READER

SUPPLEMENTARY READING MATERIAL

NAME OF THE COURSE

English Literature I

1
Part I. Renaissance reader
“MINIATURE POEMS: Reading the Elizabethan sonnet as a jewel”
Chapter 1

From Clara Calvo and Jean Jacques Weber, The Literature Handbook, London: Routledge, 1998; pp. 1-
26.

In Elizabethan England, miniature portraits were worn as jewels. Miniatures were collected and
treasured. They were first hidden in cabinets, in the most private of rooms, the bedroom, and were
only shown to intimate friends. When Elizabeth I wanted to single out some foreign ambassador – to
indicate, for instance, that his suit would have a chance to progress if he argued persuasively – she
would show him, perhaps to dismay the competing ambassadors, her collection of miniatures. At
first, miniatures were simply kept wrapped in paper. The fondness for display of the Tudor court,
however, soon had them taken out of private cabinets. Miniatures, placed inside a very elaborate
precious metal case, often adorned with pearls and precious stones, began to be worn as pendants,
hanging from chains or ribbons from the neck or the waist. Yet the miniatures themselves,
particularly miniatures of one’s beloved, remained hidden in their ornamented cases: the Lilliputian
portraits were there, within reach, but not to be seen.

The miniature-wearing fashion is parallel in time with the sonnet-writing fashion. In

Elizabeth’s court, courtiers wrote sonnets to impress the Queen. The sonnet was, like the miniature,
a jewel, an artifice, a display of the poet’s ability. Sonnets were not openly displayed, however, since
they were not intended for the press and were not published at first. Instead, they circulated in
manuscript form for the eyes of a happy few: friends, patrons, lovers. Sonnets, like miniatures,
belonged to intimacy. Today, when Elizabethan sonnets can easily be reproduced and obtained, they
may still seem to resemble miniatures, as their meaning remains hidden in their beautiful formal
cases of quatrains and couplets and complicated rhyme-schemes. Sonnets often express complex
thoughts which have been compressed and twisted to fit the well-defined boundaries of fourteen
short lines, just as the human portraits in miniatures are artificially confined to a tiny oval shape. This
can sometimes prove a very artificial constraint, forcing the poet to make unusual syntactic choices
that produce obscure sentences. Sonnets often present difficulty of another sort: just as the white
faces of Elizabethan miniatures are usually surrounded by elaborate ruffles, Renaissance sonnets
often clothe feelings and ideas in the artifice of Petrarchan love rhetoric. This chapter will aim to
show you how to open the richly decorated case, once you have admired it, so that you can see and
understand the picture hidden inside.

The Renaissance was, in Europe, the Age of the Sonnet. The sonnet appeared first in the
Sicilian court of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor between 1208 an 1250, and Giacomo de Lentino is
2
the writer who is usually credited with its invention. From Sicily, it went to Italy, and it was the Italian
writer Francesco Petrarch who strongly contributed to make it popular. Between 1530 and 1650
there were in Italy, France. Germany and England about 3,000 writers who produced 200,000
sonnets and to this we have to add the Spanish writers and the considerable number of sonnets they
wrote until well into the seventeenth century. In England, the sonnet fashion reached its peak
between 1580 and 1610. Writers began to produce sonnet-sequences, collections of sonnets
thoughtfully arranged according to subject-matter, sometimes even spinning a narrative. Sonnet-
sequences were sometimes interspersed with other poems or ‘songs’, as in Sir Philip Sidney’s
Astrophil and Stella, or they could be followed by a long poem placed at the end of the sequence, as
in Samuel Daniel’s Delia, Spenser’s Amoretti and, possibly, Shakespeare’s Sonnets. A curious version
of the sonnet-sequence is the crown sequence, as in Lady Mary Wroth’s Pamphilia to Amphilanthus,
which includes a sonnet-sequence in which each new sonnet begins by repeating the last line of the
previous sonnet and the last sonnet ends with the first sonnet’s first line.

In Tudor England, the sonnet soon became a useful tool to move within the system of
patronage – and this can partly explain its success amongst those close to the crown or willing to
please noble patrons. The sixteenth-century courtier does not need to give counsel or advice to the
monarch. He needs instead to please, to make himself agreeable in order to be first on the
monarch’s list for a post or a privilege. One way of achieving this is to display one’s artistic abilities. It
is hardly surprising therefore that the first sonnets in England are the work of two courtiers and
aristocrats: Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?-42) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517?-47), both of
whom lived and wrote in the reign of Henry VIII. Neither Wyatt nor Surrey published their poems, but
they appeared in a collection of ‘songes and sonettes’ by several authors which is known today by
the name of Tottle’s Miscellany (1557). Tottle’s Miscellany contains fifteen sonnets by Surrey and
twenty-seven by Wyatt. […]

Wyatt was the first to translate and write sonnets in English. At first his sonnets were translations of
Petrarch’s sonnets, but he was soon writing sonnets of his own, in imitation of those he had
translated. When Wyatt introduces the sonnet in England, the sonnet has already been completely
accepted in Italy as the ideal form for a love poem. Petrarch has already produced his sonnets to
Laura in his Rime sparse or Canzoniere (1470), a sequence of short poems in which the poet describes
his ideal love for an unattainable lady. Each sonnet has fourteen lines and is divided into two stanzas:
an octave (consisting of eight lines) and a sestet (consisting of six lines). The octave is further
subdivided into two four-line quatrains and the sestet into two three-line tercets. The rhyme-scheme
of the poem is usually abba abba cde cde or abba abba cdc dcd.

In the Petrarchan sonnet, the main break or division of the poem occurs between the octave
and the sestet and there are two common ways of blending this fixed form with its content:

3
 - The octave can express the first part or the first half of an idea and the sestet can provide
the second part or second half of the same idea; the sestet can thus be used to expand
on an idea, often by means of a copulative conjunction such as and or a consecutive
conjunction such as then. (Shakespeare’s sonnet 144 is an example of the first way of
linking the first two quatrains with the remainder of the sonnet and Sidney’s sonnet 31 in
Astrophil and Stella is an example of the second.)

- Alternatively, the octave can propound an argument and the sestet can proceed to attack
or criticize it: as in certain kinds of syllogisms, the octave is reserved for the thesis and
the sestet for the antithesis. The sestet’s function is then to introduce a new thought or a
new development of the thought, often by means of an adversative conjunction such as
but. (There is an example of this other way of linking octave and sestet in the opening
sonnet of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, where line 9 reads: ‘But words came halting forth,
wanting Inventions stay’.)

In some of his sonnets, Wyatt altered the form and the structure of the Petrarchan sonnet:
he changed the sestet into one quatrain and one couplet (4+2=6) and the final couplet (the last two
lines sharing the same rhyme) became one of the most distinctive features of what has since been
referred to as the ‘English Sonnet’, to distinguish it from the Petrarchan or ‘Italian Sonnet’. The
change in the stanzaic structure of the sonnet brought along a change in rhyme structure. In the
Italian sonnet, the rhyme scheme was quite strict:

- the octave always rhymes abba abba (rima chiusa)

- the sestet rhymes cde cde or cdc dcd (rima incatenata).

