A Level Literature Revision Guide

Key Skills for your Exams and Coursework

Whichever board you are using these are the four things that you need to remember for your exams. They may not be called the same thing, and you may not use the AOs but overall these are the key areas for studying any text.

AO1- Terminology and concepts

You must know key themes for each topic. Themes are not what happens in the narrative of a text but the topics or ideas that relate to a text. For example in pastoral literature one theme is nature.

You must be able to talk about how the themes are portrayed or explored. For example you must be able to talk about whether something is portrayed in a positive or negative way. You must say how you know it is positive of negative by using relevant parts of he text to support your reading. In most texts it is much more complex that simply positive or negative.

Some texts are part of a particular genre, or their themes are very specific and you must show that you understand terminology relating to the themes. For example you might need to know what a bildungsroman is if you are writing about Great Expectations, or you might need to know what sin means in Christianity when studying Paradise Lost.

It might sound obvious but remember to say the audience when referring to a play and the reader when referring to poems or novels. You must also remember that it isn’t the character in the book using devices or exploring themes, it is the writer!

AO2- Language, Form and Structure

You need to be aware of how writers create particular effects and how the structure of a text affects meaning and genre. All sorts of things contribute to the way a story is told and this has an effect on the reader too.

• You might consider:
• What type of text is it? E.g. poem, play, prose
• Who is the narrator?
• Which person is the story told in?
• Are the events in chronological order? If not, why not? And which order are they in?
• If it is a poem, does it rhyme?
• Is there a particular rhythm it follows?
• If it is a play, how are stage directions used?
• How is dialogue used?
• What do you know about the characters and how did you find that out?

Once you have answered these questions about a text you have several points you can make in your exam or coursework. The most important thing is that you can give examples of these points from the text and you can explain what effect they might have and how they relate to the themes being explored -essentially, why has the author chosen to do that?

AO3- Links to other texts

At A-level it is important that you can begin to make connections between texts that have similarities. Your ability to do this shows how well you understand one text by your chosen topic of comparison. You may chose to include texts from a similar period, on a similar topic, because they take the same position on an important theme, because they are by the same author or anything else that you think is worthy of comparison.

Comparison does not always mean that they are different, often it means examining the similarities between texts and how the author has achieved similar effects.

AO4- Context.

When a novel was written, where and by who affects greatly the way it is written or the fact that it was created at all. There are not many writers now, for example, who are as interested in kingship as Shakespeare was, for the obvious reason that we no longer have a king and our monarch has little power. Novels written in letters are also rare because not many people regularly correspond now. So the period in which a text was created is of great importance when trying to understand it.

However, what is also important is the way you interpret a text and the effect it has on readers now. It is OK to think about a text in the context it is read in as well as the context it was written in. For example women’s role in literature has changed dramatically since Macbeth was written, feminists have critiqued and analysed the way women are portrayed in lots of texts written before feminism was a part of our culture.

You must be aware of both types of context, you cannot say outright that Othello is racist, nor can you say that no one can be offended because everyone was racist in Shakespeare’s time. What you might say is that Shakespeare’s audience would have understood that the racist comments were meant as insults, but they would not have been as shocked as a modern audience.

Unit 1: Aspects of Narrative

This Revision pack will cover two novels and two poets which are on the AQA English Literature B specification but some of which can be studied as part of the English Literature A specification too. The AOs are what you will be marked on in your exam.

Novels

Learn it! Pride and Prejudice

Plot Summary
Pride and Prejudice follows the Bennet family as they try to ensure that each of their daughters is married respectably. The main character of the novel is Elizabeth Bennet who finds herself falling for Mr Darcy a man who, at the beginning of the novel, she detests because he is a snob and is very rude about her and her family at a ball.

Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy arrive in town early on in the novel, and while nobody is attracted to the surly Mr Darcy, Mr Bingley becomes very close to Elizabeth’s beautiful sister Jane. When Jane is taken ill after a walk to Mr Bingley’s country house (Netherfield Park) she remains there for some time bringing her even closer to Bingley. When Elizabeth walks to visit her sister she causes a stir at Netherfield and Mr Darcy becomes attracted to her dry wit and intelligence.

