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217 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Dickinson
[49] "I never lost as much but twice," |
"Burglar! Banker-- Father!"
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Dickinson
[79] "Exultation is the going" |
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses—past the headlands— Into deep Eternity— Bred as we, among the mountains, Can the sailor understand The divine intoxication Of the first league out from land?" [entire poem] Trochaic |
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Dickinson
[130] "These are the days when Birds come back -- |
A very few—a Bird or two—
To take a backward look. These are the days when skies resume The old—old sophistries of June— A blue and gold mistake. [...] Last Communion in the the Haze --" [first stanza and excerpt] |
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Dickinson
[214] "I taste a liquor never brewed -- |
From Tankards scooped in Pearl—
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine Yield such an Alcohol!" [first stanza] |
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Dickinson
[241] "I like a look of Agony, |
Because I know it's true --
Men do not sham Convulsion, Nor simulate, a Throe -- The Eyes glaze once -- and that is Death -- Impossible to feign The Beads upon the Forehead By homely Anguish strung." [entire poem] |
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Dickinson
[258] "There's a certain Slant of light," |
"When it comes, the Landscape listens -- /
Shadows -- hold their breath -- / When it goes, 'tis like the Distance / On the look of Death --" [excerpt] |
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Dickinson
[280] "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, |
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading—treading—till it seemed That Sense was breaking through—" [...] "As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race Wrecked, solitary, here --" [first stanza and excerpt] |
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Dickinson
[290] "Of Bronze -- and Blaze -- |
The North -- Tonight --
So adequate -- it forms -- So preconcerted with itself -- So distant -- to alarms --" [first stanza] |
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Dickinson
[341] "After great pain, a formal feeling comes -- |
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, And Yesterday, or Centuries before? The Feet, mechanical, go round -- Of Ground, or Air, or Ought -- A Wooden way Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone -- This is the Hour of Lead -- Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow -- First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --" [entire poem] |
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Dickinson
[401] "What Soft -- Cherubic Creatures --" |
"A Horror so refined"
[excerpt] |
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Dickinson
[435] "Much Madness is divinest Sense -- |
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness -- 'Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail -- Assent -- and you are sane -- Demur -- you're straightway dangerous -- And handled with a Chain --" [entire poem] |
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Dickinson
[448] "This was a Poet -- It is That |
Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings -- And Attar so immense" [first stanza] |
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Dickinson
[449] "I died for Beauty -- but was scarce" |
"And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night --
We talked between the Rooms -- Until the Moss had reached our lips -- And covered up -- our names --" [last stanza] |
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Yeats
Sailing to Byzantium |
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees -- Those dying generations--at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackeral-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. [first stanza] [1928] |
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Yeats
To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time |
I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days. [last lines] [1893] |
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Yeats
The Lake Isle of Innisfree |
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core. [entire poem] [1893] |
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Yeats
to Ireland in the Coming Times |
Ah, faerics, dancing under the moon,
A Druid land, a Druid tune! While still I may, I write for you The love I lived, the dream I knew. From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye; And we, our singing and our love, What measurer Time has lit above, And all benighted things that go About my table to and fro, Are passing on to where may be, In truth’s consuming ecstasy, No place for love and dream at all; For God goes by with white footfall. [excerpt] [1893] |
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Yeats
Adam's Curse |
We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die, And in the trembling blue-green of the sky A moon, worn as if it had been a shell Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell About the stars and broke in days and years. I had a thought for no one’s but your ears: That you were beautiful, and that I strove To love you in the old high way of love; That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown As weary-hearted as that hollow moon. [last lines] [1904] |
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Yeats
No Second Troy |
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great. Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn? [entire poem] [1910] |
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Yeats
September 1913 |
What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone? For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave. [first stanza] [1914] |
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Yeats
A Coat |
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world’s eyes As though they’d wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there’s more enterprise In walking naked. [entire poem] [1914] |
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Yeats
The Fisherman |
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream; And cried, ‘Before I am old I shall have written him one poem maybe as cold And passionate as the dawn.’ [last lines] [1919] |
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Yeats
Easter 1916 |
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born. [excerpt, repeated 3 times with minor variation] [1921] |
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Yeats
In Memory of Major Robert Gregory |
Some burn dam faggots, others may consume
The entire combustible world in one small room As though dried straw, and if we turn about The bare chimney is gone black out Because the work had finished in that flare. Soldier, scholar, horseman, he, As ’twere all life’s epitome. What made us dream that he could comb grey hair? [Stanza XI] [1919] |
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Yeats
The Wild Swans at Coole |
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. [fourth of five stanzas] [1919] |
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Yeats
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death |
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death. [last lines] [1919] |
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Yeats
The Second Coming |
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. [first stanza] [1921] |
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Yeats
A Prayer For My Daughter |
Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel. O may she live like some green laurel Rooted in one dear perpetual place. [excerpt] [1921] |
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Yeats
The Tower |
I have prepared my peace
With learned Italian things And the proud stones of Greece, Poet’s imaginings And memories of love, Memories of the words of women, All those things whereof Man makes a superhuman, Mirror-resembling dream. [excerpt] [1928] |
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Yeats
Among School Children |
III
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage I look upon one child or t’other there And wonder if she stood so at that age— For even daughters of the swan can share Something of every paddler’s heritage— And had that colour upon cheek or hair, And thereupon my heart is driven wild: She stands before me as a living child. [...] VI Plato thought nature but a spume that plays Upon a ghostly paradigm of things; Solider Aristotle played the taws Upon the bottom of a king of kings; World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings What a star sang and careless Muses heard: Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird. [...] O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? [last couplet] [1928] |
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Yeats
Byzantium |
The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor’s drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night walkers’ song After great cathedral gong; A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities, The fury and the mire of human veins. [first stanza] Astraddle on the dolphin’s mire and blood, Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood. The golden smithies of the Emperor! Marbles of the dancing floor Break bitter furies of complexity, Those images that yet Fresh images beget, That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea. [last stanza] [1933] |
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Yeats
Ego Dominus Tuus |
Hic. And yet
