2024-2025 History of British Literature Exam Guide PDF

GUIDE TO THE FINAL WRITTEN EXAM IN HISTORY OF BRITISH LITERATURE  TERM I: 1 FEBRUARY (SATURDAY) 12:00-13:30, ROOM S306  RETAKE: 8 FEBRUARY (SATURDAY) 8:30-10:00, ROOM S303 BANK OF ISSUES / QUESTIONS This document is divided into period...

GUIDE TO THE FINAL WRITTEN EXAM IN HISTORY OF BRITISH LITERATURE  TERM I: 1 FEBRUARY (SATURDAY) 12:00-13:30, ROOM S306  RETAKE: 8 FEBRUARY (SATURDAY) 8:30-10:00, ROOM S303 BANK OF ISSUES / QUESTIONS This document is divided into periods, followed by issues covered during our lectures, embracing: names and titles (underlined), concepts, literary terms and devices (in bold), GENERAL AND DETAILED QUESTIONS (capitaplized), and then analytic and fragment recognition questions. Use this document as a guide through your lecture notes when preparing for the exam. - Names and titles: in the exam you may be asked to assign titles/authors to their respective epochs, ascribe a given text to its author and epoch, list the titles you associate with a given author, etc. I will not expect you to refer in any sort of way to the names or titles which are not included in this document. - Concepts, literary terms and devices: make sure you know the terms which are in bold (use your notes; if in doubt, refer to a dictionary of literary terms); in the exam you’ll be asked to define some of these terms and then specify what literary period/names/titles you associate with these concepts/terms/devices. - GENERAL AND DETAILED QUESTIONS: when preparing for the exam, use your notes. If you failed to attend the lecture when these issues were discussed, rely on appropriate sections of histories of British/English literature (e.g., Andrew Sanders’ The Short Oxford History of English Literature: https://www.unife.it/letterefilosofia/lm.lingue/insegnamenti/letteratura- inglese-1/materiale-didattico-2019-2020/Andrew%20Sanders-%20The%20Short%20Oxford %20History-%201994.pdf /// https://archive.org/details/shortoxfordhisto0000sand_u1r5/page/n9/mode/2up; or Ronald Carter and John McRae’s The Routledge History of Literature in English), to appropriate introductions in anthologies (e.g., The Norton Anthology of English Literature), appropriate websites, etc. (by “appropriate” I mean referring specifically to the capitalized subject). - Analytic and fragment recognition questions: these concern the texts/fragments which were projected during the lectures or recommended as a reading assignment before/after the lectures; the questions which are in green refer you to the MATERIALS published in our LECTURE CLASSROOM. 1  1. OLD ENGLISH (ANGLO-SAXON) PERIOD (TILL 1066) - Beowulf, - “The Dream of the Rood” - alliteration (also, make sure you can recognize alliteration and answer the question WHY ALLITERATION IS PARTICULARLY CONNECTED WITH ORAL LITERATURE - charm - kenning - DISCUSS BEOWULF AS AN EPIC POEM - DISCUSS CHRISTIAN MOTIFS AND THEMES IN ANGLO-SAXON POETRY + analytic question: - It has been claimed, very aptly, that while adapting themselves to Christianity, Anglo- Saxons adapted Christianity to themselves: illustrate this claim with reference to “The Dream of the Rood”, esp. lines 33-49 (cf. MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 1) 2. THE MIDDLE AGES (1066-c.1485 = 11TH–15TH CENTURIES) - Roman de la Rose - Pearl - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales - allegory - dream vision - romance - courtly love - alliterative revival - framing story - mystery plays - morality plays - DISCUSS BRIEFLY THE (POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE) CONSEQUENCES OF THE NORMAN INVASION FOR THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE IN ENGLISH - EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ALLEGORY AND A SYMBOL - REFLECT ON PEARL AS AN EXAMPLE OF AN ALLEGORY - DISCUSS THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE ROMANCE AND THE HEROIC EPIC 2  - DISCUSS CHAUCER’S