GOVERNMENT ARTS AND SCIENCE COLLEGE VALPARAI

SEMESTER II

Paper VI - BRITISH LITERATURE – II (DRYDEN TO ROMANTIC AGE)

Unit:1 Wordsworth : Tintern Abbey

Coleridge :Kubla Khan

Shelley : Ode to the West Wind Keats : Ode on a Grecian Urn

Oliver Goldsmith : The Deserted Village

Unit:2 Dryden : All for Love Sheridan

The Rivals

Unit:3 Charles Lamb : The following essays from the Essays of Elia :

1. Old China

2. Dream Children : A Reverie

3. In Praise of Chimney Sweepers

4. Dissertation upon a Roast Pig and

5. Jonathan Swift : Gulliver‗s Travels I

Unit:4 Scott : Kenilworth Jane Austen :

Northanger Abbey

Unit:5 Wordsworth : Preface to Lyrical Ballads Johnson :

Preface to Shakespeare

UNIT-1

Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth: Summary & Analysis

The poem Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey is generally known as Tintern

Abbey written in 1798 by the father of Romanticism William Wordsworth. Tintern Abbey is one

of the triumphs of Wordsworth's genius. It may he called a condensed spiritual autobiography of

the poet. It deals with the subjective experiences of the poet, and traces the growth of his mind

through different periods of his life. Nature and its influence on the poet in various stage forms

the main theme of the poem. The poem deal with the influence of Nature on the boy, the growing

youth, and the man. The poet has expressed his tender feeling towards nature.

He has specially recollected his poetic idea of Tintern Abbey where he had gone first time in

1793. This is his second visit to this place. Wordsworth has expressed his intense faith in nature.

There is Wordsworth’s realization of God in nature. He got sensuous delight in it and it is all in

all to him. Tintern Abbey impressed him most when he had first visited this place. He has again

come to the same place where there are lofty cliffs, the plots of cottage ground, orchards groves

and copses. He is glad to see again hedgerows, sportive wood, pastoral farms and green doors.

This lonely place, the banks of the river and rolling waters from the mountain springs present a

beautiful panoramic light. The solitary place remands the poet of vagrant dwellers and hermits’

cave.

The poem is in five sections. The first section establishes the setting for the meditation. But it

emphasizes the passage of time: five years have passed, five summers, five long winters… But

when the poet is back to this place of natural beauty and serenity, it is still essentially the same.

The poem opens with a slow, dragging rhythm and the repetition of the word ‘five’ all designed

to emphasize the weight of time which has separated the poet from this scene. The following

lines develop a clear, visual picture of the scent. The view presented is a blend of wildness and

order. He can see the entirely natural cliffs and waterfalls; he can see the hedges around the

fields of the people; and he can see wreaths of smoke probably coming from some hermits

making fire in their cave hermitages. These images evoke not only a pure nature as one might

expect, they evoke a life of the common people in harmony with the nature.

The second section begins with the meditation. The poet now realizes that these ‘beauteous’

forms have always been with him, deep-seated in his mind, wherever he went. This vision has

been “Felt in the blood, and felt alone the heart” that is. It has affected his whole being. They

were not absent from his mind like form the mind of a man born blind. In hours of weariness,

frustration and anxiety, these things of nature used to make him feel sweet sensations in his very

blood, and he used to feel it at the level of the impulse (heart) rather than in his waking

consciousness and through reasoning. From this point onward Wordsworth begins to consider

the sublime of nature, and his mystical awareness becomes clear. Wordsworth’s idea was that

human beings are naturally uncorrupted.

The poet studies nature with open eyes and imaginative mind. He has been the lover of nature

form the core of his heart, and with purer mind. He feels a sensation of love for nature in his

blood. He feels high pleasure and deep power of joy in natural objects. The beatings of his heart

are full of the fire of nature’s love. He concentrates attention to Sylvan Wye – a majestic and

worth seeing river. He is reminded of the pictures of the past visit and ponders over his future

years. On his first visit to this place he bounded over the mountains by the sides of the deep

rivers and the lovely streams. In the past the soundings haunted him like a passion. The tall rock,

the mountain and the deep and gloomy wood were then to him like an appetite. But that time is

gone now. In nature he finds the sad music of humanity.

The third section contains a kind of doubt; the poet is probably reflecting the reader’s possible

doubts so that he can go on to justify how he is right and what he means. He doubts, for just a

moment, whether this thought about the influence of the nature is vain, but he can’t go on. He

exclaims: “yet, oh! How often, amid the joyless daylight, fretful and unprofitable fever of the

world have I turned to thee (nature)” for inspiration and peace of mind. He thanks the ‘Sylvan

Wye’ for the everlasting influence it has imprinted on his mind; his spirit has very often turned to

this river for inspiration when he was losing the peace of mind or the path and meaning of life.

The river here becomes the symbol of spirituality.

Though the poet has become serious and perplexed in the fourth section the nature gives him

courage and spirit enough to stand there with a sense of delight and pleasure. This is so typical of

Wordsworth that it seems he can’t write poetry without recounting his personal experiences,

especially those of his childhood. Here he also begins from the earliest of his days! It was first

the coarse pleasures in his ‘boyish days’, which have all gone by now. “That time is past and all

its aching joys are now no more, and all its dizzy raptures”. But the poet does not mourn for

them; he doesn’t even grumble about their loss. Clearly, he has gained something in return:

“other gifts have followed; for such loss… for I have learnt to look on nature, not as in the hour

of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity”. This is a

philosophic statement about maturing, about the development of personality, and of the poetic or

philosophic mind as well. So now the poet is able to feel a joy of elevated thought, a sense

sublime, and far more deeply interfused. He feels a sense of sublime and the working of a

supreme power in the light of the setting sun, in round oceans and in the blue sky. He is of

opinion that a motion and a spirit impel all thinking things. Therefore Wordsworth claims that he

is a lover of the meadows and of all which we see from this green earth. Nature is a nurse, a

guide and the guardian of his heart and soul. The poet comes to one important conclusion: for all

the formative influences, he is now consciously in love with the nature. He has become a

thoughtful lover of the meadows, the woods and the mountains. Though his ears and eyes seem

to create the other half of all these sensations, the nature is the actual source of these sublime

thoughts.

The fifth and last section continues with the same meditation from where the poet addresses his

younger sister Dorothy, whom he blesses and gives advice about what he has learnt. He says that

he can hear the voice of his own youth when he hears her speak, the language of his former

heart; he can also “read my former pleasure in the soothing lights of thy wild eyes’. He is excited

to look at his own youthful image in her. He says that nature has never betrayed his heart and

that is why they had been living from joy to joy. Nature can impress the mind with quietness and

beauty, and feed it lofty thoughts, that no evil tongues of the human society can corrupt their

hearts with any amount of contact with it.

The poet then begins to address the moon in his reverie, and to ask the nature to bestow his sister

with their blessings. Let the moon shine on her solitary walk, and let the mountain winds blow

their breeze on her. When the present youthful ecstasies are over, as they did with him, let her

mind become the palace of the lovely forms and thought about the nature, so that she can enjoy

and understand life and overcome the vexations of living in a harsh human society. The

conclusion to the poem takes us almost cyclically, back to a physical view of the ‘steep woods’,

‘lofty cliffs’ and ‘green pastoral landscape’ in which the meditation of the poem is happening.

The poet has expressed his honest and natural feelings to Nature’s Superiority. The language is

so simple and lucid that one is not tired of reading it again and again. The sweetness of style

touches the heart of a reader. The medium of this poem is neither ballad nor lyric but an elevated

blank verse. The blank verse that is used in it is low-toned, familiar, and moves with sureness,

sereneness and inevitable ease. It has the quiet pulse, suggestive of 'central peace', which is felt

in all his great poetry. This is the beauty of Wordsworth’s language.

Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Summary and Analysis

Kubla Khan was written in 1798 but not published until 1816. It was then issued in a pamphlet

containing Christabel and The Pains of Sleep. It is one of those three poems which have made

Coleridge, one of the greatest poets of England, the other two being The Rime of the Ancient

Mariner and Christabel.

Coleridge himself describes this poem as the fragment of a dream, a vision seen perhaps under

the influence of opium-which he saw when he had fallen asleep after reading the account of

Kubla Khan in an old book of travels written by Purchas. Kubla Khan is a brilliant achievement

in the field of supernatural poetry.

Coleridge beautifully imagined and skillfully described what he had imagined about a palace

about which he had read. He has achieved remarkable success in making the description lively

and complete. He writes as if he has seen it before him.

The poem begins with the description of the kingdom of Kubla Khan. The action takes place in

the unknown Xanadu (a mythical city). Kubla Khan was the powerful ruler who could create his

pleasure dome by a mere order. Alpha was the sacred river that passed through Xanadu. It

followed through the measureless caverns (caves) to the sunless sea. There were gardens in

which streams were following in a zigzag manner. The gardens had many flowers with sweet

smells and the forests had many spots of greenery. The poet gives a beautiful description of the

remote and distant land cape of Xanadu.

There was a wonderful chasm sloping down the green hill. The cedar trees were growing on both

sides of the chasm. The place was visited by fairies and demons. Coleridge then gives a medieval

tale of love and romance. When the moon declined in the night it was visited by a woman. She

was sad for her lover. Form the chasm shot up a fountain violently. It threw up stones. They were

falling down in every direction. The sacred river Alpha ran through the woods and dales. Then it

reached the unfathomable caverns and sank noisily into a lifeless ocean with a tumult. In that

tumult Kubla Khan heard the voices of his ancestors. They warned him of approaching war and

danger.

In the second part of the poem Coleridge describes the pleasure dome of Kubla Khan. Its shadow

floated midway on the waves. There was mixed music of the fountains as well as of the caves. It

was bright with sunlight and also had caves of ice. Then the poet tells the reader about his vision.

In his vision he saw an Abyssinian maid playing upon her dulcimer. The poet desires to revive

their symphony and song. Her music world inspires with divine frenzy. With the divine frenzy he

would recreate all the charm of Kubla Khan’s pleasure dome. The poet would be divinely

inspired so people would draw a circle around him, and close their eyes with divine fear. The

poet must have fed on honeydew and drunk the milk of paradise.

The supreme strength of Coleridge as a poet lay in his marvelous dream faculty; one might say

that the dream faculty lay at the root of his greatness as a poet and his weakness as a man." It is

this dream element which makes Kubla Khan a thing of wonder in English poetry. Actually the

poem had its origin in a dream. One morning Coleridge fell asleep in his chair after taking a dose

of opium when he was reading about Kubla Khan in Purchas' Pilgrimage. In his dream he

composed, as he himself believes, about two to three hundred lines. On awakening, he appeared

to have a distinct recollection of the whole and instantly and eagerly started writing down the

lines. When he had written fifty lines he was unfortunately interrupted by a man who had come

to him on some business, and detained by him above an hour. On his return to his room, he found

that the rest of the dream had passed away from his memory and therefore he could never finish

the poem. So the poem is only a dream fragment. In itself the poem possesses the qualities of a

dream. It has no logical consistency of ideas. It is a procession of images expressed in language

of haunting melody. It contains no story, no thought, no moral, no allegory or symbolism. It is

appreciated for its shadowy vision and haunting music.

Kubla Khan is a poem of pure romance. All the romantic associations are concentrated in this

short poem. It contains many sensuous phrases and pictures like bright gardens, incense bearing

trees laden with blossoms, sunny spots of greenery etc. Then again the description of the

Abyssinian maid is very romantic in character:

"A damsel with dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimec

she played, Singing of Mount Agora."

Supernaturalism is also a romantic quality. Kubla Khan is a supernatural poem, based on a

dream. There are images and expressions in it which are supernatural in character and create an

atmosphere of mystery and awe: for example 'caverns measure-less to man', 'a sunless sea', 'that

deep romantic chasm' etc. Kubla Khan is a triumph of supernaturalism. It transports us out of the

world of everyday life into a world of wonder and romance.

A Summary and Analysis of Percy Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’

‘Ode to the West Wind’ is one of the best-known and best-loved poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley

(1792-1822). It is a quintessential Romantic poem. But what does it mean? Its closing words are

well-known and often quoted, but how does the rest of the poem build towards them? The best

way to go about offering an analysis of ‘Ode to the West Wind’ is to go through the poem and

provide a part-by-part summary, pointing out some of the most important features of Shelley’s

poem. So, here goes…

I

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes:

Shelley begins ‘Ode to the West Wind’ by addressing this wind which blows away the falling

autumn leaves as they drop from the trees. The leaves are various colours, including yellow,

black, and red. It’s as if the leaves have been infected with a pestilence or plague, that makes

them drop en masse.

O thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Shelley continues by describing how the west wind transports (like a charioteer driving

somebody) the seeds from the flowers, taking them to their ‘wintry bed’.

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

Shelley concludes this opening section by calling the west wind a ‘Wild Spirit’ (recalling,

perhaps, that the word spirit is derived from the Latin meaning ‘breath’, suggesting the wind)

and branding it both a ‘destroyer’ and a ‘preserver’: a destroyer because it helps to bring the

leaves down from the trees, but a preserver because it helps to disseminate the seeds from the

plants and trees, ensuring they are find their way to the ground so they will grow in the spring.

II

Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion,

Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning:

Shelley continues to address the west wind in this second section, saying that the wind bears the

clouds along, much as it moves the ‘decaying leaves’ from the trees; as if to spell out this link,

Shelley speaks of the ‘tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean’, suggesting that the skies and the

seas have ‘boughs’ like a tree. It’s as if all of nature is borne along by the west wind.there are

spread

On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,

The locks of the approaching storm.

Now Shelley talks about the clouds borne by the west wind as being like locks of har on the head

of ‘some fierce Maenad’: the Maenads were a group of women who followed the god Dionysus

in classical myth. They are sometimes known as the Bacchae (as in a famous play by

Euripides), after Bacchus, the Latin name for the Greek Dionysus. The Maenads’ name literally

translates as ‘raving ones’ because they would drink and dance in a frenzy. The simile draws

attention to the raging, wild nature of the west wind, which heralds the approach of the wild

storm.

Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

Shelley concludes this second section by likening the sound of the west wind to a funeral song or

‘dirge’, mourning the death of the year (as it’s autumn and the leaves are falling). The night sky

will be like the dome of a large burial ground or sepulchre, with all of the vapours from the

clouds forming the vaulting (ceiling). Shelley considers the powerful rain, hail, and fire

(lightning) that will ‘burst’ from these vapours when the storm erupts.

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!

Shelley says that the west wind wakened the Mediterranean sea from its summery slumbers. A

dreamy evocation of the Mediterranean, including an isle of pumice rock in ‘Baiae’s bay’ (Baiae

was an ancient Roman town on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples), and ‘old palaces and

towers’ overgrown with blue moss and sweet flowers.

Thou

For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

Once again, Shelley brings the attention back to the sound of the west wind as it heralds the

coming of the storm. The power of the west wind is also suggested through the idea that the

Atlantic ocean, possessed of ‘level powers’, creates ‘chasms’ and gaps for the wind to echo

within.

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O uncontrollable!

Shelley begins the fourth section of his ode to the west wind by thinking about how wonderful it

would be to be free among nature, and to be borne along by the sheer power and motion of the

west wind, much like one of those leaves, or clouds, or ocean waves. Shelley would be

completely free; the only thing that would be freer is the ‘uncontrollable’ west wind itself.

If even

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed

Scarce seem’d a vision;

As is common in Romanticism, Shelley thinks back to his childhood, when the world seemed

full of freedom and boundless possibility, and it almost seemed possible that Shelley could

outrun the wild west wind itself.

I would ne’er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

This is where things get a little harder to pick apart and analyse. What does Shelley mean by ‘I

would ne’er have striven / As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need’? Shelley is saying that if

he could recapture that boyhood freedom, he would never have to pray to the west wind in times

of need. He would be free already. As things stand, he can only pray to the west wind to lift him

as it does a wave, a leaf, and a cloud. As things stand, he is not flying up: he is falling, and

falling ‘upon the thorns of life’. In other words, he is suffering, in pain, tormented. Shelley is, of

course, using the idea of falling on the thorns of life as a metaphor for his emotional and

psychological torment.

V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What if my leaves are falling like its own!

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Shelley entreats the west wind to play him, as a man would play a lyre (a string instrument not

dissimilar to a harp, and the origin, incidentally, of the word lyric to describe lyric poetry and

song lyrics: there’s something slightly ‘meta’ about a nature poet asking nature to play him like

an instrument). Shelley points out that the forest is already being played like a lyre, since the

west wind makes a pleasing musical sound as it moves through the trees. Shelley likens himself

to the forest in that his ‘leaves are falling’: he is withering away, but also growing older (mind

you, he was only in his mid-twenties when he wrote ‘Ode to the West Wind’!).

We then get a delicious oxymoron, when Shelley refers to the ‘tumult of [the wind’s]

harmonies’. ‘Harmonious tumult’ is somewhat paradoxical, but not for Shelley, who welcomes

the way the wind wildly shakes everything up. There’s a political subtext here: Shelley was

calling for revolution in 1819, as his poem ‘England in 1819’ suggested. Both Shelley and the

forest will sing sweetly, though ‘in sadness’ (the forest because it’s losing its leaves, and Shelley

because he is losing hope). Shelley calls upon the west wind to be his ‘Spirit’, to make them both

as one: wild, impetuous, undaunted.

