(a) What, according to Eagleton, is the role of literary theory when analysing texts?
The role of theory is to ask questions and to dig a bit deeper than the usual sort of literary or critical question,it means encouraging people to reflect on what they’re doing and have a greater understanding.
(B) What does Eagleton believe makes a good English student?
Eagleton believes that a good English student is one who has their mind focused right from the very start and throughout. He believes that good students were the ones who took the leap, ones who were prepared to follow a journey without any sure sense of the destination.
‘Proved upon our pulses’: Keats in context
(a) When Keats’ admirers praised him for thinking ‘on his pulses’, what did they mean?
Keats admirers meant that he has developed a style which was more heavily loaded with sensualities, more gorgeous in its effects, more voluptuously alive to actualities than any poet who had come before him.
(b) When did Keats die?
Keats died on the 23rd February 1821
(c) In which year did the first biography of Keats appear?
Keats first biography appeared in 1848
(d) Where did Keats originally train before giving it up for poetry?
Once he had left school he trained as a doctor in Guy's Hospital, he then left to follow up poetry
(e) Which two social upheavals influenced Romantic poets like Keats?
The government’s suspension of habeas corpus and the Peterloo Massacre
An introduction to Shakespearean Tragedy
What makes a Shakespearean tragedy?
I believe in order to be a Shakespearean tragedy there must be an element of love between two people, this can be seen in many of Shakespeare's tragedies such as Othello and Romeo and Juliet. I also think that to be a tragedy the tragic hero must die and realise his tragic downfall just before his death. It could also be argued that the tragic hero must be different to how he first was at the start of the play, they must change in some way- wether this be positive or negative.
4. Read the article from emagazine below, and then writer half a page in response to the following statement: ‘Simon Bubb argues that Iago’s lack of humanity is what Shakespeare is most interested in sharing.’ To what extent do you agree?
It could be argued that Iago;s lack of humanity is what Shakespeare is most interested in sharing with the audience. This is shown to us through the distribution of lines, usually the tragic hero (in this case Othello) has the most lines but most importantly more lines than the antagonist. However in Othello, Iago (the antagonist) has more lines than Othello. Many of these lines are spoken through soliloquies in which Shakespeare makes the audience aware of Iago's inhumanities. Shakespeare portrays Iago as an inhumane character by allowing the audience to be apart of Iago's plots. The audience also become aware of Iago's lack of humanity through asides, 'yes very good'. it would appear that sharing Iago's lack of humanity is what shakespeare is most interested in sharing as the play revolves around Iago's plots and is very focused on his actions rather than Othello's.
The Canon of English Literature
5. Read the task sheet titled The Canon (link below). For each of the authors listed, write the title of at least one of their works and the genre.
- Geoffrey Chaucer - The Wife Of Bath's Tale - Arthurian romance
- Edmund spenser- The Shepherdess Calendar
- William Shakespeare- Othello - tragedy- Renaissance
- John donne-The Flea-Renaissance
- John Milton-Paradise Regained- Renaissance
- John Dryden-All for Love- heroic drama-Neo-classical
- Alexander Pope-An Essay on Man- Neo-classical
- Samuel Johnson- Rambler-neo-classical
- William Blake- The tiger- Romantic
- William Wordsworth- Peter Bell-Romantic
- Jane austen- Pride and prejudice- Romantic
- Lord Byron- Don Jaun-Romantic
- Alfred lord tennyson-Ulysses-Romantic
- Charles Dickens- Oliver- Romantic
- George Eliot-Adam Bede-Romantic
- Joseph Conrad-Lord Jim- Modernist
- James Joyce- The Dead- Modernist
- T.S Eliot- the cocktail party