Sometimes other rhyme-schemes can be found for the sestet but these are the most
frequent. The presence of the final couplet altered they rhyme pattern, so the sonnet-form used by
Wyatt often rhymed like this: abba abba cddc ee or abba abba cdcd ee. Wyatt’s sonnet form,
however, still retains an important characteristic of the Italian sonnet: the repetition of the same
rhyme pattern in the first and second quatrains, which created unity for the octave.

The earl of Surrey is often thought of as one of the first poets to use the type of metre that
would become most successful in English poetry, the iambic pentameter. A metre is a fixed
arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables into units called feet. Surrey used strings of iambic
pentameters with no rhyme (blank verse)in his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid and he also used this
metre in some of his sonnets, as in the case quoted below; but its success in English poetry is

4
probably due to the work of Sidney, Spenser and Shakespeare. The iambic pentameter provides the
Elizabethan sonnet with its particular ‘pace’, its familiar discursive rhythm:

And thus I see among these pleasant thinges

Eche care decayes, and yet my sorow springes.

If one tries to count how many stressed and unstressed syllables there are in each loine of this
couplet, which belong to a sonnet written by Surrey, one can see that he uses the iambic pentameter
here. This metre is composed of five iambic feet, each foot consisting of one unstressed syllable (  )
followed by a stressed one

(  ):

/ And thus / I see / a – mong / these plea - / sant thinges /

/  /  /   /   /  /

/ Each care / de – cayes, / and yet / my sor - / ow springes /

/  /  /  /  /   /

Surrey also contributed to the alteration of the shape of the sonnet: he is often credited with
having established the basic form of the most successful rhyme pattern used in the sonnets written
in England – the rhyme-scheme which Shakespeare used in his own sonnet-sequence, abab cdcd efef
gg. Surrey gave new rhymes to the second quatrain, and he also changed the rhyming pattern from
abba to abab (alternating rhymes). This English or, as it is also called, Shakespearean sonnet has then
seven different rhymes, instead of just four or five, as in the Italian, the French, and the Spanish
sonnet. Reasons have been sought for Surrey’s alteration of the rhyming scheme used by the Italian
sonnet. One reason could be that Italian offers many more words which rhyme and the rhyming
scheme was relatively easy to achieve, whereas English, instead, is a language which poses great
difficulties to a poet looking for words which rhyme with each other, particularly for ‘full’ rhyme, and
this probably led Surrey to alter the sonnet’s rhyming scheme. […]

5
The couplet of the English sonnet is a miniature inside another miniature: a poem inside another
poem.

The final couplet turned out to be very successful and has become one of the distinguishing
features of the English sonnet. This final couplet often has the quality of an epigram, slightly
independent from the rest of the poem. It tends to encapsulate a thought, a conclusion reached after
a good deal of thinking, a resolution. The final couplet functions then as a sort of summary of the
entire poem; it is a conclusion, a dénouement, but it also frequently expresses a moral, a piece of
advice, a maxim of conduct which is easily extracted from the poem and applicable to other
situations or human beings. In this, the final couplet is related to a favourite genre in Renaissance
literature: the proverb, the maxim, the sentential, the apothegm. The sonnet can also be related to
two other Renaissance literary genres: the essay, as cultivated by Montaigne and Bacon, and the
emblem. Emblems were composed of three parts: a phrase or motto (often in Latin and of a cryptic
nature), a picture, and a poem explaining the relation between the phrase and the picture. The final
couplet of the sonnet, like the motto in an emblem, offers the quintessence of a thought.

Finally, the advantage of the final couplet is that the poet can give a poem a humorous or
ingenious ending. Wyatt’s successors exploited this possibility and by doing so they could mix the
gravity or seriousness of a topic with touches of wit and humour. This was part of the spirit of the
Italian sonnet: the sonnet had to blend gravita (seriousness, earnestness) with dolcezza (sweetness,
gentleness, mildness). […]

The English Renaissance sonnet often took the shape of a little love poem; following the
trend popularized by Petrarch, many sonnets were written according to the artificial code of
Renaissance love rhetoric. Just as the miniature presented a picture in its case, sonnets written in the
Petrarchan fashion often offered feelings framed in the artifice of a number of shared poetic
conventions. Some of these conventions are exploited in a well-known miniature by the English
painter Nicholas Hilliard, Man Against a Background of Flames, painted c. 1595. This miniature shows
the portrait of a lover and the background to the picture is entirely covered with flames. This
suggests that the man is being portrayed as a lover who is burning because, as Petrarchan rhetoric
dictates, love is fire and passion burns. In Petrarchan sonnets, lovers usually lament their sad fate,
which is to love without being loved in return. The Petrarchan lover, both in the miniature and in
Renaissance sonnets, is represented as someone who burns in his own unrequited passion.

Miniatures and sonnets were often exchanged between lovers as love tokens: we can assume
that this miniature was painted with the intention of giving it to the man’s beloved. In Hilliard’s
portrait, in fact, the man is also depicted as wearing a miniature, which is hanging from a chain
around his neck (his hand is holding it so that we do not fail to notice it). This miniature he is wearing
6
is possibly his mistress’s portrait, so he is giving her a miniature which contains his portrait wearing a
portrait of herself. More importantly, her portrait, hanging from a chain, symbolizes that he is
chained to his lady, he cannot get away from her because his love has made him a prisoner, which is
another fundamental ingredient of Petrarchism. The chain also symbolizes fidelity: the lover depicted
here is claiming that he is faithful to his lady. The portrait thus makes use of several of the topoi, the
commonplaces of Petrarchism: unrequited love, the lover who cannot stop loving even though he is
burning in his own passion, love as pain, love as passion stronger than will, the lover who is chained
to his love, the lover’s fidelity to his lady. Other commonplaces of Petrarchism are the use of
oxymoron (love is a ‘freezing’ fire), love as a labyrinth and the power of love to transcend death: love
is stronger than death, love is immortal. These are topics which become part of a shared European
culture, the highly rhetorical language of Renaissance love poems, and will appear again and again,
with greater or lesser success, in English sonnets throughout the Renaissance. […]

7
8
Sir Thomas Wyatt
"I Find No Peace"

I find no peace, and all my war is done;

I fear and hope; I burn, and freeze like ice;
I fly aloft, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I season.
That locks nor looseth holdeth me in prison,
And holds me not, yet can I 'scape no wise;
Nor lets me live, nor die, at my devise,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eye, I see; without tongue, I plain; complain
I wish to perish, yet I ask for health;
I love another, and thus I hate myself;
I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain.
9
Lo, thus displeaseth me both death and life,
And my delight is causer of this strife.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

"Vow to Love Faithfully"

Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green,

Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice,
In temperate heat where he is felt and seen;
In presence 'prest of people, mad or wise;
Set in high or yet in low degree,
In longest night or in the shortest day,
In clearest sky or where clouds thickest be,
In lusty youth or when my hairs are grey.
Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell;
In hill, or dale, or in the foaming flood;
Thrall or at large, alive, whereso I dwell,
Sick or in health, in evil fame or good;
Hers will I be, and only with this thought
Content myself although my chance be nought.

Sir Philip Sidney, from Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 1

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."

Edmund Spenser, from The Faerie Queene

A gentle knight was pricking(1) on the plaine,

10
Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,
Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remain,
The cruell markes of many a bloody fielde;
Yet armes till that time did he never wield.(2)
His angry steede did chide his foaming bitt,
As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:
Full jolly(3) knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,
As one for knightly giusts(4) and fierce encounters fitt.