No one denies to Keats love of the world; Remember his deliberate happiness. Ille. His art is happy, but who knows his mind? I see a schoolboy when I think of him, With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window, For certainly he sank into his grave His senses and his heart unsatisfied, And made - being poor, ailing and ignorant, Shut out from all the luxury of the world, The coarse-bred son of a livery-stable keeper— Luxuriant song. [excerpt] [1919] |
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Yeats
Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop |
‘A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent; But Love has pitched his mansion in The place of excrement; For nothing can be sole or whole That has not been rent.’ [last stanza] [1933] |
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Yeats
Lapis Lazuli |
Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent, Seems a water-course or an avalanche, Or lofty slope where it still snows Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch Sweetens the little half-way house Those Chinamen climb towards, and I Delight to imagine them seated there; There, on the mountain and the sky, On all the tragic scene they stare. One asks for mournful melodies; Accomplished fingers begin to play. Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay. [last stanza] [1938] |
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Yeats
The Circus Animals' Desertion |
Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of. III Those masterful images because complete Grew in pure mind, but out of what began? A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street, Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can, Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder’s gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart. [last lines] [1939] |
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Yeats
Under Ben Bulben |
No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot By his command these words are cut: Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by! [last lines] [1939] |
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Dickinson
[449] "I died for Beauty—but was scarce |
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining room—" |
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Dickinson
[465] "I heard a Fly buzz—when I died— |
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air— Between the Heaves of Storm—" |
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Dickinson
[508] "I’m ceded—I’ve stopped being Theirs— |
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church Is finished using, now, And They can put it with my Dolls, My childhood, and the string of spools, I’ve finished threading—too—" [first stanza] |
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Dickinson
[564] "My period had come for Prayer—" |
"Unbroken by a Settler—
Were all that I could see— Infinitude—Had’st Thou no Face That I might look on Thee?" [excerpt] |
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Dickinson
[569] "I reckon—when I count it all— |
First—Poets—Then the Sun—
Then Summer—Then the Heaven of God— And then—the List is done—" [first stanza] |
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Dickinson
[585] "I like to see it lap the Miles— |
And lick the Valleys up—
And stop to feed itself at Tanks— And then—prodigious step" |
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Dickinson
[640] "I cannot live with You— |
It would be Life—
And Life is over there— Behind the Shelf" |
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Dickinson
[650] "Pain -- has an Element of Blank -- |
It cannot recollect
When it begun -- or if there were A time when it was not -- It has no Future -- but itself -- Its Infinite contain Its Past -- enlightened to perceive New Periods -- of Pain." [entire poem] |
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Dickinson
[675] "Essential Oils—are wrung— |
The Attar from the Rose
Be not expressed by Suns—alone— It is the gift of Screws— The General Rose—decay— But this—in Lady’s Drawer Make Summer—When the Lady lie In Ceaseless Rosemary—" [entire poem] |
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Dickinson
[712] "Because I could not stop for Death— |
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves— And Immortality. [...] Since then—’tis Centuries—and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity—" |
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Dickinson
[754] "My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun— |
In Corners—till a Day
The Owner passed—identified— And carried Me away— [...] Though I than He—may longer live He longer must—than I— For I have but the power to kill, Without—the power to die—" [first and last stanzas] |
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Dickinson
[985] "The Missing All—prevented Me |
From missing minor Things.
If nothing larger than a World’s Departure from a Hinge— Or Sun’s extinction, be observed— ’Twas not so large that I Could lift my Forehead from my work For Curiosity." [entire poem] |
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Dickinson
[986] "A narrow Fellow in the Grass" |
"But never met this Fellow
Attended, or alone Without a tighter breathing And Zero at the Bone—" |
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Dickinson
[1052] "I never saw a Moor— |
I never saw the Sea—
Yet know I how the Heather looks And what a Billow be. I never spoke with God Nor visited in Heaven— Yet certain am I of the spot As if the Checks were given—" [entire poem] |
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Dickinson
[1129] "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant— |
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind—" |
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Dickinson
[1207] "He preached upon “Breadth” till it argued him narrow— |
The Broad are too broad to define
And of “Truth” until it proclaimed him a Liar— The Truth never flaunted a Sign—" |
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Dickinson
[1333] "A little Madness in the Spring |
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown— Who ponders this tremendous scene— This whole Experiment of Green— As if it were his own!" |
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Dickinson
[1463] "A Route of Evanescence |
With a revolving Wheel—
A Resonance of Emerald— A Rush of Cochineal— And every Blossom on the Bush Adjusts its tumbled Head— The mail from Tunis, probably, An easy Morning’s Ride—" |
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Dickinson
[1624] "Apparently with no surprise |
To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at its play— In accidental power— The blonde Assassin passes on— The Sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another Day For an Approving God." [entire poem] |
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Dickinson
[1732] "My life closed twice before its close— |
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil A third event to me So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell." |
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Poe
A Dream Within A Dream |
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow— You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream: Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand— How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep While I weep—while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? [entire poem] |
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Poe
Sonnet—To Science |
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing! Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree? |
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Poe
Romance |
Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing, Among the green leaves as they shake Far down within some shadowy lake, To me a painted paroquet Hath been—a most familiar bird— Taught me my alphabet to say— To lisp my very earliest word While in the wild wood I did lie, A child—with a most knowing eye. Of late, eternal Condor years So shake the very Heaven on high With tumult as they thunder by, I have no time for idle cares Though gazing on the unquiet sky. And when an hour with calmer wings Its down upon my spirit flings— That little time with lyre and rhyme To while away—forbidden things! My heart would feel to be a crime Unless it trembled with the strings. [entire poem] |
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Poe
To Helen |
Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight—
Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow), That bade me pause before that garden-gate, To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses? No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept, Save only thee and me—(O Heaven!—O God! How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)— Save only thee and me. I paused—I looked— And in an instant all things disappeared. (Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!) [excerpts] |
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Poe
Israfel |
The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit— Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervor of thy lute— Well may the stars be mute! [excerpt] |
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Poe
The City in the Sea |
No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently— Gleams up the pinnacles far and free— Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls— Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls— Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers— Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine. [excerpt] |
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Poe
The Sleeper |
[first stanza]
[...] The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep Which is enduring, so be deep! Heaven have her in its sacred keep! This chamber changed for one more holy, This bed for one more melancholy, I pray to God that she may lie For ever with unopened eye, While the dim sheeted ghosts go by! [excerpted stanza] |
