Reading Tips and Questions: English 3702

Blake, William -- The Songs of Innocence (1789), The Songs of Experience (1794)

• We will especially concentrate on the following poems: "Introduction" to the Songs of Innocence, "The Little Black Boy," "The Sick Rose," "The Lamb," "The Tyger," "The Poison Tree," and both versions of "The Chimney Sweep.
• In your view does Blake establish a particular distinction between "innocence" and "experience"? Using only his poems, how would you define these terms?
• Blake is renowned for saying that "Without contraries there is no progress." How and why does Blake use opposing states in his poetry?
• Does Blake seem ever to espouse one 'side' over the other? Is he trying to subvert the oppositions that he poses?
• Is he trying to 'work through' oppositions through dialectical thinking? Dialecting thinking involves posing and then reconciling opposites, as in the following classic formulation: thesis + antithesis = synthesis.
• What about Blake's poetry and imagery is -- in Burke's sense -- "beautiful" or "sublime"?  Do some of his images share both beautiful and sublime features? How and why?  How, for example, would you read a poem like "The Sick Rose" in this context?
• What aesthetic similarities (and differences) does Blake share with Wollstonecraft?  Note, for instance, his emphasis on childhood, beautiful flowers, and scenes of maternal care and instruction.
• Form a list of the different themes and motifs that Blake uses in his two collections of poetry.  How does the order and arrangement of his poems transform the meanings of some of these motifs?

How do Blake's drawing encourage you to react to his poems?  Read "The Tyger" first in the plain text and then in the illustrated text.  How do your reactions to this poem differ when contextualized by Blake's drawing of the tiger?

A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757)

• How does Burke define the "sublime"?  What are its attributes?  How do we react to the sublime?
• How doe Burke define the "beautiful'? What are its attributes? How do we react to the beautiful?
• How does Burke gender the beautiful and the sublime? Which is the "feminine" position and why?
• What sort of assumptions does Burke voice about the power relations that underpin feelings of LOVE? feelings of RESPECT?
• In terms of relative positions of POWER, how does the sublime make us feel? How does the beautiful make us feel?

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

• On Burke's portrait of Marie Antoinette in his Reflections
• What strategies does he use in this portrayal?
• How, exactly, does he depict Marie Antoinette and Louis the 16th?
• What sort of reaction is he trying to elicit from his audience?
• What is specifically 'gothic' about this portrait?
• How is Burke's essay similar to a Gothic tale like The Castle of Otranto? What features does Burke's text share in common with Otranto?

To what end(s) does Burke employ these Gothic motifs?
• Why is Burke so preoccupied with images of clothing and mystification?
• What is Burke's perspective on "reason"?  What does he argue about Enlightenment philosophy?
• How does Burke use a rhetoric of natural feeling to make his claims?

 

•  What sort of images do we encounter in the first twelve lines of "Frost at Midnight"?  Can we even call them images? How does Coleridge use them as a basis for his own reflections?  Are they counter-intuitive images?
• How does Coleridge's child participate in the processes he portrays?
• What is the significance of his figure of the film (soot)?  How does the speaker develop its connotations?
• What does the speaker wish for his child?  Note the use of apostrophe here.
• Why do you think the speaker phrases his ending benediction as a reference to all seasons?  What sort of logic is he using here in his "whether... or... or" statements?
• How, then, does he transform his ending image of frost and coldness in the poem's last lines?

De Quincey, Thomas -- Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821)
 

• What does De Quincey represent as the aims of his narrative?  What is he seeking to do by writing?
• How does he portray the city
• How would you describe De Quincey's style?  How does he anticipate later trends in the novel?  Note particularly his treatment of detail, his persistent mix of comedy and pathos, the intensity and complexity of his verbal display.
• What sublime images does De Quincey portray in his dreams? Why, in particular, are the objects he depicts sublime?
• What does De Quincey have to say about the human psyche?  What account of the human 'unconscious' (an anachronistic term)does he offer us?
• How is De Quincey's notion both of national identity and of his own individual identity affected by his opium dreams and his notion of the unconscious?
• How does De Quincey 'make strange' traditional, domestic English country life?  Notice, especially, the ways in which he powerfully juxtaposes familiar English faces with Asiatic ones, inhuman creatures, and disorienting foreign landscapes.  Why?
• What is De Quincey trying to discover about human feelings?  How might we compare his project in his Confessions to that of a Utilitarian philosopher like Mill? For De Quincey, what are the conditions of happiness -- or is it really that simple?

• What is Hobbes’ view of natural man?
• How is it that a peaceful, stable, civil society is formed, according to Hobbes?
• How are notions of justice formed? Can they ever change? Define JUSTICE as Hobbes does.
• What, according to Hobbes, is reason? What is natural law?  Are the two complementary?

• See the questions for assignment 4.

