NOTE THAT THE EXAM IS OPEN TEXTBOOK. MAKE SURE YOU BRING YOUR TEXTS TO THE EXAM. I WILL NOT BE PROVIDING TEXTS IF YOU FORGET. YOU MAY MAKE MARGINAL NOTES AND USE STICKY TABS TO MARK SIGNIFICANT POINTS IN YOUR TEXTS. YOU MAY NOT CONSULT YOUR NOTEBOOKS / COURSE NOTES DURING THE EXAM.
Tonight we brainstormed major issues to do with each section of the course, and then we worked on the first two sample questions I handed out. The sample questions are very closely related to the format of the exam. The brainstorming notes and notes that we made as we discussed sample essay questions are below. Note that the sample answers we worked out are point form notes that suggest several of the many directions you could take when formulating your answer. You would choose one or two of these points to expand on the exam itself, and should follow the exam instructions re: how to format your answers.
Click here to access the sample exam questions.
Note that the exam format is as follows:
Three exam questions worth 30%. The first three questions on the exam will follow exam sample questions 1 and 2 in terms of format.
One exam question worth 10%. The third sample question strongly resembles the question on the exam worth 10%.
*microcosm / macrocosm
*Great Chain of Being
*humanism
Government and Politics
*Queen E a unique role as a monarch; mixed gender role
*political turmoil and instability
*religious turmoil Catholicism vs. Protestantism
*vacillation between Catholicism and Protestantism
Public life
*Elizabeth I's self-presentation
*Mary Queen of Scots, published sonnets
*syphilis
*More's Utopia - Utopia vs dystopia; England / Europe as dystopian
*problem with private property
*satire; (gold e.g.) away from sermonizing toward more persuasive forms
*social order and discipline more important than liberty
*clear division of labour
*economy: move to urban centres; increased mercantile activy
*travel and colonization
*gender
Religion and Devotional Life
*religious turmoil Catholicism vs. Protestantism
*vacillation between Catholicism and Protestantism
*governed by Parliament and the monarch rather than the Pope
*antitransubstantiationism
*increasing focus on predestination
*emphasis on good works, direct relationship with God
*Protestantism positions Catholicism negatively, including:
idea that Catholics practice idolatry
corruption in clergy and the church
indulgence=bad idea
*antisemitism (The Unfortunate Traveller)
*Protestant translation of the Bible into English
*microcosm / macrocosm
*Great Chain of Being
*concept of the seven deadly sins
*personification of sins (Pierce Penniless, Faerie Queene)
*allegory (FQ Bk 1)
*gendering of the soul; soul as eventually married to Christ
*husband as head of the wife / family, as Christ is head of the church
*developing interest in philosophy, emergence of rational thought; division between church and rationality
Culture and Entertainment
Sidney
*emergence of English criticism / theories of English literature (Sidney)
*purpose of poetry to teach and delight
*poet as vates (prophet); maker
*poet as creating second nature
*national sentiment: new ideas that English was okay for poetry
*publication / print culture
*poetry often distributed in manuscript
*pamphlets, small treatises, accessibly short works become popular
*emergence of the theatre as separate from church activities
*(entertainment as a way of exploring) roles of marriage and patrimony
*problem play; form of a comedy without the satisfaction of a comedy
*experiment in form
*gendering on the stage ("all-male" stage)
*cure of the king: medicine, sexuality??, witchcraft
Skelton
*skeltonic verse: choppy, short lines
*not looking a beauty
*voyeuristic look at women's alehouse shenanigans
*standard of living
*celebration of drunkeness; catalogue of worldly goods
*community
Nashe
The Terrors of the Night
*warning people against imbalance
*mix of superstition and rational approaches to the problem of nightmares
Pierce Penniless
*seven deadly sins (modern forms)
*satire
*appeal to the devil
Bacon's essay
*rise of rationalism / humanist
Poetry / poetic terms
*blazon: list of characteristics, usually describing a woman's beauty
Sonnet and Lyric
*fourteen lines
*Petrarchan vs. English / Shakespearean sonnet
*Pet: octave + sestet (8+6); English: 3 quatrains (3 sections, 4 lines each) + couplet
Sonnet sequences
*sequence of sonnets involving the same(ish) love object and the same narrator
*Spenser innovates by adding the marriage song to the end of Amoretti
*Shakespeare's sequence includes discontent; parody??
Hero and Leander
* epic poetry style; borrowing from mythology
*tone?
*Leander as object of desire
Travel and Colonization
* positioning of new world peoples as associated with the European past (Adam and Eve; historical past)
*Eurocentric viewpoint
*xenophobia? reported native fascination with "trifles"
* spread of religion; promotion of Christianity; devaluation of native religious concepts
*flora and fauna; laundry list of what could be used for colonization / immediate consumption or commodification
*fantasy of riches
Faerie Queene
* religious focus; protestant allegory
*personification of religious concepts
*gender transgression
*light and dark; complex association to good and evil
*appearance vs. reality
*citing medieval romance / England's national mythology
*union of Arthur and Queen E. as "the faerie queene"
*monsters and monstrousness
Exam sample question #1
1. The passage describes how Sifara is an amazing general, and can't be defeated, but one woman manages to defeat him. Deborah prophesizes that Barack will defeat Sifara that day. Sifara flees to Jael's house where she gives him milk to drink. When he falls asleep, she drives a "great nail" (or "great nayle") into his head and kills him.
2. Possible techniques or themes used in the passage:
*gender: woman as not totally feeble all the time = Elizabeth, Britomart
*deceptive nature of women = Hellenore; Duessa / Fidessa
*misogyny?
*"don't trust women because they'll put nails in your head"??!?
*title of the pamphlet is the deceit of women
*apparent misogyny in the title, but pro-woman sentiment on the inside
*women's deceit as a tool against (bad) men
3.
*deceit as a trait commonly attributed to women; in some representation, viewed as a necessary coping mechanism (Helen, All's Well)
*Judeo Christian religious zeal (Protestant flavour)
*mixed gendering of the woman in the story; Elizabeth's strategic gendering as sometimes masculine
Sample Question #2
1. Stubbe Peter is a werewolf who is caught and threatened with torture. Before he is put to the rack, he confesses that he's been murdering women, men and children for 25 years. He murders by wearing a girdle he received from the devil that lets him turn into a wolf. The magistrates go to look for the girdle in the valley where Stubbe Peter says he left it, but they can't find it. He's imprisoned, and meanwhile his daughter Stubbe Beell and his "gossip" Katherine Trompkin are found to be accessories to many of the murders. All three are condemned to die - Stubbe Peter by being broken on the wheel, beheaded and burned; his daughter and Katherine Trompkin are condemned to be burned.
2 / 3
*monsters, monstrosity (error)
*personification of evil (FQ; Nashe's seven deadly sins)
*magic girdle (Florimell's girdle that binds the hyena of slander?)
*crime and punishment (Mary Queen of Scots)
*impacts of torture and the threat of torture (Parolles)
*16th century attitudes toward difference (Unfortunate Traveller's execution scenes, portrayal of Jews)
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Lecture Notes, Thursday, July 24: Faerie Queene Book 3 Cantos 10-12
24 July 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Faerie Queene Book 3 Cantos 10-12
Canto 10
*The transformation of Malbecco into “Gealousie”
*Paridell seduces Hellenore, runs away with her
*Thanks to Malbecco’s “halfen eye” (5)
*Hellenore sets fire to Malbecco’s wealth, 12-13
*Malbecco’s conflict, 14-15
*Malbecco offers money to Braggadoccio and Trompart, 28-9
*they find Paridell, 35
*Hellenore’s fate, 36
*Malbecco witnesses Hellenore’s new activities, 44-50
*his resemblance to a goat, 47
*his final transformation, 57-60
Canto 11
*Britomart chases Ollyphant, to no avail, finds Scudamore
*Scudamore’s description of his problem, 11
*Only Britomart can get past the flames blocking entry to Busirane’s castle, 21-26
*Scudamore’s impatience, 27
*the portraits of love, ending at 46
*51-52 the next room, relics of love
*the riddle of “be bold”, 50, 54
Canto 12
*the masque of Cupid
*the entrance of the chorus, 3, 4
*Amoret arrives, 19-21
*Cupid as ???, 22-24
*next day: Britomart infiltrates the inner chamber, 30
*she defeats Busirane, taking his knife
*Amoret’s curse is lifted, 36-38
*38 “a perfect hole”
*alternate endings??? – the 1596 negative ending; original 1590 ending: why?
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Faerie Queene Book 3 Cantos 10-12
Canto 10
*The transformation of Malbecco into “Gealousie”
*Paridell seduces Hellenore, runs away with her
*Thanks to Malbecco’s “halfen eye” (5)
*Hellenore sets fire to Malbecco’s wealth, 12-13
*Malbecco’s conflict, 14-15
*Malbecco offers money to Braggadoccio and Trompart, 28-9
*they find Paridell, 35
*Hellenore’s fate, 36
*Malbecco witnesses Hellenore’s new activities, 44-50
*his resemblance to a goat, 47
*his final transformation, 57-60
Canto 11
*Britomart chases Ollyphant, to no avail, finds Scudamore
*Scudamore’s description of his problem, 11
*Only Britomart can get past the flames blocking entry to Busirane’s castle, 21-26
*Scudamore’s impatience, 27
*the portraits of love, ending at 46
*51-52 the next room, relics of love
*the riddle of “be bold”, 50, 54
Canto 12
*the masque of Cupid
*the entrance of the chorus, 3, 4
*Amoret arrives, 19-21
*Cupid as ???, 22-24
*next day: Britomart infiltrates the inner chamber, 30
*she defeats Busirane, taking his knife
*Amoret’s curse is lifted, 36-38
*38 “a perfect hole”
*alternate endings??? – the 1596 negative ending; original 1590 ending: why?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Lecture Notes, Tuesday, July 22: Faerie Queene Book 3 Cantos 6-9
22 July 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Faerie Queene Book 3 Cantos 6-9
Canto 6
*Belphoebe and Amoret’s birth
* without sin (i.e., sex), 3, 5-7
*a philosophical story of the sun’s powers 8-9
*the intervention of Venus and Diana (aka Phoebe), 27-28
*Venus takes Amoretta back to the garden of Adonis
*Garden of Adonis as neo-Platonic metaphor, 32-38
*Venus and Adonis as form and matter, 43-48
*Amoretta released into the world, 52
*beloved of Scudamore, 53
Canto 7
*Florimell comes to the witch’s hut, 11
*the witch’s son’s reaction, 13; his reaction to her, 15-17
*the hyena of slander, 22
*Florimell escapes in the boat, 27
*her horse is eaten, 28
*Satyrane finds the horse, fights it, and binds it, 30-36
*Encounters the Giant Argante with the Squire of Dames, 37-38
*she rings his bell and captures him, 42
*throws him away, 44 (line 2)
*he talks to the Squire of Dames
*the story of Argante, 47-50
*the Squire of Dames’s challenge, 54-60
Canto 8
*the witch wants to heal her son, who is obsessed with Florimell, 4
*she makes a Florimell of snow, 5-10
*Braggadocchio steals her, 13
*Sir Ferraugh challenges, 16-18
*meanwhile, back on the boat…24-27
*Proteus to the rescue, 30
*he also woos her, 39-41
*Florimell resists, 42
*Satyrane, the Squire of Dames, and Paridell go to Malbecco’s castle
Canto 9
*1-7 intro to Malbecco and Hellenore. Spenser says he’s going to talk about an unworthy woman, but does he Malbecco a share of the blame?
*Britomart fights Paridell for a place in the pig shed, 15-16
*they say they’ll burn down the castle, 17
*Malbecco lets them in, 18
*Britomart gets undressed, 20, 23-25
*Malbecco tries to hide Hellenore, 25-26
*Paridell flirts, 28-29
spilling wine, 30-31
*the history of Troy and the founding of “Troynovant” (London)
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Faerie Queene Book 3 Cantos 6-9
Canto 6
*Belphoebe and Amoret’s birth
* without sin (i.e., sex), 3, 5-7
*a philosophical story of the sun’s powers 8-9
*the intervention of Venus and Diana (aka Phoebe), 27-28
*Venus takes Amoretta back to the garden of Adonis
*Garden of Adonis as neo-Platonic metaphor, 32-38
*Venus and Adonis as form and matter, 43-48
*Amoretta released into the world, 52
*beloved of Scudamore, 53
Canto 7
*Florimell comes to the witch’s hut, 11
*the witch’s son’s reaction, 13; his reaction to her, 15-17
*the hyena of slander, 22
*Florimell escapes in the boat, 27
*her horse is eaten, 28
*Satyrane finds the horse, fights it, and binds it, 30-36
*Encounters the Giant Argante with the Squire of Dames, 37-38
*she rings his bell and captures him, 42
*throws him away, 44 (line 2)
*he talks to the Squire of Dames
*the story of Argante, 47-50
*the Squire of Dames’s challenge, 54-60
Canto 8
*the witch wants to heal her son, who is obsessed with Florimell, 4
*she makes a Florimell of snow, 5-10
*Braggadocchio steals her, 13
*Sir Ferraugh challenges, 16-18
*meanwhile, back on the boat…24-27
*Proteus to the rescue, 30
*he also woos her, 39-41
*Florimell resists, 42
*Satyrane, the Squire of Dames, and Paridell go to Malbecco’s castle
Canto 9
*1-7 intro to Malbecco and Hellenore. Spenser says he’s going to talk about an unworthy woman, but does he Malbecco a share of the blame?
*Britomart fights Paridell for a place in the pig shed, 15-16
*they say they’ll burn down the castle, 17
*Malbecco lets them in, 18
*Britomart gets undressed, 20, 23-25
*Malbecco tries to hide Hellenore, 25-26
*Paridell flirts, 28-29
spilling wine, 30-31
*the history of Troy and the founding of “Troynovant” (London)
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Lecture Notes, Thursday, July 17: Faerie Queene Book 3 Cantos 2-5
FQ Book 3 Cantos 2-5
Canto 2
*Spenser blames men, 1-2
*Britomart sees Arthegall, 22-26
*Britomart’s green sickness, 28-39, esp. 36-39
*Glauce’s response, 40, 42
*They try to fight it, 46-51
*It does not work, 51-52
Canto 3
*they go to Merlin
*explanation of the future
Canto 4
*Britomart’s complaint to the sea, 8-10
*Marinell confronts Britomart, 14-15
*Britomart’s spear, 16
*Marinell’s wealth, 22-24
*Proteus’s prophecy, 25-27
*Marinell’s mom, 30-44
*Arthur’s lament that he can’t find Florimell, 54-60
*concepts of Night
*Arthur’s error??
Canto 5
*info about Florimell, by her dwarf, 8-11
*error in the narrative, 9-10
*Timias wastes away, 42-48
*Belphoebe’s invincible (or at least, pretty awesome) chastity, 51-55
Canto 2
*Spenser blames men, 1-2
*Britomart sees Arthegall, 22-26
*Britomart’s green sickness, 28-39, esp. 36-39
*Glauce’s response, 40, 42
*They try to fight it, 46-51
*It does not work, 51-52
Canto 3
*they go to Merlin
*explanation of the future
Canto 4
*Britomart’s complaint to the sea, 8-10
*Marinell confronts Britomart, 14-15
*Britomart’s spear, 16
*Marinell’s wealth, 22-24
*Proteus’s prophecy, 25-27
*Marinell’s mom, 30-44
*Arthur’s lament that he can’t find Florimell, 54-60
*concepts of Night
*Arthur’s error??
