Honors Brit Lit Poetry Test #1

religious tensions: between Catholics and protestants (and Puritans)

economic tensions: between old money (especially Church0, heavily taxed landowners, and new money merchants profiting from expanding trade routes and new industries

political tensions: between supporters of the King (Cavaliers) and Parliament (Roundheads)

drama; poetry (Sonnet, Epic, Lyric/pastoral), essays (Satire), diary entries

14 line poem, often structured in quatrains and couplets

regular rhyme scheme (English (Shakespearean) Sonnet

romantic and personal themes

a turn in a sonnet (change of mood) usually in line 8 or 12

sonnets are written in it; a line with five iambs and ten syllables: 5 stressed, 5 unstressed

born Catholic in protestant era (eventually converted by King James; became Angelicin priest

highly educated: almost graduated from Cambridge and Oxford; completed law school but never graduate

odd jobs; member of Parliament, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Court Secretary, Soldier in Spanish wars

married Ann More: secretly and at great cost; 12 children

champion of metaphysical poetry (religious and secular)

also known for sermons and essays

ornamental, lyric style

melodious sound and ton

themes of courtly love, war, honor

return to classical forms (ode, pastoral) and themes (carpe diem)

Marlowe, Raleigh, Herrick, Marvell

reaction to “artificial” Cavalier poetry

natural/conversational language used to explore introspective themes; conceit

ex: John Donne

Charles I avoids calling Parliament for a decade

rebellion in Scotland (and secret treaties)

Charles I arrested for treason and executed in 1649

Charles II goes into exile

Parliament continues without disbanding, despite frequent skirmishes with the king

Oliver Cromwell, “Lord Protector” (for life): devoutly Puritan, Commonwealth and Protectorate, Irish Invasion (1649)

Richard Cromwell: lacked authority, lasted nine months

Restoration in 1660: returned Charles II to the British throne and ended Interregnum

The Indemnity and Oblivion Act (1660): pardoned all crimes during the Interregnum except murder, rape, piracy, and witchcraft

educated: masters from Cambridge, Grand Tour

married Mary Powell: published establishing the efficacy of divorce (Areopagitica in 1644)

pamphleteer and poet: patronage and politics

charged with translating Parliamentarians’ message into Latin (and fighting with Charles II in pamphlets

blindness: glaucoma?, Andrew Marvell wrote for him

epic poem first published in 1667; one thousand lines of blank verse, split into 10 or 12 books

conforms to epic tropes: in medias res, universal (battle) and personal (domestic) conflicts, allusions inverted syntax, epic hero?

two narratives: Satan and Adam and Eve

writen to “justify the ways of God to men”

same letter or sound a the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

speaker addresses so either an absent person ormeone who can’t respond (non human object, idea, or being)

the juxtaposition of two opposing elements (used to highlight differences)

difference between what something appears to mean s. what it really means

reader knows more than the characters

exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally

how the audience feels or is supposed to feel

self-contradictory phrase or concept that contains some truth

ex: Death, you are dead

inanimate objects are given human-like qualities

play on words (words that sound alike or with more than one meaning)

repeating words, phrases, lines, or stanzas

repetition of syllables/sounds at the end of a line

something that s generally recognized to represent a certain a idea

conveys the authors attitude toward a subject, speaker, or audience

the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses

the figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point

an extended metaphor that makes surprising connection between two dissimilar things

the continuation of a sentence without pause beyond the end of a line