📗Age of Sensibility (sentimentalism, the

Pre-Romantic period) the 1760s - to 1798

 The Age of Dr. Johnson - a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor
 sentimental novel - celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment
and sensibility, characteristic type of novel in this period
 sentimentalism - a fashion in poetry and prose fiction which began in the 18th
century in reaction tot he rationalism of the Augustan Age
Gothic novel - pseudomedieval fiction having a prevailing atmosphere of mystery and terror;
Horror stories
 the Gothic tradition
 introduce the existential nature of humankind as its definitive mystery and terror
The classics works from this type of literature:
 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)
 Bram Stoker, Dracula (1898)

Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus → AGE OF

SENSIBILITY
author: Mary Shelley
 She was a novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel
writer. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin. Her mother - the
philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (died a month after Mary’s birth) and
her husband was Percy Bysshe Shelley – a poet, she lived in his shadow. She was also
writing ghost stories and came up with the idea of Frankenstein. Her father did not
allowed her to learn, she learned herself how to write and read. At 17 she ran away
win Percy Bysshe Shelley. She faced the death of her few children, and in 1822 Percy
drowned. She needed to support herself financially. She carried Percy’s heart around
for the rest of her life and never married anyone again.
plot summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5A7XN7yTpA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRppXdKDY_c
characters:
Victor Frankenstein - protagonist and narrator of the main portion of the story, studying in
Ingolstadt, Victor discovers the secret of life and creates an intelligent but grotesque monster,
from whom he recoils in horror. Victor keeps his creation of the monster a secret, feeling
increasingly guilty and ashamed as he realizes how helpless he is to prevent the monster from
ruining his life and the lives of others.
The Monster - The eight-foot-tall, hideously ugly creation of Victor Frankenstein. Intelligent
and sensitive, the Monster attempts to integrate himself into human social patterns, but all
who see him shun him. His feeling of abandonment compels him to seek revenge against his
creator
Robert Walton - The Arctic seafarer whose letters open and close Frankenstein. Walton
picks the bedraggled Victor Frankenstein up off the ice, helps nurse him back to health, and
hears Victor’s story. He records the incredible tale in a series of letters addressed to his sister,
Margaret Saville, in England.
Alphonse Frankenstein - Victor’s father, very sympathetic toward his son. Alphonse
consoles Victor in moments of pain and encourages him to remember the importance of
family.
Elizabeth Lavenza - An orphan, four to five years younger than Victor, whom the
Frankensteins adopt. In the 1818 edition of the novel, Elizabeth is Victor’s cousin, the child of
Alphonse Frankenstein’s sister. In the 1831 edition, Victor’s mother rescues Elizabeth from a
destitute peasant cottage in Italy. Elizabeth embodies the novel’s motif of passive women, as
she waits patiently for Victor’s attention. Later, she is killed by a monster.
Henry Clerval - Victor’s boyhood friend, who nurses Victor back to health in Ingolstadt.
After working unhappily for his father, Henry begins to follow in Victor’s footsteps as a
scientist. His cheerfulness counters Victor’s moroseness.
William Frankenstein - Victor’s youngest brother and the darling of the Frankenstein family.
The monster strangles William in the woods outside Geneva in order to hurt Victor for
abandoning him. William’s death deeply saddens Victor and burdens him with tremendous
guilt about having created the monster.
M. Waldman - teacher who sparks Victor’s interest in science.
narrator: The primary narrator is Robert Walton, who, in his letters, quotes Victor
Frankenstein’s first-person narrative at length; Victor, in turn, quotes the monster’s first-
person narrative; in addition, the lesser characters Elizabeth Lavenza and Alphonse
Frankenstein narrate parts of the story through their letters to Victor.
literary genre: gothic novel (supernatural elements, mysterious events, isolated locations),
psychological novel (focusing on Victor’s mind sometimes)
quote:
“What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?”
This quote comes from Walton’s first letter to his sister in England. It encapsulates one of the
main themes of Frankenstein—that of light as a symbol of knowledge and discovery.
Walton’s quest to reach the northernmost part of the earth is similar in spirit to Victor’s quest
for the secret of life: both seek ultimate knowledge, and both sacrifice the comfort of the
realm of known knowledge in their respective pursuits. Additionally, the beauty and
simplicity of the phrasing epitomize the eighteenth-century scientific rationalists’ optimism
about, and trust in, knowledge as a pure good.

🫀Romanticism (1798 - 1830/40)

This period started when Wordsworth and Coleridge published "Lyricall Ballads"in 1798.
The first generation of Romantic poetry: Lake Poets. Those were: (William Wordsworth,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge) - they were close friends, they were in Europe in times of the
French Revolution, Robert Southey. They were all friends.
The French Revolution was a crucial moment for Romanticism. William Wordsworth, Samuel
Taylor Coleridge came back from France and brought this new wave to England. They were
so close that they wrote poem together ("We are seven").
Characteristics of Romanticism:
 works contain supernatural events or gothic elements
 descriptions of nature as a violent power
 folklore elements
 fascination with innocence and children's mind - children as a role model to follow
your emotions
 themes of solittude and individualism

William Blake  “The Lamb” and “The Tiger”→ EARLY

ROMANTICISM
William Blake:
 He was a precursor of English Romanticism (and not only). He was born in a world
which wants purity of form, geometrical forms of buildings, exact measures in poetry.
He is completely different - he does not fit those standards. He was poor and he was
uneducated. England was country of one religion, it was dangerous not to follow the
Church of England. Blake did not follow this church - he belonged to the family of
Dissenters. He openly talked about his beliefs in his poetry. He had a wife who was
illiterate, but he taught her how to write and read. When composing poetry he was
drawing pictures. He was considered an eccentric. He had brother who was 20 years
younger, he took care of him because his parents did not have any money. Later, the
brother died and he was blaming himself for it forever. He had dreams and visions
about him or angels. This made people think that he was crazy. He was forgotten for
years, gained fame after his death. He does not fit to the standard of his epoque. He
was a neoclassical poet because he wrote poetry mainly to educate people and not just
for pleasure. He presented real images of the society and made realisitic drawings.
He went to art school, took drawing lessons and made book illustrations
 illuminated verse - Blake illustrated and printed his poetry himself, the technique of
etching

“The Lamb” - lyric poem

Summary: The little child asks the lamb if he knows who has created it, who has blessed it
with life, and with the capacity to feed by the stream and over the meadow. The child asks
him if the lamb knows who has given it bright and soft wool, which serves as its clothing,
who has given it a tender voice that fills the valley with joy. // In the first stanza of ten lines of
William Blake’s poem The Lamb, the child who is supposed to be speaking to the lamb, gives
a brief description of the little animal as he sees it. // The stanza is marked by the child’s
innocence which is the first stage in Blake’s journey to the truth. // In the second stanza of the
poem, there is an identification of the lamb, Christ, and the child. Christ has another name,
that is, Lamb, because Christ is meek and mild like lamb. Christ was also a child when he first
appeared on this earth as the Son of God. Hence the appropriateness of the following lines:
“He became a little child:/I a child & thou a lamb,/We are called by his name.” // The child
himself proceeds to answer the questions he has asked the Lamb in the first stanza. The child
says that the person, who has created the Lamb and has given many gifts described in the first
stanza, is himself by the name of the Lamb. // It is Jesus Christ who calls himself a Lamb. The
narrator (I) is a child, he is Lamb and they both are called by Jesus’s name.
Main themes: Wonder, innocence, and excitement. Throughout the poem, the innocent child
shows amazement about the creation of the lamb and compares its innocence with God. Also,
he praises the specific qualities of Christ and adores him for his positive attributes. To him,
Jesus is innocent, caring loving and a peaceful deity like he and the lamb.
Images: Imagery is used to make the readers perceive things with their five senses. The poet
has used images such as, “Softest clothing wooly bright”, “He became a little child:” and “By
the stream & o’er the mead.”
Symbols: the symbol of the lamb to paint a picture of innocence. The lamb is a symbol of
Jesus Christ. The lamb is also a symbol of life. It provides humans with food, clothing, and
other things humans need to survive. The line “For he calls himself a Lamb” is a line that
Jesus himself has used (Blake 538). A lamb is a very meek and mild creature, which could be
why Blake chose to use this animal to describe God’s giving side. He even refers to God as
being meek and mild in line fifteen: “He is meek, and he is mild.” Blake wants to show his
readers that God is vengeful but a forgiven and loving creator.
Form: consists of two stanzas, each with five rhymed couplets. Repetition in the first and last
couplet of each stanza turns these lines into a refrain and helps in providing the poem its song-
like quality. The flowing l’s and soft vowel sounds also make a contribution to this effect, and
also bring forth the bleating of a lamb or the lisping character of a child’s chant.
Message/Lyrical situation: Blake wants to show his readers that God is vengeful but a
forgiven and loving creator.

“The Tiger” - lyric poem

Summary: The speaker directly addresses a tiger, he asks which immortal being could
possibly have created the tiger's fearsome beauty. // The speaker wonders in which far-off
depths or skies the tiger's fiery eyes were made. Did the tiger's creator have wings, and whose
hand would be daring enough to create the tiger? // The speaker imagines the kind of effort
and skill that must have gone into creating the tiger, wondering who would be strong enough
to build the tiger's muscular body. Whose hands and feet were the ones that made the tiger's
heart start beating? // The speaker wonders about the tools the tiger's creator must have used,
imagining that the tiger's brain was created in a forge. What terrifying being would be so
daring as to create the tiger? // The speaker mentions a time when the stars gave up their
weapons and rained their tears on heaven. At this time, wonders the speaker, did the creator
look at the tiger and smile at his accomplishment? And was the tiger made by the same
creator who made the lamb? // The speaker addresses the tiger again, this time wondering not
just who could create this fearsome beast—but who would dare.
Main themes: Wonder and good versus evil // Religion is one of the primary themes of the
poem. As a result, what kind of being can be both violent and so magnificent simultaneously?
The poem explores the moral dilemma of the poet. Images:  Blake has used imagery to show
the unique creation of God such as, “What immortal hand or eye,”, “Burnt the fire of thine
eyes?” and “In the forests of the night.”
Symbols: The Tiger symbolizes evil or Satan. //  The Lamb is the symbol of the Goodness. //
Distant Deeps depicts hell. // Skies symbolizes heaven.
Form: The poem is comprised of six quatrains in rhymed couplets. The meter is regular and
rhythmic.
Message/lyrical situation: As this poem is about the creation of tiger, the writer expresses
that everything present in the universe reflects the image of its creator despite their cruel
nature. The emphatically striking image of the tiger makes him think of its creator, and he
doubts if this violent thing is created by God or Satan. In fact, he gets puzzled at the sight of a
tiger in the dark. Therefore, he poses a series of questions about his fierce appearance and the
creator who has created it. On seeing its perfect symmetry, he questions what tools could God
have used to craft its body.