Canto 5
*info about Florimell, by her dwarf, 8-11
*error in the narrative, 9-10
*Timias wastes away, 42-48
*Belphoebe’s invincible (or at least, pretty awesome) chastity, 51-55
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Lecture Notes, Tuesday, July 15: Faerie Queene Book 1 Cantos 11 and 12 and Book 3 Canto 1
15 July 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
FQ Book 1 Cantos 11 & 12 and Book 3 Canto 1
(Cantos 2-5 for next time)
End Book 1
Canto 11
*Spenser calls upon his Muse in a particular way (5-7)
*the symbolism of the dragon, stanzas 12-14 and 49
*the Well of Life, 29 & 30; 33-34
*trial by fire, 44-45
*the Tree of Life, 46 (with river of balm)
Canto 12
* celebration of the kingdom, 7-11
*six years, 19 and 20
*Una’s veil gone, 22 and 23
*the messenger, 25
*Redcrosse’s response, 31-32
*Una backing him up, 33 and 34
*Archimago in prison
Book 3 Canto 1
*Arthur and Guyon meet Britomart, Guyon falls to her, 6 & 7
*12 they make friends
*idea of knighthood, 13
*Arthur and Guyon distracted by Florimell, 15-19
*Britomart fights the 6 knights (named in 45), defending Redcrosse – he explains why, 24
*31 they enter the Castle Joyous
*its decoration, 34+
*Britomart raises her visor, 42-47
*Malecasta’s response, 47+
*Britomart’s attitude, 53-54*Malecasta’s plot, 60+
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
FQ Book 1 Cantos 11 & 12 and Book 3 Canto 1
(Cantos 2-5 for next time)
End Book 1
Canto 11
*Spenser calls upon his Muse in a particular way (5-7)
*the symbolism of the dragon, stanzas 12-14 and 49
*the Well of Life, 29 & 30; 33-34
*trial by fire, 44-45
*the Tree of Life, 46 (with river of balm)
Canto 12
* celebration of the kingdom, 7-11
*six years, 19 and 20
*Una’s veil gone, 22 and 23
*the messenger, 25
*Redcrosse’s response, 31-32
*Una backing him up, 33 and 34
*Archimago in prison
Book 3 Canto 1
*Arthur and Guyon meet Britomart, Guyon falls to her, 6 & 7
*12 they make friends
*idea of knighthood, 13
*Arthur and Guyon distracted by Florimell, 15-19
*Britomart fights the 6 knights (named in 45), defending Redcrosse – he explains why, 24
*31 they enter the Castle Joyous
*its decoration, 34+
*Britomart raises her visor, 42-47
*Malecasta’s response, 47+
*Britomart’s attitude, 53-54*Malecasta’s plot, 60+
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Lecture Notes, Thursday, July 10: Faerie Queene Book 1 Cantos 7-10
10 July 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Faerie Queene Book 1 Cantos 7-10
The story of the Christian soul
*encounters with pride and despair
*cleansing and renewal in the house of Caelia (holiness), the house of earthly mercy (good works), and the home of Contemplation
Pride continued
Canto 7
*even though they’ve left the house of Pride, pride still influences Redcrosse’s behaviour
*removes his armour, 2-4; Duessa is still his companion
*drinking from the fountain of weakness, 5-6
*the arrival of the giant Orgoglio, 7
*Duessa’s bargaining, 14
*Redcrosse in the dungeon, 15
*Duessa’s beast, 16-18
*the Dwarf leaves and encounters Una
Perfect Knight
Canto 8
*Una meets Arthur, 29-36 (detailed description of the shield, and of Arthur’s end)
*Una’s backstory, esp. 43-46; her perspective on Redcrosse, 47
*Arthur’s fight with Orgoglio, 7-24
*note Duessa’s golden cup, stanza 14, dropped stanza 24 (contrast to the cup of Fidelia, 10.13)
*Orgoglio’s arm (10); Arthur’s shield unveiled, 19; Orgoglio’s leg, 22; head, 24
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjEcj8KpuJw
Rescuing Redcrosse
*Ignaro, 31-34
*Redcrosse moving into the realm of despair, 38 –40
*undressing Duessa, 45-50
Despair
Canto 9
*Arthur’s parting gift, 19
*Trevisan fleeing from cave of Despair, 21-22 – the core of his story, 28 and 30
*meeting Despair, 35
*The arguments of Despair, 38-47, esp. 42
*Una’s rescue, 52
The house of Holiness
Canto 10
*narrow passage, 5
*Una gets Fidelia (13) and Speranza (14) to greet Redcrosse
*Redcrosse’s redemption
*Fidelia’s schoolhouse, 18-23
*Patience the “leech”, 23-29 (note Penance’s “yron whip, 27)
*the visit of Charissa, 29-34
*the holy Hospitall, guided by Mercy, 36-45
*the hermitage of Contemplation, 46-68
*the comparison of the New Jerusalem to Cleopolis (home of the Faerie Queene, esp. Panthea), 58; Redcrosse’s desire to stay, 63
*the story of Redcrosse’s origin, 65-66
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Faerie Queene Book 1 Cantos 7-10
The story of the Christian soul
*encounters with pride and despair
*cleansing and renewal in the house of Caelia (holiness), the house of earthly mercy (good works), and the home of Contemplation
Pride continued
Canto 7
*even though they’ve left the house of Pride, pride still influences Redcrosse’s behaviour
*removes his armour, 2-4; Duessa is still his companion
*drinking from the fountain of weakness, 5-6
*the arrival of the giant Orgoglio, 7
*Duessa’s bargaining, 14
*Redcrosse in the dungeon, 15
*Duessa’s beast, 16-18
*the Dwarf leaves and encounters Una
Perfect Knight
Canto 8
*Una meets Arthur, 29-36 (detailed description of the shield, and of Arthur’s end)
*Una’s backstory, esp. 43-46; her perspective on Redcrosse, 47
*Arthur’s fight with Orgoglio, 7-24
*note Duessa’s golden cup, stanza 14, dropped stanza 24 (contrast to the cup of Fidelia, 10.13)
*Orgoglio’s arm (10); Arthur’s shield unveiled, 19; Orgoglio’s leg, 22; head, 24
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjEcj8KpuJw
Rescuing Redcrosse
*Ignaro, 31-34
*Redcrosse moving into the realm of despair, 38 –40
*undressing Duessa, 45-50
Despair
Canto 9
*Arthur’s parting gift, 19
*Trevisan fleeing from cave of Despair, 21-22 – the core of his story, 28 and 30
*meeting Despair, 35
*The arguments of Despair, 38-47, esp. 42
*Una’s rescue, 52
The house of Holiness
Canto 10
*narrow passage, 5
*Una gets Fidelia (13) and Speranza (14) to greet Redcrosse
*Redcrosse’s redemption
*Fidelia’s schoolhouse, 18-23
*Patience the “leech”, 23-29 (note Penance’s “yron whip, 27)
*the visit of Charissa, 29-34
*the holy Hospitall, guided by Mercy, 36-45
*the hermitage of Contemplation, 46-68
*the comparison of the New Jerusalem to Cleopolis (home of the Faerie Queene, esp. Panthea), 58; Redcrosse’s desire to stay, 63
*the story of Redcrosse’s origin, 65-66
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Lecture Notes, Tuesday, July 8: Faerie Queene Book 1 Cantos 4-6
8 July 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Faerie Queene Book 1 cantos 4-6
Lecture Outline
*the house of Pride
*light imagery and evil
*the seven deadly sins
*journey into hell
*Una and Satyrane
The house of Pride
*bright 4.4
*construction, 4.5
*sucking people in, 4.3
* “spitting” them out, 5.46-end, esp. 49 and 52, 53.
Light imagery and evil
*obvious that deception is a strong part of FQ’s narrative strategy
*Lucifera, stanzas 4.8-4.12, and the image of light
*note Redcrosse’s sense of pride, stanza 15
*Duessa and “griesly Night”, canto 5.20-21
The seven deadly sins
*stanzas 18-35
*followed by Satan
Journey into hell
*5.32-34 - Night’s power over heaven and hell, Cerberus encounter 34
*hell in parallel to Pride’s castle: why this doubling?
*story of Aesculapius and Hippoytus, 5.37-40
Una and Satyrane
*Sansloy’s attempted rape, 6.3-6
*rescue by fauns and satyrs, 6.7-11
*story of Satyrane, 6.20-30
*why can’t Satyrane have Una’s love? (allegorical reason?): 6.31, 32
*ends on a cliffhanger – Satyrane fighting Sansloy; Archimago pursuing Una.
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Faerie Queene Book 1 cantos 4-6
Lecture Outline
*the house of Pride
*light imagery and evil
*the seven deadly sins
*journey into hell
*Una and Satyrane
The house of Pride
*bright 4.4
*construction, 4.5
*sucking people in, 4.3
* “spitting” them out, 5.46-end, esp. 49 and 52, 53.
Light imagery and evil
*obvious that deception is a strong part of FQ’s narrative strategy
*Lucifera, stanzas 4.8-4.12, and the image of light
*note Redcrosse’s sense of pride, stanza 15
*Duessa and “griesly Night”, canto 5.20-21
The seven deadly sins
*stanzas 18-35
*followed by Satan
Journey into hell
*5.32-34 - Night’s power over heaven and hell, Cerberus encounter 34
*hell in parallel to Pride’s castle: why this doubling?
*story of Aesculapius and Hippoytus, 5.37-40
Una and Satyrane
*Sansloy’s attempted rape, 6.3-6
*rescue by fauns and satyrs, 6.7-11
*story of Satyrane, 6.20-30
*why can’t Satyrane have Una’s love? (allegorical reason?): 6.31, 32
*ends on a cliffhanger – Satyrane fighting Sansloy; Archimago pursuing Una.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Lecture Notes, Thursday, July 3: Faerie Queene Book 1 Cantos 1-3
3 July 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
The Faerie Queene
Lecture Outline
*publication
*Spenserian stanza
*allegory as backward fashion
*King Arthur as proto-hero
*Queen Elizabeth – the Queen’s two bodies
*Background of Book 1: Holiness
Publication
*1590 – three books
*1596 – six books
* 1599 – Spenser dies, leaving his plan of 12 books (also sometimes explained as 24 books) unfinished
Spenserian stanza
In form, ababbcbcc; iambic pentameter ending with one Alexanrine (iambic sexameter)
A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,
Y cladd in mightie armes and silber shielde,
Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,
The cruell markes of many a bloudy fielde;
Yet armes till that time did he never wield:
His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,
As much disdayning to the curb to yield:
Full jolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,
As one for knightly giust and fierce encounters fitt.
*note Spenser’s language
Allegory as backward fashion
A letter of the Authors pg. 1
“a continued Allegory, or dark conceit…which I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historicall fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter, then for profite of the ensample”
“To some I know this Methode will seeme displeasaunt, which had rather have good discipline delivered plainly in way of precepts, or sermoned at large, as they use, then thus lowdily enwrapped in Allegoricall devises. But such, me seeme, should be satisfied with the use of these days, seeing all things accounted by their showes, and nothing esteemed of, that is not delightfull and pleasing to commune sense. For this cause is Xenophon preferred before Plato, for that the one in the exquisite depth of his judgement, formed a Commune welth such as it should be, but the other in the person of Cyrus and the Persians fashioned a governement such as might best be: So much more profitable and gratious is doctrine by ensample, then by rule.”
King Arthur as uber-hero
From “A letter of the Authors” pg. 1-2 in Norton
Which for that I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historicall fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter, then for profite of the ensample: I chose the historye of king Arthure, as most fitte …So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette forth magnificence in particular, which vertue for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the deedes of Arthure applyable to that vertue, which I write of in that booke.
Representation of other virtues:
Virtues:
Book I: Holiness
Book II: Temperance
Book III: Chastity
Book IV: Friendship
Book V: Justice
Book VI: Courtesy
Queen Elizabeth – the Queen’s two bodies
From “A letter of the Authors” pg. 2 in Norton
“In that Faery Queene I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceive the most excellend and glorious person of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery land. And yet in some places els, I doe otherwise shadow her. For considering she beareth two persons, the one of a most royall Queene or Empresse, the other of a most vertuous and beautifull Lady, this latter part in some places I doe expresse in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according to your owne excellent conceipt of Cynthia, (Phoebe and Cynthia being both names of Diana.)
Background of Book 1: Holiness
*pg. 3 of letter of the Authors – the story of the Queene’s “Annuall feaste”
*Holiness (Redcross) riding with Truth (Una)
Canto 1
*encounter with Error stanzas 13-26
*meeting with the old man (Archimago), stanza 29 – his description, 29 and 34
*the truth, 35 and esp. 37
*deception of Redcrosse, 47-55
Canto 2
*deception 2: stanzas 3-5
*Stanza 12-13, Redcrosse encounters “Fidessa” and the “Sarazin”
*Sarazin’s curse, 18
*Fidessa’s lies, 22-26; Redcrosse’s reaction to her, 27
*the talking tree, 31; the tree’s story, to 41
Canto 3
*Una’s story – she meets the lion, 5-6
*15-25 Una’s encounter with Corceca and Abessa and Kirkrapine
*26 she meets “Redcrosse” again
*Why she doesn’t notice he’s not him, and why she forgives, 30
*Sansloy fights the false Redcrosse, 33
*why he wins, 35
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
The Faerie Queene
Lecture Outline
*publication
*Spenserian stanza
*allegory as backward fashion
*King Arthur as proto-hero
*Queen Elizabeth – the Queen’s two bodies
*Background of Book 1: Holiness
Publication
*1590 – three books
*1596 – six books
* 1599 – Spenser dies, leaving his plan of 12 books (also sometimes explained as 24 books) unfinished
Spenserian stanza
In form, ababbcbcc; iambic pentameter ending with one Alexanrine (iambic sexameter)
A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,
Y cladd in mightie armes and silber shielde,
Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,
The cruell markes of many a bloudy fielde;
Yet armes till that time did he never wield:
His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,
As much disdayning to the curb to yield:
Full jolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,
As one for knightly giust and fierce encounters fitt.
*note Spenser’s language
Allegory as backward fashion
A letter of the Authors pg. 1
“a continued Allegory, or dark conceit…which I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historicall fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter, then for profite of the ensample”
“To some I know this Methode will seeme displeasaunt, which had rather have good discipline delivered plainly in way of precepts, or sermoned at large, as they use, then thus lowdily enwrapped in Allegoricall devises. But such, me seeme, should be satisfied with the use of these days, seeing all things accounted by their showes, and nothing esteemed of, that is not delightfull and pleasing to commune sense. For this cause is Xenophon preferred before Plato, for that the one in the exquisite depth of his judgement, formed a Commune welth such as it should be, but the other in the person of Cyrus and the Persians fashioned a governement such as might best be: So much more profitable and gratious is doctrine by ensample, then by rule.”
King Arthur as uber-hero
From “A letter of the Authors” pg. 1-2 in Norton
Which for that I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historicall fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter, then for profite of the ensample: I chose the historye of king Arthure, as most fitte …So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette forth magnificence in particular, which vertue for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the deedes of Arthure applyable to that vertue, which I write of in that booke.
Representation of other virtues:
Virtues:
Book I: Holiness
Book II: Temperance
Book III: Chastity
Book IV: Friendship
Book V: Justice
Book VI: Courtesy
Queen Elizabeth – the Queen’s two bodies
From “A letter of the Authors” pg. 2 in Norton
“In that Faery Queene I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceive the most excellend and glorious person of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery land. And yet in some places els, I doe otherwise shadow her. For considering she beareth two persons, the one of a most royall Queene or Empresse, the other of a most vertuous and beautifull Lady, this latter part in some places I doe expresse in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according to your owne excellent conceipt of Cynthia, (Phoebe and Cynthia being both names of Diana.)
Background of Book 1: Holiness
*pg. 3 of letter of the Authors – the story of the Queene’s “Annuall feaste”
*Holiness (Redcross) riding with Truth (Una)
Canto 1
*encounter with Error stanzas 13-26
*meeting with the old man (Archimago), stanza 29 – his description, 29 and 34
*the truth, 35 and esp. 37
*deception of Redcrosse, 47-55
Canto 2
*deception 2: stanzas 3-5
*Stanza 12-13, Redcrosse encounters “Fidessa” and the “Sarazin”
*Sarazin’s curse, 18
*Fidessa’s lies, 22-26; Redcrosse’s reaction to her, 27
*the talking tree, 31; the tree’s story, to 41
Canto 3
*Una’s story – she meets the lion, 5-6
*15-25 Una’s encounter with Corceca and Abessa and Kirkrapine
*26 she meets “Redcrosse” again
*Why she doesn’t notice he’s not him, and why she forgives, 30
*Sansloy fights the false Redcrosse, 33
*why he wins, 35
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Lecture Notes, Thursday, June 26: Unfortunate Traveller Part Deux
26 June 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
The Unfortunate Traveller part deux
Outline
*anti-homage to the sonnet
*anti-allegory
*travel and anti-travel
*the Jews
*women and feminity
*revenge
Anti-homage to the sonnet
*Surrey and Jack Wilton in jail; Diamante also jailed because of her jealous husband (305)
*Surrey’s “wooing” (307): “This was all the injury he would offer her: sometimes he would imagine her in a melancholy humour to be his Geraldine, and court her in terms correspondent.”
*307-308 the terrible sonnet
*Jack Wilton’s response (308): “I should, if I were a wench, make many men quickly immortal….my silly jailor” – Diamante’s vengeance
*(312 top paragraph): Castaldo dies (allegorically?); Jack and Diamante leave Surrey on a sumptuous adventure
Anti-allegory
*Surrey battles his challengers in Florence, 316-322
Travel and anti-travel
*Jack Wilton as tourist in Rome, 324-330
*”Roman superstition”, 325 (bottom) to 326
*cultural differences, 326
*replica of the earthly paradise, 327-330 – note slippage between that place and the garden of Eden in the description
*homage to Rome, 330
*upon his rescue by the Englishman in exile, the discourse against travel, 341+
*Cain as the first traveller
*the humiliations of travel
*the bad habits of other countries
*the benefits of one’s own country (346: “The sea is the native soil to fishes…”)
The Jews
*Jews present in England after the Norman conquest (1066)
*flourished there during the next two centuries, including building the “Great Synagogue” in London
*massacre in 1264
*Jews expelled from England in 1290
*relationship of Christian Europe to Jews very negative; to Judaism, quite positive
*concept of supersession
*representation in Unfortunate Traveller
*captivity by Zadoch, 347
*sold to Dr. Zacharie, 348
*beating Diamante, 353
*vengeful, 354-355
*weirdly resilient – see Zacharie’s poisoning (351) and apparent resurrection (354)
*meeting a gruesome end, 359
Women and feminity
*the rape of Herclide, 331-336
*her suicide: 338 she examines her image in the glass; 339, her suicide
*Juliana the Pope’s courtesan, 350-ish+
Revenge
* “strange and wonderful are God’s judgements” 363
*Cutwolfe’s story; vengeance against Esdras, 368
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
The Unfortunate Traveller part deux
Outline
*anti-homage to the sonnet
*anti-allegory
*travel and anti-travel
*the Jews
*women and feminity
*revenge
Anti-homage to the sonnet
*Surrey and Jack Wilton in jail; Diamante also jailed because of her jealous husband (305)
*Surrey’s “wooing” (307): “This was all the injury he would offer her: sometimes he would imagine her in a melancholy humour to be his Geraldine, and court her in terms correspondent.”
*307-308 the terrible sonnet
*Jack Wilton’s response (308): “I should, if I were a wench, make many men quickly immortal….my silly jailor” – Diamante’s vengeance
*(312 top paragraph): Castaldo dies (allegorically?); Jack and Diamante leave Surrey on a sumptuous adventure
Anti-allegory
*Surrey battles his challengers in Florence, 316-322
Travel and anti-travel
*Jack Wilton as tourist in Rome, 324-330
*”Roman superstition”, 325 (bottom) to 326
*cultural differences, 326
*replica of the earthly paradise, 327-330 – note slippage between that place and the garden of Eden in the description
*homage to Rome, 330
*upon his rescue by the Englishman in exile, the discourse against travel, 341+
*Cain as the first traveller
*the humiliations of travel
*the bad habits of other countries
*the benefits of one’s own country (346: “The sea is the native soil to fishes…”)
The Jews
*Jews present in England after the Norman conquest (1066)
*flourished there during the next two centuries, including building the “Great Synagogue” in London
*massacre in 1264
*Jews expelled from England in 1290
*relationship of Christian Europe to Jews very negative; to Judaism, quite positive
*concept of supersession
*representation in Unfortunate Traveller
*captivity by Zadoch, 347
*sold to Dr. Zacharie, 348
*beating Diamante, 353
*vengeful, 354-355
*weirdly resilient – see Zacharie’s poisoning (351) and apparent resurrection (354)
*meeting a gruesome end, 359
Women and feminity
*the rape of Herclide, 331-336
*her suicide: 338 she examines her image in the glass; 339, her suicide
*Juliana the Pope’s courtesan, 350-ish+
Revenge
* “strange and wonderful are God’s judgements” 363
*Cutwolfe’s story; vengeance against Esdras, 368
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Lecture Notes, Tuesday, June 24: Unfortunate Traveller Part 1
24 June 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
The Unfortunate Traveller, Part One
*genre: picaresque
*the anti-hero
*the culture of jest
The picaresque
(This and the Leiden info from Wikipedia)
“The picaresque novel (Spanish: "picaresca", from "pÃcaro", for "rogue" or "rascal") is a popular subgenre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society. As indicated by its name, this style of novel originated in Spain and flourished in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continues to influence modern literature.”
