Final Exam Study Guide – Doc Mahoney

E4 FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE May 2013

 

READINGS and CONCEPTS

  

Renaissance Intro  (233-54)–Know ideas about English Humanism (Greek and Roman models, Italian origin, print technology, Henry VIII and Anglican Church,

Elizabeth I, James I, Puritan Revolution and end of English Renaissance)

 

   Pastoral Tradition idea (257) but NOT “Nymph” and “Shepherd” poems    

   Shakespearean sonnet quatrains and couplet structure; sonnets 18 (277)* and 29 (279)*       

   Shakespeare intro (272-73) and Macbeth (paperback)

   Donne intro (300); Metaphysical poetry qualities (301); Donne’s “Valediction” (305)*

      *Copy provided with the exam

 

Restoration and 18^th Cent. Intro (407-26)–Know key ideas about this era (Augustan–Neoclassical–Enlightenment–Age of Reason meanings, shift from why to how questions, meaning of satire, preference for public subjects in poetry, meaning of ode and elegy, rise of prose essay genre and journalism profession)

 

   Swift intro (427) and “A Modest Proposal” (intro and text, 428-37)         

 

The Romantic Period Intro (517-33)–Know ideas about Romanticism (Influence of American–French–Industrial Revolutions; Romantic preference for imagination over reason, childhood freedom over adult controls, personal emotions over public commitments, social change over status quo, nature over urban life; Lyrical Ballads as landmark text for new poetry)                

   Shelley intro (617) and “Ode to the West Wind” (intro and text, 622-24)

  

Modern World Intro (799-818)–Know key ideas about this era (WWI and WWII dates; general impact of Darwin, Marx, and Freud on modern culture; Modernist experimentation in form and content; stream of consciousness technique; alienation of artists from politics and nationalism)

                     

   Woolf intro (886) and “Shakespeare’s Sister” (intro and text, 887-892)

   Yeats intro (944) and “The Second Coming” (intro and text, 945-46)

   Joyce intro (955), “Araby” (intro and text 956-62), and “The Influence of James Joyce”

   (962-63)

 

NOTE: Review the period introductions and author introductions generally for background information.  Do not get obsessive about details.  Focus much more on the actual literary readings.  Review all graded materials and be sure you know a correct answer for anything that was marked wrong.

 

 

 

 

LITERARY TERMS–Have a working knowledge of these terms.  No need to memorize definitions.  Make notes for any of them as needed here.  Below is an alphabetical list.  See “Handbook of Literary Terms” on 1181-1204 for clarification if needed.

 

Alliteration                      Assonance                      Aside                       Ballad

 

 

Caesura                           Couplet                           Dialogue                  Elegy

 

 

Figurative language        Hyperbole                       Imagery                   Literal language       

 

 

Metaphor                        Metaphysical conceit      Monologue                     Octave                           

 

 

Ode                                Onomatopoeia                     Oxymoron                      Paradox                          

 

 

Personification             Point of View                     Quatrain                         Refrain                          

 

 

Satire                             Sestet                                  Simile                           Soliloquy                           

 

 

Sonnet                            Style (in writing)               Volta (or Turn)

Final Exam Study Guide – Ms. Walsh

Terms:

Understand and be able to identify the following:

 

Alliteration

Allusion

Assonance

Aside

Ballad

Cadence

Couplet

Dialogue

Elegy

Figurative language

Literal language

Hyperbole

Iambic pentameter

Imagery

Irony

Metaphor

Conceit

Metaphysical

Pastoral

Logical appeal

Emotional appeal

Ethical appeal

Monologue

Mood

Octave

Sestet

Ode

Onomatopoeia

Oxymoron

Paradox

Personification

Quatrain

Refrain

Renaissance

Satire

Simile

Soliloquy

Sonnet

Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet

Elizabethan/Shakespearean Sonnet

Style

Stream of consciousness

Symbol

Theme

Tragedy

Volta

 

Characters:

Macbeth
Lady Macbeth

Malcolm

Donalbain

Siward

Young Siward

Macduff

Lady Macduff

Banquo

Fleance

Murderers

Witches

Hecate

Duncan

Judith Shakespeare

 

Authors:

Know basic biographical information and what we read from each of the following:

 

William Shakespeare

John Donne

Jonathan Swift

William Butler Yeats

Virginia Woolf

James Joyce

Percy Shelley

 

Plot:

Know basic plot of everything that we have read:

 

Macbeth

Sonnet 18

Sonnet 29

“A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”

“A Modest Proposal”

“Ode to the West Wind”

“Shakespeare’s Sister”

“The Second Coming”

“Araby”

“The Influence of James Joyce”

 

Historical info:

Know historical context info for the time periods that we saw:

 

Early Modern Period aka Renaissance –

Know English Humanism

Henry VIII and the Anglican Church

Elizabeth I

James I

Puritain Revolution

End of the English Renaissance

 

Restoration –

Understand meaning of the Age of Reason

Meaning of satire

Preference for public subject in poetry

Rise of prose essay genre

 

The Romantic Period –

Understand characteristics of Romanticism

• Imagination over reason
• Childhood freedom
• Personal emotions over public commitments
• Social change
• Nature over urban life

Know influence of the American, French, and Industrial Revolutions

Know Lyrical Ballads as a landmark text for poetry

 

Modern World –

General impact of Darwin, Marx, and Freud

Modernist experimentation in form and content

Stream of consciousness

 

Concepts:

Know the six reasons Swift presents as part of his proposal

Understand how Swift persuades his audience  

Understand Donne’s compass conceit

Understand Donne’s other comparisons in “A Valediction”

Be able to discuss Macbeth as tragedy and who you think the tragic hero is

Be able to discuss gender issues in Macbeth

Understand issues of fate vs. free will in Macbeth

Understand “Shakespeare’s Sister” as a feminist text

Understand the biblical allusion in “The Second Coming”

Understand the deeper potential meaning of “Araby”

Clarion

Ode to the West Wind

I

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,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O Thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

II

Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like Earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou Dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain and fire and hail will burst: O hear!

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his chrystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Vocab 12

Paragon – n. a model of perfection; pattern
Pedantic – adj. stuffy or dogmatic; meticulous; academic
Placid – adj. undisturbed, peaceful
Precocious – adj. early in development especially mental development
Prodigious – adj. exciting wonder; extraordinary in size or degree
Prolific – adj. producing abundantly; marked by abundant productivity
Prudent – adj. cautious; discreet
Reverent – adj. devout; solemn; worshipful
Savant – n. a learned person; scholar
Viable – adj. capable of living, growing, and developing