And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore,

The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead, as living, ever him ador'd:
Upon his shield the like was also scor'd,
For soveraine(5) hope which in his helpe he had.
Right faithfull true he was in deede and word,
But of his cheere(6) did seeme too solemne sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.(7)

Upon a great adventure he was bond,

That greatest Gloriana to him gave,
(That greatest Glorious Queene of Faery lond)
To winne him worshippe(8), and her grace to have,
Which of all earthly thinges he most did crave:
And ever as he rode his hart did earne(9)
To prove his puissance in battell brave
Upon his foe, and his new force to learne,
Upon his foe, a Dragon horrible and stearne.
(Book I, Canto I)

1.pricking: cantering - 2.armes...he never wield: Redcross wears the armour of the Christian
man. The armour bears the dents of every Christian's fight against evil. Redcross himself is
as yet untried. - 3.jolly: gallant - 4.giusts: jousts, tournaments - 5.soveraine: having greatest
power - 6.cheere: facial expression, mood - 7.ydrad: dreaded, feared - 8.worshippe: honour -
9.earne: yearn.

Edmund Spenser, from Amoretti, Sonnet 15

Ye tradeful Merchants, that with weary toyle,

Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain,
And both the Indias of their treasure spoile,
What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?

11
For loe, my Love doth in herself containe
All this worlds riches that may farre be found:
If saphyres, loe her eies be saphyres plaine;
If rubies, loe hir lips be rubies sound;
If pearles, hir teeth be pearles both pure and round;
If yvorie, her forhead yvory weene;
If gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;
If silver, her faire hands are silver sheene:
But that which fairest is but few behold:-
Her mind, adorned with vertues manifold.

Christopher Marlowe
"The Passionate Shepherd to his Love"

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sings madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies.
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool,

Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair lined slippers, for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds

With coral clasps and amber studs.
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning.
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

12
Sir Walter Raleigh
"The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"

If all the world and love were young,

And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold

When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields

To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten -
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,

Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,

Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 1

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory.
but thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self substantial fuel,
Making famine where abundance lies,

13
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 55

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

14
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 94

They that have power to hurt and will do none,

That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

15
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height betaken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If it be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 126

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power

Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle hour,
Who has by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st;
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May Time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure;
She may detain, but not still keep her treasure.
Her audit, though delayed, answered must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress, when she walks, treads upon the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she, belied with false compare.

16
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 145

Those lips that Love's own hand did make

Breathed forth the sound that said "I hate"
To me that languished for her sake.
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
"I hate" she altered with an end
That followed it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,
From heaven to hell is flown away.
"I hate" from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying "not you."

William Shakespeare
"It Was a Lover and His Lass"

It was a lover and his lass,

With a hey, and a ho, and hey nonino,
That o'er the green corn-field did pass
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers lover the spring.

Between the acres of the rye,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
These pretty country folk would lie,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.

This carol they began that hour,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that a life was but a flower
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.

And therefore take the present time,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

17
For love is crowned in the prime
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring

William Shakespeare
"When Daisies Pied and Violets Blue"(1)

When daisies pied and violets blue

And lady-smocks(2) all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds(3) of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
"Cuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!" - O word of fear(4),
Unpleasing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread(5), and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
"Cuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!" - O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

1.when daisies...: this song and "When Icicles..." conclude the play Love's Labour's Lost
- 2.lady-smocks: also named cuckoo-flowers - 3.cuckoo-buds: buttercups - 4.word of
fear: because it sounds like cuckold, a man whose wife has deceived him - 5.turtles tread:
turtledoves mate.

William Shakespeare
"When Icicles Hang by the Wall"

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipped and waysbe foul, roads
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
"Tu-whit, to-who!"
18
 A merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. cool (as by skimming or
stirring)
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw old saw, platitude
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, crabapples
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
"Tu-whit, to-who!"
A merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

John Donne
"The Sun Rising"

Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Why dost thou thus
Through windows and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy, pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys and sour 'prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices.
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of the time.
Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If hr eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late tell me
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me;
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear: All here in one bed lay.

She's all states, and all princes I;

Nothing else is.
Princes do but play to us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
19
 In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.

John Donne
Sonnet 14

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You

As yet but knock, breath, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit You, but O, to no end;
reason, Your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love You, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto Your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knock again;
Take me to You, imprison me, for I,
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.

20
PART II.
The 18th CENTURY Reader

Samuel Richardson
Clarissa

LETTER I

MISS ANNA HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE JAN 10.

I am extremely concerned, my dearest friend, for the disturbances that have happened in your family. I
know how it must hurt you to become the subject of the public talk: and yet, upon an occasion so
generally known, it is impossible but that whatever relates to a young lady, whose distinguished merits
have made her the public care, should engage every body's attention. I long to have the particulars
from yourself; and of the usage I am told you receive upon an accident you could not help; and in
which, as far as I can learn, the sufferer was the aggressor.

Mr. Diggs, the surgeon, whom I sent for at the first hearing of the rencounter, to inquire, for your sake,
how your brother was, told me, that there was no danger from the wound, if there were none from the
fever; which it seems has been increased by the perturbation of his spirits.

Mr. Wyerley drank tea with us yesterday; and though he is far from being partial to Mr. Lovelace, as it
may well be supposed, yet both he and Mr. Symmes blame your family for the treatment they gave
him when he went in person to inquire after your brother's health, and to express his concern for what
had happened.

They say, that Mr. Lovelace could not avoid drawing his sword: and that either your brother's
unskilfulness or passion left him from the very first pass entirely in his power.

This, I am told, was what Mr. Lovelace said upon it; retreating as he spoke: 'Have a care, Mr. Harlowe
—your violence puts you out of your defence. You give me too much advantage. For your sister's
sake, I will pass by every thing:—if—'

But this the more provoked his rashness, to lay himself open to the advantage of his adversary—who,
after a slight wound given him in the arm, took away his sword.

There are people who love not your brother, because of his natural imperiousness and fierce and
uncontroulable temper: these say, that the young gentleman's passion was abated on seeing his blood
gush plentifully down his arm; and that he received the generous offices of his adversary (who helped
him off with his coat and waistcoat, and bound up his arm, till the surgeon could come,) with such
patience, as was far from making a visit afterwards from that adversary, to inquire after his health,
appear either insulting or improper.

21
Be this as it may, every body pities you. So steady, so uniform in your conduct: so desirous, as you
always said, of sliding through life to the end of it unnoted; and, as I may add, not wishing to be
observed even for your silent benevolence; sufficiently happy in the noble consciousness which
attends it: Rather useful than glaring, your deserved motto; though now, to your regret, pushed into
blaze, as I may say: and yet blamed at home for the faults of others—how must such a virtue suffer on
every hand!—yet it must be allowed, that your present trial is but proportioned to your prudence.

As all your friends without doors are apprehensive that some other unhappy event may result from so
violent a contention, in which it seems the families on both sides are now engaged, I must desire you
to enable me, on the authority of your own information, to do you occasional justice.

