Unit 2
Information on Myth, Legend and Folktales.
The terms legend and folktale are sometimes used interchangeably with myth. Technically, however, these are not the same. How should we distinguish them? Donna Rosenberg, in her book Folklore, Myth, and Legends: A World Perspective, offers some useful guidelines:
A myth is a sacred story from the past. It may explain the origin of the universe and of life, or it may express its culture's moral values in human terms. Myths concern the powers who control the human world and the relationship between those powers and human beings. Although myths are religious in their origin and function, they may also be the earliest form of history, science, or philosophy...
A folktale is a story that, in its plot, is pure fiction and that has no particular location in either time or space. However, despite its elements of fantasy, a folktale is actually a symbolic way of presenting the different means by which human beings cope with the world in which they live. Folktales concern people -- either royalty or common folk -- or animals who speak and act like people...
A legend is a story from the past about a subject that was, or is believed to have been, historical. Legends concern people, places, and events. Usually, the subject is a saint, a king, a hero, a famous person, or a war. A legend is always associated with a particular place and a particular time in history.
Go to Canadian Indian Legends
Go to link to the idigenous people of Canada
Go to British myths and legends
Go to Deminan and the Turtle.
Go to myths of South East Asia
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Unit 3
Information on Beowulf
.....The Historical Background of Beowulf....
"Hw�t! We Gardena in geardagum, �eodcyninga, �rym gefrunon, hu �a ��elingas ellen fremedon."
"listen! The fame of Danish kings in days gone by, the daring feats worked by those heroes are well known to us."
The Setting of Beowulf... Beowulf is set in Denmark and Sweden during the sixth century. Most of the principal action takes place in Geatland (broadly speaking this is the part of Sweden south of Lake V�ttern) and the Danish island of Sjaelland (Zealand). However, the frequent digressions in the poem considerably extend the poem's geography. There are parts that involve a number of small kingdoms and tribes situated in central Sweden (the Swedes), as well as action in the rest of Denmark, northern Germany, Poland and the Low Countries.
Beowulf's encounter with Grendel takes place in King Hrothgar's hall of Heorot 'of whose splendours men would always speak'. It is known that at this time the Danish kings had their seat of power at Lejre on the Danish island of Sjaelland. Archaeologists working at Lejre have found traces of a series of great halls of exceptional size and splendour which first appear in the fifth or sixth century (the time at which Beowulf is set) and continue well into the 'Viking Age.' One of these early halls could well have been the 'real' Heorot.
Go to links on legend of Beowulf.
Go to link on oral portions of Beowulf
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Unit 4
Information on The Arthurian legend in literature...
The earliest full stories concerning King Arthur and his exploits appear to be the little known Welsh tales of "Culhwch and Olwen" and the "Dream of Rhonabwy". Though dating from before the 11th century, these two stories became a late attachment to a collection of Welsh mythological tales taken from the 14th century White Book of Rhydderch and Red Book of Hergest. Together, they are known as the "Mabinogion": an introduction for aspiring poets. Though the stories have a mythological slant, a certain amount of bardic poetic license is to be expected. Their background, however, is clearly an unfamiliar Dark Age society that gives us some idea of what the real Arthur was probably like.
The much-maligned Geoffrey of Monmouth, Archdeacon of Monmouth and later Bishop of St. Asaphs, first popularized King Arthur's story, around 1139, in his "History of the Kings of Britain". Though he was writing some six hundred years after Arthur's death, there is no reason to suppose that Geoffrey's history was "made up...from an inordinate love of lying" as both contemporary and modern historians almost universally insist. Geoffrey claimed he had taken most of his information from an earlier British source, unknown to us today: and why not? The early portion of his history clearly relates the mythology of the Celtic peoples and the stories of their Gods, whom his source had turned into early Kings: Bladud, Leir, Belenus, Brennius and so on. Later, however, he turns to real history. From the time of Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain in 55 bc, which both Geoffrey and the great man himself relate at great length, we can no longer be sure that the Archdeacon is reciting mere legend. Much of his information has corroborative historical sources like this. Who is to say that everything he tells us, from then on, is not pure fact? Furthermore, Geoffrey was the only source to hail the existence of King Tenvantius of Britain, until modern archaeologists began finding Iron Age coins bearing his name: "Tasciovantus". What other gems of the Archdeacon's history have been dismissed by today's historians?
