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English MA-Exam

English MA-Exam

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Dickinson [49] "I never lost as much but twice,": "Burglar! Banker-- Father!"
Dickinson [79] "Exultation is the going": Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the housesâ€”past the headlandsâ€”
Into deep Eternityâ€”

Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?"
[entire poem]

Trochaic
Dickinson [130] "These are the days when Birds come back --: A very fewâ€”a Bird or twoâ€”
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The oldâ€”old sophistries of Juneâ€”
A blue and gold mistake.
[...]
Last Communion in the the Haze --"
[first stanza and excerpt]
Dickinson [214] "I taste a liquor never brewed --: From Tankards scooped in Pearlâ€”
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!"
[first stanza]
Dickinson [241] "I like a look of Agony,: Because I know it's true --
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe --

The Eyes glaze once -- and that is Death --
Impossible to feign
The Beads upon the Forehead
By homely Anguish strung."
[entire poem]
Dickinson [258] "There's a certain Slant of light,": "When it comes, the Landscape listens -- /
Shadows -- hold their breath -- /
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance /
On the look of Death --"
[excerpt]
Dickinson [280] "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,: And Mourners to and fro
Kept treadingâ€”treadingâ€”till it seemed
That Sense was breaking throughâ€”"
[...]
"As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here --"
[first stanza and excerpt]
Dickinson [290] "Of Bronze -- and Blaze --: The North -- Tonight --
So adequate -- it forms --
So preconcerted with itself --
So distant -- to alarms --"
[first stanza]
Dickinson [341] "After great pain, a formal feeling comes --: The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round --
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --

This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --"
[entire poem]
Dickinson [401] "What Soft -- Cherubic Creatures --": "A Horror so refined"
[excerpt]
Dickinson [435] "Much Madness is divinest Sense --: To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness --
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail --
Assent -- and you are sane --
Demur -- you're straightway dangerous --
And handled with a Chain --"
[entire poem]
Dickinson [448] "This was a Poet -- It is That: Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings --
And Attar so immense"
[first stanza]
Dickinson [449] "I died for Beauty -- but was scarce": "And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night --
We talked between the Rooms --
Until the Moss had reached our lips --
And covered up -- our names --"
[last stanza]
Yeats Sailing to Byzantium: That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
-- Those dying generations--at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackeral-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
[first stanza]
[1928]
Yeats To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time: I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.
[last lines]
[1893]
Yeats The Lake Isle of Innisfree: I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnightâ€™s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnetâ€™s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heartâ€™s core.
[entire poem]
[1893]
Yeats to Ireland in the Coming Times: Ah, faerics, dancing under the moon,
A Druid land, a Druid tune!
While still I may, I write for you
The love I lived, the dream I knew.
From our birthday, until we die,
Is but the winking of an eye;
And we, our singing and our love,
What measurer Time has lit above,
And all benighted things that go
About my table to and fro,
Are passing on to where may be,
In truthâ€™s consuming ecstasy,
No place for love and dream at all;
For God goes by with white footfall.
[excerpt]
[1893]
Yeats Adam's Curse: We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by timeâ€™s waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no oneâ€™s but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet weâ€™d grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.
[last lines]
[1904]
Yeats No Second Troy: Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
[entire poem]
[1910]
Yeats September 1913: What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Irelandâ€™s dead and gone,
Itâ€™s with Oâ€™Leary in the grave.
[first stanza]
[1914]
Yeats A Coat: I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the worldâ€™s eyes
As though theyâ€™d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For thereâ€™s more enterprise
In walking naked.
[entire poem]
[1914]
Yeats The Fisherman: A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream;
And cried, â€˜Before I am old
I shall have written him one
poem maybe as cold
And passionate as the dawn.â€™
[last lines]
[1919]
Yeats Easter 1916: All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
[excerpt, repeated 3 times with minor variation]
[1921]
Yeats In Memory of Major Robert Gregory: Some burn dam faggots, others may consume
The entire combustible world in one small room
As though dried straw, and if we turn about
The bare chimney is gone black out
Because the work had finished in that flare.
Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,
As â€™twere all lifeâ€™s epitome.
What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?
[Stanza XI]
[1919]
Yeats The Wild Swans at Coole: Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
[fourth of five stanzas]
[1919]
Yeats An Irish Airman Foresees His Death: I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
[last lines]
[1919]
Yeats The Second Coming: Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
[first stanza]
[1921]
Yeats A Prayer For My Daughter: Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.
[excerpt]
[1921]
Yeats The Tower: I have prepared my peace
With learned Italian things
And the proud stones of Greece,
Poetâ€™s imaginings
And memories of love,
Memories of the words of women,
All those things whereof
Man makes a superhuman,
Mirror-resembling dream.
[excerpt]
[1928]
Yeats Among School Children: III

And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or tâ€™other there
And wonder if she stood so at that ageâ€”
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddlerâ€™s heritageâ€”
And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.
[...]
VI

Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Solider Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.
[...]
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
[last couplet]
[1928]
Yeats Byzantium: The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperorâ€™s drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkersâ€™ song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.
[first stanza]
Astraddle on the dolphinâ€™s mire and blood,
Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood.
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
[last stanza]
[1933]
Yeats Ego Dominus Tuus: Hic. And yet
No one denies to Keats love of the world;
Remember his deliberate happiness.

