Questions for Midterm

Answer TWO of the following four questions. In each of your answers, you will need to incorporate details from TWO texts by TWO different authors. Be sure to indicate which question you are answering.

Remember to move beyond summary and focus your responses on analysis of the texts. Also, feel free to make use of your book and course notes for verifying information and supporting your points. If you quote from the text, please include the page number in parenthesis after the quotation. If you use any outside sources, be sure to cite them.

1. The Body

There are a number of ways bodies appear in the texts we have read, including the physical or human body, the foreign or exotic body, the national body, the gendered body, and the disabled or diseased body. Choose ONE of the four types of bodies listed here and describe how that type of body was important in TWO of the texts we have read so far this term.

2. Travel

Many of the texts we have read over the past two weeks have incorporated travel into the plot. Discuss TWO of the texts that have incorporated travel. What are some of the conventions you have observed in these travel narratives? How has travel played a role in the development of the plot, characters, and meaning of the text?

3. Issues of Politics and Religion

Most of our readings so far this term have engaged with contemporary issues of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Choose TWO texts that address a single issue of contemporary politics OR religion. How do the texts incorporate that contemporary issue? What position does each text take on that issue?

4. Literary Terms

Choose ONE of the following literary terms that appear in the texts we have discussed so far in this course: satire, sublime, or sentimentalism. Define the term and indicate any sources used for your definition (course materials or an outside source). Describe how that term appears in TWO of the texts in this course and why it is important in those texts.

Reading Overview for Monday, July 19

Assigned Text: Shelley’s Frankenstein, Vol. II, Ch. 1-4 (pp. 59-77)

Summary Information for Volume I

Here is the link for the Victor Frankenstein Twitter page for Volume I: http://twitter.com/v_frankenstein

About Volume II

In this part of the novel, we learn quite a bit more about the creature and his experiences, and the narrative frame becomes more complex as we now have a story within a story within another story. Many of the same issues and themes continue to play a part in the text. Since I’ve already given you a general introduction to the text and to the conventions of gothic literature, I’ll focus this reading overview on questions for you to be thinking about as you read. On Sunday, I’ll add the discussion questions from our first presenters, Mike and Hailey, to this area.

Questions for Thinking and Discussion

• Continue thinking about the ways that the gothic, sentimentality, and the sublime appear in this novel. Mark specific passages that illustrate these terms.
• As we concluded class on Thursday, I brought up the religious allusions in creating human life. As we learn more about Frankenstein’s creature, how does this connection play a part in this section?
• Reflect on the passage where the creature first sees himself as different from the humans he observes near the end of chapter 4. What words and phrases seem important here? What, if any, emotions does this scene inspire in you as a reader?
• Do you see any similarities between Victor and the creature? How might the two be considered like one another? How are they different?
• As the story continues to progress, what are your opinions of Victor? Have they changed since Volume I?

Questions from Group Presenting

• How do you feel about the way the story is told? Do you feel it is confusing the way the narrator’s switch? Why do you think the story is written this way?
• Where can the reader find Shelley’s use of sublime in this section?
• What do you think the importance is of the monster becoming literate? Does it change your view of the monster

Reading Overview for Thursday, July 15

Assigned Text: Shelley’s Frankenstein, Vol. I, Ch. 1-4 (pp. 17-38)

About Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein over the year between June 1816 and May 1817, beginning it when she was just 18 years old. In her youth, though, Shelley had experienced many tragedies. She was born to two writers, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and her mother died just two weeks after Shelley was born. By the time she finished Frankenstein, Shelley had run away to Europe with her married lover, lost an infant in childbirth, lost her half-sister to a suicide, married her lover (famous poet Percy Bysshe Shelley) after his wife committed suicide, and lost another infant just after Frankenstein was published. Shelley’s understanding of the complicated relationships between love/happiness and loss/tragedy certainly finds a way into the text.

The idea for the novel began while Shelley and her future husband were traveling in Europe and spending time with other intellectuals and writers and discussing literature, philosophy, and sciences. The group decided to hold a competition for the best ghost story (a popular form at the time), so Shelley began the story that eventually became the novel Frankenstein. The issues raised by the story certainly reflect the philosophical and scientific discussions the groups was having, including theories about the origins of life, issues of creation and destruction, and intellectual ambition.

The text of Frankenstein begins on page 5 of our Norton edition with a preface written by the Shelley’s husband, who describes the text in the first person as if he were the author. Then, Volume I opens with four letters from 28-year-old Captain Robert Walton who has hired a ship and is traveling in the North Sea around Siberia sent to his sister Margaret in England. Here are brief summaries of those four letters:

• Letter I: Captain Walton describes St. Petersburgh and his desire to explore the Arctic Circle and the North Pole, where he believes “a wondrous power…may regulate a thousand celestial observations” (7). His work toward this voyage has been six years in the making.
• Letter II: Walton is lonely on his journey and finds that the letters to his sister are his only sense of companionship and the only way he could share success if he does make an exciting discover. He describes the lieutenant and the master of the ship, but he does not find them to be suitable as friends.
• Letter III: Walton sends a quick letter because he comes across a merchant-man who will be journeying to England. His journey north continues and is pleasant so far because of the summer months.
• Letter IV: Walton relates some strange occurrences in this three-part letter. First, he and the crew, while surrounded by ice, see a large figure on a sled drawn across the ice by dogs, and they wonder where the figure came from because they are so far from land. Then, the next morning they find a man, a sled, and one dog left floating on a piece of ice. The crew brings him aboard, and they nurse him back to health. His answers to their questions are ambiguous, and they only figure out that he’s chasing someone who fled from him, the same man that the crew earlier. Walton talks with this man and finds him a wonderful companion and both well spoken and educated. The man finally decides to tell his story, and Walton records the story for his sister.

