A230A- Revision
Books 1&2
‫االتحاد الطالبي‬
Final Exam Structure
• You will answer three essay questions: one of them could
be a close reading.
• One obligatory question on Shelley
• And then three questions to choose two
• No separate question on definitions but you can use the
definitions in your answer.
• Write what you know about the chapter even if you did not
understand what the question asks.
• Write in an essay form
• Study from ppp and pay attention to the titles of the slides
and the summary slides and the underlined bold sections.
Book 1 - Chapter 1- Othello- Main
points
• Renaissance
• Desdemona’s three roles: as a daughter, a
lover and a wife: the obedient daughter who
turns to a defiant one to fight for her love .
Then she becomes the deceived submissive
wife + the willow song= Gender issue
• Racism
• Othello as a tragedy
• Iago’s character.
Book1 – Chapter 2- Candide
• Revise the TMA
Book 2- Romanticism
• Romantics were preoccupied with nature
educating man . It appeared in mid 18th C and
the Romantic poets especially Wordsworth
reacted towards the Industrial Revolution and
the French revolution= they were alienated by
the changes brought about the Industrial
Revolution and disillusioned when the French
Revolution failed to accomplish its aims of
freedom and equality.
Book 2- Chapter 1: William
Wordsworth
• The grandeur (greatness) of nature and of the
poet: he is linked to Dove Cottage; his local
landscape.
• Wordsworth’s self is undivided. He thinks very
highly of his abilities as a romantic poet= the
(solitary ) lonely genius
• Memories and especially childhood memories
and how they provide the source for his poetry.
“Poetry as a spontaneous overflow of feelings
recollected in tranquility”
Wordsworth
• “Point Rash-judgement”: shows the poet’s
disillusionment with the changes that
happened to his local town because of
industrialization. The names of the old places
have changed which reflect the theme of
colonization later reflected in the opium eater.
• The poet used to have a therapeutic
relationship with nature which has changed
and he feels alienated.
Wordsworth
• “The Brothers” also show the theme of
homecoming to a strange local town but it is
not about Wordsworth. The poem is written in
the form of a dialogue between a Vicar and
Leonard.
• “Home at Grasmere” : A poem wrote in Blank
verse to imitate the great writers. It also
speaks about the alienation and about the
poet’s role : whether to be occupied with the
social problems or focus on his poetic vocation
to create an ideal world
Wordsworth’s The Prelude= writing
the self
• W’s epic poem about his genius and the role
of the poet. It focuses on how he became a
poetic genius and focus on memories as a
source of nourishment (a reservoir for
inspiration).
• YOU MAY STUDY Wordsworth from the
comparisons in the next 3 chapters but I do
not advise this.
Book 2 chapter 2- Shelley
• Tone differs from W: shifting not stable
• Mary Shelley’s role in editing his work: she
stressed the “airy” Shelley who has unique
sensitivity
• The role of the romantic poet: he can perceive
truth and communicate it to ordinary people/ the
legislator of history/ the sensitive spirit who
identifies with nature.
• Shelley has 4 personas (versions): the romantic,
the political radical, the eye witness to history
(legislator) and the messenger of the sublime
Shelley’s poems
• Romantic poems: directly addressing nature
and the poet who wishes to be part of nature
and learns from nature. The I of the poet
“To a Skylark” : the poem’s form echoes the
flying and singing of the skylark which the poet
is unable to cope with.
“Ode to the west wind”: celebrates the rebirth
that comes with the violent west wind.
Shelley
• Two political radical poems: “England in
1819”: The poem events that took place in
England. “To the Lord Chancellor” mix the
personal with the political .
• “Mask of Anarchy”: is written in ballad form
and is in narrative form and discusses the
same events.
Shelley
• Two historical poems which show that all
great people and great civilizations must end
and fall but they will still be remembered for
what they leave behind them: the good and
the bad.
• Mont Blanc: the sublime and its effect on the
poet
De Quincey
• Debasement of literature and how production of
literature became a profession subject to the
reader’s desires.
• He worked as a journalist and failed to be the
great romantic poet.
• He constructed the persona of the opium eater
who is a scholar and he writes his confessions not
like other scandalous confessors .
• The story of the opium eater is instructional,
moral and scientific relying on evidence but it is
also interesting and have suspense .
De Quincey’s style and structure
• His style is impassioned prose with long confusing
sentences, complex structure with a lot of colons
and semi-colons.
• The tone is humorous, sad, satiric, the sublime
and the annoying
• The voice of grandiose with rhetorical strategies
to engage the reader so as not to get bored.
