C List Flashcards
Read just enough to recognize the points noted here. (175 cards)
Edmund Spenser [The Faerie Queene] (1590-1596): Language
Spenser deliberately used archaic orthography (conventional spelling) and diction (choice of words and phrases in sentences) to have antique flavor. Spenser was close contemporary of Shakespeare.
Edmund Spenser [The Faerie Queene] (1590-1596): Form
Spenserian stanza.
Rhymes ab,abb,cb,cc. Iambic pentameter, last ninth line is iambic hexameter (Alexandrine).
Spenserian stanza has been used into twentieth century.
Edmund Spenser [The Faerie Queene] (1590-1596): Quote
“Be well aware,” quoth then that Ladie milde,
“Least suddaine mischiefe ye too rash provoke:
The danger hid, the place unknown and wilde,
Breedes dreadfull doubts: Oft fire is without smoke,
And perill without show: therefore your hardy stroke
Sir knight with-hold, till further tryall made.”
“Ah Ladie” (sayd he) shame were to revoke,
The forward footing for an hidden shade:
Vertue gives her selfe light, through darkenesse for the wade.”
Christopher Marlowe [Tamburlaine the Great (Parts I and II)]: Synopsis
Scythian shepherd, Tamburlaine, becomes a ferocious and successful conqueror in Asia Minor. Zenocrate is main female character.
Christopher Marlowe [Tamburlaine the Great (Part I)]: Synopsis
Tamburlaine allies with Therimadas and Cosroe, defeating Mycetes, king of Persia then killing Cosroe due to his betrayal. He tortures Turkish king Bajazeth and queen Zabina, causing their suicide. He also kills king of Arabia despite the virgins he had sent (who are also killed) and defeats Egypt and spares the sultan. The Egyptian princess Zenocrate is made queen of Persia.
Christopher Marlowe [Doctor Faustus]: Synopsis
A sorcerer sells his soul for power. He gets served and persecuted by Lucifer, Beezlebub, Mephistopheles.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [Faust]
Faust sells his soul for knowledge and deals with single satanic agent named Mephistopheles.
John Donne “The Sun Rising” (1633-date of publication): Quotes
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus
Through windows and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the kind will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams, so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long; If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and tomorrow late, tell me, Whether both th'Indias of spice and mine Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me. Ask for those king whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay. She is all states, and all princes I, Nothing else is. Princes do but play us; compared to this, All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy. Thou, sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus; Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.
John Donne “The Flea” (1633-date of publication): Quotes
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is,
Me it sucked first, and now it sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thy self nor me the weaker now;
‘This true; then learn how false fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.
John Donne: Elegy
Thomas Carew (1594?-1640). “An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of St. Paul’s, Dr. John Donne”
“The Muses’ garden, with pedantic weeds / O’erspread, was purged by thee; the lazy seeds / Of servile imitation thrown away, / And fresh invention planted…”
John Donne “Holy Sonnet 14”
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
John Milton [Paradise Lost] (1667): Form
Blank verse.
Extremely long and complicated sentences.
John Milton [Paradise Lost] (1667): Quotes
Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, If these magnific Titles yet remain Not merely titular, since by Decree Another now to himself ingross't All power, and us eclipst under the name Of King anointed, for whom all the haste Of midnight march, and hurried meeting here, This only to consult how we may best With what may be devis'd of honors new Receive him coming to receive from us Knee-tribute yet unpaid, prostration vile, Too much to one, yet double how endur'd, To one and to his image now proclaim'd?
Areopagitica (1644): Content
Defense of free expression, Condemnation of sensorship.
Most of Milton’s political prose (divorce tracts) is interested in separating spiritual and temporal authority.
Free press is God’s will because published books are the means for hearing God’s Revelation.
Areopagitica (1644): Quotes
“…as good almost kill am an as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills image of God, as it were in the eye.”
Comus (1634): Genre
Masque: a dramatic form in which all entertainment systems are involved, music, singing, dancing, acting, stage design. Often offered as tribute to the patron.
Flourished in Milton’s time.
Comus (1634): Title
[A Mask, Presented at Ludlow Castle]
Comus (1634): Synopsis
A lady gets lost in the woods, falls asleep, is captured by lecherous Comus. She faces erotic harassments.
Comus (1634): Quotes
Mortals, that would follow me, Love Virtue; she alone is free. She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her.
Lycidas (1637): References
Name “Lycidas” comes from Theocritus’ Idylls.
Herodotus also sports name “Lycidas”.
Lycidas (1637): References
Pastoral elegy for Edward King.
Name “Lycidas” comes from Theocritus’ Idylls.
Herodotus also sports name “Lycidas”.
Lydcidas (1637): Tradition
Shared pastoral past
Classical tradition
Christian tradition (St. Peter is “Pilot of Galilean Lake”)
Lycidas (1637): Tradition
Shared pastoral past
Classical tradition
Christian tradition (St. Peter is “Pilot of Galilean Lake”)
Lycidas (1637): Quotes
“Without the meed of some melodious tear.”
“But oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, / Now thou art gone and never must return!”
“Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise / (That last infirmity of noble mind) / To scorn delights and live laborious days”
“Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth: / And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.”