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Poe
The Valley of Unrest |
Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell; They had gone unto the wars, Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, Nightly, from their azure towers, To keep watch above the flowers, In the midst of which all day The red sun-light lazily lay, Now each visitor shall confess The sad valley’s restlessness. Nothing there is motionless— Nothing save the airs that brood Over the magic solitude. Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees That palpitate like the chill seas Around the misty Hebrides! Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven That rustle through the unquiet Heaven Unceasingly, from morn till even, Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye— Over the lilies that wave And weep above a nameless grave! They wave:—from out their fragrant tops Eternal dews come down in drops. They weep:—from off their delicate stems Perennial tears descend in gems. [entire poem] |
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Poe
Sonnet_Silence |
There are some qualities—some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made A type of that twin entity which springs From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade. [first stanza] |
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Poe
Ulalume |
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. [first stanza] |
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Theseus, duke of Athens
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Chaucer
The Knight's Tale Character--Duke |
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Palamon and Arcite
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Chaucer
The Knight's Tale Prisoners |
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Emelye the brighte
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Chaucer
The Knight's Tale The Duke's Sister-in-Law |
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Perotheus
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Chaucer
The Knight's Tale The Duke's friend |
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Arcite becomes "Philostrate"
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Chaucer
The Knight's Tale the lovesick's psudonym |
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Venus, the goddess of love;
Mars the god of war; Diana, the goddess of chastity |
Chaucer
The Knight's Tale the three gods |
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Palamon prays to Venus, the goddess of love;
Arcite prays to Mars the god of war; Emelye prays to Diana, the goddess of chastity |
Chaucer
The Knight's Tale who prays to whom |
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John, an old oaf
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Chaucer
The Miller's Tale Carpenter |
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Nicholas, who studies astrology
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Chaucer
The Miller's Tale Student |
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Alison, fair and slim
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Chaucer
The Miller's Tale Wife |
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Absolon, jolly
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Chaucer
The Miller's Tale Singer |
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each man gets his punishment:
John is injured and declared insane; Absolon is humiliated; Nicholas is burned. |
Chaucer
The Miller's Tale conclusion |
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Oswald
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Chaucer
The Reeve's Tale name of the Reeve |
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Simon or Symkyn
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Chaucer
The Reeve's Tale Miller's name |
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John and Aleyn
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Chaucer
The Reeve's Tale two students |
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Molly
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Chaucer
The Reeve's Tale Miller's daughter |
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proud Symkyn gets a beating (from Aleyn), loses his labor, is cuckolded, and has his daughter seduced
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Chaucer
The Reeve's Tale conclusion |
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5, 3 "good" and 2 "bad"
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale # husbands |
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even if virginity is important, someone must be procreating so that virgins can be created
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale why marriage is OK |
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Jankyn
|
Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale last husband's name |
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for love, not money
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale why the last husband married |
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Valerie and Theofraste
|
Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale name of last husband's book |
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"book of wicked wives"
|
Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale last husband's book's epithet |
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Delilah's betrayal of Samson;
Clytemnestra's murder of Agamemnon; etc. |
Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale last husband's book's chronicles |
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Alisoun
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale her name |
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tears three pages out of the book and punches husband in the face; he punches back which is why she is deaf in one ear
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath her revenge |
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a knight who rapes a beautiful young maiden
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale her main character |
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knight must discover what women want most in the world
|
Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale plot |
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women love money, honor, jolliness, looks, sex, remarriage, flattery, freedom, discretion, secrecy
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale tale's dismay |
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Ovid's story of Midas
|
Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale tale within a tale |
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women most desire to be in charge of their husbands and lovers
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale answer to the quest |
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a loathsome hag
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale who provides rising action |
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hag can be ugly but loyal and good or young and fair but coquettish and unfaithful
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale critical choice |
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hag becomes both beautiful and good
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Chaucer
The Wife of Bath's Tale resolution |
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Saluzzo-- a region at the base of Mount Viso in Italy
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Chaucer
The Clerk's Tale location |
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Walter, a marquis of careless pursuits;
Janicula, a humble man; Griselde, his daughter, exceedingly virtuous, courageous, and charitable the Countess of Panago, Walter's sister |
Chaucer
The Clerk's Tale main characters |
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all women should strive to be as steadfast as Griselde by displaying the greatest patience and subservience possible
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Chaucer
The Clerk's Tale moral |
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January, a 60 year-old, prosperous knight from Lombardy;
Placebo, his brother; Theophrastus, a scholar; May, January's new wife; Damian, January's squire |
Chaucer
The Merchant's Tale main characters |
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Damian is hiding in a tree at the same time that Pluto, king of the fairies and Queen Proserpina walk through the garden. May climbs the tree and has sex with Damian as Pluto restore January his vision. Persphone gives May a good explanation which is that she had to "struggle with a man in a tree."
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Chaucer
The Merchant's Tale rising action and climax |
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Arviragus, a Breton knight;
Dorigen, his wife; Aurelius, a squire; Student of Law at Orleans |
Chaucer
The Franklin's Tale characters |
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Aurelius declared his undying love for Dorigen and she agreed to become his lover if he could clear the rocks near the shore that could endanger the incoming ships that may contain Arvirigus. Aurelius knew that the hopeful task was impossible and thereupon contacted a law student in Orleans who was skilled with the sciences of illusions and other such magic. Aurelius set out to journey to Orleans to meet this student... who had the powers to remove all the rocks from the shore for one week in exchange for one thousand pounds. Aurelius was thrilled with the bargain and told a melancholy Dorigen, who realized that she must either give up her body or her name to Aurelius.
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Chaucer
The Franklin's Tale plot |
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Dorigen cites several famous maidens who gave up their lives for their faith and their lovers, in lieu of giving themselves to other men, such as Lacedaemon, Hasdrubal's wife, and Lucrece.
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Chaucer
The Franklin's Tale rising action |
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Aurelius is so beguiled by Arviragus's honor that he lets Dorigen go free without fulfilling the promise. Aurelius proceeds to pay the law student for his services, who does not force him to pay his debt because of his great respect and honor for his deed. All three men had proven themselves generous and honorable.
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Chaucer
The Franklin's Tale resolution |
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The tale concludes with the open-ended question: Which of the three men is the more chivalrous, honorable, and desirous?
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Chaucer
The Franklin's Tale denouement |
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Radix malorum est Cupiditas
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Chaucer
The Pardoner sermon topic |
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gluttony,
drunkenness, gambling, swearing. |
Chaucer
The Pardoner's Tale vices he preaches against |
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Eight bushels of gold coins
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Chaucer
The Pardoner's Tale What is Death |
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the pardoner tries to sell fake relics
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Chaucer
The Pardoner's Tale after he tells the tale |
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The beautiful Christian daughter of the Emperor of Rome, who is sent to Syria to marry the Sultan, and then returned on a boat to Rome after the massacre. She lives on the shores of Cumberland and marries King Alla. She gives birth to Mauritus while there, but is banished by his mother, Lady Donegild. She is reunited with her father and husband at the conclusion of the tale and returns to the shores.
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Chaucer
Man of Law's Tale Constance |
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The Sultan converts to Christianity to marry Constance, but unfortunately takes her to a foreign land that she does not like.
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Chaucer
Man of Law's Tale The Sultan |
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The Sultana is the Sultan's mother who devises the massacre that allows Constance to supposedly return home in lieu of marrying her son.
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Chaucer
Man of Law's Tale The Sultana |
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The Warden finds Constance on the shores of Northcumberland and brings her to King Alla.
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Chaucer
Man of Law's Tale The Warden |
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The Warden's wife of Northcumberland who befriends Constance. The Knight murders her and frames Constance for her death.
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Chaucer
Man of Law's Tale Dame Hermengild |
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Alla is the King of Northcumberland and is currently at war with the Scots. He marries Constance and has a child, Mauritius, with her.
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Chaucer
Man of Law's Tale King Alla |
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The shore city where Constance is shipwrecked and lives. Alla is the King of this nation, converts to Christianity, and marries Constance.
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Chaucer
Man of Law's Tale Northcumberland |
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The shore city where Constance is shipwrecked and lives in the Man of Law's Tale. Alla is the King of this nation, converts to Christianity, and marries Constance.
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Chaucer
Man of Law's Tale Northcumberland |
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King Alla's mother and maliciously changes the letters of correspondence between the two. She sends Constance and Mauritius away from Northcumberland while Alla is away.
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Chaucer
Man of Law's Tale Lady Donegild |
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The son of Alla and Constance and is banished by Lady Donegild with Constance soon after his birth. He later becomes emperor of Rome.
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Chaucer
Man of Law's Tale Mauritius |
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A well-respected knight, murders his daughter, Virginia, when he realizes that she has been dishonored and raped.
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Chaucer
Physician's Tale Virginius |
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The maiden daughter of Virginius who allows her fairness and beauty to lead her to trouble. Appius lusts after her and schemes to have her raped.
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Chaucer
The Physician's Tale Virginia |
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The judge who manipulates the tale with others. He allows Claudius to claim that Virginius stole a slave and furthermore claims that the slave is his daughter, Virginia. When his chicanery is revealed, he is put in jail where he commits suicide.
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Chaucer
The Physician's Tale Appius |
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The churl who takes the young maiden from her father.
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Chaucer
The Physician's Tale Claudius |
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The secretary of the first nun. Her short tale chronicles the history and life of Saint Cecilia.
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Chaucer
Second Nun's Tale Second Nonne (Nun) |
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Once purged of his sins, Valerian returns home to find Cecilia with the angel. He has a crown of flowers that supposedly only the pure and chaste can see. Cecilia's brother, Tibertius, is summoned and views the floral crown. The angel gives it to Valerian and Tibertius and they proceed to see Urban once more. Before they left, the angel urges Tibertius to cease his idol worshipping.
The two men meet with Urban once again and wonder how Cecilia can worship three gods, to which he responds that they are the Trinity - each a part of the one Christian god. The two men are Christened and then sent off to the prefect, Almachius, for execution. One of the sergeants, Maximus, claimed that he saw their spirits ascending to heaven during their executions, and he was then beaten to death. Cecilia buried him with her two men and was therefore summoned by Almachius. She appeared collected and presentable, without fear, and condemned his worship of idols. Almachius planned to have her executed by boiling, however, she suffered no burns. He then planned to have her executed by swordplay; however, again, after three slashes she suffered no mortal wounds. She was left to die by the executioner as Christians attempt to save her. She eventually dies and is declared a saint by Pope Urban. |
Chaucer
Second Nun's Tale her tale |
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A rooster on the farm of the old lady who believed that dreams were a prediction of reality. Chanticleer is almost eaten by a fox, when Pertelote squawks out loud and everyone is saved.
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Chaucer
The Nun's Priest's Tale Chanticleer |
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Chanticleer's favorite hen who did not believe that dreams were a reflection of reality. Instead, Pertelote believed that they were signs of ill humor. Pertelote saves Chanticleer from getting eaten by a fox.
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Chaucer
The Nun's Priest's Tale Pertelote |
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Chanticleer and Pertelote talk of many famous sayings and proverbs until they realize that men and women are perfect for one another. Chanticleer then goes in the morning to search for herbs, where a fox grabs him. Pertelote squawked loudly, alerting the old woman who chased the fox away saving Chanticleer. The tale ends with everyone alive and safe.