• His structure is fragmented with sub-divisions,
headings,
flashbacks
and
flash-forwards,
repetitions. It is divided into …..
De Quincey
• The opium is the hero of the story:
• The characteristics of the opium: it is the source
of pleasure and pain; it allows for visionary
imagination; it is a commodity but it has the
secret of happiness.
• Unlike Wordsworth, The self is divided and
unstable. The vision is that of an addict not a
prophet.
• Unlike W, the childhood memories are involutes
but they contain dreams and nightmares while in
Wordsworth, childhood memories are spots of
time.
De Quincey
• Critic Grevel Lindop compares the opium eater
story to the fall of Adam and Eve in the biblical
story and in Milton’s epic. Its theme is the loss
of innocence. De Quincey quotes lines from
Milton’s Paradise Lost in the end of the opium
eater. The opium is a modern version of the
apple: it causes loss of innocence .
Book 2 - Chapter 4: Hoffmann
• German Romantic who live The Napoleonic
war .
• He wrote literary tales where he mixed /
juxtaposes fantasy with realism.
• He uses gothic elements in his tales
• The self is unstable and divided; that is why
there are three perceptions to the story: three
“I”s and eyes. He represents the dark side of
the Romantic imagination.
Hoffmann’s The Sandman style
• His tales are open ended and have no closure.
• They are imitating old fairy tales or household
tales and uses the “ marchen” structure.
• Multiple personas and multiple practices.
Hoffmann
• Ways of seeing the world: Eyes, the visions
and the fear of loss – like De Quincey,
imagination gone mad and out of control.
• Three personas:
Clara = balanced
Nathanael = distorted = the romantic
imagination
The narrator= common sense and satirical
Hoffmann
• Clara is contrasted to Olimpia: Clara has voice
and agency while Olimpia is voiceless and
passive; Clara sees , Olimpia is seen. Clara is
the rational woman while Olimpia is the ideal
one. BOTH show masculine poet perception of
women: the ideal beautiful “doll” and the
kind balanced woman who has inner beauty.
Clara is rewarded at the end by a happy
settled marriage.
Hoffmann
• Freud’s the uncanny and Nathanael as the
child who has incomplete growth (Oedipus
complex). Psychoanalytic reading of “The
Sandman”.
• Traumatic childhood experiences make his
memories a source of destruction not a
positive influence
Hoffmann’s automata
• Automata means robots and it represents the
scientific imagination. Hoffmann was worried
about the imagination of poets and scientists
which fail to create the ideal and threaten
madness. One of Hoffman’s tales was entitled
“Automata” and it is a recurrent idea in his
tales.
• Olimpia is an automata and she shows
artificiality.
Common points : 1- the poet’s role
• In W: the Romantic poet has a mission; he has an
inner eye and a unique link to nature which
allows him to create an ideal society and a vision
of a perfect world. HE IS NOT CONCERNED WITH
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC AND POLOTICAL
PROBLEMS
• In Shelley: the poet can communicate the
sublime. He is airy and genius BUT he is also
engaged in the economic and political conditions
of his time AND he is a legislator of history =
Shelley tried to balance the poet’s role
The poet’s role
Both of them were governed by reality and
economic and political conditions.
• In De Quincey: he could not be the poet. He is
the failed romantic
• In Hoffmann: the writer has unique abilities
but is limited by reality. That’s why he tries to
mix fantasy with reality and Nathanael turns
mad when he cannot fulfill his role as a poet.
Common point: 2- The Self
• Wordsworth’s construction of the self as a
solitary genius
• Shelley is the airy air who is romantic genius
able to experience the sublime
• De Quincey is the divided deluded self who
tries to have continuity of self as W but fails.
• Hoffmann’s self is unstable and incoherent like
De Quincey
Common Point: 3- Imagination
• Wordsworth= Visionary imagination
• Shelley= Visionary (sublime)
• De Quincey= Visionary addiction caused by
opium
• Hoffmann = Sick imagination and traumatic
childhood experiences.
Common point 4: Memory
• In W: Memory has positive influence and is
the source for his poetry.
• In De Quincey: his childhood memories are
traumatic and causes nightmares =involutes
• Hoffmann cannot distinguish reality from
fantasy so we cannot know if Nathanael’s
memories happened or not but the effect of
the memories is destructive.
exams questions
• How does Roderigo and Iago differ concerning
marriage?
• Talk about part one of De Quincey’s
confessions. What did he convey to the
reader?
• Hoffman’s theme of eyes and seeing
• What are the characteristics of opium?