Does the poem show a morbid disgust with life, or a noble disdain of it? Discuss and illustrate the extreme energy and conciseness of expression, pointing out the balanced structure of some of the lines. Comment upon the simile in lines 7-8. Is it homely or far-fetched? Is it used to lend force, or clearness, or beauty? What is the effect of the feminine rhymes in the seventh stanza? What facts of Raleigh's life help to justify this indictment of Elizabethan society? Even such is Time. These lines, Oldys tells us in his Life of Raleigh, were found in Raleigh's Bible at the Gatehouse Prison after his execution. What is the significance of the tradition that so many of Raleigh's poems were written the night before his death? Prothalamion. extant. EDMUND SPENSER This is the last complete poem by Spenser which is Its complete title was: Prothalamion, or a Spousall Verse made by Edm. Spenser, in honour of the double marriage of the two honorable and vertuous ladies, the Ladie Elizabeth and the Ladie Katherine Somerset, daughters to the right honourable the Earle of Worcester and espoused to the two worthie gentlemen M. Henry Gilford and M. William Peter, Esquyeres. 3. delay, mollify. 4. Titan's. Who was Titan? 6-9. Explain this reference to Spenser's own experience by reading Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubberds Tale, 11. 905-918. 22. greenish. Why? loose untyde. It was customary for maidenbrides to wear their hair unbound. 27. feateously. Meaning? 30-33. What does each of the flowers symbolize? Cf. Lycidas, 11. 135 ff. 33. vermeil. Meaning? 38. lee, a small stream flowing into the Thames. 60. them seem'd. 'Them' is dative. 43. Who was Leda? 63. teeme. Meaning? 67. bred of Somers-heat, a punning allusion to the name Somerset. 95. couplement, union. 99. All loves dislike, distaste for love. 110. undersong. Meaning? 128. Name some other English poets who were born in London. 132. Who were the Knights Templar? 139. that great lord, Lord Leicester. In which of Scott's romances does he figure? 145. Who was the Earl of Essex? 177. tide. Meaning? Cf. 'Yule tide.' What is meant by saying that Spenser's muse is more idyllic than lyrical? How does this poem illustrate the statement? Spenser has succeeded better than any other English poet in finding or inventing metrical forms best fitted to express his thought. Point out the special fitness of this stanza form. Is the poet ever cramped in the expression of his thought through the needs of the verse form? Select some especially melodious lines. What is the effect of the recurring refrain ? How do the 'run on' lines affect the flowing movement of the verse ? What is the rhyme scheme? What seems to be Spenser's favorite form of alliteration? Is the alliteration too evident in lines 104-105 ? How does the influence of the classics appear in the poem? Why has Spenser been called 'the poet's poet'? The Faerie Queene is one of the longest poems ever written. Though only a little more than half finished, it consists of some four thousand nine-line stanzas. According to Spenser's plan, twelve knights, representing twelve virtues, were to have been sent on adventures from the court of Gloriana, Queen of Fairyland. The second book tells the story of Guyon, who represents chastity. 19. a Lady. Phædria, the bright or glittering one, who represents senseless mirth and idleness. 93. voyd, uninhabited. 57. aguize, adorn. 101. Lowell thinks this line characterizes the feeling Spenser's poetry gives us. Can you see why? 109 ff. Why is the movement of Stanza XIII especially musical? 126-135. Spenser makes Phædria speak of the flowers in a way that recalls Matthew vi. 26–29. 142. Belamoure, lover. 137. Flowre-deluce, the fleur-de-lys, or iris. 150. Milton undoubtedly had this passage in mind when he makes Comus use the same argument (Comus, 11. 706 ff.). De The meter in the Faerie Queene is Spenser's own invention. scribe fully this Spenserian stanza. Note, especially in the second stanza, how by the variety of the pauses Spenser has avoided monotony. What is the effect of the twelve-syllabled line at the end of each stanza ? Do any words seem coined to meet the needs of the rhyme ? Study the use of alliteration. Point out some subtle sound combinations. Do the alliterations ever become obtrusive? What different purposes are here served by the use of the device? Spenser has been called the most fluent of our poets. Would this poem have been improved by greater conciseness in the expression? What lines seem best to exemplify Spenser's keen sensitiveness to beauty? How does Spenser's imagination differ from Chaucer's? How does this selection help to confirm the belief expressed by Leigh Hunt, that if Spenser had not been a great poet, he would have been a great painter? SIR PHILIP SIDNEY A Ditty. This