Analisi Opere di Letteratura Inglese 1 - Work Analysis of English Literature 1, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Analisi Opere di Letteratura Inglese 1 - Work Analysis of English Literature 1 e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! - Analysis: Beowulf • Beowulf is an epic poem composed in Old English consisting of 3,182 lines. The verse style is alliterative, formal and narrative, where the narrator is 3rd person omniscient, meaning he knows the thoughts and feelings of the characters while keeping a distance. • The most frequently used literary devices are: - 1. Alliteration (for example: “For as long as I live, as long as this sword Shall last, which has stood me in good stead…”) - 2. Kenning (for example: Wiglaf calls Beowulf as “ring-giver” and “gold-giver”, a spear is referred to as “slaughter-pole”, the dragon is called “hoard-guard” and “hoard-keeper”; - 3. Caesura, which is a pause often accompanied by punctuation or proceeds a conjunction (and, but…) or an introductory phrase (“One final time”, “Before long…”); - 4. Metaphor (for example: “Hrothgar, the helmet of Shieldings,…”) - 5. Simile (for example: “she flew like a bird” “behaved like a kinsman…”) - 6. Personification (for example: “my armor helped me to hold out…”); - 7. Imagery, allusions, hyperboles… • Summary of lines 2490-2830: - After giving his farewell speech, Beowulf turns, gives a mighty shout, and charges forward. The dragon hears the shout and answers with a stream of fire. Beowulf readies his sword and shield, swinging at the monster with all his might. His companions, meanwhile, have all run away like cowards. - Only one, a young thane named Wiglaf, has chosen to remain. Wiglaf didn't flee because he remembered all the gifts Beowulf had given his family. He tries to persuade his comrades to remember what they owe to their lord, but to no avail. Then Wiglaf charges forth, ready to help Beowulf. - The dragon heads toward Beowulf and Wiglaf cowers behind Beowulf. Beowulf swings three times. On the last try, Beowulf kills the dragon, but not before the dragon has given him a poisonous bite. After the dragon has been destroyed, Beowulf collapses. - Wiglaf tries to bathe his lord as Beowulf speaks. Beowulf wishes for an heir. Then he expresses joy at having lived as a good man. He orders Wiglaf to bring him the treasure, so he can see it before he dies. Wiglaf brings the shining gems before him, and Beowulf is in awe of the riches. He tells Wiglaf to build him a burial mound, so sailors may guide themselves by it. Finally, he chooses Wiglaf as his heir, since they are both Waegmundings. And with that, Beowulf dies. • Key lines and words: - Hygelac: he who died, leaving Beowulf to reign the Geats. "The treasures that Hygelac lavished on me I paid for as I fought, as fortune allowed me, With my glittering sword... 1 - Beowulf starts his “farewell” speech; We can notice the change between youth and old age; Beowulf takes on the fight “For the glory of winning…”. Beowulf spoke, made a formal boast For the last time: "I risked my life Often when I was young. Now I am old, But as king of this people I shall pursue this fight For the glory of winning, if the evil one will only Abandon his earth-fort and face me in the open” - Beowulf recalls, through a flashback, the battle against Grendel. Resolute and high-born: "I would rather not Use a weapon if I knew another way To grapple with the dragon and make good my boast As I did against Grendel in days gone by. But I shall be meeting molten venom - The dragon is referred to as “cave-guard”, “hoard-guard”, “serpent”, “hoard-keeper”, “ground burner”,”sky-roamer”, “poison-breather”, etc. In the fire he breaths, so I go forth In mail-shirt and shield. I won't shift a foot When I meet the cave-guard: what occurs on the wall Between the two of us will turn out as fate, Overseer of men, decides. I am resolved. - Gold could be referring to the treasure that the dragon has been guarding, when he noticed something was missing he went on a rampage; - This is the end of Beowulf’s speech, right before he went to fight the dragon. To measure his strength against the monster Or to prove his worth. I shall win the gold By my courage, or else mortal combat, Doom of battle, will bear your lord away.” - Hints that it is unlikely that Beowulf will survive. A deadly heat. It would be hard to survive Unscathed near the hoard, to hold firm Against the dragon in those flaming depths 2 - Analysis: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales • The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English verses and prose between 1387-1400. Chaucer casts himself as the narrator, including himself as one of the story-telling characters, using the first-person point of view, Chaucer, the narrator, speaks from his own perspective on the events of the story contest and the pilgrims who