Ille. His art is happy, but who knows his mind?
I see a schoolboy when I think of him,
With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window,
For certainly he sank into his grave
His senses and his heart unsatisfied,
And made - being poor, ailing and ignorant,
Shut out from all the luxury of the world,
The coarse-bred son of a livery-stable keeperâ€”
Luxuriant song.
[excerpt]
[1919]
Yeats Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop: â€˜A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.â€™
[last stanza]
[1933]
Yeats Lapis Lazuli: Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
[last stanza]
[1938]
Yeats The Circus Animals' Desertion: Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.

III

Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladderâ€™s gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
[last lines]
[1939]
Yeats Under Ben Bulben: No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!
[last lines]
[1939]
Dickinson [449] "I died for Beautyâ€”but was scarce: Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining roomâ€”"
Dickinson [465] "I heard a Fly buzzâ€”when I diedâ€”: The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Airâ€”
Between the Heaves of Stormâ€”"
Dickinson [508] "Iâ€™m cededâ€”Iâ€™ve stopped being Theirsâ€”: The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
Iâ€™ve finished threadingâ€”tooâ€”"
[first stanza]
Dickinson [564] "My period had come for Prayerâ€”": "Unbroken by a Settlerâ€”
Were all that I could seeâ€”
Infinitudeâ€”Hadâ€™st Thou no Face
That I might look on Thee?"
[excerpt]
Dickinson [569] "I reckonâ€”when I count it allâ€”: Firstâ€”Poetsâ€”Then the Sunâ€”
Then Summerâ€”Then the Heaven of Godâ€”
And thenâ€”the List is doneâ€”"
[first stanza]
Dickinson [585] "I like to see it lap the Milesâ€”: And lick the Valleys upâ€”
And stop to feed itself at Tanksâ€”
And thenâ€”prodigious step"
Dickinson [640] "I cannot live with Youâ€”: It would be Lifeâ€”
And Life is over thereâ€”
Behind the Shelf"
Dickinson [650] "Pain -- has an Element of Blank --: It cannot recollect
When it begun -- or if there were
A time when it was not --

It has no Future -- but itself --
Its Infinite contain
Its Past -- enlightened to perceive
New Periods -- of Pain."
[entire poem]
Dickinson [675] "Essential Oilsâ€”are wrungâ€”: The Attar from the Rose
Be not expressed by Sunsâ€”aloneâ€”
It is the gift of Screwsâ€”

The General Roseâ€”decayâ€”
But thisâ€”in Ladyâ€™s Drawer
Make Summerâ€”When the Lady lie
In Ceaseless Rosemaryâ€”"
[entire poem]
Dickinson [712] "Because I could not stop for Deathâ€”: He kindly stopped for meâ€”
The Carriage held but just Ourselvesâ€”
And Immortality.
[...]
Since thenâ€”â€™tis Centuriesâ€”and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horsesâ€™ Heads
Were toward Eternityâ€”"
Dickinson [754] "My Life had stoodâ€”a Loaded Gunâ€”: In Cornersâ€”till a Day
The Owner passedâ€”identifiedâ€”
And carried Me awayâ€”
[...]
Though I than Heâ€”may longer live
He longer mustâ€”than Iâ€”
For I have but the power to kill,
Withoutâ€”the power to dieâ€”"
[first and last stanzas]
Dickinson [985] "The Missing Allâ€”prevented Me: From missing minor Things.
If nothing larger than a Worldâ€™s
Departure from a Hingeâ€”
Or Sunâ€™s extinction, be observedâ€”
â€™Twas not so large that I
Could lift my Forehead from my work
For Curiosity."
[entire poem]
Dickinson [986] "A narrow Fellow in the Grass": "But never met this Fellow
Attended, or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the Boneâ€”"
Dickinson [1052] "I never saw a Moorâ€”: I never saw the Seaâ€”
Yet know I how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be.