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth!

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Shelley concludes ‘Ode to the West Wind’ by entreating the wind to scatter the poet’s ‘dead

thoughts’ (ideas he’s abandoned) across the universe. Much as scattering of the withered dead

leaves allows the seeds of next year’s trees to take root and grow, so Shelley believes it is only

by having his old ideas blown away that he can dream of new ones, and with it, a new world, ‘a

new birth’. Shelley sees his poem as a religious incantation or chant, which will magically make

the wind scatter his thoughts like leaves – or, indeed, like ashes and sparks in a fireplace. The

ashes may be dead and burnt, but by moving they often burst into new life, and new sparks

emerge from the ashes. (One wonders whether Gerard Manley Hopkins was recalling ‘Ode to the

West Wind’ when he wrote the closing lines of his poem ‘The Windhover’.)

In the closing lines of the poem, Shelley tells the wind to be like a trumpet announcing a

prophecy, blowing through the poet’s lips to make a sound and alert the sleeping world to

Shelley’s message of reform. In the famous closing words of the poem, ‘If Winter comes, can

Spring be far behind?’, Shelley returns to the earlier imagery of the poem involving the west

wind scattering the dead leaves to pave the way for the new trees next spring; the poem ends on a

resounding note of hope for what the future could bring – for Shelley, nature, and for the

political world.

‘Ode to the West Wind’ was written in 1819 during a turbulent time in English history: the

Peterloo Massacre on 16 August 1819, which Shelley also wrote about in his poem ‘The Mask

of Anarchy’, deeply affected the poet. But the poem is personal as well as political: the west

wind is the wind that would carry Shelley back from Florence (where he was living at the time)

to England, where he wanted to help fight for reform and revolution. Personal and political are

thus closely linked in ‘Ode to the West Wind’, which constantly draws attention to

the aural potential of the wind: it cannot be seen (though its effects certainly can), but it can

be heard, much as the poet’s words could be word, announcing and calling for political reform.

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats: Summary and Analysis

Ode on a Grecian Urn is an ode in which the speaker addresses to an engraved urn and expresses

his feelings and ideas about the experience of an imagined world of art, in contrast to the reality

of life, change and suffering. As an ode, it also has the unique features that Keats himself

established in his great odes.

The features of Keatsian Romanticism and Keats’ philosophy of art, beauty and truth are also

important in this poem. Though it is a romantic poem, we find the unusual classical interests of

Keats in the style and form of this poem. This is a romantic poem mainly because of its dominant

imaginative quality.

Like Wordsworth’s nature, Keats' imagination is a means to understand life, a means of the quest

for truth and beauty, and the most reliable mode of experience and insight. The speaker in the

poem begins with reality- an ancient marble urn with engravings around it. He addresses to the

urn as a virgin bride of quietness. Time is slow for it. It is unchanging, perfect and silent. The

carving around the urn is expressing the story of the pilgrims, lovers and other mysterious people

recorded in times of gods and men on its outside. In the poet's imagination, this world and people

are made immortal and beautiful by art.

The Ode on a Grecian Urn expresses Keats's desire to belong to the realm of the eternal, the

permanent, perfect and the pleasurable, by establishing the means to approach that world of his

wish with the help of imagination. This ode is based on the tension between the 'ideal' and the

'real'. Keats here idealizes a work of art as symbolizing the world of art which represents the

ideal world of his wish at an even deeper level. Then he experiences that world thus created

through imagination. In this poem, the two domains of the transient real and the permanent ideal

are the two facets of a deeper reality, the reality of imaginative experience. The perfect,

permanent and pleasurable world of the Urn, or that of the ideal, stands against the destructive

corrupting and painful effects of time. Keats’ fascination with the immortality of art is duly

counterbalanced with his awareness that it is lifeless. He neither supports gross realism against

truly imaginative art, nor does he wander in imagination alone. Life compensates for the

incompleteness of art and art compensates for the transience of life.

This ode which represents Keats mature vision consists of one of his central philosophical

doctrines of art itself: "Truth is Beauty and beauty truth". This famous maxim of Keats has an

intellectual basis of truth and also an emotional basis in beauty. Art may appeal to the

sensuousness or just the emotion of common people, but Keats' response extends from the

sensuous to the spiritual and from the passionate to the intellectual. Keats establishes a balance

between the real and the ideal, and art and life, and he finds the deepest of reality in its balance.

This ode gives a much importance to passion as to the idea of permanence. It is not a lyric of the

escape of a dying young man, unwilling to face bitter life into the realm of everlasting happiness,

but is a poem that embodies his mature understanding.

Keats indicates a contrast between the unchanging 'Urn' and temporal life in the very beginning

of the poem, but shifting to the other side from where he seems to prefer warm life against the

'Cold Pastoral' where he finally resolves the duality in his doctrine of beauty and truth. The Ode

begins with an apostrophe to the urn: "Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, / Thou foster child

of silence and slow time, / Sylvan historian". Keats addresses the urn as a bride of quietness that

is still unravished by time. That reminds us of life that is ever ravished by time. The urn narrates

its history in a silent but musical form. The silent music which Keats, the addressee, feels he can

hear is sweeter than the music of the human voice for it is permanent. Unlike the temporal

presentation of poetry which is prone to narrate the histories of human being, the urn narrates a

'leaf-fringed legend' as if it were in space rather than in time. The narration of the urn is itself

liberated from time.

The worlds of reality and of imagination (or the real and the ideal) are explicitly contrasted in

this ode. But the permanence of art created out of imagination is a complement to the temporary

aspect of life. The creation of art and its realization in the contemplation of a higher reality is a

complement to the tragic awareness of temporal and painful life. Even the realities are of two

kinds: the reality of life or the objective reality and the reality of art or the world of imagination.

On the one hand, the lover in the world of the urn can never kiss his beloved as one can in real

life. But on the other hand, the lover on the urn has the privilege that the beauty of his beloved

can never fade away – as it happens in real life. This is why the poet is seeking for the reality of

life to be like that of the ideal art. The urn's immunity to the time could not be an absolute ideal

without the consummation of love. But the temporary satisfaction in life only intensifies the

awareness of transience by consummation itself. The act of imaginative experience can bring

together the unheard into a lasting melody. The poet who is emotionally involved with the

picture of passion also has the unifying vision that reconciles the real with the ideal by idealizing

the real.

In short, the permanently ideal world of the urn is presented in the urn that is lifeless thing when

seen from the viewpoint of real life. But the idea that comes under the domain of imaginative

reality is reconciled in the act of imaginative creation of the urn’s legend. Therefore, the real life

is complemented and enriched by this ideal. Thus, the two domains of the real and the ideal

coming into conflict as usual, ultimately reconcile to make a more permanent truth as asserted in

the 'truth and beauty' maxim. To sum up, in this ode, Keats begins by idealizing, personifying,

and immortalizing a real object. This ideal at first clashes with the real but is reconciled by

imagination and insight at the end. The poem begins with an address to the Grecian urn and with

almost envious amazement, but it ends with the realization that beauty or ideal is also a

dimension of the truth of the real; the beauty of imaginative experience is a part of reality or truth

and the knowledge of all truth is beautiful.

In the Ode on a Grecian Urn Keats tries to state that neither the beauty of nature nor the beauty

of art can console us for the miseries of life. The life of the figures on the urn possesses the

beauty; the significance, and the externality of art; and this, in the third stanza explicitly, and

throughout the poem implicitly, is contrasted with the transitory-ness, the meaninglessness, and

the unpoetic nature of actual life.

The Ode is constructed pictorially in spatial blocks, for the eyes to take in serially. Keats had a

genius for drawing vivid and concrete pictures mostly with a sensuous appeal. The whole of this

poem is remarkable for its pictorial effects. The passion of men and gods, and the reluctance of

maidens to be caught or seized is beautifully depicted.

Analysis of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village

When Oliver Goldsmith wrote his 431-line poem in rhyming couplets The Deserted

Village (1770), he exhibited the talent for shrewd observation and scene for which he had gained

a reputation. He also imbued this idealization of English rural life with the simplicity and

unforced grace critics later found his most appealing attributes. He mingles his idealized scenes

with memories of his own careless youth in Ireland. While the tone remained light, Goldsmith

had a serious concern, that of the effects of the agricultural revolution, which resulted in the

enclosure of arable land, often to form private parks or gardens. The Enclosure Acts caused

small farmers whose families had earned their living from the land for generations to lose

everything. Goldsmith’s sad vision of that displacement incorporates hyperbole, as he

exaggerates the resultant migration of yeoman farmers to British cities and to America, as well as

the heartless characters of the wealthy. However, his opposition to “luxury” and support of “rural

virtue” remained sincere, and his nostalgic tone results in a strong sense of longing for a lifestyle

already doomed.

Goldsmith begins in a voice of praise, writing, “Sweet Auburn! Loveliest village of the plain,”

then praises in his second and third lines the abundance of village life, not only because it

produces material results, but because it is a place “Where health and plenty cheered the laboring

swain, / Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid.” He adopts the figurative language of

personification to demonstrate that nature proved kind to Auburn, heavily suggesting that

kindness as a result of right living. The speaker notes that summer, slow to part, leaves behind

many flowers that offer “lovely bowers of innocence and ease” and informs readers this was

where he spent his youth. That adds an authority to the description of a place “Where humble

happiness endeared each scene,” Goldsmith’s use of alliteration calling attention to the fact that

the inhabitants were marked by humility. His selection of adjectives, as in “sheltered cot,”

“never-failing brook,” and “decent church,” all suggest the sterling character of those who reside

at Auburn, as well as of nature, which supports it. Readers will later notice a marked contrast

between the “laboring swain” and the aggressive, greedy individuals whom, despite laws

permitting their actions, Goldsmith envisions as no better than poachers raping the land and

destroying its abundance. Many of the early details support this method, suggesting contrast with

the descriptions that will occur later in the poem. He concludes the first part of his poem with

“These were thy charms—But all these charms are fl ed” in order to signal transition.

In line 36, Goldsmith adds details, which abruptly convert the positive tone to negative,

balancing the opening portion. Readers learn that “sports are fled, and all thy charms

withdrawn,” that “the tyrant’s hand” has invaded the bower and “desolation saddens” the green

of the village. A new “master grasps the whole domain” (39), while a half-tilled field “stints” the

plain. The adjectives turn dark, that rhetorical change echoing the change to Auburn. The brook

is “choked”; the bittern, a local bird, is “hollowsounding”; and even the ruin done to the land is

“shapeless.” Conditions become so bad that “trembling, shrinking from the spoiler’s hand, / Far,

far away thy children leave the land.” The personal possessive pronoun, thy, connotes days past

and represents a reverent attitude toward that past. The accumulating wealth of the present leads

to human decay. The speaker’s attitude toward the encroachers is one of disdain, then warning,

as he notes:

Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;

A breath can make them, as a breath has made;

But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,

When once destroyed, can never be supplied. (53–56)

The speaker then calls on history to remember a time when “every rood of ground” could support

a worker, requiring only “light labor” to spread the earth’s bounty. Goldsmith uses repetition to

good effect when he writes of the losses resulting from the arrival of “Unwieldy wealth, and

cumbrous pomp”:

These gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,

Those calm desires that asked but little room,

Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene. (69–71)

They have all disappeared along with “rural mirth and manners.”

The speaker next mourns the loss of a peaceful retirement, as his late life stage fills him with

concerns. He cannot celebrate the wonderful sounds he used to love, as he recalls at evening’s

close,

The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,

The sober herd that lowed to meet their young,

The noisy geese that gabbled o’er the pool,

The playful children just let loose from school. (117–120)

Now “No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale” and the earth yields a fraction of the bounty it

once did. The speaker feels an especial loss when he remembers the village preacher who never

sought power, but rather spent his time with vagrants and beggars, considering it an honor as he

“relieved their pain.” He extols the virtue of this forgotten individual, remembering the great

service he supplied, filling almost an additional 50 lines. This allows Goldsmith not merely to

praise the preacher with gushing hyperbole, but to make his case that no such individual exists

among the grasping group that displaced the preacher and those to whom he ministered. He does

the same for the “village master,” who “taught his little school,” praising the teacher’s good

humor and love of learning. A strong example of Goldsmith’s exaggeration may be found in

lines 213–216:

While words of learned length, and thundering sound,

Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,

That one small head could carry all he knew.

The speaker next recalls “transitory splendors,” including physical details about not only the

village’s inhabitants but also their homes, with “whitewashed wall” and “nicely sanded floor,” as

well as furnishings and a hearth decorated with “aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay”

when not being used to protect against the chill. The nostalgic tone proves touching as well as

moving, causing the reader to remember his own home. Goldsmith again attacks the intruders,

then calls on “Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen,” who witness the change to judge which is

superior, the “splendid” and “happy land” or an area to which “rich men flock from all the world

around,” purporting to have a wealth that

Takes up a space that many poor supplied;

Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds,

Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;

The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth

Has robbed the neighboring fields of half their growth. (276–280)

Not only have the intruders ruined the property, they have driven the rightful inhabitants away,

moving the speaker to ask, “Where then, ah where, shall Poverty reside, / To ‘scape the pressure

of contiguous Pride?” He answers his own grim question with an equally grim reply. Some move

to the city, where they find only work at a trade that cannot support them, and they suffer

mightily. Others leave the country, traveling to a place inhabited only by terrors, including

“blazing suns that dart a downward ray,” “Matted woods where birds forget to sing / But silent

bats in drowsy clusters cling;” and “the dark scorpion gathers death around.” He notes the

destruction to local lands but does not ask readers to interfere. Rather, he bids the scene farewell,

asking that it continue to remind humans of its existence:

Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,

Redress the rigors of the inclement clime;

And slighted truth, with thy persuasive strain

Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain. (421–424)

Goldsmith’s hope made clear in his last few lines is that nature itself can teach man the folly of

his ways. His speaker hopes man will eventually learn that “states of native strength,” although

“very poor, may still be very blest” and remain far preferable to the devastation caused by the

base desires of an arrogant few. Goldsmith’s close friend and confidant Samuel Johnson

composed the final four lines:

That Trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay,

As ocean sweeps the labored mole away;

While self-dependent power can time defy

As rocks resist the billows and the sky.

While Goldsmith’s “Auburn” was based on his childhood home of Athlone, Ireland, Auburn was

another name for Lissoy Parsonage, where he lived. The Deserted Village inspired the

name Auburn for towns the world over.

UNIT-2

All for Love Study Guide

Dryden himself acknowledged that his 1667 play All for Love is an imitation of William

Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra, which was written in the early 1600s). It is a heroic drama

that follows many of the same story beats of Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra, but Dryden

confines the action of the story to Alexandria and details the last hours of Anthony and

Cleopatra's doomed relationship. It examines not only the end of their relationship, but the end of

the Egyptian empire.

The original production premiered in 1677 and was performed by the King's Company, then

revived in 1704 at Lincoln's Inn Fields. For a time, Dryden's version of the story became the

preferred one, and Shakespeare's version was not performed again after its premiere until 1813 in

London.

All for Love has become Dryden's best-known and most widely-read play. It is rarely performed

by contemporary theater companies.

All for Love Summary

The play begins with Serapion, a priest of Isis, discussing the fact that there have been many

dark omens manifesting in the natural world recently. Alexas, Cleopatra's eunuch, suggests that

this is nonsense, and warns that Cleopatra's relationship with Antony, the Roman general, is on

the rocks.

When Ventidius, one of Antony's former generals, comes to fetch him, Serapion throws a feast in

honor of Antony's birthday. Ventidius wants to lure Antony back to Rome and tells the mournful

Antony that there is a legion waiting to fight with him in Syria, but only if he is willing to leave

Cleopatra behind and move on. Antony is not taking any visitors, as he is trying to will himself

to stop loving Cleopatra, but Ventidius does not take no for an answer and eventually convinces

Antony to leave Cleopatra and join the Romans.

Cleopatra is inconsolable when she learns that Antony is leaving her. She sends Alexas to bring

Antony a bracelet on her behalf. When he delivers the bracelet, Antony has trouble fastening it,

and Alexas tells him that Cleopatra ought to do it. Antony goes to Cleopatra and when he sees

her in person, is dissuaded from leaving Egypt. She tells him that she refused an offer from

Octavius, which proves her love for him.

Ventidius tries yet again to get Antony to leave Egypt. He brings both Antony's old

friend, Dolabella, as well as Antony's wife, Octavia, and daughters, to convince him to come

back to Rome. Antony previously banished Dolabella for seeming to fall in love with Cleopatra,

but Antony has forgiven him upon his return. Octavia manages to convince Antony to return to

Rome, and Octavia and Cleopatra have a confrontation.

Antony plans to leave Egypt and sends Dolabella to deliver the news to Cleopatra, as he believes

that Dolabella will be best suited to communicate his regret at having to leave. When Dolabella

goes to Cleopatra, Cleopatra and Alexas make a plan to make Antony jealous: Cleopatra will

attempt to seduce Dolabella, which will lure Antony back to her.