It is this story that makes up the novel, and the narrator of the story is the man telling Walton his story. Periodically through the novel, our narrator will give a reminder that he is telling his story to Walton. In our reading for today, this happens on page 31 when Victor pauses in his story and refuses to give certain details to Walton. The letters to Margaret resume in the final ten pages of the novel, bringing us back to this larger narrative frame.

Here is a map of the three main locations discussed in today's reading (you can click on it to see a larger version):

Questions for Thinking and Discussion

• What do you think of our narrator for the novel? Do you find him likeable? reliable? What do you think of Victor Frankenstein as both a student and a scientist? What can you infer about him from his relationships with his family, friends, professors, others?
• As you’re reading this first section, how does the setting (location, weather, time of day, etc.) relate to the events in the story?
• After you’ve finished reading for today’s assignment, look back at the story about the storm with Victor was 15 years old (pp. 22-23). How does this event connect with the events of chapters 3 and 4?
• What discovery does Victor make just as he finishes his course of study? How does he apply that discovery? Why do you think he won’t tell Captain Walton about his discovery?
• If you have never read Frankenstein before, what about the text is surprising? If you have read it before, how does a second reading impact your understanding of the text and your thinking about these early events?

Groups for Project

Group A: Juan, Howard, Lindsey
Group B: Mike, Hailey
Group C: Marshall, Peter, Matt
Group D: Wes, Hayden, Nic
Group E: Curt, Rachel, Ellen
Group F: Plunk, Michael

Reading Overview for Wednesday, July 14

Assigned Texts:

• Blake (Innocence Introduction, Experience Introduction, NA 1410, 1416-7)
• William Wordsworth (Tintern Abbey, NA 1491-5)
• Baurbauld (Rights of Woman, Washing-Day, NA 1393, 1395-6)
• Dorothy Wordsworth (Grasmere, Thoughts on my Sick-Bed, NA 1606-9)
• Hemans (Casabianca, Homes of England, NA 1812-4)

About the Romantic Period

The Romantic Period (generally dated 1785-1830, but the edges can be somewhat loosely defined) is often associated with the poetry produced during those years, and for quite a while, it was associated with six male poets: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, William Blake, Percy Shelley, and John Keats. Over time, though, a number of women poets, some of whom were more popular among their contemporaries than the men, have been added to the discussion, including Anna Barbauld, Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, Felicia Hemans, and Letitia Landon. The period also includes the popular fiction of figures like Horace Walpole, Jane Austin, Sir Walter Scott, Mary Shelley, Ann Radcliffe, and Maria Edgeworth. This period was heavily influenced by two major revolutions, the American and the French, which inspired the English to react with policies intended to prevent such resistance at home.

Romantic Poets and Poetry

The Romantic poets used their writing to produce another sort of revolution as they resisted the conventions of 18th-century poetry and instead encouraged writing that represented the feelings and sensibility of the poet. Wordsworth described this as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” and for many of the poets, nature was an important inspiration for such overflows of emotion. The emotional response of the poet is reflected in the natural landscape around him. In addition to the focus on nature, many Romantic poets explored the beauty and a sense of wonder in familiar or ordinary things. Some also explored supernatural topics, which also appeared in the fiction of the period (which we’ll see in Frankenstein starting tomorrow). You can read more on Romantic poetry in the introduction to the period in the NA on pages 1370-1378, which is summarized here.

William Blake and Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Blake was both an artist and a poet, so it is important to consider the illustrations with his poetry. He published Songs of Innocence in 1789 and then added more poems to create Songs of Innocence and Experience, published in 1794. We are reading the introductory poem for each of the two sections on innocence and on experience. The title pages are included with the poems in the NA, so I encourage you to take some time to look at them. As the footnote on page 1410 explains, the poems in the innocence section are said to be “happy songs,” but they also take up issues of “injustice, evil, and suffering.” The poems of experience depict a “state of the soul that…is an ugly and terrifying one of poverty, disease, prostitution, war, and social, institutional, and sexual repression, epitomized in the ghastly representation of modern London.”

William Wordsworth and “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”

In this poem, we can see the importance of a natural landscape as it inspires the poet’s reflection on life. Wordsworth is visiting the ruins of Tintern Abbey and reflects on the changes to the landscape since a previous visit five years earlier. The changes lead him to reflect on other changes during that time.