When the militia comes to town Mr Wickham catches Elizabeth’s eye and turns her even further against Mr Darcy who apparently cheated him out of an inheritance. Elizabeth also discovers her best friend Charlotte has become engaged to Mr. Collins who proposed to Elizabeth earlier in the year and who she refused because she thought he was a fool and did not love him.

Over winter Darcy and Bingley return to London. Jane visits her uncle and Aunt in the city and hopes she will meet Mr Bingley. However, he will not see her and instead, she meets his sister who is rude to her. When Elizabeth goes to visit Charlotte she meets Mr Darcy at Lady Catherine De Bourgh’s house. Lady Catherine is Mr Collins’ patron and Darcy’s aunt.

Mr Darcy does not know what Wickham has said about him and still has feelings for Elizabeth; he proposes to her and is instantly and firmly rejected. Elizabeth gets very angry with him for his behaviour regarding Wickham and scalds him for ruining her sister’s hopes of happiness, as she knows it was he who steered Bingley away from Jane in London. Depressed, Darcy writes a letter to Elizabeth explaining firstly that he thought Jane was indifferent to his friend and that she would break his heart, and that Wickham was lying and the reason they hated each other was because Wickham tried to elope with Darcy’s little sister to gain her inheritance. Elizabeth feels guilty and begins to like Mr Darcy.

Over the summer Elizabeth and her younger sister Lydia both take trips: Elizabeth, with the Gardiners to the North, and Lydia, with an old colonel in Brighton where the militia are now stationed. Whilst with the Gardiners, Elizabeth takes a tour of Pemberley, Mr Darcy’s estate. She thinks he is away but runs into him, he is very polite and invites them to dine with him.

Things take a turn for the worst when they receive a letter explaining that Lydia has run off with Mr Wickham. Elizabeth rushes home and her uncle and father go to London to try and straighten things out and get them married before Lydia brings shame to the family. They are married and the Bennets know it must have taken a huge sum to persuade Wickham to marry in such circumstances.

Once this has been arranged and the family are celebrating, Elizabeth learns that it was in fact Mr Darcy who paid Wickham and saved their family. This makes her feelings for him even stronger. Once Lydia has departed, Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy pay a visit, Mr Bingley proposes to Jane and she joyfully accepts, but Darcy says nothing.

Much to Elizabeth’s surprise, she is disturbed by Lady Catherine, who asks her very abruptly, if it is true that she intends to marry her nephew, Mr Darcy. Elizabeth says she has no such intention. However, later on she goes for a walk with Darcy and he tells her he never stopped loving her after she rejected him and would still love to marry her. The novel ends happily with three of the five Bennet daughters married or engaged despite the odds.

AO1- Key themes and concepts in the novel.

Pride: The novel’s title could refer to either Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth but it is relevant to the whole society Jane Austen portrays. Elizabeth is too proud to admit she is falling for Mr. Darcy and he is too proud to admit he could fall for someone below his station. This kind of pride should be over come and love does conquer it. However the pride of the Bennet family is a different sort of pride, theirs is legitimate. They feel it when they are worried and ashamed, not only for Lydia’s welfare when she runs away with Wickham but also because they would be looked down upon in society if their unmarried daughter is seen gallivanting with a soldier. It is also this kind of pride that causes Mr. Bennet to feel ashamed when he thinks Mr. Gardiner has paid to save his family’s honour.

Prejudice: Elizabeth feels that the wealthy Mr. Darcy could never be a match for her because he is of a higher class, at the same time Mr. Darcy says her family, particularly her mother, are not tempting to a man of his stature. However when he declares his love for Elizabeth Darcy shows his willingness to overcome such inequalities in their birth: “His sense of her inferiority–of its being a degradation–of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.” Quite rightly, Elizabeth is offended and turns him down, especially as she thinks that he has persuaded Mr. Bingley not to marry Jane for the very same reasons.

