ENG208.002 – Survey of British Literature: Beginnings to 1789

Prof. Eileen Joy

Fall 2003

FINAL EXAM: Wednesday, December 17th (6:30 - 8:10 pm)

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Four of the following eight passages will appear on the exam. Your analysis of each should include the following: (a) title and author of the work; (b) context (speaker? addressee? situation? etc.); (c) overall significance of the passage to the larger work. (You should write 3-4 sentences in response to "(c) overall significance." You will be penalized if you neglect to respond with full, complete sentences.)

E X A M P L E:

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave

My heart into my mouth, I love your majesty

According to my bond; nor more nor less.

ONE POSSIBLE ANSWER: The quotation is from Shakespeare's King Lear and is Cordelia speaking to her father, King Lear, in Act 1, Scene 1, when he asks his three daughters who loves him most. Goneril and Regan answer first with some really hyperbolic ("over the top") rhetoric, but Cordelia prefers to be silent, letting what she thinks is her obvious love and devotion speak for itself, which only enrages Lear, who ultimately turns against her, because she isn't willing to play "the game" of slick speaking. The phrase, "according to my bond," is important because, ultimately, the whole play is about bonds between family and court members, and about who is willing to honor their bonds and who breaks them for selfish ends. Although Lear can't see it until it's too late, Cordelia's silent love was always the truest, but it can't save him in the end.

(1)

"If aught within that little seeming substance,

Or all of it, with our displeasure pierced,

And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,

She's there, and she is yours."

(2)

"I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;

I stumbled when I saw."

(3)

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is;

Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;

Thou know'st that this cannot be said

A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,

    Yet this enjoys before it woo,

    And pampered swells with one blood made of two,

    And this, alas, is more than we would do.

(4)

" . . . . Hail horrors, hail

Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell

Receive thy new possessor: one who brings

A mind not to be changed by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

What matter where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but less than he

Whom thunder hath made greater?"

(5)

" . . . . shall I to him make known

As yet my change, and give him to partake

Full happiness with me, or rather not,

But keep the odds of knowledge in my power

Without copartner? so to add what wants

In female sex, the more to draw his love,

And render me more equal, and perhaps,

A thing not undesirable, sometime

Superior; for inferior who is free?"

(6)

All Nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;

All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good:

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,

One truth is clear: Whatever IS, is RIGHT.

(7)

Undoubtedly Philosophers are in the Right when they tell us, that nothing is great or little otherwise than by Comparsion.

(8)

When I happened to behold my Reflection of my own Form in a Lake or Fountain, I turned away my Face in Horror and detestation of myself.

Write a thoughtful, detailed essay on one of the following thematic prompts. Keep in mind that these are very BROAD thematic prompts, and that it is your job to develop an ARGUMENTATIVE and NARROWLY-DEFINED thesis from one of these. Further, you will want to build paragraphs around specific points you would like to make about the text that will support your larger thesis. And as you develop your analysis, make sure you support your critical assertions with specific textual evidence. That is, you must provide SPECIFIC EXAMPLES (direct quotations) from the text itself and thoroughly explain (through a close analysis of language and context) how those examples are relevant to the points you want to make. You may bring a broad outline, with quotations, into the exam, but not any books.

• law/order versus nature/disorder in King Lear
• "seeming" versus "being" in King Lear
• who's the hero/heroine of King Lear?
• "bonds" in King Lear
• romantic love in Donne's poetry
• Donne's relationship to God in his poetry
• the "character" of Satan in Paradise Lost
• the nature of "evil" in Paradise Lost
• the nature of "sin" in Paradise Lost
• God's "divine plan" in Paradise Lost
• can Satan ever succeed--why or why not?
• Eve's relationship to Adam in Paradise Lost
• sex before and after "the fall" in Paradise Lost
• Milton's treatment of Eve/women in Paradise Lost
• Gulliver's relationship to the female sex
• the "character" of Gulliver
• "reason" vs. "passion" in Book IV of Gulliver's Travels
• would you want to live with Houyhnhnms--why or why not?

If there is a thesis you would like to argue that might not fit in any of the broad thematic categories above, please run it by me and I'll approve it.