Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Cornelia MACSINIUC
2006
Ministerul Educaţiei şi Cercetării
Proiectul pentru Învăţământul Rural
Cornelia MACSINIUC
2006
© 2006 Ministerul Educaţiei şi Cercetării
Proiectul pentru Învăţământul Rural
ISBN 10 973-0-04576-3;
ISBN 13 978-973-0-04576-5.
Contents
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
INTRODUCTION
3. Course objectives
As already mentioned, this course aims at enlarging your
understanding of British culture and civilisation. It also aims at
developing your “reading competence,” at helping you refine your
perception of literary phenomena and categories, by encouraging
your response to particular texts.
• the Summary and a list of key words, which will enable you
to review and focus your knowledge, to organise it around the
most important issues
• the Glossary (in alphabetical order), in which terms or
phrases that have been considered difficult or unfamiliar to you
are explained.
Some terms may recur in several units; you will be
sometimes returned to the Glossary of a previous unit to
reinforce or refresh your understanding of them. For example,
the term Enlightenment, which is explained in the Glossary in
Unit 1, will also appear in Units 5 and 6, whose Glossaries will
send you back to the Glossary in Unit 1.
You may also be directed back to a certain subchapter in a
previous unit, in order to make sure you remember exactly what
a term refers to. For instance, the notion of heroic couplet is
explained in subchapter 1.3.1. in Unit 1; when this notion is
used again in Units 4 or 6, the Glossaries will send you back to
1.3.1.
The terms included in the Glossary are marked by an
asterisk (*) in the text of the unit. Sometimes, an asterisk must
be understood to mark not just the word it is attached to, but the
phrase of which that word is part. Thus, for the Great Chain of
Being*, you will look up the whole phrase in the Glossary, not
just Being.
• the Gallery of personalities (in the alphabetical order of the
last names), which includes basic information about the life and
work of the mentioned personalities. The materials indicated in
the Further reading section and in the Selective bibliography
(see below) offer you supplementary information, if necessary or
desired.
• Further reading, which indicates a minimal bibliography for
each unit, with the pages where you may find relevant
information. Most of the books included there are available in
any University library. You may ask your tutor to help you with
the access to those sources.
• the Selective bibliography at the end of the course, which
contains titles that should not be very hard to find in libraries, if
you wish to supplement or clarify your knowledge
1. 50%
SAA no.1 3 2 2. 50% 10%
1. 50%
SAA no.2 5 3 2. 30% 20%
3. 20%
40%
Number Number of
Week Unit of study Assignment hours for the
hours SAAs
1 Introduction 2
2 Unit 1 4
3
4 Unit 2 4
5
6 Unit 3 4 SAA no.1 2
7
8 Unit 4 4
9
10 Unit 5 4 SAA no.2 3
11
12 Unit 6 4 SAA no.3 3
13
14 Revision 2 8
28
Summary
This course offers you an overview of the literary periods and
trends, of the evolution of literary genres, forms and styles, along the
17th and 18th centuries in England.
It is structured in six units of study, whose content follows a
chronological line, but which also focus on dominant genres and on
outstanding, representative authors. Each unit includes a series of
self-assessing tasks (SAQs), which will help you to organise and
focus your knowledge. Many of these SAQs require your response to
a literary text, which you will find in the Reader accompanying the
coursebook. You have the possibility to monitor your work by
verifying your answers, as the course provides you with the solutions
and suggestions for SAQs at the end of each unit.
The course contains several auxiliary sections (summary, list of
key words, glossary, and gallery of personalities), as well as a list of
suggested further reading. More information about the subjects in
each unit is available in the selective bibliography which concludes
the coursebook.
At the end of Units 3, 5, and 6, there are SAAs, which you must
write and send to your tutor, according to a pre-established schedule.
The three assignments will count, together, as 40% of the final grade,
while the final written test will represent 60 % in your overall
evaluation.
UNIT 1
THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES: INTELLECTUAL
AND LITERARY BACKGROUND
Unit Outline
Unit objectives 10
1 The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: intellectual and
literary background 10
1.1. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment 10
1.1.1. The intellectual scene in the 17th and 18th centuries 10
1.1.2. Reason and faith in the Age of the Enlightenment 11
1.1.3. From the Age of Reason to the Age of Feeling 12
1.1.4. The Enlightenment: an age of progress 12
1.2. An overview of the literary scene in the 17th and 18th centuries 13
1.3. The evolution of poetic forms 15
1.4. Drama in the 17th and 18th centuries 16
1.4.1. Jacobean tragedy 17
1.4.2. Comedy in the early 17th century 18
1.4.3. Drama during the Restoration period 19
1.4.4. Sentimental drama and burlesque comedy in the 18th century 19
1.5. The evolution of prose style 21
1.5.1. Varieties of prose writing in the 17th and 18th centuries 21
Summary 23
Key words 24
Glossary 24
Gallery of personalities 28
Solutions and suggestions for SAQs 30
Further reading 30
SAQ 1
The following exercise will help you revise some of the more
important aspects concerning the intellectual and cultural background
of the 17th and 18th centuries. Read the statements below and
identify the true ones. Circle T (true) or F (false), appropriately, for
each sentence.
1.2. An overview of the literary scene in the 17th and 18th centuries
From a literary point of view, the great ages of the Renaissance
and of the Enlightenment may be further divided according to various
criteria. The division into Elizabethan, Jacobean* and Caroline* of the
“high” and late Renaissance literature points not only to a temporal
delimitation, but also to the close connection between the dominant
literary values of those ages and Court life.
The absolute authority of the monarch made the Court the
Influence of Court centre of intellectual and literary life. The Court was not only the
life on literature catalyst of the emerging national feeling, but also the ultimate arbiter
in matters of literary and artistic fashions. It was the main focus of
literary attention, and both writers and audiences were, in one way or
another, in the orbit of the crown.
After 1688, the decrease in the power of the Crown, the social
diversification and the “unfixing” of the strictly hierarchical order of
the Renaissance led gradually towards a “democratisation” of
literature. This is mainly connected with the rise of the middle classes
and the growth of their cultural importance.
The 18th century is called sometimes The Age of Common Man,
Literature in the and the literary field was no longer confined to the learned, with their
Age of Common Man cultivated taste. It is significant, for instance, that the notion of
reading public emerges now, when the literary audience becomes
more diversified, including readers of more modest education, with
little or no classical knowledge.
The literature of the Renaissance was under the sign of the
classical revival*. The study and imitation of the great Latin and
Greek authors and the concern with literary tradition as a reliable
source of models made literature highly conventional. Numerous
treatises on literary art established norms and precepts, and the
accepted patterns and conventions were touchstones for literary
virtuosity and originality.
There was a general care for discipline and refinement in
composition, for proportion, regularity, symmetry. A new interest in
rhetoric animated authors to pursue eloquence by a lavish use of
figures of speech and the display of wit*. The abundance of classical
SAQ 2
1. …the Augustan Age, when the merits of the “Ancients” and the
“Moderns” became the object of comparison.
2. …on literary taste and fashions during the Renaissance.
SAQ 3
Which are the most popular kinds of poems in the 17th and 18th
centuries? Mention at least six of them, together with their most
outstanding representatives, in the space left below.
SAQ 4
SAQ 5
What are the main varieties of comedy during the 17th and 18th
centuries? Mention at least five of them in the space below, together
with their most outstanding representatives.
SAQ 6
Summary
This unit has offered you a brief introduction to the intellectual
and literary developments of the 17th and 18th centuries. This was a
period of great changes at all levels of life in England. Within these
two centuries, the progress from the old order of the feudal world to
the modern age was completed. A steady process of economic
development and imperial expansion made England the world’s
greatest power.
Culturally, these two centuries correspond, roughly, to the great
movements of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, between
which there is continuity, since both place Man and the improvement
of his condition at the centre of their concerns. Within these two
centuries, intellectual habits and preoccupations changed radically:
philosophic thought became secular, modern science was born, the
image of the universe was changed, the growing scepticism and
critical spirit enthroned a rationalistic attitude in all spheres of culture.
The victory of Reason over dogmatism, obscurantism and
intolerance, as well as the faith in progress, marked the entrance into
Proiectul pentru Învăţământul Rural 23
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: intellectual and literary background
modernity. It is, however, part of the process of modernisation that
the Age of Reason came to acknowledge its own limits, and the
emergence of the Age of Feeling prepared the way to the Romantic
sensibility.
From a literary point of view, a slow transition took place, from a
system of genres and styles dominated by classical influences to a
more “democratic” tendency, with new genres accessible to a more
inclusive reading public, predominantly middle-class. The birth of the
novel is the most significant literary development of this “Age of
Common Man.”
The short review of the dominant forms of poetry, drama and
prose in the 17th and 18th centuries has been meant to offer you a
general idea of the literary background of this extremely diverse and
dynamic period.