*records historical events, like the sweating sickness, 273+
*John Leiden sequence, 277+
Background info:
Raised a bastard and dogged by poverty, young John became a charismatic leader who was widely revered by his followers. According to his own testimony, he went to the German city of Münster, arriving in 1533, because he had heard there were inspired preachers there. He sent for Jan Matthys, who had baptized him, to come. After his arrival Matthys - recognized as a prophet - became the principal leader in the city. Following a failed military attempt on Easter Sunday 1534, in which Matthys died, John of Leiden became King of Münster until its fall in June of 1535. He set up a theocracy in Münster and led a communalistic and polygamous state. Some sources report that John of Leiden took sixteen wives. He publicly beheaded one of his wives after she rebelled against his authority.
The army of Münster was defeated in 1535 by the prince bishop Franz von Waldeck, and John of Leiden was captured. He was first taken to a dungeon in Dülmen, then brought back to Münster. On January 22, 1536, along with Bernhard Krechting and Bernhard Knipperdolling, he was tortured and then executed. Each attached to a pole by an iron spiked collar, their bodies were ripped with red-hot tongs for the space of an hour, then each was killed with a dagger thrust through the heart. Their bodies were raised in three cages above St. Lambert's Church, the remains left to rot. Their bones were removed about 50 years later, but the cages have remained into the 21st century.
*Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, 286+
*Erasmus and Thomas More, 290-91
*Agrippa, who conjures Tully 297-8, and Geraldine
*Nine Worthies
Pagan:
Hector
Alexander the Great
Julius Caesar
Jewish:
Joshua
David
Judas Maccabeus
Christian:
King Arthur
Charlemagne
Godfrey of Bouillon
The anti-hero
*doesn’t necessarily get away with everything he tries – see the result of his jest against the camp tapster, pg. 261: “Then was I pitifully whipped for my holiday lie, though they made themselves merry with it many a winter’s evening after.”
*his view of his own role, 271 “I was ordained God’s scourge”
*his view of religion, during the John Leiden sequence, 280+
The culture of jest
*the plot against the tapster
*the plot against “Monsieur Capitano”, 263+ - his argument to send him into the French court, 265-66
*mocking oratory of scholars, 291-2; and others, 293
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
The Unfortunate Traveller, Part One
*genre: picaresque
*the anti-hero
*the culture of jest
The picaresque
(This and the Leiden info from Wikipedia)
“The picaresque novel (Spanish: "picaresca", from "pÃcaro", for "rogue" or "rascal") is a popular subgenre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society. As indicated by its name, this style of novel originated in Spain and flourished in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continues to influence modern literature.”
*records historical events, like the sweating sickness, 273+
*John Leiden sequence, 277+
Background info:
Raised a bastard and dogged by poverty, young John became a charismatic leader who was widely revered by his followers. According to his own testimony, he went to the German city of Münster, arriving in 1533, because he had heard there were inspired preachers there. He sent for Jan Matthys, who had baptized him, to come. After his arrival Matthys - recognized as a prophet - became the principal leader in the city. Following a failed military attempt on Easter Sunday 1534, in which Matthys died, John of Leiden became King of Münster until its fall in June of 1535. He set up a theocracy in Münster and led a communalistic and polygamous state. Some sources report that John of Leiden took sixteen wives. He publicly beheaded one of his wives after she rebelled against his authority.
The army of Münster was defeated in 1535 by the prince bishop Franz von Waldeck, and John of Leiden was captured. He was first taken to a dungeon in Dülmen, then brought back to Münster. On January 22, 1536, along with Bernhard Krechting and Bernhard Knipperdolling, he was tortured and then executed. Each attached to a pole by an iron spiked collar, their bodies were ripped with red-hot tongs for the space of an hour, then each was killed with a dagger thrust through the heart. Their bodies were raised in three cages above St. Lambert's Church, the remains left to rot. Their bones were removed about 50 years later, but the cages have remained into the 21st century.
*Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, 286+
*Erasmus and Thomas More, 290-91
*Agrippa, who conjures Tully 297-8, and Geraldine
*Nine Worthies
Pagan:
Hector
Alexander the Great
Julius Caesar
Jewish:
Joshua
David
Judas Maccabeus
Christian:
King Arthur
Charlemagne
Godfrey of Bouillon
The anti-hero
*doesn’t necessarily get away with everything he tries – see the result of his jest against the camp tapster, pg. 261: “Then was I pitifully whipped for my holiday lie, though they made themselves merry with it many a winter’s evening after.”
*his view of his own role, 271 “I was ordained God’s scourge”
*his view of religion, during the John Leiden sequence, 280+
The culture of jest
*the plot against the tapster
*the plot against “Monsieur Capitano”, 263+ - his argument to send him into the French court, 265-66
*mocking oratory of scholars, 291-2; and others, 293
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Lecture Notes, Thursday, June 19: Thomas Hariot's Brief and True Report
19 June 2008
3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Thomas Harriot’s Brief and True Report
Lecture Outline
Tobacco
The Occasion of the Text
Commodity
“Trifles”
Religion
“Invisible Bullets”
“Temperature”
The True Pictures and Fashions of the People in that parte of America
De Bry’s intro
Comparison of images: John White’s paintings vs. De Bry’s engravings
Tobacco
Tobacco, Tobacco
Sing sweetly for Tobacco.
Tobacco is like love
O love it
For you see I will prove it.
Love maketh leane the fatte mens tumor,
So doth Tobacco.
Love still dries uppe the wanton humor,
So doth Tobacco.
Love makes men sayle from shore to shore,
So doth Tobacco.
Tis fond love often makes men poor,
So doth Tobacco.
Love makes men scorne all Coward feares,
So doth Tobacco.
Love often sets men by the eares,
So doth Tobacco.
Tobaccoe, Tobaccoe
Sing sweetely for Tobaccoe.
Tobaccoe is like Love,
O love it,
For you see I have provde it.
Anonymous lyrics, set to music by Tobias Hume in 1605.
The Occasion of the Text
*”There have been divers and variable reportes with some slaunderous and shamefull speeches bruited abroad” (pg 5)
Commodity
*a core purpose of Harriot’s text – what is “marchantable”
“Trifles”
* "In respect of us they are a people poor” (pg 25)
*pg. 45 on “The arrival of the Englishmen”
Religion
* an echoing of Christian faith in his description of the native belief system, bottom pg. 25
* “For mankind they say a woman was made first”
*the stories of heaven(ish) and hell(ish): 26 “They beleeve also the immortality of the soul
*27 idolatry re: Bible
“Invisible Bullets”
*pg 28 and 29; the microbiology of the contact zone
“Temperature”
*from “The Conclusion”, pg. 31-32
The True Pictures and Fashions of the People in that parte of America
The first image (pg 39):
De Bry’s intro
*Attitude toward the native population? pg. 41 “Although man by his disobedience…by their trauailes into the contrye.”
* “they be verye familiar with deuils” pg 54
*pg 60 “Yet are they moderate in their eatinge wher by they avoide sicknes”
*pg 71 and 72 Ther Idol Kiwasa “the keeper of the kings dead corpses”
Comparison of images: John White’s paintings vs. De Bry’s engravings
http://www.virtualjamestown.org/images/white_debry_html/jamestown.html
*pg 76 “The trvve picture of one Picte”
3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Thomas Harriot’s Brief and True Report
Lecture Outline
Tobacco
The Occasion of the Text
Commodity
“Trifles”
Religion
“Invisible Bullets”
“Temperature”
The True Pictures and Fashions of the People in that parte of America
De Bry’s intro
Comparison of images: John White’s paintings vs. De Bry’s engravings
Tobacco
Tobacco, Tobacco
Sing sweetly for Tobacco.
Tobacco is like love
O love it
For you see I will prove it.
Love maketh leane the fatte mens tumor,
So doth Tobacco.
Love still dries uppe the wanton humor,
So doth Tobacco.
Love makes men sayle from shore to shore,
So doth Tobacco.
Tis fond love often makes men poor,
So doth Tobacco.
Love makes men scorne all Coward feares,
So doth Tobacco.
Love often sets men by the eares,
So doth Tobacco.
Tobaccoe, Tobaccoe
Sing sweetely for Tobaccoe.
Tobaccoe is like Love,
O love it,
For you see I have provde it.
Anonymous lyrics, set to music by Tobias Hume in 1605.
The Occasion of the Text
*”There have been divers and variable reportes with some slaunderous and shamefull speeches bruited abroad” (pg 5)
Commodity
*a core purpose of Harriot’s text – what is “marchantable”
“Trifles”
* "In respect of us they are a people poor” (pg 25)
*pg. 45 on “The arrival of the Englishmen”
Religion
* an echoing of Christian faith in his description of the native belief system, bottom pg. 25
* “For mankind they say a woman was made first”
*the stories of heaven(ish) and hell(ish): 26 “They beleeve also the immortality of the soul
*27 idolatry re: Bible
“Invisible Bullets”
*pg 28 and 29; the microbiology of the contact zone
“Temperature”
*from “The Conclusion”, pg. 31-32
The True Pictures and Fashions of the People in that parte of America
The first image (pg 39):
De Bry’s intro
*Attitude toward the native population? pg. 41 “Although man by his disobedience…by their trauailes into the contrye.”
* “they be verye familiar with deuils” pg 54
*pg 60 “Yet are they moderate in their eatinge wher by they avoide sicknes”
*pg 71 and 72 Ther Idol Kiwasa “the keeper of the kings dead corpses”
Comparison of images: John White’s paintings vs. De Bry’s engravings
http://www.virtualjamestown.org/images/white_debry_html/jamestown.html
*pg 76 “The trvve picture of one Picte”
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Lecture Notes, Tuesday, June 17: Walter Ralegh and Colonization Narratives
17 June 2008
English 3I06 / The Development of English Drama
Travel and Colonization: Walter Ralegh and Colonization Narratives
LECTURE OUTLINE
*configuring the new world
*paradise
*cornucopia
*curiosity
*already possessed
*hell
Configuring the New World
*new world representation always a reflection of European culture and values
*why? Politics of the contact zone
*contact zone definition, Mary Louise Pratt:
“the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish relations, usually involving coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict”(from Imperial Eyes).
*narrative as a key to expressing how the reader should view the new territory
*things to watch for: disconnects between “adventure” narrative and conclusions; projection of European concerns and issues onto the new zone; a mixture of idolizing and dehumanizing the native peoples in the new territory
Paradise
*Michel de Montaigne, “Of Cannibals” (1588), pg 365 (bv)
*Ralegh 352 “I never saw a more beautiful country”
*Ralegh 357 “Guiana is a country that hath yet her maidenhead”
*Ralegh 356 “both for health, good air, pleasure, and riches, I am resolved it cannot be equalled either in the east or west”358 “
Hell
*Ralegh’s journey, 347, “the air breeding great faintness”
*Ralegh 348 “At the last we determined to hang the pilot”
Cornucopia
*Ralegh 340 “The island of Trinidad…will bear sugar, ginger, or any other commodity that the Indies yield.”
*342 “All the vessels of his house, table, and kitchen, were of gold and silver”
*Ralegh 345, “These Amazons have likewise great store of these plates of gold” (see also 344, relation of these Amazons to classical Amazons)
*Ralegh, 356: “The common soldier shall here fight for gold, and pay himself, instead of pence, with plates of half-a-foot broad”
Curiosity
*Jenkinson 362, description of the “Nagayans” (southern European Russia)
*Ralegh 353 “a nation of people whose heads appear not above their shoulders”
Already possessed
*Ralegh 341 “The Spaniards seemed to be desirous to trade with us” (story of Cantyman)
*Ralegh 355 “because I have not myself seen the cities of Inca I cannot avow on my credit what I have heard”
*347 “Of these people those that dwell upon the branches of the Orinoco…are for the most part carpenters…” (note lingering on detail of the corpses)
English 3I06 / The Development of English Drama
Travel and Colonization: Walter Ralegh and Colonization Narratives
LECTURE OUTLINE
*configuring the new world
*paradise
*cornucopia
*curiosity
*already possessed
*hell
Configuring the New World
*new world representation always a reflection of European culture and values
*why? Politics of the contact zone
*contact zone definition, Mary Louise Pratt:
“the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish relations, usually involving coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict”(from Imperial Eyes).
*narrative as a key to expressing how the reader should view the new territory
*things to watch for: disconnects between “adventure” narrative and conclusions; projection of European concerns and issues onto the new zone; a mixture of idolizing and dehumanizing the native peoples in the new territory
Paradise
*Michel de Montaigne, “Of Cannibals” (1588), pg 365 (bv)
*Ralegh 352 “I never saw a more beautiful country”
*Ralegh 357 “Guiana is a country that hath yet her maidenhead”
*Ralegh 356 “both for health, good air, pleasure, and riches, I am resolved it cannot be equalled either in the east or west”358 “
Hell
*Ralegh’s journey, 347, “the air breeding great faintness”
*Ralegh 348 “At the last we determined to hang the pilot”
Cornucopia
*Ralegh 340 “The island of Trinidad…will bear sugar, ginger, or any other commodity that the Indies yield.”
*342 “All the vessels of his house, table, and kitchen, were of gold and silver”
*Ralegh 345, “These Amazons have likewise great store of these plates of gold” (see also 344, relation of these Amazons to classical Amazons)
*Ralegh, 356: “The common soldier shall here fight for gold, and pay himself, instead of pence, with plates of half-a-foot broad”
Curiosity
*Jenkinson 362, description of the “Nagayans” (southern European Russia)
*Ralegh 353 “a nation of people whose heads appear not above their shoulders”
Already possessed
*Ralegh 341 “The Spaniards seemed to be desirous to trade with us” (story of Cantyman)
*Ralegh 355 “because I have not myself seen the cities of Inca I cannot avow on my credit what I have heard”
*347 “Of these people those that dwell upon the branches of the Orinoco…are for the most part carpenters…” (note lingering on detail of the corpses)
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Lecture Notes, Thursday, June 12: Hero and Leander
12 June 2008
English 3106 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander
Lecture Outline
*the problem of tone
*human behaviour?
*against chastity
*Hero’s struggles
*The story of the Fates
*The first meeting
*Separation
*Swimming the Hellespont
*Reunion
The problem of tone, Hero and Leander lines 1-90
Starring Dr. Melissa
And
Hot Victorian Babe as Hero
Christopher Marlowe and Leander
Crudely Drawn Sun as Apollo
Crudely Drawn Moon as Cynthia
Comical Bees as the Bees
Mr. William Shakespeare as Leander’s friend
Human behaviour? Lines 91-176
* the action of the crowd, 117-130
*the description of the temple of Venus, 142-167
Against chastity
*199-294
*the question of Hero’s oath, 294-310 – the argument that seals the deal
Hero’s struggles
*329-340 “These arguments he used, and many more / Wherewith she yielded, that was won before.”
*362-376 supernatural intervention
The story of the Fates, lines 178-484
*story of Mercury and the country maid, 386+
*428 “All women are ambitious naturally”
*Mercury kicked out of heaven for stealing the nectar of the gods, 439
*Cupid wounds the Fates so they love Mercury
*452 he asks them to overturn Jove
*455, a chance for a new Golden Age with the return of Saturn and Ops, with an end to “Murder, rape, war, lust, and treachery”
Their first meeting, 507-570
*betrothal without consummation
*messing about, 527-570 – Leander’s inexperience and Hero’s change of heart
Separation
*Leander returns to Abydos, 595-630
Swimming the Hellespont
*Encounter with Neptune, who mistakes him for Ganymede, 639-650
*Neptune toys with Leander, 665-675
* “You are deceived; I am no woman, I.” (676)
*Neptune’s disrupted story, 677-699
*Neptune lets Leander go while he tries to find gifts, 700-710
Reunion
*714 “seeing a naked man, she screeched for fear”
*745 Hero hides under the covers
*760-784 out of order??
*785 “And now she wished this night were never done”
*791+ Hero slides out of bed ungracefully
*Morning, and the end
English 3106 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander
Lecture Outline
*the problem of tone
*human behaviour?
*against chastity
*Hero’s struggles
*The story of the Fates
*The first meeting
*Separation
*Swimming the Hellespont
*Reunion
The problem of tone, Hero and Leander lines 1-90
Starring Dr. Melissa
And
Hot Victorian Babe as Hero
Christopher Marlowe and Leander
Crudely Drawn Sun as Apollo
Crudely Drawn Moon as Cynthia
Comical Bees as the Bees
Mr. William Shakespeare as Leander’s friend
Human behaviour? Lines 91-176
* the action of the crowd, 117-130
*the description of the temple of Venus, 142-167
Against chastity
*199-294
*the question of Hero’s oath, 294-310 – the argument that seals the deal
Hero’s struggles
*329-340 “These arguments he used, and many more / Wherewith she yielded, that was won before.”
