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If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,
Thy springs, and dying gales,
O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed. . . . .
Heroic couplets: An end-rhymed iambic pentameter couplet in verse
paragraphs (every two lines). i.e. MacFlecknoe traces its hero's rise to stupidity in verse
deliberately mimicking the style of and alluding to the Adenoid and other epics. Like the Odyssey, it starts in a
kind of Olympus, only it's the realm of Nonsense, until recently ruled by Flecknoe. The dying king of dullness
searches for a successor and, by virtue of his vices (as it were) MacFlecknoe (Shadwell) gets the nod.
The rest of the poem develops by a pattern of mock praise of poetic vices wherein "success" is failure
and the slightest deviation from the stultifying norm is a clear sign that somebody's got poetic talent.
MacFlecknoe by John Dryden
All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:
In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute
Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute. . .
Heroic (or elegiac) stanzas: alternately end-rhymed iambic pentameter
quatrains (in every other line). i.e. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD by Thomas Gray
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
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Octosyllabic couplets: eight-syllable couplets, often but not always in iambic
tetrameter. The unit is the verse paragraph. i.e. To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
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Verse Types
Burlesque: humorous verse, employing the incongruity of using elevated language
to discuss ordinary persons or things or of using low language to discuss exalted
persons or things. i.e. Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope. Moral of
the poem= merit is more important than appearance.
In context of poem= acknowledge of beauty is trivial although it is pretty.
Satire= social criticism a basic standard people must conform to Satire: A literary attack
Irony= devise writers use. Says one thing, but means something else.
Sophomoric Irony= Objects of irony sometimes “miss it”. They do not recognize the attack.
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Elegy: A poem concerning lose, often through death
Ode: formal, ceremonious verse, usually with heightened diction and imagery and
an elaborate rhyme scheme.
Literary Analysis
Every drama presupposes a unity of ingredients for esthetic quality.
- Theme: the central meaning, comment, purpose of the4 playwright. (Not to be confused with either a single topic—i.e., love, justice ,treachery – or a synopsis of the plot, the theme may best be expressed be a declarative statement which contains a value judgment reflecting the playwright’s meaning, comment, or purpose).
- Central Conflict: the essence of drama is conflict; the tensions involved in audience participation are the dramatized forces in conflict; the protagonist, traditionally, is the character who centrally represents the value (or position, or ideal) with which the playwright is sympathetic; the antagonist represents similarly the value (or position, or ideal to which the playwright is opposed.
- Character: (a) external aspects of character (age, sex, appearance, class, etc.) are important to understanding but less important than ((b) internal aspects of character (hierarchy of values - - what matters most to an individual character at a given time- - - the ethos) to the lasting involvement of the audience. Each reader/viewer will bring his own vicarious relationship into focus at this point.
- Tone: the playwright by his selection and arrangement of such details as language, gesture, inter-action of characters, disposition of possible events, and techniques of staging evinces ones over-all attitude toward the world one is re-presenting in the play.
Characteristics of the Novel-novels try to have situations and characters reader can relate to universally
Contemporary = the same time and local
Credible= probable, normal, characters act in usual ways
Familiar= activity is every day, ordinary
Rejection= of the conventional buried plots, characters, names = no kings no warriors
Plain Language= everyday conversion nothing too poetic.
Individual, subjective= emphasis is how character responds
Empathy, vicariousness = to engage the reader
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