OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE

-until last invasion- Norman conquest (1066)

-language: Germanic, inflected (no fixed order of words in a sentence)

-oral language- to be easily recited

-simple words, read like they're written

-coexisted:

Pagan genres	Christian genres
Believing that lit. can change the word, charms (curing words), riddles(from ancient lit., describing object indirectly), folklore	Epic, epic poems, elegies, nostalgia, things get worse, not better and pass away

-kennings: unoriginal metaphor like fixed phrases (ring-giver- king)

-gnomes- wise sayings of universal nature in elegies

-wyrd—pagan fate+ divine providence (bad things happen but it's God's plan)

-scansion

-epithets

-apposition- repetition

Typical for English literature:

• Male-oriented culture- fights, battles

• Women in mead-halls were supposed just to look good (jewellery- showing that you are wealthy)

• Love, exile

The seafarer (anonymous)- epic

Special features:

-caesura (break between words in a line)

-alliteration

• Nostalgic sea elegy

• looking back to past, future brings destruction,nature is dangerous

-Divided into two parts: a monologue of a seafarer and a dialogue

-Old sailor tired of life: harsh weather conditions, being alone, constant danger

-however he doesn't want to stop, he still wants to go sailing

-the young sailor- adventurous with a lot of enthusiasm, thinks that sailing is his destiny

-kenning- the path of the whale- ocean

-maxim: people are afraid of God because of fate

Caedmon's Hymn (author: Caedmon) in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica

Special features:

-various names of God: eternal Lord, holy Maker, Keeper of mankind, Guardian of heaven

-alliteration

-scansion

• Caedmon was probably an illiterate cowherd

• He felt asleep, woke up and already had this hymn in his mind but he couldn't put it down so went to a monk- Withby.

• He become a monk himself and wrote more

• Illiterate people could listen to the poetry so could write sth (he could serve in mead hall while it was recited, or heard a story on a sermon (kazanie))

• Scope- sb who make and/or recite poetry to the people in mead halls

• Word full of wonders, heaven as a roof, a shelter for people,

• God created the word because he loved people and wanted to guard them against dangerous nature

• People punished for sins but God remains with them

Charm for Unfruitful Land (anonymous)- charm

Special features:

-caesura

-alliteration

-various names of God: Holy One, Maker of heaven, All-Wielder,

-instructions to perform (that's usual for pagan charms)

• Erce- Mother of earth

• Earth- Mother of men

Pagan elements	Christian elements
Charm, sorcery(black magic), words and gestures, addresses to pagan gods, personifies Earth	Christian God, holy water, saints in heaven, Christian ritual

-both kinds of elements for charm to be stronger

Book-Moth- riddle

Special features:

-caesura

-insect eating books

• Gnomic verses

• Book-moth doesn't become wiser by eating books, it's only an insect but reading literature does make people wiser

• Books describe men, their wars and conflicts

• Wild looking warriors- to scare off enemies

Beowulf- poem

Special features:

-written as a story, narration is not in hurry

-God frequently mentioned, Abel, Cain

-Characters: Beowulf, king Hrothgar, Grendel, his mother, dragon, Beow, Healfdene, Wealhtheow, Ecgtheow, Geats, Scyld, Wiglaf

-Places: Danes, Heorot, Scyldings, Geatland

- tense  · Past, but with digressions into the distant past and predictions of the future

• Culture of warriors, male-oriented

• There're scopes, poetry

• Scandinavian culture was similar because it was also Germanic so Englishmen were writing about it

• Earliest possible date: 7^th century, manuscript from 10^th

• The only epic in Old English Lit.

• Setting: Scandinavia

• Pagan society

• Frame structure- begins and ends with a funeral (Scyld and Beowulf (- description is realistic as Sutton Hoo found a king buried with servants and precious objects on a ship in the sea))

• Elegic moods- past was better

• Not original for sure as there're references to God and divine providence- probably changed when written down by Christians

• There are symbols but not allegories

• Anglo-Saxons melancholy- you can't kill all the monsters- fatalism

• There are no dragons in Scandinavian lit.- it's British

Beowulf: strong like heroes, using magic sword efficiently, he kills:

+ Grendel- a half human monster who eats the bodies of warriors, he can't stay in mead-hall because he is dangerous, evil is natural to him, he is wrecca- banished by people to exile -BRUTAL FORCE OF NATURE

+ His mother- a reptile in an underwater cave, takes revenge on Hrothgar for killig her son- SPIRIT OF REVENGE

+ Dragon- obsessed with treasures, he mortally wounds Beowulf- GREEDY

= 3 climaxes

-long speeches are expected from warriors and kings

-it's good for warrior to die in a battle

-ideal ruler and his wife (generous Hrothgar built the hall to host and protect his people and kind Wealhtheow who welcomes everyone)

Poetic devices:

-parallel- Grendel- a son of Cain

-kennings- ring-giver

-paraphares- distributor of treasures

-descriptions

-antitheses

References to Christianity:

-Grendel being a Cain's son

-praising the God Creator

mixed society

MIDDLE ENGLISH

-French (anglo-norman) language and culture influences England

-start of universities- Oxford, Cambidge

-bourgeois culture started (middle class people, city dwellers)

-feudalism

The Canterbury Tales- Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer's times:

-new taxes to pay for the war

-heresies

-higher level of education- universities- he got a diploma

He is called a father of English Language- he could have chosen French (language of higher classes) but wrote in English borrowing words from Italian, Greek, French and Latin

What influenced him:

-the Great Plague (Black Death)

-The Peasant's Revolt- translating Bible into another languages than Latin

The Canterbury Tales:

• Frame structure

• Frame tale starting in Southwark- The Tabard Inn (a village then, an important port of London now), the pilgrimage

• Planned as 120-124 tales, 21 written and 3 unfinished

• Tales organized into blocks, there're links between them- they talk, there're conflicts between them

• Estate satire- various social classes satirized, characters both types and individuals

• Contest of storytelling- winner gets free meal

• They were supposed to tell 2 stories going one way and another 2 while coming back

The General Prologue:

Special features:

-rhymes aabb

-Characters' description: The Knight, the Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, the Miller, the Prioress, the Monk, the Friar, the Summoner, the Host, the Parson, the Nun, the Merchant, the Franklin, the Cook, the Squire, the Clerk, the Man of Law, the Yeoman, The Sailor, the Physician

- tense  · Past

Social classes represented:

• Members of the clergy, criticized for:

-love for haunting, feasts and drinking- Monk

-greed, making profitable business, is paid for sacraments loved money and possessions- Friar

-vanity, being interested only in looking like a lady, wearing a jewellery, speaking French- Prioress

- for selling indulgences, being a fraud- Pardoner

only one not criticized- Parson who gives money to people

• Upper class people (never worked):

-Knight, not criticized but could be for going on crusades and murdering people

-Squire

• Middle class (had to work):

-Merchant

• Working class people (labourers):

-Plowman- doesn't own things, works for others

• Pilgrimage starts at spring- because it's time for changing, regenerating and because of Lent (Wielki Post)

• Pilgrimage should be part of penance (pokuta) but it's rather an attraction or tour like for Wife of Bath, people tell stories to entertain themselves

The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale:

Special features:

-rhymes aabb

-Characters: the first three husbands, the Fourth Husband, Jankyn (fifth), the Knight, the Old Woman, Arthur's Queen

- tense  · Past

• Wife of Bath: around 40, full of life, looking for 6^th husband. Pretty, wears expensive clothes, has her own shop with materials, has a gap between teeth= being a daughter of Venus= loving sex. She was 12 when first married (for connections). During 4^th marriage she met 20 year-old Jankyn- he married her to get money for books which were anti-woman. He hit her and she partly lost her hearing. But he died and now she's free.

Chaucer is writing against women (stereotyping) but still says that they should be independent

The tale:

• Related to the prologue as it's also about marriage

• Arthurian romance

• Knight punished for raping a maiden, sentenced to death. The queen Guinevre asks him: “What the women want the most?” and if he gives the right answer he will be free. He searches for an answer: old woman dancing with fairies in forest knows it- women want to be masters in relationship. He has to marry her (she saved his life). He can choose if he wants her to be ugly but loyal and good or pretty but unfaithful. He chooses the 1^st option and being thankful she becomes both beautiful and faithful.

RENAISSANCE

• 16^th century-The Elizabethan Age, Golden Age, Imperial Times

• Dynasty of Tudors, Henry Tudor (8^th) ended the War of the Roses in 1485, had a lot of wives and being unable to get a divorce with Catherine started a his own Church- Anglican Church (1532 the Act of Supremacy)

• Puritans- wanted to purify English Church from Catholic influences, forbid Catholic rituals, Christmas etc., they were politically dangerous

• Civil War (King/Parlament)

• Elizabeth I killed Catholics, made England a great political and military power

• Executing people for religion

• Renewal of learning (greek)

Drama in the Middle Ages:

• Miracles (stories taken from Bible)

• Town circles- performed on moving platforms on holidays

• Morality play- had allegorical meaning (everyone is going to die etc.)

• Interludes- like ancient comedies, very short

Renaissance:

• Apron stage- to be close to audience

• Not only for aristocrats

• Professional actors

• Tragic fall (Macbeth)- from good prospering to misery- people feel pity for characters after the play

• Theatre company- a business

• Effect of catharsis, comic relief, no more unity of time and place

Shakespeare

-Comedies: early (A Comedy of Errors), “sunny” (A Midsummer Night's Dream), tragicomedies (The Tempest)

-Tragedies- Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth

-Chronicles- Richard III

-Lyrics and songs (for plays)

Sonnets:

• To Laura- Petrarka (oktet, sekstet) -woman in sonnet should be adored by narrator, she should have angelic character and look- fair hair and complexion, be modest and quiet,

• Poetry is a way to make beauty last- exegi monumentum

• English sonnet- 3x4lines +2 -complete

Shakespeare's sonnets:

• Some sort of drama

• Old tradition is false

Sonnet 130

Special features:

-rhymes abab

-describing beauty of mistress

• English type of sonnet

• Writes about a real woman, makes no false compares like those made in older sonnets, woman described is just a human

• She has dark eyes, dark complexion, her hair are not delicate, her breath is not like perfumes

The Tempest

Special features:

-a lot of magic

-Characters- Prospero, Miranda, Ariel, Caliban, Ferdinand, Alonso, Antonio, Sebastian, Gonzalo, Boatswain, spirits, Sycorax

• Original, not influenced plot

• Take place on Mediterranean Sea, on the isle of Prospero

• Prospero as Shakespeare's alter ego- tired, have had enough

• Unity of time (about 4 hours), place (isle of Prospero) and action (every thread is involves Prospero)- unusual for Shakespeare

• Tragicomedy because it does not end so well

• Prospero is neither a good father (patronizing Miranda) nor slave-master

• Pageant- theatrical show

• Two important words used in monologue (4.1)- the great globe and actors- he can be alluding to himself

• Life is a dream, life is close to death- references to baroque

-Caliban- like Indians from the conquest of America he is forced to learn new language and culture, slaved by Prospero who is now in charge of an isle that once belonged to Caliban

-Ariel- a fairy sensitive to the beauty of the landscape

-Prospero- magician using white magic

METAPHYSICAL POETRY

Parlament: Royalists/Puritans (Cromwell's Interregnum- republic)

Civil War: Charles I (wanted to be an absolute monarch) and Parlament (Puritans who expelled Royalists)

Cromwell's death- restoration- England's a monarchy once again

Poets- Cavaliers (Lovelace) and Puritans (Marvell)- fight between body and soul Cromwell was the lider

Purification of the church: no adornments and holidays, direct access to Bible

The Sun Rising- John Donne (father of metaphysical poetry)

A catholic clergyman

His poetry:

-the idea of conceit (paradoxical, shocking) (“The Flea”- pchła)

-wit- dowcip, the ability to create poetry

-mixing the holy and the profane

Introductions in medias res- in the middle of story, you don't know what's going on at the beginning

Special features of “The Sun Rising”:

-rhymes abab

-another indents (akapity) every two lines

-questions, quotations, punctuation marks after almost every line

-specific words- thou, `st, thus, shalt, thy

• Lover and mistress lying in a bed

• Morning, sun is rising

• Sun is disrespected (old fool etc.), they what it to hide away

• There's no need to measure time, only love is important

• The person speaking says that he could do anything but simply doesn't want to

• His mistress's eyes are brighter than the Sun, she is precious like gold from exploited colonies in Indias

• He call themselves kings, they are all the nations in the word, others just try to imitate them

• Their bedroom is like the whole world but made smaller

• Erotic love is more important than other things

• The old model of universe- the Sun is going around the world

To the virgins, to make much of time- Robert Herric

He was a cavalier, an Anglican priest

Special features:

-every stanza (zwrotka) starts normally, then there's an indent with another line, than normally once again and an indent at the end

- punctuation marks after almost every line

-rhymes abab

• To young girls about enjoying the youth, loosing virginity

• carpe diem

• he gives 3 arguments:

-time is running and death is coming

-virgins are in the prime of life, they're going to be old soon

-when you're old it's much worse

• conclusion- lose it now or you'll wait forever

The Altar- George Herbert

He wan an orthodox.