*362-376 supernatural intervention
The story of the Fates, lines 178-484
*story of Mercury and the country maid, 386+
*428 “All women are ambitious naturally”
*Mercury kicked out of heaven for stealing the nectar of the gods, 439
*Cupid wounds the Fates so they love Mercury
*452 he asks them to overturn Jove
*455, a chance for a new Golden Age with the return of Saturn and Ops, with an end to “Murder, rape, war, lust, and treachery”
Their first meeting, 507-570
*betrothal without consummation
*messing about, 527-570 – Leander’s inexperience and Hero’s change of heart
Separation
*Leander returns to Abydos, 595-630
Swimming the Hellespont
*Encounter with Neptune, who mistakes him for Ganymede, 639-650
*Neptune toys with Leander, 665-675
* “You are deceived; I am no woman, I.” (676)
*Neptune’s disrupted story, 677-699
*Neptune lets Leander go while he tries to find gifts, 700-710
Reunion
*714 “seeing a naked man, she screeched for fear”
*745 Hero hides under the covers
*760-784 out of order??
*785 “And now she wished this night were never done”
*791+ Hero slides out of bed ungracefully
*Morning, and the end
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Lecture Notes, Tuesday, June 10: Sonnets by Shakespeare and Spenser, and Epithalamion
10 June 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Sonnets by Shakespeare and Spenser; and Epithalamion
Lecture Outline
*Narcissus and Echo
*Shakespeare and Spenser take on the conventions
~writing
~blazon
~contraries
~New conventions? Life as Theatre and Consummation
*the addition on the Epithalamion
Narcissus and Echo
From http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/Classics/OvidEchoNarcissus.htm
*See Shakespeare’s sonnet 1 as an extension of Narcissus and Echo; also Epithalamion
Shakespeare and Spenser (sometimes) Take on the Conventions
Writing
*Shakespeare 55 (459)
*Spenser 1, 3 (pg 244); 75 (pg 247)
Blazon
*Spenser 15 (pg. 244); but in contrast Epithalamion pg. 250 lines 171-180
*Shakespeare 106 (463) and 130 (465)
Contraries
*Spenser 26 (245)
*Shakespeare 138 (465)
Time / mortality trope
*Shakespeare 12 (456); 16 (457); 18 (457); esp. 71 (460) and 74 (461)
New Conventions??
Life as Theatre
*Spenser 54 (345)
*Shakespeare 23 (458)
Separation from the Beloved / Revised as Consummation
Shakespeare Sonnet 20 (457-8)
Rima 190 (Spenser version pg 246, sonnet 67)
Petrarch (), Rima 190 (Italian)
Una candida cerva sopra l'erba
Verde m'apparve, con duo corna d'oro
Fra due riviere, a l'umbra d'un alloro,
Levando 'l sole, a la stagione acerba.
Era sua vista si solce superba,
Ch'i' lasciai per seguirla ogni lavoro;
Come l'avaro che 'n cercar tesoro
Con diletto l'affanno disacerba.
'Nessun mi tocchi.' al bel collo d'intorno
Scritto avea di diamanti e di topazi;
'Libera farmi al mio Cesare parve.'
Et era 'l sol gia volto al mezzo giorno;
Gli occhi miei stanchi di mirar, non sazi;
Quand'io caddi ne l'acqua, at ella sparve.
Petrarch (), Rima 190 (English)
A white hind in a green glade
Appeared to me, with two gold horns,
Between two streams, in the shade of a laurel
At sunrise, in a bitterly cold season.
Her appearance was so sweetly haughty
That I left any work I had to follow her,
Like the miser who, looking for treasure,
Sweetens his bitterness with delight.
'Touch me not.' around her lovely neck
Was written with stones of diamond and topaz,
'It has please my lord to set me free.'
And the sun was already turned toward noon;
My weary eyes hadn't had enough of admiring,
When I fell in the water, and she was gone.
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, alas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I, by no means, my wearied mind
Draw from the dear, but as she fleeth afore,
Fainting I follow. I leave off, therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put them out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about,
'Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'
Based on Petrarch's Rima 190
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), Amoretti 67
Lyke as a huntsman after weary chase,
Seeing the game from him escapt away
Sits downe to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds beguiled of their pray:
So after long pursuit and vaine assay,
When I all weary had the chace forsooke,
The gentile deare returnd the selfe-same way,
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke.
There she beholding me with mylder looke,
Sought not to fly, but fearelesse still did bide:
Till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke,
And with her owne goodwill hir fyrmely tyde.
Strange thing me seemd to see a beast so wylf,
So goodly wonne with her owne will beguyld.
Based on Petrarch's Rima 190
Spenser’s Epithalamion
*modeled after classical poets Sappho and Catullus: invocation of Muses; description of wedding; and comsummation
*a “wedding” of classical convention with the 16th century sonnet form, esp. the story of Narcissus and Echo
*also related to the carpe diem tradition (pg. 252 lines 296+ “Now”)
*note end of Epithalamion (paradox)
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Sonnets by Shakespeare and Spenser; and Epithalamion
Lecture Outline
*Narcissus and Echo
*Shakespeare and Spenser take on the conventions
~writing
~blazon
~contraries
~New conventions? Life as Theatre and Consummation
*the addition on the Epithalamion
Narcissus and Echo
From http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/Classics/OvidEchoNarcissus.htm
*See Shakespeare’s sonnet 1 as an extension of Narcissus and Echo; also Epithalamion
Shakespeare and Spenser (sometimes) Take on the Conventions
Writing
*Shakespeare 55 (459)
*Spenser 1, 3 (pg 244); 75 (pg 247)
Blazon
*Spenser 15 (pg. 244); but in contrast Epithalamion pg. 250 lines 171-180
*Shakespeare 106 (463) and 130 (465)
Contraries
*Spenser 26 (245)
*Shakespeare 138 (465)
Time / mortality trope
*Shakespeare 12 (456); 16 (457); 18 (457); esp. 71 (460) and 74 (461)
New Conventions??
Life as Theatre
*Spenser 54 (345)
*Shakespeare 23 (458)
Separation from the Beloved / Revised as Consummation
Shakespeare Sonnet 20 (457-8)
Rima 190 (Spenser version pg 246, sonnet 67)
Petrarch (), Rima 190 (Italian)
Una candida cerva sopra l'erba
Verde m'apparve, con duo corna d'oro
Fra due riviere, a l'umbra d'un alloro,
Levando 'l sole, a la stagione acerba.
Era sua vista si solce superba,
Ch'i' lasciai per seguirla ogni lavoro;
Come l'avaro che 'n cercar tesoro
Con diletto l'affanno disacerba.
'Nessun mi tocchi.' al bel collo d'intorno
Scritto avea di diamanti e di topazi;
'Libera farmi al mio Cesare parve.'
Et era 'l sol gia volto al mezzo giorno;
Gli occhi miei stanchi di mirar, non sazi;
Quand'io caddi ne l'acqua, at ella sparve.
Petrarch (), Rima 190 (English)
A white hind in a green glade
Appeared to me, with two gold horns,
Between two streams, in the shade of a laurel
At sunrise, in a bitterly cold season.
Her appearance was so sweetly haughty
That I left any work I had to follow her,
Like the miser who, looking for treasure,
Sweetens his bitterness with delight.
'Touch me not.' around her lovely neck
Was written with stones of diamond and topaz,
'It has please my lord to set me free.'
And the sun was already turned toward noon;
My weary eyes hadn't had enough of admiring,
When I fell in the water, and she was gone.
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, alas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I, by no means, my wearied mind
Draw from the dear, but as she fleeth afore,
Fainting I follow. I leave off, therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put them out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about,
'Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'
Based on Petrarch's Rima 190
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), Amoretti 67
Lyke as a huntsman after weary chase,
Seeing the game from him escapt away
Sits downe to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds beguiled of their pray:
So after long pursuit and vaine assay,
When I all weary had the chace forsooke,
The gentile deare returnd the selfe-same way,
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke.
There she beholding me with mylder looke,
Sought not to fly, but fearelesse still did bide:
Till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke,
And with her owne goodwill hir fyrmely tyde.
Strange thing me seemd to see a beast so wylf,
So goodly wonne with her owne will beguyld.
Based on Petrarch's Rima 190
Spenser’s Epithalamion
*modeled after classical poets Sappho and Catullus: invocation of Muses; description of wedding; and comsummation
*a “wedding” of classical convention with the 16th century sonnet form, esp. the story of Narcissus and Echo
*also related to the carpe diem tradition (pg. 252 lines 296+ “Now”)
*note end of Epithalamion (paradox)
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Lecture Notes, Thusday, June 5: The Defense of Poesy and Astrophil and Stella
5 June 2008
Lecture Notes
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Philip Sidney, The Defence of Poesy and Astrophil and Stella
Outline
*The Defence of Poesy
~structure and argument
~major ideas
*Astrophil and Stella: an Offence of Poetry?
~backstory
~the book of nature
~relationship of art and experience
~interior world of the poet vs. social world
The Defence of Poesy
Structure
*Intro: the horseman’s self-promotion
*pg. 260-261 the relationship of poetry to philosophy and history
*261 their reliance on poetry: “neither philospher nor historiographer could at the first have entered into the gates of popular judgements if they had not taken a great passport of poetry”
*history of poetry: 261 “vates” (prophet) and Greek term for “poet” (maker)
*263 purpose of poetry (teach and delight)
*types of poetry: divine, philosophical, and (264) poets of “invention” (no verse required)
*265 knocks down philosophers and historians as contenders for the prize of best type of moralizer (265, adds laywers into the mix)
*266+ the benefit of “feigned example”
*270 a mini conclusion, top left of page
*the capacity of poetry to “move”
*causing its audience to take in the moral lesson even if they don’t realize it (271)
*272-4 types of poetry: Pastoral, Elegaic, satire (Iambic), Comic, Tragic, Lyric*, Heroical
*275L summary of argument thus far
*276+ objections lodged against poets
*276-7 they waste time; they lie; they abuseth men’s wit
*277-8 the best tools can be used for ill
*the philosphers are jealous of poetry and poets
*poets follow culture
*281 the final section of the defence: the enquiry into England
*English language is fully capable BUT
*playwrights are irresponsible
*songs and sonnets aren’t that nice
Major ideas
*natural philosphy (sciences), philosophy, history, depend on nature as their objects, but (262)
“Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow in effect into another nature, in making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were in nature…so as he goes hand in hand with nature, not enclosed within the narrow wrrant of her gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit.”
*Relation between the poet as maker and god as maker (263)
“Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison to balance the highest point of man’s wit with the efficacy of nature; but rather give right honor to the heavenly maker of that maker, who, having made man to his own lieness, set him beyond and over all the works of that second nature: which in nothing he showeth so much as in poetry, when with the force of a divine breath he bringeth things forth surpassing her doings – with no small arguments to the incredulous of that first accused fall of Adam, since our erected wit maketh us know what perfectin is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching unto it.”
*Poetry’s purpose (263):
“Poesy is an art of imitation…that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth – to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture – with this end, to teach and delight.”
*Method (264):
“For these third be they [poets who use invention / imagination] which most properly do imitate to teach & delight, and to imitate borrow nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be; but range, only reined with learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be and should be.”
*the violence of poetry (266)
“the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description, which doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul so much as that other doth”
*Aristotle’s definitions (268)
“poesy dealeth with…the universal consideration, and the history with…the particular.” – slippage in Sidney’s ideas vs Aristotle’s – “universal condition” vs. “as it should be”
Astrophil and Stella
*note idea of the book of nature
*defense of poesy 276-7 – how does Sidney’s poetry compare to the defense he offers here? Compare also to his further thoughts on English songs and sonnets, 285
*backstory
*the book of nature
*relationship of art and experience
*interior world of the poet vs. social world
Workshop: essay writing
How to Build an Essay
1. Before you begin writing:
* choose a topic you like, applied to a work you enjoy or are interested in/challenged by
* read or re-read the text, jot down some first thoughts
* consider what the topic means to you
* let it ferment
Fermentation means giving the ideas you’ve absorbed time to filter through your thoughts and for your mind to make the connections between different points in the text. Taking a break in between steps of the researching and writing process is to my way of thinking the single most important and helpful thing you can do. It’s not procrastination – you’re just taking a step back from intensive engagement with the work so your mind can do its thing. Especially when the topic of your research is literature, this process is intuitive, not logical.
Good things to do while you let things ferment: anything repetitive that does not fully engage your logic circuits. Driving, laundry, cleaning, gardening, going for a hike, cooking, putting on music and dancing around – anything relatively solitary that gives you space to process your ideas without actively engaging them is great. This way, you can create the space you need to have a flash of inspiration.
2. Gathering evidence, preliminary thoughts, outlining:
* return to the text
* organize your findings
* build your essay outline from the evidence up
* let the text speak for itself
* tentative thesis statement
* let it ferment
3. Writing
* compose a first draft, following your outline if possible, deviating from it where your developing ideas or discoveries dictate
* include the following components:
~ intro paragraph(s), with statement of topic preliminary thesis, and brief outline of
argument
~ as many body paragraphs as necessary to make your argument work. Each body
paragraph should include the following:
~a topic sentence telling your reader how the paragraph will fit into your overall
argument
~ evidence from the text to support your point
~ some discussion of why that evidence is significant
~ and a mini-conclusion statement that wraps up the point of the paragraph
~ a conclusion
As you write, Consider William G. Perry’s description of the writing process: “First you make a mess, then you clean it up.”
* LET IT FERMENT
4. Revision
* view revision as a distinct task from writing
* it’s better to remove and refine than to add during revision
* clean up loose ends—you can’t say everything in an essay
* make sure that each paragraph has what it needs
~ focus on refining your thesis and making your introduction as strong as possible
~ preserve forward momentum
* let it ferment
* re-read, revisit, and revise again until you feel it’s as good as it can be
5. Notes on Style
* keep it simple: bigger is not better when it comes to vocabulary
* complex ideas can be explained simply
* explain yourself as clearly as possible
Sample opening paragraphs
1.
The revenge tragedy is a common genre of literary works. A revenge tragedy “in Seneca’s tragedies horrifying events take place offstage (and are only reported by the actors); in Elizabethan Senecan tragedies, pitched at a popular audience, events are brought on stage for the audience to see and experience. This form of Senecan tragedy is commonly called the revenge tragedy” (Bedford Glossary, 405). William Shakespeare created many great revenge tragedies one being Titus Andronicus. This revenge tragedy depicts many different schemes characters plot for revenge upon each other. The two main characters, Titus, a Roman general, and Tamora, the queen of the Goths (and later the Empress of Rome), display the true significance of enemies. The revenge against each other becomes a constant conspiracy to harm each other. This eventually leads to the downfall of both these characters but it leaves one question to be answered. Who is the tragic hero in Titus Andronicus, Titus or Tamora?
2.
Time is evidently central to the plot of Shakespeare’s Macbeth from the beginning, with the initial prophecies of the three witches, and Banquo’s subsequent inquiry into his own future: “If you can look into the seeds of time, / And say which grains will grow, and which will not, / Speak, then, to me” (1.3.57). As Scotland descends into a realm of darkness, the land is terrorized by raging storms and “unnatural” happenings. Temporality and nature are paralleled, both reflecting the effects of evil deeds upon the earth and upon the future. Ghostly visits layer past upon present and alter the future by planting seeds that sprout into paranoid delusions inside the villainous minds of Macbeth and the Lady Macbeth at his side. When Macbeth commits murder to obtain the crown, nature and time become disoriented and it is not until the final act that “the time is free” (5.8.55), and the world is restored to order at last.
3.
In modern literature the underdog character is a treasured favourite. Readers love the average man beating the odds and rising above his allotted station in life. In 17th century Britain the opposite is true: the underdog is feared and despised because his attempts for success destabilizes the highly rigid social structure. With this view in mind, the hero is the common man who knows his place and is content with his lot in life. The villain is the disruptive person either with aspirations above his station, or deemed unworthy of his status. In this situation sympathy is developed for the deserving average man, who fulfils his role in society by simply knowing and maintaining his place. Disdain is engendered for the overreaching villain who attempts to disrupt the known social structure and who aspires to a greater status. In The Alchemist by Ben Jonson, The Wonderfull Yeare by Thomas Dekker and “The Learned Wife” by John Dryden, the authors emphasize the belief that those who strive to improve their social stature should not succeed. In order to effectively demonstrate their point, the authors use a variety of literary techniques to manufacture enmity for those characters failing to fit in with approved social standards. The ending for each character, the language used to describe the particular characters and the type of humour used in relation to the characters are exploited by the authors to display a definite opinion on the quality of certain characters in their respective works. These also serve as warnings to the readers of their works on the danger of overreaching their social status.
4.
In the works of both Shakespeare and Jonson, many strong female characters appear. In Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, and All’s Well that Ends Well, and in Jonson’s Epicene, the female characters are portrayed as the opposite to the ‘silent woman’ type. In both Shakespeare and Jonson, the women are characterized, for the most part positively, as strong women who are rewarded by the end of the plays for their break with the traditional feminine model. This will be made evident through the discussion of the characters of Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, and Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Helen and Diana in All’s Well that Ends Well, and Epicene, Mrs. Otter and the Ladies Collegiate in Epicene.
Lecture Notes
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Philip Sidney, The Defence of Poesy and Astrophil and Stella
Outline
*The Defence of Poesy
~structure and argument
~major ideas
*Astrophil and Stella: an Offence of Poetry?
~backstory
~the book of nature
~relationship of art and experience
~interior world of the poet vs. social world
The Defence of Poesy
Structure
*Intro: the horseman’s self-promotion
*pg. 260-261 the relationship of poetry to philosophy and history
*261 their reliance on poetry: “neither philospher nor historiographer could at the first have entered into the gates of popular judgements if they had not taken a great passport of poetry”
*history of poetry: 261 “vates” (prophet) and Greek term for “poet” (maker)
*263 purpose of poetry (teach and delight)
*types of poetry: divine, philosophical, and (264) poets of “invention” (no verse required)
*265 knocks down philosophers and historians as contenders for the prize of best type of moralizer (265, adds laywers into the mix)
*266+ the benefit of “feigned example”
*270 a mini conclusion, top left of page
*the capacity of poetry to “move”
*causing its audience to take in the moral lesson even if they don’t realize it (271)
*272-4 types of poetry: Pastoral, Elegaic, satire (Iambic), Comic, Tragic, Lyric*, Heroical
*275L summary of argument thus far
*276+ objections lodged against poets
*276-7 they waste time; they lie; they abuseth men’s wit
*277-8 the best tools can be used for ill
*the philosphers are jealous of poetry and poets
*poets follow culture
*281 the final section of the defence: the enquiry into England
*English language is fully capable BUT
*playwrights are irresponsible
*songs and sonnets aren’t that nice
Major ideas
*natural philosphy (sciences), philosophy, history, depend on nature as their objects, but (262)
“Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow in effect into another nature, in making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were in nature…so as he goes hand in hand with nature, not enclosed within the narrow wrrant of her gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit.”