William Wordsworth – “We are seven” and “Daffodils, I

wandered lonely as a cloud”→ ROMANTICISM → ‼️
LAKE POET
William Wordsworth:
 He belonged to the 1st generation of Lake Poets with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and
Robert Southney. He was a poet of spiritual speculation, he was concerned with the
human relationship to nature. He lost his mother when he was 7 and his father when he
was 13. He studied at Cambridge Univerity. During the revolution in 1790 he was in
France and became an ardent republican sympathizer. He had a love affair with
Annette Vallon (2 daughters). In 1802 he married his childhood friend with whom he
had 5 children. (Two of them died in 1812).
In 1843 poet laureate.

“We are seven” - ballad (a poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas.
Traditional ballads are typically of unknown authorship, having been passed
on orally from one generation to the next)
Summary: The speaker opens with a question, What should a child know about death? // The
speaker then begins to describe a young girl with whom he is speaking. He describes her
“clusters” or curls around her head and her very light eyes. // The speaker begins a
conversation with this young lively girl in which he asks her how many siblings she has. The
girl replies that she is one of seven. She then explains that “two [were at] Conway”, or going
to school, and that “two [were] out to sea” and finally that two were buried “in the church-
yard” and that she alone lived with her mother in a home not too far from where her two
siblings were buried. // Upon hearing her answer, the speaker questions her calculations,
claiming that if two are gone to study and two are at sea, there could not be seven left. // To
which the girl replies with much confidence, “Seven boys and girls are we”. //  It would seem
this stranger wants to convince the little girl of the reality of the tragedy she has endured. He
is trying to get his point across that her two siblings are dead and gone, and that would mean
she is only one of five children. // But the girl is unwavering in her resolve that she is one of
seven. Her description of her deceased siblings reveals that they are still very real to her and
very close to her. She describes their green graves, and their close proximity to where she and
her mother live. She then describes her interactions with them, claiming she often knits there
and sits on their graves to sing to them. She also tells this stranger that she often takes her
supper out to the church yard to eat with them. // sister Jane// The girl then tells memories of
her brother, John, and how they played “together round her [Jane’s] grave”.  // In the final two
stanzas of We Are Seven, the speaker becomes frustrated at the little girl’s resolve, and in his
attempt to make her understand the reality of her loss, he says, “But they are dead! Those two
are dead! Their spirits are in heaven”. // His attempt to make her understand her loss was in
vain, for he was “throwing words away” because “the Maid would have her way” and said as
confidently as ever, “Nay, we are seven”.
Main themes: Innocence, death, and acceptance of reality are the major themes of this poem.
The poem presents the concept of death from the eyes of an innocent child.
Images: “So in the church-yard she was laid”, “Together round her grave we played” and
“Their spirits are in heaven.”
Form: There are seventeen stanzas in this poem with each comprised of five lines.
Message/lyrical situation: The poem is meant to express that when a person or a loved one
dies, we can keep them alive in our memories.

“Daffodils, I wandered slowly as a cloud” - lyric poem

Summary: The poet was travelling aimlessly just like a cloud over the hills and valleys of the
mountainous Lake District in England. At that time, suddenly he came across a large number
of golden daffodils beside the lake and under the trees. The flowers were 'fluttering and
dancing' in the breeze. The poet directly compares himself to a cloud, as he was wandering
without aim, just like the clouds.  // The flowers are compared to the stars. They stretched in a
continuous line just like the stars in a galaxy like the Milky Way. Moreover, the daffodils
were shining (as they were golden in colour) and twinkling (as they were fluttering in the
breeze) as the stars. This comparison with the stars may have a greater implication in
indicating that the flowers are heavenly as the stars.  Wordsworth exaggerates the number of
flowers by saying 'Ten thousand saw I at a glance'. That indicates that the poet has never seen
so many daffodils at once. // The waves in the bay were dancing and looking gleeful at the
atmosphere. But the flowers outshone the lively waves in their happiness. Having such
cheerful companion like the daffodils, a poet like Wordsworth cannot help being happy. So he
was gazing constantly at the flowers and enjoying their beauty. At that time, he did not think
much about the 'wealth' that the flowers had brought to him. The poet realized that later, may
be, after a few days. This 'wealth' is the happiness and the pleasant memory that he enjoyed
for a long time since the day. // He clarifies why the sight of the flowers was so important in
his life. Whenever he lies on his bed in a vacant or thoughtful mood, the daffodils flash upon
his inner-eye, i.e., his imagination. The daffodils have become an everlasting memory for the
poet, whenever he is lonely. So, he calls it 'a bliss of solitude', a blessing of staying alone.
Main themes: nature and human involvement in natural beauty. It also points to another
theme – the impact of nature on a human. Images: Wordsworth has used images appealing to
the sense of sight such as “lonely as a cloud”, “ a crowd”, “never-ending line”, ”milky way”
and “jocund company.” These descriptions help the reader to imagine or feel the same joy felt
by the speaker.
Form: In this poem, there are four stanzas with six lines in each stanza.
Message/lyrical situation - The feeling of enjoying the spellbinding beauty of nature and its
impacts on the human mind can leave the reader desiring to spend more time with nature.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - “Frost at Midnight” →

ROMANTICISM → ‼️LAKE POET
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
 He was a revolutionary poet, critic and minister in the Unitarian Church. He was
reading books since childhood. His father died when he was 9, later he studied at
Cambridge University. He had an unhappy marriage, later he fell in love with another
woman. Near the end of his life he was addicted to opium. He was one of the Lake
Poets with William Wordsworth and Robert Southney.
o Lyrical Ballads with Wordsworth

“Frost at midnight” - lyric poem, conversation poem (written in blank-verse

style, which means they have a clear rhythm and meter, but the lines do not
rhyme. This genre in English poetry grown out of the close co-operation
between Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth in the late 1790s.
The name is applied particularly to the group of poems by Coleridge known as
the ”Conversation poems”, these poems are being defined as addressing
someone very close to the poet in "an informal but serious manner of
deliberation that expands from a particular setting")
Summary: The “inmates” of the speaker’s cottage are all asleep, and the speaker sits alone,
solitary except for the “cradled infant” sleeping by his side. The calm is so total that the
silence becomes distracting, and all the world of “sea, hill, and wood, / This populous
village!” seems “inaudible as dreams.” The thin blue flame of the fire burns without
flickering; only the film on the grate flutters, which makes it seem “companionable” to the
speaker, almost alive—stirred by “the idling Spirit.”// “But O!” the speaker declares; as a
child he often watched “that fluttering stranger” on the bars of his school window and
daydreamed about his birthplace and the church tower whose bells rang so sweetly on Fair-
day. These things lured him to sleep in his childhood, and he brooded on them at school, only
pretending to look at his books—unless, of course, the door opened, in which case he looked
up eagerly, hoping to see “Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, / My play-mate when
we both were clothed alike!” //  Addressing the “Dear Babe, that sleep[s] cradled” by his side,
whose breath fills the silences in his thought, the speaker says that it thrills his heart to look at
his beautiful child. He enjoys the thought that although he himself was raised in the “great
city, pent ’mid cloisters dim,” his child will wander in the rural countryside, by lakes and
shores and mountains, and his spirit shall be molded by God, who will “by giving make it [the
child] ask.” // All seasons, the speaker proclaims, shall be sweet to his child, whether the
summer makes the earth green or the robin redbreast sings between tufts of snow on the
branch; whether the storm makes “the eave-drops fall” or the frost’s “secret ministry” hangs
icicles silently, “quietly shining to the quiet Moon.”
Main themes: Divine nature, childhood, and hope
Images: “Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds”, “Quietly shining to the quiet Moon”
and “My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.”
Symbols: “Frost” symbolizes the subtle and powerful force of nature, while dreams represent
the importance of imagination.
Form: is written in blank verse, a term used to describe unrhymed lines metered in iambic
pentameter.

Lord Byron – “She walks in beauty” → ROMANTICISM

→ ‼️SATANIC POET
Lord George Byron:
 He posed for a proud, suffering outcast. The first collection of poems: "*Hours of
Idleness".* He adapted to English poetry the Italian stanza, ottava rima. He invented
a digressional poem – widely imitated by J. Słowacki.
Satanic poets:
Lord Byron, Percy Byshe Shelley, John Keats
They were called "satanic" because they were perceived as young rebells. They
rebelled against some conceptions of those lake poets. For Lake poets nature was like
a mean of inspiration, not a mother or a teacher but they aspired to live in a natural
world and be relaxed in nature. Satanic poets were inspired by the wind, it blew with
so much inspiration, it was a concept of the spirit which blew and inspired. The lake
poets loved the day - satanic poets love the night because it is so mysterious, it has
secrecy (it is not like an open book). Lord Byron was a satanic poet.
George Gordon lord Byron - offical name for Lord Byron
He wasn't lord, he got involved in the politics. He was an only child, his father was
terrible with money and children. His uncle died and because of that he became a lord
- this meant that he got involved in the politics (any lord in England can do that and
become a member of the Parliament). He had numerous women. He had a daughter.
He left England
The byronic hero - character that changes over time because of some dramatic
events, it was first use di "Giaur"

“She walks in beauty” - lyrical poem

Summary: The speaker compares a beautiful woman—who is walking—to a clear night sky
full of bright stars. The finest light and darkness come together in harmony in this woman's
appearance, particularly within her eyes. // The poet goes on in the second stanza to compare
and contrast different aspects of beauty: her dark hair and her white face, which the light hits,
seem to recall images of the Virgin Mary. It is easier to make associations with the divine and
the religious due to the poem’s structure, that of a hymnal. There is also an emphasis – which
would further strengthen the images of religion – on innocence. The lady’s beauty is largely
innocent, almost virginal. // Her heart is innocent, loving, her mind clear.
Main themes: an Admiration of Inner and Outer Beauty // The poem celebrates the
enchanting beauty of the women, and the poet is captivated by it. Lord Byron gives a critical
message to the readers that perfect beauty is the combination of outward looks as well as
inner beauty. According to him, the lady is blessed with attractive looks and also possesses a
physical and spiritual harmony. Her innocent and pure thoughts further illuminate her beauty. 
It is through her graceful walk and pleasant face, Byron gives a clue of her innocent soul.
Images: Byron has used images appealing to the sense of sight such as, “night”; “starry sky”;
“cloudless climes”; “cheek” and “brow.” These images speak for themselves and allow the
readers to feel the same beauty that has delighted the poet.
Form: is a three-stanza poem, each stanza of which contains six lines.