FRAMING STORY (IN THE GENERAL PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES) AND ITS FUNCTIONS - SPECIFY THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MYSTERY PLAYS AND MORALITY PLAYS + analytic questions: - Discuss the form of Pearl (based on the samples provided in MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 2); also, these stanzas may appear in the exam in the form of a fragment- recognition question. - Underline all the instances of alliteration in the stanzas from Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight published among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 2. 3. THE RENAISSANCE (16 , EARLY 17TH CENTURY) TH THE RENAISSANCE THEATRE - Christopher Marlowe: Doctor Faustus - Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy - William Shakespeare: Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Henry V - University Wits - King’s Men - comedy - tragedy - revenge tragedy - chronicles - classical unities (of time, place, and action) - subplot - soliloquy - WHO WERE THE SO-CALLED “UNIVERSITY WITS”? EXPLAIN THEIR IMPORTANCE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH THEATRE, PROVIDE EXAMPLES - DISCUSS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF THE RENAISSANCE PUBLIC THEATRE - DISCUSS THE RENAISSANCE THEATRICAL STAGE: ITS SHAPE, CHARACTERISTIC ASPECTS OF STAGING - DISCUSS THE AUDIENCES IN THE RENAISSANCE PUBLIC THEATRE: WHAT DOES IT MEAN THEY WERE “HETEROGENEOUS”? HOW DID THIS “HETEROGENEITY” OF THE AUDIENCES IMPACT THE PLAYWRIGHTS? - DISCUSS THE RELATIONS BETWEEN KYD’S THE SPANISH TRAGEDY AND SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET - SHAKESPEARE NOTORIOUSLY VIOLATED THE CLASSICAL UNITY OF ACTION, WHICH MEANS THAT HIS PLAYS ARE CHARACTERIZED BY THE PRESENCE OF SUBPLOTS. ILLUSTRATE THIS FEATURE OF HIS DRAMA 3  WITH REFERENCE TO HAMLET (OR OTHER PLAYS YOU’RE FAMILIAR WITH) - EXPLAIN CROSS-DRESSING AND THE REASONS FOR THE POPULARITY OF THIS MOTIF IN THE ELIZABETHAN THEATRE - WHAT IS “COMIC RELIEF” IN A RENAISSANCE TRAGEDY? EXPLAIN THE TERM, PROVIDE EXAMPLES - DISCUSS REASONS FOR THE DECLINE OF THE ENGLISH THEATRE AFTER THE RENAISSANCE + analytic question: - Read the Prologue to William Shakespeare’s Henry V (streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 4): point out its references to Shakespeare’s theatre—both as a place and as far as Shakespeare’s theatrical practice is concerned. THE RENAISSANCE POETRY - sonnet - sonnet cycle - WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE (IN FORM/RHYME PATTERN/ORGANIZATION) BETWEEN THE ITALIAN/PETRARCHAN SONNET AND THE ENGLISH/SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET? - DISCUSS THE WAY IN WHICH SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET CYCLE IS BOTH TYPICAL AND UNTYPICAL OF THE RENAISSANCE SONNET CYCLE + analytic question: - In the exam you may be asked to read a quoted sonnet (any sonnet) and then answer the question: Is this the so-called Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnet? Explain your answer. LATE RENAISSANCE (EARLY 17TH C. TILL THE CIVIL WAR) - John Donne: “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”, “The Flea” - George Herbert: “Easter Wings” - metaphysical conceit - DISCUSS THE RECEPTION—ARGUMENTS AND THE LITERARY CONTEXT FOR THEM—OF THE METAPHYSICAL POETS BY THE LATER EPOCHS (CRITICISM: J. DRYDEN, A. POPE, DR SAMUEL JOHNSON; PRAISE: T.S. ELIOT) + analytic questions: Based on John Donne’s “The Flea” (streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 5): the citation from this poem may be followed by the question(s) 4  - Read the poem/passage and, based upon it, define and illustrate the so-called metaphysical conceit - Read the poem/passage and, based upon it, discuss the characteristic features of the style of metaphysical poetry - Also, make sure that you know Donne’s “The Flea” well enough to be able to recognize a fragment that comes from this poem. Based on John Donne’s Sonnet 14, “Batter my heart…” (likewise streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 5): - Discuss the ways in which John Donne in this sonnet breaks away from the Renaissance sonnet tradition. With regard to its structure, is this the so-called Italian or a Shakespearean sonnet—or a combination of both? Explain your answer. 