It was the French medieval poet, Chr�tien de Troyes, however who, not long after Geoffrey, introduced us to most of the characters and tales that we now think of as an integral part of the Arthurian story. He specialized in tales of Arthurian courtly love and thus brought us: Erec & Enid (1160), Lancelot (c.1162), Clig�s (1164), Yvain (c.1170) and the Count of the Grail (also known as Perceval) (1180). He transformed the names of Geoffrey's characters from Welsh to the medieval French used today. It was Chr�tien and those who followed him who distorted the Arthurian story, so that the true historical Arthur became lost in an amalgam of Celtic myth and literary fantasy. For example, neither Lancelot nor the Holy Grail were part of the Arthurian legend before Chr�tien came along. Both do have origins in early Celtic myth, but there is little justification for including them in Arthur's story.
During the early 13th century, the anonymous Vulgate Cycle further embellished the Arthurian stories. This collection of romantic prose was apparently put together by Cistercian clerics between 1215 and 1235, some say at the instigation of their founder, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. The vast work consists of the Prose Lancelot, Queste del Sainte Graal, Estoire del Sainte Graal, Mort Artu and Vulgate Merlin. It is particularly noted for introducing the idea that Mordred was the incestuous son of King Arthur.
Sir Thomas Malory's 15th century work, "Le Morte d'Arthur" is, perhaps, better known than Geoffrey or Chr�tien. He took their stories and retold them with an epic unity, creating the Romantic Age of Chivalry. With one stroke of his pen, he transformed Arthur's Court from Dark Age obscurity to the height of medieval pageantry. Being written in English and printed by Caxton, "Le Morte d'Arthur" was instantly available to the masses, and it remains highly popular, even today, as a classic work of literature. Malory's work, however, is just that: a work of literature. There is little history left amongst his pages.
Arthur's modern popularity owes much to his re-emergence during the Victorian Age at the hands of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. His huge poetic elegy entitled "Idylls of the King" led to a resurgence in interest in this early monarch, as reflected in much of the pre-Raph�lite art of the time. The fascination is still going strong today. However, modern Arthurian students have become much more critical of the romantic picture woven by many of these literary greats. Nowadays, we tend to be much more interested in the real Arthur, drawing upon the Mabinogion, Geoffrey and beyond, to examine historical sources that may just show us a glimpse of the truth behind this strangely compelling character.
Go to Arthurian Romance link
Go to link for Arthurian studies
Go to Thomas Mallory page
Go to link on various family trees of Arthur
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Unit 5
Information on Satire...
III. Louis Carroll's, Through The Looking Glass and Alice in Wonerland...
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll, was a man of diverse interests - in mathematics, logic, photgraphy, art, theater, religion, medicine, and science. He was happiest in the company of children for whom he created puzzles, clever games, and charming letters.
As all Carroll admirers know, his book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865), became an immediate success and has since been translated into more than eighty languages. The equally popular sequel "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There", was published in 1872.
The "Alice" books are but one example of his wide ranging authorship. "The Hunting of the Snark", a classic nonsense epic (1876) and "Euclid and His Modern Rivals", a rare example of humorous work concerning mathematics, still entice and intrigue today's students. "Sylvie and Bruno", published toward the end of his life contains startling ideas including an 1889 description of weightlessness.
The humor, sparkling wit and genius of this Victorian Englishman have lasted for more than a century. His books are among the most quoted works in the English
language, and his influence (with that of his illustrator, Sir John Tenniel) can be seen everywhere, from the world of advertising to that of atomic physics.
