For Wednesday: Shelley, Frankenstein (finish the book!)

Answer TWO of the following...

Q1: What arguments does Victor give Walton for destroying the Creature’s incomplete mate? He was earlier moved by the Creature’s loneliness, and also agreed that the Creature’s arguments were sound. Why, at the very end, does he decide not to go through with his “engagement”? Are his reasons equally sound?

Q2: Earlier in class, we discussed the possibility that the Creature is Victor’s doppleganger, his other half which he has psychically divorced from himself. Whether or not this works, are there passages in the last few chapters that seem to support this? Or, are their passages that would change significantly if we read the Creature this way?

Q3: Is Victor a reliable narrator? Do we trust his version of events (in greater or lesser ways)? Consider passages such as, “He is eloquent and persuasive...but trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiendlike malice.” Related to this, is Walton’s narrative meant the story—or is he equally suspect?

Q4: In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Wedding Guest is changed, becoming a “sadder and a wiser man.” What effect does Victor have on Walton? Is he changed? Redeemed? Or doomed? How closely does Shelley follow Coleridge’s example in her own work?  

For Monday: Shelley, Frankenstein, Vol.2 Ch.4 to Vol.3 Ch.3 (pp.76-125)

For Monday, be sure to read the next several chapters, at least up to or around Volume 3, Chapter 3. I won't give you any questions this time, and instead we'll do an in-class writing over a significant idea in these chapters.

ALSO: Here's a link about two upcoming biopics about Mary Shelley, each one covering her life as she meets Percy Shelley and composes Frankenstein. Won't you feel smart when you see one (or both) and can tell your movie companion, "oh, that's not accurate at all...she would have never said that!" :)




The Link: http://www.tor.com/2014/08/14/sophie-turner-mary-shelley-elle-fanning-frankenstein-biopics/

For Friday: Chapter IV-Volume II, Chapter 3

Mont Blanc at Night

NOTE: I was using a different edition last time which counted your Chapter IV as my Chapter V. So I want to backtrack on Friday and start with Chapter IV (our edition) where Frankenstein first beholds the creature. Sorry for the confusion!

Answer TWO of the following...

Q1: Discuss the dream that Victor has just before he beholds the Creature for the first time. What is significant about this dream, considering that it contains the two women in his life--his mother and Elizabeth? Also, why did he originally find the Creature "beautiful," but after the dream he exclaims that it is a "miserable monster"? 

Q2: Percy Shelley wrote a poem about Mont Blanc (the highest peak in the Alps) which obviously Mary Shelley knew intimately. At the end of this poem, he writes, "Mont Blanc gleams on high:--the power is there,/The still and solemn power of many sights/And many sounds, and much of life and death." (you can read the entire poem on page 295). How do these lines connect with Victor's experience on Mont Blanc in Chapter IV? What sublime experience does he have there, and how might Wordsworth or Coleridge translate this experience in Romantic terms? 

Q3: After Justine's death (which Victor inadvertently causes), Victor notes that Elizabeth "was no longer the happy creature, who in earlier youth wandered with me on the banks of the lake, and talked with ecstasy of our future prospects." Why is it significant that Victor's first victims are all women (and a child, which is in the care of women)? Does Victor have a hostility or ambivalence toward women which his Creation seems to act upon? Is the Creature, in a sense, Victor himself? 

Q4: When the Creature confronts Victor on the mountain, he exclaims, "I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous." Whether or not you believe this, why is this an extremely Romantic sentiment? What poem or poems from the Romantic period would support the Creature's words? 

For Wednesday: Shelley, Frankenstein, Chs.1-4

Answer TWO of the following...

Q1: Most first-time readers of Frankenstein are surprised to find that the novel begins with a frame narrative: that of Walton, the arctic explorer, who is writing home to his sister, Mrs. Saville. What purpose does this frame serve, especially since it could have all been narrated from Victor’s point of view? Also, why might Walton be a specifically Romantic character in his own right? Consider lines such as, “I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me; whose eyes would reply to mine.”

Q2: How is Victor something of a Romantic poet (esp. like Coleridge and Wordsworth) even though he dabbles in occult sciences rather than verse? How does he embody some of the innocence vs. experience struggles we witnessed in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Ode: Intimations of Immortality? You might consider the passage where he writes, “It was a most beautiful season...but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature.”

Q3: Somewhat related to Q2, what role does the sublime play in the work? Why does Shelley open her story in the North Pole, and why is Victor raised in the Alps (where she first conceived of the work, and where the Shelleys had their honeymoon)? In other words, why are the descriptions of Nature in this book not mere decoration, but part of the actual story of the work?

Q4: Recalling his early education, Victor remarks, “And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories, and floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge...” Why is Victor attracted to old, arcane alchemists and philosophers who have long-since been debunked? What is his attraction to the writings of Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Magnus, men who are almost more magicians than true scientists? 

For Friday: Supplemental Readings

One of Jane Austen's actual letters! 

For Friday, read the following extra materials that occur right after the novel in your Norton Critical Edition of Persuasion. 

* The Original Ending of Persuasion
* Hayley, "On Old Maids"
* Austen, Letters About Persuasion 
* Henry Austen, Biographical Notice on the Author
* Whateley, "A New Style of Novel"
* Anonymous, "Austen's Characters"
* Kavanagh, "The Language of Feeling"
* Smith, from Life of Jane Austen
* Mitton, from Jane Austen and Her Times

Note that these are all pretty short readings, so if one doesn't thrill you, it's okay to skip it, but try to read most of them. They all add important historical/cultural context to the book which will be important for Paper #2! 

