poetry, provided the link between the Romantic movement and the Modernist movement of the 20th century. Before the Victorian era there were very few famous female poets. In the early nineteenth century, writing was still seen as a predominantly male preserve. However despite views such as this, the Victorian period saw the emergence of many important female poets. The Bronte sisters were perhaps better known for their romantic novels then for their poetry, especially that of Emily Bronte. Many have suggested that her work was a reflection of the difficulties which women of that period faced. Other significant female poets were Elizabeth Browning and Christina Rossetti. The major Victorian poets were Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Mathew Arnold and Gerald Manley Hopkins. Tennyson was, to some degree, the Spencer of the new age. The Brownings spent much of their time out of England and explored European models, which referred much in their poetry. Robert Browning great innovation was the dramatic monolog, which he used to its full extent. Mathew Arnold was much influenced by Wordsworth, though his poem “Dover Beach” is often considered a precursor of modernist revolution. Hopkins wrote in a relative obscurity and his work was not published until after his death. His unusual style, involving what he called “spring rhythm”, had a considerable influence on many of the poets of the 1940’s.

2

3. Discuss your favorite poem of Post-Victorian Period within its literary context - My favorite poem from Post-Victorian period is John Masefield’s “There, on the Darkened Deathbed”. Firs of all, I like because it is a realistic poem and also because of the theme explored in this poem. For me this poem is rich with brutal and pessimistic, but at the same time realistic images. - This is a poem about the people who are at the death bed, who are dying in the war. They are not able to do anything or to solve silly things they used to do every day. The great events now seem so meaningless, and once they are dead, they are buried and people who loved them are left to morn over, to remember them by their spirit and essence. But soon time makes the remembrance fade away as well as pain they once felt. - The narrator is describing the moment of dying (the deathbed). The man is identified with brain, because the brain dies last. The last moment when a person is dying, everything darkened the room. - “The brain that flared three several times in seventy years”, in seventy years the brain flared, a man achieved a lot of things in life, he was successful. “Silly hand” – human functions and senses are dead and he refers to the body as useless. He watches the man dying, he is dead. They buried him and “it” – the brain, and people go away, and the relationship between them is finally over. “The brain in the earth” – no contact with the world. - “The million cells” – tells us that the poem was developed under the improvement of science and medicine. After his death, there is still his spirit and essence even if he is dead, the remembrance of him, which makes him a kind of minister between two worlds. - At the end there is only the spark. It “flared” at the beginning of all things that used to flare, and after all the remembrance of him disappears, and that is when the man really dies, and without matter how successful, wise and good you were in your life, everybody forgets you in the end.

3

4. …But the visitant raised Robert Louis Stevenson

his

finger…For…

-

Markheim,

Markheim is a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1885. The story opens in an antique sore, where the dealer is complaining that his costumer, Markheim, is bothering him on Christmas day. This is a part of a dialog between Markheim and the stranger for whom Markheim thought it is the Devil himself. Previously, Markheim committed a crime, murdering the dealer who was also the owner of the antique store, and just after that the stranger appeared. He told him that he was watching him his whole life. In fact, Markheim starts to hallucinate, he’s who it might be, a shadow of himself, or the image of dead dealer or the devil himself (moral dilemma). - In the conversation with this person (his other self), he tries to find out whether he is unwilling sinner who committed a crime as a result of the different circumstances, or he is truly evil person. He is well aware that he is sinful but he is not sure that he is evil. - In this part they discuss about good and evil, and after, the stranger is trying to assist Markheim in locating the hidden money and escaping before the dealer’s servant returns. Markheim defends himself claiming that in him both the good and the evil coexist. When the servant was about to enter the store, the stranger encourages Markheim to kill her, saying, after that he would have all night to ransack the house and flee. Instead of that, Markheim denies to do the murder for second time, saying that if he lost the love of God, he still hates Evil, and then he confesses to the servant. As he goes to the door, the stranger smiles and disappears. - It is also possible that the stranger is an angel, come to turn Markheim for his crimes (or to save the life of the servant) and make him realize what he will become if he continues with his crimes. -

4

5. Identify the following poem and write a detailed appreciation: When I am dead my dearest, Sing no song for me… -

-

-

-

-

-

-

“Song” Christina Rossetti

Her poetry is predominantly religious. She was a pious (religious) woman with a lyrical gift and a sense of melody. She led a secluded life. Her poetry is characterized by the simplicity of expression. Her poems lack dramatic tension but are very melodious. This “Song” is a parallelism. There is no rhyme, but there is analogy between 1st and 2nd stanza, between the pictures appearing in these two stanzas. The author is addressing her lover, giving him instructions what to do when she is dead. All she needs is spiritual remembrance. An imaginary situation, the projection of the future. It is clear that they are in love and that they both have strong feelings for each other. “My dearest” symbolizes true love not a problem. There is nothing in the song emphasizing the problem of their love. People expect rituals when they die. It is surprising that she doesn’t want him to lament, grieve over the loss of her. She doesn’t want him to make an illusion that they still have contact. She doesn’t want him coming talking to her, because there is no contact with buried. “Cypress” symbolizes the transience of life. In the first stanza she gives him a sort of negative advice, what she doesn’t want him to do. “Be the green grass above me” means be natural, behave naturally, spontaneously. Grass should be watered by rain not by tears. She wants him to act naturally, if your feelings fade away, let them go. She tells him not to act upon social conditions and come to the grave because he is expected to, but because he feels a need to do that. Then, there is a pause between two stanzas. The ideas must silk in the minds, so we can accept them. In the second stanza follows the description of the natural condition of the dead. It is a pagan picture. She is saying this, because she wants to make her lover’s future easier after her death. But she knows he will suffer. This is the evidence of woman’s superiority and sensibility. She is being unselfish in order to make his life easier so that he could continue with his life without having guilty conscience.