Special features:

-rhymes aabb

-shaped verses

-capital letters

-specific words: thy, thee

• graphic poetry, shaped verses- that's how his poetry is named

• only religious poetry, concerning God and human

• God is hidden by material world, you can't speak to him

• Altar is a main theme, it was built by God

• The heart of the person speaking is like an altar

• Capital letters: sacrifice heart to become an altar

Paradise Lost- John Milton

He was a censor during Civil War (he was a Puritan)

Wrote: lyrical poetry, prose tracts, epic narratives

Special features:

-if you don't understand what you've just read than it's Paradise Lost

-a lot of strange words

-characters mentioned: Adam, Eve, God/the Father, Michael, Satan, Cain, Abel, Enoch, Noah

-places: Paradise, Heaven, Earth

-10 syllabus in line

- tense  · Present

- point of view  · Third person

• The fist epic narrative in modern English (Beowulf and Can. Tales are not finished so they're not counting)

• 12 books of unequal length

• Invocations before some of the books

• Blank verse- unrhymed iambic pentameter= 10 syllabes

• Argument (summary) at the beginning of each book

• Puritan: no scenes, no miracles, Bible was the only source

• Climax: Eve eats the fruit- the loss of innocence

• God is just- he punishes people for their sins

• Inspired by mythology, renaissance

• Book IX- vision of losing Paradise

• Eve eats the fruit because Satan tells her that she'll be intelligent after that (now she is only naïve)

• He calls her a goddess and she believes him

• Satan is not presented as romantic and intelligent like in XIX century, he's rather unattractive, he's not a model to follow

• Only men are modeled on God, women are not that lucky

• Eve didn't work hard but she pretended she did, she wanted Adam to work more

• Predestination- you are predestined to sth before you're born

RESTORATION THEATRE:

• Theatre: comedy of manners (obyczajowa), tragedy; beginning of modern theatre

• Women on stage, scenery, actors in costumes

PHILOSOPHY:

Hobbs (Leviathan)- people fight against each other because it's their nature, but if they live in a community, they don't

THE AGE OF REASON

Augustan Age, Age of enlightenment, Queen Ann's reign

• Reason- opposed to sentimentalism

• Sponsored literature

• Neoclassical values: simplicity, clarity, restraint, regularity

• Satire- instrument to teach people and show them what's good for the society

• Opposing reason and madness

Gulliver's Travels- Jonathan Swift

A clergyman from a Protestant English family in Dublin-

Anglo-Irish

Special features:

-normal story,

-fist-person, unimaginative narrative

-characters: Liliputians: Reldresal, the emperor, Flimnap, Skyresh Bolgolam

-places: Mildendo (capital city of Liliputians), Blefuscu

• Treated as an expression of misanthropy

• Antipathy to humankind- people are bad, selfish, lazy, etc.

• Satirical device: imaginary travel:

- Liliputians: cruel, vengeful, treacherous, malicious- satire of people

-satire of England's system of political appointments

-satire of European practices

Dystopia- opposite to utopia, place of nightmares

4 voyages:

1. to Liliputs- petty, cautious and well-organised people

2. to Brobdignag- the giants. they present an ideal community but it turns out that it's an utopia

3. to Laputa- discussion on science, politics, economy; scientific thinking they fail to make practical use of their knowledge

4. to Houyhnhms- peaceful horses that live by reason, they are slaves of savage Yahoos

THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

• origin in XVIII

• written mainly by women and for women, esp. from middle class

• Before Jane Austen:

- there wasn't much love in ancient literature, women were inferior, lack of erotic love

-medieval: marriage was a contract

-arranged marriages, English women had no freedom, their position was legally bad

Families in the 17^th century lived on their own, independently spouse and kids, nothing more- women had fears because of that (no brother or father to defend you)→

the new romantic idea: love is needed in marriage (so that husband doesn't beat his wife etc.), spiritual understanding between the couple

Crisis of marriage in 18^th century- spinsterhood

Jane Austen:

-writes humorously, ironically about everyday life

-no omniscient narrator (he doesn't know everything), the author's commentary and judgment instead

-psychological wisdom

-her heroines are individuals but still there're social constraints

-she disagreed with the position of women

-she continues the tradition of focusing on character and relationships

-one character fully presented, we know what he/she thinks

-times of Regency: a period of great cultural achievement, shaping and the societal structure of Britain as a whole

-she's conservative and support good manners and morality

-presents no working class people

-aware of social hierarchy

-she writes from a limited perspective

-disapproves of artificiality

Pride and Prejudice

Fitzwilliam Darcy- it's a Norman name (Fitz) (old aristocracy), he looked down on people with bad manners

Mr. Bingley (new money)- his father was a merchant but made loads of money

Mr. Darcy is not snobbish- the befriends Bingley

J. A. tells us that it doesn't matter what social class you come from because good manners don't come with money

-> conservative order wins

William Wordsworth

-Belonged to first generation of romantic poets (lake poets ) - the group of poets who all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of 19th century
-William Wordsworth
- Truly romantic poet, fascinated with the French revolution (hope and lofty ideas at the beginning, terror and despotism at the end - he relationalised the sense of the revolution
- He settled with his sister Dorothy and his friend Samuel Coleridge in the Lake District (The Dove Cottage of Grasmere village)
- They started community of poets there, started writing “Lyrical Ballads”
- Dorothy was artistic, romantically-minded - she appreciated the nature
- Topics : simple people, ordinary surroundings, common problems (old age, pregnancy, betrayal, cold)
- Simple, direct style : life should be put into poetry but he used different types of language
- A direct rendering of art into poetry
- Poet as a vast - he is not equal with others, his imagination makes him superior; a prophet (przewidujący, mistyczny), he is aware of all those things, a kind of priest, should be aware of the joy and the suffering of the world
- “lyrical ballads” - and “Preface” -very important volume of W and C. poetry
- A romantic manifest
- The role of poetry and a poet in society “humble and rustic life was generally chosen”