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Chaucer
The Nun's Priest's Tale conclusion |
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A good man of the cloth who is devoted to God and his congregation. He is respected and blessed and tells a tale of sin existing in multiple faces. As one of the holy and moralistic men of the pilgrimage, the Parson represents the Church that is not completely dishonest.
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Chaucer
The Parson's Tale Parson |
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Pride (the worst sin of all),
Ire, Envy, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, and Lechery. |
Chaucer
The Parson's Tale the seven deadly sins |
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Chastity and Abstinence are some remedies for sins.
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Chaucer
The Parson's Tale remedies for sin |
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Comitatus
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the warrior band of retainers that are bound to the king, in OE this band is called the werod.
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Elegy
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features include meditation on the mutability of the world and its institutions and a deep sense of loss or mental anguish
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Heroic Poetry
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they dramatize a situation of heroic proportions using traditional diction. This is a mode of poetry that casts certain situations in a particular light, which can be used for propaganda or to familiarize abstruse texts (such as the Bible).
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The Wanderer—Themes
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•Transitory nature of the world—notice the ubi sunt motif near the end in which the wanderer asks where the things of this world have gone. This is a major motif probably initiated by Isidore of Seville
•The quasi-stoic injunction to silence that is a “most noble custom for earls”—this is one of the main ways that the wanderers problem is dramatized—he is an earl and must remain silent, but in this changing world with those earls all dead, he is forced to consider what the meaning of that custom really is in the grand scheme of things. •Destruction of the institutions of the transitory world—what did you think that gold and that sweet warm hall were going to last forever. Haven’t you ever heard of Matthew 6:19-21 (“Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal…”). •Note the loneliness also, a dramatic way to explore the loss of the king and comitatus as well as to situate those customs and institutions in a grand historical framework (from Christianity). •Dreams and visions abound as the wanderer thinks about his lord or imagines a phantasmagoria of destruction, decay, violence and the overall weakness of all that humanity can muster up against the forces of time and fate. •Fate—what happens to us all, called wyrd in OE. This concept of the thing that happens (this is the etymological significance of wyrd) is viewed as almost an inscrutable force of nature (though it is subject to God). |
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The Seafarer—Themes
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•Contrasts land/stability and the sea/instability... worthless in the face of the only real stability which is in Heaven.
•The seasons and weather are also shown to contrast (and are quite picturesquely described). This contrast is also nothing when compared to heaven. •Speaking of contrast, there is a contrasting structure here in which the poem breaks up roughly into two halves, a “testimonial” monologue type discourse and a homiletic style discourse. •Visions/Dreams also important here. •As in Beowulf, praise of heroic worth is shown to be an important element of society here (though worldly praise is proved worthless in the face of heavenly praise). |
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Ofermod
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overweening pride of Satan and it is used in this poem as an explanation of why Byrhtnoth decided to let the Vikings cross the causeway
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Faege
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This word means “fated” as in you’re fated to die.
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Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard
Thomas Gray |
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. [first stanza] |
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The Progress of Poesy
Thomas Gray |
Man’s feeble race what ills await!
Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow’s weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! [...] Nor second he, that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, The secrets of th’ Abyss to spy. [...] Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o’er, Scatters from her pictured urn Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. [excerpts] |
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The Bard
Thomas Gray |
[...]
“Weave, the warp! and weave, the woof! The winding sheet of Edward’s race: Give ample room and verge enough The characters of hell to trace. [...] Ye towers of Julius, London’s lasting shame, With many a foul and midnight murder fed, Revere his consort’s faith, his father’s fame, And spare the meek usurper’s holy head. Above, below, the rose of snow, Twined with her blushing foe, we spread: The bristled Boar in infant-gore Wallows beneath the thorny shade. Now, brothers, bending o’er the accursed loom, Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom. “Edward, lo! to sudden fate (Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.) Half of thy heart we consecrate. (The web is wove. The work is done.) [...] All hail, ye genuine kings! Britannia’s issue, hail! [...] He spoke, and headlong from the mountain’s height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night. [last lines] |
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Dryden
Absalom and Achitophel characters |
Monmouth = Absalom, the beloved boy,
Charles = David (who also had some philandering), Shaftesbury = Achitophel Buckingham, an old enemy of Dryden's = Zimri, the unfaithful servant. |
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Dryden
Absalom and Achitophel satire |
The poem places most of the blame for the rebellion on Shaftesbury and makes Charles a very reluctant and loving man who has to be king before father.
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Dryden
Absalom and Achitophel opening lines |
In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin,
Before polygamy was made a sin; When man, on many, multipli’d his kind, Ere one to one was cursedly confin’d: When Nature prompted, and no Law deni’d Promiscuous use of concubine and bride; Then, Israel’s monarch, after Heaven’s own heart, His vigorous warmth did variously impart To wives and slaves: and, wide as his command, Scatter’d his Maker’s image through the land. [first lines] |
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Dryden
Absalom and Achitophel quote--fools |
Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade.
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Dryden
Absalom and Achitophel quote--fruit |
Believe me, royal youth, thy fruit must be,
Or gather’d ripe, or rot upon the tree. |
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Dryden
Absalom and Achitphel quote--people and kings |
If not; the people have a right supreme
To make their kings; for kings are made for them. [...] Then kings are slaves to those whom they command, And tenants to their people’s pleasure stand. |
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Dryden
Absalom and Achitphel quote--Sanhedrin |
Where Sanhedrin and Priest enslav’d the nation,
And justifi’d their spoils by inspiration: [...] ‘Gainst form and order they their pow’r employ; Nothing to build, and all things to destroy. But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much. |
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Dryden
Absalom and Achitphel quote--youth and beauty |
Youth, beauty, graceful action, seldom fail:
But common interest always will prevail: |
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Dryden
Absalom and Achitphel quote--peace |
Thus, in a pageant show, a plot is made;
And peace itself is war in masquerade. |
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Dryden
Absalom and Achitphel quote--the "race" |
Swift was the race, but short the time to run.
