The writers of the Enlightenment

DANIEL DEFOE “ROBINSON CRUSOE”

Study Questions

1. At the beginning of the novel, what is Robinson Crusoe's attitude towards God and religion?

2. What evidence can you find in Crusoe's youth to determine his capitalism?

3. What are Crusoe's attitudes towards women in the latter part of the novel?

4. How many years was Crusoe on the island?

5. Do you think that Defoe meant this novel to be a moral tale? If so, what was the moral?

6. Could Crusoe be considered a "racist"?

7. Defoe has his hero practice two different types of writing in the novel. One type is the journal that Crusoe keeps for a few chapters until his ink runs out. The other is the fuller type of storytelling that makes up the bulk of the novel. Both are in the first-person voice, but they produce different effects. Why does Defoe include both types? What does a comparison between them tell us about the overall purpose of the novel?

8. Crusoe expresses very little appreciation of beauty in the novel. He describes the valley where he builds his bower as pleasant, recognizes that some of his early attempts at potter}-' making are unattractive, and acknowledges that Friday is good-looking. But overall, he shows little interest in aesthetics. Is this lack of interest in beauty an important aspect of the character of Crusoe, or of the novel?

9. Crusoe spends much time on the island devising ways to escape it. But when he

finally does escape, his return to Europe is anticlimactic. Nothing he finds there, not

even friends or family, is described with the same interest evoked earlier by his fortress or farm. Indeed, at the end of the novel Crusoe returns to the island. Why does Defoe portray the island originally as a place of captivity and then later as a desired destination?

10. Although he is happy to watch his goat and cat population multiply on his island, Crusoe never expresses any regret for not having a wife or children. He refers to his pets as his family, but never mentions any wish for a real human family. While he is sad that his dog never has a mate, he never seems saddened by his own thirty-five years of bachelor existence. Does Crusoe's indifference to mating and reproduction tell us anything about his view of life, or about the novel?

11. In many ways Crusoe appears to be the same sort of person at the end of the novel as he is at the beginning. Despite decades of solitude and exile, wars with cannibals, and the subjugation of a mutiny, Crusoe hardly seems to grow or develop. Is Crusoe an unchanging character, or does he change in subtle ways as a result of his ordeal?

12. Crusoe's religious illumination, in which he beholds an angelic figure descending on a flame, ordering him to repent or die, is extremely vivid. Afterward he does repent, and his faith seems sincere. Yet Defoe complicates this religious experience by making us wonder whether it is instead a result of Crusoe's fever, or of the tobacco and rum he has consumed. We wonder whether the vision may be health- or drug-related rather than supernatural and divine. Why does Defoe mix the divine and the medical in this scene? Does he want us to question Crusoe's turn to religion?

13. Consider the prominent role that religion plays in the novel and examine the progression of religious and political thought in Crusoe's "society."

14. What are Crusoe’s two major requirements of a good Chrisrian?

15. How does Crusoe reconcile his urge to kill cannibals with his religious beliefs?

JONATHAN SWIFT "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS"

Study Questions

1. Give examples of general and specific satire in all parts in Gulliver's Travels.

2. What significant and imaginative etymologies might be proved for the following names: Gulliver, Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, Houyhnhnm, Yahoo?

3. Can you discover any design in the various ways in which Gulliver reaches the country of his travel?

5. Compare the manner of escape, rescue and return home of Gulliver from his adventure.

6. Show that the figure of Gulliver presents both comic and tragic elements

7. While Gulliver's Travels is undoubtedly original, Swift drew upon several genres of writing for the composition of his book: namely, travel literature, the philosophic voyage, Utopian treatises and the fable. Illustrate.

8. No one country that Gulliver visits is considered by Swift to be an ideal Utopia, yet Utopian elements are found in each of them. What are some from country?

9. What aspect of monarchy (positive and negative) does Swift attempt to portray in each book?

10. " The chief function of reason, according to eighteenth - century views, was to fit a man for a happy life among his fellows." Does Gulliver s Travels always agree with this philosophy?

11. Swift satirizes the gulf between appearance and reality in Gulliver s Travels. Illustrate.

12. Would you consider Gulliver s Travels a novel?

13. Why might Swift have chosen horses to rule Houyhnhnm - land?

SEMINAR #7

English Gothic Novel

1. Horace Walpole “The Castle of Otranto

2. Ann Radcliffe “The Romance of the Forest”

 

 

SEMINAR #8

English Romanticists

WILLIAM BLAKE "THE LAMB"

(from “Songs of Innocence”)

LittleLamb, who made thee? Little Lamb, I 'll tell thee.

Does thou know who made thee? Little Lamb, 1 'll tell thee:

Gave thee life, and bid thee feed, He is called by thy name,

By the stream and o 'er the mead? For He called Himself a Lamb.

Gave thee clothing of delight. He is meek, and He is mild;

Softest clothing, wooly, bright? He became a little child.

Gave thee such a tender voice, I a child, and thou a lamb,

Making all the vales rejoice? We are called by His name.

Little Lamb, who made thee? Little Lamb, God bless thee!

Does thou know who made thee? Little Lamb, God bless thee!

 

1. What is there about childhood that makes it so important? What aspects of childhood are referred to in Jesus’ saying that only those who become as little children shall enter the kingdom of heaven?

2. What contributes to the child-like quality of the poem?

3. Why are the references to the lamb's coat as "clothing" ironic? In fact, why is the lamb being allowed to live and being cared for?

4. Both lamb and child are explicitly likened, in the second stanza, to Jesus. What may we infer about the future of the child? What will happen to his innocence?

5. Some critics think that in the first stanza the child is speaking to the lamb. In the second stanza the mature poet is speaking to the child. Does such explanation seem plausible?

6. Describe the music of the poem. Is it harsh or gentle, rhythmical or proselike, sophisticated or childlike?

WILLIAM BLAKE

"THE TIGER"

(from “Songs of Experience)

Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright What the hammer? What the chain?

In the forest of the night, In what furnace was thy brain?

What immortal hand or eye What the anvil? What dread grasp

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

 

In what distant deeps or skies When the stars threw down their spears

Burnt the fire of thine eyes? And watered heaven with their tears,

On what wings dare he aspire? Did he smile his work to see?

What the hand dare seize the fire? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

 

And what shoulder, and what art. Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright

Could twist the sinews of the heart? In the forest of the night

And when thy heart began to beat, What immortal hand or eye,

What dread hand, and what dread feet? Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

1. What basic metaphor is used to describe the Tiger? What human characteristics are we apt to symbolise with fire and heat?
2. What is the effect of having the poem be all questions, rather than a question and an answer as "The Lamb" was?
3. What questions does the tiger s existence raise about the creator? What does the change of words from "could" in the fourth line to "dare" in the last line imply about the nature of the creator? What metaphorical profession does Blake assign to God?
4. Read the lines where the repetition of the word "what" gives the sound of hammer blows.
5. Why does the author breaks the meter and rhyme in the first and the last stanzas?
6. Why is "He" in the poem "The Lamb" changed to "he" in "The Tiger"?
7. Note, in this poem, the vivid phrasing, the use of the question and the intensity of the poet's feeling; also the fierce terror.

(from Songs of Innocence)

The Chimney-Sweeper

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry 'Weep! weep! weep! weep!'

So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

 

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,

That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said,

'Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head's bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.'

 

And so he was quiet, and that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! -

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,

Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

 

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;

Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run

And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

 

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind:

And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,

He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

 

And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,

And got with our bags and our brushes to work.

Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:

So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

 

1. Who is speaking? Why did he become a chimney sweep?

2. Why did Tom Dacre cry?

3. How did narrator console Tom?

4. What was Tom's dream?

5. The sweeper is basically a slave, doing dirty and dangerous work. Does the sweeper see anything wrong with his situation?

6. From the point of view of 'experience' what is wrong with the sweeper's way of consoling Tom?

7. The last line of the poem is probably something the sweeper heard from some adult. What adult do you think would have said such a thing to these little children workers?

8. This poem has a satirical element. What or who is being satirised? Innocence, or those who exploit innocence? Do you think it is effective?

 

 

(from “Songs of Experience”)

The Chimney-Sweeper

 

A little black thing among the snow,

Crying! 'weep! weep! in notes of woe!

'Where are thy father and mother? Say!' –

'They are both gone up to the church to pray.

 

'Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smiled among the winter's snow,

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

 

'And because I am happy and dance and sing,

They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God and His priest and king,

Who made up a heaven of our misery.'

 

 

1. Where are the chimney sweeper's parents?

2. Why do his parents think that they have not hurt him?

3. Who is responsible for the chimney sweeper's situation?

4. In the poem The Chimney Sweeper from the Songs of Innocence there are two lines which seem to originate from the mouths of adults. Has Blake identified these adults in this poem?

5. In the The Chimney Sweeper from the Songs of Innocence we are given an explanation of how it is possible for the chimney sweepers to be happy. How do the chimney sweeper's parents interpret this happiness?

Songs of Innocence

Nurse's Song

 

When voices of children are heard on the green,

And laughing is heard on the hill,

My heart is at rest within my breast,

And everything else is still.

'Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,

And the dews of night arise;

Come, come, leave off play, and let us away,

Till the morning appears in the skies.'

 

'No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,

And we cannot go to sleep;

Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,

And the hills are all covered with sheep.'

'Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,

And then go home to bed.'

The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed,

And all the hills echoed.

 

1. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?

2. There are many examples of repetition and internal rhyme within the poem. Find examples and explain their purpose.

3. What do you notice about: • the number of syllables................................

• the number of stresses........... • the relationship between the two?...........

4. Who describes and narrates what takes place in the poem?

5. What do the children want to do? How do they justify their wishes?

6. What does the narrator of the poem want them to do? How does the narrator react to their protests?

7. What do you think Blake is suggesting in this poem?

 

Songs of Experience

Nurse's Song

 

When the voices of children are heard on the green,

And whisperings are in the dale,

The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,

My face turns green and pale.

 

Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,

And the dews of night arise;

Your spring and your day are wasted in play,

And your winter and night in disguise.

 

1. Are there any significant differences between the rhythm, rhyme scheme and stanza form of this and the first poem?

2. What effect does the use of monosyllables create in the last line of the first stanza?

3. Is the narrator the same as in the first poem? Are there any differences in the way the scene is described?

4. Despite many similarities between the two poems there are also some important differences. Find examples and describe in your own words the difference in atmosphere between the two poems.

5. Why do you think the children have no voice in this poem?

6. Explain the reaction of the narrator in the last line of the first stanza.

7. What is the meaning of the last two lines? How does it contrast with what occurs in the first poem? What do you think Blake is suggesting?

 

JOHN KEATS

"ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER".

 

Although Keats knew no Greek, he loved Greek mythology. When he was about twenty-one, he borrowed a translation of Homer by George Chapman, an Elizabethan poet, and he and a lifelong friend, Charles C. Clarke, sat up till daylight reading it - " Keats shouting with delight as some passages of energy struck his imagination." The next morning his friend found this sonnet on his breakfast table.

 

Much have I travelled 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 1 been told

That deep - browed 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 started at the Pacific - and all his men

Looked at each other with a wild surmise

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

1. What kinds of experiences are described in the first four lines? What is the imagery of the poem?

2. What is described as "realms of gold"? Why does the poet consider the area to be the domain of Apollo? Why Apollo?

3. Find the example of synecdoche and explain it.

4. Find the example of simile.

5. What is the central idea of the poem?

 

JOHN KEATS

“WHEN I HAVE FEARS”

When I have fears that I maycease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high-piled books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I maynever live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love;- then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingless do sink.

 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

"LONDON, 1802".

 

Milton! Thou should 'st be living at this hour;

England hath need of thee; she is a fen

Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Oh! Raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

So didst thou travel on life 's common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on herself did lay

 

1.What aspects of English national life are suggested by the four examples of metonymy in the first stanza?

2.What lines elevate Milton to the exalted stature of one worthy of emulation?

3.What, judging by this sonnet, would you say is the kind of reform Wordsworth sees as possible?

4.Why does the sound of "dwelt apart " make these words better convey their meaning than would another phrase, for instance "lived alone", which would mean the same thing?

5.What sounds in line 10 aptly echo a "voice whose sound was like the sea"?

 

 

WILLIAM BLAKE

LONDON

I wander through each chartered street,

Near where the chartered Thames does flow,

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

 

In every cry of every man,

In every infant’s cry of fear,

In every voice, in every ban,

The mind-forged manacles I hear:

 

How the chimney-sweeper’s cry

Every black’ning church appalls,

And the hapless soldier’s sigh

Runs in blood down palace walls.

 

But most through midnight streets I hear

How the youthful harlot’s curse

Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,

And blights with plague the marriage hearse.

1. Where is the speaker in London walking?

2. What does he see?

3. What does he hear?

4. This mixing up of the senses, i.e., hearing sights or seeing sounds, etc. is common in Romantic poetry and helps to convey complicated mental states. The speaker of this poem hears many things, some are sounds and some are sights. What are they?

5. It is certainly possible for a city with its streets to be chartered, but not a river. What do rivers often symbolize? What might a chartered river symbolize?

6. What connection is there between the Chimney Sweeper's cry and the Church? See the poems about chimney­sweepers above.

7. What connection is there between an unfortunate solider and the palace where the king lives?

8. Why does Blake refer to the 'Marriage hearse'? What does this imply about weddings?

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

" COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE ".

 

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This city now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning: silent bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky:

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! The very houses seem asleep:

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

 

1. What time of day is it? Will this quiet scene last?

2. Explain the choice of the word "heart" in the last line. Why is the heart chosen (rather than brain, liver, etc.) for the synecdoche? Discuss how this synecdoche personifies the city.

3. How do the repealed enforced pauses of line 6 help too create the impression of size and diversity, which Wordsworth wants to give of London?

S.T.COLERIDGE