5

6. Give a presentation of your favorite pre-Raphaelite poet, relating him to

the period. Dante Gabriel Rossetti Rossetti’s literary culture owns most to Keats for English style and to Dante and other early poets for thematic procedures. Rossetti writes a naturalistic poetry that yet rejects natural forms, which is almost impossible. His lyrics and sonnets are set in a world that is at the same time phantasmagoria and nature, giving the effect of an artificial nature. He gives us neither a vision of nature, as Keats did, but a surrealistic or fantastic blend of both, and since all are damned in his mixed realm, he gives us also a wholly oblige, and finally nihilistic, vision of Judgment in which we cannot be saved through sensual fulfillment, and yet achieve no lasting release without it. - His own temperament encouraged a tendency to identify the concretely physical with the permanently spiritual. He has strength in his imaginary that other pre-Raphaelite lack. - Rossetti himself and Morris are the pre-Raphaelite poets proper. PreRaphaelite started as a Brotherhood of painter who sought to change the nature of English painting essentially, pre-Raphaelite failed, but the poetry associated whit it did not. Dante Gabriel Rossetti is the most imposing figure of the Pre-Raphaelites. He was the master, whose work was an inspiration to others and whose criticism was gratefully and dutifully accepted. Rossetti concentrated on the “beautiful” and gave himself to its service. In this he was undoubtedly strengthened by the example of Keats, for whom he had great admiration. The essential quality of his work must be understood in relation to his Italian origin, and especially to his love for the poetry which preceded Dante and found its culmination in him. This poetry was inspired and shaped by the ideal of courtly love. - One of his most known poems is “The Blessed Damozel”. He took the idea of this poem from Poe’s “The Raven” with a change of view point from original. -

6

7. Identify the following excerpt and write a detailed appreciation:

…His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d; On burnish’d… “The Lady of Shallot”, Alfred Lord Tennyson - The poem is basically narrative, strongly pictorial and melodious. It is a story about tragic event in the life of the unfortunate lady who is cursed to wave a magic tapestry and look at reality through a mirror. Sense of isolation is present here. The moment she is tempted to look through the window she condemns herself to death. - In the 1st part the poet describes the island of Shallot were she lives and Camelot. Tennyson wants to describe medieval age. He creates the idealistic picture of the setting, in that ideal place, lady lives isolated. In the 2nd part he created medieval atmosphere using some medieval words: damsel, knight, and shield. In the 3rd Lancelot represents sexual energy and experience. He appears at the time of the harvest. In the 4th stanza she is an innocent virgin who decides to live the world of shadows and seek Lancelot. - The poem revives the medieval spirit. In the poem there is the contrast between life in Camelot and life on the Island. Life in Camelot is busy. There is a description of barley fields which are the symbol of life. On the other hand, lilies grown on the island, which are the symbol of death and the Island represents isolation. The Lady of Shallot is mysterious, nobody has ever seen her. Only her song can be heard. The Lady doesn’t have the real experience pf life. The Lady waves and that is her only activity. She waves what she sees in the mirror. The Lady is satisfied with her activity until she experiences love with Sir Lancelot. This is when she decides to go to Camelot. She didn’t want the reflection of love. She sacrificed her life only to see what kind of life is led in the country. She was disappointed to see people with their misfortunes and misery. - Irony is that the knights in Camelot are afraid of her, except Sir Lancelot, and the final irony is in his words when spotting her. He says: “She has a lovely face” and she died because of him. - There are only two choices in the poem, to live on the island unhappy and isolated or to live in Camelot with misfortunes of life. There is no third option and the two given are not satisfactory.

7

8. English drama at the turn of the century: humor in the service of social criticism. - In the restoration, English drama died out. After the brilliant period of English drama, which was the renaissance period, there is the period of decline and stagnation. There are different reasons for that: theatres were closed and reopened after 18 years, this is a period of civil war and people wanted to fight for nothing else as they experienced the war. Writers wrote from the head, not from the heart. - The genre that dominated at this time was satire. This is the age of disillusion, this is not an enthusiastic age at all and people were not ready to fight for their ideals, they wanted peace, stability and entertainment. - The best author of the period wrote silly dramas, comedies of manners, manners in the sense of social norms, in which only the surface matters, nothing else, only what is on the surface is important. Whatever feelings, emotions and passions someone had, it should not be expressed because it could ruin the reputation. Feelings lead to the foolishness, according to people of the period. - The dialogue of the dramas of this period is very witty. The dominant genre is prose and it displaces poetry, so we have the rise of the novel instead of drama and poetry. - The drama of this period isn’t Shakespearian drama; it doesn’t deal with essential question like “to be or not to be”. It is trivial and it has trivial plot. - After the renaissance and until the end of the 19th century when Shaw and Wilde wrote their dramas, we had no good English dramas. These two writers revived drama, people went to theatre, and although Shaw and Wilde were different, they dealt with the society.

