ENG462 18th-Century Literature Midterm Key Dr. Morillo

The exam is closed book and notebook, and consists of 30 questions mixing factual detail and interpretation. For each numeral you will answer any 2 of the 3 questions for a total of 20 questions worth 5 points each. Do not rewrite any question; indicate which one's you've chosen to answer by numeral and letter, e.g. 3b. You may receive full or partial credit for each answer. Answer each question as directly and accurately as you can while keeping your answer brief enough that you have time for all 20 questions.

1a. Who hands out vices to all the nations at the start of Defoe's poem?

The devil

1b. Where do we find these lines in Defoe's True-Born Englishman, and why are they significant?

For Fame of Families is all a Cheat,

'Tis Personal Virtue only makes us great.

last 2 lines; summarize the point of the argument against virtue by only family or blood

1c In Defoe's True-Born Englishman, what is the connection Defoe draws between English xenophobia and ingratitude, and King William III of England?

"King William III was Dutch, not English, and many English used his heritage as an excuse to judge him negatively. This treatment of William is a main inspiration for Defoe to attack British xenophobia and ingratitude. William should be judged on his ability to rule not on where his family is from."

2a. Why are these lines to Rochester's Satyr on Reason and Mankind significant?:

Thus, whilst against false reas'ning I inveigh,

I own right Reason, which I would obey:

That Reason which distinguishes by Sense,

And gives us Rules of good and ill from thence;

That bounds Desires with a reforming Will

To keep 'em more in vigour, not to Kill. (ll. 98-103)

Rochester's not against all reason, only the wrong kind. Leaves room for a reason close to revelation, natural law, even animal instinct.

2b. Evaluate the accuracy of Robert Demaria's claim about how to interpret Rochester's poem: "Rochester's paradox is that, despite the apparent and accepted superiority of human beings, it is actually better to be a beast" (Demaria 285).

Beast's are better to the degree that they don't' kill capriciously, but if Rochester's right reason is closer to religious revelation, beasts are incapable of that, and so saying it's better to simply be a beast is less accurate.

2c Why is Rochester's reputation often connected to words like scandalous and notorious?

He was a rake and a libertine who wrote often about sex.

3a. How does Behn's The Golden Age end and why does that ending matter?

"Behn's Golden Age ends with a plea to a woman named Sylvia to reject the current trends of chastity and purity and to instead embrace the free love and following one's desires message of the Golden Age. It is possible to interpret the poem as a detailed and calculated seduction."

3b. What is the relationship between the classical myth of a Golden Age and Behn's specific focus on honor in The Golden Age?

"To the narrator of the poem, the Golden Age was a time of few constraints. The way of life under the Golden Age would have accepted sexual freedom and openness. However, the narrator feels that "honor" (who he rails against in direct address) has imposed confining and damaging principles that have damaged the beauty and freedom of the Golden Age. Honor, in short, destroyed the Golden Age."

3c. Name either the author or the play from whom Behn borrows the name Sylvia and some of the plot of her poem.

Tasso. Amintas

4a. Explain one way Swift connects the four named digressions in Tale of a Tub to the allegorical story of the brothers and the coats.

"The digressions, particularly the one on the "Modern Kind" deal often with issues of interpretation and misinterpretation. In the tale of the three brothers, we read several allegorical examples of such interpretation and misinterpretation, but in a specifically religious context."

4b. Who is Prince Posterity and what point is Swift making about all writers in the satiric dedicatory epistle to this prince?

Prince Posterity is the future, a ward of Father Time himself. All writers wish for their works to last into the future

4c. Why do we need to know about the Ancients and the Moderns to understand some of the satire in Tale of a Tub?

"The Ancients and Moderns were two camps of writers/critics that argued about whether the best (or only good) literature was written in the Classical era (the Ancient's view) or whether new, better material could be written (the Modern's view). In Tub, the narrator frames himself as a Modern trying to do just that--to write something both great and entirely new."

5a. How does Pope undermine the high-flown moral tone of Clarissa's speech to Belinda and the assembly in Canto V?

Clarissa hands the Baron the scissors; no one heeds her speech.

5b. Interpret the importance of the final lines of The Rape of the Lock:

When those fair Suns shall set, as set they must,

And all those tresses shall be laid in Dust:

This Lock, the Muse shall consecrate to Fame,

And mid'st the Starts inscribe Belinda's Name!

Could explain apotheosis; heroism; mock heroism; role of the poem itself as key to fame

5c. Despite their airy frivolity, how can Pope's use of sylphs be related to the serious idea of ideology?

"The sylphs can be seen as outside agents working their influence on people. With this in mind, the sylphs can be seen as reflections of the conventions of society. Just as the sylphs guide and protect Belinda, they also fail her. Similarly, societal conventions guide people and let them down. Therefore Belinda can't be held accountable for what happens to her because the sylphs are responsible. In the same way , societal conventions are to blame for the stupid roles women have to play."

