Discussion Questions

Study Questions

ENGL 203: Major British Authors

Dr. Fike

"Deor's Lament"

What happens in this poem? What events does it mention?
What is Deor's own situation?
What kind of consolation do you find in this poem? How do you read the refrain ("That evil ended. So also may this")? What does "this" refer to?
What is the "moral" of the poem? That is, what advice does it convey?

"The Wanderer"

What title would YOU give the poem?
•What is the dramatic situation in the poem?
•What actions are described?
•What is the setting?
What problems with comitatus does the poem illustrate?
Outline the poem: what organization emerges? What label would you affix to each section?
What responses to life's hard knocks does the poem suggest?
How many speakers are in this poem? Why do you think so?
In the middle of the poem is what critics call a "dream sequence." It consists of memory, dream, and hallucination. Do you critique it positively or negatively?

"The Battle of Maldon"

How would you outline this poem? (Hint: It breaks nicely into three sections.)
Regarding Figure 3, what is the significance of the elements of the setting, particularly the causeway and the woods?
What happens in lines 1-10? What is the significance? What is the conflict?
Who wrote the poem? Was it written by someone who survived the battle? Why or why not?
Who are Byrhtnoth's men? What groups do they fall into? And what do they represent?
Do the Vikings want to fight? How do you know?
Why does Byrhtnoth allow the Vikings to cross the causeway? See lines 86-87.
Other than English vs. Vikings, what is the essential conflict in "The Battle of Maldon"?

Beowulf

What parallels do you see between "Maldon" and the section about the slaying of the dragon?
What conflicts do you find here in the Anglo-Saxon heroic code? Is there something more than we found in "Maldon"?
What do you make of Beowulf's final wish on page 89?
Which thanes in "Maldon" and Beowulf best represent comitatus, and why do you think so?

"The Dream of the Rood"

How would you outline the poem?
How does the Anglo-Saxon heroic code work (or not work) in this poem?

Chaucer, "General Prologue"

What points arise from a comparison of Chaucer's opening lines with Eliot's?
How does "Western Wind" illuminate Chaucer's opening?
What is wrong (or not) with the following characters: Prioress, Monk, Friar, Parson, Summoner, and Pardoner? Is one of these characters actually an exemplary person?
Which characters reflect physical love, and which characters reflect divine love?

Chaucer's Wife's "Prologue" and "Tale"

What do we know about the Wife's life? What is her economic situation? What is her zodiac sign? What is its significance? What is her appearance?
What is the purpose of the Pardoner's interruption at lines ("Prologue," lines 167ff.)? Or is it gratuitous?
What is ironic about the Wife's "Prologue"?
How does the Wife's "Tale" fit the teller? In other words, how is the portrait of her that emerges in the "General Prologue" and in her own "Prologue" in accord with the story that she tells?
How do you reconcile the rape with the fact that the knight gets a young, beautiful, faithful wife out of the deal?

Chaucer's Pardoner's "Prologue" and "Tale"

What do you make of the relationship between the Pardoner and the Summoner?
Should we believe what he says?
Where might the Pardoner be when he tells his tale? What is the significance of the setting IN the tale?
Does the Pardoner's self-revelation violate dramatic law? Why would he reveal himself to the other pilgrims?
How would you characterize the rioters? What warnings do the receive?
How does the Pardoner characterize the Old Man? Who IS he?
At the end of the tale, is the Pardoner totally culpable? He says, "'That, sirs, is how I preach,'" etc. at lines 459-62. Why does he then try to seel relics and pardons to his fellow travelers?

Marlowe's Doctor Faustus

What is Faustus saying in his opening speech?
What is the order of events?
What is the role of delight and/or of habit in F's damnation?
What warnings does F receive?
How is F cheated? What point follows?
How do F's achievements measure up to his intentions? What points follow?
Why did Marlowe include Wagner, Robin, and Dick? Is the middle of the play irrelevant?
Why does Marlowe include all the allusions to Helen of Troy?
What is up with F's weird comment on page 897/397?

Sidney's Defence of Poesie

What is ironic about Plato's criticism of the poets (637)?
What is a poet (638)?
What is poetry (639-41)?
What is history's relationship to poetry and philosophy?
What is the function of poetry (639)?
What are the objections to poetry to which Sidney responds (643)?
How does Sidney reply to these objections?
What does Sidney mean on 638 when he writes, "Nature never set forth," etc.?
What is Sidney saying about the artist on 638-39? The key passage begins, "Neither let it be deemed." (This question is suitable for a response paper.)