When Cleopatra attempts to seduce Dolabella, she has second thoughts and does not pursue

anything. However, Ventidius and Octavia see the interaction and tell Antony that Dolabella is

having an affair with the Egyptian queen. Antony is heartbroken, but still wants to believe the

best of Cleopatra, which offends Octavia, who denounces him once and for all, and leaves him.

Dolabella and Cleopatra try and tell Antony that there was no affair, but he does not believe

them.

In the final act, Antony leads his troops in battle against Caesar, but instead of fight the Romans,

they greet them as friends and turn against Egypt. Hearing of Egypt's doom, Cleopatra attempts

to flee, leaving Alexas behind. In order to save his own life, Alexas tells Antony that Cleopatra

killed herself. Antony is heartbroken, and he and Ventidius kill themselves. Just as Antony is

dying, Cleopatra rushes on, having heard of Alexas' lie. After Antony dies in her arms, Cleopatra

asks Charmion and Iras, her attendants, to bring her aspics (small snakes), so that she can get

bitten by them and die. She and her two attendants die from snake bites.

All for Love Character List

Antony

A previously-successful Roman general, Antony has essentially gone into retirement following

his humiliating defeat at Actium. As the play begins, his relationship with the beautiful Egyptian

queen Cleopatra is unraveling. He is passionately attached to Cleopatra, unable to extricate

himself from their intense relationship. Throughout the play he is described as possessing large

and unsubtle feelings, which both make him a brave and great man, but can also undermine him.

Towards the end of the play, he attributes any political and military success he has had to his

love for Cleopatra.

Cleopatra

Cleopatra is the infamous queen of Egypt who has already enjoyed a romantic relationship with

Caesar before taking up with Antony. She is described as sexually irresistible, and expresses her

love for Antony as passionately as he expresses his for her. While she wants to act in ethical and

pure ways that reflect her commitment to Antony, she is easily swayed by the strategizing of her

eunuch, and is not above manipulation.

Cleopatra is ultimately just as committed to Antony as she is to her, and when given the

opportunity to live in Caesar's court, opts to kill herself instead.

Octavia

Octavia is Caesar's sister and wife to Antony. She travels to Egypt in order to convince Antony

to return to his country and his family. She is presented as pure and noble-hearted, committed to

doing what is right for her family and country. In this respect, she is the opposite of Cleopatra

and Antony, who respond only to their passions.

Dolabella

Dolabella is one of Antony's dearest old friends. They had a very intimate friendship until

Antony suspected Dolabella of being attracted to Cleopatra, his beloved. Dolabella comes to

Rome in order to convince Antony to leave Egypt and returns to Rome.

Ventidius

Antony's old general, Ventidius is an older man who has Antony's best interest in mind. He

consistently tries to convince Antony to leave Cleopatra behind and return to his life in Rome in

order to uphold his political power. In spite of his desire to help, he misinterprets certain events

and does not do a good enough job of preventing Antony from falling back into his codependent

relationship with Cleopatra. At the end of the play, he chooses to kill himself instead of killing

Antony.

Serapion

A priest of Isis who portends bad fortune for Rome.

Alexas

Alexas is Cleopatra's eunuch, and the closest thing the play has to an antagonist. Throughout the

play, he conspires to keep Cleopatra and Antony together while also protecting himself, which

leads to chaos and tragedy. He is also a tragic figure, who is depicted as lying only to maintain

his precarious position in society. He is ultimately captured by the Roman troops.

All for Love Themes

Passion

Perhaps the most important theme in the play, and what keeps Cleopatra and Antony in a

magnetic pull towards one another the entire time, is passion. Both of the lovers feel

passionately—in both a sexual and romantic sense—towards one another. The passion they feel

for one another exceeds all reason, and it is what keeps Cleopatra and Antony continually

making poor decisions on behalf of their respective countries.

Passion, throughout the play, wins out against reason time and time again. Whenever Antony is

on the brink of leaving Egypt once and for all, he is once again called back by his passion for

Cleopatra. Likewise, at the end, after Antony has died, Cleopatra determines that she would

rather die than live under Caesar. She chooses death over life because of her passionate love of

Antony.

The Political Ramifications of Love

From the start, characters gossip about the political implications that Antony and Cleopatra's

affair have had on the world. In this we see that their personal affairs are inextricable from the

political realms in which they rule. Antony's love for Cleopatra has led him to abandon not only

his family, but his country, and has wreaked havoc on his political reputation.

Later in the play, Antony suggests that any success he has had is due to his love for Cleopatra.

When he believes that Cleopatra is dead, he tells Ventidius, "I was but great for her; my power,

my empire,/Were but my merchandise to buy her love;/And conquered kings, my factors." This

suggests that any political success Antony had was due to his desire for Cleopatra, further

conflating the personal with the political.

Manipulation and Persuasion

Many of the characters seek to manipulate or persuade one another in different ways. Ventidius

tries to persuade Antony to leave Egypt several times in the play. Dolabella and Octavia also

undertake to convince him to leave Cleopatra behind. Meanwhile, Cleopatra and her attendants,

particularly Alexas, seek to strategize about how to keep Antony there. Time and time again,

Alexas comes up with plots to keep Cleopatra and Antony together, manipulating information in

order to ensure the union. Indeed, Ventidius does this also, persuading Antony that Dolabella and

Cleopatra are having an affair when they are not.

Power

The play concerns two influential leaders, Antony, a Roman leader, and Cleopatra, the queen of

Egypt. Both of these rulers wield a tremendous amount of power, but when the play opens, their

power is faltering as a result of their affair. Cleopatra's attendants want her to continue her affair

with Antony in order to sustain her power over Rome, while Antony's advisors want him to

disengage from Cleopatra as he is neglecting his loyalty to the Roman republic. Thus, the force

that is in direct conflict with love is power and its preservation.

Jealousy

In a last-ditch effort to win Antony back, Cleopatra takes Alexas' advice and makes an attempt to

make him jealous. She judges that jealous love is not as pure as real love, but goes along with the

plan to a point. Indeed, jealousy is a major currency and theme in the play, especially in terms of

how it pertains to love. Antony is jealous of Cleopatra and Dolabella's connection, even though

Dolabella is a trusted and beloved friend. Additionally, Octavia is jealous of the love that Antony

gives so freely to Cleopatra, but refuses to give to her.

Death

By the end of the play, both Cleopatra and Antony choose death over a life apart. Antony

commits suicide under the false belief that Cleopatra is dead. Then, seeing that Antony has killed

himself, Cleopatra chooses to kill herself rather than face Caesar and his potential mercy. Both of

the characters see a world in which the other is dead as an unlivable world, and so choose death.

This is at once tragic and romantic, the ultimate sacrifice for one's beloved.

Duty

One of the main ways that Antony's advisors try to convince him to leave Egypt is by invoking

the importance of duty. They often tell him that he needs to give up his individual romantic

freedom in order to do what is best for Rome, but he is unable to pull himself away. Octavia, his

wife, visits him and pleads with him that it is his duty to return to his family. She does not claim

to be able to ignite the same passion that Cleopatra does, instead suggesting that it is her duty as

a wife to remain loyal to him. Throughout the play, the Roman characters invoke the importance

of duty, even when Antony is unable to access his own sense of obligation.

The Rivals Study Guide

The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan is a comedy of manners in five acts that premiered at

Covent Garden Theatre in 1775. It is considered one of Sheridan's best-known works and in

addition to receiving many revivals, it has served as an inspiration for musicals and

contemporary television shows, such as Maverick, a show which appeared on television between

1957 and 1962.

The Rivals was Sheridan's first play. During the time that Sheridan was writing, he and his wife,

Elizabeth Linley, were living beyond their means, as "Eliza" had given up her career as a singer,

as was customary for a young wife to do. Sheridan's completion of The Rivals was in part a

project he undertook to earn some money for his household.

The play premiered in 1775, with Mary Bulkley, a comedian, in the role of Julia Melville. It was

met with scorn from the public and from critics on its opening night. Audiences even threw

apples at the actor playing Sir Lucius O'Trigger, who was perceived as being a rude

representation of Ireland. Sheridan listened to his public and not only rewrote the part, but recast

it. Afterward, it was met with critical acclaim, not only in England, but also in the colonies. The

play was allegedly George Washington's favorite play.

The Rivals Summary

The play begins with a preface written by the author, Sheridan, in which he outlines what the

audience is about to see. Sheridan writes in the preface that the success of the play was

unexpected for him, as was the way in which the play was initially received. After a disastrous

first night, he was forced to rewrite certain parts. Sheridan claims that the reason the play was

unsuccessful was that it was the first play he had ever written and because he did not research the

writing style enough.

Sheridan then talks about various critics who, in his opinion, misjudged his play and only wanted

to make him feel bad and did not want to see him improve as a writer. Sheridan also expresses

his opinion that critics should not write harsh criticism about anyone who they do not know

personally.

Next, Sheridan presents the prologue of the play, a prologue which was presented only on the

first night. The prologue presents a scene in which an attorney is trying to give money to a court

official to present a brief speech on behalf of a poet.

A second prologue is then presented during which an actress comes on stage playing the role of

the Muse and claiming that the purpose of the play is to transmit a moral lesson.

The play then begins with two servants meeting accidentally on the streets in the city of Bath.

The servants, Fag and Thomas, talk about their masters and Thomas tells Fag that his master, Sir

Anthony, has decided to move his entire family to the city. It is then revealed that Fag works for

Sir Anthony’s son, Captain Absolute, who decided to change his name to Ensign Beverley,

hoping to win the affection of a woman named Lydia Languish who prefers poor people. The

two servants part when Fag sees his master in the distance.

The next scene takes place in Lydia’s home where one of her servants, Lucy, returns from

running an errand. Lucy was sent to bring her mistress some books, and then she lists all the

books she was able to find for Lydia. Julia, Lydia’s cousin, enters and tells Lydia about Sir

Anthony and his arrival in town. The two then discuss their love interests and each criticizes the

other, even though they both have secret relationships.

Lydia then tells her cousin about how she had never had a fight with her lover, Beverley, so she

faked a letter just to have a reason to fight with him. Unfortunately, the plan back-fired and

Lydia didn’t get a chance to mend things with him. Julia tries to assure Lydia that if Beverley

really loves her, he will not give up that easily. Lydia also tells Julia that she does not care if

Beverley is rich or not and that she will willingly give up her money just to be with him.

Next, Julia talks about her fiancé, a man named Faulkland, who is always questioning Julia about

her love for him. The two fight frequently, but Julia still claims that she loves him.

When Sir Anthony arrives, Julia leaves in a hurry before he enters the room. Sir Anthony comes

with a woman named Mrs. Malaprop, Lydia’s guardian, and they begin talking with her about

Beverley and how their relationship is a mistake. When Lydia disagrees, she is sent from the

room. Sir Anthony expresses his concern regarding the quality of Lydia’s education, claiming

that the education she receives makes her act too independently. Sir Anthony then proposes to

marry Lydia to his son and tells Mrs. Malaprop to do everything she can to convince Lydia to

accept the match.

After Sir Anthony leaves, Mrs. Malaprop writes her own letter to her admirer, a man named Sir

Lucius, and has Lucy deliver the letter. After Lucy takes her leave, Mrs. Malaprop begins talking

to herself and revealing how she orchestrated the release of certain bit of information behind her

master’s back and how she did everything she could to turn the things in her favor.

In the second Act, Fag talks with his master and tells him that his father is in town. Fag claims

that he lied to Sir Anthony about Absolute’s visit and the two agree to tell Sir Anthony that the

reason Absolute is in town is that he is recruiting soldiers.

Faulkland then enters and they soon begin to talk about Lydia. Faulkland advises Absolute to try

and convince his father and Mrs. Malaprop to accept the match, but Absolute refuses, saying that

if Lydia were to find out that he has money, she will reject him. They talk next about Julia and

how Faulkland feels as if he will never be able to love another woman except Julia. Absolute

then reveals to Faulkland that Julia is in town but advises Faulkland to be patient and to wait

until he goes to see her. Acres, a man who was close to Julia, comes in and tells Faulkland that

Julia was well during his absence. Instead of feeling happy, Faulkland feels betrayed, not

knowing how Julia can be happy when he is miserable. After hearing this, Faulkland leaves the

room, angry.

Alone, Acres and Absolute talk about Lydia and Acres expresses his love for Lydia and his

hatred for Beverley, not knowing that Absolute is Beverley.

After Acres leaves, Sir Anthony enters, telling his son that he plans to marry him to a woman,

but does not tell him who the woman is. Absolute tries to tell his father that he already loves

someone, but Sir Anthony refuses to listen to what his son has to say and leaves, angered by his

son’s disobedience.

In the second scene of the second act, Lucy delivers a letter from Malaprop to Sir Lucius who is

unaware of the fact that Delia, the woman he thinks he is talking with, is an old woman and not a

17-year-old girl. After Sir Lucius leaves, Fag appears on the scene and calls out Lucy for her act.

Then, Lucy tells Fag about Absolute and how he will compete for Lydia’s love as well. Fag

leaves laughing, not telling Lucy that Absolute and Beverley are the same man.

Act 3 returns to Absolute who has found out from Fag that Sir Anthony plans to marry him to

Lydia, the woman he loves. Soon after finding out about the woman’s identity, Absolute meets

with his father and tells him that he has agreed to marry whoever his father has selected for him.

Sir Anthony is surprised to see his son changed so much and promises he will arrange for him to

meet his future wife.

Faulkland meets with Julia. Having heard about her happiness in his absence, he expresses his

disapproval. Julia tries to reassure him that she loves him, but he does not accept it and she ends

up leaving the room, crying.

In the next scene, Absolute goes to visit Mrs. Malaprop about Lydia and they begin talking about

Lydia and her passion for Beverley. Mrs. Malaprop tells Absolute that she was unable to

convince Lydia to give up her passion for Beverley but that she hopes the two will get along fine.

Mrs. Malaprop then gives Absolute a letter written by Beverley and he pretends to laugh at it and

at how Beverley planned to win Lydia by using Mrs. Malaprop.

Absolute tricks Malaprop and proposes to scheme together. Absolute tells Malaprop that she

should let Lydia and Beverley continue to correspond, and that he will come when the two try to

elope. Malaprop then calls Lydia down and Absolute convinces her that he somehow managed to

fool her aunt into believing that he is Absolute. He then proposes that they run away together,

but Lydia is reluctant to accept. The two are interrupted when Mrs. Malaprop enters the room

and begins to criticize Lydia for rejecting Absolute.

Acres talks with his servant about dancing, when suddenly Sir Lucius appears. They begin

talking about Lydia, the woman they both love, and how she loves another man, named

Beverley. Sir Lucius doesn't realize that they are both pining for the same woman, and tells

Acres that he should provoke Beverley into a duel since his reputation and honor have been

tainted. Lucius leaves after he helps Acres write a letter challenging Beverley to a duel.

Acres becomes worried that he will die, even though everyone assures him he will survive. Acres

sends for Absolute and asks him to deliver the letter to Beverley and to make sure that Beverley

understands just how dangerous an opponent he is. Through this, Acres hoped to make Beverley

deny the duel and thus save his honor.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Malaprop tries to convince Lydia to accept Absolute and forget about

Beverley. Absolute comes to see Lydia with his father, but Lydia refuses to look at him.

Absolute tries to convince his father to leave him alone with Lydia, but he refuses. Left with no

other choice, Absolute talks with Lydia and she recognizes him as Beverley. Not knowing what

else to do, Absolute reveals the truth to everyone in the room, telling Lydia that the only reason

why he lied to her is to test whether she would still love him even if he was a poor man.

While Sir Anthony is pleased with how things have turned out, Mrs. Malaprop realizes that

Absolute made fun of her through his letters. When Lydia and Absolute are alone, Lydia tells

Absolute she no longer loves him because he deceived her and treated her like a child. Absolute

tries to convince Lydia to marry him, but says he will not force her should she want to find

someone else. The scene ends with Lydia storming out of the room. Sir Anthony tells Mrs.

Malaprop she needs to convince Lydia to accept the match.

Absolute leaves Lydia’s home and runs into Lucius, who wants to fight with him. Absolute does

not understand why, but agrees to meet with him that night at six o'clock—the same time and

place given by Acres for his duel with Beverley. Faulkland also appears, and Absolute asks him

to be his second in the duels. Faulkland refuses at first, saying that he needs to mend things with

Julia. A letter she sent him made him change his mind and also to come up with a plan to test her

love.

Faulkland sends a letter to Julia, telling her he must flee the country because he did something

terrible and that he wishes she could come with him. However, the only way for her to go with

him is if she were to be married to him. When the two meet, Julia tells Faulkland that she will

marry him, and will follow him anywhere, no matter the circumstances.

Being sure that Julia loves him, Faulkland tells her the truth and promises to marry her the next

day. Julia, however, is enraged that Faulkland does not trust her and is playing tricks on her, so

breaks up with him.

Lydia then enters and tells Julia about everything that happened. Julia confesses to knowing

about Beverley’s identity and while Lydia remains mad, Julia urges her to accept Absolute as her

husband and marry him. The two ladies are interrupted by David who comes to tell them about

the duel, so both women and Mrs. Malaprop rush to stop the men from injuring or possibly

killing one another.

In the park where the men were supposed to meet, Absolute's father passes through by chance.

Absolute manages to convince his father that he plans to go to Lydia, so his father leaves him

alone.