See you on Friday...

For Wednesday: Finish Persuasion (or get as close as you can)

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: In Chapter XXII, Anne dismisses the pleasures of Bath by saying "I am no card-player." How does Austen characterize the society and amusements of Bath in the novel? Why doesn't Anne "fit" here--and how does she learn the truth beneath its veneer of refined respectability? (note: Austen lived in Bath briefly and hated it)

Q2: In Austen's day, letters were vitally important as carries of news, friendship, and scandal. Austen's first novels were actually written in the form of letters (but only one, Lady Susan, survives). What role do letters play in this novel, and why are they able to do things that normal speech and interaction are incapable of?

Q3: In Chapter XXIII Anne and Captain Harville have a famous conversation about the nature of men and women: why is this conversation one that could only be written in the Romantic period? Additionally, why is it important for Wentworth to overhear this conversation?

Q4: Though Persuasion is many things, how is it also a novel passionately concerned about the education of women? How are the various women in the book educated in right and wrong ways by the end of the novel? How, too, might this novel be a way of educating young women who read it (Austen had many young nieces that she often wrote for)? 

For Monday: Austen, Persuasion, Chs. 10-18

From the 1996 adaptation of Persuasion

Q1: When first arriving at Uppercross, Captain Wentworth tells his sister that he Is "quite ready to make a foolish match. Any body between fifteen and thirty may have be for the asking. A little beauty, a few smiles, and a few compliments to the navy, and I am a lost man" (Ch.VII). If this is his intention, how does he become interested in Anne again? Did he come back expressly for her, or does she 'persuade' him to rethink his matrimonial prospects?

Q2: How does Romanticism and Romantic ideas make a stronger appearance during the chapters at Lyme? How is this Austen's way of responding to concepts of sensibility and the sublime in her own, less demonstrative way? In general, do you think she is more enthusiastic or critical of the Romantics?

Q3: After the accident at Lyme, Anne reflects (thinking about Wentworth), "whether it ever occured to him now, to question the justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and advantage of firmness of character...She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel, that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character" (Chapter XII). What does she mean by this, and how might this be a way of questioning how women are brought up in her society?

Q4: At Lyme Anne accidentally meets her cousin, Mr. Elliot, and he attaches himself to her vigorously at Bath. Though she seems to be everything she would want in a man, what gives her pause? Why by Chapter XVII does she almost begin to suspect him? If you're read other Austen novels, who else might he remind you of?

For Friday: Austen, Persuasion, Chs.1-9 (pp.3-54)

Answer TWO of the following...

Q1: Discuss Austen’s writing style: how does she convey a unique personality and authorial sense through her sentences and observations? What makes her sound “old” and what makes her sound “modern”? Consider a passgesuch as this one in Chapter V: “Oh! Could the originals of the portraits against the wainscot, could the gentlemen in brown velvet and the ladies in blue satin have seen what was going on, have been conscious of such an overthrow of all order and neatness! The portraits themselves seemed to be staring in astonishment!” (27).

Q2: As her last novel, written around 1815-17, Persuasion shows Austen responding to many of the influences of her age, notably the Romantic poetry that surrounded her (and delighted young people in general). Where do we see these influences in her work itself, despite the fact that it is much calmer than Coleridge and less interested in nature and the sublime than Wordsworth? What touches in the work signal a ‘Romantic’ sensibility in Austen’s writing?  Consider not only what the narrator focuses on/describes, but what the characters say, read, and expound to others.

Q3: Like all of her novels, Persuasion is a novel of class: not upper vs. lower, but the struggle of middle class men and women to fit into the “old order” of England. Where do we see this struggle explored in the first nine chapters? Who represents the “old” way and who the “new”? What side is Anne on, and related to this, which side does Austen seem to favor?

Q4: How does Persuasion discus the theme of mothers and fathers?  We get an usual set of parents in this book, from Sir Walter Eliot, Lady Russell (a surrogate mother, though perhaps more properly an aunt figure), and the two generations of Musgroves.  How does Austen reflect on the duties and sensibilities of parents, and their relationships with their children?  Do you feel she is more often praising or satirizing these relationships?

Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (pp.205-217)

NOTE: Try to read the entire poem for Wednesady, though I will only focus on the first half of the poem below and in our class discussion.  Remember, even though this poem tells a story, don’t get dazzled by the plot; look for the metaphors and how the poem expresses some of the ideas about life, love, beauty, Nature, and art that we saw in Keats’ other poem, “ Ode on a Grecian Urn” and Wordsworth’s “Ode.”

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: What is the general tone of this poem?  How does Keats create an overall mood through his descriptions/metaphors of the castle and the people in it?  In other words, if this were a song (and all poetry is closely related to music), what kind of song would it be? 

Q2:  In Stanza 2, the Beadsman studies the statues of dead noblemen and women in the same way that Keats studied the urn in “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”  However, how do these works of art inspire a different reaction in the priest?  What does he see/feel when he looks into their eyes?  Consider, too, that the tomb statues and the urn both have associations with death.  

Q3: In Stanzas 5-8, how is Madeline like one of the figures on the urn?  What makes her divorced from time and the living world?  What does she “see” during that evening’s festivities that others do not? 

Q4: In Stanza 9, Keats writes that Porphyro “implores/All saints to give him sight of Madeline,/But for one moment in the tedious hours,/That he might gaze and worship all unseen;/Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have been” (207).  Is this romantic or disturbing?  Does this sound like a good beginning for a “Romeo and Juliet” narrative of love?