Anna Barbauld and “The Rights of Woman” and “Washing-Day”

In addition to her poems, Barbauld also wrote political pamphlets criticizing England’s war against France and took strong positions about education (she and her husband also ran a school) and beliefs about women. As the footnote on page 1393 explains, “The Rights of Woman” is a response to Mary Wollstonecraft’s famous A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which Wollstonecraft argues for the education of women and for their equal treatment as partners to men and educators of the nation’s children. Barbauld’s “Washing-Day” is another poem that takes up the place of women, but this one does do in considering the work of women. This poem can be read as a version of the Romantic trend of reflecting on familiar and ordinary topics.

Dorothy Wordsworth and “Grasmere” and “Thoughts on my Sick-Bed”

Dorothy Wordsworth is the younger sister of William Wordsworth and was his regular companion through much of their adult lives. Though her writing wasn’t published during her lifetime, Dorothy Wordsworth wrote poetry and journals of reflections. In “Grasmere—A Fragment,” Dorothy’s poetic techniques are similar to William’s as she uses the landscape to inspire reflection on life. The poem was composed only a few years after “Tintern Abbey.” The other poem, “Thoughts on My Sick-Bed,” includes reflections on life and memory during a period of illness.

Felicia Hemans and “Casabianca” and “Homes of England”

Hemans was a popular poet in the 19th century and began publishing poetry at age 15. “Casabianca” tells the story of a boy on a burning ship and takes up issues of obedience and loyalty. The narrative style of this ballad was common for Hemans, as it relates a tale while subtly questioning the very qualities it seems to praise. “The Homes of England” focuses its attention on the domestic, where the home is distinguished from the problems of the outside world and protects its inhabitants from them. The homes included range from the “stately Homes” to the “Cottage Homes” and praise all for the way they contribute to the nation as a whole.

Questions for Thinking and Discussion

• What similarities and differences do you notice when reading the poems of the Wordsworth siblings? In particular, how do “Tintern Abbey” and “Grasmere” employ similar strategies? Do you notice any significant differences?
• “Washing-Day” and “The Homes of England” both focus on ordinary aspects of domestic life and duty. Do you think that they offer similar representations of the domestic? Or are they different? How so?
• Take a few minutes to look over a poem or two from the innocence and experience sections of Blake’s poetry. What are the some of the topics of the poems in each? What about the innocence poems seems less than innocent? What kinds of emotions and actions make up Blake’s representation of experience?

Reading Overview for Tuesday, July 13

Assigned Texts: Lady Montagu, Preface, Letters X, XII, XXV, XXVI, XXIX, XXXIII (pdf of selected letters available here); Frances Burney, The Journal and Letters (NA 1350-61)

Starting today, we take a short break from the fictional prose that has comprised much of our reading thus far this term and concentrate on nonfiction forms of letters and diaries today and poetry tomorrow. Note that the assigned letters from Montagu have been cut from the original assignment given in the syllabus.

About Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Turkish Embassy Letters

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu grew up in a wealthy and intellectual family in London, where she was well educated and extremely independent. She married her husband, Edward Wortley Montagu for love, which for many women of the period was unusual. When her husband took a position as ambassador to Constantinople in 1716, she traveled with him across Europe and through Turkey, writing letters to family and friends that were later collected into her Turkish Embassy Letters. The picture to the right is Montagu dressed in the Turkish style. Montagu was particularly impressed with the Turkish inoculations for small pox and brought this scientific information back to England, where her children were some of the first to be vaccinated for the disease. Her interest in preventing small pox was because Montagu survived the disease in 1715 and worked to cover her scars with makeup. Montagu also wrote essays and poems (two of which are included in the NA on pages 1198-1201) and was criticized by some of her male contemporaries for her work. Though the letters included in the Turkish Embassy Letters were originally written for selected recipients, she later compiled and edited them into the collection that was published after her death.

About Frances Burney and The Journal and Letters

Frances (or Fanny as she was often called) Burney also grew up in an intellectual London family but later in the 18th century. During her lifetime, Burney was widely known for her novels, which were first published anonymously. She lived as a lady-in-waiting at court for five years, and at 41 years old, she married a French general. During a visit to France in 1802, the Napoleonic wars broke out, and Burney and her family were trapped there for a decade.

Burney composed the first three journal entries included in the NA during her younger years (at ages 15, 25, and 37, respectively) while she was living in England. The fourth excerpt is from a letter Burney wrote while she was living in France in 1812 and faced breast cancer. I want to warn you that the letter is rather graphic in its detail about her mastectomy, performed by military doctors with no anesthesia. The letter is addressed to her sister Esther (but as Burney notes, she expects Esther to share it with family and friends) and was composed months after the surgery because Burney struggled to relive the horrifying experience in writing. The final two paragraphs are written by Burney’s husband M. d’Arblay about the experience.

Questions for Thinking and Discussion

• Thinking back to our readings of Oroonoko and Gulliver’s Travels, how are Lady Montagu’s letters similar to those accounts of travel? How are they different?
• Montagu’s letters describe the dress and fashion of those in both Vienna and Constantinople. How do the physical bodies of women and the fashions covering them demonstrate the place of women in the two cultures? How do they compare with England?
• Burney’s mastectomy letters takes up the issue of the body in a different way than we have considered so far in the course. How does she represent the diseased body?