Oh narrow circle, but of pow’r divine, Scanted in space, but perfect in thy line! |
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Middlemarch
Characters |
Dorothea Brooke
Arthur Brooke Nicholas Bulstrode Edward Casaubon Sir James Chettam Peter Featherstone Caleb Garth Mary Garth Will Ladislaw Tertius Lydgate John Raffles Rosamond Vincy Fred Vincy |
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Women in Love
Characters |
Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen
Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich |
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Midnight's Children
Characters |
Saleem Sinai
Aadam Aziz Padma Mangroli Nadir Khan Mumtaz William Methwold Ahmed Sinai Wee Willie Winkie Mary Pereira Evie Lilith Burns Joseph D'Costa Shiva Parvati-the-witch Homi Catrack and Lila Sabarmati Tai Bibi the 512 year old whore Farooq, Shaheed, and Ayooba Aadam Sinai Picture Singh |
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Arcadia
Characters |
Thomasina Coverly
Septimus Hodge Richard Noakes Lady Croom Hannah Jarvis Chloe Coverly Bernard Nightingale Valentice Coverly |
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Mrs. Dalloway
Characters |
Clarissa Dalloway
Septimus Warren Smithand Lucrezia Smith Peter Walsh Sally Seton Richard Dalloway Elizabeth Dalloway Doris Kilman Ellie Henderson Evans Jim Hutton |
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Omeros
1990 Characters |
Achillea (dignified version of Menelaus)
Philoctete (a version of divine Homer himself) Hector (Paris's counterpart) Omeros Helen "not a cause . . . only a name / for a local wonder." Dennis Plunkett (the softhearted colonizer of a town "he had come to love" (2.22.3)) Maud Plunkett Ma Kilman "colonial paternalism inherent in their agendas for Helen" allusion to Marcel Duchamp's Large Glass should elicit the heart of Dadaist "aleatory," "chance" or "found art" theory. It is this anti-art technique that underlies Walcott's non-linear plotting of Omeros. |
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Portrait of a Lady
1881 Characters |
Isabel Archer
Gilbert Osmond Madame Merle Raloh Touchett Lord Warburton Caspar Goodwood Henrietta Stackpole Mrs. Touchett Pansy Osmond Edward Rosier |
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Beloved
1987 Characters and Quotes |
Sethe, protagonist
Denver Beloved, embodied spirit of Sethe's murdered daughter Paul D, Sethe's lover "tin tobacco box" of his heart “[t]his is not a story to pass on.” White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle."-- Stamp Paid [Margaret Garner] |
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Invisible Man
1952 Characters |
narrator
Brother Jack Tod Clifton Ras the Exhorter Rinehart Dr. Bledsoe Mr. Norton Jim Trueblood Sybil |
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Long Day's Journey into Night
1940 Characters |
James Tyrone
Mary Tyrone Jamie Tyrone Edmund Tyrone Cathleen |
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Emma
1816 Characters |
Emma Woodhouse
Mr. George Knightley Mr. Woodhouse Harriet Smith Frank Churchill Jane Fairfax Mr. and Mrs. Elton Mr. Robert Martin Mr. and Mrs. Cole Mr. John Knightley Mr. Perry the apothecary |
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Our Mutual Friend
1865 Major Characters |
John Harmon, the absent centre of the story
Bella Wilfer, a mercenary young person John Rokesmith, a Secretary Nicodemus (Noddy) Boffin, aka the Golden Dustman, probably based on Henry Dodd, a ploughboy who made his fortune removing London's rubbish Mrs Boffin, his wife Lizzie Hexam, a waterman's daughter Charley Hexam, her brother Mortimer Lightwood, a young lawyer Eugene Wrayburn, a dilettante lawyer Jenny Wren, a dolls' dressmaker Mr Riah, manager of a money-lending business Bradley Headstone, a school teacher Silas Wegg, a literary man and seller of ballads Mr Venus, a taxidermist and articulator of bones Mr Podsnap, an extremely pompous, self-complacent man Mrs Podsnap, his wife Georgiana Podsnap, their daughter Mr Inspector, a police officer Mr Fledgeby, often referred to as Fascination Fledgeby, a young friend of the Lammles |
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Tale of a Tub
1704 Characters |
Jack (John Calvin)-- protestand dissenters
Peter (St. Peter)-- Catholic Church Martin (Martin Luther)-- Church of England |
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Tristram Shandy
1760 Characters |
Tristram Shandy
Walter Shandy Elizabeth Shandy Captain Toby Shandy (Uncle Toby) Corporal Trim Dr. Slop Parson Yorick |
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Tom Jones
1749 Characters |
Tom Jones
Sophia Western Mr. Allworthy Master Blifil Squire Western Mrs. Western Partridge Jenny Jones Bridget Allworthy |
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Yeats
Leda and the Swan |
[sonnet]
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. [first stanza] [...] A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead. [excerpt] [1923] |
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The Alchemist
1610 Characters |
Subtle - The Alchemist.