Meanwhile, Lucius coaches Acres about the art of dueling. As Lucius presents some of the

possibilities of the duel, Acres gets even more scared as he realizes that he might die. When

Absolute and Faulkland appear, Absolute reveals his identity, but Acres refuses to fight against

his best friend. Lucius, on the other hand, is more than happy to fight against Absolute, and they

prepare to duel.

Before the fight can start, Sir Anthony and the women appear and the duel stops. Sir Anthony

demands to know why Lucius wants to fight his son and he tells Sir Anthony that Absolute

insulted his honor. Lucius then takes out the letters written to him by Delia. Lydia claims that she

was not the author of those letters. Upon seeing the letters, Mrs. Malaprop admits to being the

one who wrote them. Sir Anthony proposes that Lucius marry Mrs. Malaprop, but Lucius

refuses.

Faulkland and Julia reconcile at Sir Anthony’s insistence, and the play draws to an end. The last

character to speak is Julia, who expresses her hope for everyone in their group to continue being

in love with their partner even in old age

The Rivals Character List

Captain Jack Absolute

An entitled aristocrat masquerading as a poor but honest ensign for the purpose of wooing the

romantic Lydia Languish. He is dogged in his determination to win Lydia's hand, and he has a

playful approach to their courtship. Eventually, when the truth comes out, Lydia is angry with

Jack, but he continues to fight for her affections nonetheless.

Lydia Languish

Lydia is a 17-year-old noblewoman inclined to fantasy, whose views on love are shaped mainly

by dramatic sentimental novels. As a result, she believes that the pinnacle of romance is wrapped

up in a life of poverty, and wants to forfeit her inheritance to be with a poor man. She falls in

love with such a man when she meets Ensign Beverley, but little does she know that he is

actually the equally noble Jack Absolute.

Sir Anthony Absolute

Jack's conservative, traditionalist father, Sir Anthony, is firm in his belief that he has the right to

choose whom his son will marry. He is strict and authoritarian, and seems to care more about his

influence than about the actual decisions he is making for his son. He has gout.

Mrs. Malaprop

Lydia’s aunt who has a particularly quirky relationship to the English language, often misusing

words. She is very protective of Lydia and, like Anthony, wants Lydia to do exactly as she

desires. She is smitten with Lucius O'Trigger, who has no idea that it is Malaprop that he is

corresponding with. She is perhaps the most comedic character in the play.

Bob Acres

Bob Acres is a country squire who is also in love with Lydia. He is a bumpkin trying to become

a more sophisticated city person, and his primary means of doing so is in affecting a new sense

of fashion. When he learns that his rival, Ensign Beverley, is actually just an alter ego for Jack

Absolute, he no longer wishes to duel, as Jack is his friend.

Sir Lucius O’Trigger

Lucius is an Irishman who believes he is corresponding with Lydia via letter, and is shocked to

find that he is actually in touch with Lydia's aunt, Mrs. Malaprop. Before he learns this, he

challenges Jack Absolute to a duel, and is determined to win out no matter what.

Faulkland

A friend of Jack's who is in love with Julia. While Julia returns his affections, Faulkland is

exceedingly insecure, and believes that she doesn't actually love him. He is constantly worrying

and testing her love, which tries her patience and only drives her away. However, by the end of

the play, they are reunited, and he is more confident in Julia's love for him.

Lucy

The scheming maid of Lydia who creates a great deal of the misunderstandings in the play. For

instance, it is she who brings Lucius' letters to Malaprop instead of to Lydia.

Julia

Julia is a beautiful young woman who is in love with Faulkland, but must contend with his

overwhelming insecurities.

The Rivals Themes

Social customs

As a "comedy of manners," the play examines the ways that people, and especially the upper

classes, interact and conduct themselves in polite society. Much of the comedy in The Rivals

comes from the fact that it is a play about society and social customs, and the ways that the

characters are pushed beyond the limits of propriety into more absurd relations. The younger

characters must bend to the whims of their parents, and seek to rebel against these strictures in

whatever way they can. The servants meddle in their masters' affairs. The play examines the

ways that emotion, desire, and the more unruly aspects of the human condition cannot always fit

into the strictures of polite society.

Honor

The men in the play are all preoccupied with preserving their sense of honor. When they feel as

if someone has insulted their honor or the honor of someone they care about, they defend it

vehemently, a contentious dynamic that often results in the challenge of a duel. Lucius O'Trigger

is the character who preaches the importance of honor most vehemently, as when he encourages

Acres to duel with Beverley, saying, "What the devil signifies right when your honour is

concerned? Do you think Achilles, or my little Alexander the Great, ever inquired where the

right lay? No, by my soul! they drew their broadswords..."

Women's place in society

Another major theme in the play is the role of women in society. The female characters in the

play are not afforded very much control over their own fates. Lydia must forfeit her fortune if

she wants to marry for love, Julia must contend with the jealous and insecure suspicions

of Faulkland, and Mrs. Malaprop—though she is less sympathetic—is regularly disparaged by

the other characters for her age. It would seem that the 18th-century society in which the play is

set is not particularly friendly to women's desires. However, the epilogue presents a different

perspective on the matter, as the figure of the muse tells the audience that, though it seems that

men have all the power, women are in fact the more powerful members of society, because they

hold a romantic sway over men. The desirability of women is their principal power, according to

the play.

Romance

The play is, ultimately, a romance. While little time is spent examining the love between the

various characters, and more often than not they are caught up in quarrels and deceptions, the

two young couples, Jack and Lydia and Julia and Faulkland, are at the thematic center of the

narrative. The character of Lydia is particularly hung up on the concept of romance as it pertains

to fiction. The young noblewoman loves nothing more than to lie around and read romantic

sentimental novels, complete with star-crossed lovers and poverty. Her notion of romance is a

somewhat naive if pure one, as she believes that true love is about finding someone who is

constant even in poverty. In order to prove his steadfast love, Jack Absolute pretends to be poor

in his courtship of her.

Deception

The entire plot of the play is built around the deception of Jack Absolute. In the very first scene,

we learn that he is pretending to be a lowly ensign in order to win the affection of Lydia

Languish, who wants to marry someone poor. While Jack is actually a very wealthy nobleman,

he assumes the identity of a poor man in order to win over his beloved. This deception is a

central aspect of the narrative arc.

Additionally, Lucy the maid and Faulkland, Jack's friend, pursue their own deceptions. Lucy, as

the maid in Mrs. Malaprop's house, is privy to her employers' secrets—both Lydia and

Malaprop's. As such, she controls who receives which information when. She brings Lucius

O'Trigger's letters for Lydia to Mrs. Malaprop, setting off a whole slew of misunderstandings.

She also tells Lydia about Mrs. Malaprop's epistolary affair. Faulkland deceives his lover, Julia,

as a way of testing her love. Worried that she does not love him enough, he tells her that he must

flee the country, and asks her to come with him, even though this is a patent lie. She agrees to

flee the country, but when he informs her that he devised the premise of his exile to test her love,

she becomes angry with him, and calls off their engagement.

Language

A running joke in the play is the fact that Mrs. Malaprop often uses language poorly. She

substitutes words that do not mean what she thinks they mean into her conversation, which

creates a great deal of confusion, and provides comic fodder. Indeed, her misuse of words even

led to the coinage of the term "malapropism," which means the unintentional substitution of the

wrong word. Malaprop's misuse of language is connected to her pretentious attitude, her lack of

self-critique, and her desire to appear learned.

Authoritarianism and Generational Conflict

Making the plot all the more complicated is the tight hold that the members of the older

generation have over the decisions of the younger generation. Mrs. Malaprop has told Lydia that

she is forbidden from marrying someone poor, and if she disobeys this command she will lose

her inheritance. Indeed, it is this ultimatum that leads Lydia to want to rebel and marry someone

poor in the first place. Throughout the play, Malaprop disapproves of how inquisitive and

independent Lydia is, railing against her penchant for reading and her disobedience.

Anthony Absolute, Jack's father, is also an especially authoritarian parental figure. He decides to

pick Jack's bride, and when Jack expresses his resentment of this arrangement, becomes

infuriated. Jack's contentment is less important to Anthony than his obedience, and when Jack

refuses this arrangement, Anthony yells, "Zounds! sirrah! the lady shall be as ugly as I choose:

she shall have a hump on each shoulder; she shall be as crooked as the crescent; her one eye shall

roll like the bull's in Cox's Museum; she shall have a skin like a mummy, and the beard of a

Jew—she shall be all this, sirrah!—yet I will make you ogle her all day, and sit up all night to

write sonnets on her beauty."

UNIT-3

Charles Lamb: Essays Summary and Analysis of "Old China"

Summary

"Old China" opens with a bashful admission that Elia has an affection for old china. When he

enters a new house, he always asks to see its china collection first. And while he is fixated on old

china, he can't quite remember the first time that that he became aware of its existence.

He then goes on to describe the various scenes that one can find emblazoned in blue on a white

background. Elia speaks in mystifying terms of figures floating above the ground in their

depicted scenes, of men with women's faces, and of an illustration of a tea ceremony that

concludes in a woman entering a boat with one foot stepping off a grassy riverbed.

One afternoon while Elia is drinking Hyson tea with his cousin Bridget, he remarks on china

they're drinking from—a set he just bought recently. He reflects on their good fortune in recent

years, and how they can afford such luxuries now. But Elia sees a look of disagreement on

Bridget's face, and she launches into a monologue questioning the extent to which they can

actually appreciate this china now that it's financially easily within reach.

She recalls a time from their past when they were poorer, when Elia held off on buying a new

suit when his old one was looking shabby because he bought a book that Elia and Bridget had to

rebind and repair. Now he never brings her any gifts, much less a dilapidated book. She recalls

when they used to go for picnics and ask people to borrow a table cloth, and when they used to

sit in the rafters when seeing a play, even though Elia would now only attend one sitting in the

pit.

Bridget reminds him of the foods they used to eat that they considered luxuries, such as

strawberries early in the season. Now, she says, anything they could treat themselves to above

their typical means would be a greedy indulgence. She asks whether perhaps they were happier

when they were poorer, if they could better enjoy those ephemeral pleasures, and whether they

are now too easily satisfied by anything they can afford.

Elia responds that perhaps they were happier when they were poorer, but notes that they were

also younger then. The fact that things were harder when they were younger should make them

appreciate their current lot even more. Desiring those old, poorer days to return is a fantasy.

Instead, Elia suggests, they should focus on the fantasy tableau portrayed in the china they're

holding.

Analysis

"Old China" is often considered something of a riddle amongst Lamb's essays, as it drifts into a

memory in a similarly fluid manner that Elia drifts into the tea ceremony scene that he gazes at in

the piece of china earlier in the story. In both the case of the scene in the china and his

conversation with Bridget, drinking tea opens a door to a speculative kind of reflection. A

parallel can be drawn here with the famous madeleine cookie that the protagonist of Marcel

Proust's In Search of Lost Time tastes right before he's catapulted into a vast landscape of

memory.

At the heart of the essay is a meditation on class. The essay begins with Elia speaking of the

"great houses" he enters—meaning homes of the wealthy—and he is clearly infatuated with the

material trappings of the wealthy's lifestyle. Bridget, on the other hand, invites him to remember

a time when they couldn't even afford to buy a table cloth to throw a picnic with. This class

discourse speaks to a tension in British life at the time just before the Victorian period when the

gulf between the rich and poor was about to explode.

Additionally worth noting here is Lamb's use of ekphrasis, a literary device in which writing

describes a piece of art. Here, the description of china both helps draw us into the essay by

sparking our visual imagination and helps characterize Elia himself, as we learn about his

fixation on the masculine/feminine dichotomy and the dandyish pleasure he takes from enjoying

the finer things in life. The description of the scene in the tea cup also primes the reader for

another kind of reflection, one equally rooted in a character's imagination.

Charles Lamb: Essays Summary and Analysis of "Dream–Children; A Reverie"

Summary

Children love to listen to stories of their elders as children, the essay begins, because they get to

imagine those elders that they themselves cannot meet. Elia's children gather around him to hear

stories about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a mansion that she cared for on behalf

of a rich family who lived in a different mansion. Young Alice scoffs at Elia's recollection of that

rich person removing a detailed wood carving depicting the story of the Children in the Wood to

put up an ugly marble thing instead.

At Field's funeral, Elia recounts, everyone praised her goodness and religious faith: she could

recite Psalms and some of the New Testament from memory. She was a great dancer until she

was stricken by cancer, but even in the grip of that disease, she didn't lose any of her good

spirits. She was convinced that two ghosts of infants lived in her house, but she didn't consider

them harmful, so it didn't bother her much. But the young Elia was terrified of them, and always

needed help getting to sleep, even though he never saw them.

The young Elia used to wander the grounds of that mansion admiring all of the marble busts and

wondering when he may himself turn into one. He spent his days picking the various fruit from

around the grounds of the estate. Elia breaks from his recollection to notice his children John and

Alice splitting a plate of grapes.

Elia continues that Field loved all of her grandchildren, but especially Elia's elder brother John

L., a handsome and great-spirited young man who rode horses from a young age. John used to

carry Elia around on his back when the younger brother became lame-footed. When John fell ill,

Elia felt he wasn't able to care for his brother as well as when John had cared for him, and when

John died, Elia was reserved in emotion but consumed by a great sorrow. At this point in the

telling, Elia's children start to cry, asking not to hear about their uncle, but to hear about their

dead mother instead.

So Elia begins by telling them of the seven years he spent courting their mother Alice, with all of

its difficulties and rejection. But when he goes to look at his daughter Alice, she has disappeared.

A disembodied voice tells Elia that they are not Alice's children, that the real father of Alice's

children is a man named Bartrum, and they are just dreams. With that, Elia wakes up in his arm–

chair, with Bridget by his side, and John L. gone forever.

Analysis

"Dream Children" is a formally unique essay, channeling the logic and flow of a dream in a

series of long sentences of strung together phrases and no paragraph breaks to be found. Lamb

deftly uses these stylistic conceits to pull the reader into a reverie, creating a sense of tumbling

through this dream world with its series of dovetailing tangents. In fact, the essay could prove

confusing and hard to navigate until the reader gets to the end when, with a savvy twist, Lamb

explains the formal oddness of the yarn he has been spinning all along. We're ripped out of this

odd dream state into the most familiar state Lamb can be found in—sitting next to his sister.

To some extent, this piece blurs genre lines between essay and fiction. Commonly, we

understand essays to be works of non-fiction, but in this one Lamb uses his typical interior-

facing autobiographical approach to make room for a fictional narrative inside of a dream. The

fact that his children exist is a fiction, as is the idea that he married Alice, as may be the

existence and deaths of Field and John L. We know that the real life Charles had a brother John

Lamb, but in choosing the rare occasion to write of his real life brother inside of this vivid

dream, Lamb seems to be choosing to write about a fantasized version of his real life.

In his book Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography, the literary theorist James Olney

says that the most fruitful approach a writer can take in an autobiography is not to follow a

formal or historical one but to, "see it in relation to the vital impulse to order that has always

caused man to create and that, in the end, determines both the nature and the form of what he

creates." This explanation of autobiography rings true generally of Charles Lamb's work, but

doubly so with "Dream Children." Here, Lamb models his essay on a dream, bringing the fantasy

that fuels his creative energies to the fore, blurring the lines between that fantasy of his past life

and that life to which he dedicates his writing practice.

Charles Lamb: Essays Summary and Analysis of "The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers"

Summary

Elia remarks that he likes to meet young chimney sweepers, boys who have just recently started

out in the profession. He speaks of the drama of one of those young boys disappearing down a

chimney as if lost forever, only to rise out of it like the ghost in a stage direction in

Shakespeare's Macbeth. He then begins talking of a sassafras tea called Saloop served a shop in

London which he himself hasn't tried, but which is treasured as a delicacy by the young

chimneysweeps.

Mr. Read, who owns the Salopian house, boasts that his is the only one in town despite the

countless imitators. Other vendors serve it on the street to the chimney sweeps at dawn, as the

young chimney sweeps take a moment before they embark on their work to enjoy the tea with a

slice of bread. On the subject of the street, Elia says that the only street encounters he enjoys are

with the young chimney sweeps. He recalls a time he fell on his back on ice, leading a grinning

chimney sweep to laugh at him in a way that was so infectious that Elia couldn't keep from

grinning himself.

While Elia is not very interested in a fine set of teeth—indifferent to the nice teeth of a well-off

man or woman—he is captivated by the teeth of a chimney sweep, as they smile through their

soot-covered faces. In this smile, he sees a dying nobility. On the subject of nobility, Elia

recounts a story at Arundel Castle, when a young chimney sweep fell through a chimney he was

cleaning into a decadent bedroom, and couldn't help but take a nap in the luxurious bed. Elia

suggests that the boy was a young nobleman lured back to his original state, transformed for a

moment by the castle's trappings.

James White, Elia's friend, has similar feelings about the boys, and hosts an annual feast for

young chimney sweepers, where the elder ones are excluded. A woman walks around serving the

boys sausages and James pours ales for them, acting as if the drink was fine wine, even

enunciating the name of the brewer. He boisterously entertained the boys. Elia mourns the death

of James White, who took half the fun of the world when he died.