John Keats – “Ode to a Nightingale” → ROMANTICISM

→ ‼️SATANIC POET
John Keats:
 he wished to live in a continuity of a sensuosusly experience that he read and wrote,
all the experiences that he had prepared him for the life,
he lives with his poetry, all the time he was reading by the earlier poets and he had
some motives in his head, he studied medicine, he was exposed to very scientific way
of perceiving life and by being a poet he concentrated on poetry and the mind
He wrote many odes,

“Ode to a Nightingale” - ode (an ode is a long lyric poem that praises an
individual, an idea, or an event. In ancient Greece, odes were originally
accompanied by music. Odes are often ceremonial and formal in tone.)
Summary: Keats is in a state of uncomfortable drowsiness. Envy of the imagined happiness
of the nightingale is not responsible for his condition; rather, it is a reaction to the happiness
he has experienced through sharing in the happiness of the nightingale. The bird's happiness is
conveyed in its singing. // In the second stanza, the speaker longs for the oblivion of alcohol,
expressing his wish for wine, “a draught of vintage,” that would taste like the country and like
peasant dances, and let him “leave the world unseen” and disappear into the dim forest with
the nightingale. // In the third stanza, he explains his desire to fade away, saying he would like
to forget the troubles the nightingale has never known: “the weariness, the fever, and the fret”
of human life, with its consciousness that everything is mortal and nothing lasts. Youth
“grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies,” and “beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes.”// In the
fourth stanza, the speaker tells the nightingale to fly away, and he will follow, not through
alcohol (“Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards”), but through poetry, which will give him
“viewless wings.” He says he is already with the nightingale and describes the forest glade,
where even the moonlight is hidden by the trees, except the light that breaks through when the
breezes blow the branches. // In the fifth stanza, the speaker says that he cannot see the
flowers in the glade, but can guess them “in embalmed darkness”: white hawthorne, eglantine,
violets, and the musk-rose, “the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.”// In the sixth
stanza, the speaker listens in the dark to the nightingale, saying that he has often been “half in
love” with the idea of dying and called Death soft names in many rhymes.  If he were to die,
the nightingale would continue to sing, he says, but he would “have ears in vain” and be no
longer able to hear. // In the seventh stanza, the speaker tells the nightingale that it is
immortal, that it was not “born for death.” He says that the voice he hears singing has always
been heard, by ancient emperors and clowns, by homesick Ruth; he even says the song has
often charmed open magic windows looking out over “the foam / Of perilous seas, in faery
lands forlorn.” // In the eighth stanza, the word forlorn tolls like a bell to restore the speaker
from his preoccupation with the nightingale and back into himself. As the nightingale flies
farther away from him, he laments that his imagination has failed him and says that he can no
longer recall whether the nightingale’s music was “a vision, or a waking dream.” Now that the
music is gone, the speaker cannot recall whether he himself is awake or asleep.
Main themes: The poem explores two main issues: the first is the connection between agony
and joy and the second is the connection between life and death. // Death, immortality,
mortality and poetic imaginations are some of the major themes of this ode. Keats says that
death is an unavoidable phenomenon. He paints it in both negative and positive ways. On the
one hand, its presence sucks the human spirit, while on the other hand, it offers the realm of
free eternity.
Images: Keats has used images to present a clear and vivid picture of his miserable plight
such as, “though of hemlock I had drunk,”, “Past the near meadows,”, “Fast fading violets
cover’d up in leaves.”
Form: Is written in ten-line stanzas. 8 stanzas Message/lyrical situation

Percy Bysshe Shelley – “To a skylark” →

ROMANTICISM → ‼️SATANIC POET
Percy Bysshe Shelley:
 He belonged to the 2nd generation of poets: Satanic poets with Byron and Keats. He
was an intellectual, eccentric idealist; influenced by Plato and pantheism. He ran away
with Mary Shelley when they were young. He drowned in 1822. Mary lived in his
shadow.

“To a skylark” - ode (an ode is a long lyric poem that praises an individual, an
idea, or an event. In ancient Greece, odes were originally accompanied by
music. Odes are often ceremonial and formal in tone)
Summary: The speaker, addressing a skylark, says that it is a “blithe Spirit” rather than a
bird, for its song comes from Heaven, and from its full heart pours “profuse strains of
unpremeditated art.” The skylark flies higher and higher, “like a cloud of fire” in the blue sky,
singing as it flies. As the skylark flies higher and higher, the speaker loses sight of it, but is
still able to hear its “shrill delight,” which comes down as keenly as moonbeams in the “white
dawn,” which can be felt even when they are not seen. The earth and air ring with the
skylark’s voice. // The speaker says that no one knows what the skylark is, for it is unique.
The bird is “like a poet hidden / In the light of thought,” able to make the world experience
“sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.” It is like a lonely maiden in a palace tower,
who uses her song to soothe her lovelorn soul. It is like a golden glow-worm, scattering light
among the flowers and grass in which it is hidden. It is like a rose embowered in its own
green leaves, whose scent is blown by the wind until the bees are faint with “too much sweet.”
The skylark’s song surpasses “all that ever was, / Joyous and clear and fresh,” whether the
rain falling on the “twinkling grass” or the flowers". // Compared to the skylark’s, any music
would seem lacking. What objects, the speaker asks, are “the fountains of thy happy strain?”
Is it fields, waves, mountains, the sky, the plain, or “love of thine own kind” or “ignorance or
pain”? Pain and languor, the speaker says, “never came near” the skylark: it loves, but has
never known “love’s sad satiety.” Of death, the skylark must know “things more true and
deep” than mortals could dream; otherwise, the speaker asks, “how could thy notes flow in
such a crystal stream?” // For mortals, the experience of happiness is bound inextricably with
the experience of sadness: dwelling upon memories and hopes for the future, mortal men
“pine for what is not”; their laughter is “fraught” with “some pain”; their “sweetest songs are
those that tell of saddest thought.” But, the speaker says, even if men could “scorn / Hate and
pride and fear,” and were born without the capacity to weep, he still does not know how they
could ever approximate the joy expressed by the skylark. // He asks the bird to teach him “half
the gladness / That thy brain must know,” for then he would overflow with “harmonious
madness,” and his song would be so beautiful that the world would listen to him, even as he is
now listening to the skylark.
Main themes: Man versus nature, happiness, and beauty are some of the major themes
underlined in this poem. Throughout the poem, the speaker highlights the importance of the
enchanting song of the skylark, comparing it with different natural objects. He compares the
freedom of skylark with the limitations of human beings. Images: Or how could thy notes
flow in such a crystal stream”, “Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged
thieves” and “Like a star of Heaven.” Symbols: Skylark symbolizes wonder, joy, and
happiness.
Form: is a twenty-one stanza ode that is consistent in its rhyme scheme from the very first to
the last stanza. The piece rhymes ABABB, with varying end sounds, from beginning to end.
Message/lyrical situation:

Pride and Prejudice → ROMANTICISM

author: Jane Austen
 She was born in the Hampshire village of Steventon. Her environment - the minor
landed gentry and the country clergy (villages, Bath, London). She had 6 brothers and
one sister (beloved Cassandra). She liked acting and telling stories – great family
amusement. Her first writings – when she was 12 (!). She was educated by her father
and older brother James and well acquainted with the literature of the 18. century
(English and French). She was writing to have some money, she was unmarried and
did not have money to live. She published under the male synonyms. Women did not
exist in the eyes of law and society. They needed to be represented by a man, father,
husband or cousin.
plot summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ-OYgKF4WQ
characters:
Elizabeth Bennet - The novel’s protagonist. The second daughter of Mr. Bennet, Elizabeth is
the most intelligent and sensible of the five Bennet sisters. She is well read and quick-witted,
with a tongue that occasionally proves too sharp for her own good. Her realization of Darcy’s
essential goodness eventually triumphs over her initial prejudice against him.
Fitzwilliam Darcy - A wealthy gentleman, the master of Pemberley, and the nephew of Lady
Catherine de Bourgh. Though Darcy is intelligent and honest, his excess of pride causes him
to look down on his social inferiors. Over the course of the novel, he tempers his class-
consciousness and learns to admire and love Elizabeth for her strong character.
Jane Bennet - The eldest and most beautiful Bennet sister. Jane is more reserved and gentler
than Elizabeth. The easy pleasantness with which she and Bingley interact contrasts starkly
with the mutual distaste that marks the encounters between Elizabeth and Darcy.
Charles Bingley - Darcy’s considerably wealthy best friend. Bingley’s purchase of
Netherfield, an estate near the Bennets, serves as the impetus for the novel. He is a genial,
well-intentioned gentleman, whose easygoing nature contrasts with Darcy’s initially
discourteous demeanor. He is blissfully uncaring about class differences.
Mr. Bennet - The patriarch of the Bennet family, a gentleman of modest income with five
unmarried daughters. Mr. Bennet has a sarcastic, cynical sense of humor that he uses to
purposefully irritate his wife. Though he loves his daughters (Elizabeth in particular), he often
fails as a parent, preferring to withdraw from the never-ending marriage concerns of the
women around him rather than offer help.
Mrs. Bennet - Mr. Bennet’s wife, a foolish, noisy woman whose only goal in life is to see her
daughters married. Because of her low breeding and often unbecoming behavior, Mrs. Bennet
often repels the very suitors whom she tries to attract for her daughters.
George Wickham - A handsome, fortune-hunting militia officer. Wickham’s good looks and
charm attract Elizabeth initially, but Darcy’s revelation about Wickham’s disreputable past
clues her in to his true nature and simultaneously draws her closer to Darcy. He was the
godson of Darcy’s father.
Lydia Bennet - The youngest Bennet sister, she is gossipy, immature, and self-involved.
Unlike Elizabeth, Lydia flings herself headlong into romance and ends up running off with
Wickham.
Mr. Collins - A pompous, generally idiotic clergyman who stands to inherit Mr. Bennet’s
property. Mr. Collins’s own social status is nothing to brag about, but he takes great pains to
let everyone and anyone know that Lady Catherine de Bourgh serves as his patroness. He is
the worst combination of snobbish and obsequious.
Miss Bingley - Bingley’s snobbish sister. Miss Bingley bears inordinate disdain for
Elizabeth’s middle-class ba
narrator: third-person omniscient
literary genre: novel of manners (work of fiction that re-creates a social world, conveying
with finely detailed observation the customs, values, and mores of a highly developed and
complex society. // The novel of manners is a literary genre that deals with aspects of
behavior, language, customs and values characteristic of a particular class of people in a
specific historical context. The genre emerged during the final decades of the 18th
century.characters who are very concerned with money and social position and who are very
conscious of the “right” ways to act at all times), romance
quote:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good
fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
This is the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice and stands as one of the most famous first
lines in literature. Even as it briskly introduces the arrival of Mr. Bingley at Netherfield—the
event that sets the novel in motion—this sentence also offers a miniature sketch of the entire
plot, which concerns itself with the pursuit of “single men in possession of a good fortune” by
various female characters. The preoccupation with socially advantageous marriage in
nineteenth-century English society manifests itself here, for in claiming that a single man
“must be in want of a wife,” the narrator reveals that the reverse is also true: a single woman,
whose socially prescribed options are quite limited, is in (perhaps desperate) want of a
husband.

