Weeks 9 ^_^

How is the Romantic construction of the Sublime reflected in
the ideological, conceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under
consideration in this Romanticism reader?

You can look here at Blake's Songs, Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, Byron's Manfred and Frankenstein...

Weeks 7-8

1. As a group discuss one sonnet other than the two Shakespeare one we looked at and decide what the central conceit is and how it develops...

2. Why are Blakes' poems reproduced in the reader divided into poems of 'Innocence' and 'Experience'?

3. Can you find some colour plates of the poems to upload?

4. How do the images and text work together in the examples we are looking at?

5. How is Blake considered in the history of English literature, and why?

6. Can you discover more popular cultural references to Blake?

7. Analyse one poem by Blake according to the schema I introduce in class week 7-8.

8. What was the impact of Rousseau’s revolutionary idealism on
Blake?

9. How does Rousseau’s assertion of women’s equality read to a modern audience?

10. What really happened at Villa Diodatti??

tbc...

Chaucer Questions

1. A fabula is a story and it is about the order in which events happen. The tale of the loathely lady is one because it tells the course of events of King Arthur, as he rode on his horse through Inglewood.

Hey guys

Please don't paste comments on the main page as posts like this (Tim and Eva).

Use the comments box, that's the place for discussion threads.

The main page posts are for posted questions or primary souurces which are then discussed on the attached threads... ^_^

Getting started on Question 4 :)

The first version (Chaucer) plays on the relationships between men and women in the time period from which it comes. To me, a rather modern theme for this time as I figured women weren't really regarded as much of anything especially in relation to men. However, Chaucer's version questions what is it that all women want and again to my surprise the answer was governance over all men, their husbands etc. How was this even legal to publish? Unless it was a joke. Well, theres my answer...The ironic end, when the King grants his 'ugliest creature' (wife's) ultimate wish, by giving her the power of choice between faithfulness or beauty, she in turn ends up giving him what he wants, which (shallowly yet sadly not surprisingly) is an attractive wife. This confused me because part of me thinks theres quite a feminist turn around in the story after about half way but at the same time not. The moral I extracted from it was that if men give women what they want, they in turn will get what they want or, if husbands treat women how they wish to be treated than their wives will do the same. Yet from this story,the only treatment I gathered men ever want is a beautiful woman's touch.
The second version (Sir Gawain) the first difference I noticed was the 'gaily outfitted horse' which the foul creature rode 'so well'. Secondly, she demands the King to find her a husband or else he dies. Thinking that no one would do such a deed for him he felt he was surely doomed as he certainly did not want to be the chosen one. In the end, the 'moral' of the story points towards chivalry and the nobility of the King's knights, as Gawain effortlessly takes up the Kings burden. Now, I know the question says there were 3 different version, but I can only find 2 that are in normal English... If anyone has anything more to add please do!

Week 4

1. What is a fabula, and in what sense is 'the loathly lady' theme one? (you can google this one...)

2. What does Carter (2003) have to say about Chaucer's 'feminism'? In what sense is the Wyfe of Bath's Tale and in what is it not 'feminist'?

3. What according to Hahn (1995) are some critical issues around The Wedding of Sir Gawain...?

4. What does Hahn identify as its Celtic influences?

5. How do each of the three versions I've given you differ, especially in relation to the choice the knight/king must make?

Question 3

3. I think the difference between chirography and typography is that chirography is about writing and typography is about printed material. I think what Ong is trying to get at is that there are differences in secondary orality when trying to write primary orality and that he says that our understanding of the differences between orality and literacy only happen in the electronic age.