1. How do early Renaissance sonnets of the 1500s compare with those by Milton or Donne in the 1600s? Feel free to incorporate the history of and development of the sonnet in your answer, as well as some specific quotations from sonnets.
2. Compare metaphysical with cavalier poetry. What are the characteristics of each? Give examples from specific poems in your answer. Which type of poetry do you prefer and why?
3. Why are the concepts of neoclassicism, wit, and decorum important to understanding the literature of the Enlightenment period? Refer to at least two authors or texts in your answer.
4. What is meant by the term “romanticism”? How is romantic poetry different from Enlightenment poetry? Give some examples in your response.
5. Both Swift and Milton criticize the power structures within which they live. Discuss each writer’s approach to reform and list some techniques that they use to achieve that reform. Use at least one specific example from each writer’s work
Material that can used to pull quotes from
-“Caedmon’s Hymn,” “The Wanderer,” Anglo-Saxon riddles
-Beowulf
– Marie of France, Lanval; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
-Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
– Chaucer, Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale; real womens writing by Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
-Everyman
– Wyatt, Surrey, Petrarch, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare Sonnets
-Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
-Shakespeare, The Tempest
-Donne and Herbert; Marvel and Herrick
– Areopagitica
-Swift, “A Modest Proposal
-Pope “Essay on Criticism”, Dryden, and Johnson
– Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard
Cowper, The Castaway