I never spoke with God
Nor visited in Heavenâ€”
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were givenâ€”"
[entire poem]
Dickinson [1129] "Tell all the Truth but tell it slantâ€”: Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truthâ€™s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blindâ€”"
Dickinson [1207] "He preached upon â€œBreadthâ€ till it argued him narrowâ€”: The Broad are too broad to define
And of â€œTruthâ€ until it proclaimed him a Liarâ€”
The Truth never flaunted a Signâ€”"
Dickinson [1333] "A little Madness in the Spring: Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clownâ€”
Who ponders this tremendous sceneâ€”
This whole Experiment of Greenâ€”
As if it were his own!"
Dickinson [1463] "A Route of Evanescence: With a revolving Wheelâ€”
A Resonance of Emeraldâ€”
A Rush of Cochinealâ€”
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Headâ€”
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy Morningâ€™s Rideâ€”"
Dickinson [1624] "Apparently with no surprise: To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at its playâ€”
In accidental powerâ€”
The blonde Assassin passes onâ€”
The Sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another Day
For an Approving God."
[entire poem]
Dickinson [1732] "My life closed twice before its closeâ€”: It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell."
Poe A Dream Within A Dream: Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avowâ€”
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream:
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sandâ€”
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weepâ€”while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
[entire poem]
Poe Sonnetâ€”To Science: Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poetâ€™s heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing!
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
Poe Romance: Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath beenâ€”a most familiar birdâ€”
Taught me my alphabet to sayâ€”
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A childâ€”with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Though gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flingsâ€”
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while awayâ€”forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.
[entire poem]
Poe To Helen: Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnightâ€”
Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,
Save only thee and meâ€”(O Heaven!â€”O God!
How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)â€”
Save only thee and me. I pausedâ€”I lookedâ€”
And in an instant all things disappeared.
(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)
[excerpts]
Poe Israfel: The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suitâ€”
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy luteâ€”
Well may the stars be mute!
[excerpt]
Poe The City in the Sea: No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silentlyâ€”
Gleams up the pinnacles far and freeâ€”
Up domesâ€”up spiresâ€”up kingly hallsâ€”
Up fanesâ€”up Babylon-like wallsâ€”
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowersâ€”
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
[excerpt]
Poe The Sleeper: [first stanza]
[...]
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!
[excerpted stanza]
Poe The Valley of Unrest: Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay,
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valleyâ€™s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionlessâ€”
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Unceasingly, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eyeâ€”
Over the lilies that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave:â€”from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep:â€”from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.
[entire poem]
Poe Sonnet_Silence: There are some qualitiesâ€”some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
[first stanza]
Poe Ulalume: The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sereâ€”
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weirâ€”
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
[first stanza]
Chaucer The Knight's Tale Character--Duke: Theseus, duke of Athens
Chaucer The Knight's Tale Prisoners: Palamon and Arcite
Chaucer The Knight's Tale The Duke's Sister-in-Law: Emelye the brighte
Chaucer The Knight's Tale The Duke's friend: Perotheus
Chaucer The Knight's Tale the lovesick's psudonym: Arcite becomes "Philostrate"
Chaucer The Knight's Tale the three gods: Venus, the goddess of love;
Mars the god of war;
Diana, the goddess of chastity
Chaucer The Knight's Tale who prays to whom: Palamon prays to Venus, the goddess of love;
Arcite prays to Mars the god of war;
Emelye prays to Diana, the goddess of chastity
Chaucer The Miller's Tale Carpenter: John, an old oaf
Chaucer The Miller's Tale Student: Nicholas, who studies astrology
Chaucer The Miller's Tale Wife: Alison, fair and slim
Chaucer The Miller's Tale Singer: Absolon, jolly
Chaucer The Miller's Tale conclusion: each man gets his punishment:
John is injured and declared insane;
Absolon is humiliated;
Nicholas is burned.
Chaucer The Reeve's Tale name of the Reeve: Oswald
Chaucer The Reeve's Tale Miller's name: Simon or Symkyn
Chaucer The Reeve's Tale two students: John and Aleyn
Chaucer The Reeve's Tale Miller's daughter: Molly
Chaucer The Reeve's Tale conclusion: proud Symkyn gets a beating (from Aleyn), loses his labor, is cuckolded, and has his daughter seduced
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale # husbands: 5, 3 "good" and 2 "bad"
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale why marriage is OK: even if virginity is important, someone must be procreating so that virgins can be created
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale last husband's name: Jankyn
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale why the last husband married: for love, not money
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale name of last husband's book: Valerie and Theofraste
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale last husband's book's epithet: "book of wicked wives"
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale last husband's book's chronicles: Delilah's betrayal of Samson;
Clytemnestra's murder of Agamemnon; etc.
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale her name: Alisoun
Chaucer The Wife of Bath her revenge: tears three pages out of the book and punches husband in the face; he punches back which is why she is deaf in one ear
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale her main character: a knight who rapes a beautiful young maiden
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale plot: knight must discover what women want most in the world
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale tale's dismay: women love money, honor, jolliness, looks, sex, remarriage, flattery, freedom, discretion, secrecy
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale tale within a tale: Ovid's story of Midas
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale answer to the quest: women most desire to be in charge of their husbands and lovers
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale who provides rising action: a loathsome hag
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale critical choice: hag can be ugly but loyal and good or young and fair but coquettish and unfaithful
Chaucer The Wife of Bath's Tale resolution: hag becomes both beautiful and good
Chaucer The Clerk's Tale location: Saluzzo-- a region at the base of Mount Viso in Italy
Chaucer The Clerk's Tale main characters: Walter, a marquis of careless pursuits;
Janicula, a humble man;
Griselde, his daughter, exceedingly virtuous, courageous, and charitable
the Countess of Panago, Walter's sister
Chaucer The Clerk's Tale moral: all women should strive to be as steadfast as Griselde by displaying the greatest patience and subservience possible
Chaucer The Merchant's Tale main characters: January, a 60 year-old, prosperous knight from Lombardy;
Placebo, his brother;
Theophrastus, a scholar;
May, January's new wife;
Damian, January's squire
Chaucer The Merchant's Tale rising action and climax: Damian is hiding in a tree at the same time that Pluto, king of the fairies and Queen Proserpina walk through the garden. May climbs the tree and has sex with Damian as Pluto restore January his vision. Persphone gives May a good explanation which is that she had to "struggle with a man in a tree."
Chaucer The Franklin's Tale characters: Arviragus, a Breton knight;
Dorigen, his wife;
Aurelius, a squire;
Student of Law at Orleans
Chaucer The Franklin's Tale plot: Aurelius declared his undying love for Dorigen and she agreed to become his lover if he could clear the rocks near the shore that could endanger the incoming ships that may contain Arvirigus. Aurelius knew that the hopeful task was impossible and thereupon contacted a law student in Orleans who was skilled with the sciences of illusions and other such magic. Aurelius set out to journey to Orleans to meet this student... who had the powers to remove all the rocks from the shore for one week in exchange for one thousand pounds. Aurelius was thrilled with the bargain and told a melancholy Dorigen, who realized that she must either give up her body or her name to Aurelius.
Chaucer The Franklin's Tale rising action: Dorigen cites several famous maidens who gave up their lives for their faith and their lovers, in lieu of giving themselves to other men, such as Lacedaemon, Hasdrubal's wife, and Lucrece.
Chaucer The Franklin's Tale resolution: Aurelius is so beguiled by Arviragus's honor that he lets Dorigen go free without fulfilling the promise. Aurelius proceeds to pay the law student for his services, who does not force him to pay his debt because of his great respect and honor for his deed. All three men had proven themselves generous and honorable.
Chaucer The Franklin's Tale denouement: The tale concludes with the open-ended question: Which of the three men is the more chivalrous, honorable, and desirous?
Chaucer The Pardoner sermon topic: Radix malorum est Cupiditas
Chaucer The Pardoner's Tale vices he preaches against: gluttony,
drunkenness,
gambling,
swearing.
Chaucer The Pardoner's Tale What is Death: Eight bushels of gold coins
Chaucer The Pardoner's Tale after he tells the tale: the pardoner tries to sell fake relics
Chaucer Man of Law's Tale Constance: The beautiful Christian daughter of the Emperor of Rome, who is sent to Syria to marry the Sultan, and then returned on a boat to Rome after the massacre. She lives on the shores of Cumberland and marries King Alla. She gives birth to Mauritus while there, but is banished by his mother, Lady Donegild. She is reunited with her father and husband at the conclusion of the tale and returns to the shores.
Chaucer Man of Law's Tale The Sultan: The Sultan converts to Christianity to marry Constance, but unfortunately takes her to a foreign land that she does not like.
Chaucer Man of Law's Tale The Sultana: The Sultana is the Sultan's mother who devises the massacre that allows Constance to supposedly return home in lieu of marrying her son.
Chaucer Man of Law's Tale The Warden: The Warden finds Constance on the shores of Northcumberland and brings her to King Alla.
Chaucer Man of Law's Tale Dame Hermengild: The Warden's wife of Northcumberland who befriends Constance. The Knight murders her and frames Constance for her death.
Chaucer Man of Law's Tale King Alla: Alla is the King of Northcumberland and is currently at war with the Scots. He marries Constance and has a child, Mauritius, with her.
Chaucer Man of Law's Tale Northcumberland: The shore city where Constance is shipwrecked and lives. Alla is the King of this nation, converts to Christianity, and marries Constance.
Chaucer Man of Law's Tale Northcumberland: The shore city where Constance is shipwrecked and lives in the Man of Law's Tale. Alla is the King of this nation, converts to Christianity, and marries Constance.
Chaucer Man of Law's Tale Lady Donegild: King Alla's mother and maliciously changes the letters of correspondence between the two. She sends Constance and Mauritius away from Northcumberland while Alla is away.
Chaucer Man of Law's Tale Mauritius: The son of Alla and Constance and is banished by Lady Donegild with Constance soon after his birth. He later becomes emperor of Rome.
Chaucer Physician's Tale Virginius: A well-respected knight, murders his daughter, Virginia, when he realizes that she has been dishonored and raped.
Chaucer The Physician's Tale Virginia: The maiden daughter of Virginius who allows her fairness and beauty to lead her to trouble. Appius lusts after her and schemes to have her raped.
Chaucer The Physician's Tale Appius: The judge who manipulates the tale with others. He allows Claudius to claim that Virginius stole a slave and furthermore claims that the slave is his daughter, Virginia. When his chicanery is revealed, he is put in jail where he commits suicide.
Chaucer The Physician's Tale Claudius: The churl who takes the young maiden from her father.
Chaucer Second Nun's Tale Second Nonne (Nun): The secretary of the first nun. Her short tale chronicles the history and life of Saint Cecilia.
Chaucer Second Nun's Tale her tale: Once purged of his sins, Valerian returns home to find Cecilia with the angel. He has a crown of flowers that supposedly only the pure and chaste can see. Cecilia's brother, Tibertius, is summoned and views the floral crown. The angel gives it to Valerian and Tibertius and they proceed to see Urban once more. Before they left, the angel urges Tibertius to cease his idol worshipping.