We are seven


- The speaker - “lyrical I” is from the city, he visited country, he is well-educated, adult, he speak to little, cottage girl (about 8 years old) they are talking about the girl, her siblings and death
- The girl claims that they are 7- she and her siblings (although two of them are dead)
- She still treats her brother and sister lying in the churchyard as if they are alive - she still has a relationship with them (she knits her stockings on their graves, eats her porridge there, she knows that they are in their graves but their spirits are not completely gone - 2 types of existence - of body and of spirit
- In her opinion death means that people are released liberated from suffering by God- dead people simply go away, go somewhere else
- The speaker tries to explain death to young girl she is still not convinced
- At the end : one interpretation - she is mad, other : child can see, feel, sense more than adult
- The speaker is using conventional talking: people go to heaven after death, they are with angels,( phrases, not theological truth)
- His world is rational, familiar with ideas of reason
- Truth of the girl : - sensitive things, feelings, she believes in transcendence, spiritual attitude, not rational arguments, hr knowledge is deeper because she feels more.
- According to W. we should be like a children

Samuel Taylor Coleridge


- A friend of Robert Southey (the third Lake poet)
- A kind of celebrity those times, not widely admired by aristocracy, he experimented with drugs
- A legend about “Kubla Khan”
- Coleridge was ill and took an anodyne or laudanum
- He had a dream, he saw the place and the garden of Kubla Khan of whom he read in Purchase's “Pilgrimage”
- When he woke up, his vision was so vivid that he immediately started writing about it
- He composed the lines which he later published but unfortunately he was interrupted by a man from Porlock who come on business when Coleridge returned to his room an hour later he could no longer remember his vision
- He was interested in supernatural powers
- The picture of Satan as a Rebel (Paradise lost) romantic people should be rebellions (unorthodox interpretation)
- A utopian project of establishing a pantistocracy and try to start - a new life there and establish an ideal community where everybody would be equal
- A bit money-minded - :The rime of the Ancient mariner “ was written to be sold (writing as a profession - romantic idea)
- Renowned as a excellent talker and critic of Milton, Shakespeare, author of “Biographia Literaria”
- Direct, simple style

Kubla Khan

Special features:

-rhyms

-exlamations

-sacred river

- 13th century Mongol ruler, founder of the Mongol dynasty
- Here Kubla Khan is a symbol, not historical person, he is symbol of creator (as God, somebody who has power- a poet, he creates)
- He decrees - he says that something should be done and it is done - he uses world to create something
- Imagery of water : a sunless sea, sinuous rills, the sacred river Alph, a mighty fountain, waves, a lifeless ocean
- Symbolism of water : one of the elements, life (life without water is impossible), thoughts flow like a water - the idea of creation (the stream of consciousness) life is also creation
- The sacred river Alph - from alpha - first letter in Greek alphabet symbolizes the beginning, art of poetry, should be the first thing
- Sacred art - art should be sacred as a religion, treated in special way (romantic idea)
- Incense -bearing tree - something associated with church
- A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice a king of oxymoron - sun melts ice, impossible situation
- About poetry - everything (miracle) is possible, unlike real life
- “holy insanity” - poets are mad, prophetic , they have access to things beyond limits, things that other's don't have (imagination), poet is somebody superior to the society, should be admired (but often is rejected)

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley

The origin of the novel: a dream provoked by conversation with Byron

Vitalism- is it possible to reconstruct a body and reanimate it?-
M.S. talked about it with Byron's doctor

• science treated as alchemy

• old science- alchemy vs. new science-biochemistry

• conflict between working class people(excluded) and middle-class people (<-science is the answer for everything)

• biological/mechanical reproduction

• centrality/marginality of women

• the industrial revolution, threatening lower classes, the anxiety of middle class

• racial threat

• Miltonic language- allusions to "Paradise Lost" (scene of creation)

• allusion to Freud (super-ego, ego, Id)

Special features:

-first-person narrative. The primary narrator is Robert Walton, who, in his letters, quotes Victor Frankenstein's first-person narrative at length; Victor, in turn, quotes the monster's first-person narrative; in addition, the lesser characters Elizabeth Lavenza and Alphonse Frankenstein narrate parts of the story through their letters to Victor.

-Characters: Victor, Alphonse and William Frankenstein, monster, Robert Walton, Elizabeth Lavenza, Henry Clerval, Justine Moritz, Caroline Beaufort

- tense · Past

-places:  Geneva; the Swiss Alps; Ingolstadt; England and Scotland; the northern ice

• Frankenstein feels like an orphan - his mother is dead, he wants to be united with her

• he reconstructs bodies of dead people but he is conflicted, he dreams of re-embracing his dead mother, he's unsure is that's only an experiment for him, but still he wants to create a life out of death and chaos

• a "son" wanting to kill the "father" and become him

• Frankenstein doesn't want to create the female monster, woman's body is presented as repulsive -> male-oriented text

• F. knows what the monster wants because their desires are the same, he doesn't realize what his unconscious dreams are

• F. doesn't give monster a name, he rejects him because he's not what he intended to create

• associating life and death

Second generation of romantic poets

George Gordon Byron -
- he had a Scottish mother and he was brought up in Scotland (“foreign poet”),
- he was travelling a lot, he spent most of his time out of England, we can see orientalism in his writing
- he made his life similar to what he wrote in his poetry
- self-exile - he had an affair with his half-sister - incest(kazirodztwo) was really interesting topic, there were rumors about his homosexuality
- he was clubfooted (disabled) and he was worry about it
- He met Shelly and she wrote Frankenstein,
- He went to Greece, fought against the Turks and he died because of fever
- He was lie Byron heroes - individual person, proud, insolent, arguing with society
- Poetry means self-exile to him
- He as a master of irony and satire, he partly modeled his writing on the enlightenment ideals
- He was writing about nature - wildness, destructive power
- Firstly he was not buried in Westminster Abbey because he was hated by Victorians as a controversial person( in Westminster Abbey he was from 1969)

“We will go no more a-rowing”

Special features:

-rhymes abab


- The speaker addresses his mistress
- Romanticism - the idea of youth, Byron's obsession with physicality
- His soul is tired because he has felt too much, you can't love all the time, you have to rest
- Topics: love, fatigue, the destructive influence of love - person is getting tired
- Non-poem - tells us about things that will never happen again
- Stylized poem -“rowing” too old word for beginning of XIX c.

Percy Bysshe Shelley


- He was a rebel - he didn't like social institutions, conventional morality (he left his wife to live with Mary Shelly
- he died prematurely
- he was a student of Oxford, he wrote an essay “The Necessity of Atheism” what was unacceptable
- He believed in the idea of transcendental revolution (maybe he was a pantheist - he believe that person can find God in nature
- He married coffee-house owner's daughter - Harriet, later he met Mary Godwin , they fell in love. Harriet committed suicide after leaving of Percy, Mary published “Frankenstein” as Mary Shelly
- His philosophy was : radicalism, neo-Platonism - transcendental ideas
- He wrote his poems using versification and symbolism
- He was Keats's friend, after his death he wrote a poem “Adonais”

” Ode to the West Wind”

Special features:

-4x3 lines +2, 10 syllabus in line

-exclamations - "O, hear!"

-specific words: thou, didst etc.

- The seasons leaves fall down
- “like ghost” - dead but still moving
- They look like they suffered from disease but it is natural process
- “dark wintry bed” - a metaphor of death
- The spring comes - resurrection (wskrzeszenie), everything looks and smells different
- Wind - uncontrollable, it is a observer
- Sea-bloom are afraid of the wind
- The speaker also needs the power
- Winter-time of death
- Revolution - new political ideas -not all people were equally represented
- Poet should be central to the society

-first part, smaller perspective- autumn, west wind- destroying leaves and preserves seeds

-second part, wider perspective- description of the sky

-third part- west wind moves the waters of Mediterranean sea, the ocean seems to be formed by leaves, person speaking wants to be like leaves, like the west wind. He wants wind to make his thoughts rebirth (new mentality - intellect, feeling)

John Keats


- the only one of 3 poets of 2 generation who wasn't aristocrat - he was middle-class
- he was a son of livery stable keeper in London
- he spoke cockney - language of the lover class people in London
- he hadn't think about earning money for himself(his father died when he was teenager)
- he started studying medicine
- his brother died of tuberculosis, he was taking care of him and he died because of it
- “La belle Dame Sans merci” “To Nightingale” “To Melancholy”
- The least politically-minded
- Nature, ancient cultures, mythological, relation between art and life (in his poetry)
- The symbolic father of esthetic movement
- Romantic topics : Hellenism, medievalism, folklore, imagination, role of the poet
- He died prematurely

“Ode on a Grecian Urn”

Special features:

-every stanza (zwrotka) (consists of 10 lines) starts normally, then there's an indent with another line, than normally once again and an indent, a deeper indent than back x 2, 10 syllabus in line

- specific words- thou, canst

-exclamations

-questions

• 
  - he not only addressed the urn, he mediates on it
  - art is holy
  - the urn is not able to talk
  - the urn tells a story- it's like a virgin in a temple- holy
  - unaffected by time
  - art preserves what is best
  - people should worship art it's like religion
  - art causes emotions, the urn is cold itself but it provokes emotions
  - when his generation is dead the urn will still be alive
  - the time makes the urn even more valuable

• -characters on the urn: men, gods, virgins

• love presented on the urn is better than this in real life

The Brontës

They lived in Yorkshire. There were 3 of the girls alive (Charlotte, Emily, Anne) and their brother (Patrick Branwell; he used to take drugs and drink, then he had a strong love affair and died). Their mother died early of TB. Their father was a vicar. The vicarage where they lived overlooked the cemetery. The children had contact with simple peasants and heard different folklore stories. Their father, Patrick Brontë, changed his family name (originally: Brunty - an Irish surname). He became a priest in order to gain the support of other people (he had been poor before). His children didn't pay much attention to things like clothing, fashion etc. They read literature and had intellectual freedom. They lived in the world of tales - they were writing tales and poetry. The girls managed to publish poetry, but they had to use pseudonyms. In the times when they lived writing women weren't treated seriously - they were perceived as curiosities of nature. The Brontës had access to education only at home.

Victorianism:

-colonial power, industrial development

-the century of a novel and the short story (not poetry)
- the novels of the Brontës are truly Victorian
- this trend in literature had started even earlier than Victoria became a queen
- positivism - a dominating trend; rejecting metaphysics and abstract ideas
- the age of the middle class - creating the new middle class
- utilitarianism, empiricism, naturalism

Girls in Victorian literature:
- usually motherless (literally, like “Anne of Green Gables” or metaphorically - no contact with a mother)
- presented as victims of the circumstances, of being naïve.

-topics: conflicts and religious doubts associated with science, disappointment with the idea of progress


Wuthering Heights- Emily

Special features:

-Characters: Heathcliff, Catherine, Edgar Linton, Nelly Dean, Lockwood, Young Catherine, Hareton Earnshaw, Linton Heathcliff, Hindley Earnshaw, Isabella Linton, Joseph, Zillah, Mr. Green

-similar style to Pride and Prejudice

-moors, ghosts

-narrator  · Lockwood, a newcomer to the locale of Wuthering Heights, narrates the entire novel as an entry in his diary. The story that Lockwood records is told to him by Nelly, a servant, and Lockwood writes most of the narrative in her voice, describing how she told it to him. Some parts of Nelly's story are narrated by other characters, such as when Nelly receives a letter from Isabella and recites its contents verbatim.

-tense  · Both Lockwood's and Nelly's narrations are in the past tense.

-places: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

• romantic elements: unhappy love (strong passion), Byronic hero- Heathcliff , Cathy going mad, she probably died because of giving birth to a baby but it's presented as if she died because of missing Heathcliff

• marriage treated with ambiguity

• certain things happen to people, doesn't matter if they're good or bad

• Heathcliff doesn't regret, he is not punished

• Heathcliff seen from Cathy's perpsective

• we can't trust Nelly as a narrator, she couldn't understand their love

• historical context- bad treated women, inferior to men

• postcolonial context- Heathcliff was probably an abandoned Irish child (Ireland was treated as a colony by England)

• Two Cathies- she rejects the masculine word but she marries Linton

• psychoanalisys: at first an oneness, baby and mother, and than finding one's identity

• early loss of mother, mother for Cathy- Heathcliff (I'm one with Heathcliff)

• Nelly doesn't understand, criticizes Cathy all the time

• deconstruction- more than one interpretation of a text

• class issues- Heathcliff rejected because of his class

• Heathcliff thinks that Cathy committed "spiritual suicide" by separating with him

• Mr. Lockwood becomes a tenant, he sees a ghost ("Terror made me cruel"), cruelty comes from the inside of a person

• England: north (people more open) / south (people more reserved but also more polite)

• Cathy says that she love both- Linton and Heathcliff- shocking

Emily Brontë tried to work as a governess, but she resigned - she preferred to take care of the household.

“Wuthering Heights” - a myth about love; love is stronger than anything, even than death.

Novel was criticized because of using bad language

James Joyce

A modernist author, born in Dublin (a city of 2 cultures:

-catholic culture of the Irish nationalists

-protestant culture

(-and also liberal culture of British)

He was atheist, anti-catholic. He go Jesuits education but he claimed that is was bad (the idea of salvation), it influenced him, he lost his faith but kept being obsessed with visions of hell

-He's like Ulysses, he wanders but can't find himself

He developed a stream of consciousness technique

He doesn't use punctuation marks in dialogues

Dubliners

-focused on realistic limitations of life in Dublin- grey, dull everyday life, vulgar people. Joyce hated Dublin and it's culture which was paralytic to him, he wanted Dublin to look bad in his works

Eveline

Special features:

-Characters mentioned: Frank, brother harry, mother, father,

-places mentioned: Buenos Aires, Dublin

-world seen from the perspective of doubtful woman

- tense ·  Past tense

• a story of adolescence, seduction

• we don't know much about Frank, only that he's a sailor

• emigration- there was a great famine in Ireland, people started to emigrate, at least to consider that, some went to America and as they came back it was even worse

• Eveline wasn't of age, she couldn't marry Frank in Dublin

• she was scared of going to Argentina, because if sth would go wrong and she would be abandoned, she'd have to become a prostitute, as other girls there that don't know the language.

• her siblings kept her in Dublin

• her father was abusive, he was beating up his children

• Frank was a pretext to leave

• But she didn't do this, she was paralyzed, she learns that she cannot make the decision, she had illusions but her limitations stopped her, she realizes there's sth wrong with the world

• colonial world imposes on her

The Dead

Special features:

-Characters: Gabriel Conroy, Gretta Conroy, Lily, Molly Ivors, Julia Morkan, Kate Morkan, Michael Furey

- tense ·  Past tense

• it is the last story on purpose, characters know Ireland's bad position, they know they live in a colonized country

• life is full of monotony so people try to amuse themselves

• the story is quite optimistic

• Annual dance held by Morkan sisters

• Miss Ivors is a nationalist, she uses Gaelic, she calls Gabriel "West Briton" for writing for conservative newspaper and accuses him of lack of interest in his own country. But he says he's sick of Ireland

• Gabriel despises Ireland, it's a colony of London for him, he fins life in Dublin provincial, he looks down to people in Ireland

• Gabriel has a difficulty with expressing emotions and he knows it

• Michael Furey- Gretta Conroy's childhood love who died for her long ago, a romantic,

• Gabriel loved Greta in a way but it wasn't a passionate love, he didn't care about her past, he treated her as if she was a child, he didn't show his affection to her, didn't care what she thought

• Gretta would make a goodwife, she was beautiful

• Gabriel realizes that he has limitations and he cannot change it

Virginia Woolf

She had a publishing company with her husband. They published "Ulysses" but she didn't like Joyce's style (she changed her mind later). She had a schizophrenia. She suggested a new genre for her books- she called her novel elegies.

She's an icon of feminists. She committed a suicide, she was scared of her illness and of being killed by Germans (she was wife of a Jew).

She was using a stream of consciousness technique

Edwardian novels had to be changed they couldn't be written after the First World War

Modern writers at first cut themselves from Edwardian novels but later they came back to it with nostalgia

Writers writing about another artists

To the Lighthouse

Special features:

-Characters: Mrs., Mr. and James Ramsay, Lily Briscoe, Paul Rayley, Minta Doyle, Charles Tansley, William Bankes, Augustus Carmichael, Ramsay: Andrew, Jasper, Roger, Prue, Rose, Nancy, Cam; Mrs. McNab, Macalister

-Places: Isle of Skye, in the Hebrides (a group of islands west of Scotland)

- tense  · Past

• a modernist novel:

-it presents art as individual thoughts, not only painting or writing -> you can be an artist in everyday life

-new vision of happy life

-trying to find a meaning in a social life, war changes everything

-art should control reality, find some meaning in it

• T.L. is an elegy for Edwardian Age, V.W. was missing the old world

• V.W. detaches herself from the Victorian Age but some of her ideas are Victorian anyway

• people can change- reflexed Victorian strict rules, people are not that strict any longer

• focus on the psychology of a free human individual- one is not more important than the other

• introduction of objective and subjective visions

• no consolation in nature (it's destructive)

• nature no longer a mirror of how people feel- the MIND is

• stream of consciousness- imitating the rhythm of thoughts, thoughts going further and further from the external reality

• Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay are like Virginia's parents

• personal appearance, age, time, past described selectively, a distance between the reader and the characters

• Mr. Ramsay- the head of the family,

• Mrs. Ramsay- took care of the children. She's an artist of everyday life, she wants to take out what's best in people, her spirit makes her beautiful (she has a contact with educated people but she doesn't envy them, she wants to learn from them)

• Ramsay's names are not given- they're symbolical so we can compare to them

• Lily Briscoe calls Mrs. R. a masterful person- she controlled things around her and made them were the way she wanted them to be

• the marriage of Ramsay's is not idealized

• people have choice if they want to marry or not

• Lily treats Mrs. Ramsay as a center of affection, she compares her life with Mr. Ramsay's

• leisurely class- V.W. gives the impression that everyone has such a life. V.W. didn't come from that class but she wrote it for those people, she writes that they used the fisherman

• Divided into 3 parts:

• The Window- Edwardian style, summer, happy holidays, Lily starts painting a portrait of Mrs. Ramsay etc, ends with successful dinner party and a vision of the Ramsay's marriage as tranquil harmony

• Time Passes- Andrew(killed during war) and Prue (illness) dies, Mrs. Ramsay too (suddenly). The house is in a bad condition, after war Mrs. McNab cleans it, Lily Briscoe arrives

• The Lighthouse- return after the war, Lily Briscoe instead of Mrs. Ramsay, finishes the portrait,

• harmony: form and stability in art

• you should have a vision and follow it-> "I have had my vision" V.W.- pseudo-biographical book, your vision is the most important thing in your life

Jane Eyre- Charlotte Brontë

Special features:

-Characters: Jane Eyre, Edward Rochester, St. John Rivers, Mrs. Reed, Bessie Lee, Mr. Lloyd, Reed: Georgiana, Eliza, John; Helen Burns, Maria Temple, Mr. Brocklehurst, Bertha Mason, Alice Fairfax, Grace Poole, Adèle Varens, John Eyre, Uncle Reed

- tense · Past-tense; Jane Eyre tells her story ten years after the last event in the novel, her arrival at Ferndean.


Charlotte Brontë described Jane Eyre as looking very similar to her. Charlotte was a governess too, so Jane could be her alter-ego (to the certain extend - Charlotte married a clergyman and died soon afterwards).
Governesses were treated badly.
4. The Brontës wrote in accordance with the Victorian way of thinking about the colonies.
5. “Jane Eyre” is a story of a governess who falls in love with her employer, who is already married. Then, his wife dies in fire, he goes blind.
“Jane Eyre” - a tale about love; happy ending.
7. “Jane Eyre” is a text about how a girl becomes a woman. At the beginning, Jane is a girl, but at the end she knows what she wants.
8. Girls in Victorian literature:
- usually motherless (literally, like “Anne of Green Gables” or metaphorically - no contact with a mother)
- presented as victims of the circumstances, of being naïve.
On one hand, Jane is like a victim, on the other hand she's different - she's not romantic, she's realistic, down-to-Earth.
9. Mr. Rochester is a Byronic character presented in the terms of his sexuality. He wants to make Jane his object, he doesn't tell her about his wife locked in the attic. Then he has to confess, he makes Jane feel sorry for him.
Bertha Rochester (Mason) saved Jane from being Mr. Rochester's pet, mistress of illegal wife.
Jane has to leave Mr. Rochester to become a woman.
She meets him again when she's 30; she's independent and can decide for herself.
A new idea: perhaps women don't have to marry anyone? The importance of female friendship.
Jane is independent, proud and passionate.

10. Bertha is not really able to do anything right. Even when she burns the house, she doesn't want to commit suicide. She's “ethnically different”, she has a different accent because her first language is French. She belongs to a different culture, she was brought surrounded by the Black. She even had a Black nanny, she could acquire some of her features.
It was an arranged marriage, Mr. Rochester was attached to her physicality. He thought that his “race” was superior and that was why Bertha's family had chosen him. He married her because of money (women didn't own anything) and sexual attraction. Her mother was insane, one of her brothers was mentally disabled, the other one was “stupid”. This brother wanted to make friends with Mr. Rochester, who thought it to be unnatural; he didn't treat this man as equal. He felt superior to his wife (more intelligent, thinking always of “high ideas”). He wished her to die, he felt sorry that she had a strong body. He didn't really know her before the marriage - it would be considered indecent. Bertha was originally called Antoinette. The name “Bertha” was more Germanic - a French name couldn't be accepted. Naming was important (e.g. Robinson Crusoe named a Native American boy Friday).
Mr. Rochester comes up with various reasons why Bertha was unacceptable as a wife. He calls her a “filthy burden” - she's “dirty”, she uses filthy language, her blood is impure even though she's white (racism).
11. It's shocking - Mr. Rochester is a sexualized figure.
12. The story is a kind of autobiography of Jane Eyre - she writes and hides her writings away. This is how women acted.
13. Colonization in the XIX century:
- a necessary civilizing task - it was a duty to spread civilization
- “White Man's Burden”, Rudyard Kipling - White people have to stay in the colonies and spread civilization (about Americans on Philippines)
- the Empire unified the whole society, it was more important than class divisions and other
- in the basic metaphor in relation to the colonies Britain was a parent, a colony was a child
- literature was used in order to “civilize”
- the British simply had problems with the colonies - there were internal struggles, they were gradually leaving the colonies
- people for example in India were taught high culture and literary texts; mimicry
- the sense of superiority of the culture of colonizers.
14. Colonial discourse (the language used and the way of thinking behind it):
- colonial subject - hybrid subject
- West India - they speak hybrid English (Pigeon language, grammar is simplified)
- the problem of hybrid identity - you cannot go back to one identity
- English was originally the language of slaveholders; the people from colonies should hate it, but they can't, it's their first language; ambiguity
- mimicry - people were encouraged to adopt the identity of colonizers - more British than the British
- Edward Saïd - a Christian Palestinian, also associated with Lebanon and the US; his memoir is entitled “Out of place”
- race - a background; origin, genealogy
- XIX century - racism, biology is everything; now: “ethnicity” is less biological than “race”
- these days most of the people in West Indies are Black; their ancestors were slaves
- after slavery became illegal, Black slaves were turned into Black servants; segregation
- the discrimination of Jews (Jack the Ripper - we don't know his identity, but he was believed to be a Jew from the east of Europe)
- Victorians were against any difference - discrimination against people on the grounds of ethnicity, language, culture
- everyone thought colonialism to be good (not only the upper class)
- mutual influence
15. Orientalism (Saïd):
- to get to know the Orient
- the style of thinking
Occident Orient, Civilization, Reason, Harmony, Christianity, Democracy, Savagery, wilderness, Sense/sensuality, Chaos, Paganism, Tyranny, despotism

16. Mr. Rochester says that his wife didn't have reason. Her mind was narrow (“pigmy intellect”) and she was insane. He claimed that her insanity was hereditary, related to the country.
He tells these things to Jane to make her pity him. He succeeds. He wants to present himself in a positive way. He claimed this marriage to be a dishonor for him.
Sophisticated version of racism - visualizing the mixing of breath.
Mr. Rochester shut up his wife.
17. The West-Indian night:
- the air was like a “sulphur-stream” - the place was like hell
- mosquitoes, noise
- red moon
- in Victorianism scientists thought that catching a fever was a natural reaction for a European white going to the colonies
- the wife calls Mr. Rochester's name using vulgar words - it combined with the whole situation
- “This life is hell” (in the colony)
- Mr. Rochester wants to commit suicide - the effect of a place
- then “a wind fresh from Europe” blows; he decides to leave this place, go to Europe and not admit that he is married
- the figure of Hope (to convince Jane); he says he was the one who suffered, mental disease is not a suffering because it's natural (non-European background); Hope explains him that he's free, not married, justified in not telling anyone that Bertha exists or who she is.
18. Mr. Rochester is a kind of reward for Jane.
19. Charlotte Brontë was a child of her time - not critical to the idea of British Empire. She thought it was a very good thing.
20. Two types of women:
- a mad woman in the attic / an angel in the house.
21. Colonial discourse negatively influenced the identity of both colonizers and the colonized; colonizers were encouraged to think highly of themselves - negative attitude.