8

9. Discuss significant social problems Shaw dealt with in his Pygmalion. Shaw is a man who wrote a lot, and titles in his plays can tell us a lot about him as an author. He wrote so called “problem plays”, that is how he calls them. They are not plays of innocence or nonsense plays. In each play, he writes about a social problem, a moral problem. - In “Pygmalion” we have a poor girl called Eliza Doolittle. She is selling flowers in front of the theatre. Her father never took care of his children, and when she was 16 she left the house. Then, there is a problem. What could a young girl, uneducated do for a living? She wanted to preserve her chastity; she is still a virgin although she lives in the street. She has a morality of Victorian age and se wants to be a decent girl, and she is proud of that. She speaks awfully and looks dirty, so Mr. Higgins and his friend decided to make an experiment. They managed to turn this ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. - Shaw wanted to make a reform of standard language. He wanted to simplify English spelling. He touches different problems. Originally he wanted to write about language problems, but he is telling us about the relations between the sexes, the position of the poor people, the relations between the classes, and the inhumanity of the scientific approach which is objective and emotionless. He criticizes the Victorian society and patriotic society. -

9

10. Identify the fallowing excerpt and write a detailed appreciation placing

it within the context of the whole book. …”Engaged to Mr. Collins! My dear Charlotte,-impossible!!!...” Jane Austen – “Pride and Prejudice” - This is a dialogue about Mr. Collins marriage proposal to Charlotte, daughter of Sir William. Mr. Collins had already proposed Elizabeth, but she refused him and her father Mr. Bennet supported her. Soon after Mr. Collins proposed Charlotte and she accepted the first offer of marriage made to her, which made Mrs. Bennet very irritable. - In a sense, “Pride and Prejudice” is the story of two courtships, those between Darcy and Elizabeth and between Bingley and Jane. There are also other, smaller courtships. Courtship therefore takes on a profound, if often spoken, importance in the novel. - Marriage is the ultimate goal and courtship constitutes the real working out of love. - “Pride and Prejudice” is one of the most cherished love stories in English literature. The courtship between Darcy and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the 2nd daughter in the Bennet family. She is the protagonist of Pride and Prejudice and one of the most known female characters in English literature. Her admirable qualities are numerous, she is lovely, clever, and in a novel defined by dialog she converses as brilliantly as anyone. - “Pride and Prejudice” is essentially the story of how Elizabeth and her true love Darcy overcome all obstacles, including their own personal failings, to find romantic happiness. - “Pride and Prejudice” shows us society in which a woman’s reputation is of the utmost importance, a woman is expected to behave in certain ways. Stepping outside the social norms makes her vulnerable. - The happy ending of “Pride and Prejudice” is certainly emotionally satisfying, but in many ways it leaves the theme of reputation unexplored.

10

11. The short story of the Post-Victorian period: plots and themes.

Short story appears for the 1st time in Post-Victorian period. Prose dominated over poetry because the materialism of the age. Audience wanted to read about themselves, poetry becomes less significant and heroes of the novels are people who resemble to an average reader. - Short fiction appeared to satisfy the reading public of the middle class, which had no time reading big novels. A short story is a peace of writing that can be read in one reading. - Short story of the Post-Victorian period deals with the basic problems of this age: the rise of industrial revolution, colonization which made England the richest country in the world at that time, exploitation and terrible conditions for the working class. - Major writers of short stories in the Post-Victorian period are Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad. - The major theme in Stevenson’s “Markheim” is the struggle between good and evil, and freewill and predestination with human soul. In “Outpost of Progress”, Conrad is brilliant at delivering the massage that all people are equal. Conrad’s work emphasizes the fragility of human kind. He mocks cultural beliefs, and people who subscribe to them. At the same time he shows us what happens when people are left to fend for themselves with social constrains. In Rudyard Kipling’s “Beyond the Pale” we can see Indian culture, tradition and customs showed. In the real life Rudyard Kipling was the British citizen who was born in Bombay. “Beyond the Pale” can be seen as the critic of socially accepted values of that time. The story is about love and the clash of cultures. The writer of the story presents us with the culture, tradition and customs of India. They are class conscious society, with casts and rules that mustn’t be broken. They obey those rules because they represent their way of life. -

11

12. Identify following text and write a detailed appreciation, placing it

within the context of the whole book. …Both of us were able to look in by standing… “Wuthering Heights” – Emily Bronte Catherine and Heathcliff’s passion seems to be center of “Wuthering Heights”. It is stronger and more lasting then any other emotion displayed in the novel, and it is source of most of the major conflicts that structure the novel’s plot. - It is not easy to decide whether Bronte intends the reader to condemn these lovers as blameworthy or to idealize them as romantic heroes. The book is actually structured around two parallel love stories. The 1st half of the novel is centering on the love between Catherine and Heathcliff, while the less dramatic 2nd half features the developing love between Catherine and Hareton. In contrast to the 1st, the later tale ends happily, bringing back the peace and order to Wuthering Heights Trushcross Grange. The differences between the two love stories contribute to the reader’s understanding of why each of the stories ends in way it does. The most important feature of young Catherine and Hareton’s love story is that it involves growth and change. Early in the novel Hareton seems brutal and savage, but over time he becomes a loyal friend to young Catherine and learns to read. Catherine and Heathcliff’s love on the other hand, is rooted in their childhood and is marked by the refusal to change. - “Wuthering Heights” has a concentric structure, it is the story within a story, and it starts and ends with Nelly’s story. “Wuthering Heights” presents a vision of life as a process of change, and celebrates the process over and against the romantic intensity of its principal characters. - This is a part when young Heathcliff describes Nelly what happened when he and Cathy escaped from wash-house to have some fun outside the house. They were curious because the light at Trushcross Grange were still on, so they decided to find out what is going on there. Since the shutters had not been out up and the curtains were only half closed they were able to see inside. Heathcliff was charmed with all the wealth that Linton family enjoyed. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there, but the children weren’t happy. They were screaming and weeping on the floor after struggling to get little dog which was in the middle of them shaking. For Heathcliff and Catty this would be a heaven since nobody was watching them, but not for Isabella and Edgar. They laughed to young Lintons, so they heard them and started shouting for their parents. -