What was Mill's early education like? What was its effect on him?

How, according to Mill, does analysis affect the feelings?  What does it do to our associations?

How, then, can we be happy?  What allows Mill (gradually) to recover his good spirits?

What is the "anti-self-consciousness" theory and why does Mill hold to it?

How, ultimately, does Mill modify Utilitarian theory?

• What arguments does Paine offer against Burke's STYLE of writing and his Gothic aesthetic?
• What aesthetic do he offer instead?
• What does Paine argue are the features of an ideal state?
• How does Paine respond to Burke's metaphorics of succession and family relation?
• How does Paine use references to REASON and FEELING to further her arguments?

• How does Poe's narrator describe the analytic process?  How does he imagine the relation between reason and passion, between analysis and intuition? How do these remarks on analysis compare to those of Mill, Mary Shelley, and De Quincey?
• What does Dupin mean when he concludes that the Inspector's reason has no "stamen"? How, then, is Dupin imagining the relation between mind and body?
• How does this particular view of analysis inform the process of investigation described in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue? That is to say-- what does it mean to identify with the 'motives' of a primate?  and especially of a primate that performs inhuman violence?

 

Pope, Alexander -- An Essay on Man (1733)

• How do the formal features of the poem -- especially its use of the heroic couplet -- add to its overall effect?
• How do diction and prosody contribute to a particular image of the world in An Essay on Man?
• How does Pope use the rhetorical technique of antithesis to make certain claims?
• What different visions of the "scene of man" (1.6) -- the human environment -- does Pope offer us?  What sense can we make of this variability?
• What standards for human conduct does Pope offer? What does he see as the place of man?
• How does the Essay on Man treat human knowledge, reason, and science?
• What, according to Pope, is the relation of knowledge to power and mastery?
• What is the relation between reason and passion?
• Pope offers us a model of the world (terrestrial and extraterrestial) as a great chain of being.  What are the social, political, and ethical implications of this model?
• What is GOOD about the world as Pope sees it?
• Why is the natural equal to the good, according to Pope?
• How do you read the following line: "Whatever IS, is RIGHT"(1.292).
• Compare the aesthetics of An Essay on Man to those of "The Lady's Dressing Room."  (We know that Swift and Pope were good friends and frequently read each other's work.)

Rochester -- "A Satyr against Mankind" (1679)

• What is Rochester's view of reason and of humanity?  (Note his treatment of humans in relation to animals and machines.)
• How do his remarks compare to Hobbes on this issue?  Would you consider Rochester a Hobbesian? Why or why not?
• What sorts of rhetorical tactics does Rochester use to drive his satire home?  That is to say, how does he cause his reader to react to his propositions?  (Who does he even imagine his audience to be?)
• Based on your reaction to this poem, come up with a working definition of satire.  What, exactly, does satire DO to its readers?
• Concentrate especially on Rochester's parodic treatment of animality, of 'light' and enlightenment, of reason, and of desire.
• Take a look at the following portrait of the Earl of Rochester, painted by Dutch artist Jacob Huysmans in 1665-70.  (Notice that Rochester is crowning a monkey with a bay of laurels!)

• See the questions for Assignment #3.

Shelley, Percy

• "Ode to the West Wind":  In what different ways does Percy Shelley imagine the wind?  What are its symbolic and allegorical properties?  What are its effects?
• How is this a poem about revolution?  about imagination and inspiration? about sacrifice and rebirth? about god and secular/ natural consolations? about hope, fear, and hysteria?
• What, in your view, is the tone of the last few lines of this work?

Some Enlightenment Philosophers

• Compare the views of Descartes, de la Mettrie, and Locke on man and reason:
• How do they regard the human body and the human mind?
• What -- if anything -- distinguishes humans from other creatures?
• How should we go about gaining knowledge? Which ideas of ours are authoritative and which are subject to question?  How do we know?
• What distinguishes "sensation" and "reflection," according to Locke?
• Should we begin drawing conclusions from physical matter that we observe or from abstract ideas that we have? Or is the distinction between the material and the ideal ultimately a moot point?
• What does Descartes mean when he claims, "I think therefore I am"?
• What is "Cartesian dualism"?  How is Descartes's notion of humanity 'dual' or 'divided'?
• Should we trust conclusions based on reason? How do we know that they are truly reasonable?
• Do the methods of argument used by these philosophers ever contradict the content of their actual claims?
• Are all humans (roughly) born equal? What are the consequences of equality?
• How do the reflections of these philosophers compare and contrast to what you have read so far from Swift, Rochester, and Pope?

