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English 244E.001:  Weekly questions.

Please come to class each Tuesday prepared to give an answer to the following question:

9/14: Songs of Innocence
 For each of the Songs, but especially for "The Lamb," "The Chimney Sweeper," "The Little Black Boy," and the "Introduction,"  work out who is the poem's speaker and who is its addressee.  What does the poem tell us about each of them, and about the dramatic situation that it represents?

9/21 Compare and contrast the chimney-sweepers of Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.  (Hint:  The second sweeper says that he is "happy."  Are both sweepers happy?  If so, what is the difference between them?)

9/28 After reading Wordsworth's "The Thorn", what have we actually learnt about Martha Ray?  How reliable is the poem's speaker?

10/5 After reading the whole poem, reread the opening paragraph of Wordsworth's "Michael".  What is the setting that the poem describes? What is the speaker's purpose in telling the tale that follows?

10/12         And that simplest lute, Placed length-wise in the clasping casement, hark! How by the desultory breeze caressed, Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as needs must Tempt to repeat the wrong!                     Coleridge, "The Eolian Harp" 12-17. Explain the simile in these lines—how is the lute (or harp) like a "coy maid"?  Then discuss the meaning of the harp itself as a symbol in the poem as a whole.  You may wish to consider the connection between the simile quoted above and the dramatic situation represented in the poem.

10/19 "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."  After reading the poem, read Coleridge's comment that it has "too much" moral sentiment.  (Longman 544) Does the poem's narrative have a moral or not? Reading for Thurs. 10/21.  Frankenstein 1818 ed., to the end of  Vol. 2, chapter 2, plus 1831 introduction. (Longman Cultural ed. Pp. 5-79, 186-92) For Tues. 10/26, the remainder of Frankenstein (1818--Longman cultural ed. Pp. 79-186).

10/26--Frankenstein.  Identify as many doubles of Frankenstein as you can find in the novel.  Be ready to give reasons for your identifications.

11/2  Please read from Longman Vol 2A Childe Harold's Pilgrimage pp 642-44 and 654-65. What memorial does the poem describe at Waterloo?  What is  Byron's attitude to Napoleon's defeat?

11/9  What does Shelley say in "Mont Blanc" about "power"?

11/16.  What does Madeline want in Keats's "The Eve of St Agnes"?  Do her wishes come true?

11/23 "Ode on a Grecian Urn" a) Explain the similes in lines 1 and 2. How is the urn like a "still unravished bride"? Why is it called a "foster-child"? b) How many scenes are represented on the urn? Who and what appears in each of these scenes?

11/30 What is Harriet Smith's function in Emma?  What are the causes and effects of her introduction into Emma's social circle? What does Austen use her to show us about Emma?

12/7  "It was a sweet view--sweet to the eye and mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being oppressive" Emma, p. 338 (Vol. 3 ch. 6) What does the word "culture" mean in this passage?

1/11  Why is "The Epic" (Tennyson's frame for "The Passing of Arthur") set at Christmastime?

1/18 What is the dramatic situation in "The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's"?  What is it in "Fra Lippo Lippi"?

1/25 1) Does Jane Eyre change as she grows up?  How do you know? (hint: consider the relation between Jane as narrator and Jane as protagonist.) 2) Identify an important coincidence in the novel's plot.

2/1 Identify as many appearances as you can in Jane Eyre of the terms "master" and "slave".  How do these appearances form a pattern in the novel as a whole?

2/8 In “A Curse for a Nation”, what nation is being cursed?  What is the curse? Read all of Sonnets from the Portuguese, but pay extra attention to numbers 1, 4, 5, 6, 13, 15, 29, 35, 37, 44.

2/15 Identify two sections of In Memoriam in which the second echoes or corrects the first.  How has the speaker changed  between the two sections?

3/1   Wandering between two worlds, one dead,     The other powerless to be born,     With nowhere yet to rest my head,     Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.    Their faith, my tears, the world deride--     I come to shed them at their side. (Arnold, "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse" 85-90; Longman p. 1557) Who are "these"?  How is the speaker "like" them?

3/8 The Mill on the Floss:  What is a "maiden mark"?  (Chapter 9, Penguin p. 103) Why is Maggie better than Tom at learning Latin?

3/15 The Mill on the Floss: "Maggie had been thoroughly sincere . . . . [b]ut confidences are sometimes blinding even when they are sincere".  (Mill Book 6 ch. 3, p. 404). Explain this observation of the narrator.  Are Maggie's "confidences" about her love-life always blinding?  Is she ever able to say who or what she wants?

3/22 "The Burden of Nineveh"  What is the dramatic situation of this poem? How does the speaker's understanding of the relation between ancient Nineveh and modern London develop in the course of the poem?  What does the poem say about historical change?

3/29 "Goblin Market":  What is wrong with the goblin fruit in this poem?

4/5.  On the evidence of "The Decay of Lying", what is Oscar Wilde's relation to Romanticism?