Class: Class is integral to the novel as it is the main reason that the engagements of Jane and Elizabeth are so important. Both women marry an upper class man, but they do it for love, unlike Charlotte, who marries for money or Wickham who is also paid off. Because Mr. Darcy is upper class, he is supposed to be engaged to his cousin, Lady Catherine’s daughter, this was common as it kept money and property within upper class family circles and had little to do with love. The Bennets are a middle class family, they are not poor, but they are not as wealthy as Darcy, Bingley or Lady Catherine.

Love: Jane Austen’s novel shows a society that is divided and becomes united through romantic love. She shows the importance of marriage to the characters as they must marry, but shows the dangers of marrying because you have to. Charlotte is content but did not marry Mr. Collins for love; she does not end up very happy but is at least comfortable and has a family. Lydia does marry for love, but not to somebody who loves her and again money is the main thing that binds them together in the end. Although Elizabeth thinks it is class that stops Mr. Bingley from marrying Jane, it is in also that Mr. Darcy is worried about his friend’s heart, as he believes Jane to be ‘indifferent’. The decision Mr. Darcy makes is a very controversial one when he marries down a class for Elizabeth, in every marriage in the novel somebody is compromising, yet for Elizabeth, Jane, Darcy and Bingley love conquers all and the pride and prejudices that make their marriages a compromise have been overcome by love.

AO2- Language, Form and Structure

Satire and caricature- The novel takes a serious look at class structure in Regency England, yet Jane Austen creates comedy in her portrayal of this society. She does this by creating exaggerated portraits of the characters from each class. By making characters, like Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet and Lady Catherine, silly and putting them in contrast to Elizabeth Bennet, the realistic heroine, she can criticize the system of marrying for wealth not love and make fun of those types of people, without getting into trouble because it is comedic.

The narrator is omniscient but focuses continually on Elizabeth and her thoughts and actions so the reader follows her story. The narrator is primarily concerned with the thoughts of the characters and the things they say are often loaded with possible meanings. Therefore sometimes the reader knows things Elizabeth does not about the Bennets or Mr. Darcy for example.

This creates dramatic irony where the reader knows something the characters do not and a moment becomes more entertaining or suspenseful because of this. Irony is used throughout the novel as it shows the difference between how society really is, with Lady Catherine and Mrs. Bennet, and how it should be through the Romance, mocking the way it is.

Because the novel is from Elizabeth’s point of view, major events that relate to other characters have to be shown from her point of view. Jane Austen uses letters to do this. For example Darcy’s emotions are expressed through a letter to Elizabeth explaining everything. Again, Lydia’s dramatic romance with Wickham is only conveyed through a letter to Elizabeth and the resolution of her problems are down to Darcy, who is trying to win Elizabeth’s hand. This is a reference to epistolary novels where a whole novel is told through letters.

Dialogue– A lot of the other devices can be seen in the things the characters say to one another. The characters usually speak in the ‘proper’, polite way that acquaintances ought to address each other. Yet Elizabeth criticizes Mr. Darcy for his politeness. Moreover Mrs. Bennet always speaks her mind and this places her at odds with society. Elizabeth, in particular, is very witty, often what she says can have more than one meaning and her tone can be read in a variety of ways. The novel is sometimes called a comedy of manners for this reason and this is another form of satire.

AO3- Connections to other texts

In the exam you can also compare the novel to other writing of the time, non-fiction work or more modern texts that share similar themes. This shows evidence of wider reading but also knowledge of context and key ideas and themes.

In Sense and Sensibility, another Austen novel, the difference between passion and order is explored as it is in Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth is at odds with society because she expresses her opinions and emotions but she regulates them, unlike Lydia. She is the perfect balance between the sense and sensibility which is a balance the characters in Sense and Sensibility find it hard to achieve.

In Emma, Austen looks at class too when the protagonist, Emma, tries to improve the prospects of Harriet Smith and attempts to marry her to eligible society men without success, Harriet ends up marrying a farmer for love. The novel also explores matchmaking and romance and the problematic consequences of not following your heart.

Bridget Jones’ Diary is a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice which follows the same narrative structure, with similar twists, turns and characters. The film version is even closer to Austen’s original than the book and even includes narrative devices such as Bridget’s narration interrupting the flow of the film. Instead of marrying for money, Bridget Jones needs a boyfriend because she is in her thirties!