Key words
• The Renaissance
• The Enlightenment
• The Restoration
• The Age of Reason
• The Age of Common Man
• The Age of Feeling
• The Augustan Age
• Neoclassicism
• modernity
• tradition
• change
• emancipation
• progress
• poetry
• drama
• prose
Glossary
Gallery of personalities
SAQ 1
1.T; 2.T; 3.F; 4.T; 5.T; 6.F; 8.T
SAQ 2
a.2; b.3; c.4; d.1
SAQ 3
• the sonnet: Shakespeare, Donne, Milton
• the pastoral: Milton, Marvell, Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Blake
• the ode: Marvell, Milton, Cowley, Dryden, Pope, , Collins, Gray
• the epic: Milton
• metaphysical poetry: Donne, Herbert, Carew, Herrick, Marvell
• satire: Dryden, Pope
• didactic poems: Pope
• philosophical poems: Pope
• descriptive-meditative poems: Thomson, Cowper
SAQ 4
1.T; 2.T; 3.F; 4.T; 5.F; 6.T; 7.F
SAQ 5
• romantic comedy: Shakespeare
• dark comedy: Shakespeare
• tragi-comedy: Shakespeare; Fletcher and Beaumont
• satirical comedy: Ben Jonson; Goldsmith
• comedy of manners: the “Restoration Wits” (George Villiers, Duke
of Buckingham, Sir George Sedley, Sir George Etherege, William
Wycherley, John Vanbrugh); Goldsmith, Sheridan
• sentimental comedy: Steele; Goldsmith; Cumberland
• burlesque comedy: George Villiers; Fielding, John Gay
SAQ 6
In general, there was a tendency towards simplicity, concision and
plainness: from the highly ornate, artificial, even extravagant style of the
Renaissance to the simple elegance, precision, clarity and
straightforwardness of the Augustan style; from a highly rhetorical style to
forms of expression which aspired to the plainness of common speech.
Further reading
1. Macsiniuc, Cornelia, The English Eighteenth Century. The Novel
in Its Beginnings, Editura Universităţii Suceava, 2003 (pp. 9-32)
2. Preda, Ioan-Aurel (ed.), English Literature and Civilisation. The
Renaissance and the Restoration Period, Bucureşti: Editura
Didactică şi Pedagogică, 1983 (pp. 7-49)
3. Turcu, Luminiţa Elena, The Literature of the Beginnings. From Beowulf
to Paradise Lost, Editura Universităţii Suceava, 2003 (pp. 115-141)
30 Proiectul pentru Învăţământul Rural
The late Renaissance and the Baroque
UNIT 2
THE LATE RENAISSANCE AND THE BAROQUE
Unit Outline
Unit objectives 32
2 The late Renaissance and the Baroque 32
2.1. The emergence of the baroque sensibility 32
2.1.1. The late Renaissance: characteristics of the baroque sensibility 33
2.1.2. Baroque features of late Renaissance drama and poetry 33
2.2. Shakespeare’s genius. His later plays 35
2.2.1. The baroque spirit of Shakespeare’s great tragedies 36
2.2.2. Hamlet: a revenge play 37
2.2.3. Renaissance man and the baroque sensibility in Hamlet 37
2.2.4. Hamlet: the philosopher vs. the man of action 38
2.2.5. King Lear: the madness of tragic grief 39
2.2.6. To be or to seem: Othello 40
2.2.7. Macbeth: the tragedy of “diseased” conscience 40
2.2.8. Shakespeare’s last plays 43
2.2.9. The plot of The Tempest 43
2.2.10. Major themes 44
2.2.11. Symbols in The Tempest 46
2.2.12. The play-metaphor 46
2.3. The metaphysical poets 47
2.3.1. Characteristics of metaphysical poetry 48
2.3.2. The metaphysical conceit 48
2.3.3. Themes in John Donne’s poetry 49
2.3.4. Donne’s love poems 50
2.3.5. Donne’s religious poems 52
2.3.6. Andrew Marvell: the patriotic theme in the Horatian Ode 53
2.3.7. Nature as “mystic book” in Marvell’s poetry 54
2.3.8. The theme of love in Marvell’s poems 54
Summary 56
Key words 56
Glossary 57
Gallery of personalities 58
Solutions and suggestions for SAQs 59
Further reading 61
SAQ 1
Fill in the spaces left below with those features of the Baroque
(B) which contrast with the following features of the high Renaissance
(R):
1. R: vision of the world as harmonious and well-ordered
B:
SAQ 2
SAQ 3
SAQ 4
SAQ 5
In Act II, scene 2, Macbeth joins his wife after he has killed
Duncan. Text 2.2. from the Reader, extracted from this scene,
reveals how soon the abominable crime has begun to work on his
spirit. His words to Lady Macbeth render his first thoughts after the
murder. How can we interpret Macbeth’s hallucination about the
voice crying “Sleep no more, / Macbeth does murder sleep,” heard
immediately after he has committed the murder? What does sleep
represent for Macbeth here? Answer in the space left below, in no
more than 120 words / 12 lines.
Compare your answer with the one offered at the end of the unit,
in the section Solutions and suggestions for SAQs. If there
should be significant differences, read the fragment once more.
SAQ 6
Compare your answer with the one offered at the end of the unit,
in the section Solutions and suggestions for SAQs. If there should
be major differences, read the fragment again, more carefully.
SAQ 7
1. Prospero had lost his power as the duke of Milan because his
studies distanced him from the immediate world which he was
supposed to rule. T F
SAQ 8
SAQ 9
SAQ 10
SAQ 11
If…
But…
Therefore…
Summary
This unit has introduced you to an important aspect of the
English Renaissance: the development, in the early 17th century, of
the Baroque as a structure of sensibility different from that of the
Elizabethan age (corresponding to the high Renaissance).
Subchapter 2.1 focuses on the contrast between the optimism,
confidence, exuberance, sense of order, harmony and balance
characterising the high Renaissance spirit, and the baroque vision with
its emphasis on disorder, conflict, tension and confusion, scepticism
and anxiety. Paradox and irony are favourite devices for the
exploration of the relationship between contraries, such as truth and
illusion, wisdom and madness, life and death, body and spirit, action
and contemplation, etc. A taste for the obscure, for melancholy, for the
macabre often defines the Baroque, but it may also display an
attraction to the spectacular, to extravagance and excess.
Subchapters 2.2 and 2.3 focus, respectively, on Shakespeare
and on two great metaphysical poets, John Donne and Andrew
Marvell, who best illustrate this spirit of the late Renaissance.
Subchapter 2.2 deals with Shakespeare’s four great plays of his
second period of creation – Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth.
The themes they explore (the nature of evil, the meaning of human
suffering, the paradoxes of innocence and knowledge, truth and
falsehood, etc.(reflect the baroque sensibility of the age).
This subchapter includes also a discussion of Shakespeare’s last
major dramatic creation, The Tempest, a romance play in which his tone
changes into a more affirmative one and the central thematic concern is
the possibility of moral regeneration, of the restoration of order.
Subchapter 2.3 aims to acquaint you with some of the basic
features of metaphysical poetry, insisting on its use of conceits, on its
argumentative structure, on its mixture of intense feeling and
intellectual detachment. Both John Donne and Andrew Marvell display
a baroque sensibility in their attraction to paradox and ambiguity, and
they are both great masters of metaphysical wit, skillfully controlling
lyrical effusion by subtle and precise logical argument.
Key words
● Renaissance
● Baroque
● paradox
● scepticism
● tragedy
● romance play
● play-metaphor
● metaphysical poetry
● conceit
● discordia concors
Glossary
• Baroque: the term comes from the Portuguese barroco and the
Spanish barrueco, meaning a rough or imperfectly shaped pearl.
It describes a style in architecture and the visual arts, music and
literature, which dominated the 17th century, and which was
characterised by sumptuous ornamentation and by the search for
effect. Its meaning is often extended to a certain type of
sensibility, not necessarily restricted to the historical period in
which the baroque style flourished. In art, the Baroque is
opposed to Classicism and Neoclassicism.
• blank verse: see the Glossary in Unit 1.
• carpe diem: literally, “seize the day” in Latin; a phrase from one
of Horace’s Odes, meaning “enjoy yourself while you can.” The
carpe diem motif is associated with the theme of the brevity of life
and the inevitability of death.
• Civil War: see the Glossary in Unit 1.
• courtly love: a concept developed during the Middle Ages, in
literary and aristocratic/courtly circles, which was closely linked to
the feudal concept of vassalage and the cult of the Virgin Mary.
• discordia concors: (Latin) literally: harmonious discord; combination
of apparently discordant images or ideas, the joining of opposites in
such a way that a paradoxical sense of harmony is created.
• fall of princes: the traditional theme of a tragedy, as established
by Aristotle (see the Gallery of personalities below), in his treatise
on Poetics. According to him, tragedy was supposed to deal with
the downfall of a noble character, enjoying “reputation and
prosperity.” The disaster is brought on him not by vice and
depravity, but by “some error of judgement,” and its
representation is meant to arouse pity and fear.
• far-fetched: literally: carried too far; improbable, unlikely.
• history plays (or chronicle plays): a form of drama invented by
the Elizabethans, which dramatises a certain historical period,
starting from historical record rather than from myth and legend.
Shakespeare’s chronicle plays include a sequence of four plays
on the War of the Roses (the three parts of Henry VI, and
Richard III – 1590-1592), and another series, consisting in
Richard II, King John, the two parts of Henry IV, and Henry V,
written between 1595-1599. These plays are mainly inspired from
the 16th century chronicles of Raphael Holinshed, and they were
highly influential in the shaping of a national consciousness. They
scrutinise the national past, underlining the importance of a
centralised authority which should put an end to the dangers of
anarchy, inherent in the feudal struggles for power.
• Horatian Ode: an ode (see the Glossary in Unit 1) written in a
highly formal, regular pattern, on the model of the ancient Latin
poet Horace (65-8 B.C.).
• hyperbole: a rhetorical figure consisting in deliberate
exaggeration, for the purpose of emphasis.
• imagery: basically, language appealing to the senses. Imagery
represents the coherent system of mental images evoked by
Gallery of personalities
SAQ 1
1. emphasis on disorder, violence, conflict, instability
2. emphasis on life’s shortness and insubstantiality (life as dream),
on the macabre and the morbid, on melancholy
3. taste for extravagance, excess, breaking of limits and proportions,
ambiguity
4. scepticism, anxiety, tension
SAQ 2
1. Shakespeare shows a deep understanding of human nature in its
extraordinary variety; he portrays a wide range of feelings,
emotions, attitudes and moral features; he achieves perfectly
convincing characters, in a variety of dramatic registers.