4. RESTORATION (THE SECOND HALF OF THE 17TH C., FROM 1660 TILL 1700) - John Dryden - John Milton: Paradise Lost - run-on lines (also, make sure that you can recognize run-on lines: practice on passages from Books 1 and 9 of Paradise Lost) - DISCUSS PARADISE LOST AS AN EPIC POEM 5. ENLIGHTENMENT/THE AGE OF REASON (ESP. THE FIRST HALF OF THE 18TH C.) THE AGE OF REASON’S POETRY - A. Pope: “An Essay on Criticism” - Dr Samuel Johnson - heroic couplet (also, make sure that you can a) recognize it (practice on the fragments from A. Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism”) and b) ACCOUNT FOR THE POPULARITY OF THE HEROIC COUPLET IN THE AGE OF REASON) - DISCUSS THE MAIN PRECEPTS OF NEOCLASSICISM (cf. “TOUCHSTONES of Rationalism/(Neo)Classicism vs. Romanticism” streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 6) + analytic questions: Based on Passage 2 (ll. 68-91) from A. Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 6) 5 - the citation of this passage may be followed by questions asking for a paraphrase and interpretation (How does A. Pope understand the word “nature”? What “rules” of writing well does this “nature” dictate?) - Also, the passage may appear in the form of a fragment recognition question, so make sure you know it well enough to be able to recognize it. THE BEGINNING OF THE NOVEL IN BRITAIN - Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe - Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels - Samuel Richardson: Pamela, Or Virtue Rewarded - Henry Fielding: Shamela, Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones - Laurence Sterne: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy - epistolary novel - picaresque novel - EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ROMANCE AND THE NOVEL - DISCUSS THE SOCIAL/HISTORICAL/POLITICAL/ECONOMIC/CULTURAL FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE BIRTH OF THE NOVEL AS A GENRE - ENUMERATE THE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF THE NOVEL AS A NEW GENRE THAT EMERGED IN THE 18TH CENTURY - DISCUSS THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF THE NOVEL THAT THE 18 TH C. LAY FOUNDATIONS TO - DISCUSS THE DIFFERENCES IN ATTITUDE AND APPROACH TO FICTION BETWEEN SAMUEL RICHARDSON AND HENRY FIELDING - DISCUSS THE INFLUENCE OF RICHARDSON, FIELDING AND STERNE ON THE NOVELISTS OF THE 19TH AND 20TH C. - REFLECT ON THE BEGINNINGS AND THEN DEVELOPMENT OF OF PSYCHOLOGICAL FICTION IN GREAT BRITAIN 6. SENTIMENTALISM (=THE THRESHOLD OF ROMANTICISM); THE SECOND HALF OF THE 18TH C. - James Macpherson: Poems of Ossian - Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto - Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho - Mathew Gregory Lewis: The Monk - Gothic novel 6  - WHAT WERE JAMES MACPHERSON’S POEMS OF OSSIAN? WHEN WERE THEY PUBLISHED? WHAT WAS THE REASON BEHIND THIS PUBLICATION’S PHENOMENAL POPULARITY IN ENGLAND AND IN THE CONTINENT? - EXPLAIN THE REASONS FOR THE RISE AND POPULARITY OF THE GOTHIC NOVEL IN THE SENTIMENTALIST PERIOD 7. ROMANTICISM (THE END OF THE 18TH C. TILL EARLY 1830s) THE ROMANTIC POETRY - William Blake: Songs of Innocence and of Experience - William Wordsworth: (Preface to) Lyrical Ballads, “We Are Seven”, The Prelude - Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Ode to the West Wind” - John Keats: “Ode on a Grecian Urn” - DISCUSS GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (PROVIDING APPROPRIATE EXAMPLES)—cf. the right side of the chart in the document called “TOUCHSTONES of Rationalism/(Neo)Classicism vs. Romanticism” streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 