🚂The Victorian Age (1837-1901)

‼️Characteristics:
 the period of great changes
 science and industry
 existential doubts and fears caused by the religious crisis and the changing view of the
world
 a novel - a dominant literary form
 poetry – still romantic in form

Alfred Lord Tennyson – “The Ulysses” → VICTORIAN

POETRY
Alfred Lord Tennyson:
 He was a poet laureate in 1851. In his poems he had rich descriptive imagery, doubt
and difficulties of the century and personal problems.

“The Ulysses” - dramatic monologue (a poem in the form of a speech or

narrative by an imagined person, in which the speaker unintentionally reveals
aspects of their character while describing a particular situation or series of
events)
Summary: Ulysses (Odysseus) declares that there is little point in his staying home “by this
still hearth” with his old wife, doling out rewards and punishments for the unnamed masses
who live in his kingdom. // Still speaking to himself he proclaims that he “cannot rest from
travel” but feels compelled to live to the fullest and swallow every last drop of life. His travels
have exposed him to many different types of people and ways of living. They have also
exposed him to the “delight of battle” while fighting the Trojan War with his men. Ulysses
declares that his travels and encounters have shaped who he is: “I am a part of all that I have
met,” he asserts.  // Ulysses declares that it is boring to stay in one place. His spirit yearns
constantly for new experiences that will broaden his horizons; he wishes “to follow
knowledge like a sinking star” and forever grow in wisdom and in learning. // Ulysses now
speaks to an unidentified audience concerning his son Telemachus, who will act as his
successor while the great hero resumes his travels: he says, “This is my son, mine own
Telemachus, to whom I leave the scepter and the isle.” Telemachus will do his work of
governing the island while Ulysses will do his work of traveling the seas: “He works his
work, I mine.” // In the final stanza, Ulysses addresses the mariners with whom he has
worked, traveled, and weathered life’s storms over many years. He declares that although he
and they are old, they still have the potential to do something noble and honorable before “the
long day wanes.” He encourages them to make use of their old age because “ ’tis not too late
to seek a newer world.” He declares that his goal is to sail onward “beyond the sunset” until
his death. Perhaps, he suggests, they may even reach the “Happy Isles,” or the paradise of
perpetual summer described in Greek mythology where great heroes like the warrior Achilles
were believed to have been taken after their deaths.
Main themes: Exploration, the fulfillment of life, and death are the major themes of this
poem. The poem reflects the innermost desire of the speaker that he wants to sail far away to
explore the known universe before death. He desires to explore the world. Images: For
example, “The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed”, “That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and
know not me” and “To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths”.
Symbols: “Happy Isles,” or the paradise of perpetual summer described in Greek mythology
where great heroes like the warrior Achilles were believed to have been taken after their
deaths.
Form: This poem is written as a dramatic monologue: the entire poem is spoken by a single
character, whose identity is revealed by his own words. Finally, the poem is divided into four
paragraph-like sections, each of which comprises a distinct thematic unit of the poem.
Message/lyrical situation - Throughout the poem, he establishes the idea that one should
never give up in life and fulfill their dreams.

Matthew Arnold - “Dover beach” → VICTORIAN

POETRY
Matthew Arnold:
 He won an Oxford Prize for the poem Cromwell, he was an inspector of schools, he
was travelling throughout the British provinces and France, Germany, Holland,
Switzerland (to inquire into the state of education there). His own poetry: intimate,
personal, full of romantic regret, sentimental pessimism, and nostalgia

“Dover Beach” - lyric poem

Summary: It is clear from the title, although never explicitly stated in the poem, that the
beach in question is Dover, on the coast of England. The sea is said to be calm, there is a
beach on the water at full tide. The moon “lies fair,” lovely, “upon the straits”.The speaker is
able to see across the Channel to the French side of the water. The lights on the far coast are
visibly gleaming, and then they disappear and the “cliffs of England” are standing by
themselves “vast” and “glimmering” in the bay. The light that shines then vanishes
representing to this speaker, and to Arnold himself, the vanishing faith of the English people. 
No one around him seems to see the enormity of what it happening, the night is quiet.  Now
the speaker turns to another person that is in the scene with him, and asks that this unnamed
person comes to the window and breathe in the “sweet…night-air!”  The second half of this
stanza is spent on describing the sounds of the water that the speaker is viewing. // The second
stanza is much shorter and relates the world in which the two characters are into the larger
picture of history. The speaker states that “long ago” Sophocles also heard this sound on the
Ægean sea as the tides came in. It too brought to his mind the feelings of “human misery” and
how these emotions “ebb and flow.” Arnold is hoping to bring to the reader’s attention the
universal experience of misery, that all throughout time have lived with. // In the third stanza
of ‘Dover Beach’, it becomes clear that Arnold is in fact speaking about the diminishing faith
of his countrymen and women. He describes, “The Sea of Faith” once covered all of the
“round earth’s shore” and held everyone together like a girdle. Now though, this time has
passed. No longer is the populous united by a common Christian faith in God by, as Arnold
sees it, spread apart by new sciences and conflicting opinions. // At the beginning of the
fourth stanza, it becomes clear that the companion who is looking out over the water with the
speaker is most likely a lover or romantic partner. He asks that they remain true to one
another in this “land of dreams.” The world is no longer what it was, it is more like a dream
than the reality he is used to. It is a land that appears to be full of various beautiful, new, and
joyous things but that is not the case. This new world is in fact without “joy…love…[or]
light…certitude… [or] peace,” or finally, help for those in pain. It is not what it appears to be.
Main themes: Man, the natural world and loss of faith are the major themes in the poem. He
laments the loss of faith in the world with resultant cruelty, uncertainty, and violence.
Although the world appears as a land of mesmerizing dreams, in reality, humanity is standing
on the verge of chaos; perplex, confused and empty from inside. Therefore, he urges his
beloved and himself to be true to one another to survive in this land. // Criticism on the World
Images: Such as, “The tide is full, the moon lies fair”; “Of pebbles which the waves draw
back, and fling” and “Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land.”
Symbols: “sea of faith” symbolizes faith in god and “Tide leaving the shore” is the symbol of
lost faith.
Form: The poem is highly irregular and does not fit with any specific poetic form, and as
such is considered an early precursor of free verse and other 20th century experimentation
with form. // The poem consists of four stanzas, each of different length. The first stanza is 14
lines, the second is 6, the third 8, and the fourth 9.
Message/lyrical situation -   Stanza 1 deals with the speaker's initial experience of the beach,
which shifts from calmness to disquiet brought on by the sound of the moving pebbles. //
Stanza 2 introduces Sophocles, as the speaker imagines ancient Greece and believes that the
tragic playwright must also have experienced the same sort of pain and doubt that the speaker
is experiencing now. // Stanza 3 develops the specific reason why the speaker hears such
sadness in the sound of the sea: the loss of faith. // And stanza 4, finally, tries — without
entirely succeeding — to build a defense against the future faithless world by professing the
value of authentic love.