Wuthering Heights was written shortly after Pride and Prejudice by Emily Bronte. It is a gothic romance where the characters are passionate and sometimes violent and more sexual than in Austen’s novel. Yet it explores the class dilemma, as Catherine must choose between the wild orphan Heathcliff and the gentlemanly Edgar Linton; unlike Darcy, she does not overcome her prejudice with dramatic consequences.

Pamela– Samuel Richardson wrote one of the most famous epistolary novels about a young maid who is sexually harassed by her master. Other famous novels that use letters include Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Dracula by Bram Stoker.

AO4- Context

The Napoleonic Wars– Mr. Wickham belongs to the English militia fighting in the Napoleonic wars which were between 1800 and 1815.

Class Structure– Austen criticises the stratification of society in Regency England. The landed gentry that Darcy, Bingley and Lady Catherine belong to forms the upper class. Though she mocks snobbery and shows that there is more to life than material possessions and family connections, she is not too radical in her position. She does not include the lower classes except as servants.

Marriage– Marriage in Austen’s day was an important topic because who you married defined how you would spend the rest of your life. It did not matter if you were in love, it mattered more if it was a good social match and upward social mobility was rare. This remained true for at least another hundred years.

Test it!

1. Find one quotation that exemplifies each key theme. Write a paragraph about how the quote exemplifies that theme in that particular moment in the text; you must also show how that relates to the text as a whole.
2. Find an example of each language, form and structure feature. Write a paragraph about the effect of each feature on the reader.
3. How does Austen tell the story in chapter 32?
4. Is Mr. Darcy justified in his judgment of Mrs. Bennet?
5. What is the significance of letter writing in Pride and Prejudice?

Remember it!

• The novel is a comedy of manners about class structure and set with the upper and middle classes but mocking the traditions and propriety of society.
• Elizabeth Bennet struggles with her pride, which is injured by Mr. Darcy. She also struggles to fit into society when she is a clever woman who likes to express her opinions and emotions.
• Mr. Darcy struggles to overcome his prejudice against the Bennet family when he falls in love with Elizabeth.
• The novel is told from Elizabeth’s point of view even though there is still an omniscient narrator. This means some of the plot must be conveyed through letters such as scenes in London and Brighton or that someone else must inform Elizabeth of their emotions or events.
• Money is very important to marriage, Mr. Wickham has to be paid to marry Lydia and Lady Catherine tries to keep her money in the family by marrying her nephew Darcy to her daughter.
• Key themes- pride, prejudice, love, class.
• Narrative features- epistolary novel, omniscient narrator, point of view, satire, irony, dramatic irony, tone, caricature, dialogue.

Try and remember a number of quotations or useful page numbers too, have them written on sticky notes around your work area so that you don’t waste time in the exam looking them up. Cover them up and write down as many as you can for each character, theme or language feature and check you accuracy.

Learn It!- Great Expectations, Charles Dickens.

The narrator of the novel, Pip, is anorphan being brought up by his formidable sister and her husband, Mr Joe Gargery who is a blacksmith. At the start of the novel Pip encounters an escaped convict named Magwitch in a graveyard. A sodden, muddy and limping Magwitch threatens and frightens Pip and orders him to find a file for him to cut off his prisoner’s chains with. Pip obliges him and also gives him some pie. This small act of kindness is the catalyst for the events in the rest of the novel.

Pip is soon invited to Satis House, a grand mansion that was once a successful brewery, owned by Miss Havisham. Pip is afraid of Miss Havisham, who spends her days shut up in the big old house dressed in her wedding clothes, which she has not taken off since she was jilted many years ago. Pip is asked to entertain Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter Estella, with whom he eventually falls in love. Estella is snobbish towards Pip, noticing that he is beneath her and has funny manners and clothes. This encourages Pip to try and better himself to be worthy of her.