A Game of Words: the Ambiguities of Language in Through the
Looking-Glass (Katie Krauskopf)
"So here's a question for you. How old did you say you were?" Alice made a short calculation and said, "Seven years and six months." "Wrong!" Humpty Dumpty exclaimed triumphantly. "You never said a word like it!" "I thought you meant 'How old are you?'" Alice explained. "If I'd meant that, I'd have said it," said Humpty Dumpty (Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking-Glass).
The games begin immediately for Alice when she encounters Humpty Dumpty during her Looking-Glass wanderings. What exactly are these so-called games that Carroll invents? They are the games that can be played with the ambiguities of language.
Humpty Dumpty greatly frustrates Alice by toying with the double meaning of the question "how old did you say you were?", presenting Alice with a question she had not thought she had been asked. A similar circumstance occurs just before Alice first
meets Humpty Dumpty. In this situation, it is Alice who uses the ambiguous nature of language to her advantage. "And how exactly like an egg he is!" she said aloud... "It's very provoking," Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence..."to be called an egg-very!" "I said you looked like an egg, Sir" (Through the Looking-Glass) In using ambiguous language, authors such as Carroll present a broad spectrum of emotions to their readers. It is a device that can serve to frustrate, humor or instill empathy.
"The decade of the 1860s was also the signal decade of the new philology in England. Philological discussion connected, in the popular mind, with a sense of
breakthrough in many other historical and comparative disciplines" (Dennis Taylor. Hardy's literary Language and Victorian Philology. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1993. p.97). This quest to establish the authentic meaning of written texts and documents perhaps sheds some light on why Carroll was so fond
of playing with language. Whether he was doing so in order to prove a point about the difficulties surrounding that quest, or if it was simply just a device that he thought effective is a difficult question to answer.
Go to multimedia version of Alice in Wonderland
Go to Lewis Carroll link.
Go to Lewis Carroll link.
IV. George Benard Shaw, Pygmalion.
In Roman mythology, Pygmalion was a sculptor and a king of Cyprus. He hated women and resolved never to marry. He worked, for many months on a statue of a beautiful woman, and he eventually fell madly in love with it. Modern day equivalents of Pygmalion would include the film 'Pretty Woman' where a rich man tries to make a prostitute become a lady and Raymond Briggs' 'The Snowman' where a boy makes his creation of a snowman come to life.
Heartbroken, because the statue remained lifeless and could not respond to his caresses, Pygmalion prayed to Venus (Aphrodite), goddess of love, to send him a maiden
like his statue. The goddess answered his prayer by endowing the statue with life. The maiden, whom Pygmalion called Galatea, returned his love and bore him a son,
Paphos. Pygmalion is also of course the title of the play by George Bernard Shaw. And Shaw's play was the basis for the musical 'My Fair Lady'. The central theme of this
story is that one person, Professor Higgins, by his effort and will, attempts to transform another, the flower girl, Eliza Doolittle.
In Shaw's Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle explains one of the core problems to Colonel Pickering: 'You see, really and truly, apart from the things that anyone can pick up (the
dressing and the proper way of speaking and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves but how she is treated. I shall always be a
flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me like a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady,
and always will.'
For Everything You Could Possibly Want to Know About GBS .
GBS 1856 to 1950 In his own words, Shaw said he was a writing machine. He wrote 65 plays & was an avid pamphleteer writing on such subjects as Drama, Women & Feminism, Stimulants, Vivisection, Natural Selection, Music, Marriage, Capital Punishment, The Soviet Union. The list is almost endless. We have chosen 15 of
these Subjects for you to collect, on Info Subject page. Shaw took an active role in the productions of his plays & made sure that not a single word was added or taken out. He was adamant about each vowel being pronounced correctly & not forced. Apart from writing, Shaw loved to speak on the radio. The musical Irish tone perfectly exubing his daring wit. What the audience perceived as a joke, Shaw actually meant. He used comedy as a way of translating what he seriously thought about society & it worked. People of all social classes stood up & took note, many of them taking an active role to improve the social structure. Bernard Shaw was a sensative man who looked upon poverty & social injustice in disbelief. To Shaw, all living things, human or animal were equals & should be treated with equal respect. In his world all humans (men & women), (rich & poor), were equals & have the right to bring out the best in themselves, no matter what class you were born into. Even so long after his death in 1950 at the age of 94,Shaw's influnce is still with us & his contribution making it's way in our society.