 

• Gulliver's Travels (1726)
• What are the symbolic effects of size in this narrative?
• In terms of tone and perspective, where should we locate our speaker -- Gulliver -- at various parts of the novel?  What happens to his sense of self?
• When he is in the land of Brobdignag, does Gulliver's attitude towards power differ from his earlier perspective in Lilliput?
• How would you categorize Gulliver's reaction to the Brodignagians?  How does he make sense of their "hugeness"?  What tactics does he use to describe them?
• What are social, familial, and marital relations like for the Houyhnhnms?
• Do the Houyhnhnms represent an ideal standard of human behavior?  Gulliver appears to think so, but do they have any potentially negative aspects?
• How would you characterize the Houyhnhnms' treatment of the Yahoos and of Gulliver?
• What notion of 'human reason' emerges from Part 4 of Gulliver's Travels? How and Why?
• How does this novel ultimately represent colonial enterprise? (Look especially at the last chapter of Part 4.)
• What is Gulliver's ultimate view of humans? What is the novel's ultimate view of humans?
• What is our ultimate view of Gulliver? Does he learn anything from his travels? Do we?
• "The Lady's Dressing Room" (1730)
• Who or what is being satirized in this poem?  Celia? Strephon? The speaker himself? Women in general? Our expectations as readers?
• Among the personages mentioned in the poem, who comes off the worst? Why?
• How do you read the conclusion (lines 119-) of the poem? What does the speaker tell us to make of this poem? Do you agree with his conclusions?
• How do the formal features of the poem -- especially its rhyming couplets -- contribute to its overall effect?
• "A Modest Proposal" (1729)
• What sort of perspective on the poor Irish is Swift's speaker providing?
• How would you describe the tone of Swift's speaker?
• What are some of the literal and figurative meanings of infant cannibalism, as the speaker is portraying it?
• Based on your reading of "A Modest Proposal," come up with a working definition of satire.  That is to say, what does satire do to its readers?
• What values does this satire uphold, and how?

• See the questions for assignment 4.

Walpole, Horace -- The Castle of Otranto (1764)

• In Walpole's two prefaces, what claims are made for Otranto?
• What sort of ATTITUDE does the first preface encourage in us as readers?  How are we urged to regard the story?
• According to Walpole, what are the ORIGINS of his story?  Where does it come from?
• What does Walpole present as the EFFECT of the narrative on its readers?
• What does the narrator MEAN by his description of Otranto as a "new species of romance"?

 
• What is GOTHIC about Walpole's tale?  Consult the definition of the "gothic" genre in your packet.

• Note Otranto's use of the SUPERNATURAL. As in the following:

• CONRAD'S DEATH by a huge falling helmet
• What particularly attracts your attention here?
• Note HOW it is reported
• What is Manfred’s reaction: how does it change?
• What is the role of different props (medieval objects) in this narrative?

• THE FOOT AND LEG of a giant in armor, spotted by servants
• Can you account for the logic of Manfred’s and Hippolita’s reaction to this giant figure?  What do they think caused the appearance of this giant figure?
• Is what they tell the servants consistent with what they apparently believe?
• Would you describe their reaction as rational? As superstitious? As a combination of the two?  Is it consistent with Christian faith?

 
• THE ENDING
• What was your reaction to the various acts of violence that occur in Otranto's conclusion?
• What do you make of Manfred's and Matilda's behavior?
• Is the murder presented as an act of PROVIDENCE? or as an act of PRIMITIVE VENGEANCE?  As an act of SACRILEGE?  Note the incestuous overtones.
• Does Manfred feel the ‘woes of a parent’?  How, ultimately, does the tale imagine relations between parents and children?

 
• SUPERNATURAL INTERVENTION (Alfonso the Good) in the conclusion
• Is this supernatural intervention presented as just and proper?  Should we read it as a conservative social and spiritual force, 'restoring' Otranto's proper heir and older order?
• Or is this intervention simply too destructive to be comforting to anyone?  Is there much to be regained here?
• How should we take the final "warning to future tyrants" at the end?  Is it effective?  Is it consistent with the violence that accompanies it?
• How do you respond to the pace of the conclusion.  Is it climactic? Anticlimactic?  What about the concluding marriage?
• How would you describe the TONE of this ending segment?  Pathetic? Bathetic? Sensational? Self-subverting?
• Ultimately, what type of attitude does Otranto take towards figures of authority?
• Figures of PARENTAL authority -- especially Manfred the feudal baron, patriarch, and father.
• Figures of divine authority -- God and his secular representatives (priests)
• Figures of primitive (pagan?) wrath

 
• If this work is a 'GOTHIC NOVEL' what attitude does it encourage towards FEUDALISM?  Does feudalism, as represented here, have positive aspects? Negative aspects?
• On the one hand, Walpole certainly caters to impulses of feudal nostalgia and conservatism.
• But on the other hand, couldn't his novel serve as a CRITIQUE of feudal tyranny and injustice?

