1

y Daniela Calleja

y ID: 315889(M)

y Studying English At Undergraduate Level

y End of Semester Assignment

y Study Unit Code: ENG1177

y B.A. English and Psychology (General)

y 7th March 2011

Daniela Calleja - 315889(M) ENG 1177

07/03/11

1. Choose any chapter from The Short Oxford History of English Literature by Andrew Sanders and provide a paraphrase of it of between 700-1000 words.

Chapter 1: Old English Literature

Henry Sweet coined Old English to mean: the unmixed, inflectional state of the English language, commonly known... [as] Anglo-Saxon . After the re-Christianization (6-7th centuries) literacy was limited to those in holy orders but oral form was popular throughout the British Isles. The Scriptures of the Vulgate version were translated into English, an example of which is Bede s translation of the Gospel of St. John in the Lindisfarne Manuscript. However the peace and prosperity was devastated in 793 by Viking sea-raiders and monastic libraries were ransacked and destroyed. Alfred, King of Wessex (848-99), purposely encouraged the learning of English and a thorough revival of the monasteries took place in the 10th century. From this era: the Junius manuscript, the Beowulf manuscript, the Vercelli Book and the Exeter Book exist. They suggest the survival, acceptability and consistency of older tradition combined with reassessment from monastic orders, as well as emphasizing the sophistication of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Cdmon: earliest identified poet (Bede).

Beowulf (epic): The anonymous poet-narrator recognizes that the story is pagan but believes that heroic codes are compatible with Christian moral values. Beowulf refers back to an age of monster slayings in Scandinavia, interpreting them as struggles between good (humanity) and evil (destructive forces). Beowulf mediates between a settled and unsettled culture; springing from a Christian culture which saw infinite mystery in the world. By understanding God s wonders, his will was understood; by fighting evil, his purposes were realized. The humans reside in a comfortable hall while the monsters come from the bleak outside. The men are bound by ties of loyalty and an accepted hierarchy of King Hrothgar s court at Heorot while the monsters live in bloodthirsty anarchy. Grendel: Godes andsaca , a descendent of the biblical Cain and the first monster which Beowulf challenges, wounds, drives back to his remote lair and kills. The second monster, Grendel s mother, retributively attacks Heorot and is hounded back to the gulf by Beowulf and his comrades. This victory is compared by the scop to those of the Teutonic dragon-slayer Sigemund. The Dragon: a distressed Beowulf is abandoned by his cowardly liegemen and dies leaving a political vacuum. The ending is mournful, describing Beowulf s pagan interment which still conveys absolute submission to God s will.

Daniela Calleja - 315889(M) ENG 1177

07/03/11

3 The Battle of Maldon (fragmentary poem written c.1000): In the Battle of Maldon a fatal skirmish between Essex nobleman, Byrthnoth, and a party of Viking raiders is celebrated. This battle (c 991) stirred the possibly monastic poet into endeavouring to revive the heroic style, with the tensions inherent to its code of action. Brythnoth is a valiant yet impetuous warrior; ambiguously a patriotic martyr for King Ethelred and his nation. His fatal decision to forego his best line of defence may be seen as a sacrifice for Christianity against a pagan enemy, but his men nonetheless band together in brotherhood; believing that God is potentially indifferent to their fate.

The Exeter Book; the Elegies: Poems with their stress on loss, estrangement, exile and the transience of earthly pleasure. Deor: first person lament by a scop that has been replaced and is going through five meditative states of misfortune (Germanic legend), releasing his sorrow, so that the pain of the rejection will also ebb. Each meditation ends with an echoed refrain; with its last section moving from lax pagan values to Christian faith in divine providence.

Widsith: soliloquy spoken by an imaginary, peripatetic and far-wandering scop, retelling the stories of his travels to predominantly Teutonic nations, but Jewish, Egyptian, Assyrian, Medan, and Persian rewarding patrons are also mentioned.

The Wanderer: the narrator claims to have lost his liege and is then confronted with a frosty sea-side scene a wasteland of alienation evoked though tactically placed metaphors and adjectives. The sea becomes the disconnecter and embodies failure, loneliness, servitude and exile. He comforts himself with wisdom shaped by patience through divine faith.