Go to Shaw link
Go to Shaw link.
V. Twentieth Century Satire...
Satire�a term applied to any work of literature or art whose objective is ridicule. It is more easily recognized than defined. From ancient times satirists have shared a common aim: to expose foolishness in all its guises-vanity, hypocrisy, pedantry, idolatry, bigotry, sentimentality-and to effect reform through such exposure. The many diverse forms their statements have taken reflect the origin of the word satire, which is derived from the Latin satura, meaning "dish of mixed
fruits, hence a medley.
Classical Satirists�Outstanding among the classical satirists was the Greek dramatist Aristophanes, whose play The Clouds (423 B.C.) satirizes Socrates as the embodiment of atheism and sophistry, while The Wasps (422) satirizes the Athenian court system. The satiric styles of two Roman poets, Horace and Juvenal, became
models for writers of later ages. The satire of Horace is mild, gently amused, yet sophisticated, whereas that of Juvenal is vitriolic and replete with moral indignation;
Shakespeare later wrote Horatian satire and Jonathan Swift wrote Juvenalian satire.
In the 18th century, Swift, echoes Juvenal's savage indignation. In Gulliver's Travels (1726), Swift exposes humanity in all its baseness and cruelty.
In the 19th century, satire gave way to a more gentle form of criticism. Manners and morals were still ridiculed but usually in the framework of a longer work, such as a novel. However, satire can be found in the poems of Lord Byron, in the librettos of William S. Gilbert, in the plays of Oscar Wilde and G. B. Shaw, and in the fiction
of Louis Carroll, W. M. Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Samuel Butler, and many others.
In the 20th century satire continues to register Horatian or Juvenalian reactions to the enormities of an age dominated by fear of the atom bomb and plagued by pollution, racism, drugs, planned obsolescence, and the abuse of power.
Go to Twentieth Century Satire link.
Go Twentieth Century Satire link.
Go to Modern Comedy link
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Unit 6
Information on British Commonwealth Poetry Through the Ages...Below are several websites for British Commonwealth literature. These sites will come in handy when searching for representative poetry throughout the ages.
Go to Contemporary post-Colonial literature
Go to African literature
Go to South Pacific Poets link
Go to contemporary Canadian poets
Go to poetry from Sri Lanka
Go to poetry from Sri Lanka
Go to South Pacific Poets link
Go to a chronological list of poets throughout history
THE FOLLOWING WEBSITES CAN BE USED TO FIND REPRESENTATIVE ART AND MUSIC FOR THE HUMANITIES PORTION OF THIS UNIT.
The purpose of this portion of the unit is to see how the literature, art and music of a given period relates to each other. The links below will take the student to many world famous art museums and a variety of music links. The student should become aware of the link all the arts possess.
Resources
Your group may want to use more than just these internet links, including books and other resource material from your library.
Selected English and British Baroque Artists
An alphabetical listing of English and British visual artists who worked during the Baroque (ca.1600 - 1750).
English and British Baroque Artists
Bacon, Sir Nathaniel
Barlow, Francis
Beale, Mary
Bushnell, John
Cooper, Samuel
Cradock, Marmaduke
Dahl, Michael
Des Granges, David
Dobson, William
Forster, Thomas
Gaywood, Richard
Hayls, John
Hoskins, John
Jackson, Gilbert
Johnson, Cornelius
Kneller, Sir Godfrey
Lockey, Rowland
Loggan, David
Pearce, Edward
Place, Francis
Richardson, Jonathan
Riley, John
Sailmaker, Isaac
Souch, John
Stone, Nicholas
Thornhill, Sir James
White, Robert
Wren, Sir Christopher
Wright, John Michael
Go to Romanticism in art and music
Go to Romanticism in English Art
Go to National Gallery of Art
Huge image resource, subject search
Go to Metropolitan Museum of Art
Images plus research
Go to WebGallery of Art
European Art (1150-1800)
Go to Art History
Excellent research base
Go to J. Paul Getty Museum
Search for artists and styles
Go to Art Institute of Chicago
Collections
Go to Museum of Modern Art
Collections
Go to chronalogical list of British Artists
Go to WebMuseum Paris: Artist Index
Art History / Art Movements
Go to Classicism defined
Go to Cubism defined
Go to Impressionism defined
Go to Post-Impressionism defined
Go to Romanticism defined
Go to Surrealism defined
Go to The Louvre Palace and Museum, Paris, France
Go to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Go to The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Go to The National Gallery, London
Go to Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence
Go to British Museums for Contemporary Art and other
THE FOLLOWING WEBSITES WILL GIVE YOU AN INSIGHT INTO THE VARIOUS MOVEMENTS AND STYLES OF MUSIC THROUGH THE PERIODS WE WILL DISCUSS IN THIS UNIT.