2. The last plays are characterised by a vision of hope and of order
restored; here, innocence is victorious over evil, by contrast with
the former tragic vision of the universe and of man as torn by inner
conflicts.
SAQ 3
The fragment contrasts the confidence and exuberance of the
Renaissance with the scepticism and melancholy characteristic of the
baroque spirit. Hamlet as a Renaissance man glorifies the beauty
and majesty of the universe, and praises man as the masterpiece of
creation, close to angels and God in his power of understanding and
the infinity of his creative potential. On the other hand, to his tragic
consciousness the world appears as irremediably corrupt and
infested with evil, and man as a creature limited by his mortal
condition (“quintessence of dust”).
SAQ 4
1. Hamlet; 2. Hamlet, King Lear, Othello; 3. Othello; 4. Hamlet;
King Lear; 5. King Lear
SAQ 5
In the first place, this hallucination proves Macbeth’s strong
imagination. He is not a cold-blooded killer, and the horrible crime
has immediate effects on his conscience. “Sleep no more”
anticipates the torments of Macbeth’s conscience, unable to find
peace once it has been corrupted by evil. “The innocent sleep” is the
symbol of moral integrity, of a clean mind. As “chief nourisher in life’s
feast,” sleep (i.e. innocent conscience) is part of the natural order of
man’s existence. Macbeth’s feeling that he has lost this privilege of
nature reflects his awareness that his “unnatural” deed is a violation
of moral law (which is “natural”).
SAQ 6
Prospero might have better controlled Caliban in his “brutish”
state. As a truly superior being, however, he chose to raise Caliban
to the condition of a rational creature, endowed with speech. He thus
expected Caliban to overcome his primitive impulses and to develop
more civilised tendencies (“purposes”), guided by rational will.
Prospero seemed also to think that Caliban could be socialised
through speech, which would have enabled him to communicate (e.g.
make his purposes known through words). From Prospero’s point of
view, he failed in his effort to enlighten Caliban, because the latter’s
nature was hopelessly evil. From Caliban’s point of view, the
development of conscience, of his own sense of self, through
language (knowing his “own meaning”), led to his awareness of his
condition as a slave, which he resents.
SAQ 7
1. T; 2. F; 3. F; 4. T; 5. T; 6. F; 7. T
SAQ 8
1. concise expression and density of meaning
2. use of conceits (extended comparisons, usually between highly
dissimilar elements; unexpected, surprising associations)
3. complicated line of argument, which organises and “manages”
intense feeling and emotion; analytical detachment from emotion
4. attempt to reconcile contradictory or discordant experiences, to
blend contraries (e.g. passion and reason, the abstract and the
concrete, etc.)
SAQ 9
The poet associates mutual love with the way in which a pair of
compasses works. This instrument, made of two moving legs articulated
at one end, is a suitable emblem for their souls, which remain perfectly
united, even if physically the lovers must be apart. Perfect circles
(symbolising perfect love) may be traced by means of the compasses,
by keeping one foot fixed and moving the other round this centre. By
60 Proiectul pentru Învăţământul Rural
The late Renaissance and the Baroque
analogy, the poet’s love depends on the certainty of his mistress’s
faithfulness and constancy: “Thy firmness makes my circle just.”
Depending on the distance from the centre to the circumference, the
inclination of the fixed leg may vary – it seems to “lean after” the moving
leg, just as the mistress, waiting for her departed lover, will long for him.
But, as the moving leg will “come home” and join its “twin,” so there is
always the certainty of reunion for the lovers. The speaker tries thus to
persuade his mistress of his own constancy of feeling.
SAQ 10
Marriage is associated with love, consent and legality, while rape
presupposes the violation of one’s will. Paradoxically, however, the
metaphor of the speaker’s “marriage” to God’s enemy suggests his
sense of sin. He loves God, in fact, but the implication is that his will and
reason are too weak to defend his faith. The only way out of his loveless
“marriage” to sin is a “divorce,” which only God can effect, and which
would resemble rape. Taking him by force – by the force of the divine
grace –, God would set him free for a complete experience of religious
devotion, which would restore the purity of his faith (being “chaste”).
SAQ 11
If we had time enough and the world were all ours, I would
spend ages in praising every part of your body, because your charms
deserve such praise.
But I know time is merciless; your beauty will fade and my
songs of praise will have no object when you lie in your grave; your
virginity will then be worth nothing, since only worms will “enjoy” it.
Therefore let us enjoy each other while we are still young and
you are beautiful. Your own passion “transpires” in the blush of your
skin, so let us devour Time with the intensity of our desire, instead of
letting it devour us slowly, in the absence of joy.
Further reading
1. Ford, Boris (ed.), The New Pelican Guide to English Literature,
vol. 3, Penguin Books Ltd., 1991 (pp. 97-105; 273-287)
2. Daiches, David, A Critical History of English Literature, vol. 2
(“Shakespeare to Milton”), London: Secker and Warburg Ltd., 1969
(pp. 246-249; 267-283; 302-305)
3. Preda, Ioan-Aurel (coord.), English Literature and Civilisation. The
Renaissance and the Restoration Period, Bucureşti: Editura
Didactică şi Pedagogică, 1983 (pp. 34-40; 130-140)
UNIT 3
Unit Outline
Unit objectives 63
3. The Works of John Milton 63
3.1. Milton, the Christian humanist 63
3.2. Milton’s early poems 64
3.2.1. L’Allegro and Il Penseroso 64
3.2.2. Lycidas – a pastoral elegy 66
3.3. Milton’s sonnets 66
3.3.1. Sonnet VII 67
3.3.2. Sonnet XVII 67
3.4. Paradise Lost – the Christian epic 68
3.4.1. Satan and the fallen angels in Hell 69
3.4.2. The divine foreknowledge of the Fall 70
3.4.3. Raphael’s warning to Adam 72
3.4.4. The creation of the world 72
3.4.5. The seduction of Eve 74
3.4.6. The world after the Fall 75
3.5. The heroes of Paradise Lost 77
3.5.1. Milton’s Satan: the rebel’s inner hell 78
3.5.2. Satan, the “author of all ill” 79
3.5.3. Milton’s depiction of Adam and Eve 81
Summary 82
Key words 83
Glossary 83
Gallery of personalities 84
SAA No. 1 85
Solutions and suggestions for SAQs 86
Further reading 87
SAQ 1
SAQ 2
SAQ 3
Read Text 3.4. in the Reader, which contains God’s
justification for allowing man to fall. What is God’s argument, and
what are its implications? Answer in no more than 15 lines/150
words.
SAQ 4
Book IX: Eve and the Serpent (illustration by John Martin, 1827)
SAQ 5
Text 3.8. in the Reader contains four fragments from Book IX,
from the speech by which Satan tempts Eve into disobeying God
and eating the forbidden fruit. The sentences below describe
various moves in Satan’s strategy of seduction. Match these
sentences with the fragment, or fragments, in which these moves
are illustrated. Write the number(s) of the corresponding
fragment(s) in the indicated space, at the end of each sentence.
Book XII: Adam and Eve leaving Paradise (illustration by John Martin, 1827)
SAQ 6
Gustave Doré:
Satan (1870)
SAQ 7
SAQ 8
Summary
In this unit, you have been acquainted with some aspects of the
prominent literary personality of John Milton, one of the greatest
English poets. His work is that of a Christian humanist: his
astonishing classical erudition and his aspiration to the formal
perfection of his classical models combine with his interest in
religious themes.
Devoted to the Puritan cause during the Civil War, Milton was
deeply involved in the religious and political debates of mid-17th
century. Convinced also of his poetic vocation, he prepared himself
for it during long years.
Some of Milton’s earlier works display this obsessive concern
with his becoming a great poet. Subchapter 3.2. presents some of his
notable early compositions – the Latin elegies, the Nativity Ode, the
pastoral elegy Lycidas, and the twin poems L’Allegro and Il
Penseroso. The same obsession with poetic ripeness may be found
Key words
● Christian humanism
● elegy
● sonnet
● epic
● the Fall of Man
● the original sin
● free will
● Lucifer / Satan
● Felix culpa
Glossary
Gallery of personalities
SAQ 1
1.a.; 2.c.; 3.b.
SAQ 2
In the first section (the octave), both sonnets deal with the
theme of loss (the poet’s sense of the passing of time; his blindness,
respectively) and with the anxiety that poetic fulfilment is late to
come. The latter part of both sonnets (the sestet) changes the mood
to one of patient confidence. The poet places his trust in Providence,
comforting himself with the faith that his poetic destiny is in God’s
hands.
SAQ 3
God’s whole argument is based on the idea of freedom.
Created “just and right,” man shared the perfection of the angels
(“the Ethereal Powers and Spirits”) and their complete freedom of will
and judgment. The paradox of freedom, however, is that one may
choose right or wrong. The implication is that God gave man
conscience, or reason, i.e. the “instrument” by which to exercise his
free will, and reason makes man, not God, responsible for his
choices. God cannot use His infinite power and knowledge to prevent
the errors of those who are free to choose, since that would mean
the “revocation” of His own “high decree” by which man was made
free. The fall of man, like that of the angels, is thus not attributable to
God. Both man and the rebel angels are “authors to themselves in
all.” In the case of man, the divine punishment is compensated by
mercy (the sending of Jesus as mankind’s saviour), as man’s wrong
choice was not the pure result of his free will, but the consequence of
evil influence.
