Reader's Log 2B

There are two Reader's Log sections within this assignment block. They consist of lecture material and instructions for responding to assigned passages of literature. Please study both the lecture material and the assigned passages of literature carefully. You will know when a response is required of you when you see the term READER'S LOG in all capital letters before a paragraph of text.It will be necessary to have your text book at hand while completing your responses. You should study them carefully on this Web page.

Restoration Drama:

Given the limitations of time and text, our course will largely feature only one of the main literary genres, poetry. Three of the others, drama, fiction, and expository prose, will be considered more briefly. You should be aware, however, that these genres flourished during our period. The comic drama of the Restoration has not been excelled in any other period. Unfortunately, we have no examples in our text. On your next vacation, you should make a point of reading one of the plays listed below.

Review your editors' commentary on Restoration drama, p. 867.

Drama is like fiction in that it has plot, characters, theme. It is like poetry in that it may be written in verse and make use of imagery, musical language, and meter. The first great period in English drama occurred during the Renaissance from about 1590 to 1610. Shakespeare and other notable playwrights created outstanding examples of tragedies, comedies, and history plays.

Respectable people did not attend plays during Shakespeare's time, regarding theaters, with some justification, as the gathering place for rakes and prostitutes. Acting was considered a profession too disreputable for women, and female roles were filled by boy actors. In 1642, following the triumph of the Puritans in the Civil War, Parliament closed the theaters, and a mood of moral severity dominated the country. With the accession of Charles II to the throne in 1660, the moral mood of the nation lightened and very quickly theaters reopened in London. During their years of exile, Charles and his courtiers had been exposed to a flourishing drama in France, and the practice of French playwrights had enormous influence upon English dramatists. Although there were only two theaters in London, the brilliant plays acted on their stages were sufficient to establish the Restoration period as the second great era of English drama.

Women were now allowed to play the parts of female characters, and respectable people often attended the theater. Tragedies and heroic plays struck most observers as moral and instructive, and even comedies were rationalized as having the high moral purpose of correcting the vices and foibles of humanity through ridicule. However, persons of a sober temperament continued to disapprove of the theater as a distraction from duty and godliness, again with some justification, for all too often the comedies of this era seemed to condone rather than to ridicule licentious behavior on the part of elegant and aristocratic people. Perhaps it is no surprise that it is these comedies that appeal to the modern age. Tragedy and heroic drama from this era, which seem bombastic and sententious, are almost never acted in our time. Restoration comedies, on the other hand, are still put on stage with some frequency.

The Restoration stage established a genre now called the comedy of manners. A comedy of manners is understood to deal with polite society, which in the Restoration era meant persons of high social caste, polished manners, educated speech, and cultivated taste. Playwrights could achieve wit by imitating the urbane, scintillating conversation of polite society and could achieve humor by creating characters who in some manner violated its standards. Restoration playwrights, audiences, and readers all agreed that the dual purpose of all literature was to entertain and to instruct. From Aristotle they understood that tragedy entertained and instructed by depicting the pitiable and terrifying downfall of noble personalities. From the same source, they understood that comedy entertained and instructed by depicting the ridiculous misbehavior of ordinary people. They believed, therefore, that beyond its laughter comedy had the high and serious purpose of correcting the vices and foibles of human beings for, as they reasoned, nothing corrects human behavior more readily than the fear of ridicule.

Important Restoration dramatists:

The following list features only the very most important playwrights and a single sample of their plays. As you will see, playwrights continued to create what may be called Restoration comedy till nearly 1710. Following that, a new kind of drama, called sentimental comedy, became dominant. Favorite specimens of Restoration comedy, however, continued to be acted throughout the entire 18th century.

John Dryden (1631-1700). Marriage A-la-Mode (1672)

Sir George Etherege (1634-1692). The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter (1676)

William Wycherley (1640-1715). The Country Wife (1672)

Aphra Behn (1640-1689). The Rover, or, The Banished Cavaliers (I, 1677; II, 1681)

Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726). The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger (1697)

William Congreve (1670-1729). The Way of the World (1700)

George Farquhar (1677-1707). The Beaux Stratagem (1707).