tell the tales. Of course each tale has its own narrator who mainly tells his/her tale from a third-person point of view. The meter that Chaucer used in writing The Canterbury Tales is iambic pentameter: an iamb is a pair of syllables, one unstressed and the other stressed, pentameter means that there are five of these sets of syllables in a line, for a total of ten syllables in each line, alternating unstressed and stressed. The rhyme scheme is AA BB CC DD, and so on, since every two lines rhyme with each other. The genre, also called “estates satire”, aims to expose and ridicule typical examples of corruption at all levels of society. - Summary of The General Prologue: • The General Prologue frames the story by setting the season, describing the pilgrims who will narrate the tales, and laying the ground rules of the storytelling contest. It opens with a description of April showers and the return of spring, the time when people desire to go on pilgrimage, and travelers from all corners of England make the journey to Canterbury Cathedral to seek the help of the blessed martyr. The narrator and the other pilgrims drink, and they decide they will start their journey together the next morning, but before they begin, the narrator introduces the reader to the array of travelers in the company, although most of the people included in Chaucer’s pilgrimage were already well-known in literature. • The narrator begins by describing the Knight, a noble man who loves chivalry and fights for truth and honor; his fashionably dressed son, the Squire, a typical young lover; the nun, lady Prioress; the handsome Monk; and the flattering Friar, who’s orders were prone to gossip; the prosperous Franklin; the fraudulent Doctor; the lusty and domineering Wife of Bath; the austere Parson; and so on down through the lower orders to the Pardoner, who sells paper indulgences and phony relics. Although some believe that the pilgrims portrayed are based on actual people, it is more likely that they derive from Chaucer’s ability to associate different types of people to different types of reality. The character’s features, clothes, what they say and what they do all give clues to their moral condition in late medieval society. • The next morning, the Host, wakes up all the pilgrims and gathers them together. After they ride a mile or two, the Host reminds them of the agreements of the night before and says that they must draw straws to see who will tell the first tale. He gives the privilege of drawing the first straw to the Knight, in correspondence to his rank, who draws the straw and accepts the challenge. - Summary of The Merchant’s Tale: • The Merchant’s Tale tells the story of an old man named Januarie and his young unfaithful wife. After old Januarie goes blind, he is deceived by his wife, May, and her lover, Damyan. The lovers sneak up to the branches of a pear tree in Januarie’s garden and begin to make love. At that moment, Pluto (God of the underworld) restores the old man’s sight, but Persephone (Goddess of spring and nature) allows May to outsmart him by explaining that she was fighting with Damyan in the tree because she had been told that doing so would 5 cause her husband’s sight to be restored. Januarie ends up kissing and hugging her, leading her home. - Summary of The Wife of Bath’s Tale: •The tale concerns a knight accused of rape, whose life will be spared if he manages to discover what women most desire within a year. He turns to an ugly old witch for help and she promises him the answer only if he will do what she asks of him. The answer she gives him—that women desire sovereignty over men—is accepted in court, and the witch then demands that the knight marry her. In bed, she asks him if he would prefer her to be ugly and faithful or beautiful and faithless. He insists the choice must be hers. This concession of her mastery restores her youth and beauty, and they live happily ever after. 6 - Analysis: William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet • Romeo and Juliet was written in 1595 in an unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, style. The prologue is written in the form of a sonnet: a poem of fourteen lines, typically having ten syllables per line called iambic pentameter (u/s/u/s s/u u/s/u/s). - Summary of Act 1 Prologue: • The prologue is a sonnet with 14 lines of iambic pentameter in an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. A chorus enters and summarizes the action that is about to take place. They describe two families of equal nobility whose “ancient grudge” has reached new heights—the citizens of Verona are now, too, being roped into the families’ “new mutiny.” The chorus describes “a pair of star- crossed lovers,” one from each family, who will, in taking their own lives, mend their parents’ feud. The story of the young couple’s “death-marked love” is about to