The Seafarer: presents an affecting, yet ambiguous, contrast between the comforts of settled life on land and the dangers at sea. The narrator has endured bitter breast-sorrow while he laboured at sea, but his experiences seem to thrill him. His exile is self-imposed; he discloses that he mistrusts life on land and that noises remind him nostalgically of open sea. In conclusion, the shore represents the transitory and uncertain nature of the world which contrasts with the secure resting place of the soul: heaven. A similar theme features in The Ruin which muses over the ruins of a city which causes its narrator to wonder about its builders. However it does not evoke a sense of alienation but speaks of exiles of vanished worlds; an awareness reinforced by the ravages of time and wyrd.

The Wife s Lament: cryptic poem, narrated by a widow mourning her banished husband, that has been linked to The Husband s Message and the short poetic Riddles and has been called a paraphrase of the Song of Songs. Daniela Calleja - 315889(M) ENG 1177 07/03/11

4 The Biblical Poems and The Dream of the Rood: Based on Scriptural sources and Saints lives. Genesis, Exodus, Daniel and Judith are more than paraphrases of Scripture and were often used in ceremonies and liturgies during Holy Week and Easter.

Unknown Poets:

Genesis: opens with the promotion of praising Christ, moves on to a fantastical account of the angels fall and deals with the struggle between the highest hierarchies of good and evil. Genesis B: fall of Adam portrayed as a betrayal of his Supreme lord Creator; Adam is punished by exile from His protection. Exodus: contains military metaphors; concerns both a struggle and a battle between the Jews and the Egyptians, in which the departing Jews triumph. Daniel: emphasizes the force of divine intervention in human affairs. Christ and Satan: Christ portrayed as a warrior battling evil. It ranges from angels fall, through the Harrowing of Hell, to the Resurrection and Ascension. Judith: contained in the Beowulf manuscript. Judith, the virtuous Israelite defender, struggles against an invasion and the monster of depravity (Holofernes). Andreas: a militant St. Andrew crosses an ocean to rescue St. Matthew from incarceration by a cannibalistic race (Mermedonians). The Dream of the Rood: a profound and sophisticated poem describing a dream of the Crucifix that employs paradox and discusses metamorphosis. It presents an icon requiring interpretation that finally merges with its significant meaning, concerning the narrator s shift in perception: from a sigebeam to an articulate bloodied wooden cross that suffered with Christ and was likewise transformed, after its burial, into a beacna selest . When the dreamer resumes, his tone is saturated with wonder, devotion and joy; but is torn between divine serenity and worldly uncertainties/limitations. He longs for heaven; which he glimpses and describes as a royal mead-hall.

Cynewulf:

The Fates of the Apostles: missions and martyrdoms of the apostles, in which disciples are endowed with heroic Nordic traits. Elene: St Helena discovers the True Cross. Juliana: history of a Roman virgin martyr.

Daniela Calleja - 315889(M) ENG 1177

07/03/11

2. From the Library s collection or drawing on its electronic resources, select ten critical works commenting on one of the following and present them in the format that the MHRA Style Sheet recommends for footnotes: The plays of Ben Jonson The poetry of William Wordsworth n The novels of George Eliot
Footnotes: 1) Mairi Macdonald, Wordsworth as a Literary Critic , The Review of English Studies, New Series, 49 (1998), 145-153 2) Scott Hess, William Wordsworth and Photographic Subjectivity , Nineteenth-Century Literature, 63 (2008), 283-320 3) Scott Goddard, William Wordsworth , The Musical Times, 105 (1964), 732-734 4) Thomas Bonnici, Wordsworth s concept of freedom , Revista de Letras, 32 (1992), 257-263 5) Joanna E. Rapf, Visionaries of Dereliction : Wordsworth and Tennyson , Victorian Poetry, 24 (1986), 373-385 6) Theodore E.D. Braun, Diderot, Wordsworth, and the Creative Process , Comparative Literature Studies, 11 (1974), 151-158 7) Adam Potkay, A Satire on Myself : Wordsworth and the Infant Prodigy , Nineteenth-Century Literature, 49 (1994), 149-166 8) Kenneth R. Johnston, Wordsworth and The Recluse: The University of Imagination , PMLA, 97 (1982), 60-82 9) Bruce Lawder, Secret(ing) Conversations: Coleridge and Wordsworth , New Literary History, 32 (2001), 67-89 10) David Bonnell Green and William Wordsworth, An Uncollected Wordsworth Letter on Shakespeare , The Review of English Studies, New Series, 15 (1964), 399-401