Because she was abandoned on her wedding day, Miss Havisham feels a deep bitterness towards all men. She has therefore trained Estella to be enticing to men but also to be cruel and break their hearts. Pip thinks his love for her is never to be as Estella marries a man called Drummle, it is only when he has finally matured and almost forgotten her that Estella can ever be his.

Orlick works for Joe Gargery at the forge but he and ‘Mrs. Joe‘ do not get on. After a fight with Orlick, Pip’s sister is left severely injured and mute, though Orlick does not admit to the attack for many years. Sadly she dies of her injuries later in the novel allowing the unhappy Joe to marry Biddy. The discovery of this marriage makes Pip realise how much time he wasted trying to be a gentleman.

While he is still living with Joe and his sister, Pip is visited by a lawyer named Jaggers who tells him that he is to be given a large sum of money, move to London and become a gentleman. Pip leaves for London and becomes embarrassed by his old life, shunning Joe when he gets a visit, something he greatly regrets in later life. While he is in London Pip is not allowed to enquire as to who his benefactor may be, however, he suspects all along that it is Miss Havisham and that she intends for him to marry Estella.

In London Pip meets the Pocket family (although he soon realises he had a run in with Herbert Pocket as a boy at Satis House). Herbert becomes Pip’s good friend and they live together while Herbert’s father tutors Pip in the ways of gentlemanliness. They live a fairly extravagant lifestyle together until Pip uses some of his money to help Herbert find a living in his chosen business. Herbert saves Pip from Orlick, who tries to kill Pip on a brief visit home by following him and rescuing him from Orlick’s cabin.

The novel is driven by three main mysteries which unfold and are solved as the novel runs its course. The first is Miss Havisham and her marriage: who jilted her? The second is where does Estella come from? And the third is Pip’s benefactor who adds a disclaimer to the fortune that Pip must never try to discover who gave him the money. Pip doesn’t know the answer to any of the questions at the start but he thinks they all lie with the wealthy, landed Miss Havisham; by the end of the novel he realises that the answers lie with the convict Magwitch, the very bottom of society.

Magwitch comes to find Pip in London and reveals that it was he who ordered Jaggers to give Pip a fortune as thanks for helping him when he was a boy. Pip is horrified by the revelation and disgusted by his benefactor. But Magwitch is in trouble, he is being pursued by an old acquaintance, Compeyson, who is out to get him. He explains his connection to Compeyson and a man named Arthur. Herbert is shocked as he explains that it was Compeyson who jilted Miss Havisham!

While dining at Jaggers’ house in London, Pip notices that his maid, Molly, bears a striking resemblance to Estella. He discovers that Jaggers defended her when she was accused of murdering her own daughter by her husband and Pip thinks that Estella may be that very missing daughter. He was right and soon discovers that the man who accused Molly was none other than Magwitch, meaning that all this time he had been trying to live up to Estella’s class when actually she was the daughter of a criminal, not a gentleman.

Pip does return to Satis house to see Miss Havisham. He reveals all he knows and Miss Havisham, wracked with guilt about the way she used Pip, pleads for his forgiveness. As he is leaving he sees her, through a window, fall into a fire and burst into flames. Despite her horrific injuries she does not die and does not feel forgiven.

Having originally hated Magwitch, Pip and Herbert become fond of him and want to help him stay safe from Compeyson. So they decide to sail him down the Thames so he can escape. Compeyson finds them and there is a struggle on the river where Compeyson is drowned. Despite their efforts Magwitch is captured and sent to prison. He tries to leave Pip the fortune but because of the law all his possessions are seized and Pip is left with nothing. Before Magwitch dies Pip tries to comfort him by telling him that the daughter he thought was dead, is alive, well and happy.

The very end of the novel sees Pip return home and complete his journey to maturity. He sees his old friends and bids them farewell. Now a man, Pip decides to travel abroad with his friend Herbert, the start of a new, very different journey. He returns eleven years later to find out that Estella’s husband Drummle has died. While at home in the country he visits Satis House and sees Estella in the garden. The novel ends with the two of them walking off hand in hand.