Great Expectations → VICTORIAN ERA

author: Charles Dickens
 He was the eldest son, he had to work in a factory as a child, after 4 years the situation
improved, his father was released from prison, he could afford switching from this
factory to journalism. He wrote texts for publishing, he married well, he married the
daughter of the man who owned publishing house, he earned much money from
 writing. He moralized in his works, propagated social order, family values. He had 10
children and later he left his wife for a new lover, an actress.
plot summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ei-Dd8klZ0
characters:
Pip - The protagonist and narrator of Great Expectations, Pip begins the story as a young
orphan boy being raised by his sister and brother-in-law in the marsh country of Kent, in the
southeast of England. Pip is passionate, romantic, and somewhat unrealistic at heart, and he
tends to expect more for himself than is reasonable. Pip also has a powerful conscience, and
he deeply wants to improve himself, both morally and socially.
Estella - Miss Havisham’s beautiful young ward, Estella is Pip’s unattainable dream
throughout the novel. He loves her passionately, but, though she sometimes seems to consider
him a friend, she is usually cold, cruel, and uninterested in him. As they grow up together, she
repeatedly warns him that she has no heart.
Miss Havisham - Miss Havisham is a wealthy, eccentric old woman who lives in a manor
called Satis House near Pip’s village. She is manic and often seems insane, flitting around her
house in a faded wedding dress, keeping a decaying feast on her table, and surrounding
herself with clocks stopped at twenty minutes to nine. As a young woman, Miss Havisham
was jilted by her fiancé minutes before her wedding, and now she has a vendetta against all
men. She deliberately raises Estella to be the tool of her revenge, training her beautiful ward
to break men’s hearts.
Abel Magwitch (“The Convict”)- A fearsome criminal, Magwitch escapes from prison at the
beginning of Great Expectations and terrorizes Pip in the cemetery. Pip’s kindness, however,
makes a deep impression on him, and he subsequently devotes himself to making a fortune
and using it to elevate Pip into a higher social class. He becomes Pip’s secret benefactor
behind the scenes, funding Pip’s education and opulent lifestyle in London through the lawyer
Jaggers.
Joe Gargery - Pip’s brother-in-law, the village blacksmith, Joe stays with his overbearing,
abusive wife—known as Mrs. Joe—solely out of love for Pip. Joe’s quiet goodness makes
him one of the few completely sympathetic characters in Great Expectations. Although he is
uneducated and unrefined, he consistently acts for the benefit of those he loves and suffers in
silence when Pip treats him coldly. Later, married to Biddy.
Jaggers- The powerful, foreboding lawyer hired by Magwitch to supervise Pip’s elevation to
the upper class. As one of the most important criminal lawyers in London, Jaggers is privy to
some dirty business; he consorts with vicious criminals, and even they are terrified of him.
But there is more to Jaggers than his impenetrable exterior. He often seems to care for Pip,
and before the novel begins he helps Miss Havisham to adopt the orphaned Estella. Jaggers
smells strongly of soap: he washes his hands obsessively as a psychological mech-anism to
keep the criminal taint from corrupting him.
Herbert Pocket - Pip first meets Herbert Pocket in the garden of Satis House, when, as a pale
young gentleman, Herbert challenges him to a fight. Years later, they meet again in London,
and Herbert becomes Pip’s best friend and key companion after Pip’s elevation to the status of
gentleman. Herbert nicknames Pip “Handel.” He is the son of Matthew Pocket, Miss
Havisham’s cousin, and hopes to become a merchant so that he can afford to marry Clara
Barley.
Wemmick - Jaggers’s clerk and Pip’s friend, Wemmick is one of the strangest characters
in Great Expectations. At work, he is hard, cynical, sarcastic, and obsessed with “portable
property”; at home in Walworth, he is jovial, wry, and a tender caretaker of his “Aged
Parent.”
Biddy- A simple, kindhearted country girl, Biddy first befriends Pip when they attend school
together. After Mrs. Joe is attacked and becomes an invalid, Biddy moves into Pip’s home to
care for her. Throughout most of the novel, Biddy represents the opposite of Estella; she is
plain, kind, moral, and of Pip’s own social class.
Mrs. Joe - Pip’s sister and Joe’s wife, known only as “Mrs. Joe” throughout the novel. Mrs.
Joe is a stern and overbearing figure to both Pip and Joe. She keeps a spotless household and
frequently menaces her husband and her brother with her cane, which she calls “Tickler.” She
also forces them to drink a foul-tasting concoction called tar-water. Mrs. Joe is petty and
ambitious; her fondest wish is to be something more than what she is, the wife of the village
blacksmith.
Uncle Pumblechook - Pip’s pompous, arrogant uncle. (He is actually Joe’s uncle and,
therefore, Pip’s “uncle-in-law,” but Pip and his sister both call him “Uncle Pumblechook.”) A
merchant obsessed with money, Pumblechook is responsible for arranging Pip’s first meeting
with Miss Havisham. Throughout the rest of the novel, he will shamelessly take credit for
Pip’s rise in social status, even though he has nothing to do with it, since Magwitch, not Miss
Havisham, is Pip’s secret benefactor.
Compeyson - A criminal and the former partner of Magwitch, Compeyson is an educated,
gentlemanly outlaw who contrasts sharply with the coarse and uneducated Magwitch.
Compeyson is responsible for Magwitch’s capture at the end of the novel. He is also the man
who jilted Miss Havisham on her wedding day.
narrator: Pip, 1st person narrator
literary genre: Bildungsroman (novel that depicts and explores the manner in which the
protagonist develops morally and psychologically), social criticism, autobiographical fiction
quote:
“Dear Magwitch, I must tell you, now at last. You understand what I say?”
A gentle pressure on my hand.
“You had a child once, whom you loved and lost.”
A stronger pressure on my hand.
“She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very
beautiful. And I love her!”
In this passage from Chapter 56, Pip tells the dying Magwitch about his daughter, Estella,
whom he has not seen since she was a young girl. If the arrival of Magwitch collapses Pip’s
idealistic view of the upper classes, then the subsequent revelation that Estella—Pip’s first
ideal of wealth and beauty—is the daughter of the convict buries it for good. By consoling the
dying Magwitch with the truth about Estella, Pip shows the extent to which he has matured
and developed a new understanding of what matters in life. Rather than insisting on the
idealistic hierarchy of social class that has been his guiding principle in life, Pip is now able to
see hierarchy as superficial and an insufficient guide to character. Loyalty, love, and inner
goodness are far more important than social designations, a fact that Pip explicitly recognizes
by openly acknowledging the complications that have made his former view of the world
impossible.

🖼️Modernism (in England - after 1914)

Characteristics:
 radical break with the past and the search for new forms of expression - modern =
modernism
 modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the late 19th to the
mid 20th century, particularly in the years following World War 1
 the search for an authentic response to a much-changed world (rapid social changes,
new ideas in psychology - Freud, philosophy)
 a sense of disillusionment and fragmentation after the war
 imagism, symbolism, futurism, cubism, surrealism, expressionism, “dada” movement

T.S. Eliot – “The Waste Land” → MODERNISM

T. S. Eliot:
 He was a British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, one of the
major poets of 20th century. He won Nobel Prize for literature in 1948.

“The Waste Land” - modernist poem (sophisticated, modern or new

experiments in form and style, new themes and word-games, new modes of
expression, and complex and open-ended nature of their themes and meaning),
dramatic monologue (a poem in the form of a speech or narrative by an
imagined person, in which the speaker unintentionally reveals aspects of their
character while describing a particular situation or series of events - four
speakers in this section)
1. The Waste Land opens with a reference to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In this case,
though, April is not the happy month of pilgrimages and storytelling. It is instead the
time when the land should be regenerating after a long winter. The poem begins with a
striking image of spring with the main speaker noting how, paradoxically, life grows
out of death; that is, how all the decay from fall and then winter's frost is the breeding
ground for new life. Here, the cruelty referenced in the first line is made clear: life
consists of constant change, flux; death and decay are part of that cycle. But though
the reader might associate the sun and water with growth, since they are the
ingredients for the new plant life described in the first few lines, they are also agents
of pain, decay, dehydration, and ultimately death. This dry, sun-beaten landscape is, of
course, the symbolic wasteland of the poem's title, but it also allegorically references
the dead or dying lives of modern society, according to the speakers. True, life
involves a cycle—the death of winter and the rejuvenation of spring. But, in this place
—where trees give "no shelter"—there seems to be no imminent source of relief:
 "spring," or those revivifying forces, do not appear to be available. The perspective
shifts from this discussion of the changing of the seasons (April is the cruelest month)
to a scene near the Starnbergersee, a lake near Munich, Germany, and an instance
where the speaker and other unspecified people were "surprised" by the arrival of
summer. The speaker enjoys coffee and conversation with others. Then what appears
to be a new speaker named Marie describes a childhood memory of sledding in the
mountains; she was afraid but also felt free.
2. The second stanza shifts back to a discussion of plant life, asking about the "roots that
clutch" and the "branches [that] grow" in this dry environment. In answer, the main
speaker notes how, in this unspecified but dry and decrepit place, the sun is
unmerciful, "the dead tree gives no shelter." There is, the speaker adds, no water.
However, the speaker promises to show "something different" from the two kinds of
shadows seen throughout the course of the day: the one in the morning, and the one at
night. The speaker adds, "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." The speaker
remembers a female figure from his past, with whom he has apparently had some sort
of romantic involvement. In contrast to the present setting in the desert, his memories
are lush, full of water and blooming flowers. The perspective changes once again with
dialogue in which someone describes being given hyacinths: "They called me the
hyacinth girl." Another voice, that of someone accompanying the "hyacinth girl,"
notes that upon returning from the "Hyacinth garden, / Your arms full, and your hair
wet, I could not / Speak, and my eyes failed."
3. The third stanza introduces yet another character in the person of "Madame Sosotris" a
clairvoyant with a cold. It talks about how even though she is known to be the wisest
woman in Europe even she gets bad colds which can be interpreted that even the
wisest people suffer. She has a pack of tarot cards. Eliot transforms the traditional
tarot pack to serve his purposes. Card after card, she only pulls out cards that reveal
bad luck and hardship in one way or another. The main speaker goes on to describe
them, mentioning a "drowned Phoenician Sailor," "Belladonna," (But looking more
closely at the figure of Belladonna, readers can see she is another example of Eliot's
beautiful, dangerous women, who are simultaneously victims and victimizers—abused
and abuser, victim of seduction and the source of it) and so forth. Belladonna, it
should be noted, is also an ancient poisonous plant—and therefore appropriate flora
for this landscape. One card missing is "The Hanged Man." Though, as the speaker
says, the Hanged Man (line 55) does not turn up, this card will also eventually figure
in the poem. From the traditional tarot card pack, the Hanged Man features a man
hanging upside down by his foot, representing the self-sacrifice of a fertility god; his
death will bring resurrection to the land. So here is the first notable reference—albeit
obscure—to the Fisher King: a figure from the Arthurian legend who has been
wounded and cannot stand. All he does is fish. The Fisher King is associated both with
disease and promised healing. A regular refrain in the poem is the faint possibility of
restoration: "That corpse you planted last year in your garden, / Has it begun to
sprout?" (lines 71–72) could be a variation on the fertility god motif—the promised
death and resurrection that could bring about new life in the land. The speaker says
that he sees people walking in a circle.
4. The fourth and final stanza describes "the brown fog of a winter dawn" in London, and
a long procession of people walking over London Bridge. It is spoken from the point
of view of a man looking over at the people. Eliot describes it as an unreal city, during
the winter at dawn. Crowds of people are crossing the London Bridge walking as if
 they are zombies. People are sighing and seem to be very unhappy with their current
state. They are said to be walking toward the church bell at nine o'clock. The people
have their eyes trained on the ground. The speaker then goes on to say that he
recognizes someone in the crowd as a man who went to war with him. The speaker
asks someone named Stetson a series of strange questions about a "corpse ... planted
last year" in the garden. "Has it begun to sprout?" the speaker asks. "Will it bloom this
year?" And then the speaker warns him to keep the dog away, because he'll dig it up.
He asked if it had sprouted, as if he assumed that from the dead corpse, live would be
renewed in it. The episode concludes with a famous line from the preface to
Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal (an important collection of Symbolist poetry), accusing
the reader of sharing in the poet’s sins. The words "hypocrite lecteur!—mon
semblable,—mon frère!" (hypocrite reader!—my fellow,—my brother) are taken
directly from the closing lines of Baudelaire's poem "Au Lecteur." As such, it strongly
suggests that the readers are part of this wasteland. They walk in circles, seeking life,
but becoming lost in boredom and listlessness. Readers must wait, keep the body
buried, and let life emerge once more from death
Images: "A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,  I had not thought death had
undone so many." This gives us a sense of how many people were crossing the bridge and we
can imagine what the scene would look like quite well. Form: 4 stanzas, ach has a different
lyrical subject 1) It is about the seasons and the landscapes of the poem and how the character
feels about them. They are not a fan of spring. Normally, spring brings new growth and
the idea of rebirth but in the view of the character, all that spring rain brings are dull
roots. Eliot then makes reference to a few locations in Germany and the character is now with
someone who he talks and drinks coffee with. Then it flashbacks to the characters childhood
and tells a story of when she used to stay at her cousin's, who was a prince, house and used to
go sledding together and how free she used to feel. The stanza ends when the focus is brought
back to the present and we can assume by the description that she is most likely an older lady
now that is nothing like who she was as a child.
Form: The four speakers in this section are frantic in their need to speak, to find an audience,
but they find themselves surrounded by dead people and thwarted by outside circumstances,
like wars. Because the sections are so short and the situations so confusing, the effect is not
one of an overwhelming impression of a single character; instead, the reader is left with the
feeling of being trapped in a crowd, unable to find a familiar face.