SAQ 4
The image of God using His divine instrument (the “golden
compasses”) to draw the “just circumference” of the world implies the
idea of perfection and rationality. Milton emphasises the geometrical,
rational spirit of the Creator (he refers to Him elsewhere as “the great
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The works of John Milton
Architect”), who draws a firm line between the formed and the
formless (chaos), the intelligible and the unintelligible (the dark void).
The same rational spirit separates what is vital from what is “adverse
to life” (the “infernal dregs”).
SAQ 5
a. 1,4; b. 2; c. 2,3,4; d. 1; e. 2; f. 3; g. 4
SAQ 6
For Adam and Eve, Paradise is now a forbidden place, and the
image of the terrible gates, guarded by fear-inspiring armed angels,
is meant to keep alive the memory of their transgression. Forced to
look ahead, they soon master the sadness of their loss and confront
the wide world as a place in which they are expected to exercise
judiciously their free will, under the guidance of Providence. Their
hesitant steps suggest their awareness of the difficulty of all choice,
of the responsibility that accompanies freedom, but at least they have
the mutual comfort of their love, of human solidarity.
SAQ 7
1. These lines suggest Satan’s formidable strength of will and the
independence of his indestructible spirit. It is his will and desire
that give value to things around. If Hell is a space of freedom,
then it is like Heaven for a spirit that cannot accept constraints.
2. This line illustrates both his aspiration to complete independence
and his ambition. Incapable of obedience to God, Satan is willing
to exchange the happiness of Heaven for the torments in Hell,
comforting himself that he exchanged submission for sovereignty.
Satan feels God’s absolute power as a limitation to his enormous
ambition, and for him servitude in Heaven is the real hell.
SAQ 8
God cannot be pleased with blind submission, with passive
virtue. He wants man’s obedience to be the result of an act of free
choice, i.e. to be dictated by Reason. If God leaves man’s loyalty,
faith and love untested, His gift of Reason to man has no justification
(it is “useless and vain”). Man is not a free creature, as God has
made him, unless he exercises his will and reason, i.e. unless he is
put in the situation of making choices.
Further reading
1. Daiches, David, A Critical History of English Literature, vol. 2
(“Shakespeare to Milton”), London: Secker and Warburg Ltd.,
1969 (pp. 435-449)
2. Preda, Ioan-Aurel (coord.), English Literature and Civilisation. The
Renaissance and the Restoration Period, Bucureşti: Editura
Didactică şi Pedagogică, 1983 (pp. 153-163)
3. Turcu, Luminiţa Elena, The Literature of the Beginnings. From
Beowulf to Paradise Lost, Editura Universităţii Suceava, 2003 (pp.
141-152)
UNIT 4
Unit Outline
Unit objectives 89
4. The Restoration and the Augustan Age 89
4.1. Restoration drama 89
4.1.1. Restoration theatre – a form of Court entertainment 89
4.1.2. Dominant forms in Restoration drama 90
4.1.3. Restoration comedy and its character types 90
4.1.4. William Congreve, a master of satirical comedy of manners 92
4.1.5. The rise of sentimental comedy 93
4.2 English literary Neoclassicism 95
4.2.1. Great Augustan writers: John Dryden and Alexander Pope 95
4.2.2. Principles of Neoclassic literary poetics 96
4.2.3. Nature and Reason 96
4.2.4. The Augustan ideal of style 98
4.2.5. “To divert and instruct” – the imperative of Augustan literature 98
4.3. The periodical essay 98
4.3.1. The Tatler and The Spectator. “The Spectator’s Club” 100
4.4. Augustan satire 103
4.4.1. John Dryden 103
4.4.2. Alexander Pope 103
4.4.3. Jonathan Swift 105
4.4.4. The structure of Gulliver’s Travels 105
4.4.5. Lilliput and Brobdingnag: satire and utopia 107
4.4.6. The fourth voyage. Gulliver, the frustrated idealist 107
4.4.7. The importance of Gulliver’s Travels 110
Summary 110
Key words 111
Glossary 111
Gallery of personalities 113
Solutions and suggestions for SAQs 115
Further reading 116
William Hogarth*
Detail from The Rake’s Progresss (1735)
SAQ 1
5. The middle classes and their moral code found a mirror in the
comedy of the Restoration. T F
SAQ 2
SAQ 3
reaction to the ever greater demand for political news and gossip, at
a time when political tension in the country and the events of war on
the Continent engaged public attention to a high degree.
Journalism and coffee houses* were the main instruments by
which people’s curiosity was satisfied. Some writers felt that this
popular avidity for political news might inflame partisanship and
favour a spirit of social discord. In order to counterbalance this
tendency, they created an alternative kind of periodical publication,
consisting in essays on a variety of topics, meant to provide guidance
in matters of manners and morals, and to offer intellectual
enlightenment to a wide audience, dominantly middle class.
Essay periodicals were usually the work of a single author, and
they were published with varying regularity, some of them being
issued daily.
The periodical essay constituted a chronicle of contemporary
manners and an effective instrument of moral and social criticism. At
the same time, the periodical essayists aimed at broadening the
intellectual horizon of their readers, at cultivating their minds. They
believed, with Alexander Pope, that “a little knowledge is a
dangerous thing,” that ignorance is a source of evil.
Many periodical essays were dedicated to the dissemination of
philosophical and scientific notions, or to the discussion of literary
matters. The reflections on both modern and ancient works, the
debate on a variety of critical and aesthetic issues made the latter
familiar to the public, contributing significantly to the “polite”
education, the enlightenment and the improvement of taste of its
widest section, the middle class readers.
SAQ 4
SAQ 5
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
SAQ 6
SAQ 7
2.
3.
4.
SAQ 8
Utopian aspects:
Anti-utopian aspects
Compare your answer with the one provided at the end of the
unit, in the section Solutions and suggestions for SAQs. If there
should be major differences, you need to read the fragment again,
more carefully, and to revise subchapter 4.4.6.
Summary
The Restoration is a historical and a literary period. It is an age
of transition, accommodating a diversity of literary forms and
traditions – old and new. A representative literary genre for this age
is the comedy of manners (Etherege, Dryden, Congreve, etc.). Like
heroic tragedy (e.g. Dryden), this highly artificial and conventional
form was an expression of the taste of the Court aristocracy. While
heroic drama sustained an impossible, inflated ideal of heroism and
virtue, comedy was licentious and cynical, placing wit above virtue.
Gradually, the pressure of the taste of the rising middle class
replaced it with sentimental comedy.
The period of the Restoration overlaps with the emerging
Augustan Age, when literary Neoclassicism developed. The latter’s
eminently rationalist poetics placed emphasis on clarity and elegance
in style and composition, on expressive restraint and skilfully
controlled wit, on the rule of decorum, on Reason and common
sense in aesthetic choice. It cultivated the idea of the “marriage” of
Art and Nature, and recommended as a model the literary wisdom of
the Ancients. Dryden, Pope, Swift, Addison, Steele, Goldsmith,
Johnson are central figures of the Augustan Age.
One of the literary forms that developed during this period was
the periodical essay (Addison, Steele), which contributed greatly to
the development of a modern prose style. It was a chronicle of
manners and an instrument of social and moral criticism, and by
means of it, a wide public, dominantly middle class, was enlightened
in matters of literary taste and intellectual achievements.
Satire, both in verse (Dryden, Pope) and in prose (Swift), was
another characteristic genre. Its flourishing in the Augustan Age
reflects the integration of literature with social life, the writers’ sense
of responsibility towards the values of their civilisation, and, generally,
the belief in progress and improvement in an age which was also that
of the Enlightenment. Swift’s allegorical satire Gulliver’s Travels is the
most accomplished exploration of the contradictions of the Age of
Reason, a masterpiece of irony which places under scrutiny many of
the myths of the Enlightenment, including that of Reason itself.
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The Restoration and the Augustan Age
Key words
• The Restoration
• The Augustan Age
• heroic tragedy
• comedy of manners
• Neoclassicism
• rationalist poetics
• Nature/Human Nature
• art
• wit
• to delight and instruct
• periodical essay
• The Spectator’s Club
• satire
• allegory
• utopia
• irony
Glossary
• Achitophel: the story of Absalom and Achitophel is told in
The Old Testament, in the 2nd Book of Kings (verses 15-18).
• affectation: a manner of speech, dress or behaviour which
is not natural, but is intended to impress others.
• Anarch: a personification of anarchy. In Pope’s satire,
Dulness as “Great Anarch” is the ruler of spiritual chaos. In
her empire of darkness and confusion, all the acquisitions of
the human spirit become meaningless.
• art: in the Neoclassic doctrine, the acquired competence of
the writer, his craftsmanship, achieved by training and
practice. Art may generally refer to the work of man, or
human skill (as contrasted to the work of Nature).
• Augustan: see Augustan Age in the Glossary in Unit 1.
• baroque: see again subchapter 2.1.1. and the Glossary in
Unit 2.
• beaux: plural of beau (“handsome” in French), which
designated a fashionable, well-dressed man, greatly
concerned with appearances; it may also refer to a woman’s
lover, admirer, or escort.
• blank verse: see again the Glossary in Unit 1.
• burlesque: see the Glossary in Unit 1.
• coffee houses: since the 1650s, they were convenient
places for socialising and for the dissemination of news,
acquiring quickly the status of real “institutions” of opinion.
They were usually frequented by people of the same social
rank, profession or interest, political or religious orientation.
For instance, “Will’s Coffee House,” where Dryden would
come regularly, gathered people of the literary profession or
interested in literary matters.