unfold on the stage, and the chorus promises that those who listen with “patient ears” will soon understand all the intricacies of the tale. •It sets the scene for the play by hinting at most of the action to come: • The first stanza describes the setting and basic conflict of the play; • The second stanza describes the young lovers and their dilemma; •The third stanza tells how the family feud will finally end in tragedy and explains the focus of the play; •The last two lines remind the audience that there is more to come when the play is acted onstage. - Summary of Act 2 Scene 2 - The Balcony Scene: • Act 2 scene 2 is written in blank verse. Romeo climbs the Capulet family's garden wall, and sees Juliet alone on her balcony. Unaware that Romeo is nearby, Juliet sighs and speaks her feelings of love out loud. Romeo declares himself to Juliet, and she warns him of the danger of being there. Romeo and Juliet swear their true love to each other, plan a secret marriage, and finally say good night. 7 •Shakespeare personifies the sun, calling it “the eye of heaven” with “his gold complexion dimmed” – giving the sun a human quality. •The first line "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is a comparison between the beauty of the addressee and a summer's day. - Summary of Sonnet 27: Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed. •Sonnet 27 is a typical English or Shakespearean sonnet, having 14 lines of iambic pentameter: three quatrains followed by a couplet. The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. It focuses on the obsessive, restless side of love and infatuation: the speaker is trying to sleep after a long, exhausting day, but his mind won't let him rest. Instead, he's kept awake by thoughts of his absent beloved. He compares his thoughts and imagination to a journey that begins in his mind, creating mental labour as he goes on a metaphorical pilgrimage to his lover, and although it keeps him awake, it might be better than not seeing her at all. •There is no direct mention of love. There is only the idea that the speaker is totally devoted, day and night, to the fair youth. The language is reasonably straightforward - there is just the one simile, like a jewel alongside symbolic night. 10 - Analysis: John Donne, The Good Morrow • The Good Morrow was written in 1633 in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ABABCCC. It is a sonnet with an unusual structure, as it is made up of 21 lines, and divided into 3 stanzas (of 7 lines). The whole poem is built around one extended metaphor. It is a comparison of the new love to the experience of waking up from one long deep sleep of nothingness. An example of conceit is: "Where can we finde two better hemispheres, Without sharpe North, without declining West?" the lover is a whole world to his beloved and she is a whole world to him, they are two better hemispheres who make the whole world. • In the first stanza, Donne likens himself and his lover to the Seven Sleepers, who were seven Christians persecuted and sealed in a cave by the Roman Emperor Decius in c. AD 250. These Christians reportedly slept for nearly 200 years before being woken up to find Christianity had become a world religion. • In the second stanza, Donne refers to both sea-travel and new worlds: the New World of the Americas was just being explored and colonised at this time. But Donne also suggests that man is charting other worlds too: when Donne was writing, the revolution in astronomy was just underway, and Copernicus’ theory that the earth travelled around the sun (rather than vice versa) was being explored by Johannes Kepler and, slightly later, Galileo. John Donne was peculiarly interested in travelling to other planets, and his poetry reflects this, making him unique among Elizabethan poets. This is yet another reason to revere him. 11 - Analysis: John Milton, Paradise Lost • Paradise Lost is an epic poem divided into 12 books, written in 1667 in unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, and is over 10,000 lines long. - Summary of Book 1 Lines 221-270: "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven..." “Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven." • In this famous passage, Satan claims that he would rather be free and independent of God's authority, even if it means living in Hell, than serve God and be rewarded with Heaven. In other words, Satan aspires to be "his own boss”—he wants to rule over his henchmen, the devils, essentially being the "god" of Hell. His argument here is that the devils can turn Hell into their own Heaven, as long as they remain free in their minds. • This also foreshadows Satan's later realisation that "Hell" is not a place at all—it’s something he carries within himself. So far from being able to turn Hell into Heaven, he can in fact never escape Hell, no matter where he goes. But at this