12

Heathcliff and Catty was seized by bull-dog, and then the servant came and took them into the house. 13. What do Owen and Sassoon have in common in terms of poetic themes

and critical attitudes? Refer closely to their poetry. Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen are war poets. They wrote Songs of Experience. They are two giants of the 1st world war poetry. - Sassoon’s poetry expresses the fierce and anger of the poet. As a fighting man he was unpopular at the time. Owen on the other hand moved beyond the compassion which the public was more ready to receive after the war. His poetry was published posthumously. - Sassoon brought with him to war the idyllic pastoral background. He begun by writing war poetry. He spoke out publicly against the war. He influenced and mentored then unknown Wilfred Owen, whom he met in military hospital. He spent thirty years reflecting on the war. Through his memories, and at least he found peace in his religious faith. Some critics found his later poetry lacking in comparison to his war poems. One of his most well known poems from 1st world war poetry is “The Death-Bed”. In this poem he’s describing a soldier who is wounded and who is on the death-bed. - Owen was wounded in combat in 1917 and evacuated to war hospital near Edinburgh. There he met another patient, poet Siegfried Sassoon. Some of Owen’s most important poems are “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Dulce et Decorum Est”. His poetry often graphically illustrated both the horrors of warfare, the physical landscapes that surrounded him, and the human body in relation to those landscapes. His verses stand in stark contrast to the patriotic poems of war written by earliest poets of the Great Britain, such as Rupert Brooke. He wrote out of his intense personal experience as a solder, and wrote with unrivalled power of the physical, moral and psychological trauma of the 1st World War. - We can say that their poetry was quite similar, a part because of Sassoon’s big influence on Owen but also because of their similar experience of the 1st World War. -

13

14. Identify the following text and wrote a detailed analyses placing the

given excerpt within the context of the whole novel. … The next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins… Jane Austen “Pride and Prejudice” This is a dialog between Mr. Collins and Miss. Elizabeth, MR. Bennett’s second daughter. Mr. Collins is a clergyman, he is well situated and with connections with family of De Bourgh. In other words, highly desirable man and he want to make a marriage proposal to Elizabeth, but unfortunately he is being refused. He is quite sure that Elizabeth shares the same feelings about him, and even being refused, he is still seeking for the 2nd chance even if he was told that there won’t be any. Since Bennett’s family is anxious to get their daughters well married, he thinks that Mr. and Mrs. Bennett’s influence could maybe change this situation. Unfortunately, it didn’t, and Mr. Bennet even supported his daughter. Soon after that Mr. Collins proposed to Charlotte and she accepted the 1st offer of marriage made to her. Charlotte was the daughter if Sir William Lucas and a friend of Elizabeth. - In a sense “Pride and Prejudice” is the story of two courtships, those between Darcy and Elizabeth and between Bingley and Jane. There are also other, smaller courtships. Courtship therefore takes on a profound, if often spoken, importance in the novel. - Marriage is the ultimate goal and courtship constitutes the real workingout of love. - “Pride and Prejudice” is one of the most cherished love stories in English literature, the courtship between Darcy and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the 2nd daughter in the Bennet family. She is the protagonist of this novel and one of the most known female characters in English literature. Her admirable qualities are numerous, she is lovely, clever, and in a novel defined by dialogue, she converses as brilliantly as anyone. - “Pride and Prejudice” is essentially the story of how Elizabeth and her true love Darcy overcome all obstacles, including personal failings, to find romantic happiness. - “Pride and Prejudice” shows us society in which a woman’s reputation is of the utmost importance. A woman is expected to behave in certain ways. Stepping outside of the social norms makes her vulnerable. - The happy ending of “Pride and Prejudice” is certainly emotionally satisfying, but in many ways it leaves the theme unexplored. -