Gallery of personalities
• Addison, Joseph (1672-1719): representative of English
literary Neoclassicisn, author of poems, essays and dramatic
works, founder of literary journalism. He established the
periodical essay as a literary genre, and he contributed
significantly to the dissemination of the values of the
Enlightenment in England.
• Boileau, Nicolas (1636-1711): outstanding French poet and
critic, whose poem L’art poétique (1674) established the
canons of taste and the standards of literary judgement for
European Neoclassicism.
• Dryden, John (1637-1700): one of the most outstanding
figures of the Restoration and the Augustan Age. He
excelled in all literary genres of his time; he translated from
ancient authors, and he was the pioneer of modern English
literary criticism. He was equally successful as an author of
heroic dramas (see again subchapter 1.4.3 in Unit 1) and of
comedies of manners. Among the latter, Marriage à la Mode
(1672) distinguishes itself by its brilliant wit combats and
effective social satire.
SAQ 1
1.T; 2.F; 3.T; 4.F; 5.F; 6.T; 7.T; 8.T; 9.F
SAQ 2
Millamant has an unconventional view of marriage, by the standards
of her social environment. She wishes for a sincere and authentic
relationship, and she proposes to reject the social rituals and fashions that
would require them to wear masks. Civilised reserve in society, the refusal
to make a public show of their affection, is, for sophisticated Millamant, a
way of protecting their intimacy and their feelings. She also refuses to see
marriage as a limitation of the woman’s freedom, and she rejects the idea
of the wife’s subordination. In marriage, each partner should accept and
respect the other’s wishes, opinions and tastes, and should not try to
impose his/her habits on the other. Her desire to preserve an area of
privacy in her domestic life reflects the fact that she does not conceive love
and marriage as incompatible with one’s independence.
SAQ 3
The pleasure of contemplating representations of “general nature”
– i.e. of those features which are universal, common to all humanity – is
greater than the pleasure of “sudden wonder” procured by the depiction
of “particular manners” and by “fanciful invention.” Shakespeare will
appeal to readers across the ages, regardless of their particular
condition, because he succeeded in rendering the general “truths” of
human nature. His characters embody the fundamental human
passions which will always move mankind. Johnson implies that an
author’s greatness depend on his insight into Human Nature.
SAQ 4
Addison builds an analogy between the human mind and a field,
which may be cultivated or left to “lie fallow.” Just as weeds (i.e. wild
plants growing where they are not wanted) will invade an uncultivated
field, so the mind which is not assiduously and constantly cultivated –
i.e. furnished with ideas, educated to think – will employ itself with
trifles, abdicating from reason, good sense, or judgment. Culture is
thus seen as an improvement of nature, and, in an analogous sense,
of Human nature. Addison’s observation reflects the faith in man’s
intellectual and moral perfectibility through responsible education – an
attitude characteristic of the Enlightenment.
SAQ 5
honesty, integrity, benevolence, industry, diligence,
reasonableness, sense of responsibility, common sense, good
judgment, open-mindedness, modesty, good breeding.
SAQ 6
Satire is the art of pointing at people’s faults without resorting to
insult or calumny. Dryden makes an analogy between the sharp blade
of the executioner’s sword and the sharp irony and wit of the satirist.
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The Restoration and the Augustan Age
Just as the executioner will implacably carry out the capital
punishment, so the satirist is merciless in his denouncing human
flaws. Both of them need skill – or “art” – to do this in a satisfactory
way. The art of the accomplished satirist consists in the elegance, the
“fineness,” the subtlety of his accusations. The civilised art of satire is
opposed to the coarseness and brutality of personal attack and insult,
which are the literary equivalent of a man’s “slovenly butchering.”
SAQ 7
1. The spirit of competition, the jealousy (envy) and the
aggressiveness towards one’s fellows.
2. The irrational greed and avarice, the “unnatural appetite” for
things whose value doesn’t justify the effort and energy spent in their
acquisition and preservation.
3. The incapacity of choosing a ruler according to real merit;
the ability of the worst to set themselves as leaders; the rulers’ habit
of surrounding themselves by favourites whose role is to flatter and
to encourage them in their abuses.
4. The tendency to idleness, which breeds imaginary ills.
5. Womankind’s lustfulness and inclination to coquetry; the silly
behaviour of women determined to draw attention to themselves.
SAQ 8
Utopian aspects: The cultivation and exercise of reason, the
education in the spirit of moderation and industry, the generalises
extension of friendship and benevolence, decency and civility are
certainly desiderata of any civilisation. The Houyhnhms are not
divided by quarrels, conflict and self-interest, and the equal education
of males and females was a progressive Enlightenment ideal.
Anti-utopian aspects: the absolutisation of reason, the exclusion
of opinion, deprives their thinking of flexibility and nuance, ultimately
of imagination. The tyranny of reason also rules out affection and
emotion: they have no particular feelings for their own offspring, and
no personal choice in the matter of marriage, which is meant only for
procreation. The individual is of no importance, only the species
counts. In the absence of affective attachment, civility and friendship
become a cold and superficial form of social relationship. They
practice population control, and the hierarchy of their society is based
on racial discrimination (“inferior” Houyhnhnms will fatally be
servants), which makes social progress inconceivable.
Further reading
1. Daiches, David, A Critical History of English Literature, vol. 3 (“The
Restoration to 1800”), London: Secker and Warburg Ltd., 1969
(pp. 537-550)
2. Preda, Ioan-Aurel (coord.), English Literature and Civilisation. The
Renaissance and the Restoration Period, Bucureşti: Editura
Didactică şi Pedagogică, 1983 (pp. 180-187)
3. Macsiniuc, Cornelia, The English Eighteenth Century. The Novel in
Its Beginnings, Editura Universităţii Suceava, 2003 (pp.33-66)
UNIT 5
Unit Outline
Unit objectives 118
5 The Age of the Enlightenment: the rise of the novel 118
5.1. Background and main concerns 118
5.1.1. Novel and romance in the 18th century 118
5.1.2. Didacticism and realism in the 18th century novel 119
5.1.3. Typology of the novel in the 18th century 121
5.2. Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson: from circumstantial realism
to sentimental truth 123
5.2.1. Daniel Defoe and the novel of adventure 123
5.2.2. Robinson Crusoe: theme and plot 124
5.2.3. Interpretations of Robinson Crusoe 125
5.2.4. Defoe’s style 127
5.2.5. Samuel Richardson’s contribution to the development of the novel 128
5.2.6. The plot of Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded 128
5.2.7. Social hierarchy and the individual self 129
5.2.8. Psychological realism and the epistolary technique 130
5.3. Henry Fielding and the novel of manners 132
5.3.1. Comedy and parody in Joseph Andrews 132
5.3.2. The novel as comic romance 133
5.3.3. The character of parson Adams 134
5.3.4. Fielding’s conception of character in Joseph Andrews 134
5.3.5. Fielding’s Augustanism 135
5.4. Laurence Sterne and the “anti-novel” 136
5.4.1. Tristram Shandy: an unconventional autobiographical novel 136
5.4.2. Eccentric characters in Tristram Shandy 136
5.4.3. Sentimentalism and tragi-comic vision 137
5.4.4. The “Shandean” view of writing 139
5.4.5. The defamiliarisation of realistic conventions 139
5.4.6. Tristram Shandy as metafiction 140
Summary 142
Key words 142
Glossary 143
Gallery of personalities 144
SAA No. 2 145
Solutions and suggestions for SAQs 146
Further reading 148
SAQ 1
2. Women were …
5. The novel’s interest in the tensions between the public and the
private reflected …
SAQ 2
SAQ 3
SAQ 4
1.
2.
3.
4.
SAQ 5
Analyse Text 5.2. in the Reader from the point of view of its
style. Identify in it at least four features of Defoe’s characteristic
narrative style and write them in the space provided below.
1.
2.
3.
4.
SAQ 6
SAQ 7
1.
2.
SAQ 8
SAQ 9
1.
2.
3.
SAQ 10
SAQ 11
1.
2.
3.
Summary
The birth of the novel is a literary phenomenon that must be seen
as part of the process of modernisation defining the Age of the
Enlightenment in England. Since its settlement on the literary scene,
this genre has enjoyed unrivalled popularity. At the beginning of the
18th century, the novel was a minor form, completely ignored by
Augustan poetics. The absence of norms and models made it an
exceptionally flexible and inclusive form. This is reflected in the wide
diversity of directions in which the novel developed in the 18th century.
You have formed an idea of this diversity from the chapters of this
unit, which has dealt with four major novelists of this age: Daniel Defoe,
Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, and Laurence Sterne. Their
works illustrate various aspects and tendencies in the evolution of the
genre. We have only concentrated on one novel for each writer, selected
as an illustration of the most characteristic features of his art.
Defoe illustrates best the new narrative realism that emerged in
fiction, and with Robinson Crusoe the middle class hero is imposed
on the literary scene. However, in a work so committed to the matter-
of-fact, to the palpable reality of common objects and actions,
readers along the ages have been able to find a wealth of symbolic
meanings and a story of archetypal significance.
Richardson takes the novel in the direction of the minute
analysis of emotion and feeling, but his interest in the psychological
complexity of the individual is completed by a remarkable sensitivity
to social aspects.
Fielding, on the other hand, in his novels of manners, looks for
the permanences in human nature and investigates the border area
in which the individual’s aspirations and pursuits are submitted to the
pressure of social demand.
Lastly, Sterne, who shares with Fielding the attraction to
comedy and parody, tests the possibilities and limitations of the
newly-born literary genre in an experimental, self-conscious novel
that makes him highly modern.