My mother, and all of us, like the rest of the world, talk of nobody but you on this occasion, and of the
consequences which may follow from the resentments of a man of Mr. Lovelace's spirit; who, as he
gives out, has been treated with high indignity by your uncles. My mother will have it, that you cannot
now, with any decency, either see him, or correspond with him. She is a good deal prepossessed by
your uncle Antony; who occasionally calls upon us, as you know; and, on this rencounter, has
represented to her the crime which it would be in a sister to encourage a man who is to wade into her
favour (this was his expression) through the blood of her brother.

Write to me therefore, my dear, the whole of your story from the time that Mr. Lovelace was first
introduced into your family; and particularly an account of all that passed between him and your sister;
about which there are different reports; some people scrupling not to insinuate that the younger sister
has stolen a lover from the elder: and pray write in so full a manner as may satisfy those who know not
so much of your affairs as I do. If anything unhappy should fall out from the violence of such spirits as
you have to deal with, your account of all things previous to it will be your best justification.

You see what you draw upon yourself by excelling all your sex. Every individual of it who knows you,
or has heard of you, seems to think you answerable to her for your conduct in points so very delicate
and concerning.

Every eye, in short, is upon you with the expectation of an example. I wish to heaven you were at
liberty to pursue your own methods: all would then, I dare say, be easy, and honourably ended. But I
dread your directors and directresses; for your mother, admirably well qualified as she is to lead, must
submit to be led. Your sister and brother will certainly put you out of your course.

But this is a point you will not permit me to expatiate upon: pardon me therefore, and I have done.—
Yet, why should I say, pardon me? when your concerns are my concerns? when your honour is my
honour? when I love you, as never woman loved another? and when you have allowed of that concern
and of that love; and have for years, which in persons so young may be called many, ranked in the first
class of your friends,

Your ever grateful and affectionate, ANNA HOWE.

Will you oblige me with a copy of the preamble to the clauses in your grandfather's will in your
favour; and allow me to send it to my aunt Harman?—She is very desirous to see it. Yet your character
22
has so charmed her, that, though a stranger to you personally, she assents to the preference given you
in that will, before she knows the testator's reasons for giving you that preference.

LETTER XVI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE [HER PRECEDING NOT AT THAT TIME
RECEIVED.] FRIDAY, MARCH 3.

O my dear friend, I have had a sad conflict! Trial upon trial; conference upon conference!—But what
law, what ceremony, can give a man a right to a heart which abhors him more than it does any living
creature?

I hope my mother will be able to prevail for me.—But I will recount it all, though I sit up the whole
night to do it; for I have a vast deal to write, and will be as minute as you wish me to be.

I concluded my last in a fright. It was occasioned by a conversation that passed between my mother
and my aunt, part of which Hannah overheard. I need not give you the particulars; since what I have to
relate to you from different conversations that have passed between my mother and me, in the space of
a very few hours, will include them all. I will begin then.

I went down this morning when breakfast was ready with a very uneasy heart, from what Hannah had
informed me of yesterday afternoon; wishing for an opportunity, however, to appeal to my mother, in
hopes to engage her interest in my behalf, and purposing to try to find one when she retired to her own
apartment after breakfast: but, unluckily, there was the odious Solmes, sitting asquat between my
mother and sister, with so much assurance in his looks!—But you know, my dear, that those we love
not, cannot do any thing to please us.

Had the wretch kept his seat, it might have been well enough: but the bend and broad-shouldered
creature must needs rise, and stalk towards a chair, which was just by that which was set for me.

I removed it to a distance, as if to make way to my own: and down I sat, abruptly I believe; what I had
heard all in my head.

But this was not enough to daunt him. The man is a very confident, he is a very bold, staring man!—
Indeed, my dear, the man is very confident.

He took the removed chair, and drew it so near mine, squatting in it with his ugly weight, that he
pressed upon my hoop.—I was so offended (all I had heard, as I said, in my head) that I removed to
another chair. I own I had too little command of myself. It gave my brother and sister too much
advantage. I day say they took it. But I did it involuntarily, I think. I could not help it.—I knew not
what I did.

I saw that my father was excessively displeased. When angry, no man's countenance ever shews it so
much as my father's. Clarissa Harlowe! said he with a big voice—and there he stopped. Sir! said I,
23
trembling and courtesying (for I had not then sat down again); and put my chair nearer the wretch, and
sat down—my face, as I could feel, all in a glow.

Make tea, child, said my kind mamma; sit by me, love, and make tea.

I removed with pleasure to the seat the man had quitted; and being thus indulgently put into
employment, soon recovered myself; and in the course of the breakfasting officiously asked two or
three questions of Mr. Solmes, which I would not have done, but to make up with my father.—Proud
spirits may be brought to! Whisperingly spoke my sister to me, over her shoulder, with an air of
triumph and scorn: but I did not mind her.

My mother was all kindness and condescension. I asked her once, if she were pleased with the tea?
She said, softly, (and again called me dear,) she was pleased with all I did. I was very proud of this
encouraging goodness: and all blew over, as I hoped, between my father and me; for he also spoke
kindly to me two or three times.

Small accidents these, my dear, to trouble you with; only as they lead to greater, as you shall hear.

Before the usual breakfast-time was over, my father withdrew with my mother, telling her he wanted
to speak with her. Then my sister and next my aunt (who was with us) dropt away.

My brother gave himself some airs of insult, which I understood well enough; but which Mr. Solmes
could make nothing of: and at last he arose from his seat—Sister, said he, I have a curiosity to shew
you. I will fetch it. And away he went shutting the door close after him.

I saw what all this was for. I arose; the man hemming up for a speech, rising, and beginning to set his
splay-feet [indeed, my dear, the man in all his ways is hateful to me] in an approaching posture.—I
will save my brother the trouble of bringing to me his curiosity, said I. I courtesied—Your servant, sir
—The man cried, Madam, Madam, twice, and looked like a fool.—But away I went—to find my
brother, to save my word.—But my brother, indifferent as the weather was, was gone to walk in the
garden with my sister. A plain case, that he had left his curiosity with me, and designed to shew me no
other.

I had but just got into my own apartment, and began to think of sending Hannah to beg an audience of
my mother (the more encouraged by her condescending goodness at breakfast) when Shorey, her
woman, brought me her commands to attend me in her closet.

My father, Hannah told me, was just gone out of it with a positive angry countenance. Then I as much
dreaded the audience as I had wished for it before.

I went down however; but, apprehending the subject she intended to talk to me upon, approached her
trembling, and my heart in visible palpitations.

She saw my concern. Holding out her kind arms, as she sat, Come kiss me, my dear, said she, with a
smile like a sun-beam breaking through the cloud that overshadowed her naturally benign aspect—
Why flutters my jewel so?
24
This preparative sweetness, with her goodness just before, confirmed my apprehensions. My mother
saw the bitter pill wanted gilding.

O my Mamma! was all I could say; and I clasped my arms round her neck, and my face sunk into her
bosom.

My child! my child! restrain, said she, your powers of moving! I dare not else trust myself with you.—
And my tears trickled down her bosom, as hers bedewed my neck.

O the words of kindness, all to be expressed in vain, that flowed from her lips!

Lift up your sweet face, my best child, my own Clarissa Harlowe!—O my daughter, best beloved of
my heart, lift up a face so ever amiable to me!—Why these sobs?—Is an apprehended duty so
affecting a thing, that before I can speak—But I am glad, my love, you can guess at what I have to say
to you. I am spared the pains of breaking to you what was a task upon me reluctantly enough
undertaken to break to you. Then rising, she drew a chair near her own, and made me sit down by her,
overwhelmed as I was with tears of apprehension of what she had to say, and of gratitude for her truly
maternal goodness to me—sobs still my only language.