Shakespeare

What romantic situation do the sonnets depict?
In what romantic situation does Shakespeare find himself?
What kind of love does Shakespeare have for the young man?
Is it the same as the Dark Lady's love for the two of them?
Sonnet 73: To whom is the poet speaking? What are the major images? What is the significance of their order? What is the duration of each image? Why does Shakespeare say "yellow leaves, or none, or few," instead of "yellow leaves, or few, or none"? How is the nature of the third image different from that of the other two? What is strange about the third image? How does the structure act out the poem's meaning? What is the difference between "That time of year thou mayst in me behold" and "In me thou see'st"? Again, how does the poem act out its meaning? How would you paraphrase the final couplet? To what or whom does "that" refer? Who will do the leaving? What part of speech is "well"?
Sonnet 116: How do you paraphrase the first two lines? What are "true minds"? How can love not be love? Can you hear an echo of the marriage ceremony in the opening lines? How would you paraphrase lines 4-8? How would you paraphrase lines 9-12? What are the important images in this poem? What do they suggest? Are there any sexual references here? What is their purpose? Why does the couplet seem especially forceful?

Milton's "Lycidas"

Pay close attention to places where water is mentioned. In what settings does it appear? What about fresh water versus salt water--which is better? Is there water in heaven? What is Milton doing with H2O in this poem?
Try to construct an outline of the poem.
How does time work in the poem? What temporal references does it include? What is the timeframe here?
What criticisms does Milton level against death and the clergy? Why is Milton thinking about his own death?
At lines 115 and 118, how does Milton allude to scripture? See John 10:1 and Matthew 22:8.
What does the phrase "Blind mouths!" suggest about the clergy?
What do you make of "that two-handed engine" at line 130? What might it be?
What do Alpheus and Arethusa signify?

Milton's Paradise Lost

Invocation, 1-47:
- What is the tone here? How is it different from the tone in Book 1's invocation?
- What does Milton say about his blindness? About his muse?
Adam and Eve's quarrel, 205-385:
- Why does Eve want to "divide [their] labors" at line 214? If you really want to be high tech, have a look at Milton's Areopagitica, which Eve paraphrases in her argument. The key statement is "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue."
  
  See the point of work at 4.325ff.
- What words are ominous between 248 and 385?
Satan, 500ff.:
- What is up with Hermione and Cadmus?
- What kind of imagery is Milton using to describe Satan?
Eve's fall, 385ff.; and Adam’s, 952-59:
- What are the temptations in lines 567-68?
- How does Satan get Eve to eat the apple?
- Why does Adam eat the apple?
The Fall's results, 790-1131:
- In a nutshell, what do Adam and Eve say to each other?
- What happens to nature?

Donne

In what instances do Donne's metrics make his poems sound conversational?
Can you find examples of how they are dramatic events?
What paradoxes do you find in Sonnet 10 ("Batter my heart")? You can also write an excellent paper about how this sonnet relates to Robert Oppenheimer and the first nuclear test (a little bit of research will be required).
How are Donne's poems anti-Petrarchan?
What conceits (extended metaphors) do you find in Donne's poems? The best one is in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning."
Re. "The Good Morrow": How do the three stanzas correspond to past, present, and future?
Find examples of how Donne sees the world in small things.
How does the structure of the sonnets reinforce their meaning? Note: They are Petrarchan/Italian sonnets.
What mixture of sacred and secular elements do you find in Donne's poems? "The Relic" is probably the best example.
Paraphrase "The Flea."

Swift's "A Modest Proposal"

Who is the speaker of this "proposal"? Is it Swift? Or is it a character he invents? What aspects of the speaker's character emerge?
To what audience does the proposal seem to be addressed?
To what "previous proposals" does the speaker refer?
What is the "modest proposal," exactly?
What advantages and disadvantages to the proposal emerge?
Near the end, what other proposals for solving the "Irish problem" does the speaker mention in passing? Are these sound? Why have they been rejected?
Where does Swift seem, in this piece, to lay the blame for Ireland's current conditions?
What problem(s) is Swift criticizing?
How does this essay work as satire?

Pope

How does Pope mock the epic tradition?
What is the function of Ariel, the sylphs, and the gnomes?
What's going on in the card game?
What does the language at I.121-48 suggest about Belinda?
How is chastity portrayed?
What is the poet saying about virtue and especially about the way it gets trivialized?
Do you find any allusions to Paradise Lost?
What do Thalestris and Clarissa represent? What do they say in their respective speeches?