Key words
• realism
• romance
• character
• to divert and instruct
• parody
• comic
• novel of manners
• sentimental novel
• narrative technique
• metafiction
• convention
Glossary
• Augustanism: the features of style and the aesthetic views of a
writer belonging to the Augustan Age (for the latter, see again the
Glossary in Unit 1).
• Bildungsroman: German term; literally: novel of formation, or
education.
• booby: silly or stupid person.
• burlesque: see the Glossary in Unit 1.
• Cinderella: an old fairy story, in which the poor heroine,
persecuted by her stepmother and ugly stepsisters, ends up by
marrying Prince Charming. Cinderella is the prototype of the
obscure and neglected young person, who achieves success
owing to beauty and virtue.
• epistolary manner: in a novel, the way of telling the story
through a character’s letters or through an exchange of letters.
The letter (epistle) as a literary species was widely used in the
18th century.
• felix culpa: see subchapter 3.3 and the Glossary in Unit 3.
• gentle: of good breeding; belonging to a high social class (as in
gentleman).
• harpsichord: an old musical instrument, played like a piano, but
producing a different sound.
• hobby horse: a favourite topic or an obsessive, fixed idea.
Concretely, a hobbyhorse is a toy, consisting of a stick with a
figure of a horse’s head at one end.
• jester: a professional clown employed by a king or nobleman, a
Fool.
• lifelikeness: closeness to life; exact representation of life.
• literacy: the ability to read and write.
• metafiction: literally, “beyond fiction”; a term designating the
contemporary mode of fiction – postmodern fiction – which is
essentially self-reflexive, or “narcissistic” – i.e. in which its form
becomes explicitly its subject.
• mimetic: the adjective derived from mimesis (Greek: imitation), a
term associated with the aesthetic view according to which the
work of art is an imitation – a representation – of reality. It was
Aristotle who articulated this theory, which dominated Western
aesthetics until the end of the 18th century.
• minuteness: exactness in the rendering of small detail.
• mirth: laughter, gaiety, fun, happiness.
• omniscient: describes the perspective of a narrator who appears
to know all about the characters and their action.
• parody: the satirical imitation of a serious work, whose style,
tone, attitude and subject are deliberately distorted so as to make
them appear ridiculous.
• parson: an Anglican priest in charge of a local church.
• picaresque: the origin of English picaresque novels is in the
Spanish picaresque fiction of the 16th century, which became
popular in England through translation and imitation. The hero –
the picaro (i.e. rogue) – belongs, characteristically, to the lower
ranks of society, and he seeks social integration. He is forced to
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The Age of the Enlightenment: the rise of the novel
find his way in a hostile world by means of his resourcefulness
and ingenuity, having often to go through the experience of
humiliation and frustration, which stands in an ironic contrast with
the successive triumphs of the noble hero of romance).
• priggish: describes a person who is strict about rules and correct
behaviour and thinks him/herself morally superior to others.
• Puritan: see the Glossary in Unit 1.
• Romantic: see Romanticism in the Glossary in Unit 1.
• quixotic: the word describes a character moulded after
Cervantes’s Don Quixote; “quixotic” indicates an unrealistically
optimistic and impractically idealistic approach to life.
• Shandean: the adjective that Tristram derives from his family
name.
• War of the Spanish Succession: 1702-1713; Britain joined
Austria, Prussia and the Netherlands against France, Spain and
Bavaria in this war fought over the disputed succession to the
Spanish throne.
Gallery of personalities
SAQ 1
1. The rise of the middle classes … coincides with the emergence
of the novel as a literary genre.
2. Women were … a consistent part of the novel’s reading public,
and also authors of novels.
3. By contrast with the escapist spirit of romances, … novels
focused on the ordinary and the familiar aspects of life, on
contemporary social reality and on the experience of the
common individual.
4. The didactic mission of the novel in the 18th century consisted in
… offering the middle class readers models of moral and ethical
conduct and of social success.
5. The novel’s interest in the tensions between the public and the
private reflected … the attempt to reconcile the growing spirit of
individualism with the aspiration to social harmony.
SAQ 2
1. the novel of adventure
2. the sentimental novel
3. the picaresque novel
4. the Bildungsroman
5. the novel of manners
6. the comic novel
SAQ 3
Defoe’s own phrase refers to the purpose of his novels: to
entertain and to instruct. He delights the reader with an extraordinary
adventure and a story of success, which is given an air of authenticity
by the meticulous, realistic account, and by the form of
autobiographical record. He thus “cheats” the reader with the illusion
of truth, but this is a way of accomplishing more efficiently his honest
intention of conveying a moral message.
SAQ 4
Tenacity; patience; industriousness; sharp sense of observation;
inventiveness; pragmatism; optimism; the capacity for learning from
mistakes; rationality; resilience.
SAQ 5
factuality; concreteness; plainness; immediacy; vividness; minuteness
SAQ 6
Pamela’s assertion points to her conviction that the right to defend
the moral integrity of one’s self is independent of social status. In the
social order, she may be deprived of the privilege of class and fortune,
but she lives with the deep conviction that in the spiritual order of a
Christian world, all souls are equal. She will accept humbly her social
inferiority, but she denies any human being the right to control her moral
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The Age of the Enlightenment: the rise of the novel
will. Her statement reflects the strength of her sense of individual worth,
as well as a paradoxical combination of social conformity and
rebelliousness, which makes her sensitive to any form of power abuse.
SAQ 7
1. The reader is made witness to the most private thoughts of the
character, and this impression of unmediaded communication
strengthens his belief in the character’s sincerity.
2. It creates a greater sense of suspense and anticipation, since the
letters usually record moments of crisis in the character’s experience.
This technique may thus give a dramatic quality to the narrative.
3. It allows a more profound insight into the character’s mind; it enables
the author to give greater psychological complexity to the characters.
SAQ 8
1.T; 2.T; 3F; 4.T; 5.T; 6.F; 7.T; 8.F
SAQ 9
1. The narrative manner: unlike Defoe and Richardson, who write in
the first person, Fielding finds the omniscient point of view more
suitable to his intentions.
2. The conception of character: he is interested not in the
uniqueness of individuals, but in the way in which the individual
embodies general traits of human nature; that is, he is concerned
with human types.
3. His style: while the style of Defoe and Richardson is closer to the
plainness of common speech, Fielding displays the elegance and
refinement of the Augustan ideal of style.
SAQ 10
In formulating your answer, you should think first of the features
of a tragic hero. He is always a prominent figure, enjoying title,
wealth and power; his gifts and virtues set him above common
people. This is not Tristram’s case. He is a “small HERO” because
the misfortunes of his life do not consist in some “great or signal evil,”
but in “pitiful misadventures.” The image of the “ungracious Duchess”
– Fortune – pelting him with a series of “cross [i.e unfavourable]
accidents” is in comic contrast with the ideas of tragic disaster and
the fall of the great.
SAQ 11
1. The use of digressions is meant to show Tristram’s narrative skill
and constitutes a mark of his originality.
2. Digressions keep the reader’s curiosity awake; they create a sort of
suspense, forbidding the reading “appetite” to fail and bringing in
variety.
3. It prevents the writing from ending – it allows the writer to go on
indefinitely. In this way, living and the act of writing overlap each
other.
Further reading
1. Allen, Walter, The English Novel, Penguin Books Limited, 1991
(pp. 37-42; 43-46; 53-59; 76-80)
2. Daiches, David, A Critical History of English Literature, vol.3 (“The
Restoration to 1800”), London: Secker and Warburg Ltd, 1969
(pp. 598-602; 701-704; 712-718; 731-736)
3. Macsiniuc, Cornelia, The English Eighteenth Century: The Novel
in Its Beginnings, Editura Universităţii Suceava, 2003 (pp. 116-
127; 143-163; 179-195; 217-231; 234-238)
UNIT 6
Unit Outline
Unit objectives 150
6 English pre-Romantic poetry 150
6.1. Pre-Romantic tendencies in 18th century poetry 150
6.1.1. The poetry of melancholy meditation 151
6.1.2. The interest in early poetry 151
6.1.3. The pre-Romantic sensibility and the interest in new poetic forms 153
6.2. The rural universe in 18thcentury poetry 153
6.2.1. The sentimental approach: Oliver Goldsmith 154
6.2.2. Character sketch in The Deserted Village 154
6.2.3. The realistic approach: George Crabbe 155
6.2.4. Robert Burns and the popular tradition 156
6.3. Pre-Romantic nature poetry 158
6.3.1. James Thomson, The Seasons 158
6.3.2. William Cowper, The Task 159
6.4. William Blake – the visionary artist 161
6.4.1. Blake as a pre-Romantic poet 161
6.4.2. Blake, the Romantic visionary 162
6.4.3. The theme of childhood in Songs of Innocence 163
6.4.4. Ironic implications in Songs of Innocence 166
6.4.5. The fall from Innocence: Songs of Experience 166
6.4.6. Knowledge in the world of Experience 167
6.4.7. The double vision in Blake’s Songs 168
Summary 170
Key words 171
Glossary 171
Gallery of personalities 173
SAA No. 3 173
Solutions and suggestions for SAQs 174
Further reading 176
♦ explain the shift in literary taste that occurred in the latter half
Unit objectives of the 18th century
♦ define the main interests and tendencies in pre-Romantic
poetry
♦ point out elements of continuity and discontinuity between
pre-Romantic poetry and Augustan literature
♦ compare the representation of the rural universe in the works
of 18th century poets
♦ describe the pre-Romantic approach to the theme of nature
♦ specify pre-Romantic and Romantic features of William
Blake’s work
♦ analyse Blake’s notions of Innocence and Experience in the
context of particular poems
♦ describe the contrasting visions in poems by Blake
SAQ 1
6.1.3. The pre- Romantic sensibility and the interest in new poetic
forms
The transition from the Augustan to the Romantic age was
slow and long. Elements of a pre-Romantic sensibility can be
found all along the century, sometimes within the context of
Augustan conventions. The emphasis on sentimental response,
the inspiration from folk myths and legends, the interest in the
local and national past, the interest in rural life and its contrast
with civilisation, the new feeling for nature – these were features
indicating that literary taste was changing.