14

15. Identify the following excerpt and write a detailed appreciation.

…My objection to marriage were not merely those, which I last night acknowledged to have… Jane Austen “Pride and Prejudice” This is a part of the letter written by Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth. Mr. Darcy was rumored that he is a very rich man, but proud and aloof, and most persons had bed opinion about him. He was getting interested about Elizabeth, MR. Bennett’s 2nd daughter, and this letter was his explanation to Elizabeth. Soon after the reading the letter Elizabeth found out that she might made a mistake against Darcy, and she even saw that Darcy had good reasons for separating Jane and Bingley. Jane was the eldest of Mr. Bennett’s five daughters and Mr. Bingley is Mr. Darcy’s friend. Darcy had big influence on Mr. Bingley, and he used it to separate him from Jane. - In a sense “Pride and Prejudice” is the story of two courtships between Darcy and Elizabeth and between Bingley and Jane. There are also other, smaller courtships. Courtship therefore takes on a profound, if often spoken, importance in the novel. - Marriage is the ultimate goal and courtship constitutes the real workingout of love. - “Pride and Prejudice” is one of the most cherished love stories in English literature, the courtship between Darcy and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the 2nd daughter in the Bennet family. She is the protagonist of this novel and one of the most known female characters in English literature. Her admirable qualities are numerous, she is lovely, clever, and in a novel defined by dialogue, she converses as brilliantly as anyone. - “Pride and Prejudice” is essentially the story of how Elizabeth and her true love Darcy overcome all obstacles, including personal failings, to find romantic happiness. - “Pride and Prejudice” shows us society in which a woman’s reputation is of the utmost importance. A woman is expected to behave in certain ways. Stepping outside of the social norms makes her vulnerable. - The happy ending of “Pride and Prejudice” is certainly emotionally satisfying, but in many ways it leaves the theme of reputation unexplored. -

15

16. Identify the following poem and write a detailed appreciation.

…He stirred, shifting his body; then pain Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore… “The Death Bed” – Siegfried Sassoon - Siegfried didn’t die in the battle. He survived. This poem is his experience from the war. He is describing a soldier who is wounded and who is at the death-bed. The silence of death is all around him and it is unshakeable, he can’t avoid it. Then, someone gave water to the soldier and this made him forget about pain and ache. - The narrator, describing this picture, says that he is against war, that the war has no sense and he’s asking himself what’s the purpose of it. He’s asking why young people should die. - This poem is opposed to Rupert Brooke’s poem “The Solder” in which the war is praised and glorified. So through these two poems we can see two different points of view, two different opinions of two authors who wrote war poetry. - In 1st stanza the person who is dying is half asleep, probably because the medications he has taken. He imagines that he is at the shore, at “the mortal shore”, which is actually the border between life and death and he knows that the death is coming after him. in the 2nd stanza, probably a nurse, was holding water to his mouth, and this act was to much effort for him which made him lose consciousness. In the 3rd stanza the night is coming and he is awaken from his state of delusion by the wind. He opened his eyes and saw the curve of the curtain moving, but actually he sees nothing because he became blind and now we can learn more about his wound. He has been wounded in the head. In the 4th stanza the wind brings rain and he can hear “pattering showers of rain” which are the music to his ears. In 5th stanza the time passes by and he moved and then pain became sharp and intensive, it overcame him like a wild beast. The pain is seen as the beast with claws and grinding teeth. In the 6th stanza the narrator is calling all people to gather in his room at his bed and to talk to him because they should make him live longer by talking to him. in the last stanza the death replied “I choose him, so he went” nad the soldier died.

16

17. Discuss the vision of the future as represented in H. G. Wells’s

“The Time Machine” -

-

-

-

-

Science Fiction is very popular genre today. Wells created the original plot. “The Time Machine” has two main threads. The 1st is the adventure tale of the Eloi and Marlocks in the year 802, 701 AD. The 2nd is the science fiction of the time machine. The tale of 802, 701 AD is political commentary of the late Victorian England. It is a Dystopia, a vision of a troubled future. Eloi were the capitalists and aristocracy in our time. We have a opposites here, those work and don’t have and those who have and don’t work. Aristocracy was getting weaker, they didn’t exercise and they muscles gradually weakened. They don’t need muscles and they get smaller, and people who work develop in a different way. It means that the working class is exploited by the aristocracy, they are pushed into the ground by the rich, they can’t lead a normal life and they can’t remain human under such conditions. The author saw all the social illness of the Post-Victorian period; he lived on the peak of industrial revolution, and made a critique. This means that if aristocracy keeps acting like that, they will degrade. The poor will have energy to turn and exploit the rich, and human race in general, as a race, will degrade. Neither Eloi nor Morlocks are really human. We always have a class who exploits and the exploited class even if we call it democracy now. The rest of novel deals with science fiction of time travel, he goes even further in the future. The ocean doesn’t move, the Earth stopped, the planet is dead. There is no negative attitude toward science, but what is not good is abuse of science. This is not a serene story, it is very somber. The disaster will not happen because the technology and science, but because of the misuse of the same. The better the technology, the more success you have and more victims there are. Before Wells, other people had written the fantasies of time travel, but Wells was the 1st to bring a strong dose of scientific speculation to the genre. Much of this was inspired by ideas of entropy and decay promulgated by Wells’s teacher Thomas Henry Huxley.

17

18. The poetry of Gerald Manley Hopkins (themes, poetic language,

images). His 20th century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets. His experimental explorations, especially sprung rhythm, and his use of imagery established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse. - Much of Hopkins’s historical importance has to do with the changes he brought to the form of poetry. Hopkins called his own rhythmic structure “sprung rhythm”. Sprung rhythm is structured around feet with a variable number of syllables, generally between one and four syllables per foot, with a stress always falling on the first syllable in a foot. Hopkins saw sprung rhythm as a way to escape the constraints of running rhythm, which for him pushed poetry written in it to become “same and tame”. - The language of Hopkins’s poems is often striking. His imagery can be simple, as in “Heaven-Heaven”, where the comparison is between a nun entering a convent and ship entering a harbor out of storm. But his imagery can also be splendidly metaphysical and complete, as it is in “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”, where he’s jumping from one image to another to show how each thing expresses its own uniqueness. He uses many archaic and dialect words, but he also makes new words. One example of this is “twindles”, which seems to mean a combination of twines and dwindles. He often creates compound adjectives, sometimes with a hyphen and often without. This concentrates his images. -