*Relation between the poet as maker and god as maker (263)
“Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison to balance the highest point of man’s wit with the efficacy of nature; but rather give right honor to the heavenly maker of that maker, who, having made man to his own lieness, set him beyond and over all the works of that second nature: which in nothing he showeth so much as in poetry, when with the force of a divine breath he bringeth things forth surpassing her doings – with no small arguments to the incredulous of that first accused fall of Adam, since our erected wit maketh us know what perfectin is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching unto it.”
*Poetry’s purpose (263):
“Poesy is an art of imitation…that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth – to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture – with this end, to teach and delight.”
*Method (264):
“For these third be they [poets who use invention / imagination] which most properly do imitate to teach & delight, and to imitate borrow nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be; but range, only reined with learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be and should be.”
*the violence of poetry (266)
“the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description, which doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul so much as that other doth”
*Aristotle’s definitions (268)
“poesy dealeth with…the universal consideration, and the history with…the particular.” – slippage in Sidney’s ideas vs Aristotle’s – “universal condition” vs. “as it should be”
Astrophil and Stella
*note idea of the book of nature
*defense of poesy 276-7 – how does Sidney’s poetry compare to the defense he offers here? Compare also to his further thoughts on English songs and sonnets, 285
*backstory
*the book of nature
*relationship of art and experience
*interior world of the poet vs. social world
Workshop: essay writing
How to Build an Essay
1. Before you begin writing:
* choose a topic you like, applied to a work you enjoy or are interested in/challenged by
* read or re-read the text, jot down some first thoughts
* consider what the topic means to you
* let it ferment
Fermentation means giving the ideas you’ve absorbed time to filter through your thoughts and for your mind to make the connections between different points in the text. Taking a break in between steps of the researching and writing process is to my way of thinking the single most important and helpful thing you can do. It’s not procrastination – you’re just taking a step back from intensive engagement with the work so your mind can do its thing. Especially when the topic of your research is literature, this process is intuitive, not logical.
Good things to do while you let things ferment: anything repetitive that does not fully engage your logic circuits. Driving, laundry, cleaning, gardening, going for a hike, cooking, putting on music and dancing around – anything relatively solitary that gives you space to process your ideas without actively engaging them is great. This way, you can create the space you need to have a flash of inspiration.
2. Gathering evidence, preliminary thoughts, outlining:
* return to the text
* organize your findings
* build your essay outline from the evidence up
* let the text speak for itself
* tentative thesis statement
* let it ferment
3. Writing
* compose a first draft, following your outline if possible, deviating from it where your developing ideas or discoveries dictate
* include the following components:
~ intro paragraph(s), with statement of topic preliminary thesis, and brief outline of
argument
~ as many body paragraphs as necessary to make your argument work. Each body
paragraph should include the following:
~a topic sentence telling your reader how the paragraph will fit into your overall
argument
~ evidence from the text to support your point
~ some discussion of why that evidence is significant
~ and a mini-conclusion statement that wraps up the point of the paragraph
~ a conclusion
As you write, Consider William G. Perry’s description of the writing process: “First you make a mess, then you clean it up.”
* LET IT FERMENT
4. Revision
* view revision as a distinct task from writing
* it’s better to remove and refine than to add during revision
* clean up loose ends—you can’t say everything in an essay
* make sure that each paragraph has what it needs
~ focus on refining your thesis and making your introduction as strong as possible
~ preserve forward momentum
* let it ferment
* re-read, revisit, and revise again until you feel it’s as good as it can be
5. Notes on Style
* keep it simple: bigger is not better when it comes to vocabulary
* complex ideas can be explained simply
* explain yourself as clearly as possible
Sample opening paragraphs
1.
The revenge tragedy is a common genre of literary works. A revenge tragedy “in Seneca’s tragedies horrifying events take place offstage (and are only reported by the actors); in Elizabethan Senecan tragedies, pitched at a popular audience, events are brought on stage for the audience to see and experience. This form of Senecan tragedy is commonly called the revenge tragedy” (Bedford Glossary, 405). William Shakespeare created many great revenge tragedies one being Titus Andronicus. This revenge tragedy depicts many different schemes characters plot for revenge upon each other. The two main characters, Titus, a Roman general, and Tamora, the queen of the Goths (and later the Empress of Rome), display the true significance of enemies. The revenge against each other becomes a constant conspiracy to harm each other. This eventually leads to the downfall of both these characters but it leaves one question to be answered. Who is the tragic hero in Titus Andronicus, Titus or Tamora?
2.
Time is evidently central to the plot of Shakespeare’s Macbeth from the beginning, with the initial prophecies of the three witches, and Banquo’s subsequent inquiry into his own future: “If you can look into the seeds of time, / And say which grains will grow, and which will not, / Speak, then, to me” (1.3.57). As Scotland descends into a realm of darkness, the land is terrorized by raging storms and “unnatural” happenings. Temporality and nature are paralleled, both reflecting the effects of evil deeds upon the earth and upon the future. Ghostly visits layer past upon present and alter the future by planting seeds that sprout into paranoid delusions inside the villainous minds of Macbeth and the Lady Macbeth at his side. When Macbeth commits murder to obtain the crown, nature and time become disoriented and it is not until the final act that “the time is free” (5.8.55), and the world is restored to order at last.
3.
In modern literature the underdog character is a treasured favourite. Readers love the average man beating the odds and rising above his allotted station in life. In 17th century Britain the opposite is true: the underdog is feared and despised because his attempts for success destabilizes the highly rigid social structure. With this view in mind, the hero is the common man who knows his place and is content with his lot in life. The villain is the disruptive person either with aspirations above his station, or deemed unworthy of his status. In this situation sympathy is developed for the deserving average man, who fulfils his role in society by simply knowing and maintaining his place. Disdain is engendered for the overreaching villain who attempts to disrupt the known social structure and who aspires to a greater status. In The Alchemist by Ben Jonson, The Wonderfull Yeare by Thomas Dekker and “The Learned Wife” by John Dryden, the authors emphasize the belief that those who strive to improve their social stature should not succeed. In order to effectively demonstrate their point, the authors use a variety of literary techniques to manufacture enmity for those characters failing to fit in with approved social standards. The ending for each character, the language used to describe the particular characters and the type of humour used in relation to the characters are exploited by the authors to display a definite opinion on the quality of certain characters in their respective works. These also serve as warnings to the readers of their works on the danger of overreaching their social status.
4.
In the works of both Shakespeare and Jonson, many strong female characters appear. In Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, and All’s Well that Ends Well, and in Jonson’s Epicene, the female characters are portrayed as the opposite to the ‘silent woman’ type. In both Shakespeare and Jonson, the women are characterized, for the most part positively, as strong women who are rewarded by the end of the plays for their break with the traditional feminine model. This will be made evident through the discussion of the characters of Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, and Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Helen and Diana in All’s Well that Ends Well, and Epicene, Mrs. Otter and the Ladies Collegiate in Epicene.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Lecture Notes, Tuesday, June 3: Elizabethan Sonnet and Lyric
3 June 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
The Elizabethan Sonnet and Lyric
Lecture Outline
*how did poetry circulate?
*lyric as song
*sonnet (“little song”) form (Petrarchan and English / Shakespearean)
*how to read a sonnet (mechanics of reading)
*how to read a sonnet well
*find the sonnet themes
*workshop: essay writing
How did poetry circulate?
*print and manuscript
Lyric as Song
*major themes: love, desire, absence, usually = relationship of the narrator to a woman / women
Come again, sweet love
Come again, sweet love doth now invite,
thy graces that refrain to do me due delight.
To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die
with thee again in sweetest sympathy
Come again, that I may cease to mourn
through thy unkind disdain for now left and forlorn.
I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die,
in deadly pain and endless misery
Gentle love, draw forth thy wounding dart:
Thou canst not pierce her heart;
For I that do approve. By sighs
and tears more hot than are thy shafts,
did tempt while she for scanty tryumphs laughs
Beauty Is But A Painted Hell
Beauty is but a painted hell;
Aye me, Aye me,
Shee wounds them that admire it,
Shee kils them that desire it.
Give her pride but fuell,
No fire is more cruell.
Pittie from ev'ry heart is fled:
Aye me, aye me,
Since false desire could borrow
Teares of dissembled sorrow,
Constant vows turn truthlesse,
Love cruele, Beauty ruthlesse.
Sorrow can laugh, and Fury sing:
Aye me, aye me,
My raving griefes discover
I liv'd too true a lover:
The first step to madnesse
Is the excesse of sadnesse.
I care not for these ladies
I care not for these ladies
That must be woo'd and pray'd
Give me sweet Amaryllis
The wanton country maid,
Nature Art disdaineth,
Her beauty is her own:
Chorus:
And when we court and kiss
She cries 'Forsooth, let go!'
But when we come where comfort is
She never will say no.
If I love Amaryllis
She brings me fruit and flowers
But if we love these ladies
We must bring golden showers
Give them gold that sell love
Give me the nut-brown lass
Chorus
These ladies must have pillows
And beds by strangers wrought
Give me a bow'r of willows
Of moss and leaves unbought,
And fresh Amaryllis
On milk and honey fed
Chorus
Sonnet (“little song”) form (Petrarchan and English / Shakespearean)
*Petrarchan: octave (8) + sestet (6)
*English: 3 quatrains (groups of 4 lines) + couplet
*So what?
*Knowing which form you’re dealing with will help you know what expect from the content
e.g.:
*pg 123, Petrarch’s Sonnet 134 in the Italian
*pg. 123 Wyatt’s version of 134 – close to the Petrarchan form
*pg 108 Wyatt’s sonnet 11 Whoso list to hunt
*pg. 126, Samuel Daniel’s Sonnet 6 from Delia
*pg 123, Surrey’s translation of Petrarch’s sonnet 140 – a weird mix of the two forms?
How to read a sonnet (mechanics of reading)
*identify what kind of sonnet you’re dealing with
*Look for repetition and expansion of the same themes from section to section
*Or track changes / introduction of new elements from section to section
*Questions to ask: ~what is the overall message of the sonnet?
~what is the overall impact of the sonnet?
(not necessarily the same as message)
e.g.:
*pg. 127, Daniel’s sonnet 33 (When men shall find thy flower)
*pg. 127, Drayton’s sonnet 61 from Idea (Since there’s no help)
How to read a sonnet well
*pg. 128-129 Barnfield, sonnet 14 from Cynthia
Find the sonnet themes
*retracing the sonnets we’ve gone over today (maybe also Surrey’s Love the Doth Reign, 118)
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
The Elizabethan Sonnet and Lyric
Lecture Outline
*how did poetry circulate?
*lyric as song
*sonnet (“little song”) form (Petrarchan and English / Shakespearean)
*how to read a sonnet (mechanics of reading)
*how to read a sonnet well
*find the sonnet themes
*workshop: essay writing
How did poetry circulate?
*print and manuscript
Lyric as Song
*major themes: love, desire, absence, usually = relationship of the narrator to a woman / women
Come again, sweet love
Come again, sweet love doth now invite,
thy graces that refrain to do me due delight.
To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die
with thee again in sweetest sympathy
Come again, that I may cease to mourn
through thy unkind disdain for now left and forlorn.
I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die,
in deadly pain and endless misery
Gentle love, draw forth thy wounding dart:
Thou canst not pierce her heart;
For I that do approve. By sighs
and tears more hot than are thy shafts,
did tempt while she for scanty tryumphs laughs
Beauty Is But A Painted Hell
Beauty is but a painted hell;
Aye me, Aye me,
Shee wounds them that admire it,
Shee kils them that desire it.
Give her pride but fuell,
No fire is more cruell.
Pittie from ev'ry heart is fled:
Aye me, aye me,
Since false desire could borrow
Teares of dissembled sorrow,
Constant vows turn truthlesse,
Love cruele, Beauty ruthlesse.
Sorrow can laugh, and Fury sing:
Aye me, aye me,
My raving griefes discover
I liv'd too true a lover:
The first step to madnesse
Is the excesse of sadnesse.
I care not for these ladies
I care not for these ladies
That must be woo'd and pray'd
Give me sweet Amaryllis
The wanton country maid,
Nature Art disdaineth,
Her beauty is her own:
Chorus:
And when we court and kiss
She cries 'Forsooth, let go!'
But when we come where comfort is
She never will say no.
If I love Amaryllis
She brings me fruit and flowers
But if we love these ladies
We must bring golden showers
Give them gold that sell love
Give me the nut-brown lass
Chorus
These ladies must have pillows
And beds by strangers wrought
Give me a bow'r of willows
Of moss and leaves unbought,
And fresh Amaryllis
On milk and honey fed
Chorus
Sonnet (“little song”) form (Petrarchan and English / Shakespearean)
*Petrarchan: octave (8) + sestet (6)
*English: 3 quatrains (groups of 4 lines) + couplet
*So what?
*Knowing which form you’re dealing with will help you know what expect from the content
e.g.:
*pg 123, Petrarch’s Sonnet 134 in the Italian
*pg. 123 Wyatt’s version of 134 – close to the Petrarchan form
*pg 108 Wyatt’s sonnet 11 Whoso list to hunt
*pg. 126, Samuel Daniel’s Sonnet 6 from Delia
*pg 123, Surrey’s translation of Petrarch’s sonnet 140 – a weird mix of the two forms?
How to read a sonnet (mechanics of reading)
*identify what kind of sonnet you’re dealing with
*Look for repetition and expansion of the same themes from section to section
*Or track changes / introduction of new elements from section to section
*Questions to ask: ~what is the overall message of the sonnet?
~what is the overall impact of the sonnet?
(not necessarily the same as message)
e.g.:
*pg. 127, Daniel’s sonnet 33 (When men shall find thy flower)
*pg. 127, Drayton’s sonnet 61 from Idea (Since there’s no help)
How to read a sonnet well
*pg. 128-129 Barnfield, sonnet 14 from Cynthia
Find the sonnet themes
*retracing the sonnets we’ve gone over today (maybe also Surrey’s Love the Doth Reign, 118)
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Lecture Notes, Thursday, May 29: All's Well part deux
29 May 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
All’s Well the Ends Well part deux
Lecture Outline
* the “problem” plays
* themes:
~Helena climbs the great chain of being (upward social mobility)
~Langue et Parolles (language)
~Bertram’s challenge
~The performance of masculinity
~The performance of virginity and pregnancy
Problem Plays
* All’s Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida
* Term coined by F. S. Boas in 1896’s Shakespeare and His Predecessors
* a play that tackles a moral issue of its day
* the “problem” also lies in the play’s incomplete resolution / mixed tone
ACT 1
*Helena’s first long speech, 1.1.84-110 reveals her situation
*1.1.222-35 expresses her intention to climb the chain of being
* 1.3.130-270 The Countess sides with Helena, see esp. end of scene and 130-138
*140 Countess’s declaration: “You know, Helen, I am a mother to you.”
*173 “God shield you not mean it.”
* Helen’s confession 201
* Helen’s medical inheritance from her father 233-243
* Her less-than-detailed rationale as to why the king would accept Helen as a healer, 256-265
ACT 2
*The King’s warning against the girls of Italy, 2.1.21-24
*2.1.80 + LaFew’s introduction of Helen, esp. 110-114: “I am Cressid’s uncle”
* 2.1.190-94 Helen’s promise to the King
*2.1.214-221 Helen sets her terms
*The healing of the French king – how does it happen?
*2.3.114-116 Bertram protests
*2.3.128-155 The king’s redefinition of honour
*Parolles 2.3.201-280 – his fight with LaFew – note his downward trajectory in the play
Definition of “parole” in Saussure’s language theory:
The actual linguistic behaviour or performance of individuals on specific occasions, in contrast to language viewed as an abstract system (cf. LANGUE n. 3); the practice of using a language; spoken (or written) utterance.
*2.3.282-308 Bertram’s soldierly sexuality
*2.3.314 “A young man married is a man that’s marred.”
*2.5 LaFew warns Bertram against Parolles
*44-5 “The soul of this man is his clothes.”
*2.5.24-7 “tonight [I’ll] end ere I begin.”
ACT 3
*Bertram’s letter to his mom 3.2.19-26
*56-62 His challenge to Helen
*3.4.4-17 Helen leaves on pilgrimage
*3.5 Diana – see also Helen’s invocation to Diana 1.3.115 (in Steward’s speech 107-
121) Is Diana’s name evidence of Helen’s virginity?
*3.5 Ladies’ reaction to Parolles 105-109, and 110, hint of Helena’s plan
*3.6 the plot to embarrass Parolles
3.7 Helen plans while Diana is silent
ACT 4
*4.2 Diana’s deconstruction of Bertram 36-7 “your oaths / Are words”
*4.3.49-55 the report of the death of Helen
4.3.52-62 Parolles’s undoing and humilation
4.5.34-40 “All’s well that ends well.”
ACT 5
5.2 Parolles stripped
5.3 The end – is it well? Bertram’s sudden change (clip)
*the two rings, 5.3.85 and forward
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
All’s Well the Ends Well part deux
Lecture Outline
* the “problem” plays
* themes:
~Helena climbs the great chain of being (upward social mobility)
~Langue et Parolles (language)
~Bertram’s challenge
~The performance of masculinity
~The performance of virginity and pregnancy
Problem Plays
* All’s Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida
* Term coined by F. S. Boas in 1896’s Shakespeare and His Predecessors
* a play that tackles a moral issue of its day
* the “problem” also lies in the play’s incomplete resolution / mixed tone
ACT 1
*Helena’s first long speech, 1.1.84-110 reveals her situation
*1.1.222-35 expresses her intention to climb the chain of being
* 1.3.130-270 The Countess sides with Helena, see esp. end of scene and 130-138
*140 Countess’s declaration: “You know, Helen, I am a mother to you.”