AO1- Terminology and Concepts

Bildungsroman- This is a term used to describe a particular form of narrative where the protagonist reaches maturity. Great Expectations begins with Pip as a young boy and we follow him as he looks back over his life, his mistakes and all the events that made him a man. We watch him develop as he becomes obsessed with wealth and his life in London, leaving behind, what he thinks are, lesser, ‘backward’ people.

However he realises the error of his ways and is embarrassed and guilty when he looks back at that time in his life. He comes to realise that material possessions and class are not the most important things in life. This realisation is the completion of his journey to maturity.

Wealth- Social mobility is made possible in Great Expectations through money. The money that changes hands in the novel shows that whether criminal, blacksmith or lonely woman, money is money and it can buy you a different life. However, that is certainly not portrayed as a good thing or a stable, sensible way of life. Money helps some characters for parts of their life but eventually it corrupts them and their old lives catch up with them. Ultimately those characters driven by wealth do not end up happy in comparison with those who value love and friendship.

Magwitch dies a criminal, Pip wishes he had never left the forge and Estella marries a brute for his money. On the other hand Joe ends up married to a school teacher, Herbert and Clara are happily married. Pip realises a little too late but does bring some happiness to Magwitch when he tells him his daughter is still alive.

Pip’s realisation that money does not buy virtue or happiness is what enables him to change his opinion of Magwitch and drives his attempt to help him. He sees that Magwitch, though a bad, corrupted man, tried to do good with his money and never forgot Pip’s good deed. This is in contrast to the way Pip behaved towards Joe.

Aspiration– Estella represents Pip’s aspiration to become a gentleman, and to have wealth enough to win her. Miss Havisham fuels this dream and eventually apologises for the pain she caused Pip when she knew Estela would never marry him.

Class- Pip spends the novel experiencing several rungs of the social ladder in Victorian England and his expectations of each are often distorted and change of the novel’s course. Estella appears to be upper class but is actually the daughter of a criminal. Thus the whole idea of an ordered class system is turned on its head by Dickens.

He begins life as a working class boy in a pastoral environment where he experiences the criminal class in Magwitch and the upper class in Miss Havisham and Estella. When he moves to London the more middle class Pockets as well as Jaggers and Wemmick become his companions. Eventually having traversed the spectrum and realising that it makes little difference to a person’s kindness or happiness, Pip leaves behind the structure of Britain to travel the world with a friend.

Pastoral and Urban- There is a simplicity and innocence to the environment Pip grows up in on the marshes. Though Pip soon dismisses them as inferior and is embarrassed by his connections, it is their predisposition to kindness and love that means they are left uncorrupted by money or class. Mrs. Joe is not a nice woman, yet Joe is loyal to her until the end. Biddy educated Pip to the very best of her abilities and ends up marrying Joe. A testament to their forgiving and loving nature is the fact that they name their son Pip.

The city is a crowded, dangerous place. There are dark alleyways for Compeyson to hide in and jails, rather than out at sea, are in the middle of the action, central to Pip’s story as Jaggers works in the law courts. It consumes Pip and he doesn’t spare a thought for those he left behind. He sends no money home but instead runs up massive debts by spending like an urban gentleman.

Love- In Great Expectations love can be a dangerous pursuit as Miss Havisham discovers when her fianc Compeyson leaves her on her wedding day. This tragedy shapes the rest of her life as she never gets over it and nothing else moves on in her life either, not even the clocks in her house. Pip’s love for Estella also drives the rest of his life, but rather than stagnating like Miss Havisham it propels him on as he strives to become a gentleman. Herbert and Joe both find simple happy love and marry, just as they are simpler men not driven by any ambition.

AO2- Language, Form and Structure

Narration- The novel is told in the first person by Pip the protagonist of the story. He is looking back with hindsight and often interrupts the story to explain the emotions he feels about how he behaved in certain situations.

Pip’s relationship with the reader– Pip mainly tells the story in the order it happened so that the reader understands as much as Pip did at each point in the story. At many points in the story this causes tension. When Pip notices something or discovers something, the reader is essentially given a clue, which makes us want to read on in the same way it drives the action in the story to continue.