18

19. Give a detailed survey of the Post-Victorian Poetry.

- Post-Victorian period is the period of crises, the period of bourgeois literature, everything was for bourgeois class. There were changes in the society, but they were not yet present in the literature. Instead of the optimism typical for Victorian age, we have a rise of doubt. - Some of the most known Post-Victorian poetry writers are Robert Bridges, A. E. Housman, John Masefield and Walter De La Mare. - The poem “A Passer-by” by Robert Bridges is about the ship in the port. The Narrator is on the shore watching, he images that ship is sailing towards some other place and himself on that ship. The author is a typical representative of Post-Victorian age. Bridges wanted to say that people in that period were immovable, not able to travel. This was the period when Victorians were forced to be in one place because of society, because of social values. The narrator wants to strive for the life as the boat, but he has no courage. - Housman’s poetry is similarly pessimistic. In half of his poems the speaker is dead, or he is about to die or he wants to die, or his girlfriend is dead. Even though death is a really important setting for Housman, there are a few of his poems which show an uncharacteristic optimism and love of beauty. One of the Housman’s poem from this period is “We’ll to the Woods no more”. The title symbolically means that writer will write no more. - John Masefiels’s “There, on the Darkened Deathbed” is a pessimistic poem about the man who died in a war. He achieved a lot of things in his life, he was successful, but after death, eventually everyone forgets you. This is the poem which represents best the Post-Victorian period in which everything is dark.

19

20.

Discuss the illustrations.

-

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was originally a painters movement founded in 1848 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in revolt against 18th century academicism. The members of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement believed in simplicity and accuracy of detail, in freshness, directness and precision, and they looked to medieval art to find them. The manifesto of the PreRaphaelite Movement is periodical “The Germ”. Some of the leading poets from this movement are the Rossetti’s, Dante and Christina Rossetti, William Morris, Algernon Charles Swinburne and Gerald Manley Hopkins. The Rossetti’s poetry shares many concerns of the painters, an interest in medieval models, an almost obsessive attention to visual detail and an occasional tendency to lapse into whimsy. Dante Rossetti worked with, and had some influence on the leading Art and Crafts painter and poet William Morris. Morris shared the Pre-Raphaelite interest in the poetry of the European middle ages to the point of producing some illuminated manuscript volumes of his work. Christina’s poetry is predominately religious, her poetry is characterized by the simplicity of expression, and her poems lack dramatic tension, but are very melodious. Swinburne, like the other Pre-Raphaelites, found inspiration in works of art from past. In them he admired liveliness and a dignity which were less common in contemporary life. Main characteristics of Pre-Raphaelite movement were reaction against the Royal-Academy and its aesthetic conformity. The movement was against the age of ugliness, scientific spirit and urbanization as well as a quest for richer life. Movement believed in the simplicity and accuracy of detail, in freshness and directness of precision and it looked to medieval art to find them. “Return to nature” was their slogan. Movement had tendency to identify concretely physical with permanently spiritual. They main characteristic is adoration of beauty – cult of beauty, insistence on naturalistic detail. They longed for the absolute isolation of the self immersed in the cult of beauty and they completely dismissed real life, they longed for phantasmagoric reality. They were poets of escape not into a bright future but into a happy day dream and exalted fancy, and they were poets of revolt.

-

-

Pre-Raphaelite

poetry:

representatives,

themes,

20

21. Matthew Arnold is a critic of the Victorian Age. Refer to his poetry. -

-

Matthew Arnold was a poet, and a literary and social critic. By his use of criticism, he meant something much wider then literary criticism only, for him it was more social criticism. He always had a social role of critic before him and felt that literary criticism could be useful for developing the whole society and of a certain moral developing of that society. Poetry for him is a criticism of life, which means that poetry does not only provoke feelings, emotions and pleasure in the reader but plays an important part in the function of character and guidance of conduct. For him poetry has a social; function. All of his works were directed to the criticism of intellectual feeling of his nation and the ways of improvement of it. The function of poetry is to give us moral sustenance, help us overcome some personal crises and be a guide. Also its function is to offer some knowledge as philosophy and science do, but in a different way. For Arnold, only poetry of high value is a criticism of life in the sense that it is a model of ideal possibilities of life, so that you can compare and improve your life. He was a humanist, profoundly aware of the consequences brought about by loss of faith and the growing materialism. Unlike Browning, he stayed in England and worked as a professional intellectual, he was a true scholar. He felt a sense of isolation of the individual. He was dissatisfied with material society and its system of values. Arnold is a user of elegiac notes. He is the poet of loss and loneliness, separation and isolation. His poems abound in recurring images, suggestive of loss and isolation on one hand and a longing for peace and calm on the other. Mathew Arnold was much influenced by Wordsworth, though his poem “Dover Beach” is often considered a precursor of the modernist revolution. He rejected, refused romanticism, but essentially he was a romantic because of Wordsworth’s influence on him. His poem “Dover Beach” is a kind of an extended metaphor through which Arnold connects his personal crises with some general, objective view of the word and finds some comfort in love, in personal, humane relationship between two people. He thinks that the general crisis in the world is the part of the universal suffering, and what remains as the last refugee is love.

21

22. Present your favorite Victorian essayist and give reasons for your

choice.

