Plot- summary
Licencjat 2011 Uniwersytet Wrocławski
Literatura Brytyjska
POETRY AND DRAMA
Table of content
1. The Second Sheperds’ Play : THE WAKEFIELD CYCLE 1
2. Everyman 2
3. Dr Faustus Marlowe 2
4. The Spanish tragedy Kyd. T 3
Themes, Motifs, and Symbols 5
5. The Long love Wyatt , T 9
6. Love that Doth reign Howard. H 10
7. Lyke as a ship Spenser, E. 11
8. Sall I copmere thee W. Shakespeare 11
Sonnet #18 11
9. Not marble W. Shakespeare 13
10. A midsummer night’s dream W. Shakespeare 14
Plot Overview 14
Themes, Symbols, & Motifs 16
11. As you like it Shakespeare 19
Themes, Motifs & Symbols 20
12. King Lear Shakespeare 25
Themes, Motifs & Symbols 26
13. A valediction Donne J. 28
14. “The collar” Herbert G. 31
15. To his coy mistress Marvell,A. 33
16. The Duchess of Malfi Webster J. 37
Act 1 37
Act 2 37
Act 3 38
Act 4 38
Act 5 39
CHARACTERS 39
Antonio Bologna 39
MEDIA ADAPTATIONS 39
Daniel de Bosola 40
The Cardinal 40
Cariola 40
Delio 40
The Duchess of Malfi 41
Ferdinand 41
Julia 42
THEMES 42
Fate and Belief 42
Appearances and Reality 43
TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 43
STYLE 44
Revenge Tragedy 44
Blank Verse 44
17. Songs of Innocence and Experience Blake, W. (other notes) 45
Analysis 45
“The Lamb” 46
“The Tyger” 48
Commentary 51
Two critical views 51
Deceptive joy 51
Commentary 52
Two interpretations 52
The destruction of innocence 53
18. Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey Wordsworth. W 53
19. Preface to the second edition W. Wordsworth 59
20. Ode: Intimations of immortality Wordsworth W. 61
21. Biographia Literaria Coleridge (Norton Anthology) 68
22. The rime of the ancient mariner Coleridge 68
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Parts I-IV 68
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Parts V-VII 71
23. Don Juan Canto I Byron 73
Canto I (written in 1818) 73
24. Ode on a Grecian Urn Keats J. 73
25. Ode to the west wind Shelley 78
26. My last duchess Browning 81
27. Sailing to Byzantium Yeats B 84
28. The Waste Land Eliot 87
The Waste Land Section I: “The Burial of the Dead” 87
The Waste Land Section II: “A Game of Chess” 90
The Waste Land Section III: “The Fire Sermon” 92
The Waste Land Section IV: “Death by Water” 95
The Waste Land Section V: “What the Thunder Said” 95
This mystery play is a part of the Wakefield cycle, the second Nativity play within the cycle. These CYCLES ran from Creation to Revelation. They were created to teach, in a lively and realistic fashion, to largely illiterate peasant audiences, the Mysteries of the Christian faith. Descended from the liturgical Tropes that were spontaneously, and later deliberately, added to the celebration of the Roman Catholic Mass on various feast days throughout the year, which depicted events from the Bible and even, occasionally, Saints'' Lives, as celebrated by the Church. They encouraged saintliness in even the rudest companions of Christ''s Faith and eventually blossomed into the Morality Plays (of which EVERYMAN is such a blessed, and germinal, example). As the play opens, a shepherd is bemoaning his situation, and the social situation he sees as its cause--the lords take everything and the poor must suffer it. A second shepherd comes in and bemoans the state of marriage as a gift of misery for life. Then they see and greet each other, and a third shepherd joins them, who bemoans the floods and weather. They talk of food and sheep, and MAK appears. He is a thief, and the shepherds needing to sleep, but fearing he will despoil their flocks, make him to lie down among them. While they are sleeping, he gets up, cast spells of sleep and blindness on them, and steals a sheep. Then home he goes. His wife is afraid he''ll hang, but she comes up with the idea of putting the sheep in a cradle, pretending it''s a newborn child she''s just delivered. Mak goes back and slips in among the others, and pretends to be just waking up. They have dreams of him stealing; he provides a false dream, gets up and goes home. They follow when they find one of their sheep missing, and Mak''s little scheme falls apart when the shepherds go to look at the baby and find their ewe lamb. They take him out and bounce him up and down, screaming, between two pieces of canvas (instead of hanging him, as the first shepherd would''ve done), before they let him go. When the three shepherds return to the moors, the Angel appears to tell them of Jesus''s birth in Bethlehem. They try to sing the song the angel sang, but cannot get it right. They