And drawing her chair still nearer to mine, she put her arms round my neck, and my glowing cheek
wet with my tears, close to her own: Let me talk to you, my child. Since silence is your choice,
hearken to me, and be silent.

You know, my dear, what I every day forego, and undergo, for the sake of peace. Your papa is a very
good man, and means well; but he will not be controuled; nor yet persuaded. You have sometimes
seemed to pity me, that I am obliged to give up every point. Poor man! his reputation the less for it;
mine the greater: yet would I not have this credit, if I could help it, at so dear a rate to him and to
myself. You are a dutiful, a prudent, and a wise child, she was pleased to say, in hope, no doubt, to
make me so: you would not add, I am sure, to my trouble: you would not wilfully break that peace
which costs your mother so much to preserve. Obedience is better than sacrifice. O my Clary Harlowe,
rejoice my heart, by telling me that I have apprehended too much!—I see your concern! I see your
perplexity! I see your conflict! [loosing her arm, and rising, not willing I should see how much she
herself was affected]. I will leave you a moment.—Answer me not—[for I was essaying to speak, and
had, as soon as she took her dear cheek from mine, dropt down on my knees, my hands clasped, and
lifted up in a supplicating manner]—I am not prepared for your irresistible expostulation, she was
pleased to say. I will leave you to recollection: and I charge you, on my blessing, that all this my truly
maternal tenderness be not thrown away upon you.

And then she withdrew into the next apartment; wiping her eyes as she went from me; as mine
overflowed; my heart taking in the whole compass of her meaning.

She soon returned, having recovered more steadiness.

Still on my knees, I had thrown my face across the chair she had sat in.

25
Look up to me, my Clary Harlowe—No sullenness, I hope!

No, indeed, my ever-to-be-revered Mamma.—And I arose. I bent my knee.

She raised me. No kneeling to me, but with knees of duty and compliance. Your heart, not your knees,
must bend. It is absolutely determined. Prepare yourself therefore to receive your father, when he
visits you by-and-by, as he would wish to receive you. But on this one quarter of an hour depends the
peace of my future life, the satisfaction of all the family, and your own security from a man of
violence: and I charge you besides, on my blessing, that you think of being Mrs. Solmes.

There went the dagger to my heart, and down I sunk: and when I recovered, found myself in the arms
of my Hannah, my sister's Betty holding open my reluctantly-opened palm, my laces cut, my linen
scented with hartshorn; and my mother gone. Had I been less kindly treated, the hated name still
forborne to be mentioned, or mentioned with a little more preparation and reserve, I had stood the
horrid sound with less visible emotion—But to be bid, on the blessing of a mother so dearly beloved,
so truly reverenced, to think of being MRS. SOLMES—what a denunciation was that!

Shorey came in with a message (delivered in her solemn way): Your mamma, Miss, is concerned for
your disorder: she expects you down again in an hour; and bid me say, that she then hopes every thing
from your duty.

I made no reply; for what could I say? And leaning upon my Hannah's arm, withdrew to my own
apartment. There you will guess how the greatest part of the hour was employed.

Within that time, my mother came up to me.

I love, she was pleased to say, to come into this apartment.—No emotions, child! No flutters!—Am I
not your mother?—Do not discompose me by discomposing yourself! Do not occasion me uneasiness,
when I would give you nothing but pleasure. Come, my dear, we will go into your closet.

She took my hand, led the way, and made me sit down by her: and after she had inquired how I did,
she began in a strain as if she supposed I had made use of the intervening space to overcome all my
objections.

She was pleased to tell me, that my father and she, in order to spare my natural modesty, had taken the
whole affair upon themselves—

Hear me out; and then speak.—He is not indeed every thing I wish him to be: but he is a man of
probity, and has no vices—

No vices, Madam—!

Hear me out, child.—You have not behaved much amiss to him: we have seen with pleasure that you
have not—

O Madam, must I not now speak!

26
I shall have done presently.—A young creature of your virtuous and pious turn, she was pleased to
say, cannot surely love a profligate: you love your brother too well, to wish to marry one who had like
to have killed him, and who threatened your uncles, and defies us all. You have had your own way six
or seven times: we want to secure you against a man so vile. Tell me (I have a right to know) whether
you prefer this man to all others?—Yet God forbid that I should know you do; for such a declaration
would make us all miserable. Yet tell me, are your affections engaged to this man?

I knew not what the inference would be, if I said they were not.

You hesitate—You answer me not—You cannot answer me.—Rising—Never more will I look upon
you with an eye of favour—

O Madam, Madam! Kill me not with your displeasure—I would not, I need not, hesitate one moment,
did I not dread the inference, if I answer you as you wish.—Yet be that inference what it will, your
threatened displeasure will make me speak. And I declare to you, that I know not my own heart, if it
not be absolutely free. And pray, let me ask my dearest Mamma, in what has my conduct been faulty,
that, like a giddy creature, I must be forced to marry, to save me from—From what? Let me beseech
you, Madam, to be the guardian of my reputation! Let not your Clarissa be precipitated into a state she
wishes not to enter into with any man! And this upon a supposition that otherwise she shall marry
herself, and disgrace her whole family.

Well then, Clary [passing over the force of my plea] if your heart be free—

O my beloved Mamma, let the usual generosity of your dear heart operate in my favour. Urge not
upon me the inference that made me hesitate.

I won't be interrupted, Clary—You have seen in my behaviour to you, on this occasion, a truly
maternal tenderness; you have observed that I have undertaken the task with some reluctance, because
the man is not every thing; and because I know you carry your notions of perfection in a man too high
—

Dearest Madam, this one time excuse me!—Is there then any danger that I should be guilty of an
imprudent thing for the man's sake you hint at?

Again interrupted!—Am I to be questioned, and argued with? You know this won't do somewhere
else. You know it won't. What reason then, ungenerous girl, can you have for arguing with me thus,
but because you think from my indulgence to you, you may?

What can I say? What can I do? What must that cause be that will not bear being argued upon?

Again! Clary Harlowe!

Dearest Madam, forgive me: it was always my pride and my pleasure to obey you. But look upon that
man—see but the disagreeableness of his person—

27
Now, Clary, do I see whose person you have in your eye!—Now is Mr. Solmes, I see, but
comparatively disagreeable; disagreeable only as another man has a much more specious person

But, Madam, are not his manners equally so?—Is not his person the true representative of his mind?—
That other man is not, shall not be, any thing to me, release me but from this one man, whom my
heart, unbidden, resists.

Condition thus with your father. Will he bear, do you think, to be thus dialogued with? Have I not
conjured you, as you value my peace—What is it that I do not give up?—This very task, because I
apprehended you would not be easily persuaded, is a task indeed upon me. And will you give up
nothing? Have you not refused as many as have been offered to you? If you would not have us guess
for whom, comply; for comply you must, or be looked upon as in a state of defiance with your whole
family.

And saying this, she arose and went from me. But at the chamber-door stopt; and turned back: I will
not say below in what a disposition I leave you. Consider of every thing. The matter is resolved upon.
As you value your father's blessing and mine, and the satisfaction of all the family, resolve to comply.
I will leave you for a few moments. I will come up to you again. See that I find you as I wish to find
you; and since your heart is free, let your duty govern it.