22

23. Identify the following text and write a detailed analysis placing the

given text in context of whole poem. …she had A heart-how shell I say-to soon made glad, Robert Browning To easily impressed, she liked whate’er “My Last Duchess” She looked on, and her looks went everywhere… - This poem is dramatic monolog of duke and the envoy sent by the count to negotiate the terms of wedding between his daughter and the duke. Through this poem we can see the authors attempt to recreate the spirit of the Renaissance (enjoyment in art, luxury, wealth, aristocracy, lack of respect for human life). - One of the novelties is colloquial language. In this poem Browning uses language which reveals the personality of the Duke. - The story about last duchess is a warning to the count and his daughter. If she behaves in the same way as the late duchess, the same destiny will happen to her. We can feel the arrogance and the lack of respect for human life and the real admiration for the works of art. The poem can also be read as an insight of the duke’s personality and his wish to transform life into immortal art. The duke is the person who likes only “static” beauty, just a beauty without soul, something that he can possess and control completely. So, only life formalized in art is acceptable for him, only art turned into the art. - “My Last Duchess” is poem in which the poet tries to reveal the self of the dramatic persona using the technique which is very similar to a modern technique of the stream of consciousness. This was the revolutionary technique at work in the Victorian period, in Browning’s poems. - Browning has more in mind then simply creating a colorful character and placing him in a picturesque historical scene. The Italian Renaissance held a particular fascination for Browning and his contemporaries. Like some of Browning’s fellow Victorians the duke sees sin lurking in every corner. The lushness of the language of the language belies the fact that the duchess was punished for her natural sexuality. - Browning borrows much from the Renaissance past. The Renaissance was a time when morraly dissolute like the Duke exercised absolute power, and as such it is a fascinating study for the Victorians. - „My Last Duchess“ comprises rhyming pentamentar lines. The rhymes do not create a sence of closure when they come, but rather remain a subtle driving force behind the Duke’s compulsive revelations. The Duke is quite a performer. He uses the force of his personality to make horrifying information seem marely colorfuk, but the primary aim of the posem is revelation of Duke’s true character. 23

24.Tess as a victim of opposing male impulses: support and ilustrate. - Inteligent, strikingly attractive and distinguished by her deep moral sensitivity and passionate intensity, tess is truly the central character of the novel that bears her name. - One of the recurrent themes of the novel is the way in which men can dominate women, exerting the power over them linked primarily to their maleness. Somethimes this command is puroseful, in the man’s full knoledge of his exploration, as when Alec acknoledges how bad he is for seducing Tess for his own momentary pleasure. Alec’s act of abuse the most life alerting event that Tess experiences in the novel, is clearly the most serious instance of male domination over a female. But there are other, less blatant examples of voman’s passivity toward dominant men. When after Angel reveals that he prefers Tess, Tess’s friend Retty attempts suicide and her friend Marian becomes an alcoholic , which makes their earlier schoolgirl-type chrushes on Angel seem disturbing. This devotion is not merely fanciful love, but unhealthy obsession. This girls appear utterly dominated by a desire for a man who does not even realize that they are interested in him. This sort of unconscious male domination of women is perhaps even more unsettling then Alec’s outward and selfconscious cruelty. - Even Angel’s love for Tess, as pure and gentle as it seems, dominates her in an unhealthy way. Angel substitutes an idealized picture of Tess’s country purity for the real life woman that he continually refuses to get to know. When Angel calls Tess names like „Daughter of nature“ and „Artemis“, we feel that he may be denying her true self in favor of mental image that he prefers. Her identity and experiences are suppressed. This pattern of male domination is finaly reversed with Tess’s murder of Alec, in which, for the first time in the novel, a woman takes active steps against a man. Of course, this act only leads to even greater suppression of a woman by man, when the crowd of male police officers arrest Tess at Stonehenge. Nevertheless, just for a moment, the accepted pattern of submissive women bowing to dominant men is interrupted, and Tess’s act seems heroic.

24

25.The essay writting as a subgenre of the Victorian prose. -

-

-

The prophetic voice of Romantic poets passed on to the Victorian prose writers. They raised their voice against the age of ugliness. The Victorian age was the age of great scientific achievements, discoveries, yet, it was also the age of unbelief and the loss of faith. People were left alone without any spiritual confidence. That’s why Victorian prose writers urged people to find fellowmen who would talk with the voice of God. Those people were poets. Carlyle, Ruskin and Pater fought for this ideal, proposing poetry to bridge the gap in the hearts of people who were left alone after the loss of faith. The prophetic spirit of great Romantics still survived in the Victorian period, just it had now passed from the poets to the prose writers. That spirit survived with the Victorian essayists. Carlyle, Ruskin and Pater nad the power to unite people and to develop critical self awareness of the middle-class which was the dominant class. The influence of the posets was not as great as that of prose writers. The main attempt the prose writers, intellectuals and philosophers made was to narrow the relationship between them was completely dehumanized, the prose writers wanted to make it more humane. They criticized the dehumanized relationship between the poeple of the different social classes. The Victorian age is the age of social classes. The Victorian age is the age of nihilism, the age of disbelief. The science brought chages and the ancient picture of the universe changed. The metaphysical was destroyed by publishing of darwin’s „The Origin of Species“. Darwin showed that there is no Divine Creator. The Victorian prose is the speaking prose and there was a very close, personal relationship between the writer andthe reader. When they wrote they always had in mind the reader they were addressing to, and the reader is usually the middle-class reader, so knew his interests. Caryle is a victorian prophet. His concern was to rescue society from materialism. He had a very wide influence on Victorian literary society with his criticism of modern english life. His essay „Sartor Resartus“ is an autobiographical work and the general idea of the whole essay is to try to find spirit in society. Carlyle believes that society is spiritual society. Ruskin’s main interest was art, espacially painting of contemporary artists, but also of artists of previous centuries. In his work „The stones of Venice“ he glorified the Gothic architecture and criticized what he considered the Renaissance debasement of it. In other words, he believed that the true essence and true values in architecture lies in Gothic architecturee and not in Renaissance styles.