Go to the essentials of music link
Go to the classical music archives
Go to classical music pages
Go to classical music page
Go to classical music navigator
Go to classical music connection
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Unit 7
Information on Geoffrey Chaucer...
Geoffrey Chaucer was born around 1345 and died in 1400 (his tomb states death on October 25, 1400). He was a public servant and as such left records behind pertaining mostly to his public life. These records document a very active career but unfortunately do not touch on his work or his personality. His personality, I believe, can be derived from his works: such beautiful, joyous, life-affirming work can only reflect the author. His public life consisted of many roles: "Chaucer was a soldier, an esquire of the king's household, a member of diplomatic missions, a controller of customs, a justice of the peace, a member of Parliament, the clerk of the king's works in charge of building and repair at ten royal residences, and a forest official. His responsibilites brought him in contact with many kinds of people, among them: king, chief justice, bishop, and countess; merchant, money-lender, and friar; minstrel, soldier, gardener and highway robber"1. Whew! And he still had time to write poetry rivaled only, in my opinion, by Shakespeare.
His personal life is sketchy. Chaucer married Phillippa, the daughter of Sir Payne Roet. References to her stop in 1387, when it is presumed she died. They are believed to have produced two sons and a daughter. There are disagreements about whether he had children. But Chaucer addressed "little Lewis my son" in his work Treatise on the Astrolabe and it is safely assumed that he was addressing his biological son. He received pay for his public work and also received annuities from the court, first from Richard II and continued under Henry IV. little is known of Chaucer's final years. In December of 1399 he took on a fifty-three year lease near Westminister Abbey and continued to collect his annuties. After this there is no more known of his personal life.
Go to tales in Modern and Middle English
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Unit 8
Information on William Shakespeare...
Elizabethan England
The age of Shakespeare was a great time in English history. The reign of Elizabeth (1558 - 1603) saw England emerge as the leading naval and commercial power of the Western world. Elizabeth I's England consolidated its position with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and firmly established the Church of England (begun by her father, Henry VIII, after a dispute with the Pope). Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh sent colonists eastward in search of profit. In trade, might, and art, England established an envious preeminence.
At this time, London was the heart of England, reflecting all the vibrant qualities of the Elizabethan Age. It was in this atmosphere that London became a leading center of culture as well as commerce. Its dramatists and poets were among the leading literary artists of the daythis is the environment in which Shakespeare lived and wrote.
London in the 16th century underwent a transformation. Its population grew 400% from 1500 to 1600, swelling to nearly two hundred thousand people in the city proper and outlying region by the time an immigrant from Stratford came to town. A rising merchant middle class was carving out a productive livelihood, and the economy was booming.
In the 1580's, the writings of the University Wits (Marlowe, Greene, Lyly, Kyd, and Peele) defined the London theatre. Though grounded in medieval/Jacobean roots, these men produced new dramas and comedies using Marlowe's styling of blank verse. Shakespeare outdid them all; he combined the best traits of Elizabethan drama with classical sources, enriching the admixture with his imagination and wit.