This change in taste concerned not only themes and
subjects, but also literary forms. Towards the end of the century,
William Blake would call the heroic couplet* the “great cage” of
The return to Augustan poetry, and indeed the tendency along the century
blank verse was to abandon it for poetic forms that allowed more freedom. A
return to blank verse – for which Shakespeare and Milton were
the great models – allowed greater flexibility of expression. In
the latter part of the century, an interest developed in popular
forms of poetry, such as the song and the ballad, valued for their
simplicity and directness by the first Romantics (William
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge).
SAQ 2
1. moderation (1 line):
4. selflessness and sincere concern for the fate and spirit of those in
pitiful circumstances (1 line):
SAQ 3
SAQ 4
SAQ 5
SAQ 6
The subchapter that follows will acquaint you with some of the
poems illustrating Blake’s “double vision” in Songs of Innocence and
of Experience.
SAQ 7
SAQ 8
SAQ 9
The poem The Garden of Love – Text 6.7. in the Reader – tells
the story of the loss of Innocence and the entrance in the state of
Experience. The two “states of the human soul” are here set in contrast.
The speaker’s “journey” to the garden of Love is an attempt to revive the
former state, to regain the vision of Innocence, but he is no longer able
to do that, except as an act of remembering. Read the poem carefully
and identify the symbols by means of which the two states are
contrasted. Explain them in no more than 20 lines / 200 words.
Summary
This unit aims at enlarging your picture of the literary diversity of
the 18th century, by focusing on those tendencies in poetry which
prefigure the Romantic Age.
The transition from the Age of Reason to the Age of Feeling in
the 18th century was accompanied by changes in literary taste. The
first subchapter of this unit deals with two prominent features
announcing the Romantic sensibility. One of them is the emergence
of a kind of meditative poetry fond of melancholy themes and gloomy
settings. The “Graveyard” poets (e. g. Edward Young and Thomas
Gray) illustrate this new trend. The other feature is primitivism, the
interest in early poetry. The fascination of James Macpherson with
Britain’s Celtic past, and of Thomas Chatterton with the Middle Ages
anticipates the Romantic spirit.
In subchapter 6.2., you have been acquainted with two poets
who turned their attention to the rural universe. Oliver Goldsmith
emphasises the idyllic happiness of the traditional rural civilisation,
now threatened by the march of Progress. George Crabbe adopts a
more realistic and critical view. He condemns the literary habit of
idealising the countryside, and seeks to arouse compassion for the
life of labour and poverty of the English peasant.
Another feature of 18th century pre-Romantic poetry is the
perception of rural life in its close connection with Nature. The theme
of Nature in pre-Romantic poetry is sometimes closely associated
with the opposition country-town, nature-civilisation.
Subchapter 6.3. deals with the way in which poets like James
Thomson, William Collins and William Cowper approach the theme of
Nature. Their poetry displays an unprecedented attention to natural
detail, and they acknowledge Nature’s subtle influence on man’s
thoughts, imagination and feelings.
The last subchapter, 6.4., presents the outstanding figure of
William Blake, in whose work pre-Romantic and Romantic elements
meet. His Songs of Innocence and of Experience are the testimony
of the visionary artist, who sees the opposition nature-civilisation in
the light of the myth of Paradise and of the Fall.
The theme of childhood is examined in several Songs, in its
relation with “the two contrary states of the human soul”: Innocence
and Experience. The latter may be also seen as complementary
aspects of poetic imagination, as Blake’s “double” poems suggest.
The same theme and situation acquires contrary implications, the
vision of Innocence and the vision of Experience completing each
other.
Key words
● pre-Romantic
● nature vs. civilisation
● rural universe
● primitivism
● melancholy
● sentimentalism
● humanitarianism
● childhood
● imagination
● Innocence and Experience
● double vision
Glossary
Gallery of personalities
SAQ 1
1. b; 2. d; 3. a; 4. c
SAQ 2
1. “His house was known to all the vagrant train”
“The long-remembered beggar was his guest”
2. “Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e’er had changed, nor wished to change his place”
3. “More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise”
4. “Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour”
5. “He chid their [i.e. the vagants’] wanderings, but relieved their pain”
6. “passing rich with forty pounds a year”
SAQ 3
In contrast with Goldsmith’s idealised image of rural happiness
and ease, Crabbe presents a desolate picture, in which everything
seems to be in decline. There is a general sense of decay and
exhaustion in the humble scene in the cottage: the “pale” mother, the
“drooping weary” father, the “feeble,” “expiring” fire suggest
overwork, disease and poverty. Their hard life has no room for
illusions about the comforts of old age. Crabbe’s descriptin of the old
man’s weakness and of the pains of old age is meant to contradict
the pastoral emphasis on the “health and plenty,” vitality and
cheerfulness of the idyllic village life. Crabbe also gives a reply to
those who idealise rural nature: instead of the pleasing “smooth
stream” sung in such poetry, he focuses sharply on the withered tree.
Its bare, broken branches are a “sad emblem” of the unrewarding
existence of the poor in the countryside.
SAQ 4
The personified Philosophic Melancholy exerts “his” influence
on man’s imagination, on his soul, and on his thoughts. Meditation
leads to illumination; the mind can see beyond the “dim” surface of
things. This heightened understanding is accompanied by
“correspondent passions”: love of God, love of nature, and love of
man, all intensified.
SAQ 5
The first line of the fragment contains the implication that
everything made by God is perfect, whereas what man makes is
inevitably deficient. The country is thus a substitute for Eden, the place
where “health and virtue” can be found abounding. Health and virtue
are God’s “gifts” to man, to enable him to bear more easily the burden
of life. In the city, these gifts are “threatened” – the life of pleasure and
luxury with which the city tempts man may corrupt his moral fiber. For
Cowper, the country is therefore morally superior to the city.
SAQ 7
The child cannot imagine the Creator of the lovely and tender
creature otherwise than “meek and mild,” that is, gentle and humble
like the lamb itself. It is the intuition of Innocence that dictates the
confident answer to the child: the Creator is Jesus, the “Lamb of
God.” The child imagines the making of the lamb as the act of love of
a generous and protective creator – “making” and “giving” are made
somehow equivalent in the first stanza. At the same time, the lamb is
God’s gift to the child: it is a “delight” to look at and to touch, and his
“tender voice” fills all nature with joy. In the second stanza, the child
identifies himself and the lamb with Jesus, the God of Love,
incarnated in a child and having the Lamb as a symbol. In the simple
economy of the poem, the few elements of the natural setting
(stream, meadow, vales) emphasise the close connection between
Innocence and Nature. In a vision of Innocence, therefore, Man,
Nature and Divinity form a harmonious whole.
SAQ 8
Examples:
1. “My mother groaned, my father wept” – In the vision of Experience, a
child’s birth is no cause for joy. The mother “groans” with the pains
of delivery, and the father weeps perhaps because his new baby
comes into a world of trouble and cares, and is itself one more care
in the family. The pain and sorrow accompanying birth are symbolic
anticipations of the suffering, disappointments and frustrations that
await man in the world of Experience.
2. “Struggling in my father’s hands / Striving against my swaddling
bands” – The new born infant is practically a “prisoner” from his
first moments in the world. His swaddling bands and his father’s
arms do not suggest care and protection, but are symbols of
limitation, confinement and oppressive authority, against which
man, in the state of Experience, struggles in vain.
SAQ 9
The “garden” where he “used to play” – the Eden of childhood – is
the symbol of the state of Innocence, which he has lost. The vision of
Experience reveals to him the perspective of death: the garden turns out
to be a graveyard, and the beauty of the “sweet flowers” – symbols of
life – is replaced by the grim image of the tombstones. If the child’s play
suggests the freedom and pleasure enjoyed in the state of Innocence,
Experience brings about inhibition and constraint. The interdiction “Thou
shall not” on the door of the chapel suggests repression and limitation.
The church as an institution belongs to the world of Experience, and, in
Blake’s vision, it controls man’s relationship with Divinity, being thus a
source of oppression. The shut gates of the chapel symbolise the
estrangement of man from God, no longer able – or permitted – to relate
to God “naturally” and directly. This is also suggested by the gloomy
figure of the priests, “walking their rounds” like soldiers guarding a
Further reading
1. Daiches, David, A Critical History of English Literature, vol. 3 (“The
Restoration to 1800”), London: Secker and Warburg Ltd., 1969
(pp. 652-658; 671-684; 692-699)
2. Ford, Boris (ed.), The New Pelican Guide to English Literature,
vol.4 (“From Dryden to Johnson”), Penguin Books Ltd., 1991 (pp.
84-94)
3. Ford, Boris (ed.), The New Pelican Guide to English Literature,
vol.5 (“From Blake to Byron”), Penguin Books Ltd., 1991 (pp. 69-
87)
READER
in
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century
British Literature
UNIT 2
TEXT 2.1.