6a. Pope's Epistle to a Lady claims that all characters of women can be summarized by two of their constant ruling passions: love or pleasure, and love of sway. What makes this claim interesting?

Same two traits can characterize men; since one is a means (pleasure) to the other as end (sway) Pope may shrink a scant two traits down to really only one: women seek power.

6b. Though the poems are very different in genre, what is the strong structural similarity between Pope's Epistle to a Lady and Anne Finch's ode to spleen?

Both use the tour through the portrait gallery as the main way to order the poem's progression through its satiric targets.

6c How does Epistle to a Lady begin? To what crucial event does Pope allude in his opening lines? Pope paraphrases what he claims Martha Blount said about women's having no character at all. Alludes to the Fall of Man from Eden.

7a. Cowley does not define his Ode of Wit as either a Pindaric or Horatian ode. Explain briefly which kind of ode you think it resembles more.

Pindaric side: elevated, difficult language; implicit 3-part structure of the Pindaric, the strophe/antistrophe/epode; at least some degree of praise for wit via awe of its power and range

Horatian side: not merely praising, no turn to celebrate the poet's genius, contemplative and philosophic appraisal of the subject

7b. In the middle section of Cowley's ode, what is the main way he attempts to define or illustrate his subject?

by what it is not (can be seen as the antistrophe section for 7a)

7c. What editorial error in Demaria's version of Cowley's Ode of Wit made its first stanza even harder to read than it already is? left out a line in first stanza

8a. Who and what is Marvell describing in these key lines from his ode on Cromwell's return:

...the Royal Actor born

The Tragic Scaffold might adorn

...

He nothing common did or mean

Upon that memorable Scene

. . .

But bowed his comely Head,

Down as upon a Bed. (ll. 53-4; 57-8; 63-4)

King Charles I facing execution

8b. According to Brooks and Penn Warren, is it possible to know with certainty Marvell's attitude toward Cromwell? no. the language is inherently ambiguous, between praise and condemnation, or between degrees of praise for Cromwell and his enemy Charles

8c What are some traits of Marvell's poem to Cromwell that make it recognizable as an ode? Has the word ode in the title; elevated, difficult language and style; continuous focus on one subject of importance; part of the subtle critique of Cromwell based on his having reversed the proper plot of the Horatian ode by moving from retreat early in life, to active political engagement and turmoil later in life

9a. Why does Dryden link Anne Killigrew's life and work to what he saw as the degraded state of the arts in his time?

"He feels as if she is a sort of virginal sacrifice on the altar that can redeem the faltering state of the art. As a person she was pure and as an artist she had talent (albeit immature talent). This innocence made her a candidate for an 'artistic' sacrifice."

9b. Dryden evaluates Killigrew's skill in the "sister arts." What are they?

poetry and painting

9c. Dryden does not entitle his ode to Killigrew either a Pindaric or Horatian ode. Explain briefly which kind of ode you think it resembles more.

Pindaric side: elevated, high style; builds subject into national prominence and importance; potential 3-part structure as her pure arts (strophe)/ degraded arts (antistrophe)/ sacrifice and redemption (epode); degree of praise for her talents

Horatian - not much on retreat, but contemplative and philosophical about the state of the arts; no explicit 3-part structure

10a. What kind of ode is epitomized by this stanza from Carter's ode to melancholy:

I from the busy crowd retire,

To court the objects that inspire

Thy philosophic dream. (ll. 10-12).

Horatian

10b Although spleen and melancholy may be very close cousins, what differences do you see in Finch's attitude toward her subject and Carter's toward hers?

Finch: spleen is all-controlling, inescapable, effects art but by degrading it towards satire's jaundiced world view

Carter: melancholy as attractive as it is dangerous, but its seductive snare is escapable via the solace of religion

10c Why is the subject of religion crucial to Carter's meditation on melancholy?

"Melancholy leads to a state in which a person is receptive to religion. By being melancholic a person appreciates death and prepares herself/himself for death by repenting and seeking the comfort of religion. Therefore, melancholy leads to religious awakening."

Bonus (8pts): Mary Leapor's "An Epistle to a Lady" has "Mira" directly address her "dear Madam" (l. 1) in the center of the poem, saying, "Yet let me still, ah! let me grasp a Friend: / And when each Joy, when each loved Object flies, / Be you the last that leaves my closing Eyes" (ll. 42-4). How might this serve as an implicit criticism of Pope's attitude to women in his Epistle to a Lady?

"Pope spends a great deal of time painting pictures of women who are vain, greedy, power-hungry, lustful, and self-centered. Leapor has Mira show true affection and loyalty to her "dear Madam." These lines suggest that as Mira approaches death, all the earthly obejects will be unimportant to her. Mira is acknowledging that the things that Pope suggests are not as important as this friendship/relationship is to this woman. This is a very different portrayal of women than Pope made and suggests that Leapor felt that women are not motivated by superficial things but are thoughtful, loyal and intelligent beings who recognize the hidden values in the soul as friendship, family, and human relationship."