Analysis

Lamb's ode to chimney sweepers most closely resembles his praise of old china, as in both

essays he expands on a pet obsession which few others in the world see the merit in. Lamb

clearly saw himself as something of an advocate for the under-appreciated things in life. To a

large extent, this is a Romantic impulse, as he takes something mundane and works to show its

profundity. Tied up in this are class relationships—a common theme in Lamb's work.

Take the discussion of teeth. He dismisses the fine teeth of rich people out of hand, but declares

that he is fascinated with the teeth of chimney sweeps, which show true nobility. The idea that

nobility is something inherent to one's character and not simply a trapping of class echoes

Lamb's class critique in "Grace Before Meat." There, too, he explored how the poor have more

class and dignity than the rich, who can afford any old pleasure or vanity.

There are some uncomfortable aspects of this essay which speak to the very different time that

was Lamb's era. Modern readers may bristle at Lamb's invocation of "nigritude" and "Africans"

to describe little white British boys covered in soot. The language betrays an uncomfortable

construction of race, which would have been a relatively new concept at the time of Lamb's

writing, developed as a means for the European imperial project to subjugate non-European

peoples. Perhaps it's best to think of "The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers" as a peculiar time-

capsule which shows us early 19th-century Britain, warts and all, with chimneys swept by little

orphan boys and a white monoculture that saw blackness as something that could be playfully

assigned to dirty chimney sweepers.

Charles Lamb: Essays Summary and Analysis of "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig"

Summary

The narrator opens the essay by asserting that for a long period of early human history, people

did not cook their meat but ate it raw. He claims that this was hinted at in the writings of

Confucius, who mentioned an era known as the "cook's holiday," implying that the Chinese did

not cook animals prior to his writings. According to the narrator, Confucius' essay goes on to

describe how roasting was discovered by Bo-bo, the son of swineherd Ho-ti.

Bo-bo was one day playing with fire, as he was wont to do, and accidentally burned down his

family's cottage along with the nine pigs that were trapped in the blaze. While trying to devise an

explanation for what happened, Bo-bo was tempted by the smell of the burnt pigs and went to

taste them. He found these burnt pigs delicious and could not stop eating them. Ho-ti was not just

upset with Bo-bo for burning down the cottage, but for being enough of a fool to eat the pigs.

Bo-bo eventually convinced his father to try the pig, and the father loved it too, but they agreed

to keep the burnt pigs a secret. Yet, more and more frequently, a cottage fire could be seen at Ho-

ti's property, at all hours of the day and night.

When their secret was found out, Ho-ti and Bo-bo were placed on trial in their town. During this

trial, the jurors asked to try the burnt pig in question, and finding it delicious, they decided to let

the father and son off. The judge was outraged, but a few days later there was one of those

mysterious fires at his house too. Soon enough, these fires were occurring all around town, and

the burnt pig became a cherished food.

Done with this history, the narrator begins singing the praises of roast pig, speaking of the

crackling skin and succulent fat. He draws a humorous link between the swine—so often

considered a gluttonous, base animal—and the type of man who enjoys eating that swine.

The narrator admits to enjoying all of the fine meats available, from strange foul to oysters, and

sharing them with friends. He then recalls how, as a child, having nothing to offer a beggar on

the street, he brought that beggar a plum cake his auntie had baked. He blames the hypocrisy of

his giving spirit on the indiscretion. The essay concludes with an anecdote about how ancient

people used to sacrifice pigs by whipping them, raising a moral conundrum about enjoying the

meat of that animal. But the narrator seems indifferent to the conundrum, and suggests a tasty

sauce made of shallots to eat the pig with.

Analysis

Among the most light-hearted of Lamb's essays is this freewheeling comic dissertation on the

pleasure of eating roasted pig. It features a copious use of the literary device of hyperbole, with

Lamb going to all sorts of eccentric ends to extol the flavor of roasted pork. The logic of

hyperbole is also evident in Lamb's use of a heightened tone to tell the absurd story of how roast

pork was discovered after a house fire in China. Once again, Lamb construes literary devices and

narrative forms in such a way that he manages to sneak some fiction into his essay work. The

fable he constructs speaks to how odd it is that humans eat cooked animals at all.

We can see the tropes of Romanticism on full display in this essay, even though the subject of

that Romantic meditation is a curious one. Lamb uses florid language and a subjective voice to

give a vivid account of his experience with his subject. But whereas, for instance, fellow

Romanticist Henry David Thoreau uses these techniques to describe Walden Pond and meditate

on how his experience there reflects on man's participation in society, Lamb makes a culinary

delight the subject of his Romantic inquiry, indulging his epicurean side and reflecting on the

way good food makes friends out of those who may otherwise be suspicious of one another.

The culinary essay in and of itself is a storied subgenre. The most famous one may be Jonathan

Swift's "A Modest Proposal," which satirically advocates cooking and eating England's children.

A more recent popular example is David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster," which like

Lamb's essay explores the delights of eating lobster but, unlike Lamb's, lingers on the inherent

cruelty of cooking and eating the animal. In the case of Swift's, Wallace's, and Lamb's essays,

there is an essential social component to their discussion of a specific food, and they seek to

extract some wisdom about the human condition from practices of cooking and eating.

Gulliver's Travels Summary

Lemuel Gulliver is a married English surgeon who wants to see the world. He takes a job on a

ship and ends up shipwrecked in the land of Lilliput where he is captured by the

miniscule Lilliputians and brought to the Lilliputian king. The Lilliputians are astonished by

Gulliver’s size but treat him gently, providing him with lots of food and clothes. Gulliver is at

first chained to a big abandoned temple then, after surrendering his weapons and signing articles

of allegiance to Lilliput, he is granted his liberty. He befriends the king and puts out a fire in the

palace by urinating on it. He successfully assists Lilliput by stealing the

neighboring Blefuscans’ war ships and receives a high honor, but the Lilliputian king begins to

cool towards Gulliver when Gulliver refuses to help enslave the Blefuscans. Gulliver makes

friends with the Blefuscans’ when they come to make peace and, soon after, an unnamed man of

the court informs Gulliver that the Lilliputian court plans to accuse him of treason and put out his

eyes. Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu and then returns to England.

Gulliver soon sets out on his next voyage and is stranded in the land of Brobdingnag where the

Brobdingnagians are immense giants and Gulliver feels like a Lilliputian. After being forced to

perform exhausting freak shows by the Brobdingnagian farmer, Gulliver is sold to the

Brobdingnagian queen, the farmer’s daughter and his loving caretaker Glumdalclitch in tow. In

the court, Gulliver is well cared for but everyone laughs frequently at his physical mishaps.

Gulliver tries to maintain his dignity with little success. He offers to help the Brobdingnagian

king strengthen his power by using gunpowder and is puzzled the king’s disgust, concluding

that, though the Brobdingnagians are a good-hearted people, they are just not as sophisticated as

humans. One day, the box Gulliver is carried around in for outings gets snatched up by a bird on

the beach and, dumped in the sea, he is picked up by a human ship and carried back to England.

Back among humans, Gulliver is astonished by their littleness.

Gulliver sets out yet again to sea and is again stranded, this time getting taken up by the

Laputians to their floating island. He meets the Laputian king and observes life in Laputa

where everyone is so obsessed with abstract mathematical, musical, and astronomical theory that

they are utterly incompetent about practical matters and can barely hold a conversation. Gulliver

is disgusted when he visits the city of Lagado below and sees the destructive influence the

Laputians’ theories have had, turning a once functioning people into a broken society. He tours

the academy where the projectors contrive useless scientific projects. Afterwards, Gulliver visits

Glubbdubdrib and meets ghosts of history, visits Luggnagg and meets the power-

crazed Luggnaggian king and the grim immortal Struldburgs, and finally returns to England.

Gulliver sets out on his fourth voyage only to be mutinied and stranded in a land where the noble

and reasonable horses, the Houyhnhmns, do their best to control the foul degenerate

human Yahoos. Gulliver tries to distance himself as much as possible from the Yahoos and,

indeed, the Houyhnhmns, especially Gulliver’s mentor, the master horse, see Gulliver is

different because he has a rational mind and wears clothing. The more Gulliver learns from the

Houyhnhmns, the more he admires their uprightness, egalitarianism, and reason, and he

eventually turns against humankind, wanting to live forever among the Houyhnhmns. As he

learns about the Houyhnhmns from the master horse, the master horse also learns about

humanity from Gulliver, and concludes that the Yahoos Gulliver has come from are really not

very different from the filthy Yahoos among the Houyhnhmns. Much to Gulliver’s chagrin, the

Houyhnhmns ultimately insist that Gulliver return to his own country. Though he tries to avoid

returning to human society, Don Pedro’s ship picks Gulliver up and forces him to return to

Europe. Back home, Gulliver remains disgusted by all the Yahoos around him, including his

family members, and spends all his time with horses, reminiscing longingly about the

Houyhnhmns. He concludes by assuring the reader that everything he’s described is true and that

he’s written his travels solely for the public good so that the wretched Yahoos around him might

learn from the virtuous beings of other lands.

Gulliver's Travels Character List

Gulliver

Captain Lemuel Gulliver, the narrator.

Blefuscudians

The sworn enemies of the Lilliputians, they live on a neighboring island. Gulliver flees to their

island when the Lilliputians convict him of treason.

Brobdingnagians

The inhabitants of Brobdingnag. They are giant creatures relative to Gulliver.

The Emperor

The leader of the Lilliputians. He initially is friendly toward Gulliver but changes his mind about

him when Gulliver refuses to continue fighting Blefuscu and puts out a fire in the Empress's

chamber by urinating on it.

The Farmer

During his stay in Brobdingnag, Gulliver calls the farmer who takes him in his master. The

farmer eventually sells Gulliver to the Queen.

Flimnap

Gulliver's enemy at Lilliput, he accuses Gulliver of sleeping with his wife.

Glumdalclitch

Her name means "little nurse" in Brobdingnagian. This is what Gulliver calls the farmer's

daughter, who cares for him during his stay in Brobdingnag.

Mrs. Mary Burton Gulliver

Gulliver's wife.

Houyhnhnms

A species of horses who are endowed with great kindness and virtue. Gulliver lives among them

for several years and afterwards is extremely reluctant to return to England.

The King

Gulliver and the King of Brobdingnag spend dozens of hours discussing politics and comparing

their two cultures.

Laputans

The inhabitants of a floating island who wear mathematical and astronomical symbols and have

trouble paying attention.

Lilliputians

The inhabitants of Lilliput. They are about five to six inches tall. They are the sworn enemies of

the Blefuscudians of a neighboring Island.

Munodi

The Balnibarbi Lord who shows Gulliver around and teaches him about why the island is so

barren.

Don Pedro

The captain of the Portuguese ship that picks Gulliver up after his voyage to the country of the

Houyhnhnms.

The Queen

The Queen of Brobdingnag finds Gulliver very entertaining. Because of her huge size, Gulliver

is disgusted when she eats.

Reldresal

A friend of Gulliver's in Lilliput. He helps Gulliver settle into the strange new land and later

helps to reduce Gulliver's possible punishment for treason from execution to having his eyes put

out.

Yahoos

The Houyhnhnms' word for humans. Yahoos in the country of the Houyhnhnms are disgusting

creatures.

Gulliver's Travels Themes

The Body

Throughout Gulliver's Travels the narrator spends a great deal of time discussing the human

body-going so far as to detail his own urination and defecation. In each of the various lands to

which Gulliver travels, he comes face to face with excrement. In Lilliput he urinates on the

queen's apartment to put out a fire; in Luggnagg the professors work to turn excrement back into

the food it began as; in the country of the Houyhnhnms the Yahoos throw their excrement at

each other and at him.

Looking at the body from new perspectives gives Gulliver a special insight into the body's

materiality. When he is relatively small, he can see the minute, ugly details of others' bodies. By

looking closely at the body as a material thing and paying attention to what humans do on a daily

basis, Swift makes it impossible to look at humans as exclusively spiritual or intellectual beings.

Literature and Language

Gulliver is a reader: "My Hours of Leisure I spent in reading the best Authors ancient and

modern, being always provided with a good number of books." He reads whenever he has the

time. And on each of the islands he visits, he makes a point of noticing whether the inhabitants

write or do not write. The Lilliputians, for instance, write diagonally like the ladies of England.

The Houyhnhnms lack a form of writing, but Gulliver spends a great deal of time considering

how they pass on their history.

Gulliver is also a master linguist, making him a man of virtually all peoples. On each of the

islands he visits, he learns the language quickly, sometimes being taught by learned scholars (as

in Lilliput) and once being taught by a young girl (in Brobdingnag). His ability to communicate

suggests the value of communication across cultures. Once Gulliver has learned the language of

a given society, he visits the King or Queen or Emperor or Governor and discusses politics. This

ability to share knowledge is beneficial to both parties.

Narrow-Mindedness and Enlightenment

Throughout his journeys Gulliver comes into contact with several different races of people, all of

which are narrow-minded in some way. Many of the peoples are conspicuously narrow-minded,

such as the Lilliputians, who have wars over the correct way to cut open an egg. (Such squabbles

over unimportant matters are a common object of satire.) Even the Houyhnhnms, who are so

revered by Gulliver, cannot believe there are other reasonable ways of living.

Much of Swift's satirical focus is on people who cannot see past their own ways, their own

power, or their own beliefs. Readers (especially his contemporary readers) can see themselves in

some of this satire.

Otherness

Otherness plays a large part in Gulliver's Travels. Throughout his journeys Gulliver never quite

fits in, regardless of how long he stays. Partly this is a matter of size. In Lilliput, he is the only

giant. In Brobdingnag, everyone else is giant and he is small. Mainly, however, it is a matter of

being different and simply from elsewhere. On his final journey, when he is captain and his crew

mutinies, they leave him on an uncharted island. In Houyhnhnm, where there actually are human

beings, they are disgusting creatures with whom Gulliver certainly cannot relate. Finally, after

spending years with the Houyhnhnms and coming to consider them better in every way than

humanity, Gulliver is still a human. Yet, his experience has made him an outsider in England,

completely disgusted with even his own wife and children.

Perspective and Relativity

In Gulliver's Travels the reader comes to realize that much in the world really is relative.

Gulliver's first journey lands him in Lilliput where he is called the Mountain Man, because the

people there are only five to six inches tall. On the other hand, in Brobdingnag, Gulliver is tiny

compared to the enormous creatures who find him and keep him as a pet.

Gulliver spends a great deal of time pondering this situation when he arrives in Brobdingnag. He

writes, "In this terrible Agitation of Mind I could not forbear thinking of Lilliput, whose

Inhabitants looked upon me as the greatest Prodigy that ever appeared in the World: where I was

able to draw an Imperial Fleet in my Hand .... I reflected what a Mortification it must prove to

me to appear as inconsiderable in this Nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us."

Gulliver adds, "Undoubtedly Philosophers are in the right when they tell us, that nothing is great

or little otherwise than by Comparison."

Perspective and relativity do not only apply to size, however, in Gulliver's Travels. After

spending time with the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver considers them above humanity in nearly every

way. Returning to England, Gulliver is repulsed by the humans he formerly loved and instead

chooses to spend his time in the barn with his horses. The question remains about what in the

world is not relative after all; size is relative, but what about space itself? Is time relative in the

novel as well? A careful reader will find many universals in the midst of so much cultural

relativity.

Travel

The novel is set in the traditional mode of satirical travel literature. Many other classic works use

the same device, such as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Homer's Odyssey. Travel in the case of

Gulliver's Travels gives Swift the opportunity to compare the ways of humanity, more

specifically those of the English, with several other ways of living. Travel also keeps the story

entertaining. It is not often that a person finds a book with four sailing journeys each interrupted

by torrential storms, although one should remember that the Age of Exploration in Europe

provided many stories of travels and discoveries of new lands and new peoples.

Truth and Deception

Truth and deception are prominent themes in Gulliver's Travels. For one thing, the reader is

constantly questioning whether or not Gulliver is a reliable narrator-simply because what he is

conveying is so fantastic. Most critics and readers determine that Gulliver is reliable, however.

One sign of his honesty is established within the first few pages, when he tells the reader about

where he came from.

Our comfort with Gulliver's reliability is challenged in the last chapter of the novel, though,

when Gulliver tells his readers he cannot tell a lie and swears this oath: "Nec si miserum Fortuna

Sinonem Finxit, vanum etiam, mendacemque improba finget," which in English means, "Nor if

Fortune had molded Sinon for misery, would she also in spite mold him as false and lying."

Lying does appear within Gulliver's journeys. In Lilliput he learns that for the Lilliputians lying

is a capital punishment and is considered worse than stealing. In the country of the Houyhnhnms,

Gulliver is surprised to learn that the Houyhnhnms have no concept of what it means to lie. Their

complete honesty is part of what makes Gulliver decide that they are the noblest creatures on

Earth.

UNIT-4

Walter Scott's Art of Characterization in Kenilworth

Art of Characterization in Kenilworth

Scott abandoned Fielding's art of characterization. In Fielding, Jane Austen and Dickens we

find a study of man's conscience too. But in Scott the characterization is limited only to the

external observation. Hence Scott remains moored to the surface. He does not examine

his characters from within.

However, Scott makes his characters lively by the virtue of their vitality and extra

embellishment. In his personages he displays a fecundity resembling that of nature itself,

fecundity derived from his comprehensive acquaintanceship with all sorts and conditions of men.

Scott is an inspired, and exalted, pageant-master of enormous energy and sparing no expense,

who organizes a procession through the ages, from the medieval to the nineteenth-century

moment, in which every degree of humanity played a part, and wore the appropriate costume. He

is a vast gallery of characters. He portrays kings and queens, outlaws and cut-throats, men of law

and of war, girls and crones, witches and even ghosts. But his characters are shaped by a historic

living. Some of them are moulded by the forces of religion and religious strife.

On the whole Scott appears a more consummate artist in the portrayal of male characters than

those of women. Yet some of his heroines are wholly literary and remembered chiefly as poetic

creations. Lucy Ashton, Jeanie Deans, Amy, and Queen Elizabeth are among such poetic

creations.

In Kenilworth we find flat characters. Most of them are static : they do not change. Queen

Elizabeth is a character who does not change. So are Giles Gosling, Anthony Foster, Janet,

Tressilian. However, it is in his static characters that he has excelled more than in the dynamic

characters.

Amy is the heroine of Kenilworth. She is simple and innocent creature she is more sinned

against than sinning. She can be compared with Shakespeare's heroines. She has been portrayed

in a very lively manner. She is present in the novel from the beginning to the end. She is the

pivot on whom the whole novel revolves.

The hero of the novel is not Dudley but Tressilian because Trasilian's work appears to be more

heroic than that of the Earl. The Earl Dudley is simply a cultured villain ; a serpent under flower.

Then we find the directly-drawn characters in Kenilworth, They are presented directly

because they do not appear with a dramatic twist. They are what they are. They are not going to

change in any circumstance. They differ in relation to the change in situation but in the essentials

and fundamentals of their personality. Scott paints his characters hurriedly. Instead of describing

their minds and soul, Scott is satisfied to describe their body and dress.

Scott's characters are more individuals than types. In Kenilworth too, we have individual

characters. There are some super-vital characters also. Sir Walter Raleigh is one of them. He is

young, ambitious and daring. He is an Elizabethan gallant. He is a man of action. The extra

daring on his part wins for him the esteem of the Queen Elizabeth. His thoughts as well as his

movements are directed to a purposive end. He has been cut out by nature to rise in life. This

character is different from other characters in matters of exuberance. Consciously he does not

step on others to enhance his chances of further promotion. He is aided by the vagary of chance

now and then.

In Kenilworth we find both the silent and voluble characters. The characters like Gosling,

Michael Lambourne and Dick, the pedagogue talk too much, whereas Tony Foster, Amy

Robsart, Tressilian, etc. talk too little.

Most of Scott's characters are robust and have guts. Tressilian is the dashing character and the

minor character, Dickie Sludge has plenty of guts. Scott portrays his characters with contrast and

analogy. Amy has been drawn in contrast to Elizabeth ; Tressilian to Varney; the Earl of Sussex

to the Earl of Leicester. Characters are developed not only with the help of conversations

between the characters themselves, but also by the direct descriptions.

Scott portrays his characters in Kenilworth minutely and yet he does not make any of his

characters grotesque and verbose. The characters in Kenilworth can be read like an open book.

They have nothing to conceal. Their secrets are not the secrets of the soul but of the outer

circumstances. As human beings live in a glass case, and can thus be seen without any

obstruction.

Kenilworth conceives characters in the spirit of romance rather than in that of a scientific

novel. The doings of the characters have a shade of romance. Though the characters may be of

historical reality yet they behave in a romantic manner. We are reminded of the saying of

Somerset Maugham who states that the facts are poor story-tellers. We have to study them with

the colouring of imagination. Some of them remain muffled in the cloak of secrecy, but secrecy

does not hold long.

Northanger Abbey Study Guide

Jane Austen wrote Northhanger Abbey while she was residing in her childhood home in

Steventon, England, but the novel is largely set in the resort town of Bath, where Austen visited

for a month-long vacation in 1797. Originally entitled Susan, the first draft of the novel was

written between 1798-9, and it was the earliest novel Austen completed and intended for

publication. In 1803, Austen made the final changes to Susan and sold it to publisher Benjamin

Crosby and Co. for 10 pounds, but for unknown reasons the publisher never saw fit to print the

manuscript. After enduring years of frustration, Austen bought back the manuscript in 1816,

several years after her famous novels Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park had already been

published. Austen changed the heroine’s name to Catherine By that time, Austen was already ill,

and on July 18th 1817 she would die of kidney disease, five months before her earliest novel was

published as Northanger Abbey. Her brother Henry oversaw the publication of the novel, and the

Biographical Notice he added to the novel was the first public disclosure of Jane Austen’s

identity as an author, though her friends and families had enjoyed her private readings for years.

In the Notice, Henry mournfully laid out the merits of his recently deceased sister, remembering

that “her temper was as polished as her wit.” Henry also attached a Postscript to the Notice in

which he quotes from a letter that Austen herself wrote a few weeks before her death. In the

letter, Austen modestly describes her prose as a “little bit of ivory, two inches wide, on which I

work with a brush so fine as to produce little effect after much labor.” But if Austen’s novels are

akin to miniature portraits, her literary brush never fails to portray the subtle shades of each

character, and her skill is already evident in her youthful novel Northanger Abbey.

Northanger Abbey Summary

As Austen's novel opens, we are introduced to Catherine Moreland, a seventeen-year old girl

who is invited to go on a trip to Bath with her wealthy neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Allen. Catherine

has never been away from home for an extended period of time, and she is excited to see the

famed resort town.

At Bath, Catherine is inducted into the social world of balls and entertainments. During one of

their first nights in town, Catherine attends a ball in a venue called the Lower Rooms and meets a

wealthy young clergyman named Henry Tilney. Henry charms Catherine with his gentle

witticisms, and she is delighted to dance with him. Catherine seeks him out the next day at

another social gathering, but Henry is nowhere to be found. Instead, Catherine is introduced to

Mrs. Allen's friend Mrs. Thorpe, who has three daughters near Catherine's age. The eldest of

these daughters, Isabella, befriends Catherine. It turns out that their brothers, James and John, are

friends from Oxford. When James and John come to Bath for a visit, Isabella reveals her

fondness for James, and John attempts to court Catherine by offering her carriage rides in the

countryside. During the course of their first carriage ride, Catherine notes that John spends a

great deal of his time bragging, but nonetheless she agrees to dance with him when he asks her to

be his dance partner.

At the ball that night, Henry returns, and Catherine wishes she could dance with him instead. It

turns out that Henry left Bath for a week, but now that he is back Catherine finds herself

increasingly enamored of him. John's presence becomes obtrusive and even odious to her.

Meanwhile, Isabella and James have dove headlong into an open courtship, and Catherine finds

that the two people she loves best in Bath--her brother and her closest friend--are devoting more

and more time to each other, at the exclusion of her company. Catherine decides to become

friends with Henry's sister Miss Tilney in order to fill the sudden lack of companionship. Of

course, she also wants to know more about Henry.

Catherine schedules a walk in the countryside with Miss Tilney and Henry, but on the morning

of their walk it is raining, and the Tilneys do not arrive exactly on time. Isabella, James, and John

persuade Catherine not to wait for them any longer, and Catherine agrees to go on a carriage ride

instead. As soon as they set out, Catherine sees the Tilneys walking down the street. She is angry

because John lied to her about their whereabounts: he'd told her that he had seen them leave town

in a carriage earlier that day. Catherine wants to leave the carriage, but John only urges the

horses to go faster.

The walk is rescheduled for another day, and Catherine hopes that her friendship with the

Tilneys can continue to progress. Once again, Isabella, James and John implore her to go on

another carriage ride, and this time John sneaks away and tells the Tilneys that Catherine has to

reschedule yet again. Catherine is visibly angry by this dishonest gesture, and she rushes over to

the Tilneys' house to make amends. They accept her explanation, and the long-awaited walk is

very pleasant.

Meanwhile, James and Isabella become engaged during the course of their carriage ride.

Catherine is happy at the pending union. James rushes off to get his parents' approval. He is

successful, but he also reveals that his father can only provide them with a modest income.

Isabella's expectations of a wealthy, lavish lifestyle are dashed by this news, and her demeanor

sours, though she attempts to hide it. To make matters worse for James, the dashing Captain

Tilney, Henry's older brother, arrives in Bath and begins to woo Isabella.

Caught between her friend and her brother, Catherine is relieved when the Tilneys invite her to

escape from the hustle of Bath and visit their house in the country, Northanger Abbey. Fueled by

her knowledge of Gothic novels, Catherine imagines that the historic home is host to a variety of

family secrets, and her imagination is incited when she discovers that Mrs. Tilney died of a

sudden illness in the house. Catherine visits Mrs. Tilney's bedroom and cannot find any evidence

for wrongdoing, but nonetheless she deludes herself into thinking that General Tilney had a hand

in his wife's death. Her Gothic reverie is interrupted by Henry, who corrects her mistake and tells

her to stop imposing her own fictional interpretations on reality: his father would never do such a

thing to his mother. Catherine repents, and life returns to normal for a brief time.

Suddenly, Catherine receives a letter from James stating that his engagement with Isabella has

been broken off. Even more shockingly, James says that Isabella is now engaged to Captain

Tilney. This turns out not to be true, as Catherine discovers when Isabella sends her a letter

revealing that Captain Tilney has jilted her and left town. By now, Catherine is disgusted by

Isabella's dishonorable and untrustworthy character, and she chooses not to respond to the letter.

After a month at Northanger Abbey, Catherine is mysteriously cast out of the house by General

Tilney. She goes home in disgrace and has a hard time settling into her former routine. Most of

all, she misses Henry and wishes that she could be in communication with him. Before too many

days pass, however, Henry surprises Catherine with a visit. He asks for her hand in marriage and

explains that his father acted so rudely because he was informed that Catherine was not as rich as

he had supposed her to be. Catherine is glad that the mystery is cleared up, but they still have to

obtain the General's permission to get married. They finally get his consent after Miss Tilney

marries a landed aristocrat, raising the family's status in the country. In the aftermath of this

convenient marriage, Henry and Catherine seal their own matrimonial bliss.

Northanger Abbey Character List

Catherine Morland

Naïve, innocent, and imaginative, Catherine is the protagonist of the novel. Before going to Bath

with the Allens, Catherine has never been away from her family home in Fullerton for an

extended period of time. Catherine’s main occupation is reading Gothic novels, particularly

Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho. This leads her to imagine herself as the heroine of a

Gothic murder mystery when she visits the Tilneys at Northanger Abbey. Catherine eventually

realizes her mistake and repents her accusations of General Tilney, whom she believed played a

part in his wife’s death. Catherine matures over the course of the novel and becomes more

independent and adept at assessing the true characters of those around her. Her infatuation with

Henry deepens into a genuine affection, and her patience is rewarded by their marriage.

James Morland

Catherine’s brother, James attends Oxford University during the school year, where he enjoys

the pleasures of undergraduate life with his friend John Thorpe. James is studying to be a

clergyman, although during the course of the novel we only see him in a domestic setting. When

James accompanies John on a family vacation to Bath, he falls in love with John’s sister Isabella,

and they become engaged. James eventually repents this affair when he discovers Isabella’s

disloyalty, and he leaves Bath in a bitter mood.

Mr. and Mrs. Morland

Catherine’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Moreland play only a minor role in the story. They are

depicted as warm, loving, and eager to provide for their children within their limited means.

They allow their children to go away for long stretches of time, but they also want their children

to appreciate their life at home. This is why Mrs. Morland urges Catherine to readjust quickly to

her normal routine after she returns from Bath.

Henry Tilney

Handsome and kind, Henry is the object of Catherine’s affection. He splits his time between his

family home at Northanger Abbey and his parish house at Woodston. Henry is steadfast and

devoted to his family, particularly his sister. Henry is also realistic and rational, hence why he

reprimands Catherine for her imagined Gothic fantasy during her visit. In contrast to Catherine,

Henry has read a variety of books in all kinds of subject areas. This gives him an advantage in

their conversations, and Henry seeks to increase Catherine’s knowledge of the world and other

people’s motivations, particularly in the case of his brother’s flirtation with Isabella. Although he

is generally a good son,Henry has a strained relationship with his overbearing father and is not

afraid to defy his father’s most unreasonable wishes—this is made most apparent when he

proposes to Catherine despite his father’s disapproval.

Eleanor Tilney (Miss Tilney)

Henry’s sister, Miss Tilney is also a loyal and devoted friend to Catherine. Miss Tilney

withstands long stretches of loneliness when Henry is gone from Northanger Abbey and she is

forced to endure her father’s temper alone. She is eager to serve others and generally self-

effacing. Miss Tilney seldom voices her own desires; instead, she sets out to care for her loved

ones and make her guest feel at home. Miss Tilney is a passive figure whose self-sacrifices are

meant to stand in contrast with Isabella’s active and selfish scheming.

Isabella Thorpe

Isabella is an ambitious young woman who befriends Catherine in Bath. Her goal in life is to

marry a wealthy man, but this is difficult since she has no fortune. Isabella sets her sights on

Catherine’s brother James, and their mutual flirtation leads to their engagement. Upon

discovering that James will only have a modest income, Isabella is infuriated and disappointed,

but she attempts to hide her feelings from Catherine. When the dashing Captain Tilney arrives in

Bath, Isabella begins a new flirtation with him despite being engaged. Her plot to switch suitors

is ultimately foiled, and both men leave her.

Captain Frederick Tilney

The oldest child of the Tilney family, Captain Tilney is proud and insolent, much like his father.

He flirts with Isabella in Bath for his own amusement only to take off after her engagement is

broken off. In this light, Captain Tilney is an egotist who enjoys toying with women’s affections

and soliciting their devotion, even at the expense of another man’s happiness.

John Thorpe

Isabella’s brother, John is boastful and arrogant. He courts Catherine by taking her out for

carriage rides in the country and spends the entirety of their time together bragging about what a

good driver he is. John is clueless about other people’s desires and mistakenly assumes that

Catherine returns his sentiments. Late in the novel, we find out that John had been spreading

inflated rumors of Catherine’s wealth before his hopes were dashed by her rejection.

General Tilney

The despotic father of Henry, Miss Tilney, and Captain Tilney, General Tilney is a proud,

materialistic man who spends his days managing his estate at Northanger Abbey. His wife died

many years ago, and he avoids entering her former bedroom so that he will not be reminded of

her. General Tilney is a gracious host to Catherine during the majority of her stay at his estate,

but we find out that his hospitality is motivated by his misguided greed—he wants to advance his

family’s own social position and initially thinks that Catherine is a rich, eligible young woman.

His anger emerges when he finds out that he was wrong, but he is placated by his daughter's

marriage to a nobleman and later gives Henry his consent.

Mr. and Mrs. Allen

Mr. and Mrs. Allen are a wealthy, childless older couple who host Catherine at Bath. Mrs. Allen

is obsessed with fashion and the petty gossip of the town. Mr. Allen is more practical. The Allens

serve as parental figures for Catherine during their stay at Bath. They introduce her to the

festivities that characterize life in the resort town and introduce her to the Thorpes.

Mrs. Thorpe

Isabella’s mother, Mrs. Thorpe is an indulgent woman who is eager to make her children happy

at any cost. She is particularly permissive towards Isabella, her favorite daughter. Mrs. Thorpe is

an old friend of Mrs. Allen’s and shares her concern with the emblems of wealth and refinement.

Northanger Abbey Themes

Consumer Culture

Many of the characters in Northanger Abbey define themselves on the basis of their material

wealth. On this basis, they are obsessed with the acquisition and upkeep of material objects. Mrs.

Allen, for instance, is always worried about tearing her latest ball gown. Upon arriving in Bath,

Catherine and Isabella spend a portion of each day walking around town, viewing the window

displays, and Isabella is constantly comparing her attire with other women's. General Tilney is

the novel's most materialistic character. He has devoted his life to outdoing his wealthy peers in

the size, scale, and expense of his estate. Upon arriving at Northanger Abbey, Catherine is

constantly asked to compare and judge the General's possessions against Mr. Allen's. General

Tilney solicits Catherine's praise as a measure of his success. He is the consummate consumer

and also values people according to their wealth. Austen's writing seems implicitly critical of

these attitudes, but it is worth noting that Austen -- as exemplified especially in her more famous

novels -- is more humanist than satirist; this is to say her humor is always gentle, laced with real

affection for her characters and their foibles. They may fret about their possessions in excess, but

they do so in well-meaning ways.

Imagination vs. Reality

Catherine's imagination is shaped by her experience reading the Gothic novels of Anne

Radcliffe. Upon arriving at Northanger Abbey, Catherine is crestfallen when she realizes that her

imagined ideal of the house--a former dwelling place for nuns, with all its original features

intact--does not match the reality of the renovated and modern mansion. Fueled by her fantasies,

Catherine still expects to encounter the same scary objects she has read about--bloody daggers

and ghostly shrouds--hidden in secret places throughout the house. Even when she finds only

banal objects (such as a quilt) in place of their imagined counterparts, Catherine refuses to

relinquish her vision of Northanger's mysterious history until reality intrudes in the form of

Henry's admonishment. Austen hereby proposes a sort of meta-critique of fiction and the

suspension of disbelief it requires: only by divorcing herself from such fiction can Catherine

truly grow. Austen explores this idea playfully, even going so far as to wield tropes one might

associate with more deliberately "meta" works of literature, as I note later in this section.