In about half an hour, my mother returned. She found me in tears. She took my hand: It is my part
evermore, said she, to be of the acknowledging side. I believe I have needlessly exposed myself to
your opposition, by the method I have taken with you. I first began as if I expected a denial, and by my
indulgence brought it upon myself.

Do not, my dearest Mamma! do not say so!

Were the occasion for this debate, proceeded she, to have risen from myself; were it in my power to
dispense with your compliance; you too well know what you can do with me.

Would any body, my dear Miss Howe, wish to marry, who sees a wife of such a temper, and blessed
with such an understanding as my mother is noted for, not only deprived of all power, but obliged to
be even active in bringing to bear a point of high importance, which she thinks ought not to be insisted
upon?

When I came to you a second time, proceeded she, knowing that your opposition would avail you
nothing, I refused to hear your reasons: and in this I was wrong too, because a young creature who
loves to reason, and used to love to be convinced by reason, ought to have all her objections heard: I
now therefore, this third time, see you; and am come resolved to hear all you have to say: and let me,
my dear, by my patience engage your gratitude; your generosity, I will call it, because it is to you I
speak, who used to have a mind wholly generous.—Let me, if your heart be really free, let me see
what it will induce you to do to oblige me: and so as you permit your usual discretion to govern you, I
will hear all you have to say; but with this intimation, that say what you will, it will be of no avail
elsewhere.

28
What a dreadful saying is that! But could I engage your pity, Madam, it would be somewhat.

You have as much of my pity as of my love. But what is person, Clary, with one of your prudence, and
your heart disengaged?

Should the eye be disgusted, when the heart is to be engaged?—O Madam, who can think of marrying
when the heart is shocked at the first appearance, and where the disgust must be confirmed by every
conversation afterwards?

This, Clary, is owing to your prepossession. Let me not have cause to regret that noble firmness of
mind in so young a creature which I thought your glory, and which was my boast in your character. In
this instance it would be obstinacy, and want of duty.—Have you not made objections to several—

That was to their minds, to their principles, Madam.—But this man—

Is an honest man, Clary Harlowe. He has a good mind. He is a virtuous man.

He an honest man? His a good mind, Madam? He a virtuous man?—

Nobody denies these qualities.

Can he be an honest man who offers terms that will rob all his own relations of their just expectations?
—Can his mind be good—

You, Clary Harlowe, for whose sake he offers so much, are the last person who should make this
observation.

Give me leave to say, Madam, that a person preferring happiness to fortune, as I do; that want not even
what I have, and can give up the use of that, as an instance of duty—

No more, no more of your merits!—You know you will be a gainer by that cheerful instance of your
duty; not a loser. You know you have but cast your bread upon the waters—so no more of that!—For
it is not understood as a merit by every body, I assure you; though I think it a high one; and so did
your father and uncles at the time—

At the time, Madam!—How unworthily do my brother and sister, who are afraid that the favour I was
so lately in—

I hear nothing against your brother and sister—What family feuds have I in prospect, at a time when I
hoped to have most comfort from you all!

God bless my brother and sister in all their worthy views! You shall have no family feuds if I can
prevent them. You yourself, Madam, shall tell me what I shall bear from them, and I will bear it: but
let my actions, not their misrepresentations (as I am sure by the disgraceful prohibitions I have met
with has been the case) speak for me.

29
Just then, up came my father, with a sternness in his looks that made me tremble.—He took two or
three turns about my chamber, though pained by his gout; and then said to my mother, who was silent
as soon as she saw him—

My dear, you are long absent.—Dinner is near ready. What you had to say, lay in a very little
compass. Surely, you have nothing to do but to declare your will, and my will—But perhaps you may
be talking of the preparations—Let us have you soon down—Your daughter in your hand, if worthy of
the name.

And down he went, casting his eye upon me with a look so stern, that I was unable to say one word to
him, or even for a few minutes to my mother.

Was not this very intimidating, my dear?

My mother, seeing my concern, seemed to pity me. She called me her good child, and kissed me; and
told me that my father should not know I had made such opposition. He has kindly furnished us with
an excuse for being so long together, said she.—Come, my dear—dinner will be upon table presently
—Shall we go down?—And took my hand.

This made me start: What, Madam, go down to let it be supposed we were talking of preparations!—O
my beloved Mamma, command me not down upon such a supposition.

You see, child, that to stay longer together, will be owning that you are debating about an absolute
duty; and that will not be borne. Did not your father himself some days ago tell you, he would be
obeyed? I will a third time leave you. I must say something by way of excuse for you: and that you
desire not to go down to dinner—that your modesty on the occasion—

O Madam! say not my modesty on such an occasion: for that will be to give hope—

And design you not to give hope?—Perverse girl!—Rising and flinging from me; take more time for
consideration!—Since it is necessary, take more time—and when I see you next, let me know what
blame I have to cast upon myself, or to bear from your father, for my indulgence to you.

She made, however, a little stop at the chamber-door; and seemed to expect that I would have
besought her to make the gentlest construction for me; for, hesitating, she was pleased to say, I
suppose you would not have me make a report—

O Madam, interrupted I, whose favour can I hope for if I lose my mamma's?

To have desired a favourable report, you know, my dear, would have been qualifying upon a point that
I was too much determined upon, to give room for any of my friends to think I have the least
hesitation about it. And so my mother went down stairs.

I will deposit thus far; and, as I know you will not think me too minute in the relation of particulars so
very interesting to one you honour with your love, proceed in the same way. As matters stand, I don't
care to have papers, so freely written, about me.
30
Pray let Robert call every day, if you can spare him, whether I have any thing ready or not.

I should be glad you would not send him empty handed. What a generosity will it be in you, to write
as frequently from friendship, as I am forced to do from misfortune! The letters being taken away will
be an assurance that you have them. As I shall write and deposit as I have opportunity, the formality of
super and sub-scription will be excused. For I need not say how much I am

Your sincere and ever affectionate, CL. HARLOWE.

Narratology - an introduction to the theory of narrative

A narrative text is a text in which a narrative agent tells a story.

The narrative agent, or narrator is the linguistic subject, a function and not a person, which
expresses itself in the language that constitutes the text. This agent is not the (biographical) author of
the narrative.

Narrative technique denotes all techniques used to tell a story.

Discourse is the means by which the content is communicated.

Kinds of discourse: narration (= summary), dramatic presentation (= scene; quoted dialogue or

monologue), and commentary (= exposition, interpretation, judgement, interpolated digressions).

Telling v. showing

Telling = the narrator himself relates what happens through description, summary or commentary of
the character's words, attitudes and actions.

Showing = the narrator only presents the words and gestures of the characters without explaining their
motives and thoughts. The reader draws his own conclusions.

Types of narrator according to access to consciousness:

omniscient, all-knowing; or, only one consciousness.

Narrative time and tense:

letters, journals, dialogue, monologue - present

narration - always past tense

(some narrative sentences combine the two systems)

31
Point of view (= perspective, focus): who sees? from what position?

Degrees of distance

a/ distance between the narrator and the implied author

Moral distance, e.g. Defoe - Moll

Intellectual distance, e.g. Salinger - Holden

b/ distance between the implied author and the reader

The reader cannot always espouse the implicit ideas of the book. Moral distance, e.g. Sade.

c/ distance between the narrator and the reader

e.g. Anthony Burgess - Alex in A Clockwork Orange

d/ distance between the narrator and the other characters

e.g. the distance between the narrator and the little boy he used to be in Hartley's The Go Between

e/ distance between the implied author and the characters

some implied authors never judge their characters. Others, like Jane Austen, usually do.