Face - The house-keeper, otherwise Lovewit's butler Jeremy. Dol Common - The conspirator of Subtle and Face. Lovewit - The owner of the house in which Subtle sets up his work. Dapper - A Lawyer's Clerk, who wants Subtle to help him in gambling. Abel Drugger - A Tobacco merchant, who wants Subtle to assist him, through magic in setting up an apothecaries shop. Sir Epicure Mammon - A Knight, who wants Subtle's help in making him wealthy. Tribulation Wholesome - A Pastor of Amsterdam. Ananias - A Deacon, colleague of Tribulation. These religious brothers want Subtle's help in minting money to help establish Puritanism in Britain. Kastril - The angry boy, recently come into an inheritance. He wants Subtle's help in aiding him to win fights. Dame Pliant - A widow, sister of Kastril, wants to know her fortune in marriage. Pertinax Surly - A Gamester, who sees through the deceptions. |
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Richard II
1595 Characters |
King Richard II
Henry Bolingbroke Duke of Herford John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster Edmund of Langley Duke of York Henry Percy Earl of Northumberland Queen Isabel Lord Salisbury Sir Stephen Scroope - A nobleman loyal to Richard. He brings Richard the bad news of Bolingbroke's invasion when Richard returns from Ireland. |
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"La Bell Dame Sans Merci"
Keats |
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering; The sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. [first lines] |
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"The Lady of Shalott"
Tennyson |
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side; "The curse is come upon me," cried The Lady of Shalott. [climax] |
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"Lucy I-V"
Wordsworth |
Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell, But in the lover's ear alone, What once to me befell. When she I loved look'd every day Fresh as a rose in June, I to her cottage bent my way, Beneath an evening moon. [first lines] [Lucy V] A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seem'd a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees. [entire Lucy V] |
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"Mariana"
Tennyson |
She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!' [refrain] |
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"Mont Blanc"
Shelley |
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, [first couplet] Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange To muse on my own separate phantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings. [excerpt] |
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"Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Keats |
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time, [first lines] "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." [last lines] |
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"Ode on Melancholy"
Keats |
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight rooted, for its poisonous wine; [first lines] His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung. [last lines] |
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"Ode to a Nightingale"
Keats |
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, [first lines] Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! [excerpt] Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep? [last lines] |
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"Ode to Psyche"
Keats |
O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, [first lines] A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in! [last lines] |
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"Ode to the West Wind"
Shelley |
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, [first lines] |
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"Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"
Wordsworth |
There was a time when meadow. grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight, To mne did seem Apparelled in celestial light [first lines] See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learn'd art A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral; [middle lines] Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie to deep for tears. [last lines] |
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Gulliver's Travels
"...the touchstone through which we see that Gulliver is no longer a reliable and objective commentator on the reality he sees but, rather, a skewed observer of a reality colored by private delusions." |
Don Pedro de Mendez
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On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer
by John Keats |
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold; Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific-and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise- Silent, upon a peak in Darien. |
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The Solitary Reaper
William Wordsworth |
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass! [First lines] The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more. [Last lines] |
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Tithonus
Alfred Lord Tennyson |
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. [First lines] Immortal age beside immortal youth, [Excerpt] I earth in earth forget these empty courts, And thee returning on thy silver wheels. [Last lines] |
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To Autumn
John Keats |
I
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; [First lines] The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. [Last lines] |
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Ulysses
Alfred Lord Tennyson |
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. [First lines] I am become a name; [Excerpt] Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. [Last lines] |
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Tintern Abbey
Wordsworth |
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur. [First lines] Of unremembered pleasure: [Excerpt] Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, not any interest Unborrowed from the eye. [Excerpt] And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake! [Last lines] |
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My Last Duchess
Robert Browning |
That’s my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. [First lines] A heart- how shall I say?- too soon made glad, [Excerpt] She thanked men—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. [Excerpt] Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! [Last lines] |
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The Bishop Orders His Tomb
Robert Browning |
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? [First lines] dying by degrees, [Excerpt] Old Gandolf—at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was! [Last lines] |
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“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”
Robert Browning (1812–89) |
MY 1 first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye [First lines] Which, while I forded,—good saints, how I fear’d To set my foot upon a dead man’s cheek, Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard! —It may have been a water-rat I spear’d, 125 But, ugh! it sounded like a baby’s shriek. [Excerpt] There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met To view the last of me, a living frame 200 For one more picture! in a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all. And yet Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.” [Last lines] |
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Fra Lippo Lippi
Robert Browning |
1I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
2You need not clap your torches to my face. [First lines] 112But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets 113Eight years together, as my fortune was, 114Watching folk's faces to know who will fling 115The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, 116And who will curse or kick him for his pains,-- 117Which gentleman processional and fine, [Excerpt] 179Your business is not to catch men with show, 180With homage to the perishable clay, 181But lift them over it, ignore it all, 182Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh. 183Your business is to paint the souls of men-- 184Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke . . . no, it's not . . . 185It's vapour done up like a new-born babe-- 186(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) 187It's . . . well, what matters talking, it's the soul! 188Give us no more of body than shows soul! [Excerpt] 224You should not take a fellow eight years old 225And make him swear to never kiss the girls. [Excerpt] The street's hushed, and I know my own way back, 392Don't fear me! There's the grey beginning. Zooks! [Last lines] |
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Tintern Abbey
Wordsworth |
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur. [First lines] Of unremembered pleasure: [Excerpt] Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, not any interest Unborrowed from the eye. [Excerpt] And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake! [Last lines] |
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My Last Duchess
Robert Browning |
That’s my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. [First lines] A heart- how shall I say?- too soon made glad, [Excerpt] She thanked men—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. [Excerpt] Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! [Last lines] |
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The Bishop Orders His Tomb
Robert Browning |
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? [First lines] dying by degrees, [Excerpt] Old Gandolf—at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was! [Last lines] |
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“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”
Robert Browning (1812–89) |
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye [First lines] Which, while I forded,—good saints, how I fear’d To set my foot upon a dead man’s cheek, Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard! —It may have been a water-rat I spear’d, 125 But, ugh! it sounded like a baby’s shriek. [Excerpt] Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.” [Last lines] |
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Fra Lippo Lippi
Robert Browning |
1I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
2You need not clap your torches to my face. [First lines] 112But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets 113Eight years together, as my fortune was, 114Watching folk's faces to know who will fling 115The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, 116And who will curse or kick him for his pains,-- 117Which gentleman processional and fine, [Excerpt] 179Your business is not to catch men with show, 180With homage to the perishable clay, 181But lift them over it, ignore it all, 182Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh. 183Your business is to paint the souls of men-- 184Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke . . . no, it's not . . . 185It's vapour done up like a new-born babe-- 186(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) 187It's . . . well, what matters talking, it's the soul! 188Give us no more of body than shows soul! [Excerpt] 224You should not take a fellow eight years old 225And make him swear to never kiss the girls. [Excerpt] The street's hushed, and I know my own way back, 392Don't fear me! There's the grey beginning. Zooks! [Last lines] |
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Paradise Lost
Milton |
Was she thy God, that her thou didst obey
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Dover Beach
Arnold |
The sea is calm tonight.