*173 “God shield you not mean it.”
* Helen’s confession 201
* Helen’s medical inheritance from her father 233-243
* Her less-than-detailed rationale as to why the king would accept Helen as a healer, 256-265
ACT 2
*The King’s warning against the girls of Italy, 2.1.21-24
*2.1.80 + LaFew’s introduction of Helen, esp. 110-114: “I am Cressid’s uncle”
* 2.1.190-94 Helen’s promise to the King
*2.1.214-221 Helen sets her terms
*The healing of the French king – how does it happen?
*2.3.114-116 Bertram protests
*2.3.128-155 The king’s redefinition of honour
*Parolles 2.3.201-280 – his fight with LaFew – note his downward trajectory in the play
Definition of “parole” in Saussure’s language theory:
The actual linguistic behaviour or performance of individuals on specific occasions, in contrast to language viewed as an abstract system (cf. LANGUE n. 3); the practice of using a language; spoken (or written) utterance.
*2.3.282-308 Bertram’s soldierly sexuality
*2.3.314 “A young man married is a man that’s marred.”
*2.5 LaFew warns Bertram against Parolles
*44-5 “The soul of this man is his clothes.”
*2.5.24-7 “tonight [I’ll] end ere I begin.”
ACT 3
*Bertram’s letter to his mom 3.2.19-26
*56-62 His challenge to Helen
*3.4.4-17 Helen leaves on pilgrimage
*3.5 Diana – see also Helen’s invocation to Diana 1.3.115 (in Steward’s speech 107-
121) Is Diana’s name evidence of Helen’s virginity?
*3.5 Ladies’ reaction to Parolles 105-109, and 110, hint of Helena’s plan
*3.6 the plot to embarrass Parolles
3.7 Helen plans while Diana is silent
ACT 4
*4.2 Diana’s deconstruction of Bertram 36-7 “your oaths / Are words”
*4.3.49-55 the report of the death of Helen
4.3.52-62 Parolles’s undoing and humilation
4.5.34-40 “All’s well that ends well.”
ACT 5
5.2 Parolles stripped
5.3 The end – is it well? Bertram’s sudden change (clip)
*the two rings, 5.3.85 and forward
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
How to Build an Essay
For several years, I've been developing a protocol for students as they approach the task of essay writing. My experience with the task of writing an essay is that it's much easier to produce something meaningful (and to have a nice time doing it) if you take it in stages. I'll probably discuss this protocol in class on Thursday, but if you're looking for some help right now, here are my two cents.
How to Build an Essay
1. Before you begin:
· choose a topic you like, applied to a work you enjoy or are interested in/challenged by
· read or re-read the text, jot down some first thoughts
· consider what the topic means to you
· let it ferment
2. Gathering evidence, preliminary thoughts, outlining:
· return to the text
This means skimming through it / rereading, and making notes (on paper or in a computer file) on passages that will help to formulate your opinion on the topic you've chosen. This means you don't begin with a thesis and then search for evidence to back it up. You let the text dictate the formation of your thesis.
· organize your findings
· build your essay outline from the evidence up
· let the text speak for itself
· tentative thesis statement
· let it ferment
Fermentation requires taking time in between stages so your mind can grind away at it. Go do something else instead: laundry, go for a hike, cook something. Repetitive tasks that don't engage your logical circuits are wonderful ways to give your brain room do what it needs to do to in order to formulate a good essay.
3. Writing
· compose a first draft, following your outline if possible, deviating from it where your developing ideas or discoveries dictate
· include the following components:
a) intro paragraph(s), with statement of topic, preliminary thesis, and brief outline of argument
b) as many body paragraphs as necessary to make your argument work. Each of these should include the following elements:
*a topic sentence telling your reader how the paragraph will fit into your overall argument *evidence from the text to support your point
*some discussion of why that evidence is significant
*and a mini-conclusion statement that wraps up the point of the paragraph
c) a conclusion
As you write, consider William G. Perry’s description of the writing process: “First you make a mess, then you clean it up.”
· LET IT FERMENT
4. Revision
· view revision as a distinct task from writing
· it’s better to remove items than to add during revision
· clean up loose ends—you can’t say everything in an essay
· make sure that each paragraph has what it needs
· focus on refining your thesis and making your introduction as strong as possible
· preserve forward momentum
· let it ferment
· re-read, revisit, and revise again
5. Notes on Style
· keep it simple: bigger is not better when it comes to vocabulary
· complex ideas can be explained simply
· explain yourself as clearly as possible
How to Build an Essay
1. Before you begin:
· choose a topic you like, applied to a work you enjoy or are interested in/challenged by
· read or re-read the text, jot down some first thoughts
· consider what the topic means to you
· let it ferment
2. Gathering evidence, preliminary thoughts, outlining:
· return to the text
This means skimming through it / rereading, and making notes (on paper or in a computer file) on passages that will help to formulate your opinion on the topic you've chosen. This means you don't begin with a thesis and then search for evidence to back it up. You let the text dictate the formation of your thesis.
· organize your findings
· build your essay outline from the evidence up
· let the text speak for itself
· tentative thesis statement
· let it ferment
Fermentation requires taking time in between stages so your mind can grind away at it. Go do something else instead: laundry, go for a hike, cook something. Repetitive tasks that don't engage your logical circuits are wonderful ways to give your brain room do what it needs to do to in order to formulate a good essay.
3. Writing
· compose a first draft, following your outline if possible, deviating from it where your developing ideas or discoveries dictate
· include the following components:
a) intro paragraph(s), with statement of topic, preliminary thesis, and brief outline of argument
b) as many body paragraphs as necessary to make your argument work. Each of these should include the following elements:
*a topic sentence telling your reader how the paragraph will fit into your overall argument *evidence from the text to support your point
*some discussion of why that evidence is significant
*and a mini-conclusion statement that wraps up the point of the paragraph
c) a conclusion
As you write, consider William G. Perry’s description of the writing process: “First you make a mess, then you clean it up.”
· LET IT FERMENT
4. Revision
· view revision as a distinct task from writing
· it’s better to remove items than to add during revision
· clean up loose ends—you can’t say everything in an essay
· make sure that each paragraph has what it needs
· focus on refining your thesis and making your introduction as strong as possible
· preserve forward momentum
· let it ferment
· re-read, revisit, and revise again
5. Notes on Style
· keep it simple: bigger is not better when it comes to vocabulary
· complex ideas can be explained simply
· explain yourself as clearly as possible
Essay Topics
Last night one of you asked me if I were planning to post essay topics online. All I can say is: oops! I handed essay topics out to the class a couple of weeks ago; I neglected to post them here. So here they are:
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Essay 1 Topics
Due date: June 12
Value: 15% of final grade
The completed essay should be 6-7 pages doublespaced. I will accept essays running between 5 ½ pages to 8 pages. If you are significantly under the 5 ½ page mark, I will deduct a percentage from your essay grade (based on the number of words you are underlength). If you have written more than 8 pages and they are less than totally brilliant, I will stop reading and grade what I have read up until that point. I encourage course participants to adapt topics or create their own. If you choose to adapt a topic or create your own, please you must do so in consultation with me.
1. One way to gauge a culture’s values is to consider where it draws the line between the natural and the cultural, artificial, unnatural, or supernatural. Choosing one or more of the course texts we have read so far, discuss the use of the terms “nature” and “natural” in them.
2. Consider the role of humour (i.e., satire, parody, statements intended to induce laughter) in one or more of the texts we’ve read so far this term. What sorts of things do 16th century authors hold up as amusing to their audiences? How is humour strategically used within a work? What does 16th century English humour indicate about English culture?
3. Analyse the role of self-presentation in one or more of the texts we’ve read so far this term. How do individuals strive to align themselves with, or break, social codes in this period? If you would like to look at portraiture or visual art as well as the readings, please do so.
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Essay 1 Topics
Due date: June 12
Value: 15% of final grade
The completed essay should be 6-7 pages doublespaced. I will accept essays running between 5 ½ pages to 8 pages. If you are significantly under the 5 ½ page mark, I will deduct a percentage from your essay grade (based on the number of words you are underlength). If you have written more than 8 pages and they are less than totally brilliant, I will stop reading and grade what I have read up until that point. I encourage course participants to adapt topics or create their own. If you choose to adapt a topic or create your own, please you must do so in consultation with me.
1. One way to gauge a culture’s values is to consider where it draws the line between the natural and the cultural, artificial, unnatural, or supernatural. Choosing one or more of the course texts we have read so far, discuss the use of the terms “nature” and “natural” in them.
2. Consider the role of humour (i.e., satire, parody, statements intended to induce laughter) in one or more of the texts we’ve read so far this term. What sorts of things do 16th century authors hold up as amusing to their audiences? How is humour strategically used within a work? What does 16th century English humour indicate about English culture?
3. Analyse the role of self-presentation in one or more of the texts we’ve read so far this term. How do individuals strive to align themselves with, or break, social codes in this period? If you would like to look at portraiture or visual art as well as the readings, please do so.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Lecture Notes, Tuesday, May 27: Shakespeare Background and Contexts
27 May 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Lecture Notes
Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well
Background on Shakespeare
All’s Well: Beginning and Contexts
Background on Shakespeare
Biographical details:
* Years: 1564-1616
* Born to a glovemaker, John Shakespeare, and Mary (Arden) in Stratford, England
* Grammar school education, classical education, Latin texts
* Married at 18 to Anne Hathaway (who was 26 and pregnant with their first daughter, Susanna
* Twins Hamnet and Judith followed (Hamnet d. 1596, age 11)
* 1585-1592 “lost years”
* Moved to London early 1590s (?), where he probably acted with the Queen’s Men, a theatre troup who worked and toured the provinces (plays included Famous Victories of Henry V and King Leir)
* Definitely there in 1592, when someone, probably fellow playwright Robert Greene, wrote a pamphlet that included an attack on Shakespeare:
“for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tyger’s hart wrapped in a Player’s hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totum [Jack-of-all-trades, Master of none], is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. O that I might entreate your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses: & let these Apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions.” ~Groats Worth of Witte, 1592
* 1590s made the transition to the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (founded 1594), as part-owner, actor, and playwright—this troup became The King’s Men when James I took the throne (1603)
* 1613 retires to Stratford
* dies 1616, famously leaving his wife the “second-best bed”
A Few Important Contexts:
* the development of English drama – touring companies through to the establishment of the London theatre with “The Theatre” in Shoreditch, 1576, dismantled 28 December 1598 to build the Globe
* the company system of playwriting
* the status of the actor
* the “all-male” stage
* The Protestant Reformation
* Elizabeth (reg. 1558-1603) and James I (1603-1625)
* Elizabeth inspired some of Shakespeare’s thoughts on beauty. From Twelfth Night 1.5:
'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and whiteNature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on
* Some critics argue James I is reflected in the Duke of Measure for Measure, and was the inspiration for Macbeth (the Scottish play)
Shakespeare Now
* Stephen Greenblatt: “How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare?”
* One answer: 1623 folio, collected by John Heminge and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s fellow actors in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men/ King’s Men*
* Images of Shakespeare from the past: Chandos portrait*, Sanders portrait (???)*
* Shakespearean pop*
Shakespeare in Reverse
* Charles Dickens (letter to William Sandys, June 13, 1847):
“The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery, and I tremble every day lest something should turn up!”
* Alexander Pope (1725):
“If ever any Author deserved the name of an Original, it was Shakespeare. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately from the fountains of Nature…The Poetry of Shakespeare was Inspiration indeed: he is not so much an Imitator as an Instrument of Nature; and ‘tis not so just to say that he speaks from her as that she speaks thro’ him.”
* John Oldmixon, on the habit of revising Shakespeare: an epilogue he wrote for the end of a performance of Measure for Measure (1700):
The Epilogue
Spoken by Shakespeare’s Ghost
Enough! Your Cruelty Alive I knew,
And must I Dead be Persecuted too?
Injur’d so much of late upon the Stage,
My Ghost can beear no more, but comes to Rage.
My Plays by Scriblers mangl’d I have Seen;
By Lifeless Actors Murder’d on the Scene.
* Charles Gildon, on the failure of Shakespeare to follow the unities (time, place, action) (1694):
[Gildon’s Question:]
Shall we therefore still admire Shakespeare, with these Learned and Ingenious Gentlemen…because he has not come close to the Rules Aristotle drew from the Practice of the Greek Poets…?
[His answer:]
The Vice of the Age it was that perverted many of his Characters in his other Plays. Nor cou’d it be avoided if he would have his Audience sit the Play out, and receivbe that Profit that is the chief end of all Poets.
* Thomas Rymer, from A Short View of Tragedy (1693), on the importance of Shakespeare’s language:
Many, peradventure, of the Tragical Scenes in Shakespeare cry’d up for the Action, might do yet better without words. Words are a sort of heavy baggage, that were better out of the way at the push of Action; especially in his bombast Circumstance, where the Words and Action are seldom akin, generally are inconsistent, at cross purposes, embarrass or destroy each other. Yet to those who take not the words distinctly there may be something in the buz [sic.] and sound that, like a drone to a Bagpipe, may serve to set off the Action.
* John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668):
To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too.
All’s Well: Beginning and Contexts
* Helena’s skill (1.1.18-24)
* Helena’s problem (1.1.84-103)
* Helena’s wit (1.1.111-171)
* The King’s illness (1.1.35)
* Source: Decameron
* Painter’s summary (Palace of Pleasures, 1575):
Giletta a phisician's doughter of Narbon, healed the Frenche Kyng of a fistula, for reward whereof she demaunded Beltramo Counte of Rossiglione to husbande. The Counte beying maried againste his will, for despite fled to Florence and loved an other. Giletta his wife, by pollicie founde meanes to lye with her husbande, in place of his lover, and was begotten with child of two sonnes: which knowen to her husbande, he received her againe, and afterwardes he lived in great honour and felicite.
* Boccaccio, Decameron (Florio’s 1620 translation)
It was noysed abroad by common report, that the King of France was in a very dangerous condition, by reason of a strange swelling on his stomacke, which failing of apt and convenient curing, became a Fistula, afflicting him daily with extraordinary paine and anguish, no Chirurgeon or Physitian being found, that could minister any hope of healing, but rather encreased the greefe, and drove it to more vehement extreamitie, compelling the King, as dispairing utterly of all helpe, to give over any further counsell or advice. Heereof faire Juliet was wondrously joyfull, as hoping that this accident would prove the meanes, not onely of her journey to Paris, but if the disease were no more then she imagined; she could easily cure it, and thereby compasse Count Bertrand to be her husband. Hereupon, quickning up her wits, with remembrance of those rules of Art, which (by long practise and experience) she had learned of her skilfull Father, she compounded certaine hearbes together, such as she knew fitting for that kinde of infirmity, and having reduced her compound into powder, away she rode forthwith to Paris.
Being there arrived, all other serious matters set aside, first shee must needs have a sight of Count Bertrand, as being the onely Saint that caused her pilgrimage. Next she made meanes for her accesse to the King, humbly entreating his Majesty, to vouchsafe her the sight of his Fistula. When the King saw her, her modest lookes did plainely deliver, that she was a faire, comely, and discreete young Gentlewoman; wherefore, he would no longer hide it, but layed it open to her view. When shee had seene and felt it, presently she put the King in comfort; affirming, that she knew her selfe able to cure his Fistula, saying: Sir, if your Highnesse will referre the matter to me, without any perill of life, or any the least paine to your person, I hope (by the helpe of heaven) to make you whole and sound within eight dayes space. The King hearing her words, beganne merrily to smile at her, saying: How is it possible for thee, being a yong Maiden, to do that which the best Physitians in Europe, are not able to performe? I commend thy kindnesse, and will not remaine unthankefull for thy forward willingnesse: but I am fully determined, to use no more counsell, or to make any further triall of Physicke or Chirurgery. Whereto faire Juliet thus replyed: Great King, let not my skill and experience be despised, because I am young, and a Maiden; for my profession is not Physicke, neither do I undertake the ministering thereof, as depending on mine owne knowledge; but by the gracious assistance of heaven, and some rules of skilfull observation, which I learned of reverend Gerard of Narbona who was my worthy Father, and a Physitian of no meane fame, all the while he lived.
At the hearing of these words, the King began somewhat to admire at her gracious carriage, and saide within himselfe. What know I, whether this Virgin is sent to me by the direction of heaven, or no? Why should I disdaine to make proofe of her skill? Her promise is, to cure me in a small times compasse, and without any paine or affliction to me: she shall not come so farre, to returne againe with the losse of he labour, I am resolved to try her cunning, and thereon saide. Faire Virgin, if you cause me to breake my setled determination, and faile of curing me, what can you expect to follow thereon? Whatsoever great King (quoth she) shall please you. Let me be strongly guarded, yet not hindered, when I am to prosecute the businesse: and then if I do not perfectly heale you within eight daies, let a good fire be made, and therein consume my body unto ashes. But if I accomplish the cure, and set your Highnesse free from all further greevance, what recompence then shall remaine to me?
* Context: John of Arderne and the alternative placement of the fistula
* King’s description of his illness, 2.1.132-142
* “backward” (1.1.194-206; 1.2.51-54)
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Lecture Notes
Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well
Background on Shakespeare
All’s Well: Beginning and Contexts
Background on Shakespeare
Biographical details:
* Years: 1564-1616
* Born to a glovemaker, John Shakespeare, and Mary (Arden) in Stratford, England
* Grammar school education, classical education, Latin texts
* Married at 18 to Anne Hathaway (who was 26 and pregnant with their first daughter, Susanna
* Twins Hamnet and Judith followed (Hamnet d. 1596, age 11)
* 1585-1592 “lost years”
* Moved to London early 1590s (?), where he probably acted with the Queen’s Men, a theatre troup who worked and toured the provinces (plays included Famous Victories of Henry V and King Leir)
* Definitely there in 1592, when someone, probably fellow playwright Robert Greene, wrote a pamphlet that included an attack on Shakespeare:
“for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tyger’s hart wrapped in a Player’s hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totum [Jack-of-all-trades, Master of none], is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. O that I might entreate your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses: & let these Apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions.” ~Groats Worth of Witte, 1592
* 1590s made the transition to the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (founded 1594), as part-owner, actor, and playwright—this troup became The King’s Men when James I took the throne (1603)
* 1613 retires to Stratford
* dies 1616, famously leaving his wife the “second-best bed”
A Few Important Contexts:
* the development of English drama – touring companies through to the establishment of the London theatre with “The Theatre” in Shoreditch, 1576, dismantled 28 December 1598 to build the Globe
* the company system of playwriting
* the status of the actor
* the “all-male” stage
* The Protestant Reformation
* Elizabeth (reg. 1558-1603) and James I (1603-1625)
* Elizabeth inspired some of Shakespeare’s thoughts on beauty. From Twelfth Night 1.5:
'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and whiteNature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on
* Some critics argue James I is reflected in the Duke of Measure for Measure, and was the inspiration for Macbeth (the Scottish play)
Shakespeare Now
* Stephen Greenblatt: “How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare?”
