british lit 335 midterm

Question 1

Allied powers

Answer 1

France, Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia, U.S. (after 1917)

Question 2

central powers

Answer 2

Germany, Austria-Hungary, ottoman empire

Question 3

Battle of the Somme

Answer 3

Huge battle July-nov 1916, nearly 20,000 british casualties on the first day. By the end, 400,000 british had died. Not much of a victory, though the germans had been pushed back in some places

Question 4

epigraph

Answer 4

a quotation that appears on the title page of a book or as a heading to a chapter or poem

Question 5

dramatic monologue

Answer 5

a poem that reveals a ‘soul in action’ through the speech of one character in a dramatic situation. The character is typically speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic moment in the speaker’s life.

Question 6

factors for rise of Modernism

Answer 6

1. rapid changes in industry and tech
2. scientific and social breakthroughs leading to epistemological debate
3. World wars
4. increasing interconnectedness across globe
5. expanding middle class and mass consumer culture
6. increased literacy
7. increased advocacy for rights of workers, women, and colonized populations
8. sense of break from the past

Question 7

modernist movement dates

Answer 7

late 19th/early 20th centuries to mid 1940s

Question 8

features of modernist literature

Answer 8

1. experimentation with literary form (fragmentation, stream of consciousness, non-linear narrative, etc.)
2. emphasis on subjectivity (perception, the subject, allusiveness, self-reflexivity, ambiguity, difficulty)

Question 9

fragmentation

Answer 9

putting fragments from larger wholes together in a new piece or leaving connecting information out so we only have an impression of fragments

Question 10

epistemology

Answer 10

branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Considers issues of the nature and source of knowledge.

Question 11

self-reflexivity

Answer 11

when a text draws attention to its status as a text

Question 12

Fisher King/grail legend

Answer 12

Framing legend for ‘burial of the dead.’ Fisher King’s death/impotence brought drought and desolation to the land

Question 13

POV: third person

Answer 13

narrator is not a character. talks about characters as “he” “she” “they”

-third person limited: narrator is able to see into the mind of one character, and limits to what that character knows, feels, does

-third person omniscient: narrator knows everything

Question 14

POV: first person

Answer 14

A character directly relates events/experiences that happened to them, using “I”.

Question 15

focalizer

Answer 15

the focalizer is the primary consciousness of the story. The focalizer is not always the narrator

Question 16

epiphany

Answer 16

a sudden, intuitive perception into the reality or essential meaning of something. common in Joyce’s narratives

Question 17

angel in the house

Answer 17

Woolf. originally the name of a poem. became shorthand for the ideal of victorian womanhood.

the angel is pure, beautiful, sympathetic towards others, has no mind or wish of her own, selfless and sacrificial

Question 18

analytic cubism

Answer 18

phase in cubist painting of George Braque and Picasso 1909-1912. broke down objects into small overlapping/intersecting facets/planes, each of which shows a different view of the object. sought to highlight the inadequacy of a single viewpoint.

Question 19

motif

Answer 19

a recurring element that has a symbolic meaning

Question 20

classical unities

Answer 20

3 rules for drama (tragedy) neoclassicists derived from Aristotle’s poetics:
1. unity of action: a tragedy should have one principal action
2. unity of place: a tragedy should take place in a single location
3. unity of time: a tragedy should take place over no more than 24 hours.

Question 21

elegy

Answer 21

a sustained and formal poem setting forth meditations on death or another solemn theme. the meditation is often associated with the death of a particular person.

Question 22

author, setting of “They”

Answer 22

Siegfried Sassoon. Written, set, and published during the war. Bishop vs soldiers.

Question 23

author, setting of “on passing the new menin gate”

Answer 23

Siegfried Sassoon. written, set, and published after the war. Pointless memorial.

Question 24

author, setting of “dulce et decorum est”

Answer 24

Wilfred Owen. Written towards end of war, set during, published after. Tear gas.

Question 25

author, setting of “anthem for doomed youth”

Answer 25

Wilfred Owen, written and set during war. published after. Can’t help the dead or the grieving. funeral scene.

Question 26

author, setting of “The Love song of J Alfred Prufrock”

Answer 26

TS Eliot. written and set before the war. published during. Insecure prufrock’s dramatic monologue. allusions to Hamlet, to his coy mistress, Lazarus, Dante’s inferno.

Question 27

author, setting of “The waste land: the Burial of the Dead”

Answer 27

TS Eliot, written set and published after the war. Various perspectives all traumatized by the war. April the cruelest month. has the corpse bloomed?

Question 28

author of “The Dead”

Answer 28

James Joyce. Family party. 3rd person limited. Gabriel Conroy = focalizer. Gretta Conroy tells Gabriel of Michael Furey.

Question 29

author, setting of “To the lighthouse”

Answer 29

Virginia Woolf, published after the war, set before during and after. Mr + Mrs. Ramsey, Lily Briscoe, William Bankes, Cam Prue James Andrew, Charles Tansley.

Question 30

author, setting of “Professions for women”

Answer 30

Virginia Woolf. published after the war. Angel in the house.

Question 31

WWI dates

Answer 31

1914-1918

Question 32

WWI causes

Answer 32

-rivalries between European imperial powers and treaties
-assassination of archduke Ferdinand 1914

Question 33

wwI outcomes

Answer 33

-defeat of central powers
-over 8.5 million combat deaths
-6-13 million civilian deaths
-collapse of German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires

Question 34

what was Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” ?

Answer 34

-a more glorified take on war. viewed deaths as honorable rather than tragic

Question 35

what was Jessie Pope’s “Who’s for the game?”

Answer 35

propaganda that likened war to a game

Question 36

About Sassoon

Answer 36

initially patriotic, joined the army and became an officer. became horrified by the realities of war, was sent to a special hospital where he later met Wilfred Owen.

Question 37

About Owen

Answer 37

Was a lieutenant in the army. suffered from shell shock. met Sassoon at hospital. returned to the front lines and was killed just before the armistice.

Question 38

about TS Eliot

Answer 38

born in St. Louis, went to Harvard and continued studies in Europe. Tough divorce with first wife, during which he wrote “Burial of the Dead”

Question 39

about Joyce

Answer 39

from Dublin suburbs, Irish. Alcoholic father, started in expensive jesuit schools and then moved to cheaper schools. went to college for literature. Left Ireland after marrying and never returned, though his work remained focused on ireland/irish characters.

Question 40

about Woolf

Answer 40

not formally educated, daughter of Victorian philosopher. Parents were models for Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey. member of Bloomsbury group. Bisexual. Died by suicide.