3. From the Library s collection or drawing on its electronic resources, select five critical works commenting on one of the following and present them in the format that the MHRA Style Sheet recommends for the entries in the List of Works Cited: The works of Edmund Spenser The works of Joseph Conrad n The works of Philip Larkin
Bibliography: 1) Ho, Janice, The Spatial Imagination and Literary form of Conrad s Colonial Fictions , Journal of Modern Literature, 30 (2007), 1-19 2) Knowles, Owen, Joseph Conrad and Bertrand Russell: New Light on Their Relationship , Journal of Modern Literature, 17 (1990), 139-153 3) Gillon, Adam and Joseph Conrad, Some Polish Literary Motifs in the Works of Joseph Conrad , The Slavic and East European Journal, 10 (1966), 424-439 4) Lackey, Michael, The Moral Conditions for Genocide in Joseph Conrad s Heart of Darkness , College Literature, 32 (2005), 20-41 5) Monod, Sylvre, Joseph Conrad s Polyglot Wordplay , The Modern Language Review, 100 (2005), 222-234

Daniela Calleja - 315889(M) ENG 1177

07/03/11

4). Identify a writer, aspect, or area of literature you particularly enjoy and select a critical work (a monograph, book chapter or journal article) that discusses that writer or aspect of literature. In not more than 1500 words give an account of the ways in which the critical work you have selected illuminates and enriches your understanding of the literary topic that interests you.
The short story genre has always been one of my personally revered literary genres and I have been very grateful to be given the opportunity to study it academically this year. I have chosen to write about H.N.P. Sloman s prologue and introductory letter introducing the great master Guy de Maupassant s collections of short stories because even though the genre has always captured my interest, this piece of literary criticism and analysis inspired me to change the way that I read the stories themselves, as well as providing a template for both a professional, as well as delicately praising, style of criticism. This may be a slightly obscure choice to make but I stand by my personal decision by stating the various ways in which this particular piece invariably set in motion a change in my personal process of critical thought. Aside from the connection already felt with the prose of Guy de Maupassant the introductory pieces of his collections: Boule de Suif and Miss Harriet written by Sloman after his translations of the stories from French to English were invaluable in increasing my knowledge not only about de Maupassant and this genre but also, more importantly, in teaching me about critical style. Although the information contained in this introduction was highly valuable to me, the tone and tact of the piece influenced me even more greatly. This piece was written about the work and the life of de Maupassant and therefore Sloman had to mention de Maupassant s literary failures to write full-length novels; as well as having to include information alluding to his rather pathetic and undignified death in the institute for the General Paralysis of the Insane from the complications of tertiary syphilis, after a major psychotic break and a suicidal attempt where he slashed at his own throat. It was the praising yet still professional emotional tone of the piece and Sloman s genial tact in discussing all matters, pleasant and less so, that I found uniquely inspirational. Compared to more chronological biographies Sloman employs more finesse and diplomatic skill in divulging such indecorous information. One prominent example of such an instance is the way in which he mentioned de Maupassant s death:
From this date till his early death in 1893 he died in an asylum of the General Paralysis of the Insane, the result of a venereal disease then incurable- he lived by his pen, and his output was enormous; in thirteen years, he wrote, in addition to his verse, six full-length novels, three volumes of Travel Sketches , four plays and some 300 short stories.

By mentioning the death and then choosing to end the sentence with de Maupassant s various literary accomplishments, Sloman expertly shifts the focus from de Maupassant s tragic early death to the most productive period of his life, where he achieved greatness and literary immortality by concentrating on de Maupassant s various lifetime achievements and away from his failures and his rather pathetic and unbefitting departure from life. Sloman also employs this tactic when discussing de Maupassant s literary failures:

Daniela Calleja - 315889(M) ENG 1177

07/03/11

7
His verse and his plays have been forgotten, and his novels are comparatively little read today; it is as a writer of short stories that his immortality is secure, and his influence on other writers in that genre....has been marked.