* One answer: 1623 folio, collected by John Heminge and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s fellow actors in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men/ King’s Men*
* Images of Shakespeare from the past: Chandos portrait*, Sanders portrait (???)*
* Shakespearean pop*
Shakespeare in Reverse
* Charles Dickens (letter to William Sandys, June 13, 1847):
“The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery, and I tremble every day lest something should turn up!”
* Alexander Pope (1725):
“If ever any Author deserved the name of an Original, it was Shakespeare. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately from the fountains of Nature…The Poetry of Shakespeare was Inspiration indeed: he is not so much an Imitator as an Instrument of Nature; and ‘tis not so just to say that he speaks from her as that she speaks thro’ him.”
* John Oldmixon, on the habit of revising Shakespeare: an epilogue he wrote for the end of a performance of Measure for Measure (1700):
The Epilogue
Spoken by Shakespeare’s Ghost
Enough! Your Cruelty Alive I knew,
And must I Dead be Persecuted too?
Injur’d so much of late upon the Stage,
My Ghost can beear no more, but comes to Rage.
My Plays by Scriblers mangl’d I have Seen;
By Lifeless Actors Murder’d on the Scene.
* Charles Gildon, on the failure of Shakespeare to follow the unities (time, place, action) (1694):
[Gildon’s Question:]
Shall we therefore still admire Shakespeare, with these Learned and Ingenious Gentlemen…because he has not come close to the Rules Aristotle drew from the Practice of the Greek Poets…?
[His answer:]
The Vice of the Age it was that perverted many of his Characters in his other Plays. Nor cou’d it be avoided if he would have his Audience sit the Play out, and receivbe that Profit that is the chief end of all Poets.
* Thomas Rymer, from A Short View of Tragedy (1693), on the importance of Shakespeare’s language:
Many, peradventure, of the Tragical Scenes in Shakespeare cry’d up for the Action, might do yet better without words. Words are a sort of heavy baggage, that were better out of the way at the push of Action; especially in his bombast Circumstance, where the Words and Action are seldom akin, generally are inconsistent, at cross purposes, embarrass or destroy each other. Yet to those who take not the words distinctly there may be something in the buz [sic.] and sound that, like a drone to a Bagpipe, may serve to set off the Action.
* John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668):
To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too.
All’s Well: Beginning and Contexts
* Helena’s skill (1.1.18-24)
* Helena’s problem (1.1.84-103)
* Helena’s wit (1.1.111-171)
* The King’s illness (1.1.35)
* Source: Decameron
* Painter’s summary (Palace of Pleasures, 1575):
Giletta a phisician's doughter of Narbon, healed the Frenche Kyng of a fistula, for reward whereof she demaunded Beltramo Counte of Rossiglione to husbande. The Counte beying maried againste his will, for despite fled to Florence and loved an other. Giletta his wife, by pollicie founde meanes to lye with her husbande, in place of his lover, and was begotten with child of two sonnes: which knowen to her husbande, he received her againe, and afterwardes he lived in great honour and felicite.
* Boccaccio, Decameron (Florio’s 1620 translation)
It was noysed abroad by common report, that the King of France was in a very dangerous condition, by reason of a strange swelling on his stomacke, which failing of apt and convenient curing, became a Fistula, afflicting him daily with extraordinary paine and anguish, no Chirurgeon or Physitian being found, that could minister any hope of healing, but rather encreased the greefe, and drove it to more vehement extreamitie, compelling the King, as dispairing utterly of all helpe, to give over any further counsell or advice. Heereof faire Juliet was wondrously joyfull, as hoping that this accident would prove the meanes, not onely of her journey to Paris, but if the disease were no more then she imagined; she could easily cure it, and thereby compasse Count Bertrand to be her husband. Hereupon, quickning up her wits, with remembrance of those rules of Art, which (by long practise and experience) she had learned of her skilfull Father, she compounded certaine hearbes together, such as she knew fitting for that kinde of infirmity, and having reduced her compound into powder, away she rode forthwith to Paris.
Being there arrived, all other serious matters set aside, first shee must needs have a sight of Count Bertrand, as being the onely Saint that caused her pilgrimage. Next she made meanes for her accesse to the King, humbly entreating his Majesty, to vouchsafe her the sight of his Fistula. When the King saw her, her modest lookes did plainely deliver, that she was a faire, comely, and discreete young Gentlewoman; wherefore, he would no longer hide it, but layed it open to her view. When shee had seene and felt it, presently she put the King in comfort; affirming, that she knew her selfe able to cure his Fistula, saying: Sir, if your Highnesse will referre the matter to me, without any perill of life, or any the least paine to your person, I hope (by the helpe of heaven) to make you whole and sound within eight dayes space. The King hearing her words, beganne merrily to smile at her, saying: How is it possible for thee, being a yong Maiden, to do that which the best Physitians in Europe, are not able to performe? I commend thy kindnesse, and will not remaine unthankefull for thy forward willingnesse: but I am fully determined, to use no more counsell, or to make any further triall of Physicke or Chirurgery. Whereto faire Juliet thus replyed: Great King, let not my skill and experience be despised, because I am young, and a Maiden; for my profession is not Physicke, neither do I undertake the ministering thereof, as depending on mine owne knowledge; but by the gracious assistance of heaven, and some rules of skilfull observation, which I learned of reverend Gerard of Narbona who was my worthy Father, and a Physitian of no meane fame, all the while he lived.
At the hearing of these words, the King began somewhat to admire at her gracious carriage, and saide within himselfe. What know I, whether this Virgin is sent to me by the direction of heaven, or no? Why should I disdaine to make proofe of her skill? Her promise is, to cure me in a small times compasse, and without any paine or affliction to me: she shall not come so farre, to returne againe with the losse of he labour, I am resolved to try her cunning, and thereon saide. Faire Virgin, if you cause me to breake my setled determination, and faile of curing me, what can you expect to follow thereon? Whatsoever great King (quoth she) shall please you. Let me be strongly guarded, yet not hindered, when I am to prosecute the businesse: and then if I do not perfectly heale you within eight daies, let a good fire be made, and therein consume my body unto ashes. But if I accomplish the cure, and set your Highnesse free from all further greevance, what recompence then shall remaine to me?
* Context: John of Arderne and the alternative placement of the fistula
* King’s description of his illness, 2.1.132-142
* “backward” (1.1.194-206; 1.2.51-54)
Monday, May 26, 2008
Reminder
Don't forget that if you haven't signed up for a pedagogy workshop yet, you should do so soon! I want to have the workshops solidified by Thursday the 29th. Info on which workshops are still available is here. If you have decided to be a wild card (i.e., you don't mind which workshop you end up in), please drop me a line and let me know that's what you've decided.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Information about the test on May 27th
For those of you who are visiting here in search of test info, I've collected all of the sample questions I went over in lecture and info about the test's format here.
If you're looking for lecture notes, they are posted under the date on which the lecture took place. Check the "Archive" listing in the left sidebar.
The test will take place in the first hour of class. You'll have an hour to write, and then we'll take a break and come back for some introductory info about All's Well that Ends Well.
The test will include six short answer questions (1 point each), and two medium answer questions (two points each), for a total of 10 points. The test is worth 5% of your final mark.
Note that the test is open book. That means open text and open notebook. Anything that has been assigned reading so far is fair game for the test, whether I discussed it in detail in lecture or not. So, bring your Broadview anthology and your copy of Thomas Nashe's works (including Pierce Penniless and The Terrors of the Night) so you can research your answers.
Sample Test Questions
These are the sample questions I gave you to try last week on Tuesday and Thursday.
Sample Short Answer Questions
On page 221 of The Terrors of the Night, Nashe writes, “If [a man] chance to kill a spider, he hath suppressed an enemy; if a spinner creep upon him, he shall have gold rain down from heaven. If his nose bleed, some of his kinsfolks is dead; if the salt fall right against him, all the stars cannot save him from some immediate misfortune.” What is the purpose of this list of supersitions in the context of his overall argument?
Note that this question in particular is asking you to look not just at the passage itself, but at the surrounding discussion. You should go into the test having some idea of the overarching arguments / ideas at work in the readings we've done so far, so that you can recognize where the author is putting forward a point of view that stands in contrast to his own point.
On pages 60-62 of Pierce Penniless, just before the beginning of the section called The Description of Greediness, Pierce states, “I know a great sort of good fellows that would venture far for his freedom, and a number of needy lawyers, who now mourn in threadbare gowns for his thraldom, that would go near to poison his keepers with false Latin, if that might procure his enlargement…” Who is the prisoner in this statement?
On pages 79-80 in Pierce Penniless, Pierce composes a “Commendation of Antiquaries”. He gives (at least) two reasons why Antiquaries are able to convince people to buy old stuff. What are they?
Examining the section on “The Fruits of Poetry” from Pierce Penniless (91-2), name two of the fruits of poetry.
In “Of Plantations”, what does Bacon identify as the main cause of the failure of most colonies?
Sample Medium Answer Questions
Examine The Tunning of Elinour Rumming, lines 1-90. Identify three features of Skelton’s verse in this passage. In one or two sentences, using one of the features you’ve identified, state how it amplifies or undercuts the content of the passage.
In Pierce Penniless pages 71-2, Pierce describes “The Base Insinuating of Drudges and their Practice to Aspire”. What is a “drudge”? What warning advice does he give to drudges? In one or two sentences, theorize what this advice suggests about the role of women in 16th century society.
Considering the sections on “The Defence of Plays”, “The Use of Plays”, and “The Confutation of the Citizens’ Objections Against Players” in Pierce Penniless, compose three or four sentences about the place of plays and players in the social order.
Using Bacon’s essay “Of Truth”, compose three or four sentences noting his technique(s) for discussing his topic.
If you're looking for lecture notes, they are posted under the date on which the lecture took place. Check the "Archive" listing in the left sidebar.
The test will take place in the first hour of class. You'll have an hour to write, and then we'll take a break and come back for some introductory info about All's Well that Ends Well.
The test will include six short answer questions (1 point each), and two medium answer questions (two points each), for a total of 10 points. The test is worth 5% of your final mark.
Note that the test is open book. That means open text and open notebook. Anything that has been assigned reading so far is fair game for the test, whether I discussed it in detail in lecture or not. So, bring your Broadview anthology and your copy of Thomas Nashe's works (including Pierce Penniless and The Terrors of the Night) so you can research your answers.
Sample Test Questions
These are the sample questions I gave you to try last week on Tuesday and Thursday.
Sample Short Answer Questions
On page 221 of The Terrors of the Night, Nashe writes, “If [a man] chance to kill a spider, he hath suppressed an enemy; if a spinner creep upon him, he shall have gold rain down from heaven. If his nose bleed, some of his kinsfolks is dead; if the salt fall right against him, all the stars cannot save him from some immediate misfortune.” What is the purpose of this list of supersitions in the context of his overall argument?
Note that this question in particular is asking you to look not just at the passage itself, but at the surrounding discussion. You should go into the test having some idea of the overarching arguments / ideas at work in the readings we've done so far, so that you can recognize where the author is putting forward a point of view that stands in contrast to his own point.
On pages 60-62 of Pierce Penniless, just before the beginning of the section called The Description of Greediness, Pierce states, “I know a great sort of good fellows that would venture far for his freedom, and a number of needy lawyers, who now mourn in threadbare gowns for his thraldom, that would go near to poison his keepers with false Latin, if that might procure his enlargement…” Who is the prisoner in this statement?
On pages 79-80 in Pierce Penniless, Pierce composes a “Commendation of Antiquaries”. He gives (at least) two reasons why Antiquaries are able to convince people to buy old stuff. What are they?
Examining the section on “The Fruits of Poetry” from Pierce Penniless (91-2), name two of the fruits of poetry.
In “Of Plantations”, what does Bacon identify as the main cause of the failure of most colonies?
Sample Medium Answer Questions
Examine The Tunning of Elinour Rumming, lines 1-90. Identify three features of Skelton’s verse in this passage. In one or two sentences, using one of the features you’ve identified, state how it amplifies or undercuts the content of the passage.
In Pierce Penniless pages 71-2, Pierce describes “The Base Insinuating of Drudges and their Practice to Aspire”. What is a “drudge”? What warning advice does he give to drudges? In one or two sentences, theorize what this advice suggests about the role of women in 16th century society.
Considering the sections on “The Defence of Plays”, “The Use of Plays”, and “The Confutation of the Citizens’ Objections Against Players” in Pierce Penniless, compose three or four sentences about the place of plays and players in the social order.
Using Bacon’s essay “Of Truth”, compose three or four sentences noting his technique(s) for discussing his topic.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Lecture Notes, Thursday, May 22, 2008: Peirce Penniless and Bacon's Essays
22 May 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Lecture Notes
Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penniless and Francis Bacon, Essays
Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penniless
*The situation
*The structure of the Supplication
Begins with a description of vices, who are versions of one of the deadly sins, Avarice: Greediness (61) and Dame Niggardize
What is a Vice?
*a personification of wrongdoing
*usually fashioned after a variation on one of the seven deadly sins
*a type of character often seen in moral interludes in the 16th century
The images of vices below can be found through the Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts pages at the National Library of the Netherlands: http://www.kb.nl/manuscripts/browser/index.html. Browse by clicking through "Abstract Ideas and Concepts" to "Morality" and click on the image link beside "Good and Bad Behaviour, Moral Qualities." Playing around with the different categories can provide you with hours of entertainment.
Gluttony and Hypocrisy
Pride borne by Flattery
Treachery and Calumny borne by Envy
The Seven Deadly Sins
Source: http://www.le.ac.uk/arthistory/seedcorn/faq-sds.html
Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) described Seven Deadly Sins in his Moralia in Job.
1. Superbia
Pride
2. Invidia
Envy
3. Ira
Anger
4. Avaritia
Avarice
5. Tristia
Sadness
6. Gula
Gluttony
7. Luxuria
Lust
(Moralia in Job, XXXI cap. xlv).
The sin ‘Tristia’ was later replaced by ‘Accidia’, or Sloth (Wenzel (1967), 38). This sin was taken from earlier catalogues of vice, in particular, the eight evil thoughts listed by Evaagrius (346-99), and the eight principal vices proposed by the mid fourth-century writer Cassian (Wenzel (1967), 14-21). Some of the iconography of the Sins was derived from the descriptions of the Battles between the Virtues and Vices in the Psychomachia by the fourth-century poet Prudentius.
The church made a division between sins which were venial and could be forgiven without the need for the sacrament of Confession and those which were capital and merited damnation. Capital or Deadly Sins were so called because they could have a fatal effect on an individual’s spiritual health. British wall paintings stressed the connection between committing the Deadly Sins and ending up in Hell.
A fourteenth-century text, known as Dan Jon Gaytrygge’s Sermon, associated with the Constitutions issued by Archbishop Thoresby for the Diocese of York in 1357, stated:
‘For als the venym of the neddire (adder) slaas manes body, swa the venym of syn slaas manes saule’.
(Perry (1867), 12)
Addendum
In class I mentioned that I had come across an article claiming that the Vatican had recently revised the list of deadly sins. Note that the revision entailed adding seven new deadly sins; not replacing the original seven. So you can still run into trouble by preening, envying, lusting, wrathing, slothing, coveting, or gluttonizing.
You can read the list of new sins here.
An article about the revision can be found here.
A brief commentary by BBC broadcaster William Crawley on the list and probable motivations behind it can be found here.
Some good info on the Bosch painting of the wheel of the seven deadly sins I showed in class can be found here. Includes images of details from the painting and some brief commentary that explains each of the sections. You can look at some of the segments of the wheel closely enough to see the name of the sin written on the picture and see that there are sneaky devils in some of the images encouraging the sinners to keep going.
Pierce Penniless moves on to the remaining six deadly sins:
Pride (64-80)
*The Nature of an Upstart; pg 69 The Pride of Peasants sprung up of nothing; The Pride of Merchants’ Wives; The Base Insinuating of Drudges and their Practice to Aspire (upward social mobility)
*The Prodigal Young Master (off on adventures)
*Pg 68, The Pride of the Learned: “These are but the suburbs of sin we have in
hand: I must describe to you a large city, wholly inhabited with this damnable
enormity.”
*international flavour: Pride of the Spaniard, Italian, Frenchman, Dane!
*pg. 77-8 “the painted faces here at home”: Pride morphing into gender critique
Envy (with a revision to his personification) (80-94)
*pg. 83 “O Italy, the academy of manslaughter…”
*Wrath, in which Pierce Penniless himself gets entangled (84-98)
*The anecdote about the Queen’s Men, 85-6
*89-90 the “Invective Against Enemies of Poetry” – new-fangled verse
Gluttony, including a discourse on drunkenness (88-109)
Sloth, including The Defence of Plays (109-116) – question below
Lechery (116-118)
Constructs a social map of London and the international scene:
To view a large version of this map, click here.
More info on this map and others like it, including others by Sebastian Muenster who made this map of London in 1574, go here.
Francis Bacon, Essays
*reflecting a scholarly rather than a popular perspective on culture
*What does “Of Marriage and Single Life” suggest about Bacon? About the nature of patriarchy in his day?