argue back and forth for a few minutes, and then go to see the newborn Divine Child--shown first to lonely and lowly men like themselves, as the prophets had foretold. They joyfully give the tiny one little gifts, as they have, and go singing joyfully into the night. The more one reads this play, the deeper and more complicated it appears to be. There is a tremendous amount of social contemporaneous commentary. The spiritual level deepens also, as the shepherds show mercy and so are shown the coming of the Christ Child, after an angelic apearance (which arouses in them a desire to sing, a desire fulfilled only after they have seen THE CHILD. This is symbolic of the desire for heavenly experience, and their salvation, after encountering Jesus and his mother.) It is interesting that the scene at Mak''s house is both a false birthing and a foreshadowing--a foreshadowing, since Jesus is called the Lamb of God--as even in their evildoing and unknowing, they point forward to Christ and his birth in Bethlehem. It is also sad, but intriguing, that Mak''s evildoing deprived him of the right to see Jesus, as would have happened had he stayed faithful and not stolen the sheep.
This is a medieval morality play, of unknown date, authorship, and origin. It is thought to date from the end of the fifteenth century, but may have had origins far earlier than this. (The more usual form of the morality play was a contest between the Virtues and Vices [personified, of course] for the soul of a man.) this play is an allegory where the Eternal Verities (GOD, Death and Good-Deeds) are set in contrast with the ordinary circumstances, gifts, occupations, companions, and preoccupations of the average man's life -- hence , Everyman, or as the play calls itself, The Summoning of Everyman. As we read and discuss this play, we must keep inmind that it was meant for a primarily illiterate and uneducated audience, showing the way to Heaven through the blessing and intervention of the Church (which in that time and place meant, of course, the Roman Catholic Church), through Her representative (and GOD's), the Priest. It detailed the necessity of true contrition, confession, absolution, penance, and, finally, Extreme Unction (the sacrament for the dying) at the time of death. An objection is brought upconcerning lewd, lascivious, and venal priests, but this is dismissed as their sin and not and objection to the priest's power to bind and loose on Earth and in Heaven even sins and wrongdoings. In the beginning of the play, after a short prologue, GOD is angry with mankind for his evildoing and lack of repentance; He determines to summon him toaccount and so sends Death to tell him his time has come--the day of his death and judgment. Everyman tries to persuade and then to bribe Death to relent, but Death is adamant. He says he could have the hold world if he could be bribed, but he can't be, as he obeys only GOD. He gives Everyman until the end of the day to prepare himself and leaves. Everyman goes off to find someone to go with hime on his journey -- he asks Fellowship (his friends) and his Kinsmen and Cousin. All profess undying love and loyalty -- and then refuse. He entreats Goods (his wealth), who refuses, saying that he, Goods, is a cause of his sinfulness, as he was not shared with the poor. Good Deeds asks knowledge to help him; she takes him to the Priest for the sacraments and then Good-Deeds rises up, unbound by his sinfulness, and accompanies him to the end (and eventually, to Heaven). Beauty, Strength, Five-Wits (senses) and Knowledge all accompany him to the edge of the grave, but only Good-Deeds can go with him in the end.
The Chorus introduces the story of Faustus, born to lowly parents in Rhodes, going off to study at Wittenberg while staying with a kinsman. Faustus is gifted in divinity, but his self-conceit leads him to consider necromancy.
Faustus sits in his study, analyzing different academic disciplines. He concludes that although divinity is the subject that is best, it does not satisfy him. He would rather pursue black magic so that he can be his own god. He orders his servant, Wagner, to get his friends Valdes andCornelius, who are known to be practitioners of magic. Before they come, the Good Angel and the Evil Angel appear. Although Faustus is not aware of their presence, the Good Angel tries to discourage him, while the Evil Angel urges him to go forward. Valdes andCornelius ...
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