ENGLISH ROMANTICISM (1798-1837)

Romanticism started in Germany and was strongly influenced by the political climate of the era (like the French Revolution in 1789). In England Romanticism represented a return to the old Elizabethan passionate way of writing (and to the Germanic roots) as opposed to the neoclassical period (and its French influence). It is traditionally considered to have started in 1798 with the publication of Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. Some of its main features were the importance given to imagination, emotion and passion as opposed to reason, a celebration of nature (as opposed to civilization), an interest in the past and remote settings, and a spirit of idealism, individualism and political liberalism. If drama is the dominant genre of the Renaissance and prose becomes the most important form of the 18^th century, poetry is the quintessential Romantic literary form.

William Blake (1757-1827) was a precursor of Romanticism. He is one of the most original English poets as well as a pictorial artist, and he was able to combine both talents in his Songs of Innocence. Blake wrote highly personal poetry, in which he expressed his ideas that mankind can only be fulfilled through the senses and the imagination.

William Wordsworth (1770-1885) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) were part of a group known as the Lake Poets (who sang the beauty of the Lake District in England) and published the Lyrical Ballads with a Preface that acted as the Romantic Manifesto. Wordsworth’s poetry shows a spirit of pantheism and a return to imagination and the human heart. Coleridge’s contribution to the Romantic Movement lay in a return to the magical and mysterious. Coleridge wanted poetry to fly into the regions of the marvellous and choose themes that, though fantastic, should be acceptable through “willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith”. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Kahn (a poem inspired by an opium-induced dream”) are famous poems by Coleridge.

The second generation of Romantic poets included Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and John Keats. Lord Byron (1788-1824) was famous not only as a writer but also as a romantic character, with a life full of excess (huge debts, love affairs, exile, died fighting for the Greeks against the Ottoman Empire). Percy B. Shelley (1792-1822) declared openly his atheism, as well as his ideals of free love and anarchism and is one of the finest lyric poets in the English language (“Ode to the West Wind”). He was married to Mary Shelley (1797-1851), author of Frankestein. John Keats (1795-1821) was an excellent poet, although his death at 26 stopped his career short too soon. The feeling in his poems comes from his awareness that beauty dies (“Ode to a Nightingale”, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, “Ode to Autumn”).

“The Sick Rose” (WILLIAM BLAKE)

What is this poem about?
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING by John Donne

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nap/A_Valediction_Forbidding_Mournin_John.htm (with sound) LITWEB: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/litweb05/workshops/poetry/donne1.asp

As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say, "The breath goes now," and some say, "No," So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love. Moving of the earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. But we, by a love so much refined That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two: Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do; And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like the other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.

English Prose (18th century)

BEGINNING OF LAWRENCE STERNE'S TRISTRAM SHANDY:

"I WISH either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing; -- that not only the production of a rational Being was concern'd in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind ; -- and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost : ---- Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, ---- I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me"

JONATHAN'S SWIFT'S "A MODEST PROPOSAL"

"It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms… and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the common-wealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation… I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust. …I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males… I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the publick good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children, by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing"

RESTORATION AND THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT (1660-1798)

Historical Background:
- ENGLISH CIVIL WARS (1641-1645, 1648-1649) between the King (Charles I and Charles II, Stuart Kings who overestimated the power of the Monarchy) and the Parliament (led by Oliver Cromwell), a confrontation which also had economic and religious overtones (Puritans against the Church of England, urban traders against rural land-owners).
- After a protectorate, the Monarchy was restored with James II in 1660 (“the Restoration”). His attempt to reintroduce Roman Catholicism led to his deposition with the “Glorious Revolution” (1688), which established that the king could only rule with the Parliament’s consent. A compromise was reached between the fanatical republicanism of the Puritans and the fanatical absolutism of the two ill-fated Stuarts.
- 1707: The Acts of Union created the Kingdom of Great Britain (England and Scotland, previously only common monarchs). Queen Anne became the new Queen and the Parliament of Great Britain was created. This is the beginning of the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution.
- Independence of the USA (1776). British-American wars.

The main characteristic of the literature of this period may be summed up in the phrase “From the head, not the heart”. If the literature from the past had been passionate and seen from the point of view of the imagination, the Restoration and the Enlightenment brought about a period governed by reason. The 18th century in particular is the AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT (or “Augustan Age”, “Neoclassicism” or “Age of Reason”), a period dominated by a rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues that promoted a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility. Led by the philosophers who were inspired by the discoveries of the previous century (Newton) and the writings of Descartes, John Locke (1632-1704) and Francis Bacon (1561-1626), as well as the example of France, the Encyclopedia and Diderot.

The theatres were closed by the Puritans in 1642 and destroyed a tradition that could never be really recovered. DRAMAS continued to be written and played (following Classical examples, influenced by French writers) but they never reached the literary value of the past. Some important dramatists of the late 18th century were Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) and Richard Sheridan (1751-1816).

The most important POETS of this period were (in chronological order):

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674): Poet, polemicist and politician. The first great literary personality of England. Author of Paradise Lost (1667), a blank-verse epic poem about man’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. Artificial, grandiose style.

JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700). Poet, satirist and critic. Precursor of the Enlightenment (emphasis on the head rather than the heart).

ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744). The most important poet of the 18th century. The Rape of the Lock (1712). Mock-heroic poem.

PROSE is the most important literary form of this period. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was a “Man of letters”, a man whose personality dominates the century. Essayist, critic, lexicographer, author of the Dictionary of the English Language (1755). John Bunyan (1628-1688) wrote Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) in the Restoration period.. A Christian (Puritan). allegory The story of a character named Christian travelling to the Eternal City. John Locke (1632-1704) and Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) were philosophers and political theorists of great influence. Hobbes wrote. Leviathan (1651, “Man is a wolf to man”).

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Born in Ireland, probably the best satirist of the English language. Gulliver’s Travels (1726): a great satire of human condition, four books—recounting four voyages to mostly-fictional exotic lands—each with a different theme, but all attempting to deflate human pride. “A Modest Proposal”, an ironic proposal to solve the problems of Ireland by feeding Irish children to the English landlords. Probably the best prose-writer of the century.

But from a literary point of view, the most important development of the 18th century was the phenomenon called “THE RISE OF THE NOVEL”, the emergence of the novel as a literary form in English. Some of its best performers were:

Daniel Defoe (1659-1731). A journalist. Robinson Crusoe (1719), considered by some as the first novel in English. Based on real facts.

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761). Sentimental novels. Pamela (1740), Clarissa (1748). Written in the epistolary form.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754). Comic novels, influenced by picaresque. Tom Jones (1749), Joseph Andrews (1742), written "in imitation of the manner of Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote". Shamela (1741) was a parody of Pamela.

Lawrence Sterne (1713-1768). Irish-born. Tristram Shandy (1759). Comic, metafictional novel. The book is apparently Tristram's narration of his life story. But it is one of the central jokes of the novel that he cannot explain anything simply, that he must make explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale, to the extent that we do not even reach Tristram's own birth until Volume III. A precursor of post-modernism and contemporary sensibilities.

The Gothic novel also started at this time, with writers like Ann Radcliffe (1764-1822) and Horace Walpole (1717-1797) who wrote The Castle of Otranto (1764). They were full of mystery and emotion and they anticipated the Romantic spirit.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

FAIRY

1 Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
That frights the maidens of the villagery,
5 Skim milk, and sometimes labor in the quern

And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,

And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,

Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that “Hobgoblin” call you, and “sweet Puck,”
10 You do their work, and they shall have good luck.

Are not you he?

ROBIN (PUCK)

1 Thou speak’st aright.  
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
5 Neighing in likeness of a filly foal.
And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
10 The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me.
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And “Tailor!” cries, and falls into a cough,
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,





Modern English

FAIRY

1 Unless I’m mistaken,
you’re that mischievous and naughty spirit
named Robin Goodfellow. Aren’t you the one
who goes around scaring the maidens in the village,
5stealing the cream from the top of the milk, screwing up the flour mills,
and frustrating housewives by keeping their milk from turning into butter?
Aren’t you the one who keeps beer from foaming up as it should,
and causes people to get lost at night, while you laugh at them? Some people call you “Hobgoblin” and “sweet Puck,”
10 and you’re nice to them. You do their work for them and give them good luck.
That’s you, right?

ROBIN

1 What you say is true. That’s me you’re talking about,
the playful wanderer of the night.
I tell jokes to Oberon and make him smile.
I’ll trick a fat, well-fed horse into
5 thinking that I’m a young female horse.
Sometimes I hide at the bottom of an old woman’s drink disguised as an apple.
When she takes a sip, I bob up against her lips
and make her spill the drink all over her withered old neck.
10 Sometimes a wise old woman with a sad story to tell
tries to sit down on me, thinking I’m a three-legged stool.
But I slip from underneath her and she falls down,
crying, “Ow, my butt!” and starts coughing,
and then everyone laughs and has fun.





TRADUCCIÓN ESPAÑOLA

HADA

1Si yo no confundo tu forma y aspecto,
tú eres el espíritu bribón y travieso
que llaman RobIn. ¿No eres tú, quizá?
¿Tú no asustas a las mozas del lugar,
5 trasteas molinillos, la leche desnatas,

haces que no saquen manteca en las casas

o que la cerveza no levante espuma,

se pierda el viajero de noche, y te burlas?
A los que te llaman «el trasgo» y «buen duende»
10 te agrada ayudarles, y ahí tienen suerte.

¿No eres el que digo?

ROBIN

1 Muy bien me conoces:
yo soy ese alegre andarín de la noche.
Divierto a Oberón, que ríe de gozo
si burlo a un caballo potente y brioso
5 relinchando a modo de joven potrilla.
Acecho en el vaso de vieja cuentista
en forma y aspecto de manzana asada;
asomo ante el labio y, por la papada,
cuando va a beber, vierto la cerveza.
10 Al contar sus cuentos, esta pobre vieja
a veces me toma por un taburete:
le esquivo el trasero, al suelo se viene,
grita «¡Qué culada!», y tose sin fin.
Toda la compaña se echa a reír,
.

HAMLET “To be or not to be” monologue)

1 To be, or not to be, that is the question,
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,5 And by opposing, end them; to die, to sleepNo more, and by a sleep, to say we endThe heartache, and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummationDevoutly to be wished: to die, to sleep;10 To sleep, perchance to dream; Aye, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,When we haue shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause; there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life.15 For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,The insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,20 When he, himself, might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin; who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscovered country, from whose bourn25 No traveler returns, puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we have,Then fly to others that we know not of.Thus, conscience does make cowards,And thus the native hue of resolution30 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pitch and moment,With this regard, their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action.

http://www.hamletregained.com/O_L_pages_folder/Original_Lang_Pages.html



Modern English Version

1 To be, or not to be, that is the question.
Is it more noble, to my mind, to sufferThe twists and turns of outrageous fortune,Or to take up arms against a sea of troubles,5 And by opposing them, end them? To die, to sleep,(No more than that,) and by a sleep, to say we endThe heartache, and the thousand natural shocksThat human flesh is heir to. It is a consummationDevoutly to be wished: to die, to sleep . . .10 To sleep - perhaps to dream! Yes, there's the rub.For in that sleep of death, the dreams that may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal shell,Must give us pause. There's the wayThat makes for the misery of a longer life.15 For who could bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor's wrongs, the arrogant man's contempt,The pain of rejected love, the law's delays,The insolence of office holders, and the kicksThat those who don't deserve them patiently suffer,20 When he, himself, might make his deathWith a bare dagger? Who would bear burdensTo grunt and sweat through a weary lifeExcept for the fear of something after death,The undiscovered country, from whose entry25 No traveler returns. It baffles the willAnd makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan rush to others that we know not.Thus conscience makes cowards . . .And the healthy natural color of resolution30 Is made sickly with the pallor of second thoughts,And enterprises of great energy and importance,Taking all this into account, their progress goes awryAnd they lose the name of action.

http://www.hamletregained.com/O_L_pages_folder/O_L_Scene_8_Text.html


TRADUCCIÓN ESPAÑOLA

1 Ser o no ser, esa es la cuestión.
¿Qué es más noble para el alma
sufrir los golpes y las flechas de la injusta fortuna
o tomar las armas contra un mar de adversidades
5 y oponiéndose a ella, encontrar el fin? Morir, dormir...
nada más; y con un sueño poder decir que acabamos con el sufrimiento del corazón y los mil choques
que por naturaleza son herencia de la carne... Es un final piadosamente deseable. Morir, dormir,
10 dormir... quizá soñar. Ahí está la dificultad.
Ya que en ese sueño de muerte, los sueños que pueden venir
cuando nos hayamos despojado de la confusión de esta vida mortal,
nos hace frenar el impulso. Ahí está el respeto
que hace de tan larga vida una calamidad.
15 Pues quien soportaría los latigazos y los insultos del tiempo,
la injusticia del opresor, el desprecio del orgulloso,
el dolor penetrante de un amor despreciado, la tardanza de la ley,
la insolencia del poder, y los insultos
que el mérito paciente recibe del indigno
20 cuando él mismo podría desquitarse de ellos
con un puñal. Quién cargaría con el castigo de
Quejarse y sudar bajo una vida cansada,
pero el temor a algo después de la muerte –
El país sin descubrir de cuya frontera
25 ningún viajero vuelve- aturde la voluntad
y nos hace soportar los males que sentimos
en vez de volar a otros que desconocemos.
La conciencia nos hace cobardes a todos.
Y así el nativo color de la resolución
30 enferma por el hechizo pálido del pensamiento
y empresas de gran importancia y peso
con lo que a esto se refiere, sus corrientes se desbordan
y pierden el nombre de acción.

EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE. TEXTS.

Old English. From Beowulf (8th-11th century):

I Ða wæs on burgum Beowulf Scyldinga, Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings,leof leodcyning longe þrage leader beloved, and long he ruled



Middle English. From “The Summoner’s Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales (1386, Chaucer)


Original
This frere bosteth that he knoweth helle,
And God it woot, that it is litel wonder;
Freres and feendes been but lyte asonder.
For, pardee, ye han ofte tyme herd telle
How that a frere ravyshed was to helle
In spirit ones by a visioun;
And as an angel ladde hym up and doun,
To shewen hym the peynes that the were,
In al the place saugh he nat a frere;
Of oother folk he saugh ynowe in wo.
Unto this angel spak the frere tho:
Now, sire, quod he, han freres swich a grace
That noon of hem shal come to this place?
Yis, quod this aungel, many a millioun!
And unto sathanas he ladde hym doun.
--And now hath sathanas,--seith he,--a tayl
Brodder than of a carryk is the sayl.
Hold up thy tayl, thou sathanas!--quod he;
--shewe forth thyn ers, and lat the frere se
Where is the nest of freres in this place!--
And er that half a furlong wey of space,
Right so as bees out swarmen from an hyve,
Out of the develes ers ther gonne dryve
Twenty thousand freres on a route,
And thurghout helle swarmed al aboute,
And comen agayn as faste as they may gon,
And in his ers they crepten everychon.
He clapte his tayl agayn and lay ful stille.


Modern English Translation
This friar boasts that he knows hell,
And God knows that it is little wonder;
Friars and fiends are seldom far apart.
For, by God, you have ofttimes heard tell
How a friar was taken to hell
In spirit, once by a vision;
And as an angel led him up and down,
To show him the pains that were there,
In the whole place he saw not one friar;
He saw enough of other folk in woe.
To the angel spoke the friar thus:
"Now sir", said he, "Do friars have such a grace
That none of them come to this place?"
"Yes", said the angel, "many a million!"
And the angel led him down to Satan.
He said, "And Satan has a tail,
Broader than a large ship's sail.
Hold up your tail, Satan!" said he.
"Show forth your arse, and let the friar see
Where the nest of friars is in this place!"
And before half a furlong of space,
Just as bees swarm from a hive,
Out of the devil's arse there were driven
Twenty thousand friars on a rout,
And throughout hell swarmed all about,
And came again as fast as they could go,
And every one crept back into his arse.
He shut his tail again and lay very still

RENAISSANCE LITERATURE (1485-1660)

THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE
(Some critics have questioned the concept of “English Renaissance" and prefer to speak about “Elizabethan, Jacobean and Cromwellian literatures” or "Early Modern Literature". They highlight the achievements of previous literature and question the influence of Italian Renaissance)

Historical Background:
-1455-1485: War of the Roses (dynastic war between the houses of York and Lancaster). Lancaster won: as a result, the House of Tudor ruled for over a century (1485-1603).
- Henry VIII (1509-1547). Break with Roman Catholicism. Protestant Alliances.
- Elizabeth I (1158-1603). The Virgin Queen. Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588). Francis Drake. Peaceful and prosperous reign after centuries of turmoil (Hundred Years’ War, War of the Roses)
- After Elizabeth I died, the Scottish House of Stuart took over, uniting the kingdoms of England and Scotland with James I of England (VI of Scotland) who reigned between 1603 and 1625 in what is called the “Jacobean Era”. Beginning of colonies.

DRAMA was the most important form of literary expression of this period, and WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616), the most important figure not only of this period but of English literature as a whole. Called England’s national poet and “The Bard of Avon”, he was a playwright, an actor, a poet and part-owner of the company (“The Lord Chamberlain’s Men”, later “The King’s Men”) and the theatre (“The Globe”, round with the stage in the middle) where his plays were performed. William Shakespeare is widely considered to be the greatest writer in the English language and is generally seen as the greatest dramatist the world has known. His plays (written between 1590 and 1612) have been translated into most major languages and are studied in schools and universities around the world. What are the reasons for his popular and critical success?

- He was able to write his plays for a very diverse audience. Most of his plays were adaptations from known sources (classical plays or stories), which means that his audience could follow the plot easily; they also had plenty of action (At the end of Hamlet, for example, the following characters die: Hamlet, his father, his mother, his uncle, Laertes, Ophelia and Polonius) and humour (farce, slapstick), which meant that all types of audiences could follow them.
- Universal themes, still relevant to modern-day life (the fragility of human condition, the individual versus society, love, fate, free will...)
- Several levels of meaning: the texts are clear to follow but complex to understand in depth.
- Use of language: extremely rich and varied (puns, double meanings, references, literary figures). Creator of neologisms (“excellent, obscene, homicide, hint”. It has been said that one in ten words in English was created by Shakespeare). Great use of blank verse (regular rhythm, no rhyme, typically iambic pentameter) Unfortunately, the English language has changed a lot since Shakespeare’s time, which means that his language is difficult to follow even for native speakers.
WORKS

- Comedies: (light-hearted tone, happy ending, multiple plots, love stories, remember that female characters were played by male actors: ambiguity): The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest…
- Histories (based on real kings from the 12th-16th cent): Henry IV, Henry V…
- Tragedies (heroes who fall from grace due to a fall in their character, anti-hero): Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello...
- Sonnets: 154 sonnets addressed to either a “dark lady” (a married woman for whom the author feels strong physical attraction) or a “fair youth” (a young man the author also loves). Controversial texts (Platonic love, bisexuality, literary convention?)

Other Renaissance playwrights:

o Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593). Shakespeare’s predecessor and contemporary. Wild reputation. Author of Doctor Faustus.
o Ben Jonson (1572-1637). A classicist who followed traditional rules. Characters as archetypical ‘humours’ (sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic). The Alchemist.

POETRY

- Elizabethan Era: Edmund Spenser (1552-1599). Poet, author of The Faerie Queene (1590), an epic poem celebrating, through fantastical allegory, the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. Gentle poetry.

- JOHN DONNE (1572-1631) was part of a group called the Metaphysical poets who wrote passionate poetry full of daring metaphors. Influenced by continental Baroque, and taking as his subject matter both Christian mysticism and eroticism (“To his mistress going to bed” “Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy, Until I labour, I in labour lie”), Donne uses unconventional or "unpoetic" figures (sometimes called “metaphysical conceits”), such as a compass, a flea biting two lovers or the exploration of his wife’s body compared to the discovery of America (“Oh, my America, my new-found land!”) to reach surprising effects. The paradox is a constant in this poetry whose fears and anxieties also speak of a world of spiritual certainties shaken by the modern discoveries of geography and science, one that is no longer the centre of the universe.

PROSE

- Thomas More (1478-1535) a humanist, opposed to the Reform, executed by Henry VIII, author of Utopia (1516).

- Francis Bacon (1561-1626): Philosopher and scientist.

A Rose for Emily Questionnaire

“A ROSE FOR EMILY” QUESTIONNAIRE

1.- Reconstruct the time-line of the story. Try to put all the events of the story in order and to provide dates for some of them.









2.- The story takes place in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, in the South, the setting for most of Faulkner’s stories and novels. What is the image of the South portrayed in this story? Think about the contrast between the North and the Old South.





3.- The story is told by “we”. Who do you imagine this narrator (or narrators) to be? Young or old? Male or female? Both? What is their attitude toward Emily? How does that attitude affect Emily?





4.- Consider the story as a detective story. Analyze the different detective story conventions and roles (detective, victim, setting). ‘Whodone’ it? More importantly, why?






5.- Think about the title of the story. What is the rose? Why is it ‘Emily’ and not ‘Miss Emily’?

As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner)

Cash

I made it on the bevel.

1. There is more surface for the nails to grip
2. There is twice the gripping-surface to each seam.
3. The water will have to seep into it on a slant. Water moves easiest up and down or straight across.
4. In a house people are upright two thirds of the time. So the seams and joints are made up-and-down. Because the stress is up and down.
5. In a bed where people lie down all the time, the joints and seams are made sideways, because the stress is sideways.
6. Except.
7. A body is not square like a crosstie.
8. Animal magnetism.
9. The animal magnetism of a dead body makes the stress come slanting, so the seams and joints of a coffin are made on the bevel.
10. You can see by an old grave that the earth sinks down on the bevel.
11. While in a natural hole it sinks by the center, the stress being up-and-down.
12. So I made it on the bevel.
13. It makes a neater job.

Vardaman

My mother is a fish.

Minority Texts

AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Compare these two texts from Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois and the following two poems from Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. What do they tell you about the situation of Blacks in America and about the response of African American writers to this? What about the form of the poems, which tradition do they belong to?

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, Up from Slavery (1901) Extracts.

To those of my race (…) who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: ‘Cast down your bucket where you are’— cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all race by whom we are surrounded (…) No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities (…)

To those of the white race (…) you can be sure, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty in the past (…) so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours (…)

W.E.B. DUBOIS, The Souls of Black Folk (1903) Extracts

Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the present, three things:

- First, political power,

- Second, insistence on civil rights,

- Third, higher education of Negro youth (…)

Such men feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation three things:

1. The right to vote.
2. Civic equality
3. The education of youth according to ability (…)

By every civilized and peaceful method we must strive for the rights which the world accords to men, clinging unwaveringly to those great words which the sons of the Fathers would fain forget: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal (…)

LANGSTON HUGHES, “I, too” (1932) I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll sit at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.

COUNTEE CULLEN, “Yet Do I Marvel” (1925) I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, And did He stoop to quibble could tell why The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die, Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus To struggle up a never-ending stair. Inscrutable His ways are, and immune To catechism by a mind too strewn With petty cares to slightly understand What awful brain compels his awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black and bid him sing.

CHICANO POEMS

JOSÉ ANTONIO BURCIAGA, “Poema en tres idiomas y caló” (1977) Españotli titlán Englishic Titlán náhuatl, titlán Caló ¡Qué locotl! Mi mente spirals al mixtli, buti suave I feel cuatro lenguas in mi boca. Coltic sueños temostli y siento una xóchitl brotar from four diferentes vidas. I yotl distinctamentli recuerdote cuandotl I yotl was a maya, cuandotl I yotl was a gachupinchi, when Cortés se cogió a mi great tatarabuela cuandotl andaba en Pachuacatlán. (…) RODOLFO “CORKY” GONZALES, “I am Joaquín” (1967) I am Joaquín, Lost in a world of confusion, Caught up in a whirl of a gringo society, Confused by the rules, Scorned by attitudes, Suppressed by manipulation, And destroyed by modern society. My fathers have lost the economic battle and won the struggle of cultural survival. And now! I must choose

Between the paradox of Victory of the spirit, Despite physical hunger Or To exist in the grasp of American social neurosis, sterilization of the soul and a full stomach. (…) ABELARDO “LALO” DELGADO, “Stupid America” 1969) Stupid america, see that chicano with a big knife on his steady hand he doesn’t want to knife you he wants to sit on a bench and carve christfigures but you won’t let him. stupid america, hear that chicano shouting curses on the street he is a poet without paper and pencil and since he cannot write he will explode. stupid America, remember that chicanito flunking math and english he is the picasso of your western states but he will die with one thousand masterpieces hanging only from his mind.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE AND OTHER MINORITIES

Literature written by African-Americans has always had a distinct identity in the context of American literature. Present since slavery times, its emergence and power walks parallel to a slow and difficult process of fighting for freedom, self-awareness and cultural consciousness.

The first books written by Blacks were the slave narratives from colonial times like OLAUDAH EQUIANO (1745-1797) and his The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). In the 19^th century, FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1817-1895), born a slave and escaped to the North, became a very famous antislavery leader and orator. He published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845). BOOKER T. WASHINGTON (1856-1915) wrote Up from Slavery (1901), an autobiographical work in which he tried to improve the lives of Blacks, although he accepted segregation. W. E. B. DU BOIS (1868-1963) wrote The Souls of Black Folk (1903) in response to Washington and in it he described the special culture of American Blacks and called public attention to the ‘Negro problem’. However, it was not until the HARLEM RENAISSANCE that works of true literary value were first produced. This was a movement of African American writers connected with the Harlem jazz clubs of the 20s and 30s. Their works were a vindication of their own literary identity. LANGSTON HUGHES (1902-1967), JEAN TOOMER (1894-1967) and COUNTEE CULLEN (1903-1946) are the three most important poets of the movement.

From the Depression to the 1960s three major figures stand out: Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin. In Native Son (1940), RICHARD WRIGHT (1908-1960) used naturalistic techniques to describe the social and psychological pressures on his black hero. RALPH ELLISON (1914-1994) used in Invisible Man (1952) the metaphor of invisibility to talk about black people as seen by white society. JAMES BALDWIN (1924-1987) wrote moving fiction and essays about the black problem and also about homosexuality: Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Another Country (1962). Wright and Ellison are examples of opposite stands in a debate that is always present when talking about African-American literature: to what extent must art be a political weapon used to improve the status of African-Americans or mere art, just considered from an aesthetic point of view. Following this dichotomy, one could distinguish two lines in African American literature: one that is more political and combative, which uses art as a political weapon (and where one could find Wright, Baraka, Morrison or movie-makers like Spike Lee), and another one which stresses aesthetics and which, although usually thematically centered on problems of race, considers art from an aesthetic point of view (Ellison, Cullen).

► See Classroom Activity # 22 “African American Literature”, p. 182.

In the 1960s IMAMU AMIRI BARAKA (Leroi Jones, 1934- ) led the Black Arts Movement with powerful poetry and drama. Black awareness, political use of art, the search for Black English (called ‘Ebonics’) and a challenge to white tradition and forms are some of the features of a movement that also includes other writers like ED BULLINS (1935- ) and ADRIENNE KENNEDY (1931- ). LORRAINE HANSBERRY (1930-1965) wrote A Raisin in the Sun (1959), the first play by a black woman produced on Broadway.

From the 1970s to the present, African-American writing has known its best moments with female writers like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. TONI MORRISON (1931- ) has written novels which, although with clear political meaning, are consummate works of art. She wrote The Bluest Eye in 1970, and later other longer novels like Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977) and Beloved (1987), in which she employs the dreamlike techniques of magical realism. In 1993 she won the Nobel Prize for Literature. ALICE WALKER (1944- ) has long been associated with feminism, presenting black existence from the female perspective. She uses a kind of lyrical realism to center on the dreams and failures of accessible, credible people. The Color Purple is her most famous work, an epistolary dialect novel which tells the story of the love between two poor black sisters. Some interesting contemporary African-American poets are RITA DOVE (1952- ), MAYA ANGELOU (1928- ), and ISHMAEL REED (1938-).

► See Book Presentation Guide 5.7 “The Bluest Eye”, p. 143,

Other minorities

The last decades have witnessed a vindication of the literatures of different minorities, who write about their own cultural difference and about the difficulties in reconciling their conflicting origins and traditions with American society:

• Native Americans:
• WILLIAM LEAST HEAT-MOON (1939- ), travel writer, author of Blue Highways (1982), a cult road story in prairie territory.
• SIMON ORTIZ (1941- ), poet.
• LESLIE MARMON SILKO (1948- ), poet and short story writer.

• Asian-Americans:
• CATHY SONG (1955- ) and LI-YOUNG-LEE (1957- ) are poets who write about the contradictions of life in the US for Asian-Americans.
• AMY TAN (1952- ): The Joy Luck Club (1989), a novel about two generations of Chinese-American women.
• DAVID HENRY HWANG (1957): M. Butterfly (1988), a play inspired by the opera which was then turned into a film.

• Latino writers are particularly interesting for Spanish-speaking readers, because of the interactions between the languages (including ‘Spanglish’[1] and ‘Caló’, a mixture of languages typical of Chicano culture) that we can be lucky enough to appreciate.
• JOSE ANTONIO BURCIAGA (1940- ), RODOLFO ‘CORKY’ GONZALES (1928- ) and ABELARDO ‘LALO’ DELGADO (1931-) are three examples of militant Chicano poets from the 60s and 70s.
• OSCAR HIJUELOS (1951- ), of Cuban origin. The first Hispanic to win a Pulitzer Prize for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989).
• SANDRA CISNEROS (1954-), short story writer (The House on Mango Street, 1983) and author of the novel Caramelo (2002).
• Other Mexican-American writers worth mentioning are RUDOLFO ANAYA (1927- ) and ROLANDO HINOJOSA-SMITH (1929- ), prose writers; and LORA DEE CERVANTES (1954- ) and ALBERTO RÍOS (1952- ), poets.

► See Classroom Activity # 23 “Chicano Poems”, p. 183.

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[1] Look at this example of Spanglish and see if you recognize it: “In un placete de La Mancha of which nombre no quiero remembrearme, vivía, not so long ago, uno de esos gentlemen who always tienen una lanza in the rack, una buckler antigua, a skinny caballo y un grayhound para el chase. A cazuela with más beef than mutón, carne choppeada para la dinner, un omelet pa’ los Sábados, lentil pa’ los Viernes, y algún pigeon como delicacy especial pa’ los Domingos, consumían tres cuarers de su income” (transladado al Spanglish por Ilan Stavans)

AMERICAN REALISM (1860-1914)

The period between the Civil War (1861-1865) and the First World War (1914-1918) witnessed tremendous changes in the United States, as we have seen. From a small, young agricultural country, it was transformed into a huge, modern, industrial nation, with all sorts of problems, like immigration and social struggle. All these changes, together with the birth of realism in Europe as a reaction against Romanticism (with writers like Stendhal, Flaubert or Balzac in France) brought about this new literary period in the United States.

The champion of Realism in the USA was WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS (1837-1920), who defended its principles as a critic, an editor and a novelist. Realism for him was an attack against a romanticized vision of life, an attempt to write about ‘real life’, and to criticize the new industrialized society with its associated poverty, inequality and the rise of materialism. Frequently a moral attitude runs together with the literary principles. Howells’s best novel is The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), the story of an ordinary businessman who becomes rich and tries to join Boston’s ‘high society’.

HENRY JAMES (1843-1916) practiced a different kind of realism. He was an observer of the mind rather than a recorder of the times. So, he was more interested in psychological realism and tried to show the process of thought that his brother William termed ‘stream of consciousness’. He also wrote about the difficulty of reflecting real life through literature (the importance of appearances and perception, the relationships between fact and fiction). In this aspect, he was a precursor of modernism. He spent most of his life in Europe and many of his novels deal with Americans trying to adapt themselves to European civilization: Daisy Miller (1879), The Ambassadors (1903) or The Portrait of a Lady (1881). Americans tend to be naive characters defeated by the stiff, traditional values of Europe. Quite interesting too are his short stories, like the ghost story “The Turn of the Screw” (1898) and “The Real Thing” (1893), about the relationship between art and reality.

EDITH WHARTON (1862-1937) is frequently associated with James as a ‘Cosmopolitan novelist’ because she also spent a large part of her life in Europe and made the contrast between Americans and Europeans a recurrent theme in her novels. In Ethan Frome (1911) and The Age of Innocence (1920) she shows the contrast between the natural instincts of people and a hypocritical society.

Another manifestation of realism is Regionalism (also known as ‘Local Color’), a diffuse movement of writers who mixed the qualities of realism with a strong feeling for a particular area in the USA. New England was the setting of the stories and novels of SARAH ORNE JEWETT (1849-1909, “The White Heron”, 1896) and HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811-1896, who also wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin). The West provided the setting and character for the writings of BRET HARTE (1836-1902, “The Luck of Roaring Camp”, 1868, a romantic vision of the frontier), and WILLA CATHER (1873-1947, My Antonia, 1918, about pioneers settling in Nebraska). The South as a setting plays an important role in the works of another group of writers: The stories and novels of GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE (1844-1925) and KATE CHOPIN (1851-1904, The Awakening, 1899) take place in Louisiana. ELLEN GLASGOW (1874-1945) often dealt with the history of Virginia.

Not really belonging to any of these groups, but still worth mentioning is AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-1914?), a journalist and short story writer best remembered by his Devil’s Dictionary (1881-1906), a collection of satirical definitions that reflect a bitter and bright mind.[1]

MARK TWAIN (1835-1910) belongs to the regionalist tradition, and the area he described was the Mississippi River at a time when steamboats where the main means of transport in the US. He wrote about them in Life on the Mississippi, and later on in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “the best book” in American Literature according to Ernest Hemingway. Its colloquial narrative voice, its superb use of humor, and the development of themes like slavery and death set it apart from children’s books and turn it into one of the indispensable books of American Literature. In fact, in Huckleberry Finn we can already find a number of features that have become a feature of American literature as a whole: the use of colloquial speech as a literary language (with origins in Whitman), books based on the real experience of the writer (like Melville’s, Hemingway’s or London’s), the search for freedom in movement (origin of ‘road novels’ and ‘road movies’, from On the Road to Thelma and Louise), the portrayal of a male group surrounded by nature and escaping from a female-dominated civilization (Cooper, Melville, westerns) and even the opposition between American innocence and European sophistication (further developed by James and Wharton). Twain also wrote very good short stories (inspired by life on the frontier) and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

► See Book Presentation Guide 5.3. “Huckleberry Finn”, p. 128.

In the 1890s many realists became NATURALISTS, a movement that started in France with Zola, influenced by Darwinism, the philosophy of Nietzsche and determinism. The world is perceived as a heartless machine where the individual has no freedom. In their novels the fate of characters is written right from the start, and society is shown as a place of depravity, hypocrisy and corruption. HENRY ADAMS (1838-1918) was also an important figure in the development of Naturalism, although not as a novelist but as a historian and thinker (The Education of Henry Adams, 1907). STEPHEN CRANE (1871-1900) is the first American naturalist. Maggie (1893) is the sad story of a poor girl who becomes a prostitute and in the end kills herself despite several attempts to change her life. The Red Badge of Courage (1895) is set in the Civil War and shows the war as a meaningless effort where good and bad, being a hero or a coward is just a matter of chance. Crane was also a journalist and a poet.

JACK LONDON (1876-1916) was deeply influenced by Darwin’s ideas of constant struggle in nature and ‘the survival of the fittest’. Not surprisingly, the heroes of some of his stories are animals, as in Call of the Wild (1903) or White Fang (1906), set in Alaska like the short story “To Build a Fire” (1910). The Sea-Wolf (1904) is about the captain of a ship who tries to be a master of nature but is in the end defeated by it.

► See Classroom Activity # 17 “Twentieth-Century Short Stories”, p. 176.

Also related with Naturalism is a journalistic and political movement called the ‘Muckraking movement’, which tried to expose the political corruption, ‘dirty business’ and social injustice that was taking place in the America of the beginning of the century. Some of the journalists also wrote novels, like LINCOLN STEFFENS (1866-1936) and his Shame of the Cities (1904) or UPTON SINCLAIR (1878-1968) and his The Jungle (1906).

Naturalism continued in the USA well into the 20^th century. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) wrote Sister Carrie in 1900 but it was suppressed until 1912. Its main theme is the purposelessness of life. An American Tragedy (1925) explores the dangers of the American Dream, telling the story of a man who tries to reach success but ends up executed for murder

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[1] Two examples are probably enough. Peace: “a period of cheating between two periods of fighting”; Marriage: “the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all two”.

Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 31

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter--and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.

HUCK FINN.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a- floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a- trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll GO to hell"--and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.