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The Middle Ages

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The Early Seventeenth Century

Restoration and Eighteenth Century
 
 
 

Hope College 
Lit to 1775 Resource Page
English 270
Prof. Curtis Gruenler
Fall 2002
 

Katie Klein & Shannon Chiesa

  English 270, fall 2002

Guide to final exam

The final exam will cover only the portion of the course since the midterm.

Part 1: Identifications, 20 points each. For six (6) of the following quotations below, please identify the author, title, and date (within 25 years) of the work it comes from and discuss the significance of the passage in the context of the work it comes from and/or in wider contexts of literary and other history. Do not merely restate the passage in your own words, but discuss how it is important to matters of theme, form, style, character, etc.

There will be at least 10 quotations to choose from. For sonnets that are part of a sequence, you need not give the number of the sonnet, only the title of the sequence. I will choose quotations that I expect to be most recognizable based on their importance and the attention we gave them in class. Here is a sample from last semester’s exam:

1. I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements, and an angelic spright;
But black sin hath betrayed to endless night
My world’s both parts, and O, both parts must die.

2. Still to be neat, still to be dressed
As you were going to a feast,
Still to be powdered, still perfumed;
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art’s hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

3. Wake, now my love, awake; for it is time,
The Rosy Morne long since left Tithones bed, [Tithonus=mythical husband of the dawn]
All ready to her silver coche [coach] to clyme,
And Phoebus gins to shew his glorious hed.
Hark how the cheereful birds do chaunt theyr laies [songs]
And carroll of loves praise.

4. Farewell happy fields
Where joy for ever dwells: 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.

5. But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay;
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my trewand pen, beating myself for spite,
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."

6. My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun…

7. And, if each system in gradation roll
Alike essential to the amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.

8. I was almost choked with the filthy stuff the monkey had crammed down my throat; but my dear little nurse picked it out of my mouth with a small needle, and then I fell a vomiting, which gave me great relief. Yet I was so weak and bruised in the sides with the squeezes given me by this odious animal that I was forced to keep my bed a fortnight. The King, Queen, and all the Court sent every day to inquire after my health, and her majesty made me several visits during my sickness. The monkey was killed, and an order made that no such animal should be kept about the palace.

9. Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).

10. But Caesar told him, there was no faith in the white men or the gods they adored, who instructed ’em in principles in principles so false that honest men could not live amongst ’em; though no people professed so much, none performed so little; that he knew what he had to do when he dealt with men of honor, but with them a man ought to be eternally on his guard, and never to eat and drink with Christians without his weapon of defense in his hand; and for his own security, never to credit one word they spoke.

Part 2: Essay question, 80 points. Please answer one of the following questions. In each essay, you should discuss at least five works from the course. I am looking for both breadth of reference and depth of insight into the texts. A good essay will include both insightful generalizations and specific, illustrative examples.

Here are two questions from last semester’s exam. They are meant to give you an idea of the kind of broad questions to expect.

A. We began this section of the course with More’s Utopia, and we have seen several recurrences of the use of literature to imagine a better life. In the middle of this section we read Milton’s story of the Fall, which is only one of many works that explore the aspects of the human predicament that make a better life hard to achieve, perhaps even impossible in this life. Discuss the relationship between these two themes of Utopia and the Fall in representative works we have read. You might consider how these themes relate to views of human nature, the different literary means (genre, form, etc.) with which authors address them, and how they reflect historical conditions.

B. At either end of this section of the course we find a statement about how literature ought to relate to nature:

      Philip Sidney, The Defense of Poesy: "Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too much loved earth more lovely. Her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden.

      Samuel Johnson, The Preface to Shakespeare: "Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature…. The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight awhile by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth."

How would you situate some representative works from this period with respect to the theories of literature articulated in these two passages? How do the works we have read deal with "nature," either explicitly as a theme or implicitly in how they represent reality?

More Study Help for the Final