[first line] Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. [last lines] 'pathetic fallacy' |
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The Scholar Gypsy
Arnold |
Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!
'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home. Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar, Let in thy voice a whisper often come, To chase fatigue and fear: Why faintest thou! I wander'd till I died. Roam on! The light we sought is shining still. Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill, Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side. [last stanza] |
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From the Hymn of Empedocles
Arnold |
IS it so small a thing
To have enjoy'd the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes; [first stanza] I say, Fear not! life still Leaves human effort scope. But, since life teems with ill, Nurse no extravagant hope. Because thou must not dream, thou need'st not then despair. [last stanza] |
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Lamia
Keats |
UPON a time, before the faery broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods, [first lines] |
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Beowulf
Characters |
Beowulf - The protagonist of the epic, Beowulf is a Geatish hero who fights the monster Grendel, Grendel's mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. He is the model of the perfect warrior, “even tempered, prudent and resolute” (117). In his youth, he personifies all of the best values of the heroic culture. In his old age, he proves a wise and effective ruler.
King Hrothgar - The king of the Danes. Hrothgar enjoys military success and prosperity until Grendel terrorizes his realm. A wise and aged ruler, Hrothgar represents a different kind of leadership from that exhibited by the youthful warrior Beowulf. He is a father figure to Beowulf and a model for the kind of king that Beowulf becomes. Grendel - A demon descended from Cain, Grendel preys on Hrothgar's warriors in the king's mead-hall, Heorot. Grendel's mother - “That swamp-thing from hell/ the tarn-hag” (105). She comes to seek revenge for the death of her son. The dragon (the wyrm ) - An ancient, powerful serpent, the dragon guards a horde of treasure in a hidden mound. |
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The Changeling
1622 Middleton |
Beatrice-Joanna,, the beautiful daughter of Vermandero, a wealthy government official.
De Flores, her strange partner in crime, Vermandero’s servant. Vermandero, Beatrice-Joanna’s father, the governor of the castle of Alicante. Alsemero, a Spanish nobleman Alonzo de Piracquo, Beatrice-Joanna’s husband Tomaso, Alonzo’s brother Jasperino, Alsemero’s servant Diaphanta, Beatrice-Joanna’s waiting woman Alibius, a jealous old doctor Lollio, his servant, who is responsible for keeping order among the inmates of the house Isabella, Alibius’ young wife Pedro, Antonio’s friend |
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he Changeling
1622 Middleton “changeling's" three definitions |
a changeable person,
a person surreptitiously exchanged for another, and an idiot. |
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Edward II
Marlowe Characters |
Edward II, the headstrong, dissolute king of England.
Piers Gaveston, Edward’s ambitious favorite. Hugh Spencer, Gaveston’s protégé and successor in Edward’s favor. Queen Isabella, Edward’s neglected wife. Edmund Mortimer, the leader of the forces arrayed against Edward. The Duke of Kent, Edward’s brother Edmund. Prince Edward, later King Edward III, the precocious young heir to the throne. |
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To the Infant Martyrs
Crashaw |
To the Infant Martyrs.
GO, smiling souls, your new-built cages break, In Heav'n you'll learn to sing ere here to speak; Nor let the milky fonts that bathe your thirst Be your delay ; The place that calls you hence is, at the worst, Milk all the way. [entire poem] |
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On the Wounds of Our Cricified Lord
Crashaw |
O these wakeful wounds of thine!
----Are they mouths? or are they eyes? Be they mouths, or be they eyne, ----Each bleeding part some one supplies. [first stanza] |
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To the Noblest and Best of Ladies, the Countess of Denbigh
Crashaw |
What Heaven-entreated heart is this,
Stands trembling at the gate of bliss? [first lines] What magic bolts, what mystic bars Maintain the will in these strange wars! What fatal, yet fantastic bands Keep the free heart from its own hands! [excerpt] O dart of Love! arrow of light! O happy you, if it hit right! [excerpt] 'Tis cowardice that keeps this field, And want of courage not to yield. Yield then, O yield, that Love may win The fort at last, and let life in; Yield quickly, lest perhaps you prove Death's prey, before the prize of Love. This fort of your fair self, if't be not won, He is repulsed indeed, but you're undone. [last lines] |
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Mac Flecknoe
Dryden |
All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey: This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long: In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute. [first lines] Where sold he bargains, whip-stitch, kiss my arse, Promis'd a play and dwindled to a farce? [excerpt] The mantle fell to the young prophet's part, With double portion of his father's art. [last lines] |
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Song for St. Cecilia's Day
Dryden |
From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
This universal frame began. [first lines] Stanza 7 Orpheus could lead the savage race; And trees unrooted left their place; Sequacious of the lyre: But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder high'r; When to her organ, vocal breath was giv'n, An angel heard, and straight appear'd Mistaking earth for Heav'n. [last lines] |
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To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew
Dryden |
Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the Blest; Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise, In spreading branches more sublimely rise, Rich with immortal green above the rest: Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star, Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race, Or, in procession fix'd and regular, Mov'd with the Heavens' majestic pace: Or, call'd to more superior bliss, Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss. [first lines] O Gracious God! How far have we Profan'd thy Heav'nly gift of poesy? Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debas'd to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordain'd above For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love? [excerpt] There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shall go, As harbinger of Heav'n, the way to show, The way which thou so well hast learn'd below. [last lines] |
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The Battle of Maldon
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Anlaf, leader of the Vikings
Byrhtnoth Essex coast ofermode -- excessive courage Godric (“Odda's child first to flight”) and his brothers-- flee on Byrhtnoth's horse |