Marriage and Courtship

Concerns over matters of marriage and courtship proliferate in Northanger Abbey. Throughout

the novel, Austen foregrounds the economic significance of marriage: in 18th century England,

fortunes were built through family alliances. Isabella's schemes center around her desire to find a

rich husband, and she uses a variety of techniques to ensure that she will be noticed, whether it is

openly flirting with James or pretending to ignore Captain Tilney's attentions after she is

engaged. John attempts to court Catherine and makes her an offer of marriage through his sister,

and he spreads wildly exaggerated notions of her wealth in order to build up his own reputation

in Bath. Luckily, Catherine does everything in her power to rebuff him. Catherine's relationship

with the landed and wealthy Henry progresses slowly: they have a gradual courtship that is based

on a mutual respect and esteem. Miss Tilney also gets married at the very end of the novel to a

wealthy young nobleman. Through these constant referrals to a potential spouse's wealth, we see

why General Tilney is so calculating over his childrens' marriages. Tellingly, Henry and his

sister do not believe that Captain Tilney has engaged himself to Isabella because she is poor.

Readers and Reading

Letters and novels abound in Austen's depiction of English social life. Catherine receives the

most important news largely by reading letters, whether it is James' letter announcing the end of

his engagement or Isabella's letter informing her that Captain Tilney has left Bath. Letters are

still the primary form of communication in the rapidly modernizing country, and characters wait

eagerly for the mail coach to arrive (as when, earlier in the novel, Isabella waits for James to

write telling of his father's approval for their marriage). Novels, on the other hand, provide the

characters of Northanger Abbey with escapist visions of other worlds, where melodramatic

occurences happen on a daily basis. For a young woman like Catherine, reading allows her to

access the kind of dramatic conflict that her own life lacks, at least until she arrives at

Northanger Abbey.

On a more abstract level, Austen writes many asides to the reader where she directly calls our

attention to the novel's fictional qualities: she wants us to know that we are reading a work of art

whose features are in large part derived from inherited conventions from other books. For

example, Austen lets us know from the very beginning of the novel that we are meant to compare

Catherine with the heroines of earlier novels. Austen directly challenges the cliches of the

emerging genre in order to solidify her own voice as a writer.

Ownership and Estates

In Northanger Abbey, the individual estates reflect the character of their owners. Fullerton,

Catherine's home, is a modest and busy place where the rhythms of family life predominate--the

influence of Mr. and Mrs. Morland may be felt in its industrious environs. In contrast,

Northanger Abbey is an ostentatious manor house whose sweeping rooms are filled with the

latest heating fixtures and furnishings. General Tilney's personality is infused throughout the

main rooms of the house: its large proportions and meticulous arrangement are the visible signs

of his status-conscious demeanor. Catherine is never at home at Northanger Abbey unless the

General is absent.

On the other hand, Catherine takes immediate delight in Woodston, Henry's parish house. Most

rooms in Woodston are tastefully furnished, yet one of the most important rooms--the drawing

room--is still empty, thus calling our attention to Henry's bachelor state. Tellingly, Catherine

finds real delight in the view of the fields from the drawing room window, and this turns out to

be her favorite room. Though she does not know it yet, Woodston is her future home, and

Catherine will have the chance to decorate the room according to her growing taste.

Social Etiquette

Austen explores the rules of English society throughout her novel by staging multiple violations

of discreet etiquette and polite behavior. At Bath, Isabella and James dance together more than

twice in one night, and Isabella worries that others will think they are behaving scandalously.

Catherine arguably acts in a rude way when she refuses to go on a carriage ride with John,

Isabella and James, thus undermining their expectations that she will always act in an obliging

and pleasant manner. However, John undermines Catherine's honesty by falsely reporting to the

Tilneys that she cannot go on their scheduled walk, and Catherine is angry because he has made

her appear absentminded and neglectful of her appointments. Finally, General Tilney violates the

code of hospitality when he turns Catherine out of his house without proper notice. Austen is

here, as ever, an observer of mores, and the precision of her language offers a modern reader a

fascinating look into what life was like in her time. What is perhaps more important than her

usefulness as a time-capsule, however, is the fundamental universality of her observations: we

may no longer live with the same exact codes as her characters, but we share with them the same

nervousness, the same petty squabbles, the same day-by-day mistakes, and the same romantic

dreams.

The Gothic Novel

Over the course of the story, Catherine is enamored and subsequently disenchanted by the Gothic

novels of Anne Radcliffe. At first, Catherine is willing and eager to absorb everything that she

has read or heard about The Mysteries of Udolpho. We hear her raving about the novel in several

scenes during her stay in Bath. During her carriage ride to Northanger Abbey, Henry's story

similarly absorbs her attention.

In many ways, Henry's retelling of the Gothic horror tale is doubled by Austen's account of

Catherine's quest to discover the circumstances behind Mrs. Tilney's death.

Borrowing the plot details of various novels, Catherine attempts to interpret the General's

character to conform to the outlines of the evil and mysterious villain, a stock character in the

Gothic novel. Catherine even comes to believe that General Tilney has kept his wife locked in a

secret chamber all these years and faked her death to their children. Austen's description of

Catherine's overeager fantasy is clearly a parody of many Gothic conventions, ranging from the

existence of a long-suffering female victim to the suppression of a family's history in hidden

rooms and locked chests.

UNIT-5

Overview

Author

William Wordsworth

Year Published

1850

Type

Essay

Genre

Argument, Nonfiction, Philosophy

At a Glance

The Preface is considered a revolutionary step forward in introducing Romantic poetry to world

literature. Wordsworth and his close friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) collaborated

in explaining their new ideas of poetry and the poet's task. These views on poetry are based on a

love of nature and on the use of common feelings and language, away from what Wordsworth

and Coleridge saw as the falseness and needless complexities of the past. Wordsworth believed

poetry should reflect everyday language rather than fit itself to established formulas, such as

form, meter, and poetic diction, as it had in the past. The Preface has been called "Wordsworth's

best-known critical work, and his most original essay in aesthetics." It continues to be read and

discussed in the study of Romantic literature, as well as of succeeding centuries of realism and

modernism in poetry and prose.

About the Title

After first publishing his Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth felt the need to explain and defend his

new techniques in poetry, in the hope of attracting an audience who would continue to

understand and appreciate his work. He wrote a Preface for the first edition in 1800 and made

revisions throughout his life. The 1802 version formed the basis for the final edition of 1850. The

title, "Preface," was never changed, giving it a sense of ongoing novelty.

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads | Main Ideas

Poetry as the Language of Common People

The Preface to Lyrical Ballads presents Wordsworth's explanation for the new type of poetry he

published in 1798. He continued to revise the Preface in the hope of gaining a larger reading

audience and further recognition by other writers. He rejects previous conventional approaches

to literature as emotionally barren, overlooking the connection he values between the thoughts

and language of common people and the poet's ability to transmit the experience at the same

accessible level. He speaks of poetry as existing from the poet as one person to other persons,

with minimal or no intermediary needed. He recognizes some refinement of anything considered

vulgar or offensive would need revising, but otherwise no real barriers need exist. As a

Romantic, Wordsworth values the humble, rustic ways of countryfolk, people who he believes

have directly experienced the truths of nature. Their experiences can be transmitted in poetry that

includes the same honesty and directness that he finds in homogenous rural settings. Poems he

creates spring from the overflow of genuine feelings. These lead to reflection and simple wisdom

and then are restated in ordinary language to recreate the original emotion.

The Preface rejects reliance on standards from the Classical or Enlightenment eras—Pope and

Johnson among the British poets he names—because they overlook the lives of common people

who speak humble and unadorned language.

Prose and Poetry

Devoting much attention to emphasizing the close connection of poetry with prose, Wordsworth

shows little patience for efforts in past eras to perfect standards for either poetry or prose at the

expense of the other. For him, both share the same purpose: to speak plainly and honestly in

language reflecting the lives of living people and not close themselves off to the other form. He

does not believe in a separation of poetry and prose as two opposed approaches but instead states

repeatedly they come from the same origins and spirit and should be accessible at equal levels.

Wordsworth places little value on the factual or scientific in literature. He is far more interested

in the emotions arising from an immediate experience that is later reflected upon, assimilated,

and understood. He can see the significance of scientific inquiry and knowledge, but for speaking

the truths of the lives of his contemporaries, he keeps a distance between instinctive literature

and applied scientific literature. For Wordsworth, this type of literature does not unite the

scientist with ordinary people on a daily basis, but instead keeps him isolated in a world of facts.

Writing as he was in the first years of the 1800s, he could not anticipate the enormous role

scientific research and experimentation has assumed since then. The Preface ushers in a new

world of literary sensibility, and is focused ahead of that changing world. However,

scientifically, it seems naïve.

Role of the Poet

At the heart of the Preface, Wordsworth gives extended treatment to the role of a poet, according

to the views he has expressed on language and content. The poet is a person of the common

people, attuned to them and sensitive to their experiences, and at the same time the poet is

someone in a special position. Wordsworth explains, "The poet, singing a song in which all

human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly

companion." The poet is the "rock of defense for human nature; an upholder and a preserver,

carrying everywhere with him relations and love." Wordsworth adds, "The poet binds together

by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society ... and over all time."

As the new scientists of Wordsworth's time forged ahead in chemistry and botany, so the poet

represents "the first and last of all knowledge ... as immortal as the heart of man ... The poet will

lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration" into knowledge. But for Wordsworth and others

he hoped to inspire, the role of art stands far apart from applied science of any kind. The poet

remains a special person, an individual who can take the ordinary experiences of common people

and articulate those experiences coherently into felt passions and controlled emotions that touch

on moral truth and rightness.

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads | Context

Wordsworth and Other Writers

Wordsworth was very conscious of many figures in the history of English literature. In his own

education, he had read the great writers, appreciating some and finding others not to his taste or

to his desire to write in a new form and style. The previous century, up to around the time of

Wordsworth's birth in 1770, had produced the famous Augustan Age of poets and essayists, such

as Alexander Pope (1688–1744). These writers relied on classical models; often used elegant but

unnatural diction (word choice) and quotations from Latin; and aimed for sophistication, wit, and

urbanity, or refined manners. They exalted reason as capable of controlling the baser instincts

associated with nature, which the Augustans distrusted as wild and unshaped by society. With

little interest in the lives of ordinary people, Augustans frequently portrayed high society and

nobility in carefully crafted and often satiric works.

As the Augustan Age waned, Samuel Johnson (1709–84) and others of his time rejected

neoclassicism and instead relied heavily on reason and common sense to control excesses of

imagination and sentiment. Language was used deliberately to instruct, but writers still took little

interest in common people or themes. However, poets such as Thomas Gray (1716–71), William

Blake (1757–1827), and Robert Burns (1759–96) are sometimes called proto-Romantics, or

those in the early stages of Romantic thought. In their work they dispensed with formulaic

classical models, such as rhyming couplets, in favor of blank, or unrhyming, verse. Poetry

became more immediate and accessible in plainer speech and vocabulary, calling objects what

they really were. And in poems like "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" and "Is There for

Honest Poverty," everyday people emerged as serious poetic subjects.

Looking back at his predecessors, Wordsworth wanted to build on these innovations and, at the

same time, accomplish something more radical, even revolutionary for the aesthetics of his time.

In the Preface he does not hesitate to give examples of the type of poetry he dislikes as

insufficiently down to earth. Seeking to unify simplicity in life and in art, Wordsworth believed

he could write to bring about this realization. Although he knew Samuel Johnson's work was

greatly esteemed, he contrasted some of Johnson's lines with those from a popular folk ballad

and found Johnson's lines "neither interesting ... nor [leading] to anything interesting; the images

neither originate in that sane state of feeling which arises out of thought, nor can excite thought

or feeling in the Reader." This analysis became the standard by which Wordsworth was to judge

the craft of the poet he hoped to be in his own time.

Rise of Romanticism

Wordsworth is one of the most important Romantic writers, and the Preface to his Lyrical

Ballads is considered a manifesto for understanding Romanticism. The Romantic movement is

generally dated from late in the 18th century through the first decades of the 19th. Critics have

noted 1798 and the appearance of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads in that year as the

actual starting point of the movement. The Preface Wordsworth wrote to explain those poems

plays a large role in clarifying the aims of Romanticism as a way of thought and as a watershed

moment in European and American culture.

Romanticism influenced all the arts, not only literature. Most Romantic writers worked

independently, but others, like Wordsworth and Coleridge, collaborated, despite differing views.

They did not refer to themselves as Romantics, for the term came into popular use much later

with critics and anthologizers. Later in the 19th century, other movements, such as realism and

naturalism, arose under the influence of science and changing conditions in urban and rural life.

Romanticism then came to be associated with an earlier outpouring of emotions and new ways of

looking at life that were superseded by the course of history.

Romantic writers shared certain common beliefs, among them a strong bond with nature. This

bond manifested itself in a desire to live in rural settings and a preference for land work over

factory production despite the prevailing industrial development. In addition, they believed in the

power of literature to bring about social change and to explore new horizons and passions, not

conforming to old or "accepted" wisdom. In their preference for individual consciousness over

the collective expressions of ideas, Romantic writers relied on the imagination to form a new

vision of the world. Finally, a belief in the purity and simplicity of childhood was the lens for

understanding in the Romantic worldview.

Critics have noted that in the past, for the most part, art reflected reality and followed certain

principles of the artist. However, in Wordsworth's poetry, for the first time, art tended to

illuminate the real from within by revealing the soul and nature of things rather than the external

reality itself. In a simplified sense, everything is feeling, not fact, as in the episode in

Wordsworth's Prelude in which the young boy fears being pursued by a vengeful mountain after

taking a boat. The mountain is capable of neither feeling nor motion, but to the frightened child it

is full of meaning. Ordinary people may experience similar feelings, which a poet may emulate.

To the Romantics, this kind of experience leads to poetry, as Wordsworth explains in the

Preface.

Coleridge and the Preface

Although his poems often focus on the pleasures of solitude, Wordsworth was influenced all his

life by other people, places, and events. The closest collaboration came from poet Samuel Taylor

Coleridge, whom he met in 1795 and with whom he began an important literary partnership.

Together they conceived the idea of the Lyrical Ballads, which they published anonymously in

two editions, the first in 1798. The subsequent 1800 edition was published with only

Wordsworth's name. Although they had a loose agreement to work equally on the ballads,

Wordsworth—steady, industrious, and organized—wrote much more than the unstable, opium-

addicted Coleridge. For a time the Wordsworth and Coleridge families lived near each other and

traveled together, but the two men became estranged in 1810 after Coleridge received reports of

critical remarks Wordsworth had made about him. Their work together ended, and Coleridge

died in 1834.

Critics often have studied Coleridge's influence on Wordsworth—rather than the reverse. When

Wordsworth speaks in the Preface about "friends" advising him to write an explanation for his

new poetry and strong beliefs he wished to spread, "friends" is widely assumed to be Coleridge.

Wordsworth sometimes claimed much of the abstract theory behind the Preface was not his and

originally responded to his friend's urging by stating he "never cared a straw about the theory—

and the Preface was written at the request of Coleridge out of sheer good nature."

Coleridge had strong opinions about what his friend had written and disagreed with many of the

changes Wordsworth made in later versions. Coleridge claimed the Preface placed too much

emphasis on pure association with nature and not on poetic creativity. He did not fully agree with

Wordsworth's take on the almost identical natures of poetry and prose and the essence of "poetic

diction." Because the two men's works are so different—and given their on-again, off-again

friendship—it is unlikely Coleridge would have fully aligned himself with his friend's statements

about poetry. He found Wordsworth exaggerated in some of his theoretical ideas, and these

judgments may have contributed to the decline of Wordsworth's reputation in the last decades of

his long life.

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads | Summary

Summary

The Preface to Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge appeared after the first publication

of the poems and then in numerous revised forms until the end of Wordsworth's career. It

remains the clearest statement of Romantic principles as it lays out the purpose and practice of

writing poetry and its close relation to prose. It also explains the profession, or craft, of the

"poet" and the role of poetry in giving a voice to contemporary and simplified ways of living that

stay close to the truths of nature. For Wordsworth, as for all the Romantic writers, one

discovered these primary laws of nature through experiences in the natural world—experiences

that, when combined with emotion, produced poetry.

Importance of Subject Matter

Wordsworth emphasizes why and how he chooses the subjects for his poems. He separates his

work from that of past ages and literary figures, showing they have been too "literary" by

emphasizing formal or classical models of artificial conventions. Rather than the recording of

actual observations or events, Wordsworth believes emotional truths and fidelity to nature are the

keys to providing ordinary readers with insights into their own conditions of life. He favors a

"humble and rustic" rural existence (yet without narrating anything unsettling or violent) to

urban life because it seems simpler and more natural. Wordsworth also favors a more unified,

common population that shares similar experiences. In cities like rapidly expanding London, the

permanence of natural truths seems absent. The short-lived values of shifting populations give no

connection to the past or the promise of future tranquility for the common people, whose

experiences can form the basis for poetry as well as prose. Wordsworth sought to make ordinary

experiences seem more extraordinary and enduring. As nature reveals permanence and

unchanging truths, the new literature Wordsworth proposes would share the simplicity, and

depth, of people's lives.