Go to lecture on Richard III
Go to lecture on Macbeth and Richard III
Go to Richard III Society Homepage
Go to Research exercise on Richard III
Go to Approach to teaching Richard III
Go to Who really write Shakespeare?
Go to Elizabethan English
Go to The Globe
Go to The life of William Shakespeare
Go to William Shakespeare's Sonnets
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Unit 9
Information on the question of heroism and martyrdom...
It is significant that Henry VIII, when he broke away from the Church and appointed himself the head of the church in England, should have elected to remove Thomas, who had died four centuries earlier, from the long calendar of English saints. St. Thomas died for the rights of the Church, under the then reigning king, Henry II, which his successor finally abrogated. In the 16th century his shrine, which had been a major pilgrimage site for 400 years, was destroyed and the relics that it contained were burned (although some say they were transferred to Stoneyhurst).
The shrine-tomb of St. Thomas Becket was of unparalleled splendor, perhaps the richest in the whole world. Nothing of it now remains for it was plundered of all its riches during the reign of Henry VIII. It has been thus described: "All above the stonework was first of wood, jewels of gold set with stone, covered with plates of gold, wrought upon with gold wire, then again with jewels, gold as brooches, images, angels, rings, ten or twelve together, clawed with gold into the ground of gold. The spoils of which filled to chests, such as six or eight men could but convey one out of the Church. At one side was a stone with an angel of gold, pointing thereunto, offered there by a king of France, which king Henry put into a ring and wore on his thumb"
Thomas stands for the principle of God against Caesar. Somewhere between these two points, between these respective duties, comes a dividing line, where the territories meet. A man of conscience must decide on which side he will stand. It is the old conflict between Church and State. It was on that difficult border line that Thomas was called upon to live and die.
What Thomas resisted in those early years, other men did not see or understand, but he foresaw the dangers ahead that eventually overwhelmed the Church in England. It reached its full climax when Crammer was elected archbishop of Penise in 1533.
Go to Historic account of Thomas Becket�s murder
Go to A tour of Canterbury Cathedral
Go to historical account of real Thomas Becket
Go to Becket�s Canterbury
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Unit 10
Information on The Victorian Novel: How To Read a Victorian Novel
For good historical reasons, Victorian novels tended to be very long. Such long, dense novels require more active, attentive, self-conscious reading than you are probably used to. Ideally, you should re-read, but since doing so is often difficult, this handout is designed to assist you in making even a single reading experience more productive.
General Advice:
Read with a pen in hand. Mark down important words and lines from the text, write questions and comments, take notes on important ideas, symbols and motifs. Keep a separate reading journal to record these things.
Read regularly. Don't let a novel sit too long between readings, and don't try to cover too much at a time. Both will make it too hard to remember plot, character, etc. Reading regularly also approximates the experience of the novels� contemporary readers, for Victorian fiction was frequently published in serial form, often in weekly or monthly installments in magazines.
Use the textual apparatus. The class editions contain useful introductions, notes, and background material. (See at back of your edition.)
Specific Points to Look For:
Plot: Much of our energy on a first reading is expended on keeping track of the plot, and Victorian novels are plot-heavy. Nonetheless, you must strive to be analytical even with the story line(s): (1) In Tess of the D�Urbervilles, pay attention to where each chapter ends, as they generally make coherent wholes. Notice how Hardy opens and closes a chapter, what plot lines are advanced or deferred, etc. Look for structural relationships among each work's larger divisions as well: Hardy shaped Tess of the D�Urbervilles into seven �phases� for volume publication. Why does he do this? Are there important thematic or symbolic purposes in these divisions? Think about the relationships among the various plot lines. Characters and events in one plot line often clarify how we are to interpret characters and events in another plot line.
Names: The names of characters and places were not chosen casually; we learn a lot from names.
Settings: Settings--whether rural or urban, interior or exterior--influence mood, help us to interpret their inhabitants' and/or their describers' personalities, and signal the direction of the plot. Hardy�s description of the Talbothay, Flintcomb-Ash farm, Marlott, the Vale of Blackmoor, The Chase, Trantridge are not simply adding realistic details or pretty language to the novel.