little song Sidney afterward expanded into a sonnet, and inserted into the text of the Arcadia. The student may find it interesting to compare the two. How does this poem illustrate the fact that the lyric reflects a mood, rather than symbolizes an event or presents a picture? What feelings or emotions, other than those of love, may find expression in lyric poetry? Sonnet XXXI. From Astrophel and Stella, a series of sonnets and songs addressed to Lady Penelope Devereux, who afterward became Lady Rich. Are there any distinctly marked divisions in this sonnet? JOHN LYLY Apelles' Song. How does this poem illustrate what has been called the airy lightness' of Lyly's lyrics? Which is more characteristic of this lyric, earnestness or grace? What implied compliment to Campaspe is contained in the poem? What in the poem is distinctly Elizabethan ? MICHAEL DRAYTON Sonnet LXI. Is the conclusion of the sonnet as good poetically as the beginning? Compare the thought with that of Shakespeare's Sonnet CXVI. To the Cambro-Britons and their Harp, his Ballad of Agincourt. Why should Drayton dedicate the poem to the Cambro-Britons? 17-19. Compare with Shakespeare's Henry V, IV, iii, 79 ff. For an account of the battle of Agincourt see Gardiner's Student's History of England, p. 302, or Green's History of the English People, I, 542. How accurate is Drayton's description of the battle? 48. Explain this line. 82. Bilbos. Meaning? In what other sense is the word employed? 113. Crispin's day. When? In what martial lyric does Tennyson employ the meter of this poem? In what ballad does Longfellow use it? What lines best illustrate Drayton's skill in the use of proper names in verse? Point out the most vigorous lines. What elements of the ballad characterize this poem? Compare the close with that of The Charge of the Light Brigade. Why have some good critics regarded this as the greatest war poem in English? WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Sonnets. XXIX. What is the Shakespearian sonnet form? What are the different moods here portrayed? Are the transitions from one mood to another well made? Which do you consider the best chosen adjective? Which do you regard as the most suggestive line? How is an unusual beauty of movement produced in line 11? XXX. Which sonnet contains the more fine phrases, this or the preceding? What effective use of assonance and alliteration may be noted? Study the changes in movement through the sonnet. What is the 'pathetic fallacy'? See Johnson's Elements of Literary Criticism, p. 241. Should we condemn its use in this sonnet? structure of this sonnet, noting its development through comparisons. Which seems to you the most suggestive of the three comparisons; which the most beautiful? LXXIII. Study the Which line seems to you the most imaginative? CXVI. Johnson's Elements of Literary Criticism, p. 165 ff., contains an excellent discussion of the thought movement' of this sonnet. 6 What is the emphatic word of line 9? Tennyson in Locksley Hall has expressed the same thought of the permanence of true love. How many sonnets did Shakespeare write, and to whom do they seem to be addressed? Which of those studied do you consider the most beautiful, and why? What are some of the recurrent ideas in these sonnets? What phrases are the most memorable? A Madrigal. The authenticity of this poem has been questioned, though it appeared with several of Shakespeare's poems in the poetical miscellany called The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599. Does the accent fall upon the emphatic words? Note the meter and its fitness for the expression of the balanced thoughts of the poem. Find other illustrations of the fondness of the Elizabethans for artificial balance. 11. saw, long story, illustration. Cf. As You Like It, II, vii, 156. 14. crabs, apples. What line serves as a refrain ? A good refrain should suggest the emotion of which the lyric as a whole is the expression. Is this a good refrain? Point out the concrete and suggestive words in the poem, and tell what pictures they call forth. Tell me, where is Fancy Bred. Notice that each of these songs voices the spirit of the play in which it is found. Thus, 'Tell me, where is fancy bred' is characteristic of the comedy (The Merchant of Venice) whose chief theme is love; while the two songs from As You Like It sound the lighter and the more somber tones of that comedy in which hatred ties the knot that love unties. Similarly, 'Cup us till the world goes round' voices the spirit of the full-blooded play (Antony and Cleopatra) in which it figures. to. 1. fancy, synonymous with love. Why the change in the meter in the last four lines? Scan the last two lines. Under the Greenwood Tree. 3. turn his merry note unto, adapt it Cf. to turn a tune. ENG. POEMS- - 23 |