* “Of Studies” and the humanist ideal
*”Of Masks and Triumphs”
http://www.elizabethancostume.net/masque/index.html
http://www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/guided_tours/drama_tour/renaissance/court_masque.php
Sample Test Questions
Short Questions:
On pages 60-62 of Pierce Penniless, just before the beginning of the section called The Description of Greediness, Pierce states, “I know a great sort of good fellows that would venture far for his freedom, and a number of needy lawyers, who now mourn in threadbare gowns for his thraldom, that would go near to poison his keepers with false Latin, if that might procure his enlargement…” Who is the prisoner in this statement?
On pages 79-80 in Pierce Penniless, Pierce composes a “Commendation of Antiquaries”. He gives (at least) two reasons why Antiquaries are able to convince people to buy old stuff. What are they?
Examining the section on “The Fruits of Poetry” from Pierce Penniless (91-2), name two of the fruits of poetry.
In “Of Plantations”, what does Bacon identify as the main cause of the failure of most colonies?
Medium Questions:
In Pierce Penniless pages 71-2, Pierce describes “The Base Insinuating of Drudges and their Practice to Aspire”. What is a “drudge”? What warning advice does he give to drudges? In one or two sentences, theorize what this advice suggests about the role of women in 16th century society.
Considering the sections on “The Defence of Plays”, “The Use of Plays”, and “The Confutation of the Citizens’ Objections Against Players” in Pierce Penniless, compose three or four sentences about the place of plays and players in the social order.
Using Bacon’s essay “Of Truth”, compose three or four sentences noting his technique(s) for discussing his topic.
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Lecture Notes
Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penniless and Francis Bacon, Essays
Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penniless
*The situation
*The structure of the Supplication
Begins with a description of vices, who are versions of one of the deadly sins, Avarice: Greediness (61) and Dame Niggardize
What is a Vice?
*a personification of wrongdoing
*usually fashioned after a variation on one of the seven deadly sins
*a type of character often seen in moral interludes in the 16th century
The images of vices below can be found through the Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts pages at the National Library of the Netherlands: http://www.kb.nl/manuscripts/browser/index.html. Browse by clicking through "Abstract Ideas and Concepts" to "Morality" and click on the image link beside "Good and Bad Behaviour, Moral Qualities." Playing around with the different categories can provide you with hours of entertainment.
Gluttony and Hypocrisy
Pride borne by Flattery
Treachery and Calumny borne by Envy
The Seven Deadly Sins
Source: http://www.le.ac.uk/arthistory/seedcorn/faq-sds.html
Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) described Seven Deadly Sins in his Moralia in Job.
1. Superbia
Pride
2. Invidia
Envy
3. Ira
Anger
4. Avaritia
Avarice
5. Tristia
Sadness
6. Gula
Gluttony
7. Luxuria
Lust
(Moralia in Job, XXXI cap. xlv).
The sin ‘Tristia’ was later replaced by ‘Accidia’, or Sloth (Wenzel (1967), 38). This sin was taken from earlier catalogues of vice, in particular, the eight evil thoughts listed by Evaagrius (346-99), and the eight principal vices proposed by the mid fourth-century writer Cassian (Wenzel (1967), 14-21). Some of the iconography of the Sins was derived from the descriptions of the Battles between the Virtues and Vices in the Psychomachia by the fourth-century poet Prudentius.
The church made a division between sins which were venial and could be forgiven without the need for the sacrament of Confession and those which were capital and merited damnation. Capital or Deadly Sins were so called because they could have a fatal effect on an individual’s spiritual health. British wall paintings stressed the connection between committing the Deadly Sins and ending up in Hell.
A fourteenth-century text, known as Dan Jon Gaytrygge’s Sermon, associated with the Constitutions issued by Archbishop Thoresby for the Diocese of York in 1357, stated:
‘For als the venym of the neddire (adder) slaas manes body, swa the venym of syn slaas manes saule’.
(Perry (1867), 12)
Addendum
In class I mentioned that I had come across an article claiming that the Vatican had recently revised the list of deadly sins. Note that the revision entailed adding seven new deadly sins; not replacing the original seven. So you can still run into trouble by preening, envying, lusting, wrathing, slothing, coveting, or gluttonizing.
You can read the list of new sins here.
An article about the revision can be found here.
A brief commentary by BBC broadcaster William Crawley on the list and probable motivations behind it can be found here.
Some good info on the Bosch painting of the wheel of the seven deadly sins I showed in class can be found here. Includes images of details from the painting and some brief commentary that explains each of the sections. You can look at some of the segments of the wheel closely enough to see the name of the sin written on the picture and see that there are sneaky devils in some of the images encouraging the sinners to keep going.
Pierce Penniless moves on to the remaining six deadly sins:
Pride (64-80)
*The Nature of an Upstart; pg 69 The Pride of Peasants sprung up of nothing; The Pride of Merchants’ Wives; The Base Insinuating of Drudges and their Practice to Aspire (upward social mobility)
*The Prodigal Young Master (off on adventures)
*Pg 68, The Pride of the Learned: “These are but the suburbs of sin we have in
hand: I must describe to you a large city, wholly inhabited with this damnable
enormity.”
*international flavour: Pride of the Spaniard, Italian, Frenchman, Dane!
*pg. 77-8 “the painted faces here at home”: Pride morphing into gender critique
Envy (with a revision to his personification) (80-94)
*pg. 83 “O Italy, the academy of manslaughter…”
*Wrath, in which Pierce Penniless himself gets entangled (84-98)
*The anecdote about the Queen’s Men, 85-6
*89-90 the “Invective Against Enemies of Poetry” – new-fangled verse
Gluttony, including a discourse on drunkenness (88-109)
Sloth, including The Defence of Plays (109-116) – question below
Lechery (116-118)
Constructs a social map of London and the international scene:
To view a large version of this map, click here.
More info on this map and others like it, including others by Sebastian Muenster who made this map of London in 1574, go here.
Francis Bacon, Essays
*reflecting a scholarly rather than a popular perspective on culture
*What does “Of Marriage and Single Life” suggest about Bacon? About the nature of patriarchy in his day?
* “Of Studies” and the humanist ideal
*”Of Masks and Triumphs”
http://www.elizabethancostume.net/masque/index.html
http://www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/guided_tours/drama_tour/renaissance/court_masque.php
Sample Test Questions
Short Questions:
On pages 60-62 of Pierce Penniless, just before the beginning of the section called The Description of Greediness, Pierce states, “I know a great sort of good fellows that would venture far for his freedom, and a number of needy lawyers, who now mourn in threadbare gowns for his thraldom, that would go near to poison his keepers with false Latin, if that might procure his enlargement…” Who is the prisoner in this statement?
On pages 79-80 in Pierce Penniless, Pierce composes a “Commendation of Antiquaries”. He gives (at least) two reasons why Antiquaries are able to convince people to buy old stuff. What are they?
Examining the section on “The Fruits of Poetry” from Pierce Penniless (91-2), name two of the fruits of poetry.
In “Of Plantations”, what does Bacon identify as the main cause of the failure of most colonies?
Medium Questions:
In Pierce Penniless pages 71-2, Pierce describes “The Base Insinuating of Drudges and their Practice to Aspire”. What is a “drudge”? What warning advice does he give to drudges? In one or two sentences, theorize what this advice suggests about the role of women in 16th century society.
Considering the sections on “The Defence of Plays”, “The Use of Plays”, and “The Confutation of the Citizens’ Objections Against Players” in Pierce Penniless, compose three or four sentences about the place of plays and players in the social order.
Using Bacon’s essay “Of Truth”, compose three or four sentences noting his technique(s) for discussing his topic.
Office Hours Adjustment
If you wish to meet me during the hour before class in my office, please do let me know at least 24 hours in advance. Because most people tend to contact me via email or meet with me during class breaks, I find my office hours a bit under used. I will therefore only be in my office in the hour before class should someone request a meeting.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Lecture Notes, Tuesday, May 20, 2008: The Terrors of the Night and The Tunning of Elinour Rumming
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Lecture Notes
John Skelton, The Tunning of Elinour Rumming
Thomas Nashe, The Terrors of the Night
Lecture Outline
*test details - see post here.
The Tunning of Elinour Rumming
*A celebration of the exuberant (low)life of London
*Repicated in Jane Holland’s work, here: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/04/poem_of_the_week_36.html
Note the kinds of responses people give to the poem!
*“Skeltonic” verse
*blazon (definition courtesy of http://www.columbia.edu/itc/english/w3263y/poetry_defs.html )
Blazon. (Fr. Shield or “coat of arms”). As a literary term it was used by the followers of Petrarchanism to describe verses which dwelt upon and detailed the various parts of a woman’s body; a sort of catalogue of her physical attributes. Such a catalogue was a convention established in the 13th c. and often used after Marot published his Blason du Beau Tetin (1536). As a rule there was nothing original in this form of conceit
Spenser, Epithalamion (1595)
Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright,
Her forehead ivory white
Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips like cherries charming men to bite
And it was easily mocked
Greene, Menaphon (1598)
Thy teeth like to the tusks of the fattest swine,
Thy speech is like the thunder in the air:
Would God thy toes, thy lips, and all were mine.
Compare to the description of Elinour Rumming, lines 1-90
Question (similar to medium answer question on test):
Identify three features of Skelton’s verse in this passage. Using one of the features you’ve identified, state how it amplifies or undercuts the content of the passage.
Why does Skelton use such detail?
*the catalogue of worldly goods
*alehouse as women’s space
* “Fit the Seventh” and the sense of community
Terrors of the Night
*The core ideas of the text: Nashe’s text is poised between the supernatural belief systems of medieval Christian and earlier pagan thought on the one hand, and a newly developing scientific perspective
*although these two categories of thought seem like they might be in conflict, Nashe holds them simultaneously
*this is evident through his exploration of the different sources of apparitions / bad dreams:
208 “The night is the devil’s Black Book, wherein he recordeth all our transgressions”
Devils / The Devil
209 “the devil is a special predominant planet of the night, and…our creator for our punishment hath allotted it him as his peculiar signory and kingdom
212 “There is not a room in any man’s house but is pestered and close-packed with a camp-royal of devils”
Transitions into the idea of “spirits”, 214 and following, a discourse on the spirits of fire, water, earth, and air
Representation of the four types of spirits that can possess men closely mirroring the core ideas of the Galenic medical model - this is the source for Nashe's ideas about the emotional and physiological dispositions produced by the spirits of fire, air, earth, and water.
The Galenic medical model
Galen, 129-200-ish AD
*idea of the four humours
*composition of the body - a porous bag of fluids
*can be disrupted by a large number of factors – environment, food, emotional disturbance
*reciprocally, an imbalance in the humours can cause emotional disposition or disturbance
Detailed info on the four humours and how they work, including the diagrams I showed in class, can be found here.
Find out what your predominant humour is! Take the quiz found here.
*in Terrors, note that the story of the “gentleman of good worship and credit”, beginning pg 241, ends with an explanation that combines a number of factors (central paragraph pg. 246)
*a note on “quintessence” pg 245
*Nashe also works to debunk the idea that some people have access to the secrets of the future / association with devils, in the example of the “conjurors and cunning men”, pg. 226-230 “In secret be it spoken, he is not so great with the devil as you take it. It may be that they are near akin, but yet you hae many kindrid that will do nothing for one another; no more will the devil for him, except it be to damn him.
*231 Association / collapse of the devil with old ideas of household fairies
*234 collapsing the superstition of dreams
Physical illness / disturbance
*Overlap with the idea of devil / devils:
211 “even as ruptures and cramps do then most torment a man when the body with any other disease is distempered, so the devil, when with any other sickness or malady the faculties of our reason are enfee bled and distempered, will be most busy to disturb us and torment us.”
*Note that there is an intimate connection in the period between sin and physical illness; evident from Lady Margaret Hoby’s Diaries, Broadview antho 103-104
From her entry marked 1599 [Friday August 17]
As well as page 104, 1601, December 26
*218 physical disturbance is noted as being the predominant influence on dreams: “A dream is nothing else but a bubbling scum or froth of the fancy, which the day hath left undigested; or an after-feast made of the fragments of idle imaginations”
*219 dreams as the echo of outside noises or influences
*220 food: “Any meat that in the daytime we eat against our stomachs, begetteth a dismal dream. Discontent also in dreams hath no little predominance; for even as from water that is troubled, the mud dispersingly ascendeth from the bottom to the top, so when our blood is chased, disquieted and troubled all the light imperfect humours of our body ascend like mud up aloft into the head.”
Guilty conscience / psychological reasons
Sample short question:
On page 221 of The Terrors of the Night, Nashe writes, “If [a man] chance to kill a spider, he hath suppressed an enemy; if a spinner creep upon him, he shall have gold rain down from heaven. If his nose bleed, some of his kinsfolks is dead; if the salt fall right against him, all the stars cannot save him from some immediate misfortune.” What is the purpose of this list of supersitions in the context of his overall argument?
*236+ like long sickness is to death, fear is to the reality
*241 And as the firmament is still moving and working, so uncessant is the wheeling and rolling on of our brains, which every hour are tempering some new piece of prodigy or other
3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth
Lecture Notes
John Skelton, The Tunning of Elinour Rumming
Thomas Nashe, The Terrors of the Night
Lecture Outline
*test details - see post here.
The Tunning of Elinour Rumming
*A celebration of the exuberant (low)life of London
*Repicated in Jane Holland’s work, here: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/04/poem_of_the_week_36.html
Note the kinds of responses people give to the poem!
*“Skeltonic” verse
*blazon (definition courtesy of http://www.columbia.edu/itc/english/w3263y/poetry_defs.html )
Blazon. (Fr. Shield or “coat of arms”). As a literary term it was used by the followers of Petrarchanism to describe verses which dwelt upon and detailed the various parts of a woman’s body; a sort of catalogue of her physical attributes. Such a catalogue was a convention established in the 13th c. and often used after Marot published his Blason du Beau Tetin (1536). As a rule there was nothing original in this form of conceit
Spenser, Epithalamion (1595)
Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright,
Her forehead ivory white
Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips like cherries charming men to bite
And it was easily mocked
Greene, Menaphon (1598)
Thy teeth like to the tusks of the fattest swine,
Thy speech is like the thunder in the air:
Would God thy toes, thy lips, and all were mine.
Compare to the description of Elinour Rumming, lines 1-90
Question (similar to medium answer question on test):
Identify three features of Skelton’s verse in this passage. Using one of the features you’ve identified, state how it amplifies or undercuts the content of the passage.
Why does Skelton use such detail?
*the catalogue of worldly goods
*alehouse as women’s space
* “Fit the Seventh” and the sense of community
Terrors of the Night
*The core ideas of the text: Nashe’s text is poised between the supernatural belief systems of medieval Christian and earlier pagan thought on the one hand, and a newly developing scientific perspective
*although these two categories of thought seem like they might be in conflict, Nashe holds them simultaneously
*this is evident through his exploration of the different sources of apparitions / bad dreams:
208 “The night is the devil’s Black Book, wherein he recordeth all our transgressions”
Devils / The Devil
209 “the devil is a special predominant planet of the night, and…our creator for our punishment hath allotted it him as his peculiar signory and kingdom
212 “There is not a room in any man’s house but is pestered and close-packed with a camp-royal of devils”
Transitions into the idea of “spirits”, 214 and following, a discourse on the spirits of fire, water, earth, and air
Representation of the four types of spirits that can possess men closely mirroring the core ideas of the Galenic medical model - this is the source for Nashe's ideas about the emotional and physiological dispositions produced by the spirits of fire, air, earth, and water.
The Galenic medical model
Galen, 129-200-ish AD
*idea of the four humours
*composition of the body - a porous bag of fluids
*can be disrupted by a large number of factors – environment, food, emotional disturbance
*reciprocally, an imbalance in the humours can cause emotional disposition or disturbance
Detailed info on the four humours and how they work, including the diagrams I showed in class, can be found here.
Find out what your predominant humour is! Take the quiz found here.
*in Terrors, note that the story of the “gentleman of good worship and credit”, beginning pg 241, ends with an explanation that combines a number of factors (central paragraph pg. 246)
*a note on “quintessence” pg 245
*Nashe also works to debunk the idea that some people have access to the secrets of the future / association with devils, in the example of the “conjurors and cunning men”, pg. 226-230 “In secret be it spoken, he is not so great with the devil as you take it. It may be that they are near akin, but yet you hae many kindrid that will do nothing for one another; no more will the devil for him, except it be to damn him.
*231 Association / collapse of the devil with old ideas of household fairies
*234 collapsing the superstition of dreams
Physical illness / disturbance
*Overlap with the idea of devil / devils:
211 “even as ruptures and cramps do then most torment a man when the body with any other disease is distempered, so the devil, when with any other sickness or malady the faculties of our reason are enfee bled and distempered, will be most busy to disturb us and torment us.”
*Note that there is an intimate connection in the period between sin and physical illness; evident from Lady Margaret Hoby’s Diaries, Broadview antho 103-104
From her entry marked 1599 [Friday August 17]
As well as page 104, 1601, December 26
*218 physical disturbance is noted as being the predominant influence on dreams: “A dream is nothing else but a bubbling scum or froth of the fancy, which the day hath left undigested; or an after-feast made of the fragments of idle imaginations”
*219 dreams as the echo of outside noises or influences
*220 food: “Any meat that in the daytime we eat against our stomachs, begetteth a dismal dream. Discontent also in dreams hath no little predominance; for even as from water that is troubled, the mud dispersingly ascendeth from the bottom to the top, so when our blood is chased, disquieted and troubled all the light imperfect humours of our body ascend like mud up aloft into the head.”
Guilty conscience / psychological reasons
Sample short question:
On page 221 of The Terrors of the Night, Nashe writes, “If [a man] chance to kill a spider, he hath suppressed an enemy; if a spinner creep upon him, he shall have gold rain down from heaven. If his nose bleed, some of his kinsfolks is dead; if the salt fall right against him, all the stars cannot save him from some immediate misfortune.” What is the purpose of this list of supersitions in the context of his overall argument?
*236+ like long sickness is to death, fear is to the reality
*241 And as the firmament is still moving and working, so uncessant is the wheeling and rolling on of our brains, which every hour are tempering some new piece of prodigy or other
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