Allusions: Victorian novels are rife with allusions of all sorts: to other works of literature, to artists and works of art, to music, to mythology, to the Bible, to historical events and figures, to contemporary social and political events. These, too, are not casual references. Textual notes will often clarify or at least identify these, but get in the habit of trying to determine the significance of these allusions for yourselves. Hardy is said to have used the Myth of Demeter and Persephone as a source for one motif in the novel.
Images, Figurative Language, and Themes: As you read you should be on the alert for images and figurative language that are repeated, particularly in what seem to be important places. When you become aware of one, stop and think if you can recall any instances prior to your moment of realization. In Tess of the D�urberville , Hardy uses frequent references to nature and natural beauty in relationship to women and Tess�s happiness and sorrow. Becoming aware of such language, however, is only the first step. The real question is what is its purpose? Is there any connection to the plot, i.e. does this language provide any foreshadowing? What themes does it suggest are central to the novel, and what position does the novel take on them?
Narrative Voice and Characterization: Victorian novelists did not employ a simple concept of an omniscient, third-person narrator. As you read, pay attention to and constantly question that narrative voice: who's talking? How knowledgeable is he/she? How reliable is he/she? How does this perspective compare to the perspective of others? How is the narrator trying to manipulate me? Watch for development in the narrator, as for that matter in all the characters. Is a character's personality static and fixed, or does it change over time?
Gender, Class, and Empire: literary critics of the last generation have made us aware of the importance of what often seem to be minor references to these issues. Victorian novels are frequently about upper-middle-class Englishmen in London and its environs, also Landed Gentry on country estates. Yet behind and around these men are women, workers and servants, and an empire on which the sun never set. Be aware, then, of what women do and say (and don't do and don't say), of the roles they are encouraged to play and the penalties exacted if they don't play them. Take note of how characters earn their money, what social class they are members of, and who and why they marry (all of which items are usually described, however briefly, with great precision). Pay attention to characters who disappear to and re-appear from places like India, Africa, Australia, the Orient, the West Indies, and the Middle East, and notice what they do in these exotic places and how those experiences change them.
In short, pay attention when reading these novels to the details of their language. The novels also deal with Agricultural setting vs. Industrial setting, the rise of the Middle Class, and the urban and country poor.
Go to Thomas Hardy Society Website
Go to Victorian Web�Thomas Hardy Pages
Go to Gettysburg University Thomas Hardy link
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Unit 11
...Information on The Short Story
Go to Contemporary British Writers link.
Go to Modern British Writers link.
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Unit 12
...Information on The Poetry of War
...The student should make sure he/she:
1...restates the question in an abbreviated way within the presentation of
the answer.
2...stays on the limited topic presented in the question.
3...finds more than one example of the truth of the position taken within
the answer to the question.
4...includes proof from the work to support the position taken in the
answer. (Remember notation style)
5...has restated the position of the answer within the conclusion.
.....REMEMBER SENTENCE OUTliNE FORMAT....
I.,A.,1.,a.,b.,2.,a.,b.,B.,1.,a.,b.,2.,a.,b.
II.,A.,1.,a.,b.,2.,a.,b.,B.,1.,a.,b.,2.,a.,b.
III.,A.,1.,a.,b.,2.,a.,b.,B.,1.,a.,b.,2.,a.,b.
Remember to have a "Quote Page"
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BRITMAN'S HELPING HAND.
BRITMAN SAYS ALWAYS TAKE "HOMENOTES" WHEN READING AN ASSIGNMENT...
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links to other sites on the Web
British Commonwealth literature
World War I British Poets
British Broadcasting Website
Romanticism link
Britannia
British Heritage Magazine Online
Education is like riding a bike. At first you might fall off, but with practice and hard work, it's no hands all the way!!!
© 2000 britman@comcast.net
The Battle of Trafalgar was fought on the 21st of October 1805 off Cape Trafalgar on the Spanish coast, between the combined fleets of Spain and France and the Royal Navy. It was the last great sea action of the period and its significance to the outcome of the war in Europe is still debated by historians.