6) - DISCUSS THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE AGE OF REASON AND ROMANTICISM (again, cf. “TOUCHSTONES…” streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 6) - SUMMARISE BRIEFLY THE MAJOR TENETS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S PREFACE TO LYRICAL BALLADS (streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 6: WHAT DOES HE SAY ABOUT THE SUBJECT OF POETRY, THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY AND THE PURPOSE OF POETRY? - REFLECT ON THE ROMANTIC APPROACH TO NATURE BASING ON THE POETRY OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND P.B. SHELLEY DISCUSSED DURING OUR LECTURES + Analytic questions: - A passage from “We Are Seven” (streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 6) may be followed by the question: In what ways do the cited stanzas reflect the precepts expressed by W. Wordsworth in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads? - Also, a passage from “We Are Seven” may appear in the form of a fragment recognition question. - Likewise, extracts from W. Wordsworth’s The Prelude (streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 7) and P.B. Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” (streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 6) may appear in the exam in the 7  form of fragment recognition questions, so make sure you know these verses well enough to be able to recognize and analyse a fragment that comes from them. ROMANTIC NOVEL - Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma - Mary Shelley: Frankenstein - Walter Scott: Waverley - the novel of manners - DISCUSS JANE AUSTEN’S CONTRIBUTION TO BRITISH FICTION: that is, THE WAY SHE BRINGS THE TRADITIONS FOUNDED BY RICHARDSON AND FIELDING TOGETHER - DISCUSS THE STRENGTHS OF MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE GOTHIC NOVEL 8. THE VICTORIAN PERIOD (1830 – TILL THE END OF THE 19TH C.) THE VICTORIAN NOVEL - Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations - George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss - Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights - Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre - realist fiction/novel - omniscient narrator - Bildungsroman - DISCUSS THE FUNDAMENTAL PRECEPTS OF REALIST FICTION (cf. document “Great Expectations and realism” streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 10) - EXPLAIN THE WAYS IN WHICH REALIST FICTION ENDEAVOURED TO PERFORM A DIDACTIC FUNCTION - CONTRAST GEORGE ELIOT’S ATTITUDE TO FICTION WITH DICKENS’S SO- CALLED “FIELDINGIAN TRADITION” + Analytic question: Based on passages from George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss (streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 10): In what ways do these passages illustrate the typically Victorian/“realist” narrative style? 9. MODERNISM (THE EARLY 20TH C.) MODERNIST PROSE FICTION 8  - Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway, “Modern Fiction” - James Joyce: Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses - stream of consciousness - REFLECT ON V. WOOLF’S THEORETICAL ESSAY/MANIFESTO ENTITLED “MODERN FICTION” (streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 10): WHAT DOES SHE CRITICISE IN THE TRADITIONAL (“REALIST”/“MATERIALIST”) NOVEL? WHAT DOES SHE EXPECT FROM A NEW “SPIRITUAL” (PSYCHOLOGICAL) TYPE OF THE NOVEL (ITS FOCUS, THEME, AND METHOD)? - DISCUSS THE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF THE MODERNIST APPROACH TO FICTION - DISCUSS JAMES JOYCE’S CONTRIBUTION TO BRITISH PROSE FICTION + Analytic question: - Look at a fragment of Mr Bloom’s stream of consciousness from Episode 8 “Lestrygonians” of Ulysses (streamed among MATERIALS FOR LECTURE 10): enumerate the linguistic peculiarities of this technique, and then reflect on how it differs from traditional approaches to narration and the purposes of this technique. 9