The Augustan Age and the Perfection of Neoclassical Poetry:

We turn now to the Augustan Age, 1700 to 1740, so called after Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, during whose reign the Latin poets Virgil, Horace, and Ovid created a literature greatly admired by the Neoclassical age for its elegance, wit, and decorum. During the years 1700 to 1740, many contemporary authors and readers judged that English prose and poetry had come to a near perfection, and indeed even later generations can affirm that Neoclassical literary values were at a height of brilliant expression. These values, as we saw earlier, were established by Dryden during the Restoration period, and it will be useful to repeat what was said about them in connection with him.

Neoclassical writers made (1) abundant allusion to classical literature and mythology. They admired imitations of classical models and translations of classical works and saw them as appropriate activities for a creative poet. In keeping with the spirit of (2) satire, much neoclassical writing was aimed at correcting vices and foibles through ridicule. Neoclassical taste preferred poetry that was (3) philosophical and didactic rather than lyrical. Finally, Neoclassical verse was characterized by the (4) heroic couplet, also called heroic verse.

Poetic terminology. If you feel inadequate in your understanding of meter, alliteration, assonance, rhyme, metaphor, simile, and other effects in poetry, study the section of "Poetic Forms and Literary Terminology," pp. 2838-2846. See especially the first two pages of this section for a definition of iambic pentameter.

Alexander Pope:

Read the editors' introduction, pp. 1119-1122.

Pope has no superior in the Neoclassical style and must in fact be ranked among the greatest of English poets. He seems never to have doubted his own taste in all matters. He was therefore eager to play the role of the satirist, the mender of the vices and foibles of others. He was widely read in the classics and wrote a great variety of imitations, which, in keeping with his age's definition of the term, were creative enlargements upon their classical models. He had a philosophical bent and developed in heroic couplets long expository essays on critical and philosophical topics.

READER'S LOG. An Essay on Criticism, lines 1-35, pp. 1123-1124. Read the editors' introduction, pp. 1122-1123. Examine this poem in some detail. This long expository poem is an imitation of Horace's "Ars Poetica," a versified essay in Latin on the art of poetry. Keep in mind that the word criticism in this context denotes the process of explicating and evaluating literature. Quote a line or two showing that Pope regards bad criticism as worse than bad literature.

READER'S LOG. An Essay on Criticism, lines 68-87, pp. 1124-1125. Pope says the standard of great literature for writer and critic alike is nature. It is especially the poet's duty to depict human nature, which is part of nature at large, with life-like accuracy. Quote lines 70-74, which express this concept.

READER'S LOG. An Essay on Criticism, lines 88-117, p. 1125. The procedures by which a poet accurately depicts human nature are here construed as the rules (an important term in the neoclassical vocabulary). Quote the first four lines of this section.

READER'S LOG. An Essay on Criticism, lines 118-140, pp. 1125-1126. The great achievement of the ancients, the authors of ancient Greece and Rome, is that they have already figured out the rules by which human nature is accurately and authentically portrayed in literature. Quote the last two lines of this section, which explain why the practice of imitating the ancients was so prevalent among Neoclassical authors.

READER'S LOG. READER'S LOG. An Essay on Criticism, lines 201-232, pp. 1126-1127. Having established how the rules are to be derived which will lead to the perfecting of modern literature, Pope now turns to the impediments to sound criticism. The first obstacle he names is pride and the next is superficial learning. Quote lines 215-218, which establish the necessity of thorough learning.

READER'S LOG: An Essay on Criticism, lines 337-383, pp. 1130-1131. Pope complains against critics who "form short ideas" (see line 287), that is, who emphasize a single aspect of poetry as being all important and ignore its many other aspects. At the end of the passage he urges critics to take all poetic qualities into account (see line 384). In between, he has considered some of the poetic qualities critics give undue emphasis to. One of these is "numbers" (see line 337), that is, meter and other sound effects like alliteration, assonance, and rhyme. Quote lines 344-349. Note that line 347 is perfect iambic pentameter yet most certainly a dull, unattractive line.