Swift's Gulliver's Travels

Where do you think Gulliver falls on a continuum between Yahoo (total passion) and Houyhnhnm (total reason)?
One would think that the Houyhnhnms are an ideal worthy of emulation. Is that true or not? In what ways are they less than ideal?
What does Gulliver do with his realization? Think, in particular, about his relationship with Pedro de Mendez and his reactions once he arrives home.
To what extent may Gulliver's problem be that he cannot distinguish between surface and depth?

Blake

How does the concept of Contraries (page 35, plate 3) illuminate Blake's poems?
How do the introduction poems differ from each other? What other pairs of poems can you identify--one from each part of Blake's book?
What is "The Sick Rose" about?
Re. "London," various questions are possible: What things in the first two stanzas suggest restriction or control? What things relate to blackness? What do "blast" and "blight" mean? What parallels are there? Why "hearse"? What role does prostitution play in this poem? How are contraries at work here? What is the poem's moral?

Wordsworth's "Preface to Lyrical Ballads"

What is poetry's subject?
What is poetry's purpose?
What is poetry's objective?
What kind of language should poetry use?
What is a poet?
How did WW compose his poems
What is the nature of poetry?
What is WW critical of?

Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey"

What is the poem's main subject?
What connections are there between WW's "Preface" and "TA"?
What situation does the poet describe in lines 1-22? What impression do these lines create?
What has WW gained from his experience with nature here? See especially lines 23-49.
Regarding lines 49-57, compare what WW says to his poem "The World Is Too Much With Us" on page 174.
In lines 58-111, what temporal divisions are present?
Why is Dorothy, WW's sister, in the poem? What does WW want her to do for herself and for him?

Wordsworth's The Prelude

What features of the epic does this poem have?
What is the "correspondent breeze"?
What difficulty do the first few pages report on?
What does WW consider as possible subjects for his poem?
Find references to the same stages of cognitive development that WW describes in "Tintern Abbey."
What are "spots of time"? Identify and comment on the nature of the two "spots" that follow on pages 223ff.
Re. the stolen boat episode (a spot of time): What type of images do you find here, and what sort of reading of this episode emerges?

Coleridge

In Biographia Literaria, What does Coleridge say about the following: two sorts of poems, "the willing suspension of disbelief," the characteristics of poetry, and the nature of the imagination.
What are the primary imagination and the secondary imagination? To what things in WW do they relate?
How is "Frost at Midnight" organized? How does the image of frost illustrate what Coleridge says about the imagination?
How does "Kubla Khan" illustrate Coleridge's notion of the secondary imagination? What "opposite and discordant qualities" are synthesized here?
Why does the Ancient Mariner kill the albatross? See page 241, line 82. Consider Col's phrase in reference to Shakespeare's Iago in Othello--"motiveless malignity."
What does killing the albatross signify?
How is the A.M. redeemed? See line 286. What does he realize here? See Blake: "Everything that lives is holy."
What does the A.M.'s glittering eye suggest?
Why is the church an appropriate setting? Why does the A.M. speak to a wedding guest?
What is the moral of the poem? See especially lines 612-17. See "The Eolian Harp' on page 237, lines 26-31 for a similar statement.
Why is the wedding guest sadder but wiser (last stanza)? See Ecclesiastes 1:18 for a possible connection: "For in much wisdom is much vexation, / and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."

Tennyson

1.How does the poem relate to Dante's Inferno, Canto 26?
2.How does the poem relate to Milton's Paradise Lost, I.105-09?
3.In what way is Ulysses a typical Victorian man?
4.How are Achilles and Telemachos parallel to Tennyson's late friend Arthur Hallam?
5.Do you view Ulysses as positive, negative, or some combination of both?
6.How do you read the lines "Yet all experience is an arch where through / Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades / For ever and for ever when I move"? Is this an image of purposeful imagination or of futility?

Browning

1.What is the dramatic situation in the poem? What is happening?
2.What do we know about the duchess?
3.What is the overall structure of the poem? In other words, how might you divide it into sections.
4.What does the poem say about art?
5.What technical things reinforce the meaning of the poem?
6.Form
7.Loaded words
8.Why does the duke conclude with the image of Neptune taming a seahorse?
9.How is "My Last Duchess" parallel to "Porphyria's Lover"?