The two men meet with Urban once again and wonder how Cecilia can worship three gods, to which he responds that they are the Trinity - each a part of the one Christian god. The two men are Christened and then sent off to the prefect, Almachius, for execution. One of the sergeants, Maximus, claimed that he saw their spirits ascending to heaven during their executions, and he was then beaten to death. Cecilia buried him with her two men and was therefore summoned by Almachius. She appeared collected and presentable, without fear, and condemned his worship of idols. Almachius planned to have her executed by boiling, however, she suffered no burns. He then planned to have her executed by swordplay; however, again, after three slashes she suffered no mortal wounds. She was left to die by the executioner as Christians attempt to save her. She eventually dies and is declared a saint by Pope Urban.
Chaucer The Nun's Priest's Tale Chanticleer: A rooster on the farm of the old lady who believed that dreams were a prediction of reality. Chanticleer is almost eaten by a fox, when Pertelote squawks out loud and everyone is saved.
Chaucer The Nun's Priest's Tale Pertelote: Chanticleer's favorite hen who did not believe that dreams were a reflection of reality. Instead, Pertelote believed that they were signs of ill humor. Pertelote saves Chanticleer from getting eaten by a fox.
Chaucer The Nun's Priest's Tale conclusion: Chanticleer and Pertelote talk of many famous sayings and proverbs until they realize that men and women are perfect for one another. Chanticleer then goes in the morning to search for herbs, where a fox grabs him. Pertelote squawked loudly, alerting the old woman who chased the fox away saving Chanticleer. The tale ends with everyone alive and safe.
Chaucer The Parson's Tale Parson: A good man of the cloth who is devoted to God and his congregation. He is respected and blessed and tells a tale of sin existing in multiple faces. As one of the holy and moralistic men of the pilgrimage, the Parson represents the Church that is not completely dishonest.
Chaucer The Parson's Tale the seven deadly sins: Pride (the worst sin of all),
Ire,
Envy,
Sloth,
Avarice,
Gluttony,
and Lechery.
Chaucer The Parson's Tale remedies for sin: Chastity and Abstinence are some remedies for sins.
Comitatus: the warrior band of retainers that are bound to the king, in OE this band is called the werod.
Elegy: features include meditation on the mutability of the world and its institutions and a deep sense of loss or mental anguish
Heroic Poetry: they dramatize a situation of heroic proportions using traditional diction. This is a mode of poetry that casts certain situations in a particular light, which can be used for propaganda or to familiarize abstruse texts (such as the Bible).
The Wandererâ€”Themes: â€¢Transitory nature of the worldâ€”notice the ubi sunt motif near the end in which the wanderer asks where the things of this world have gone. This is a major motif probably initiated by Isidore of Seville
â€¢The quasi-stoic injunction to silence that is a â€œmost noble custom for earlsâ€â€”this is one of the main ways that the wanderers problem is dramatizedâ€”he is an earl and must remain silent, but in this changing world with those earls all dead, he is forced to consider what the meaning of that custom really is in the grand scheme of things.
â€¢Destruction of the institutions of the transitory worldâ€”what did you think that gold and that sweet warm hall were going to last forever. Havenâ€™t you ever heard of Matthew 6:19-21 (â€œDo not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and stealâ€¦â€).
â€¢Note the loneliness also, a dramatic way to explore the loss of the king and comitatus as well as to situate those customs and institutions in a grand historical framework (from Christianity).
â€¢Dreams and visions abound as the wanderer thinks about his lord or imagines a phantasmagoria of destruction, decay, violence and the overall weakness of all that humanity can muster up against the forces of time and fate.
â€¢Fateâ€”what happens to us all, called wyrd in OE. This concept of the thing that happens (this is the etymological significance of wyrd) is viewed as almost an inscrutable force of nature (though it is subject to God).
The Seafarerâ€”Themes: â€¢Contrasts land/stability and the sea/instability... worthless in the face of the only real stability which is in Heaven.
â€¢The seasons and weather are also shown to contrast (and are quite picturesquely described). This contrast is also nothing when compared to heaven.
â€¢Speaking of contrast, there is a contrasting structure here in which the poem breaks up roughly into two halves, a â€œtestimonialâ€ monologue type discourse and a homiletic style discourse.
â€¢Visions/Dreams also important here.
â€¢As in Beowulf, praise of heroic worth is shown to be an important element of society here (though worldly praise is proved worthless in the face of heavenly praise).
Ofermod: overweening pride of Satan and it is used in this poem as an explanation of why Byrhtnoth decided to let the Vikings cross the causeway
Faege: This word means â€œfatedâ€ as in youâ€™re fated to die.
Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard Thomas Gray: The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly oâ€™er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
[first stanza]
The Progress of Poesy Thomas Gray: Manâ€™s feeble race what ills await!
Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease, and Sorrowâ€™s weeping train,
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!
[...]
Nor second he, that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
The secrets of thâ€™ Abyss to spy.
[...]
Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering oâ€™er,
Scatters from her pictured urn
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
[excerpts]
The Bard Thomas Gray: [...]
â€œWeave, the warp! and weave, the woof!
The winding sheet of Edwardâ€™s race:
Give ample room and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
[...]
Ye towers of Julius, Londonâ€™s lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
Revere his consortâ€™s faith, his fatherâ€™s fame,
And spare the meek usurperâ€™s holy head.
Above, below, the rose of snow,
Twined with her blushing foe, we spread:
The bristled Boar in infant-gore
Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
Now, brothers, bending oâ€™er the accursed loom,
Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.
â€œEdward, lo! to sudden fate
(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.)
Half of thy heart we consecrate.