READER'S LOG. An Essay on Criticism, lines 362-369, p. 1131. In this famous passage, Pope establishes a recognized principle of poetry, that "sound must echo sense," that is, the sound of a poetic line must reinforce its meaning. Quote lines 366-369. Do you recognize how skillfully Pope imbues his first two lines with lulling sound and his second two lines with a vigorous, even violent sound?

READER'S LOG. The Rape of the Lock, pp. 1134-1154. Read the editors' introduction, pp. 1134-1135. Examine this poem in some detail. This poem is often called a mock epic, for in it Pope employs the conventions of the ancient epic for depicting the quarrel over the cutting of Arabella Fermor's hair. By ancient epic, we mean The Iliad and The Odyssey of the Greek poet Homer and The Aeneid of the Roman poet Virgil, which were long poetic narratives about heroic warfare.Pope's poem is thoroughly Neoclassical: it alludes to a classical model while expanding on a modern topic with good humored satire. An important convention from the ancient epic is the involvement of gods, goddesses, and other supernatural beings in the affairs of human beings. In his letter to Arabella, pp. 1135-1136, Pope says he will draw the supernatural participants in his mock epic from the arcane doctrine of the medieval Rosicrucians. From the third to last paragraph of his letter, name the four kinds of supernatural beings he will refer to.

READER'S LOG. The Rape of the Lock, canto 1, lines 67-114, pp. 1138-1139. The heroine of this poem, Belinda (representing Arabella Fermor), is called a nymph, a term Pope applies to beautiful young women throughout the poem. Belinda is guarded by a sylph named Ariel, who in lines 67-90, explains that chaste nymphs are cared for by the good sylphs, whereas coquettish nymphs are given over to the care of the bad gnomes. Ariel ends his discourse with a presentiment of an impending threat. Of what threat does Ariel particularly warn Belinda?

READER'S LOG. The Rape of the Lock, canto 2, lines 19-46, p. 1140. Here the poet describes Belinda's enticing locks and the baron's admiration for those locks. Like an ancient Greek, the baron invokes the assistance of the goddess Love by building an altar and offering a burnt sacrifice. From lines 35-46, what does he build his altar from and what does he sacrifice on it?

READER'S LOG. The Rape of the Lock, canto 3, lines 45-100, pp. 1143-1144. Belinda, having risen and made her toilette (dressed and adorned herself) travels by boat up the Thames to Hampton Court, where she engages in a card game Ombre with two young lords, one of whom is the soon-to-offend baron. These lines describe the card game in terms of a battle from an ancient epic. Quote lines 99-100, which describe Belinda's triumph.

READER'S LOG. The Rape of the Lock, canto 3, lines 147-160, pp. 1145-1146. These lines describe the rape, the snipping of Belinda's lock, and her angry, violated reaction to it. In lines 157-160, how does Pope make her reaction seem comic?

READER'S LOG. The Rape of the Lock, canto 4, lines 11-24, pp. 1146-1147. One of the conventions of the epic is a hero's descent into the Underworld. Here Pope fulfills this convention by having an evil gnome Umbriel visit the Cave of Spleen, ruled by the goddess of melancholy. What two companions are near this goddess on her bed?

READER'S LOG. The Rape of the Lock, canto 4, lines 79-88, p. 1148. The goddess who rules the Cave of Spleen gives Umbriel a bag and a vial with which he will stir up mischief after he has returned to the scene of the rape. What is in the bag and the vial?

READER'S LOG. The Rape of the Lock, canto 5, lines 7-34, pp. 1150-1151. After Thalestris' angry denunciations and Belinda's tearful protests, Clarissa proposes a wise rather than passionate response to the whole affair. Quote one or more lines which reveal the wise qualities Clarissa is recommending.