Arnold

1.What is the poem's setting?
2.What does Arnold say about the sea?
3.How does he connect the sea at Dover to the Sea of Faith?
4.According to this poem, what is the solution to alienation?
5.Is "Dover Beach" similar or different from the following poem by Yeats?
6.How is "Dover Beach" similar to "Tintern Abbey"?
7.Is "Dover Beach" a Greater Romantic Lyric?
8.In "The Dover Bitch," what is the speaker's criticism of Arnold? Is it a fair one?
What is the relationship between Arnold's poem and the following one by Yeats?

The Nineteenth Century and After

Though the great song return no more

There's keen delight in what we have:

The rattle of pebbles on the shore

Under the receding wave.

What do "Tintern Abbey" and "Dover Beach" have in common?

Mill's Autobiography

How does Mill view human nature?
According to Mill, what is the source of personal happiness?
What does he realize about reason and emotion? How does he change?
What is the role of Marmontel's Memoirs in Mill's life?
What does Mill suggest about balance in one's life?
What connections can you make between Mill's Autobiography and WW's "The World Is Too Much with Us"?
Does Mill endorse WW's poetic theory? See page 892.
Does Mill favor the liberal arts?

Newman

What types of utility are mentioned?
What type of education does Newman favor?

Mill's "On Liberty"

What does Mill favor?
What does he condemn?
What does he think about governmental interference?

Conrad

1.References to women appear on 1623, 1624, 1626, 1630, 1655, 1665, 1671, and 1675ff. Do you agree with Johanna M. Smith that "the whole of his [Marlow's] story is seen to be a manful effort to shore up imperialism through patriarchy, through the nineteenth-century ideology of separate spheres"? (The quotation is from her essay "'Too Beautiful Altogether': Patriarchal Ideology in Heart of Darkness.“)
2.According to Marlow, how does one overcome darkness?
3.What do you make of Kurtz's report on 1656-57?
4.What does the presence of the Russian add in section III (1658ff.)?
5.What do you make of "The horror!" on 1672? What does Kurtz mean? Is Marlow right to call it "a moral victory“ on 1673?
6.Marlow lies to Kurtz's fiancée, the Intended. What do you make of this?
7.What has Marlow learned from his experience?

Eliot

What is Eliot's point on page 2014 in the par. that starts, "Yet if the only form of tradition..."?
What happens in this poem? In the literal sense, what does Prufrock DO?
What allusions did you notice in the poem? Think, in particular, about Dante, Lazarus, Michelangelo, and Hamlet.
Why is the epigraph appropriate? What connection can you make between Guido and Lazarus (line 94)?"
Regarding the first stanza: To whom is P referring when he says "you and I"? What kind of associations do you have with "a patient etherised upon a table"? What is P doing here? What is P's problem here? How is this a love song gone wrong? How does the poetry act out its meaning?
What things in the poem suggest that P's problem involves the conflict between energy and restraint? Which wins?

Yeats

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree": What do we know about the speaker? Do you hear echoes of WW here? Of Thoreau? What about the Bible? What does the poem say about time?
"The Song of Wandering Aengus": What Romantic poems lie in the background?
"Among School Children," "Sailing to Byzantium," "The Wild Swans at Coole": What does Yeats have to say about mortality?
What examples of "antinomies" do you find in Yeats's poems, especially in "Crazy Jane Talks to the Bishop"?
What is the moral of "Crazy Jane"?
How does "Leda and the Swan" enact or act out its meaning? Do you see any antinomies here? What kind of poem is this? What marks the major break in the poem? What creates a sense of violence and motion? What is the relationship between the poem and classical myth? What is the answer to the final question?
How does "The Magi" differ from Eliot's "The Journey of the Magi"?
"The Second Coming": What is the key image here? What is "Spiritus Mundi"? What connection might there be to WWI?

Woolf

See the separate handout of questions on A Room of One's Own.

Beckett

How does Krapp's Last Tape illustrate the characteristics of the postmodern period?
Are there comic elements in this play?
From a technical standpoint, does Beckett's use of the tape recorder make good sense?
Is the play's vision of human life totally bleak?
The final paragraph ("Here I end this reel") can be spoken by either Krapp or the tape. What difference would it make if the statement were Krapp's?
Can you make connections to the Camus piece in the HMXP anthology?
Is Krapp's situation tragic or pathetic? If it is merely pathetic, might the play still be tragic from the audience's point of view? Consider Arthur Miller's claim that tragedy "brings us [the audience] not only sadness, sympathy, identification and even fear; it also, unlike pathos, brings us knowledge or enlightenment."