Characteristics of Poetry

Wordsworth says poetry must arise from the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes

its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." Although a poet should make a poem seem

spontaneous, the creation of it is not. Poetry must reflect emotion, or passion—not simply record

observations. The poet must draw from real-life experiences and describe them in ordinary

language, and the poet must "throw over them a certain coloring of the imagination, whereby

ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect." It is the imagination that

permits the poet to touch on the eternal, making the surrounding world new and connecting the

people with that world.

Wordsworth analyzes what he sees as four parts of the poet's creative process. The poet first

observes something that creates a powerful emotion. Then he tranquilly contemplates and

reflects on the emotion. During this period the poet may recall other things that relate to the

observation itself or to the past in some way. Such contemplation is personal, intended only for

the poet. The tranquility of contemplation disappears after a time, and then the poet distills all

these thoughts, eliminating some and keeping others so that the original emotion is recreated in a

way that is more universal. Finally the poet is ready to write, with the aim of sharing the emotion

with an audience.

Poetry, therefore, doesn't arise from classical models or through an immediate inspiration on any

supernatural level. It arises through experience on an ordinary level—understood and reflected

upon. Wordsworth rejects elaboration or literary devices as artificial and uses numerous

examples of earlier poets' work in his discussion. He hopes to lead readers to meditate on their

own emotions and arrive eventually at a more moral and true conception of themselves and of

life. Poetry can achieve the finest level of art by being simple and straightforward.

Poetry and Prose

Wordsworth devotes much of the Preface to examining his views on poetry and prose. He rejects

past distinctions of one being more heroic or a higher art than the other. His aim is to reveal both

as sharing the most important characteristics of "the language of men." As he simplifies the art of

being a poet into being "a man speaking to men," he essentially erases the lines separating prose

from poetry. He sees the distinction of both as opposed to science, as he understands it, because

the relatively new field of science focuses on the factual. Moreover, he sees the scientist as

making discoveries on their own, away from others, and not influencing the common condition,

which for Wordsworth is the essence of poetry. For Wordsworth, who favors free,

straightforwardly rhymed lines over traditional rhyme and meter in poetry, the use of most meter

produces a forced type of "verse" rather than the "naked," simpler poetry that shares truths with

prose.

He explains that he chooses to write poetry—with a proper and natural "Poetic Diction"—rather

than prose because it offers more possibilities for his imagination to explore the natural passions

of men and give them form. However, he refuses to acknowledge any strict separation between

poetry and prose because both must spring from emotion and reflection. Wordsworth writes,

"They both speak by and to the same organs ... their affections are kindred, and almost identical,

not necessarily differing even in degree." He ends the Preface by saying that whether he writes in

prose or verse, the essential principle of his art—made of imagination and sentiment—will

employ "one and the same language" of meter or prose.

Analysis

The Preface as Writing

Although the Preface itself is a work of prose, Wordsworth quotes much poetry within it and,

like his verses, places the same emphasis on common experience being illuminated by the

imagination. It is clearly the manifesto of an individual explaining a radically new approach to

something that has had a long existence already. In his essay he sets himself as both alone and

with the common experience of others as heralding a new age in understanding and

communicating feelings and emotions in a changed world. During his long career, Wordsworth

often saw himself as embarking on new and uncharted paths. He had a broad and thorough

education in the canon of Western literature and used this background in new ways.

Many past movements saw themselves as either inheriting literary traditions or making their

own, but Wordsworth was the first to base his work on the actual lives of ordinary people. The

Preface often alternates between proudly staking out his own principles and calling on the views

of his contemporaries, as when he begins with "Several of my friends are anxious for the success

of these Poems." His own voice is loud and clear, unafraid to criticize even good intentions in

others. He seems always aware of a performance art in which he quotes others against each

other, with his own views making the judgments on levels of quality. Whereas Coleridge wrote

with more abstract emphasis on the unusual and even the supernatural, Wordsworth focuses on

the ordinary, the voices of the common folk, of whose assumed simplicity and homogeneity he

approves, even though they may have little experience with poetry.

The Preface was revised and republished several times: beginning from the period when

Wordsworth spoke as a young radical voice through his recognition as a leading literary voice.

As both a young and mature man, he embraced sharply different ideas from those of other poets.

During the high point of the Romantic movement, which the manifesto seems to have ushered in,

his emphasis on feeling and individualism became commonly held.

The Preface on Verse and Prose

The long essay in its various versions returns numerous times to the question of types of writing.

Wordsworth devoted his life to writing, never having had another occupation or seeming to

search for one. When his formal education ended, he traveled as widely as he could with limited

resources, and his poems are often shaped by these experiences. When Lyrical Ballads appeared,

it gained considerable attention. Its detractors objected to Wordsworth's choice of subject matter

and disagreed with his emphasis on common people, rustic and even illiterate lives of poverty,

real human passions, and feelings joined with reflection. Although Wordsworth avoided extreme

or vulgar examples of these things, his detractors found such points of interest to be outside the

realm of poetry. Having taken poetry to this new territory, Wordsworth in the Preface proceeds

to examine how the actual forms of writing can best conform to such aims. He goes deeply and

repeatedly into comparing and contrasting the range of powers open to the poet in both prose and

poetry.

Past literary movements frequently have emphasized one of these genres over the other,

depending on the work and reputations of the writers of the time. Wordsworth seems intent on

using the best of both, not excluding one in favor of the other, but seeking always to find the

most appropriate genre. He spent decades of his life writing poems in various formats and voices

but dispensed with many rules and formulas. The Preface is his great prose work and never

enters poetic territory despite its focus on it. Wordsworth repeats that efforts to privilege verse or

prose are wrongheaded, for both share the same instinct for truth and human passion in the

communal sense. Science, on the other hand, seems new and impersonal, based on facts that

poetry cannot affect or change. His aim to raise his readers' moral sense appears untouched by

scientific study or research.

To make prose and verse allies, in a sense, against the potential changes in society is also to limit

the poet's own impact in the future. Also, Wordsworth's emphasis on emotions will eventually

lessen his influence, as new ways of looking at the world will emerge and people will judge the

Romantic era with different eyes. In time, the effort to convince the world that poetry and prose

are essentially similar in approach and content can be judged independently of form will result in

these becoming commonplace ideas. However, these ideas were often ignored by others, as poets

and prose writers continued to go their separate ways.

Wordsworth as Judge

The usefulness of the Preface in judging merit in poetry depends on several factors. Wordsworth

appears neither modest nor boastful when citing his own poems and measuring them against

others, including works of well-known writers. A few pages into the text, Wordsworth harshly

criticizes the 18th-century poet Thomas Gray. Quoting lines from one of Gray's few poems,

Wordsworth says the verse is far from simple truths that could be expressed in either prose or

more natural-sounding poetry. Wordsworth dismisses more than half of Gray's sonnet as having

no value. Gray's other major work, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," with its canonical,

or scriptural, lines "on the paths of glory" and "far from the madding crowd," remains among the

most quoted and best-loved poems of all time, so it may seem odd to find Gray so faulted.

Similarly, Samuel Johnson's writing is noticeably said to have "contemptible matter."

But throughout, nothing indicates Wordsworth is issuing such opinions specifically to promote

his works over others. He seems to have given serious thought to his views and taken a long and

broad view of literature before his own time. The emphasis remains not on him personally but on

what any poet may achieve when he focuses on the correct foundations for a common and

humble source of truth. He appears willing to view his own work as an experiment in poetic

diction, newly formed and purified of what he believes it lacked before. He admits to putting

store in what others think of his work and having doubts about whether he can achieve the high

goals he has set. Wordsworth sees his Lyrical Ballads as innovative and connected to a high

level of truth and significance, if not a high level of life and society.

Ages after the Preface made its judgments, and Wordsworth's own reputation has endured its ups

and downs, it is doubtful many contemporary readers would use either his praise or his criticisms

as the basis for their own reactions to literature. Modern readers can understand how

Wordsworth saw people and society and his need to express new ideas in the hope they would

lead to progress in life as well as art. He returns again and again to the need to take down

barriers, as in the traditional separation of prose and poetry, but such forms continue to exist,

even strictly, for some. Passion and commitment to change motivate Wordsworth, and using

literature as a means to effect change can be understood and appreciated in a democratic society

that values free expression. If readers do not actively judge the writers Wordsworth mentions,

they can value him for his openness and ability to take risks in his opinions.

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads | Quotes

1.

Several of my friends are anxious for the success of these Poems ... and ... have advised me to

prefix a systematic defense of the theory.

Narrator

Wordsworth notes that others, most likely his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, recognized that

the Lyrical Ballads were so different from familiar forms of poetry in the past that an explanation

would help their reception and sales.

2.

There would be something like impropriety in abruptly obtruding upon the public ... poems so

materially different.

Narrator

Wordsworth believed he (together with Coleridge) had entered new and different terrain from

what the English reading public was familiar with. He apologizes for such newness and hopes he

will encourage more readers to try to follow his work.

3.

The principal object ... in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common

life ... in a selection of language really used by men.

Narrator

This is the heart of Wordsworth's Preface. The poet bases his theory for the type of poetry he

wants to create on the actual lives of ordinary people living at that time, not on classical models.

He says his diction—word choice and vocabulary—will come from the common people, too,

filtered through him.

4.

Humble and rustic life was generally chosen because ... the passions of the heart ... can attain

their maturity ... and speak a plainer and more emphatic language.

Narrator

Wordsworth relies on the simple truths of nature and claims to find them in the countryside

rather than in the city. He is not interested in the faster and more diversified state of urban life.

He prefers straightforward and sometimes one-dimensional situations in which truths may

emerge without ambiguities.

5.

Such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more

permanent, and a far more philosophical language.

Narrator

Wordsworth rejects poets of the past who realistically record their own experiences in elevated

language that is artificial, capricious (fickle), and arbitrary. Such language has little or nothing to

do with the event. Wordsworth aims to express the permanent meanings of natural truths.

6.

Causes, unknown to former times ... blunt ... discriminating powers of the mind ... and reduce

it to savage torpor ... Great national events ... are daily taking place, and the increasing

accumulating of men in cities.

Narrator

Wordsworth rejects the pressures of urbanization, mass events, and confusing communications.

These sentiments typify his reaction to growing industrialization and the shift from rural to urban

life. He issues a call for the literature he would like to create: a literature of the common people

and common needs. The Preface is his hope for action—to live simply, avoid urbanization, and

communicate through emotion and imagination.

7.

My purpose was to imitate, and as far as it is possible, to adopt the very language of men.

Narrator

Wordsworth rejects the standard "poetic diction" of elevated language, figures of speech, and

personifications using false phraseology. He hopes to achieve this purpose with no falsehoods of

language, clichés, and emptiness. He aims for good, honest poetry and good sense in a language

all can understand.

8.

Some of the most interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the language

of prose when prose is well-written.

Narrator

Wordsworth devotes much attention to proving for his readers that the old distinctions between

prose and traditional poetry are not valid. He prefers simple, rhymed poetry rather than the

forced diction of meter, which has characterized so much of poetry in the past. He finds no

essential differences between good prose and good poetry when the language and content of both

aspire to the common good and truth.

9.

Poetry sheds no tears "such as Angels weep," but natural and human tears ... the same

human blood circulates through the veins of them both.

Narrator

As an example, Wordsworth criticizes the poetic language of John Milton as being unnatural and

forced, not the common images people know from their own lives. Like prose, poetry will not be

true and moral in regard to life if it uses such expressions. It will merely follow meter and

form—the opposites of good prose and poetry both. Wordsworth reiterates his belief that diction

should not distinguish poetry from prose.

10.

It shall appear to some that my labor is unnecessary, and that I am like a man fighting a

battle without enemies.

Narrator

Wordsworth knows his struggle to gain acceptance for the type of poetry he is writing may seen

futile. Most people are unaware of the false excesses of the past and don't object to them because

they associate them with poetic tradition. Wordsworth thinks he has the unenviable task of

breaking through and revealing more honest and meaningful expressive powers. Recognizing

many readers will not see the sense of his commitment to a different approach, he wants to

introduce a new value system for all literature and at best is unsure how—and if— his ideas will

be understood or accepted.

11.

The Man of science seeks truth ... in his solitude. The Poet sing[s] a song in which all human

beings join with him.

Narrator

Wordsworth makes many sharp contrasts in the Preface. One of the most memorable juxtaposes

the solitary new man of science, whose impact on humanity is presumed to be solitary. In

contrast, the poet lives among the people, listening to and repeating their language. The idea of

solitary science without connection to ordinary lives dates from a time when sciences, as modern

times know them, were young.

12.

The poet is chiefly distinguished from other men by a greater promptness to think and feel ...

and a greater power in expressing such thoughts.

Narrator

Poetry, Wordsworth states, is the spontaneous expression of feelings that must be reflected on to

express human truths. Not all men reflect with equal talent, however. As a poet, Wordsworth

believes that the ability to reflect rapidly and truthfully is what makes the poet one with people

and yet apart as a creator.

13.

Poets do not write for Poets alone, but for men ... [a poet] must express himself as other men

express themselves.

Narrator

Wordsworth has in mind for himself, and for others who may be inspired by his Preface, the task

of being among the people and also somehow separate. His passions are the same as those of

others, and he must use the language of others. But at the same time, he refines and shapes it and,

in his special role, leads his readers toward a better sense of what is moral and significant in life.

14.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion

recollected in tranquility.

Narrator

Wordsworth bases his theory of poetry on strong and universal emotions. These feelings may be

experienced to the fullest when the poet is undistracted. Wordsworth encourages quiet

contemplation of the emotion until the time for thought ends and composing the poem begins.

This way, the poet can best recapture the original emotion. Although it may be long gone by this

time, the poet makes it alive again.

15.

Of two descriptions ... well executed, the one in ... verse will be read a hundred times where

the prose is read once.

Narrator

Wordsworth emphasizes the basic connection of good poetry and good prose. But he himself

continues to write poetry because it offers him more opportunities in language and more

creativity. He greatly admires honest prose writing but is convinced poetry will endure longer

and be more meaningful over time.

Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson Summary

Samuel Johnson’s preface to The Plays of Shakespeare has long been considered a classic

document of English literary criticism. In it Johnson sets forth his editorial principles and

provides an appreciative analysis of the “excellences” and “defects” of the work of the

good Elizabethan dramatist. Many of his points became fundamental tenets of recent criticism;

others give greater insight into Johnson’s prejudices than into Shakespeare’s genius.

The resonant prose of the preface adds authority to the views of its author.

Perhaps no other document exhibits the character of eighteenth-century literary criticism better

than what’s commonly referred to as Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare. Written after Johnson

had spent nine years laboring to supply an edition of Shakespeare’s plays, the Preface to

Shakespeare is characterized by sweeping generalizations about the dramatist’s work and by

stunning pronouncements about its merits, judgments that elevated Shakespeare to the

highest spot among European writers of any century. At times, Johnson displays the tendency of

his contemporaries to fault Shakespeare for his propensity for wordplay and for ignoring the

stress for just deserts in his plays; readers of subsequent generations have found these criticisms

to reflect the inadequacies of the critic quite they are doing those of the dramatist.

What sets Johnson’s work aside from that of his contemporaries, however, is that the immense

learning that lies beneath numerous of his judgments; he consistently displays his familiarity

with the texts, and his generalizations are rooted in specific passages from the dramas. Further,

Johnson is that the first among the good Shakespeare critics to worry the playwright’s sound

understanding of attribute. Johnson’s specialize in character analysis initiated a critical trend that

might be dominant in Shakespeare’s criticism (in fact, all of dramatic criticism) for quite a

century and would cause the good work of critics like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lamb, and A. C.

Bradley.

The significance of the Preface to Shakespeare, however, goes beyond its contributions to

Shakespeare scholarship. First, it’s the foremost significant application of a critical principle that

Johnson espoused consistently which has become a staple of the practice since a comparison. His

systematic plan to measure Shakespeare against others, both classical and contemporary, became

the model. Second, the Preface to Shakespeare exemplifies Johnson’s belief that good

criticism is often produced only after a good scholarship has been practiced. The critic who

wishes to gauge an author’s originality or an author’s contributions to the tradition must first

practice sound literary reading and research to know what has been borrowed and what has been

invented.

Characteristically, Johnson makes his Shakespeare criticism the inspiration for general

statements about people, nature, and literature. he’s a real classicist in his concern with the

universal instead of with the particular; the very best praise he can bestow upon Shakespeare

is to mention that his plays are “just representations of general nature.” The dramatist has relied

upon his knowledge of attribute, instead of on bizarre effects, for his success. “The pleasures of

sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and therefore the mind can only rest on the steadiness of

truth,” Johnson concludes. it’s for this reason that Shakespeare has outlived his century and

reached the purpose at which his works are often judged solely on their own merits, without the

interference of private interests and prejudices that make criticism of one’s contemporaries

difficult.

Johnson feels that the readers of his time can often understand the universality of Shakespeare’s

vision better than the audiences of Elizabethan England could, for the intervening centuries have

freed the plays of their topicality.