Still, however discreet, Sloman also dwells on de Maupassant s inability to successfully write fulllength novels; calling this failure to translate from the short story genre to the longer novel surprising . In discussing de Maupassant s stories Sloman does mention external criticism that the master has sustained over the years, in that many believe that he paints an unduly low, and even sordid picture of human life and its motives... as well as describing his writing as being keen and detailed; if sometimes cynical and even coarse...But he also recognizes [his characters ] hard work and cheerfulness under very difficult circumstances. Sloman also delves into the psychological construction of de Maupassant s characters, which are described as over-simplified, but their outline is clear and they live as well as stating that de Maupassant has been criticised for not having any inherent sympathy for his characters and is content merely to describe them from the outside. However this criticism is followed by a quotation from de Maupassant himself, which makes such criticism futile since it makes clear that this rather two-dimensional characterisation was always de Maupassant s express intention:
For me psychology in a novel or story consists in this: to show the inner man by his life.

However it is Sloman s next assertion that truly caught my interest and that has remained etched in my mind and later helped me to organise my critical thought and to ignore superfluous considerations and comparisons between authors:
But profitable criticism should not concern itself, mainly at any rate, with the qualities which an author lacks; it is futile to criticize Corneille because he has not the qualities of Shakespeare. Rather we should enjoy and try to understand the qualities which our author has got.

Sloman s rather concise discussion of de Maupassant s collection of short stories was also useful to me personally, since long-drawn elaborations and excessive details in critical work are my proverbial literary Achilles heel. Thus after reading Sloman s precise and succinct notes on de Maupassant s stories, I was far more aware of my own over-embellished and unprofessional approach to literary appraisal. It is this ability to encapsulate all that there is to be said in a few words, as well as his delicate admiration for de Maupassant, which caused me to identify with Sloman and to draw a parallel between the translator s critical style and the literary style of the master whose work he was translating. Perhaps this is not of principal literary value, but it is my humble opinion that when the critic can induce feelings of empathy and identification with the author under discussion, then the critical work becomes influential and stimulating. Sloman also raises questions regarding de Maupassant s low opinion of women and mentions a suggestion made by others about de Maupassant s potential inability to appreciate the spiritual side of love , since he was obsessed with the physical side of the sex relationship and states that this may well be a correct assumption. He ends this debate with a question that further influenced my understanding of what a professional critical piece should be like by asserting that one can still arouse the reader s interest and involvement, in this case with the employment of a rhetorical question:
...as [Maupassant] admits in The Model , he never understood a woman s mind does any man?

Daniela Calleja - 315889(M) ENG 1177

07/03/11

8 When discussing the other illustrious members of the Naturalist school, especially de Maupassant s godfather the renowned stylist Gustave Flaubert, Sloman only states that de Maupassant was not a great stylist like Flaubert [because] he wrote too easily and too fast for that to be possible . This comparison is adequate since de Maupassant was not only Flaubert s godson, but also his protg, and hence similarities or contrasts between them can be addressed. Sloman does not allow Maupassant to fade into Flaubert s shadow but goes on to discuss de Maupassant s inherent achievements whilst giving examples to support his statements from the collection of de Maupassant s stories that he is introducing, such as: ...his prose is clear and straightforward, vivid and forcible; and he is a master of creating atmosphere,
sometimes in a few lines, as in Rose , sometimes at greater length, as in... Madame Tellier s Establishment ... Farce, comedy, tragedy, satire are all treated with equal mastery. The descriptions of scenery... are always relevant to the plot and never strike the reader as laboured.

Sloman goes on to describe the methods that he used to translate the stories, emphasising that:
No attempt has been made to transplant de Maupassant s stories into an English setting or into period language. I have merely tried to give the reader a simple modern English free from Gallicisms, though some of the tricks of style, among which will be noticed the perhaps over-frequent use of three synonymous adjectives, have been preserved... French currency has been put into sterling.

From this paragraph I came to realise, more fully, that the translation of any piece of work and especially those from a different time period - must also involve the identification of what is essential and what can never be changed in order for it to be successful and faithful to the original. The concluding paragraph of the introduction reads as follows:
I shall be amply rewarded if the reader gets half as much pleasure from reading as I have from translating these stories of one of the greatest masters of modern French literature. H.N.P.S.1

I found this conclusion to be very concise, polite, well-fitting and also quite encouraging. There is identification between Sloman and the reader , by means of his wishes for our enjoyment, as well as being a spot on conclusion, ending with the praise of de Maupassant and his genius, about whom the entire piece is written.

June, 1946.

Daniela Calleja - 315889(M) ENG 1177

07/03/11