British literature study guide

Prerequisites: names (first names and surnames) of the authors, titles of the main works. Spelling mistakes will not be tolerated. General chronology - the ability to place an author in the appropriate century. General knowledge about the subjects of the discussed works.

1. Metaphysical poets - imagery, conceit, diction, oxymoron, formal devices.

2. The birth of the novel. - social and historical context. The origins and the genres that influenced it (epic poem, romance, picaresque). Defoe and the Puritan tradition. First vs. third-person narrative. Epistolary novel.

3. Romanticism - 1798 (what happened then?), the sublime, medievalism

4. William Blake - innocence and experience, use of symbols.

5. Wordsworth - nature, main subjects, folklore, ballad, poetry as `emotion recalled in tranquility'. `Supernaturalizing the natural'

6. Coleridge `naturalizing the supernatural' `willing suspension of disbelief' Ancient Mariner - the reasons for using the frame story and archaisms. Kubla Khan - orientalism, sublime landscape, the role of the poet

7. Byron and the Byronic hero.

8. P.B. Shelley. terza rima, political ideals. The role of poetry.

9. John Keats - negative capability, medievalism, role of poetry, synaesthesia

10. Jane Austen - the historical context, society's attitude towards women writing and reading. Love, marriage and money. Class and snobbery. Classical and Romantic values. Irony.

11. Emily Brontë. Literary antecedents (Shakespeare, Milton, Romantic poetry). Romantic heroes in the Victorian novel. The role of religion (Joseph). The narrative structure of the novel (frame story, multiple narrators). The house as the metaphor for the novel.

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