point in the poem he remains more optimistic. • While Satan's statement seems bitter, petty, and manipulative, on another level it's also somewhat inspiring —the way he talks about using his mind and his imagination to achieve happiness is, one could argue, deeply human. • Satan is a kind of Romantic hero—a bold, imaginative, yet evil figure who aspires to cause pain and suffering to everyone rather than submit his pride to another's. 12 Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me, And hide me from the heavy wrath of God! No! No! Then will I headlong run into the earth; Earth gape! Oh, no, it will not harbor me! and then the elevation to the sky – here expressed with the word heaven written without a capital letter to point out that he does not mean Paradise – under the form of vapor: You stars that reigned at my nativity, Whose influence hath allotted death and hell, Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist Into the entrails of yon laboring clouds, That when you vomit forth into the air, My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths, So that my soul may but ascend to heaven. It takes Faustus half an hour to work out those impossible solutions, since: [The clock strikes.] and he not only understands it, but he also realizes that everything is going to end very soon: Ah, half the hour is past! ‘Twill all be past anon! A line, this one, deeply marked by the inexorable passing of time here represented in its three forms of past, present and future since in the fictitious present a man is thinking about his past and his future and Time is so compressed in two units of half an hour each – one past and the other still to pass – that the present itself turns out to be crushed and almost inexistent, thus underlining Faustus’s lack of time. Pressed as he is, Faustus still tries to find other solutions with the difference that, now, he considers even the possible solution of limited damnation using a process opposed to the previously used reductio but similarly painful: O God! If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul, Yet for Christ’s sake whose blood hath ransomed me, Impose some end to my incessant pain; Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years, A hundred thousand, and at last be saved! in his self-imposed increase of the length of his pain that, even if through the device of hyperbole, is hundredfold so as to underline that time has no importance when compared to salvation. Another astounding contrast, this one, for a man who has just asked for more time. And Time seems to be the recurring theme of the whole passage; misspent earthly time, denied time for salvation, eternal time of damnation, too short a time, too long a time, no more time to live for pleasure, infinite time to live under torture and pain, but all those time possibilities and possible times are now reduced for Faustus to the endless time of torment when he admits that: Oh, no end is limited to damned souls! When such a solution is judged as impossible, Faustus tries for more. Another one might be the absence of a soul: Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? but it is impossible. Another one might be the absence of an immortal soul: Or why is this immortal that thou hast? but it is impossible too. Another one might be the transmigration of the soul, according to Pythagoras’ metempsychosis, into the body of an animal so that it would simply disappear: Ah, Pythagoras’ metempsychosis! Were This soul should fly from me, and I be changed Into some brutish beast! All beasts are happy, for, when they die, Their souls are soon dissolved in elements; 15 but its impossibility is terribly rendered since, as a man of science, he can’t believe in such a theory – or it might also be read as if Faustus, instead of being a Christian, would have rather preferred to be a pagan and believe in metempsychosis – so that his sad conclusion is: But mine must live still to be plagued in hell. Being left with no solution, Faustus curses his own parents for having given him life, that very life that brings with it that soul from which he can’t set himself free in any way, that weight which – just as it happens for his sin – he can’t get rid of: Cursed be the parents that engendered me! but it is only a desperate thought of a desperate man, since he soon curses himself and the Devil, the two parties of the deal: No, Faustus: curse thyself; curse Lucifer That hath deprived thee of the joys of Heaven. Faustus’s earthly time is over because: [The clock strikes twelve] even if he tries to find more desperate and impossible solutions: Oh, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air, Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell. [Thunder and lightning] Oh soul, be changed into little water drops, And fall into the ocean, ne’er be found. Until he is caught between the wrath of God and the torments of the devils that come to take him to Hell: My God! my God! look not so fierce on me! Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile! The contrast between God and the devils, is reinforced by the contrast between his invocation to the Hell not to gape and his previous invocation to Earth to gape. Past and present get mingled so as to symbolically mean that time has lost all its values and coordinates in front of the eternity which Faustus’s is being taking in. The last requests of Faustus are left unsatisfied. What remains is his useless decision to burn his books – his true desperate rejection of his knowledge since books stand for knowledge, that knowledge which he has lost his soul for – and that last desperate complex appeal for the devil whom he had signed the deal with. Ugly hell, gape not! Come not, Lucifer! I’ll burn my books!–Ah, Mephistopheles! [Exeunt with him.] - Paradise Lost vs Doctor Faustus: • Exploring the two poems, Doctor Faustus and Paradise Lost, certain religious aspects can be found. In Paradise Lost, Satan is self-aware and displays thoughts and feelings comparable to that of man. In Doctor Faustus, however, Lucifer paints himself as a grand tragic figure with no remorse or intention to repent for his past deeds. These poems take place in very similar universes where there is a Heaven and Hell with a God and a Devil respectively. As a result, they share many similarities within the above stated aspects and can be compared. "Dr. Faustus" is a story of an extremely educated man that has more or less grown bored with his current lifestyle and consequently sells his soul to "Lucifer" who is the devil in this story. "Till swollen with cunning, of a self-conceit/ He surfeits upon cursed necromancy" (Marlowe 20-25). This marks the beginning of the fall of Dr. Faustus and in this case represents the aspect of "The Fall of Man". It is his thirst for knowledge or even as far to say power that leads to the fall. "Paradise Lost" is the known story beginning with the fall of angels to hell and the fall of man from God's grace. Similarly, in the poem "Paradise Lost" it is the temptation of knowledge that marks the fall for Eve and ultimately the Fall of Man. "Knowledge of good and evil in this tree, /that whoso eats thereof, forthwith attains." (Milton 723-724). As shown in both 16 quotes, it is a search for knowledge or desire for more that leads to the fall for the respective characters. The aspect of free will is portrayed in both poems as well. - Analysis: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe • Robinson Crusoe was written in 1719 in a simple narrative style and is believed to have started the genre of realistic fiction. It is narrated by the protagonist himself, Robinson. • The story begins with Robinson Crusoe describing his early life in York, England. Robinson eagerly wanted to venture out to sea, although both his parents urged him not to and tried to persuade him to stay home and lead a comfortable life. Despite his parents' warnings, Robinson left home and joined a ship to London without telling his parents. - Summary of October 1-31: • October 1: Crusoe regretted and bemoaned the fate of his shipmates and determined to board the ship to get whatever provisions he could. • October 1-24: These days were occupied by the many trips Crusoe made to the ship. • October 20: This was the day that the raft overturned, and he had to spend the entire day recovering the goods from the sea. • October 25: This being the rainy season, he spent this day covering his goods to protect them from the rain. • October 26: He found a proper location to build his home and began in the labors of this task. • October 26-30: These days were spent in transferring all of his goods to his new home and fortification. • October 31: He hunted, killed a she-goat, and killed the kid that followed him home. - Summary of Chapter 14: Crusoe teaches Friday. • Chapter 14: Crusoe helps the other captive escape and they kill two natives in the process, Crusoe giving the escapee a sword. The rescued captive is called Friday by Crusoe and is Crusoe's servant from now on. Crusoe teaches him the English language and provides him with everything a civilized man needs, including clothes, this represents the process of colonization. - Excerpts from Robinson Crusoe • “I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and living off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother (...).” • “Being the third son of the family and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had (...) designed me for the law; but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea (...). • My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design (...). He asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving father’s house and my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon 17