An Inventory of Narrators:

[Author/writer; implied author:

An author who uses the word "I" in a narrative often seems different from the writer - the person who
may be described on the dust jacket. Even in fiction lacking reference to an authorial "I", we may form
a conception of the author based on the style and manner of telling. Most critics accept Wayne Booth's
suggestion that whether overt or covert, we should refer to this persona as the "implied author" (the
image the author creates of himself/herself).]

Authorial narration:

An implied author who refers to himself as "I" tells a fictional story in which he does not appear,
though personal knowledge of the characters may be implied; i.e. an outside narrator, different from
characters.

Third-person narration:
32
 The writer refers to all characters in the third person. This category can include authorial narration,
but usually refers to a fiction in which there is no reference to the "I" who writes. In the latter sense, it
is also called "figural narration" (Stanzel), "Er-Erzahlung" (in German).

First-person narration:

The narrator-writer is also a character in the story, who may tell his own story ("I-as-protagonist"), or
someone else's ("I-as-witness", or "Ich-Erzahlung" in German)

Embedded narration:

A story told by a character in a story is "embedded". Some critics refer to it as "metanarration", or

"hyponarration".

33
PART III. ROMANTICISM READER
TOPIC 1: THE GOTHIC NOVEL

from The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)

(Part II, chapter 26)
Emily de St Aubert, an orphan, is taken by Madame Cheron, her aunt, to the castle of
Udolpho, in the Appenines. There she is held prisoner by Signor Montoni, Madame Cheron's
husband and the leader of a band of thieves.
As they passed up, the wind, which poured through the narrow cavities in the wall, made the
torch flare, and it threw a stronger gleam upon the grim and sallow countenance of
Barnardine, and discovered more fully the desolation of the place - the rough stone walls, the
spiral stairs black with age, and a suit of ancient armour, with an iron visor, that hung upon
the walls, and appeared a trophy of some former history.
Having reached a landing-place, "You may wait here, lady", said he, applying a key to the
door of a chamber, "while I go up and tell the signora you are coming".
"That ceremony is unnecessary", replied Emily; "my aunt will rejoice to see me".
"I am not sure of that", said Barnardine, pointing to the room he had opened; "come in here,
lady, while I step up".
Emily, surprised and somewhat shocked, did not dare to oppose him further; but, as he was
turning away with the torch, desired he would not leave her in darkness. He looked around,
and, observing a tripod lamp that stood on the stairs, lighted and gave it to Emily, who
stepped forward into a large old chamber, and he closed the door. As she listened anxiously to
his departing steps, she thought he descended, instead of ascended, the stairs: but the gusts of
wind that whistled round the portal would not allow her to hear distinctly any other sound.
Still, however, she listened, and perceiving no step in the room above, where he had affirmed
Madame Montoni to be, her anxiety increased, though she considered that the thickness of the
floor in this strong building might prevent any sound reaching her from the upper chamber.
The next moment, in a pause of the wind, she distinguished Barnardine's step descending to
the court, and then thought she heard his voice; but rising gust again overcoming other
sounds, Emily, to be certain on this point, moved softly to the door, which, on attempting to
open it, she discovered was fastened. All the horrid apprehensions that had lately assailed her,
returned at this instant with redoubled force; and no longer appeared like the exaggerations of
a timid spirit, but seemed to have been sent to warn her of her fate. She now did not doubt that
Madame Montoni had been murdered, perhaps in this very chamber; or that she herself was
brought hither for the same purpose. The countenance, the manners, and the recollected words
of Barnardine when he had spoken of her aunt, confirmed her worst fears. For some moments
she was incapable of considering of any means by which she might attempt an escape. Still
she listened, but heard footsteps neither on the stairs not in the room above; she thought,

34
however, that she again distinguished Barnardine's voice below, and went to a grated window,
that opened upon the court, to inquire further. Here she plainly heard his hoarse accents
mingling with the blast that swept by, but they were lost again so quickly that their meaning
could not be interpreted; and then the light of the torch, which seemed to issue fro the portal
below, flashed across the court, and the long shadow of a man, who was under the archway,
appeared upon the pavement. Emily, from the hugeness of this sudden portrait, concluded it to
be that of Barnardine; but other deep tones which passed in the wind soon convinced her he
was not alone, and that his companion was not a person very liable to pity.
When her spirits had overcome the first shock of her situation, she held up the lamp to
examine if the chamber afforded a possibility of an escape. It was a spacious room, whose
walls, wainscoted with rough oak, showed no casement but the grated one which Emily had
left, and no other door than that by which she had entered. The feeble rays of the lamp,
however, did not allow her to see at once its full extent; she perceived no furniture, except,
indeed, an iron chair fastened in the centre of the chamber, immediately over which,
depending on a chain from the ceiling, hung an iron ring. Having gazed upon these for some
time with wonder and horror, she next observed iron bars below, made for the purpose of
confining the feet, and on the arms of the chair were rings of the same metal. As she
continued to survey them, she concluded that they were instruments of torture; and it struck
her that some poor wretch had once been fastened in this chair, and had there been starved to
death. She was chilled by the thought; but what was her agony when, in the next moment it
occured to her that her aunt might have been one of these victims, and that she herself might
be the next! An acute pain seized her head, she was scarcely able to hold the lamp; and,
looking around for support, was seating herself, unconsciously, in the iron chair itself: but
suddenly perceiving where she was, she started from it in horror, and sprung towards a remote
end of the room. Here again she looked round for a seat to sustain her, and perceived only a
dark curtain, which, descending from the ceiling to the floor, was drawn along the whole side
of the chamber. Ill as she was, the appearance of this curtain struck her, and she paused to
gaze upon it in wonder and apprehension.
It seemed to conceal a recess of the chamber; she wished, yet dreaded, to lift it, and to
discover what it veiled; twice she was withheld by a recollection of the terrible spectacle her
daring hand had formerly unveiled in an apartment of the castle, till, suddenly conjecturing
that it concealed the body of her murdered aunt, she seized it in a fit of desperation, and drew
it aside. Beyond appeared a corpse stretched on a kind of low couch, which was crimsoned
with human blood, as was the floor beneath. The features, deformed by death, were ghastly
and horrible, and more than one livid wound appeared in the face. Emily, bending over the
body, gazed, for a moment, with an eager, frenzied eye; but, in the next, the lamp dropped
from her hand, and she fell senseless at the foot of the couch.