Jean Rhys


a) She was a West-Indian writer; her mother was Creole, her father was Welsh; at the same time she was a modernist writer
b) The characters of her novels are very often homeless (a postcolonial feature); homelessness - discrimination (different ethnic background)
d) When Rhys moved to Paris, she felt that she was one of the modernist writers who had come there, but she wasn't treated like that; feeling nowhere at home
e) White Caribbean writers were even in worse position than the Black ones; paradoxically slavery made Black people more at home; those White writers belonged to the social class that no longer existed - slave-owners; morally shameful
f) They didn't belong to mainstream Black culture; American culture kept influencing the West Indies with the Black culture; Whites couldn't be a part of it
g) Jane Rhys's father was Welsh, but she couldn't refer to Welsh culture as her culture of origin; such writers thought that maybe in Europe they would feel at home; but then they realized that in Europe they were strangers


“Wide Sargasso Sea” Jean Rhys

Special features:

-Characters: Antoinette, Annette, Rochester, Christophine, Mr. Mason, Grace Poole, Aunt Cora, Cosway: Alexander, Sandi and Daniel; Amelie, Richard Mason, Tia, Pierre, Mr. Luttrell, Baptiste

-places: Jamaica; the Windward Islands; England

Jean Rhys (1984-1979) - “Wide Sargasso Sea”
1. Breastfeeding - psychological theory of a wet nurse influence; you may acquire some features; a very old belief, but it probably continued to the XIX century; a wet nurse could transfer some qualities to the baby
2. Victorian gentleman couldn't marry a black person.
3. Pigeon English - simplified grammar; maybe Bertha didn't use Pigeon English, but still her English was not like this in London.


a) Jane and Antoinette as parts of the same psyche - different than in “Jane Eyre”; two aspects of femininity, parallelism between a madwoman and a woman representing reasons makes them sisters
b) Overturning of colonial and patriarchal values - patriarchal values of “Jane Eyre” are reversed; Rochester in “Jane Eyre” was “forced” by various factors to marry Bertha; he wanted to keep her money, that's why he didn't leave her in the West Indies; patriarchal - he could lock her up and take her money; she couldn't inherit anything, she was kind of forced to marry, he could use her as an object
c) Rhys on Antoinette: “She seemed such a poor ghost, I thought I'd like to write her life” - she seemed more a ghost than a real person
d) Antoinette's life similar to that of younger Jane:
- she's fatherless, feels emotionally threatened, has no one to protect her; Mr Rochester wanted to seduce Jane
- life in the imagination - spiritual, emotional life; they are not satisfied with real life as it is (Jane - a poor governess; Antoinette - White in Black society; Whites were murdered)
- Jane - an orphan, Antoinette - almost an orphan; typical (literally or metaphorically motherless)
e) “Wide Sargasso Sea” as modernist text - Mr. Rochester doesn't pretend that he knows everything there is a secret he doesn't have access to; narrowed-down, subjective and individualistic perspective; no omniscient narrator
f) Gothic literature - started in sentimentalism; Victorian gothic was psychological; the topic of women; gothic involved in important political issues (e.g. Dracula); gothic topic in “Wide Sargasso Sea”: recognition of mistress, secrets
g) Language - French (French Island of Dominica); but Antoinette has to become English; she has to change her identity; mimicry: “not white, not quite” - she can't change her identity
h) The motif of fire: in Central and South American mythology there was a division into two tribes: Arawaks - peace-loving ones, Caribs - more aggressive; Arawaks hid themselves in the trees and Caribs set those trees on fire; Backra - Békés (the Whites) were afraid of death by fire (fires were caused by ex-slaves); Biblical context - flamboyant tree - a tree which is on fire and speaks
i) Modernist novel only from a chronological perspective, but in terms of ideas it's postmodernist
j) Intertextual text (“Jane Eyre”, oral tradition of Caribbean mythology, the Bible) - including other texts
k) A text about re-writing of a text - you undermine various ideologies in such text
l) The ending is left unfinished; it's not stated
m) The role of Grace Poole - in “Jane Eyre” she's no one interesting, a primitive person who does what she's told to do; whereas in “Wide Sargasso Sea” she sympathizes with Antoinette.

Rhys's critique of English colonialism and capitalist values. She exposes the degraded ideologies of a traditionally slave-owning elite and-although she provides for Rochester's perspective-her point of view seems Caribbean. In fact, Rhys saw herself as a displaced colonial and strongly opposed English culture

Analysis:
a) Mr. Rochester - in “Jane Eyre” - a typical colonizer who takes what he wants and goes; influenced by theories; “Wide Sargasso Sea” - in the XIX century people were racists; racist theories were a part of scholarly discourse, people believed that it was science; he came to a place full of Blacks, he might have felt threatened
b) Antoinette - sensitive to nature; Edward distances himself from the landscape thinking it is exotic; he may like it, but he rejects everything
c) Conventions of a XIX century novel:
- realism - sometimes seems realistic
- no complex personalities - but in “Wide Sargasso Sea” there are complex personalities
- omniscient narrator, specific ideological perspective - NO
d) Antoinette - descendant of the slave-owners; but she becomes like a slave in this relationship; she loses her money=freedom, independence
e) Sometimes colonizers didn't need colonies any longer and they could dispose of them - Rochester took money and locked his wife up; she dies, the case is closed; she was like a colony
f) The topic of fire - when Antoinette sets the house on fire, she resembles the ex-slaves
g) Position of women - they couldn't inherit anything, they couldn't be educated, they couldn't have a job, they could be beaten up by men, men could visit prostitutes
h) Racism
i) “They say” - the importance of spoken word; Black oral literature, the gossip about insanity, people speaking behind Mr. Rochester's back
j) People don't want to know that Mr. Rochester imprisoned his wife in the attic; guilty conscience? - that's why he has misery in his eyes; but it was all legal
k) Edward Rochester thought that because of the climate Antoinette was lustful, irrational, he had to control her
l) He took her to England, but she didn't believe it was England
m) Post-colonial perspective.

---