 
• What is your response to Otranto as a tale preoccupied with the TRANSMISSION OF PROPERTY?
• The role of marriage is certainly notable here: Walpole outlines a brutal and violent connection between sexuality, power, and inheritance.
• Likewise, Walpole consistently illustrates the manner in which family relations are caught up in a compelling rhetoric of DUTY and RESPONSIBILITY.
• What, then, is the 'representative' Gothic family if not abusive, violent, incestuous?
• Are women -- wives like Hippolita -- merely pawns and enablers?
• Within this framework, does inscrutable father always harbor the capacity for abuse?
• What about sons and daughter?  By virtue of their generational position, are they able to break out of this mold?  Or are they doomed to repeat (to become?) that which preceded them?

Wollstonecraft, Mary

A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790)

• What arguments does Wollstonecraft offer against Burke's STYLE of writing and his Gothic aesthetic? (Note especially her image of ivy.)
• What aesthetic do she offer instead?
• What does Wollstonecraft argue are the features of an ideal state?
• How does she respond to Burke's metaphorics of succession and family relation?
• How does she use references to REASON and FEELING to further her arguments?
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
 
• How does Wollstonecraft use revolutionary rhetoric to support her claims about women?
• Define "liberal enlightenment feminism," as it is conceptualized by Wollstonecraft.
• What does Wollstonecraft have to say about her style of writing?
• What various images and figures does Wollstonecraft use to portray the condition of women? Why?
• Based on the conclusions you have drawn from these figures, how would you describe Wollstonecraft's notion of the power relationship between women and men?
• What does Wollstonecraft criticize about late eighteenth-century familial relations (especially parental authority and the duties of children)?  What is her ideal vision of family life?
• How are Burke's notions of the beautiful and sublime present in Wollstonecraft's book?
• How does Wollstonecraft critique these Burkean notions?
• What does Wollstonecraft have to say about feminine 'delicacy'?
• What is her attitude towards the sublime?
• Does Wollstonecraft offer us some alternatives to the Burkean model of aesthetics?  Can love and respect ever be combined?
• According to Wollstonecraft, what are real "beauty" and "sublimity"?  Might they even be synonymous?

Wordsworth, Dorothy
 

• Compare the use of apostrophe in "Irregular Verses" to that in "Tintern Abbey" (by her brother) and "Frost at Midnight" (by her friend).
• How does the tone of this poem differ from the other poems we have read by Romantic (male) poets so far?
• What is distinctive about the imagery of place and the natural world presented in "Irregular Verses"?  How does it differ from that of "Tintern Abbey" and "Frost at Midnight"? How is it similar? Why?
• Is Dorothy Wordsworth talking about memory in this poem or about another sort of mental exercise?  Note particularly the ending remarks of the poem -- not exactly a benediction, but rather something else.  How does the speaker position herself vis à vis her audience?
• To what use does this poem put meter and rhyme?  How does the "irregular" pattern of the verse enable its progress?

Lyrical Ballads

• Regarding "Simon Lee": What are we to 'make up' the incident described in this ballad?
• What is your emotional reaction? How would you categorize the 'tale' it offers us (if it even is a tale)?
• Note also the last two stanzas: Whose coldness is being described? How is it returned? Why doesn't the speaker show more pleasure from benevolence?  Can you come up with several different answers to these questions?  How, then, does this ballad support a multitude of interpretations?
• "We Are Seven": What do we know about the speaker of this poem? How would you describe his attitude?
• What are the differences of opinion between the narrator and child he encounters?  Who do you sympathize with and why?
• According to this poem, what should a simple child know of death?
• "Lines Written in Early Spring":  What does the speaker here portray as the relation between man and nature?
• How should we interpret the refrain, "What has man made of man?"  What different meanings does this refrain acquire at different points in the poem?
• "Expostulation and Reply":  What is the proper way to live? What is the proper form of knowledge? Why does William sit alone on that old gray stone?
• "The Tables Turned": How do you read the quatrain that includes "We murder to dissect"?
• Who, in your view, ends up making the more convincing case-- William or Matthew? Why?
• For questions about Wordsworth's "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads, see Assignment #2.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"Tintern Abbey"

• How might we view "Tintern" as a response to "Frost at Midnight," with its tender address to an infant child?  How are these two poems similar and different in attitude, imagery, and intent?
• Note particularly the imagery and diction in the poem's first verse paragraph.  How is Wordsworth portraying the way in which memory and perception work?  Why does he repeat the words that he does?  What is the overall significance of the scene he is painting?
• Compare, also, Wordsworth's ending apostrophe to that of Coleridge:
• How does William view Dorothy’s experience? What is Dorothy told
• According to William, how is her experience related to his?  What is your reaction to this relationship?
• What is Dorothy's task, as addressed in the last few lines of the poem?  How does the speaker position her within the literal landscape portrayed here and the landscape of his thoughts?

 

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