(The web is wove. The work is done.)
[...]
All hail, ye genuine kings! Britanniaâ€™s issue, hail!
[...]
He spoke, and headlong from the mountainâ€™s height
Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.
[last lines]
Dryden Absalom and Achitophel characters: Monmouth = Absalom, the beloved boy,
Charles = David (who also had some philandering),
Shaftesbury = Achitophel
Buckingham, an old enemy of Dryden's = Zimri, the unfaithful servant.
Dryden Absalom and Achitophel satire: The poem places most of the blame for the rebellion on Shaftesbury and makes Charles a very reluctant and loving man who has to be king before father.
Dryden Absalom and Achitophel opening lines: In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin,
Before polygamy was made a sin;
When man, on many, multipliâ€™d his kind,
Ere one to one was cursedly confinâ€™d:
When Nature prompted, and no Law deniâ€™d
Promiscuous use of concubine and bride;
Then, Israelâ€™s monarch, after Heavenâ€™s own heart,
His vigorous warmth did variously impart
To wives and slaves: and, wide as his command,
Scatterâ€™d his Makerâ€™s image through the land.
[first lines]
Dryden Absalom and Achitophel quote--fools: Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade.
Dryden Absalom and Achitophel quote--fruit: Believe me, royal youth, thy fruit must be,
Or gatherâ€™d ripe, or rot upon the tree.
Dryden Absalom and Achitphel quote--people and kings: If not; the people have a right supreme
To make their kings; for kings are made for them.
[...]
Then kings are slaves to those whom they command,
And tenants to their peopleâ€™s pleasure stand.
Dryden Absalom and Achitphel quote--Sanhedrin: Where Sanhedrin and Priest enslavâ€™d the nation,
And justifiâ€™d their spoils by inspiration:
[...]
â€˜Gainst form and order they their powâ€™r employ;
Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.
But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little, and who talk too much.
Dryden Absalom and Achitphel quote--youth and beauty: Youth, beauty, graceful action, seldom fail:
But common interest always will prevail:
Dryden Absalom and Achitphel quote--peace: Thus, in a pageant show, a plot is made;
And peace itself is war in masquerade.
Dryden Absalom and Achitphel quote--the "race": Swift was the race, but short the time to run.
Oh narrow circle, but of powâ€™r divine,
Scanted in space, but perfect in thy line!
Middlemarch Characters: Dorothea Brooke
Arthur Brooke
Nicholas Bulstrode
Edward Casaubon
Sir James Chettam
Peter Featherstone
Caleb Garth
Mary Garth
Will Ladislaw
Tertius Lydgate
John Raffles
Rosamond Vincy
Fred Vincy
Women in Love Characters: Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen
Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich
Midnight's Children Characters: Saleem Sinai
Aadam Aziz
Padma Mangroli
Nadir Khan
Mumtaz
William Methwold
Ahmed Sinai
Wee Willie Winkie
Mary Pereira
Evie Lilith Burns
Joseph D'Costa
Shiva
Parvati-the-witch
Homi Catrack and Lila Sabarmati
Tai Bibi the 512 year old whore
Farooq, Shaheed, and Ayooba
Aadam Sinai
Picture Singh
Arcadia Characters: Thomasina Coverly
Septimus Hodge
Richard Noakes
Lady Croom
Hannah Jarvis
Chloe Coverly
Bernard Nightingale
Valentice Coverly
Mrs. Dalloway Characters: Clarissa Dalloway
Septimus Warren Smithand Lucrezia Smith
Peter Walsh
Sally Seton
Richard Dalloway
Elizabeth Dalloway
Doris Kilman
Ellie Henderson
Evans
Jim Hutton
Omeros 1990 Characters: Achillea (dignified version of Menelaus)
Philoctete (a version of divine Homer himself)
Hector (Paris's counterpart)
Omeros
Helen "not a cause . . . only a name / for a local wonder."
Dennis Plunkett (the softhearted colonizer of a town "he had come to love" (2.22.3))
Maud Plunkett
Ma Kilman
"colonial paternalism inherent in their agendas for Helen"
allusion to Marcel Duchamp's Large Glass should elicit the heart of Dadaist "aleatory," "chance" or "found art" theory. It is this anti-art technique that underlies Walcott's non-linear plotting of Omeros.
Portrait of a Lady 1881 Characters: Isabel Archer
Gilbert Osmond
Madame Merle
Raloh Touchett
Lord Warburton
Caspar Goodwood
Henrietta Stackpole
Mrs. Touchett
Pansy Osmond
Edward Rosier
Beloved 1987 Characters and Quotes: Sethe, protagonist
Denver
Beloved, embodied spirit of Sethe's murdered daughter
Paul D, Sethe's lover "tin tobacco box" of his heart
â€œ[t]his is not a story to pass on.â€
White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle."-- Stamp Paid
[Margaret Garner]
Invisible Man 1952 Characters: narrator
Brother Jack
Tod Clifton
Ras the Exhorter
Rinehart
Dr. Bledsoe
Mr. Norton
Jim Trueblood
Sybil
Long Day's Journey into Night 1940 Characters: James Tyrone
Mary Tyrone
Jamie Tyrone
Edmund Tyrone
Cathleen
Emma 1816 Characters: Emma Woodhouse
Mr. George Knightley
Mr. Woodhouse
Harriet Smith
Frank Churchill
Jane Fairfax
Mr. and Mrs. Elton
Mr. Robert Martin
Mr. and Mrs. Cole
Mr. John Knightley
Mr. Perry the apothecary
Our Mutual Friend 1865 Major Characters: John Harmon, the absent centre of the story
Bella Wilfer, a mercenary young person
John Rokesmith, a Secretary
Nicodemus (Noddy) Boffin, aka the Golden Dustman, probably based on Henry Dodd, a ploughboy who made his fortune removing London's rubbish
Mrs Boffin, his wife
Lizzie Hexam, a waterman's daughter
Charley Hexam, her brother
Mortimer Lightwood, a young lawyer
Eugene Wrayburn, a dilettante lawyer
Jenny Wren, a dolls' dressmaker
Mr Riah, manager of a money-lending business
Bradley Headstone, a school teacher
Silas Wegg, a literary man and seller of ballads
Mr Venus, a taxidermist and articulator of bones
Mr Podsnap, an extremely pompous, self-complacent man
Mrs Podsnap, his wife
Georgiana Podsnap, their daughter
Mr Inspector, a police officer
Mr Fledgeby, often referred to as Fascination Fledgeby, a young friend of the Lammles
Tale of a Tub 1704 Characters: Jack (John Calvin)-- protestand dissenters
Peter (St. Peter)-- Catholic Church
Martin (Martin Luther)-- Church of England
Tristram Shandy 1760 Characters: Tristram Shandy
Walter Shandy
Elizabeth Shandy
Captain Toby Shandy (Uncle Toby)
Corporal Trim
Dr. Slop
Parson Yorick
Tom Jones 1749 Characters: Tom Jones
Sophia Western
Mr. Allworthy
Master Blifil
Squire Western
Mrs. Western
Partridge
Jenny Jones
Bridget Allworthy
Yeats Leda and the Swan: [sonnet]
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
[first stanza]
[...]
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
[excerpt]
[1923]
The Alchemist 1610 Characters: Subtle - The Alchemist.
Face - The house-keeper, otherwise Lovewit's butler Jeremy.
Dol Common - The conspirator of Subtle and Face.

