Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Victorians Part II

The Lady of Shalott Summary and CommentaryPart IStanza 1Setting – the countryside (pastoral ideal) around CamelotPeople travel up and down the roadStanza 2Island in the riverTower on the islandLady of Shalott in the towerPart IStanza 3Images of everyday lifeHeavy bargesShallop (sailboats)Mysterious Lady of Shalott Stanza 4Reapers hear her signing“Tis the fairy Lady of Shalott”Part IIStanza 5She weaves a “magic web”She can’t “look down to Camelot”But she is satisfied to weaveStanza 6She observes the world through a mirror“Surly village churls“Red cloaks of the market girls”Part IIStanza 7Other passersbyKnightStanza 8She continues to weaveTwo young lovers pass by“I’m half sick of shadows”
Part IIIStanza 9Lancelot appearsStanza 10Sun-god imageryStanza 11More sun-god imageryPart IIIStanza 12Still more sun-god imageryStanza 13She left the web, she left the loom“The curse is come upon me”Part IVStanza 14The weather (atmosphere) changesShe finds a boatStanza 15In a trance, she floats down to Camelot
Part IVStanza 16Lying in the boat, she singsStanza 17“Singing her last song,” she diesStanza 18The boat floats into CamelotPart IVStanza 19The people are perplexed and scaredLancelot comments on her “lovely face”AnalysisConflict – Artist’s dedication to art requires alienation from societyMost people don’t understand or appreciate artArtists create art “for art’s sake”Art should not be didactic, philosophical, or propagandistic

The Victorian DichotomyOn one hand…Progress, optimism, faith, progress, duty, decorum“God is in His Heaven, and all’s right with the world” – BrowningTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” – TennysonThe “white man’s burden” – Kipling“Rise, sir, from that semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous.” - Wilde

On the other hand…Doubt, uncertainty, alienation…for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. – Matthew ArnoldFunction of the artist?Represent the values of societyMiddle class respectabilityDidacticismPropaganda “Recessional” p. 887Create art “for art’s sake”Sensory/spiritual experienceGod Is in His Heaven…?“The Darkling Thrush” – p. 921“God’s Grandeur” - p. 93120th CenturyWorld War I – The war to end all wars…
“The Soldier” p. 1051“Dulce et Decorum Est”

Monday, May 5, 2008

Victorian Age - Tennyson

• Progress
• Victorian Age
• 1837-1901
• Industrialization
– Rise of middle class
• Colonization (empire building)
– “The sun never sets on the British empire”
– The white man’s burden
• Scientific advancement
– Darwin’s theory of evolution
– Literature
• Romanticism
– Wordsworth – poet laureate
– Byron, Shelley, and Keats – dead
• Naturalism
– Realistic, “scientific” observation of life
– Pathetic fallacy
• Aestheticism
– Art for art’s sake
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Values of the Victorian Age
– “Charge of the Light Brigade”
– “Ulysses”
• Artist’s place in society
– “The Lady of Shalott”
– “Ulysses”P. 828
• Dramatic monologue – blank verse
• Ulysses = Odysseus
– Trojan war (10 years)
– Odyssey (10 years)
• Calypso
• Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis, Laestrygons
• Lotus Eaters
• Penelope and Telemachus

Romantic poets, part 2

• Romantic Poets
• The Second Generation
• First Generation
• William Wordsworth – beauty and power of Nature
– “Tintern Abbey”
– “The World Is Too Much With Us”
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge – supernatural and the source of poetic creativity
– “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
– “Kubla Khan”
• Second Generation
• Byron – the Byronic Hero
• Shelley – social and political idealist; spiritual power of Nature
– O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud;
– I fall upon the thorns of life; I bleed!
• Keats
• John Keats
1795-1821
• Working class
• Apprenticed to a surgeon
• Fanny Brawne – “Everything that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear.”
• Death of brother Tom
• Consumption (tuberculosis)
• “Femme Fatale”
• “La Bell Dame Sans Merci”
• “The Lorelei” (p. 761)
• Platonic Ideal
• Goodness = Truth = Beauty
• “Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all
• Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.”
• Cf. Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty” (p. 718)
• Odes
• Ode on A Grecian Urn
– Permanence of art
• Ode to a Nightingale
– Transcendence of the spirit into the realm of Beauty

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Classical v. Rogerrian Rhetoric

Classical Rhetoric
Exordium - introduction
Engage the audience
Introduce the issue
Why is it an issue?
Why do we care?
Rogerian Rhetoric
Introduction
State the problem
Establish a positive attitude about resolving the problem
Suggest that we all work together for a common solution
Classical Rhetoric
Narratio (necessary background )
What is the history of the problem?
What is its context: what circumstances, occurrences, or conditions do we need to be aware of?
2. Rogerian Rhetoric
Summarize the opposing view
As accurately and neutrally as possible, state the view of the people with whom you disagree.
Show that you are capable of listening without judging
3. Classical Rhetoric
Partitio – thesis and breakdown
State your position (thesis, claim)
State the major points that you will present
3. Rogerian Rhetoric
State the validity
Show that you understand that there are situations in which the “opponent’s” views are valid.
Which parts of the opposing views do you concede?
Under what conditions might you share these views?