25

-

Walter Pater has a completely different approach to the art. He deals with the aestethics, the beauty of art, what beauty is, and how to define the beauty of art. Pater’s view of the aesthetics differs from the 18th century view. He says that there is no unique definition of beauty, but the notion of beauty is to be derivated by everyone individually. That’s why Pater is called the father of the so-called „impressionist criticism“.

26. British colonialism as represented in „Beyond the Pale“ and in „An

Outpost of Progress“. -

-

Rudyard Kipling was the british who was born in Bombay and become accustomed with the lives and customs of people living under the British imperialism. He was a man who presented Indian culture, tradition and customs in the real lite. The writer puts the title „Beyond the Pale“ which means-beyond the limits of proper behaviour. The writer is giving a sort of advice. This story can be seen as the critic of socially accepted values of that time. The story is about love and clash of cultures. The writer of the story presents us with the culture, tradition and customs in India. They are class conscious society, with casts and rules that mustn’t be broken. They obey those rules because they represent their way of life. The story is about an Englishman, Trejago, and a young widow Biessa. As a woman, and a widow, she is forbiden to go out, according to their customs, but Biessa was longing for a new lover, since she was very young. The end of the story symbolicaly is saying that this nation is left without its hands. This is the effect of English colonialism and iperialism. The Englishman goes beyond the pale. He prided him on his manners but he was actually rude and didn’t know anything about rules. In „An Outpost of Progress“, Conrad is brilliant at delivering the message that all people are equal. Conrad’s message is that all people, no matter what their color or culture are, are capable of despicable actions. He tells us that we need the social structure around us in order to keep our basic nature in chack. But he also reveals that culture itself can also be evil. Conrad’s work emphasizes the fragility of humankind. He mocks cultural beliefs, and people who subscribe to them. At the same time, he shows us what happens when peopleare left to fend for themselves with social constraints. Conrad plays with issues of morality by having his primary native characters, Makola and his wife, betray members of their own race and culture. By doing this, Conrad levels the playing field in terms of one’s thoughts about morality. One can no longer assign the term „good“ to native people and „bad“ to Europeans. One can not turn things the other way around either.

26

27. Social extremes of the Victorian England: Pride and Prejudice vs. Tess

of the D’urbavilles. -

-

- In a sense “Pride and Prejudice” is the story of two courtships between Darcy and Elizabeth and between Bingley and Jane. There are also other, smaller courtships. Courtship therefore takes on a profound, if often spoken, importance in the novel. Marriage is the ultimate goal and courtship constitutes the real working-out of love. “Pride and Prejudice” is one of the most cherished love stories in English literature, the courtship between Darcy and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the 2nd daughter in the Bennet family. She is the protagonist of this novel and one of the most known female characters in English literature. Her admirable qualities are numerous, she is lovely, clever, and in a novel defined by dialogue, she converses as brilliantly as anyone. “Pride and Prejudice” is essentially the story of how Elizabeth and her true love Darcy overcome all obstacles, including personal failings, to find romantic happiness. “Pride and Prejudice” shows us society in which a woman’s reputation is of the utmost importance. A woman is expected to behave in certain ways. Stepping outside of the social norms makes her vulnerable. The happy ending of “Pride and Prejudice” is certainly emotionally satisfying, but in many ways it leaves the theme of reputation unexplored. In “Tess of the D’urbavilles” we have a young girl called Tess. Intelligent, strikingly attractive and distinguished by her deep moral sensitivity and passionate intensity, Tess is truly the central character of the novel that bears her name. One of the recurrent themes of the novel is way in which man can dominate woman, exerting the power over them linked primarily to their maleness. Sometimes this command is purposeful, in the man’s full knowledge of his exploitation, as when Alec acknowledges how bad he is for seducing Tess for his own momentary pleasure. But the pattern of male dominating was about to be changed and finally reversed with Tess’s murder of Alec, and for the first time in the novel a woman takes active steps against a man. Of course, this act only leads to even greater suppression of a woman by man, when the crowd of male police officers arrest Tess at Stonehenge. Nevertheless, just for a moment, the accepted pattern of submissive women bowing to dominant men is interrupted, and Tess’s act seems heroic.

27

28. Discuss the symbolic meaning of river in „The Mill on the Floss“. -

-

On the symbolic level, the Floss is related most often to Maggy, and the river, with it’s deapth and potential to flood, symolizes Maggie’s deeply running and unpredictable emotions. The river’s path, nonexistent on maps, is also used to symbolize the unforseeable path of maggie’s destiny. Maggie Tullivar is the protagonist of „The Mill on the Floss“. She is a clevar and impetuous child. Eliot presents Maggie as more imaginative and interesting then her family.

29.

28