Lovewit - The owner of the house in which Subtle sets up his work.
Dapper - A Lawyer's Clerk, who wants Subtle to help him in gambling.
Abel Drugger - A Tobacco merchant, who wants Subtle to assist him, through magic in setting up an apothecaries shop.
Sir Epicure Mammon - A Knight, who wants Subtle's help in making him wealthy.
Tribulation Wholesome - A Pastor of Amsterdam.
Ananias - A Deacon, colleague of Tribulation. These religious brothers want Subtle's help in minting money to help establish Puritanism in Britain.
Kastril - The angry boy, recently come into an inheritance. He wants Subtle's help in aiding him to win fights.
Dame Pliant - A widow, sister of Kastril, wants to know her fortune in marriage.
Pertinax Surly - A Gamester, who sees through the deceptions.
Richard II 1595 Characters: King Richard II
Henry Bolingbroke Duke of Herford
John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster
Edmund of Langley Duke of York
Henry Percy Earl of Northumberland
Queen Isabel
Lord Salisbury
Sir Stephen Scroope - A nobleman loyal to Richard. He brings Richard the bad news of Bolingbroke's invasion when Richard returns from Ireland.
"La Bell Dame Sans Merci" Keats: Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
[first lines]
"The Lady of Shalott" Tennyson: She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
[climax]
"Lucy I-V" Wordsworth: Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved look'd every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.
[first lines]
[Lucy V]
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem'd a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
[entire Lucy V]
"Mariana" Tennyson: She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'
[refrain]
"Mont Blanc" Shelley: The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
[first couplet]

Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee
I seem as in a trance sublime and strange
To muse on my own separate phantasy,
My own, my human mind, which passively
Now renders and receives fast influencings.
[excerpt]
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" Keats: Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time,
[first lines]

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
[last lines]
"Ode on Melancholy" Keats: No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight rooted, for its poisonous wine;

[first lines]
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
[last lines]
"Ode to a Nightingale" Keats: My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
[first lines]

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
[excerpt]

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?
[last lines]
"Ode to Psyche" Keats: O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
[first lines]

A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!
[last lines]
"Ode to the West Wind" Shelley: 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,
[first lines]
"Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" Wordsworth: There was a time when meadow. grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To mne did seem
Apparelled in celestial light
[first lines]

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learn'd art
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
[middle lines]

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie to deep for tears.
[last lines]
Gulliver's Travels "...the touchstone through which we see that Gulliver is no longer a reliable and objective commentator on the reality he sees but, rather, a skewed observer of a reality colored by private delusions.": Don Pedro de Mendez
On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer by John Keats: Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold;
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific-and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
The Solitary Reaper William Wordsworth: Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
[First lines]
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
[Last lines]
Tithonus Alfred Lord Tennyson: The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
[First lines]
Immortal age beside immortal youth,
[Excerpt]
I earth in earth forget these empty courts,
And thee returning on thy silver wheels.
[Last lines]
To Autumn John Keats: I
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
[First lines]
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
[Last lines]
Ulysses Alfred Lord Tennyson: It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
[First lines]
I am become a name;
[Excerpt]
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
[Last lines]
Tintern Abbey Wordsworth: Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.
[First lines]
Of unremembered pleasure:
[Excerpt]
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, not any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.
[Excerpt]
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
[Last lines]
My Last Duchess Robert Browning: Thatâ€™s my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: FrÃ Pandolfâ€™s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
[First lines]
A heart- how shall I say?- too soon made glad,
[Excerpt]
She thanked menâ€”good! but thanked
Somehowâ€”I know not howâ€”as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybodyâ€™s gift.
[Excerpt]
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
[Last lines]
The Bishop Orders His Tomb Robert Browning: Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
[First lines]
dying by degrees,
[Excerpt]
Old Gandolfâ€”at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!
[Last lines]
â€œChilde Roland to the Dark Tower Cameâ€ Robert Browning (1812â€“89): My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
[First lines]
Which, while I forded,â€”good saints, how I fearâ€™d
To set my foot upon a dead manâ€™s cheek,
Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek
For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!
â€”It may have been a water-rat I spearâ€™d, 125
But, ugh! it sounded like a babyâ€™s shriek.
[Excerpt]
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew â€œChilde Roland to the Dark Tower came.â€
[Last lines]
Fra Lippo Lippi Robert Browning: 1I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
2You need not clap your torches to my face.
[First lines]
112But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets
113Eight years together, as my fortune was,
114Watching folk's faces to know who will fling
115The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires,
116And who will curse or kick him for his pains,--
117Which gentleman processional and fine,
[Excerpt]
179Your business is not to catch men with show,
180With homage to the perishable clay,
181But lift them over it, ignore it all,
182Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh.
183Your business is to paint the souls of men--
184Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke . . . no, it's not . . .
185It's vapour done up like a new-born babe--
186(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth)
187It's . . . well, what matters talking, it's the soul!
188Give us no more of body than shows soul!
[Excerpt]
224You should not take a fellow eight years old
225And make him swear to never kiss the girls.
[Excerpt]
The street's hushed, and I know my own way back,
392Don't fear me! There's the grey beginning. Zooks!
[Last lines]
Paradise Lost Milton: Was she thy God, that her thou didst obey
Dover Beach Arnold: The sea is calm tonight.
[first line]