Hamlet: (…) I have of late*, – but wherefore* I know not, – lost all my
mirth*, foregone* all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so
heavily with my disposition that this goodly* frame*, the earth,
seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy*,
the air, look you, this brave* overhanging* firmament*, this
majestical roof fretted* with golden fire, it appears no other thing
to me but a foul* and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a
piece of work is man! How noble in Reason! How infinite in
faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In
action how like an angel, in apprehension* how like a god!! The
beauty of the world! The paragon* of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights me not (…).
of late recently brave minunat,excelent; strălucitor
wherefore why, for what reason overhanging hanging over
mirth happiness and laughter firmament (archaic, literary) the sky
foregone to forego, forewent, foregone: to give up fretted decorated
goodly pleasant or satisfying in appearance foul very bad or unpleasant
frame form, shape apprehension understanding; ability to understand
canopy a large or wide covering (e.g. the sky) paragon a model of excellence
TEXT 2.2.
TEXT 2.3.
TEXT 2.4.
TEXT 2.5.
TEXT 2.6.
Text 2.7.
TEXT 2.8.
UNIT 3
TEXT 3.1.
TEXT 3.2.
TEXT 3.3.
TEXT 3.4.
TEXT 3.5.
TEXT 3.6.
TEXT 3.7.
TEXT 3.8.
TEXT 3.9.
UNIT 4
TEXT 4.1.
TEXT 4.2.
How easy is it to call rogue* and villain*, and that wittily*! But
how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead*, or a
knave* without using any of those opprobrious* terms! (…)
There is (…) a vast difference betwixt* the slovenly*
butchering* of a man, and the fineness* of a stroke* that
separates the head from the body, and leaves it standing in its
place.
rogue pungaş, escroc, potlogar betwixt between
villain nemernic, secătură, lichea slovenly neglijent
wittily in a witty manner (cu mult spirit) butchering căsăpire, măcelărire
blockhead nătâng, dobitoc, cap sec fineness eleganţă, perfecţiune
knave escroc, pungaş, ticălos, nemernic stroke lovitură
opprobrious insulting
TEXT 4.3.
TEXT 4.4.
TEXT 4.5.
TEXT 4.6.
UNIT 5
TEXT 5.1.
It was now that I began sensibly* to feel how much more happy
this life I now led was, with all its miserable circumstances, than the
wicked*, cursed*, abominable* life I led all the past part of my days.
And now I changed both my sorrows and my joys; my very desires
altered*, my affections changed their gusts*, and my delights were
perfectly new from what they were at my first coming, or indeed for
the two years past.
Before, as I walked about, either on my hunting or for viewing
the country, the anguish* of my soul at my condition would break out*
upon me on a sudden*, and my very heart would die within me to
think of the woods, the mountains, the deserts I was in, and how I
was a prisoner locked up with the eternal bars* and bolts* of the
ocean, in an uninhabited wilderness, without redemption*. In the
midst* of the greatest composures* of my mind, this would break out
upon me like a storm, and make me wring* my hands like a child.
(…).
But now I began to exercise myself with new thoughts. I daily
read the Word of God, and applied all the comforts* of it to my
present state. One morning, being very sad, I opened the Bible upon
these words: “I will never, never leave thee*, nor forsake* thee.”
Immediately it occurred* to me that these words were to me. Why
else* should they be directed in such a manner, just at the moment
when I was mourning over my condition as one forsaken of* God and
Man? (…)
From this moment I began to conclude in my mind that it was
possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken, solitary condition
than it was probable I should have ever been I any other particular
state in the world; and with this thought I was going to give thanks to
God for bringing me to this place.
sensibly în mod apreciabil, destul de mult redemption mântuire, izbăvire, salvare
wicked păcătos midst middle
cursed nelegiuit, ticălos composure linişte, calm, cumpăt, stăpânire de sine
abominable odios to wring (wrung) a frânge; to wring one’s hands: a-şi frânge
to alter to change mâinile de durere
gust răbufnire, explozie, izbucnire comfort mângâiere, consolare, încurajare
anguish pain, misery, agony thee you
to break out a se dezlănţui, a izbucni to forsake (forsook, forsaken) to abandon
on a sudden suddenly, abruptly to occur (to someone) a-i veni în minte, a-i trece prin gând
bars gratii, zăbrele why else? altfel de ce?
bolt zăvor forsaken of forsaken by
TEXT 5.2.
It would make the reader pity* me, or rather laugh at me, to tell
how many awkward* ways I took to raise this paste*; what odd,
misshapen*, ugly things I made; how many of them fell in*, and how
many fell out*, the clay* not being stiff* enough to bear its own
weight*; how many cracked* by the over-violent heat of the sun,
being set out too hastily*; and how many fell in pieces with only
removing* as well before as after they were dried; and, in a word
how, after having laboured hard to find the clay, to dig* it, to temper*
it, to bring it home and work it, I could not make above* two large
earthen* ugly things – I cannot call them jars* – in about two months’
labour. (…)
Though I miscarried* so much in my design* for large pots*, yet
I made several smaller things with better success – such as little
round pots, flat dishes*, pitchers*, and pipkins*, and any things my
hand turned to*; and the heat of the sun baked* them strangely
hard*.
But all this would not answer my end*, which was to get an
earthen pot to hold what was liquid, and bear* the fire, which none of
these could do. It happened after some time, making a pretty large
fire for cooking my meat, when I went to put it out* after I had done
with it, I found a broken piece of one of my earthenware vessels* in
the fire burned as hard as a stone, and red as a tile*. I was agreeably
surprised to see it, and said to myself that certainly they might be
made to burn whole if they would burn broken.
This set me to studying how to order* my fire, so as to make it
burn me some pots. I had no notion of a kiln*, such as the potters*
burn in, or glazing* them with lead*, though I had some lead to do it
with.; but I placed three large pipkins and two or three pots in a pile,
one upon another, and placed my firewood* all round it, with a great
heap of embers* under them. I plied the fire* with fresh fuel round the
outside and upon the top till I saw the pots in the inside red-hot quite
through*, and observed that they did not crack at all*. When I saw
them clear red, I let them stand in that heat about five or six
hours(…). In the morning I had three very good – I will not say
handsome* – pipkins and two other earthen pots as hard burned as
could be desired (…).
No joy at a thing of so mean a nature* was ever equal to mine
when I found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire; and
I had hardly patience to stay till they were cold before I set one upon
the fire again with some water in it to boil me some meat, which it did
admirably well.
to pity a căina set out too hastily expuse prea devreme
awkward incomod, anevoios, dificil with only removing doar ce le-am mişcat
paste cocă to dig, dug a săpa
misshapen diform to temper a amesteca, a frământa, a prelucra
fell in to fall, (fell, fallen) in: a se prăbuşi, a cădea above more than
fell out to fall, (fell, fallen) out: a se desface, a se desprinde earthen de lut, de pământ
clay lut, argilă jar oală, vas
stiff tare to miscarry a da greş
weight to bear its own weight: să reziste la propria greutate design intenţie
to crack a crăpa pot vas, oală
Proiectul pentru Învăţământul Rural 201
Reader
dish blid, farfurie kiln cuptor
pitcher ulcior ulcea potter olar
pipkin gavanos to glaze a smălţui
to turn to a se apuca de lucru, a se pune pe lucru lead plumb
to bake a coace firewood lemn de foc
strangely hard neobişnuit de tare embers jăratec
end ţel, scop, intenţie I plied the fire am întreţinut focul
to bear (bore, born) a rezista, a ţine la quite through cu totul, în întregime
to put out (the fire) a stinge (focul) at all deloc
earthenware vessels vase de lut handsome frumos, arătos
tile ţiglă; placă de ceramică a thing of so mean a nature un lucru atât de mărunt
how to order the fire cum să potrivesc focul
TEXT 5.3.
TEXT 5.4.
TEXT 5.5.
TEXT 5.6.
TEXT 5.7.
UNIT 6
TEXT 6.1.
TEXT 6.2.
TEXT 6.3.
TEXT 6.4.
TEXT 6.5.
TEXT 6.6.
TEXT 6.7.
TEXT 6.8.
TEXT 6.9.
TEXT 6.10.
TEXT 6.11.
TEXT 6.12.
Now like a mighty* wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings* the seats* of heaven among.
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor;
Then cherish* pity, lest* you drive* an angel from your door.
TEXT 6.13.
William Blake, Holy Thursday (from Songs of Experience)
Is this a holy thing to see,
In a rich and fruitful* land
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed* with cold and usurous* hand?
Sources
Abrams, M. H (Gen. Ed.), The Norton Anthology of English
Literature, Vols. I, II New York, London: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1993
Defoe, Daniel, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York,
Mariner, edited with an Introduction by Angus Ross, Penguin
Books Ltd., 1965
Fielding, Henry, Joseph Andrews and Shamela, edited with an
introduction by Arthur Humphreys, London and Melbourne: J.
M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1987
Milton, John, Paradise Lost, Penguin Books Ltd., 1996
Richardson, Samuel, Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady, edited
with an introduction by Angus Ross, Penguin Books Ltd., 1985
Richardson, Samuel, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, ed. by Peter
Sabor, with and introduction by Margaret Ann Doody, Penguin
Books, Ltd., 1980
Shakespeare, William, Opere complete, vol. 5 (Hamlet), ediţie
îngrijită şi comentată de Leon D. Leviţchi, Bucureşti: Editura
Univers, 1986
Shakespeare, William, Opere complete, vol. 7 (Macbeth), ediţie
îngrijită şi comentată de Leon D. Leviţchi, Bucureşti: Editura
Univers, 1988
Shakespeare, William, Opere, vol. XI (Furtuna) Bucureşti: Editura
pentru Literatură Universală, 1963
Shakespeare, William, The Complete Works, edited, with a glossary
by W.J. Craig, London: Henry Pordes, 1984)
Sterne, Laurence, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy,
Gentleman, edited with an introduction by Ian Campbell Ross,
Oxford University Press, 1983
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY