And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
While it is possible that the poem could be about other cities, at the time of writing (1794, contained in Blake's collection Songs of Experience), London was one of the largest cities in the world, and certainly one of the largest cities in Europe. Unlike many of the poems written for the collection Songs of Experience, the poem "London" does not have a corresponding poem in Songs of Innocence, suggesting the poet could not bring himself to write about London from that perspective.
Since the poem's title names the city he writes about, it is not necessary to mention it within the poem itself. But it's plausible to suggest that even without that title identifying the city, most readers would understand that Blake is describing London. The imagery is specific to London, including the Thames (the river that flows through the city that makes up a significant portion of its landscape), and the capitalization of the word "Palace" suggesting Buckingham Palace. As well, the reference to "every blackning church appalls" suggest a major industrial city where soot would blacken stone walls, and at the time London was the center of industry in Europe.
The poem could certainly serve to reflect the horror and drudgery of living in a large city during the time period at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, which took place between 1760 and 1840, beginning in Great Britain.
What themes are explored in Lord Byron’s poetry? Don Juan as a satiric epic poem. What did Byron criticize? Why did Byron name Don Juan as an epic poem? (the main idea, themes, lyrical digressions, the main characters, artistic style).
Byron names his long satirical poem "Don Juan" to represent its title character. He takes the satire even farther when he insists that readers pronounce the second word as "Joo-an" instead of the Spanish "wuan." Byron does this to make fun of the cultural prejudice that English people had for all things non-English back in the day. He points out the absurdity of insisting that English things are "good" by making the name "Juan" sound ridiculous.
Readers during Byron's time would have been familiar with the character Don Juan from earlier works like Molière's 1665 play Don Juan. In earlier versions Don Juan is a middle-aged man who runs around seducing women. Byron messes with our gender expectations by making Juan young and making him the passive object of women's sexual advances. This reversal is all part of his larger effort to turn European culture on its head by using satire.Byron's long, digressive, wildly funny, outrageously rhymed Don Juan is a wonderful satire of the epic poem, of the legend of Don Juan, and of the mores of Byron's own times. It is written throughout in octava rima, an 8-line stanza that, in English, given the paucity of rhymes, is inevitably humourous. Byron uses the structure variously, often giving us a clinching final couplet that reflects bathetically back on what has gone before.
|
|
|
Inverting the legend of Don Juan, the arrogant, rakish, Lothario who ends up dragged to Hell, Byron's 'hero' is a rather passive young man, girlishly beautiful rather than handsome at the start, who falls in love with the various women he meets. Taking issue with the epic martial heroes of Homer and Virgil, this is more akin to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, though wider-ranging and more intentionally scurrilous.
Juan travels from his native Spain to the Greek islands via a shipwreck (during which his tutor gets eaten by the hungry sailors!), is sold at the slave market in Constantinople and enters the seraglio dressed up as a girl for the pleasure of the sultan's fourth wife... He goes on to fight with the Russian army before being taken to the court of Catherine the Great and, finally, on to London where he is embroiled in high aristocratic society and meets a ghostly friar in a Gothic ruin (of course!).
In between the story are Byron's ruminations on everything: from a tongue-in-cheek assessment of erotic poetry ('Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him | Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample | Catullus hardly has a decent poem | I don't think Sappho's ode a good example') to scathing views on marriage and fidelity, on gender and masculinity, and on the younger Romantics (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey) for whom Byron generally had little time.
Written in stages between 1818 and 1824, this remains unfinished at Byron's death. Anyone only knowing the lyrical Byron ('She Walks in Beauty', 'So We'll Go No More A-Roving') or the 'Turkish' tales like 'The Giaour', will meet here the brilliant, mercurial, Byron of the letters.
|
|
|
Walter Scot. Ivanhoe
1. Give the time, setting, and chief characters of Ivanhoe.
2. Comment on how Ivanhoe and the other Scott novels have influenced modern literature in regard to (a) use of a historical background, (b) rapid action and adventure, (c) feats of skill and strength, (d) beauty in distress, and (e) display of moral as well as physical courage
1. Give the time, setting, and chief characters of Ivanhoe.
Ivanhoe is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, first published in 1819 in three volumes and subtitled A Romance. At the time it was written it represented a shift by Scott away from fairly realistic novels set in Scotland in the comparatively recent past, to a somewhat fanciful depiction of medieval England. It has proved to be one of the best known and most influential of Scott's novels.
Wilfred Of Ivanhoe - Known as Ivanhoe. The son of Cedric; a Saxon knight who is deeply loyal to King Richard I. Ivanhoe was disinherited by his father for following Richard to the Crusades, but he won great glory in the fighting and has been richly rewarded by the king. Ivanhoe is in love with his father's ward, the beautiful Rowena. He represents the epitome of the knightly code of chivalry, heroism, and honor.
King Richard I - The King of England and the head of the Norman royal line, the Plantagenets. He is known as "Richard the Lion-Hearted" for his valor and courage in battle, and for his love of adventure. As king, Richard cares about his people, but he has a reckless disposition and is something of a thrill-seeker. His courage and prowess are beyond reproach, but he comes under criticism--even from his loyal knight Ivanhoe--for putting his love of adventure ahead of the well-being of his subjects.
Lady Rowena - The ward of Cedric the Saxon, a beautiful Saxon lady who is in love with Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe and Rowena are prevented from marrying until the end of the book because Cedric would rather see Rowena married to Athelstane--a match that could reawaken the Saxon royal line. Rowena represents the chivalric ideal of womanhood: She is fair, chaste, virtuous, loyal, and mild-mannered. However, she shows some backbone in defying her guardian by refusing to marry Athelstane.
2. Comment on how Ivanhoe and the other Scott novels have influenced modern literature in regard to
Дата добавления: 2019-07-15; просмотров: 216; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!