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
[last lines]
'pathetic fallacy'
The Scholar Gypsy Arnold: Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!
'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore,
Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home.
Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar,
Let in thy voice a whisper often come,
To chase fatigue and fear:
Why faintest thou! I wander'd till I died.
Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.
Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill,
Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.
[last stanza]
From the Hymn of Empedocles Arnold: IS it so small a thing
To have enjoy'd the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes;
[first stanza]

I say, Fear not! life still
Leaves human effort scope.
But, since life teems with ill,
Nurse no extravagant hope.
Because thou must not dream, thou need'st not then despair.
[last stanza]
Lamia Keats: UPON a time, before the faery broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,
[first lines]
Beowulf Characters: Beowulf - The protagonist of the epic, Beowulf is a Geatish hero who fights the monster Grendel, Grendel's mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. He is the model of the perfect warrior, â€œeven tempered, prudent and resoluteâ€ (117). In his youth, he personifies all of the best values of the heroic culture. In his old age, he proves a wise and effective ruler.

King Hrothgar - The king of the Danes. Hrothgar enjoys military success and prosperity until Grendel terrorizes his realm. A wise and aged ruler, Hrothgar represents a different kind of leadership from that exhibited by the youthful warrior Beowulf. He is a father figure to Beowulf and a model for the kind of king that Beowulf becomes.

Grendel - A demon descended from Cain, Grendel preys on Hrothgar's warriors in the king's mead-hall, Heorot.

Grendel's mother - â€œThat swamp-thing from hell/ the tarn-hagâ€ (105). She comes to seek revenge for the death of her son.

The dragon (the wyrm ) - An ancient, powerful serpent, the dragon guards a horde of treasure in a hidden mound.
The Changeling 1622 Middleton: Beatrice-Joanna,, the beautiful daughter of Vermandero, a wealthy government official.
De Flores, her strange partner in crime, Vermanderoâ€™s servant.
Vermandero, Beatrice-Joannaâ€™s father, the governor
of the castle of Alicante.
Alsemero, a Spanish nobleman
Alonzo de Piracquo, Beatrice-Joannaâ€™s husband
Tomaso, Alonzoâ€™s brother
Jasperino, Alsemeroâ€™s servant
Diaphanta, Beatrice-Joannaâ€™s waiting woman
Alibius, a jealous old doctor
Lollio, his servant, who is responsible for keeping order
among the inmates of the house
Isabella, Alibiusâ€™ young wife
Pedro, Antonioâ€™s friend
he Changeling 1622 Middleton â€œchangeling's" three definitions: a changeable person,
a person surreptitiously exchanged for another,
and an idiot.
Edward II Marlowe Characters: Edward II, the headstrong, dissolute king of England.
Piers Gaveston, Edwardâ€™s ambitious favorite.
Hugh Spencer, Gavestonâ€™s protÃ©gÃ© and successor in Edwardâ€™s favor.
Queen Isabella, Edwardâ€™s neglected wife.
Edmund Mortimer, the leader of the forces arrayed against Edward.
The Duke of Kent, Edwardâ€™s brother Edmund.

Prince Edward, later King Edward III, the precocious young heir to the
throne.
To the Infant Martyrs Crashaw: To the Infant Martyrs.

GO, smiling souls, your new-built cages break,
In Heav'n you'll learn to sing ere here to speak;
Nor let the milky fonts that bathe your thirst
Be your delay ;
The place that calls you hence is, at the worst,
Milk all the way.
[entire poem]
On the Wounds of Our Cricified Lord Crashaw: O these wakeful wounds of thine!
----Are they mouths? or are they eyes?
Be they mouths, or be they eyne,
----Each bleeding part some one supplies.
[first stanza]
To the Noblest and Best of Ladies, the Countess of Denbigh Crashaw: What Heaven-entreated heart is this,
Stands trembling at the gate of bliss?
[first lines]

What magic bolts, what mystic bars
Maintain the will in these strange wars!
What fatal, yet fantastic bands
Keep the free heart from its own hands!
[excerpt]

O dart of Love! arrow of light!
O happy you, if it hit right!
[excerpt]

'Tis cowardice that keeps this field,
And want of courage not to yield.
Yield then, O yield, that Love may win
The fort at last, and let life in;
Yield quickly, lest perhaps you prove
Death's prey, before the prize of Love.
This fort of your fair self, if't be not won,
He is repulsed indeed, but you're undone.
[last lines]
Mac Flecknoe Dryden: All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:
In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute
Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute.
[first lines]

Where sold he bargains, whip-stitch, kiss my arse,
Promis'd a play and dwindled to a farce?
[excerpt]

The mantle fell to the young prophet's part,
With double portion of his father's art.
[last lines]
Song for St. Cecilia's Day Dryden: From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
This universal frame began.
[first lines]

Stanza 7
Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees unrooted left their place;
Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder high'r;
When to her organ, vocal breath was giv'n,
An angel heard, and straight appear'd
Mistaking earth for Heav'n.
[last lines]
To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew Dryden: Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the Blest;
Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race,
Or, in procession fix'd and regular,
Mov'd with the Heavens' majestic pace:
Or, call'd to more superior bliss,
Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss.
[first lines]

O Gracious God! How far have we
Profan'd thy Heav'nly gift of poesy?
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debas'd to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordain'd above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love?
[excerpt]

There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shall go,
As harbinger of Heav'n, the way to show,
The way which thou so well hast learn'd below.
[last lines]
The Battle of Maldon: Anlaf, leader of the Vikings
Byrhtnoth
Essex coast
ofermode -- excessive courage
Godric (â€œOdda's child first to flightâ€) and his brothers-- flee on Byrhtnoth's horse

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Deck Info

Number of cards 212

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