Lord Jim → MODERNISM

author: Joseph Conrad
 He was an only child, his father was an activist and revolutionary. He had never had
an access to the sea, but he was a sailor, he joined the French navy (4 years), then
British trading company. He was a sailor for 20 years. He was writing in the
meantime. He was a person of action. He began to climb the career ladder and he was
an officer of the British navy. Later he got sick and he couldn't be on the sea anymore.
He began writing, his uncle helped him and send him money so that he could keep on
living. His foreign language was French but he never wrote a book in French. When
he went to Britiain he did not know how to speak. He learned English and became a
popular writer.
plot summary: https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Lord-Jim/plot-summary/
characters:
Jim - Also known as "Lord Jim," or "Tuan Jim." The hero of our story, Jim is a young man
who, inspired by popular literature, goes to sea dreaming of becoming a hero. He gets his
chance when the ship he is aboard gets damaged, and fails utterly by abandoning ship with the
rest of the crew. Haunted by his failure and stripped of his officer's certificate, he wanders
from job to job, finally becoming the manager of a remote trading post. He falls in love with
Jewel, a beautiful, half-native girl, and, by defeating a local bandit, becomes leader of the
people. His dreams of heroism lead to his failure to kill a marauding white pirate, Gentleman
Brown, which in turn leads to the death of Dain Waris, his best friend and son of Doramin, the
local chief. Jim allows Doramin to shoot him in retribution.
Marlow - The narrator of this story and a ship's captain. Marlow first encounters Jim at the
inquiry where Jim loses his certification. Feeling that Jim is "one of us," he takes an interest in
him, first helping him find employment as a water clerk and as a trading post manager for
Stein, then compulsively piecing together Jim's story and perpetuating it through various
retellings. It is Marlow who filters and interprets most of the narrative for the reader.
Jewel - Daughter of the Dutch-Malay woman and stepdaughter of Cornelius. She and Jim fall
in love, and she makes him promise never to leave her. She is a pragmatic woman and
encourages Jim to fight to survive after Dain Waris's death. Marlow encounters her after Jim's
death at Stein's, where she, broken and saddened, reminds Marlow that her prediction of Jim's
infidelity has come true.
Stein - The owner of a large trading post, he sends first Cornelius and then Jim to Patusan.
Stein was forced to flee Europe as a young man after becoming involved in revolutionary
activities. Having made his way to the East Indies, he has become successful as a trader. A
thoughtful, analytical man who immediately "diagnoses" Jim for Marlow, he collects
butterflies and beetles.
Gentleman Brown - A white pirate who, having barely escaped Spanish officials in the
Philippines, comes to Patusan hoping to steal some provisions. He is rather famous in this part
of the world, and is used as the stock bad guy whenever locals are telling stories. He is proud,
terrified of confinement. He and his men are attacked upon arrival in Patusan by Dain Waris
and his band, who have had advance warning of their coming. Although he had initially
wanted to conquer and loot Patusan, he realizes he is outnumbered and negotiates with Jim. In
those negotiations, Brown shows that he is aware that Jim has a dark past, thereby appealing
to Jim's tortured sense of ideals and receiving permission to retreat in safety. Brown has been
conspiring with Cornelius and the Rajah Allang, though, and on his way back to his ship, he
surprises Dain Waris and his men at their camp. Dain Waris is killed, which will lead to Jim's
death. Brown and his men are shipwrecked soon after. Brown is the only survivor, although
he dies soon afterward. Marlow visits him on his deathbed and gets part of the story from him.
Brown is an important contrast to Jim, as a man who lives a romantic life, but one that is far
from moral or idealized. Unlike Jim, Brown is quick to own up to his past and his fears.
Cornelius - Husband of the Dutch-Malay woman, he is the previous manager of Stein's
Patusan post. A bitter, conniving man, he betrays Jim to Gentleman Brown and causes the
death of Dain Waris. He is Jewel's stepfather, and treats her badly, even asking for Jim to give
him money in exchange for her.
Crew of the Patna - Jim's fellow officers aboard the Patna, they immediately begin to try to
leave the damaged ship after the collision. A physically repulsive and dishonorable lot, they
flee before the inquiry. One of them, the third engineer, dies of a heart attack on board and is
found by rescuers. Marlow meets with another of them in a hospital. The man is delirious
from the effects of alcoholism and is hallucinating pink toads, but he tells Marlow that he
personally watched the Patna sink (the ship did not actually sink). The captain is an
enormous, disgusting man who bullies Jim. Jim encounters another of the engineers in the
workplace of his first post-Patna employer, which causes him (Jim) to skip town.
Captain Brierly - One of the most decorated and respected ship's captains in the area. He is
on the board of inquiry that tries Jim. Secretly, he makes Marlow an offer of money to help
Jim run away. Not long after the inquiry, he commits suicide, motivated by some secret
shame. He is implicitly contrasted with Jim.
Doramin - Chief of the Bugis; a wise, kind old man and a "war-comrade" of Stein's. Stein
gives Jim a silver ring as a token of introduction to Doramin. Doramin saves Jim after his
escape from the Rajah Allang, who had been holding him prisoner. Doramin is the father of
Dain Waris, Jim's closest friend. When Dain Waris is killed because of Jim's misjudgment,
Doramin shoots and kills Jim, who has offered himself up as a sacrifice.
Dain Waris - Doramin's son and Jim's best friend. The two are soul mates, and Dain Waris
serves as Jim's second-in-command. He leads the initial attack on Gentleman Brown, but is
not entirely successful, lacking Jim's charisma as a leader of men. He is killed when Cornelius
leads Brown down the river channel behind his camp, after Jim foolishly frees Brown and his
men.
Rajah Allang - Also known as Tunku Allang. The corrupt, unofficial ruler of Patusan; the
uncle of the legitimate but underage and possibly mentally-incompetent Sultan. He tries to
enforce a monopoly on trade in the area. Allang captures Jim upon his arrival in Patusan. He
also secretly allies with Gentleman Brown against Jim.
Sherif Ali - A fanatic Muslim bandit who terrorizes Patusan from a stronghold in the hills.
Jim defeats Ali to become a hero in Patusan.
narrator: an omniscient third person narrator, in Chapter 5, the story becomes a first-person
narrative, taken over by the character Marlow
literary genre: novel, adventure
quote:

Mrs Dalloway → MODERNISM

author: Virginia Woolf
 Daughter of writer Leslie Stephen, her mother was Julia Jackson and she was a model.
Virginia suffered from mental illness and depression. Her mother died when she was
15 and this was the start of her depression. She married Leonard Woolf, who was a
scholar, they had no children. She was abused by her half-brothers that were older
than her. Among the modernist, she is the name. Her life was full of tragedies. She
commited suicide by drowning herself in the river.
plot summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGGUN5_kSJc
characters:
Clarissa Dalloway- The eponymous protagonist. The novel begins with Clarissa’s point of
view and follows her perspective more closely than that of any other character. As Clarissa
prepares for the party she will give that evening, we are privy to her meandering thoughts.
Clarissa is vivacious and cares a great deal about what people think of her, but she is also self-
reflective. She often questions life’s true meaning, wondering whether happiness is truly
possible. She feels both a great joy and a great dread about her life, both of which manifest in
her struggles to strike a balance between her desire for privacy and her need to communicate
with others. Throughout the day Clarissa reflects on the crucial summer when she chose to
marry her husband, Richard, instead of her friend Peter Walsh. Though she is happy with
Richard, she is not entirely certain she made the wrong choice about Peter, and she also thinks
frequently about her friend Sally Seton, whom she also once loved.
Septimus Warren Smith- A World War I veteran suffering from shell shock, married to an
Italian woman named Lucrezia. Though he is insane, Septimus views English society in much
the same way as Clarissa does, and he struggles, as she does, to both maintain his privacy and
fulfill his need to communicate with others. He shares so many traits with Clarissa that he
could be her double. Septimus is pale, has a hawklike posture, and wears a shabby overcoat.
Before the war he was a young, idealistic, aspiring poet. After the war he regards human
nature as evil and believes he is guilty of not being able to feel. Rather than succumb to the
society he abhors, he commits suicide.
Lucrezia Smith (Rezia) - Septimus’s wife, a twenty-four-year-old hat-maker from Milan.
Rezia loves Septimus but is forced to bear the burden of his mental illness alone. Normally a
lively and playful young woman, she has grown thin with worry. She feels isolated and
continually wishes to share her unhappiness with somebody. She trims hats for the friends of
her neighbor, Mrs. Filmer.
Peter Walsh - A close friend of Clarissa’s, once desperately in love with her. Clarissa
rejected Peter's marriage proposal when she was eighteen, and he moved to India. He has not
been to London for five years. He is highly critical of others, is conflicted about nearly
everything in his life, and has a habit of playing with his pocketknife. Often overcome with
emotion, he cries easily. He frequently has romantic problems with women and is currently in
love with Daisy, a married woman in India. He wears horn-rimmed glasses and a bow tie and
used to be a Socialist.
Sally Seton - A close friend of Clarissa and Peter in their youth. Sally was a wild, handsome
ragamuffin who smoked cigars and would say anything. She and Clarissa were sexually
attracted to one another as teenagers. Now Sally lives in Manchester and is married with five
boys. Her married name is Lady Rosseter.
Richard Dalloway - Clarissa’s husband. A member of Parliament in the Conservative
government, Richard plans to write a history of the great English military family, the Brutons,
when the Labour Party comes to power. He is a sportsman and likes being in the country. He
is a loving father and husband. While devoted to social reform, he appreciates English
tradition. He has failed to make it into the Cabinet, or main governing body.
Hugh Whitbread - Clarissa’s old friend, married to Evelyn Whitbread. An impeccable
Englishman and upholder of English tradition, Hugh writes letters to the Times about various
causes. He never brushes beneath the surface of any subject and is rather vain. Many are
critical of his pompousness and gluttony, but he remains oblivious. He is, as Clarissa thinks,
almost too perfectly dressed. He makes Clarissa feel young and insecure.
Elizabeth Dalloway - Clarissa and Richard’s only child. Gentle, considerate, and somewhat
passive, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth does not have Clarissa’s energy. She has a dark beauty
that is beginning to attract attention. Not a fan of parties or clothes, she likes being in the
country with her father and dogs. She spends a great deal of time praying with her history
teacher, the religious Miss Kilman, and is considering career options.
narrator: Anonymous. The omniscient narrator is a commenting voice who knows everything
about the characters. This voice appears occasionally among the subjective thoughts of
characters. The critique of Sir William Bradshaw’s reverence of proportion and conversion is
the narrator’s most sustained appearance.
literary genre: novel, feminist, modernist
quote:
“She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea
and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one
day.”
This quotation, which occurs during Clarissa’s shopping expedition when she pauses for a
moment to look at the omnibuses in Piccadilly, emphasizes the contrast between the busyness
of public life and the quiet privacy of the soul. Clarissa, even when she is walking in the
crowded city streets, contemplates the essential loneliness of life. The image of water acts
much like the image of the sun in the novel. The sun beats down constantly, sometimes
creating a wonderful feeling of warmth, sometimes scorching unbearably. The rhythmic
movement of the sea’s waves is similar. Sometimes the cyclical movement is breathtaking,
while sometimes it threatens to drown whoever is too weak to endure the pressure, such as
Lady Bradshaw or Septimus. Each person faces these same elements, which seems to join
humans in their struggle. However, everyone is ultimately alone in the sea of life and must try
to stay afloat the best they can. Despite the perpetual movement and activity of a large city
like London, loneliness is everywhere.
Clarissa’s reflection occurs directly after she considers her old friend Peter, who has failed to
fulfill the dreams of his youth. As Clarissa ages, she finds it more difficult to know anybody,
which makes her feel solitary. She hesitates to define even herself. Failing, becoming
overwhelmed by the pressures of life, and drowning are far too easy. Clarissa is fifty-two,
she’s lived through a war, and her experiences amplify the dangers of living and of facing the
world and other people.

James Joyce → The Dubliners: “The Dead” →

MODERNISM
James Joyce:
 he was an Irish novelist, during the time of his life the relationship between Britain
and Ireland was tense, Ireland was fighting for independence and there was also a
conflict connected to religion (Britain - protestant, Ireland - catholic), Irish culture was
banned and they could not speak their language. He wasn’t so much involved into
fighting for independence of his country. He studied languages in University College,
Dublin. He wrote verses and experimented with short prose passages that he called
“epiphanies,” a word that Joyce used to describe his accounts of moments when the
real truth about some person or object was revealed (Britannica)
“The Dubliners” - collection of short stories
“The Dead”
Summary
At the annual dance and dinner party held by Kate and Julia Morkan and their young niece,
Mary Jane Morkan, the housemaid Lily frantically greets guests. Set at or just before the feast
of the Epiphany on January 6, which celebrates the manifestation of Christ’s divinity to the
Magi, the party draws together a variety of relatives and friends. Kate and Julia particularly
await the arrival of their favorite nephew, Gabriel Conroy and his wife, Gretta. When they
arrive, Gabriel attempts to chat with Lily as she takes his coat, but she snaps in reply to his
question about her love life. Gabriel ends the uncomfortable exchange by giving Lily a
generous tip, but the experience makes him anxious. He relaxes when he joins his aunts and
Gretta, though Gretta’s good-natured teasing about his dedication to galoshes irritates him.
They discuss their decision to stay at a hotel that evening rather than make the long trip
home. The arrival of another guest, the always-drunk Freddy Malins, disrupts the
conversation. Gabriel makes sure that Freddy is fit to join the party while the guests chat over
drinks in between taking breaks from the dancing. An older gentleman, Mr. Browne, flirts
with some young girls, who dodge his advances. Gabriel steers a drunken Freddy toward the
drawing room to get help from Mr. Browne, who attempts to sober Freddy up.
The party continues with a piano performance by Mary Jane. More dancing follows, which
finds Gabriel paired up with Miss Ivors, a fellow university instructor. A fervent supporter of
Irish culture, Miss Ivors embarrasses Gabriel by labeling him a “West Briton” for writing
literary reviews for a conservative newspaper. Gabriel dismisses the accusation, but Miss
Ivors pushes the point by inviting Gabriel to visit the Aran Isles, where Irish is spoken, during
the summer. When Gabriel declines, explaining that he has arranged a cycling trip on the
continent, Miss Ivors corners him about his lack of interest in his own country. Gabriel
exclaims that he is sick of Ireland. After the dance, he flees to a corner and engages in a few
more conversations, but he cannot forget the interlude with Miss Ivors.
Just before dinner, Julia sings a song for the guests. Miss Ivors makes her exit to the surprise
of Mary Jane and Gretta, and to the relief of Gabriel. Finally, dinner is ready, and Gabriel
assumes his place at the head of the table to carve the goose. After much fussing, everyone
eats, and finally Gabriel delivers his speech, in which he praises Kate, Julia, and Mary Jane
for their hospitality. Framing this quality as an Irish strength, Gabriel laments the present age
in which such hospitality is undervalued. Nevertheless, he insists, people must not linger on
the past and the dead, but live and rejoice in the present with the living. The table breaks into
loud applause for Gabriel’s speech, and the entire party toasts their three hostesses.
Later, guests begin to leave, and Gabriel recounts a story about his grandfather and his horse,
which forever walked in circles even when taken out of the mill where it worked. After
finishing the anecdote, Gabriel realizes that Gretta stands transfixed by the song that Mr.
Bartell D’Arcy sings in the drawing room. When the music stops and the rest of the party
guests assemble before the door to leave, Gretta remains detached and thoughtful. Gabriel is
enamored with and preoccupied by his wife’s mysterious mood and recalls their courtship as
they walk from the house and catch a cab into Dublin.
At the hotel, Gabriel grows irritated by Gretta’s behavior. She does not seem to share his
romantic inclinations, and in fact, she bursts into tears. Gretta confesses that she has been
thinking of the song from the party because a former lover had sung it to her in her youth in
Galway. Gretta recounts the sad story of this boy, Michael Furey, who died after waiting
outside of her window in the cold. Gretta later falls asleep, but Gabriel remains awake,
disturbed by Gretta’s new information. He curls up on the bed, contemplating his own
mortality. Seeing the snow at the window, he envisions it blanketing the graveyard where
Michael Furey rests, as well as all of Ireland.
Analysis
In “The Dead,” Gabriel Conroy’s restrained behavior and his reputation with his aunts as the
nephew who takes care of everything mark him as a man of authority and caution, but two
encounters with women at the party challenge his confidence. First, Gabriel clumsily
provokes a defensive statement from the overworked Lily when he asks her about her love
life. Instead of apologizing or explaining what he meant, Gabriel quickly ends the
conversation by giving Lily a holiday tip. He blames his prestigious education for his inability
to relate to servants like Lily, but his willingness to let money speak for him suggests that he
relies on the comforts of his class to maintain distance. The encounter with Lily shows that
Gabriel, like his aunts, cannot tolerate a “back answer,” but he is unable to avoid such
challenges as the party continues. During his dance with Miss Ivors, he faces a barrage of
questions about his nonexistent nationalist sympathies, which he doesn’t know how to answer
appropriately. Unable to compose a full response, Gabriel blurts out that he is sick of his own
country, surprising Miss Ivors and himself with his unmeasured response and his loss of
control.
Gabriel’s unease culminates in his tense night with Gretta, and his final encounter with her
ultimately forces him to confront his stony view of the world. When he sees Gretta transfixed
by the music at the end of the party, Gabriel yearns intensely to have control of her strange
feelings. Though Gabriel remembers their romantic courtship and is overcome with attraction
for Gretta, this attraction is rooted not in love but in his desire to control her. At the hotel,
when Gretta confesses to Gabriel that she was thinking of her first love, he becomes furious at
her and himself, realizing that he has no claim on her and will never be “master.” After Gretta
falls asleep, Gabriel softens. Now that he knows that another man preceded him in Gretta’s
life, he feels not jealousy, but sadness that Michael Furey once felt an aching love that he
himself has never known. Reflecting on his own controlled, passionless life, he realizes that
life is short, and those who leave the world like Michael Furey, with great passion, in fact live
more fully than people like himself.
The holiday setting of Epiphany emphasizes the profoundness of Gabriel’s difficult
awakening that concludes the story and the collection. Gabriel experiences an inward change
that makes him examine his own life and human life in general. While many characters
in Dubliners suddenly stop pursuing what they desire without explanation, this story offers
more specific articulation for Gabriel’s actions. Gabriel sees himself as a shadow of a person,
flickering in a world in which the living and the dead meet. Though in his speech at the dinner
he insisted on the division between the past of the dead and the present of the living, Gabriel
now recognizes, after hearing that Michael Furey’s memory lives on, that such division is
false. As he looks out of his hotel window, he sees the falling snow, and he imagines it
covering Michael Furey’s grave just as it covers those people still living, as well as the entire
country of Ireland. The story leaves open the possibility that Gabriel might change his attitude
and embrace life, even though his somber dwelling on the darkness of Ireland
closes Dubliners with morose acceptance. He will eventually join the dead and will not be
remembered.
The Morkans’ party consists of the kind of deadening routines that make existence so lifeless
in Dubliners. The events of the party repeat each year: Gabriel gives a speech, Freddy Malins
arrives drunk, everyone dances the same memorized steps, everyone eats. Like the horse that
circles around and around the mill in Gabriel’s anecdote, these Dubliners settle into an
expected routine at this party. Such tedium fixes the characters in a state of paralysis. They
are unable to break from the activities that they know, so they live life without new
experiences, numb to the world. Even the food on the table evokes death. The life-giving
substance appears at “rival ends” of the table that is lined with parallel rows of various dishes,
divided in the middle by “sentries” of fruit and watched from afar by “three squads of
bottles.” The military language transforms a table set for a communal feast into a battlefield,
reeking with danger and death.
“The Dead” encapsulates the themes developed in the entire collection and serves as a balance
to the first story, “The Sisters.” Both stories piercingly explore the intersection of life and
death and cast a shadow over the other stories. More than any other story, however, “The
Dead” squarely addresses the state of Ireland in this respect. In his speech, Gabriel claims to
lament the present age in which hospitality like that of the Morkan family is undervalued, but
at the same time he insists that people must not linger on the past, but embrace the
present. Gabriel’s words betray him, and he ultimately encourages a tribute to the past, the
past of hospitality, that lives on in the present party. His later thoughts reveal this attachment
to the past when he envisions snow as “general all over Ireland.” In every corner of the
country, snow touches both the dead and the living, uniting them in frozen paralysis.
However, Gabriel’s thoughts in the final lines of Dubliners suggest that the living might in
fact be able to free themselves and live unfettered by deadening routines and the past. Even in
January, snow is unusual in Ireland and cannot last forever.