READER'S LOG. The Rape of the Lock, canto 5, lines 53-86, pp. 1151-1152. In spite of such good advice, Umbriel stirs up a battle, which proceeds with epic fury. From lines 75-86, tell how Belinda vanquished the Baron.

READER'S LOG. An Essay on Man, epistle 1, lines 1-16, p. 1154. Read the editors' introduction, pp.1153-1154. Examine this poem in some detail. This is the first of four epistles in heroic verse comprising this long didactic poem. Some scholars judge that An Essay on Man looms over all other works in the Neoclassical Era just as Paradise Lost looms over all other works from the late Renaissance period. Pope's work, while not anti-Christian in tone, is fundamentally deistic. Deism was a philosopher's religion of the 18^th century which assumed that religious truth lies in the doctrines held in common by all religions–doctrines such as that God exists and should be worshiped, that human beings are immortal, and that there will be eternal rewards and punishments for behavior in mortality. It was held to be an immoral religion by many Christians because it did not propound a Fall of humanity and an Atonement by Christ. In the passage here assigned here, Pope assures the friend to whom he has addressed this epistle that they will scour the human scene like hunters in the field. Note that Pope declares his overall purpose with a line borrowed from Milton's Paradise Lost. Compare Pope's and Milton's statements of purpose by quoting line 26 from Paradise Lost, p. 725, and line 16 from An Essay on Man, p. 1154.

READER'S LOG. An Essay on Man, epistle 1, lines 131-172, pp. 1157-1158. In this crucial passage, Pope asks why such evils as earthquakes and storms afflict mankind when Nature is supposedly good and providential. The deistic answer to this question is that the general good of all living things requires a stable, unchanging order that cannot alter in order to accommodate exceptional situations and cases. Quote lines 145-146 and lines 171-172.

READER'S LOG. An Essay on Man, epistle 1, lines 233-258, p. 1159 . Pope cites here what is called The Great Chain of Being, a concept originated by ancient philosophers and amplified by medieval Christian theologians. According to this concept, all creatures, from lowly insects to human beings and immortal angels exist in a hierarchical order, each having distinct privileges and obligations from all the others. It is therefore wrong to set aside this order as when, for example, a person prays for a miracle. Quote lines 257-258.

READER'S LOG. An Essay on Man, epistle 1, lines 279-292, p. 1160. The philosophy expressed in these famous closing lines is called optimism, the view that the universe is fundamentally good and evil is merely a misperception. Quote lines 289-292.

READER'S LOG: The Dunciad, Book the Fourth, lines 579-604, p. 1182. Read the editors' introduction, pp. 1179-1180. Examine this poem in some detail.The fourth book of The Dunciad was published long after the first three. The title refers to satirically to dunces, or unintelligent people, and to the ancient epic, The Iliad, whose title ends in ad. Like Dryden's Mac Flecknoe, which it consciously imitates, it is therefore a mock epic or mock heroic poem. In the passage you are asked to respond to, the same Godess of Dulness that Dryden set forth in his poem speaks to the rulers of England, bidding them, as your editors say in note # 1 at the bottom of page 1182, "indulge in the triviality closest to his heart." Quote two or three lines that name at least one of these rulers and his particular triviality.

READER'S LOG. Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, lines 75-108, pp. 1171-1172. Read the editors' introduction, pp. 1168-1169. Examine this poem in some detail.  In this poem, personal though quite abstract in word choice, Pope explains to good friend, Dr. Arbuthnot, why he has consistently disturbed his own peace by writing satire against the vices and foibles of his age. Pope illustrates well what I said above about persons of cultivated taste believing that their taste had an absolute value and that persons of differing taste were deficient and in need of correction. In opening of the assigned passage, Arbuthnot, designated by the capital letter A, admonishes Pope to be cautious about naming important persons in his satire. Quote lines 78-83, showing Pope's assertive response. Also in your response, identify the person called Sappho (an ancient Greek poetess) in line 101, p. 1172.