4. Classical Rhetoric
Confirmatio (proof)
Present your reasons, examples, facts, statistics, etc. to back up your thesis
Explain and justify assumptions ( In Toulmin fashion, make sure the claims are supported by data, the data by warrants, the warrants by backing to the extent necessary.
4. Rogerian Rhetoric
State your position
Having given full consideration to the opposing view, ask the reader to listen to and consider yours.
5. Classical Rhetoric
Refutatio – refute the counter argument
Anticipate the opposing views
Refute them (prove them wrong)
Demonstrate that you have considered the issue carefully and that yours is the only reasonable position
5. Rogerian Rhetoric
State the Contexts
Explain the particular situations in which your view is most valid.
Accept that not everyone will agree with you all the time
Allow that opponents will agree with some of what you say some of the time
6. Classical Rhetoric
Peroratio – conclusion
Summarize the key points
Make a final appeal to values, morals, good sense, motivations and feelings that will support your side.
6. Rogerian Rhetoric
State the benefits
Appeal to the self-interest of your opponents by showing how they will benefit from accepting your position
Conclude the essay on a hopeful, positive note

18th century

18th Century
Neoclassical Age
Augustan Age
Age of Reason
Augustan Age
End of the English Civil War
Restoration of King Charles II
Peace (Pax Romana) prosperity, empire-building


Classicism
The culture of ancient Greece and Rome

In ideology (world view) that sees the universe as ordered, balanced, and harmonious
The Rotunda (UVA)
Neoclassicism
Literary movement in the 17th and 18th centuries which stressed order, harmony, restraint, balance, and the ideal.

“God is in His Heaven, and all’s right with the world.” – Robert Browning

Shakespeare
Great Chain of Being
Restoration of social order

John Milton
Paradise Lost – epic
Invocation to the Muse
In medias res
Long formal speeches
Elevated language
Epic similes

Jonathan Swift
“A Modest Proposal” – Roman (Ciceronian) model



Alexander Pope
“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.”

Whatever is, is right.
Pope’s The Rape of the Lock
Mock epic -. P. 532
Satire: manners and mores of the upper class
Trivial subject/ serious tone (c.f. The Importance of Being Earnest)

zeugma
Zeugma (from the Greek word "ζεύγμα", meaning "yoke") is a figure of speech describing the joining of two or more parts of a sentence with a single common verb or noun.
To take counsel and (to take) tea
We must hang together, or we will hang separately
You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you see fit.
She stole my car and my heart.
Dr. Samuel Johnson
Lexicographer
Literary and social critic
Conversationalist (coffee houses)
Subject of James Boswell’s biography
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) – p. 551

To traipse
TO walk in a low and sluttish manner
The Age of Reason
Enlightenment (scientific advancement) – Newton
Inductive reasoning - Scientific Method
Geographical exploration and discovery – The New World
The Novel
Nouvelle – (new) romance

Extended prose fiction
High degree of verisimilitude
Contemporary social setting
English novels
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
Pamela – Samuel Richardson
Epistolary novel
Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
Picaresque novel

Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Emma
Persuasion

English Literary Romanticism

English Literary RomanticismFirst Generation: Wordsworth and ColeridgeWilliam Wordsworth (1770-1850) Lake DistrictLyrical Ballads (1798)“Poetry…the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings…”Ordinary life depicted in ordinary languageExperience of Nature as the Sublime
The SublimeLonginus (1st century A.D.) – On the Sublime - from the Latin sublimis ([looking up from] is the quality of greatness or vast magnitude, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation. This greatness is often used when referring to nature and its vastness. Awesomeness“The Daffodils”
I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.…For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
“Tintern Abbey” p. 667“The World Is Too Much with Us” p. 675SonnetSublime?Pagan?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)Collaborated w/ Wordsworth on Lyrical Ballads (1798)Strange, bizarre, and exotic (sublime)Effects of drugs on creativityRime of the Ancient MarinerDreamBalladSupernatural Her lips were red, her looks were free Her locks were yellow as gold Her skin was as white as leprosy The Night-mare Life-in-death was she Who thicks man's blood with cold P. 687

Notes for Friday's Test

All of the power point slides have been posted on the J drive.

Log in

Go to the J (shared) drive

Open the "Teachers" folder

Look for "Sellers"

There they are!