Romanticism – lyrical ballads 1798

Date romanticism – 1800-30s/40s of 19th century
2 generations of poets: -Lake Poets: (William Wordsworth + Samuel Taylor Coleridge) +
Robert Southey (he was a friend of those)
Nature, child was a figure (role model to follow emotions)
 The Satanic poets: Lord Byron, Percy Byshe Shelley, John Keats they were atheists,
nature is a mean of inspiration but not a teacher or mother (not like for lake poets) they
were inspired fg. By the wind – because it blew with inspiration, it was like the
pneuma they loved the night The Byronic hero - The archetype, or character type, of
the Byronic hero was first developed by the famous 19th-century English Romantic
poet Lord Byron. Byronic heroes tend to be characterized as being: good looking,
heart-breakers, rebelliant, Intelligent, Ruthless, Arrogant, Violent, Self-aware,
Emotionally and intellectually tortured, Traumatized, Highly emotional, Manipulative,
Often reckless or suicidal // Byronic heroes also tend to only seem loyal to themselves
and their core beliefs and values. While they often act on behalf of greater goods, they
will rarely acknowledge doing so.  Example: Mr. Rochester – “Jane Eyre” Charlotte
Bronte
Mary Godwin + Wollestonecraft +Shelley – she is the author of FRANKENSTEIN
experienced annus mirabilis – wonderful year, within one year most of his poems, the
important pieces are published = 1819/1820
enjambment – run-on lines // is a poetic term for the continuation of a sentence or phrase
from one line of poetry to the next.
five elements – earth, water, air, fire, aether = the stars
hubris - a great or foolish amount of pride or confidence
Flat characters are two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and do not
change throughout the course of a work. By contrast, round characters are complex and
undergo development, sometimes sufficiently to surprise the reader.
Stock character - a character in literature, theater, or film of a type quickly recognized and
accepted by the reader or viewer and requiring no development by the writer.
comedy of manners - witty, cerebral form of dramatic comedy that depicts and often satirizes
the manners and affectations of a contemporary society. // describes a genre of realistic,
satirical comedy of the Restoration period (1660–1710) that questions and comments upon the
manners and social conventions of a greatly sophisticated, artificial society.
Irony is a literary device that contrasts expectations and reality. Storytellers use ironic
situations to create humor, suspense, and an emphasis on a particular subject. By highlighting
the incongruity of a situation or action, irony draws attention to a plot point, character trait, or
thematic argument. 1) Dramatic irony: Also known as tragic irony, this type of irony occurs
when the audience knows something that the main characters do not. 2) Situational irony:
Situational irony occurs when an expected outcome is subverted. 3) Verbal irony: The
definition of verbal irony is a statement in which the speaker’s words are incongruous with
the speaker's intent. A speaker says one thing while meaning another, resulting in an ironic
clash between their intended meaning and their literal meaning.
Iambic - In a line of poetry, an ‘iamb’ is a foot or beat consisting of an unstressed syllable
followed by a stressed syllable.
Poetic justice - an occasion when something bad happens to a person who seems to deserve
it, usually because of bad things that person has done:
Modernism - Influenced by worldwide industrialization and the first World War. -
Experimentation: Modernist literature employed a number of different experimental writing
techniques that broke the conventional rules of storytelling. Some of those techniques include
blended imagery and themes, absurdism, nonlinear narratives, and stream of consciousness—
which is a free flowing inner monologue. -Individualism: Modernist literature typically
focuses on the individual, rather than society as a whole. Stories follow characters as they
adapt to a changing world, often dealing with difficult circumstances and challenges. -
Multiple perspectives: Many modernist writers wrote in the first person perspective with
multiple characters to emphasize the subjectivity of each character, and add depth to the story
by presenting a variety of viewpoints. -Free verse: Many modernist poets rejected the
traditional structure of poetry and opted for free verse, which lacks a consistent rhyme
scheme, metrical pattern, or musical form. - Literary devices: Many modernist writers rely on
literary devices like symbolism and imagery to help the reader understand the writing, and to
create a stronger connection between the text and the reader.
Indirect characterization describes a character through their thoughts, actions, speech, and
dialogue.
Direct characterization, or explicit characterization, is a method of describing the character
in a straightforward manner: through their physical description (i.e. blue eyes), their line of
work (i.e. lawyer), and their passions and outside pursuits (i.e. voracious reader).
Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. “Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley’s
attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an
object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to
be pretty: he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he
looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends
that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered
uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes.” Austen uses direct
characterization in this passage to describe Elizabeth through the eyes of Mr. Darcy, who has
tried hard to view her as undesirable but cannot resist her unique beauty.
DIRECT: Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and
caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife
understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean
understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she
fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace
was visiting and news. (1.34).
INDIRECT: “You must visit him as soon as he comes” – impatient “Oh single, my dear, to
be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our
girls!” > she’s already planning to meet them and she’s announcing that she wants him to
marry one of her daughters >> “It is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them”
****
Intertextuality – references to other authors and texts the intertexts = The Illiad, Divina
comedia
Romaticism - Romanticism was a literary movement that began in the late 18th century,
ending around the middle of the 19th century //  Prominent Romantic writers include John
Keats, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Shelley.
Characteristics: Glorification of Nature -Awareness and Acceptance of Emotions - Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein offers a perfect example of this characteristic of Romanticism. Here,
Frankenstein’s monster shows great self-awareness of his feelings and offers a vivid
emotional description full of anger and sadness. -Use of Personification - you can see
examples of personification of everything from birds and animals to natural events or aspects.
These works even personify feelings like love or states like death. -Vivid Sensory
Descriptions -Spiritual and Supernatural Elements -Themes of Solitude -Idealization of
Women -Imagination, emotion, and freedom are certainly the focal points of romanticism.
Any list of particular characteristics of the literature of romanticism includes subjectivity and
an emphasis on individualism; spontaneity; freedom from rules; solitary life rather than life in
society; the beliefs that imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty; love of and
worship of nature; and fascination with the past, especially the myths and mysticism of the
middle ages.
Ode - Ode is a lyric poem in praise of something or someone. Originally it was accompanied
by music & dance but later it was reserved by the Romantic Poets to express their sentiments.
An ode can be serious or humorous but in all instances, it is thoughtful. -Relatively speaking,
an ode is the longest of all lyric forms. -The poet apostrophizes a person or a thing. Ode is
always in the form of an address to an absent person or thing. -It has lyric enthusiasm and
emotional intensity. It is a spontaneous overflow of the poet’s emotions. -The tone of the ode
is always formal. The style is very elevated. -It has a very elaborate & complex stanzaic
structure.
Victorian Era - As is quite evident from the title the kind of literature that evolved during the
reign of Queen Victoria is famously known as the Victorian era literature.The literature of the
Victorian age (1837-1901) entered a new period after the romantic revival. // It was the time
of the world’s first Industrial Revolution, political reform and social change, Charles Dickens
and Charles Darwin, a railway boom and the first telephone and telegraph. - The reclaiming of
the past was a major part of Victorian literature. The Victorians loved the heroic, chivalrous
stories of knights of old and they hoped to regain some of that noble, courtly behaviour and
impress it upon the people both at home and in the wider empire. - The novels of the age
mostly had a moral strain in them with a belief in the innate goodness of human nature. The
characters were well rounded and the protagonist usually belonged to a middle class society
who struggled to create a niche for himself in the industrial and mercantile world. The stress
was on realism and an attempt to describe the daily struggles of ordinary men that the middle
class reader could associate with. The moral tangents were perhaps an attempt to rescue the
moral degradation prevalent in the society then and supplied the audience with hope and
positivity. These moral angles allowed for inclusion of larger debates in fiction like the ones
surrounding “the woman question”, marriage, progress, education, the Industrial Revolution.
Ballad: -rhythmic -rhyming patterns -simple language -concentrates on a single episode. -the
theme is often tragic & sad -the story is told through dialogue & action. -lacks specific detail.
-surprising ending.