ON THE GOTHIC
The commonest of all plots of the eighteenth-century Gothic novel involves a frail
protagonist in terrible danger. She (more commonly that he) is placed in a hostile, threatening,
mysterious environment, usually so prodigiously large that it dwarfs her; she is made
35
prisoner; she is threatened by individuals who should protect her, parents and parent-figures.
It is a nightmare, and perhaps the reason for its potent appeal is that it enables the reader to
live vicariously through nightmare. It is not so terrible as it would be if one were asleep. It is
not nearly so terribly as it would be in life. Facing up to one's fears is a needful process, and
emotionally satisfying. Besides, there is something comforting, almost magical, in
anticipating the worst. It is a common intuition that the known evil never comes. If all
eighteenth-century popular fiction - not merely the Gothic - rests ultimately on the simple
black-and-white fables common to oral literature in many cultures, it may well be because in
these reiterated adventures by surrogate figures there is reassurance and even the illusion of
protection. * Marylin Butler, Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries

from The Monk (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818)

The protagonist, Ambrosio, has been seduced from his vows by Matilda, disguised as a
novice monk. To further his lust for Antonia, who will turn out to be his sister, Matilda
invokes demonic powers in the sepulchre. In the same sepulchre, unknown to the cavalier
Lorenzo, his sister, a nun, has been imprisoned by her prioress for the disgrace of her baby,
now dead. Lorenzo finds the nun-mother there and she tells of her imprisonment:
"Thus did I drag on a miserable existence. Far from growing familiar with my prison, I
beheld it every moment with new horror. The cold seemed more piercing and bitter, the air
more thick and pestilential. My frame became weak, feverish, and emaciated. I was unable to
rise from the bed of straw, and exercise my limbs in the narrow limits, to which the length of
my chain permitted me to move. Though exhausted, faint, and weary, I trembled to profit by
the approach of sleep: my slumbers were constantly interrupted by some obnoxious insect
crawling over me. Sometimes I felt the bloated toad, hideous and pampered with the
poisonous vapours of the dungeon, dragging his loathsome length along my bosom:
sometimes the quick cold lizard roused me leaving his slimy track upon my face, and
entangling itself in the tresses of my wild and matted hair: often have I at waking found my
fingers ringed with the long worms, which bred in the corrupted flesh of my infant. At such
times I shrieked with terror and disgust, and while I shook off the reptile, trembled with all a
woman's weakness. ..."

36
TOPIC 2: ROMANTIC POETRY

WILLIAM BLAKE

“THE LAMB”

Little lamb, who made thee?

Does thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee?

Little lamb, I'll tell thee;

Little lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!

37
 Little lamb, God bless thee!

“THE TYGER”

Tyger, tyger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

“THE SICK ROSE”

O rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm,
38
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

39
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD"

lonely as a as a c

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
40
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

41
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Kubla Khan
OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.
A FRAGMENT.

In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had
retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the
Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight
indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which
he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the
following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas’s
Pilgrimage: “Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and
a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were
inclosed with a wall.” The Author continued for about three hours in a
profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has
the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than
from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition
in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel
production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or
consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a
distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper,
instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At

42
 this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business
from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to
his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though
he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport
of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines
and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface
of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after
restoration of the latter!

Then all the charm

Is broken--all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awile,
Poor youth! who scarcely dar’st lift up thine eyes--
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return! And lo, he stays,
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror.

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Author has
frequently purposed to finish for himself what had been originally, as it
were, given to him: but the to-morrow is yet to come.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
43
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,
44
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

45
“Ozymandias”

I MET a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which still survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

46
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

47
JOHN KEATS

“On first looking into Chapman’s Homer”

Much have I traveled 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-browed 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 hi ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific – and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise –
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

48
ROMANTICS on POETRY

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 2nd edition

Excerpt 1

The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from
common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of
language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of
imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and,
further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly
though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in
which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Humble and rustic life was generally chosen,
because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can
attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language;
because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and,
consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the
manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character of
rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and, lastly, because in that
condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.

Excerpt 2

I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the
tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of
contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood
successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on; but the
emotion, of whatever kind, and in whatever degree, from various causes, is qualified by various
pleasures, so that in describing any passions whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind
will, upon the whole, be in a state of enjoyment. If Nature be thus cautious to preserve in a state of

49
enjoyment a being so employed, the Poet ought to profit by the lesson held forth to him, and ought
especially to take care, that, whatever passions he communicates to his Reader, those passions, if his
Reader’s mind be sound and vigorous, should always be accompanied with an overbalance of
pleasure. Now the music of harmonious metrical language, the sense of difficulty overcome, and the
blind association of pleasure which has been previously received from works of rhyme or metre of
the same or similar construction, an indistinct perception perpetually renewed of language closely
resembling that of real life, and yet, in the circumstance of metre, differing from it so widely—all
these imperceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight, which is of the most important use in
tempering the painful feeling always found intermingled with powerful descriptions of the deeper
passions. This effect is always produced in pathetic and impassioned poetry; while, in lighter
compositions, the ease and gracefulness with which the Poet manages his numbers are themselves
confessedly a principal source of the gratification of the Reader. All that it is necessary to say,
however, upon this subject, may be effected by affirming, what few persons will deny, that, of two
descriptions, either of passions, manners, or characters, each of them equally well executed, the one
in prose and the other in verse, the verse will be read a hundred times where the prose is read once.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

From Biographia Literaria

Excerpt1 (from chapter XIII)

The IMAGINATION then I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary

IMAGINATION I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a
repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary
Imagination I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as
identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode
of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate: or where this process is
rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially
vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead.

FANCY, on the contrary, has no other counters to play with, but fixities and definites.
The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and
space; while it is blended with, and modified by that empirical phaenomenon of the will, which
we express by the word Choice. But equally with the ordinary memory the Fancy must receive
50
 all its materials ready made from the law of association.

Excerpt 2 (from chapter XIV)

What is poetry? --is so nearly the same question with, what is a poet?--that the answer to the one is
involved in the solution of the other. For it is a distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself,
which sustains and modifies the images, thoughts, and emotions of the poet's own mind.

The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the
subordination of its faculties to each other according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a
tone and spirit of unity, that blends, and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and
magical power, to which I would exclusively appropriate the name of Imagination. This power, first
put in action by the will and understanding, and retained under their irremissive, though gentle and
unnoticed, control, laxis effertur habenis, reveals "itself in the balance or reconcilement of opposite
or discordant" qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the general with the concrete; the idea with
the image; the individual with the representative; the sense of novelty and freshness with old and
familiar objects; a more than usual state of emotion with more than usual order; judgment ever
awake and steady self-possession with enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement; and while it
blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature; the manner to
the matter; and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

From Defence of Poetry
1.A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth. …A story of particular facts is
as a mirror which obscures and distorts that which should be beautiful; poetry is a mirror
which makes beautiful that which is distorted.

2.But poets, or those who imagine and express this indestructible order, are not only the authors of
language and of music, of the dance, and architecture, and statuary, and painting: they are the
institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society, and the inventors of the arts of life, and the
teachers, who draw into a certain propinquity with the beautiful and the true that partial
apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world which is called religion.

3.Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the
alternations of an ever - changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever -
51
changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient
beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an
internal adjustment of the sounds or motions thus excited to the impressions which excite them.

4.The savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced in
him by surrounding objects in a similar manner; and language and gesture, together with plastic or
pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those objects, and of his
apprehension of them. Man in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the
object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces an augmented
treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become at once the
representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statute, the chord and
the harmony.

5.The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a
beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the
power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and
nature. The person in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their
nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers.
But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, that power which is seated on
the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers
of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They
measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all
penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its
manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the hierophants of an
unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the
present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and
feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the
unacknowledged legislators of the world.

52