One example of this is when Pip notices that Molly looks familiar. He doesn’t know who she reminds him of so he wracks his brain to remember in the same way that the reader continues reading to try and find out. Thus the reader has a parallel experience with the protagonist.

Character- Charles Dickens is famous for his memorable characters. In Great Expectations the character we know best is Pip because he tells us what he thinks and feels and gives his perspective on events. The other characters are vividly described and it is through their appearance, in many cases, that we form an impression of them.

Magwitch is first introduced as someone Pip fears with ‘a great iron on his leg’. He is identifiable as a criminal and the greatness of the iron seems to reflect the greatness of the fear and the crimes he has committed. However, at the end of the novel he is a ‘wounded, shackled creature,’ the same irons making him seem pathetic and degraded, not even a man but a creature. Thus we can see that the way that one aspect of Magwitch is described tells us a lot about Pip’s impression of him and how it has changed since the beginning of the novel.

AO3- Links to Other Texts

Jane Austen was writing during the regency period Charles Dickens was born in. She too challenged social norms and status but usually did so through romantic narratives as in Pride and Prejudice.

To see a more obvious critique of society and the treatment of the poor Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist would be a good choice as it depicts the life of a boy taken from a work house, to the streets of London and then to the house of a gentleman. Something like A Christmas Carol shows how a selfish, bitter, wealthy character like Ebenezer Scrooge can change and become a generous, kind person, something that Miss Havisham never achieves.

AO4- Context

Charles Dickens was born in the Regency period of English history, at the end of the eighteenth century. He therefore experienced what it was like living when the aristocracy held the new middle classes in contempt and held a lot of power in their family name and wealth. Many of his novels, like Great Expectations, explore that kind of power.

The fact that Estella is so derisive of Pip because of his upbringing is ironic because she turns out to be the daughter of a maid and murderer. What turns out to be important in Great Expectations, is not money or class but loyalty and friendship. A man is not good or a gentleman because he looks like one or is born one, he becomes one through an appreciation of these values.

Serialisation-The story was not published as a novel like we buy it today, but it was bought in sections week by week. Many of the cliff-hangers and withheld information could therefore take weeks to be resolved adding to the tension felt by readers.

Society- Dickens began his career as a journalist and lived through a time of important social upheavals and changes. He was particularly interested in the impact the laws had on the poor and on children. Many of his novels explore upward mobility and the treatment of the working classes who often lived in work houses or cramped dirty areas of London. Great Expectations does not explore the lives of the poor as much as other novels like Oliver Twist, but Jaggers’ defense of Molly and her employment and the eventual redemption of Magwitch can be seen as sympathetic to a poor, criminal class that Dickens experienced in London.

Capitalism– Great Expectations sees many characters change and move both physically and socially. Part of the reason Pip’s journey is possible was due to the emergence of the middle classes and a capitalist economy where money could change hands between anyone. Compeyson and Magwitch show that no matter who you are this new system can get you rich but also that riches do not make you a good man. Pip only reaches maturity having lost all his money. Miss Havisham’s isolated and perpetual stillness is also reflected in the fact that her business is shut down too. Her money just sits there with her, going nowhere except back into her crumbling estate. When wealth flows through financial aid it marks true friendship in Great Expectations, this is clearly seen in Joe paying Pip’s debts and Pip helping Herbert set up a business.

Test It!

1. How does Dickens tell the story in chapter 16?
2. What difference do you think it would make if the novel was told in the third person?
3. Look at the section on character above, choose a different character and write about how Pip’s description of them shapes the readers impression of them.
4. Dickens originally wanted to end the novel with Estell remarrying somebody else and Pip bumping into her some years later. Why do you think he chose to end the novel like this instead? You may want to research the alternative ending.
5. How far do you think romance drives the plot of this novel?

Remember it!

• Bildungsroman- coming of age narrative
• Social status- Pip comes across all the different classes in Victorian society. He begins as a working class boy, meets Miss Havisham who is upper class, meets Magwitch who is a kind of criminal class and befriends the Pockets who are more middle class in London.
• Narrator- The story is told in the first person but he is looking back at the past so he is an omniscient narrator. He interrupts events to give his opinion or express his emotions.
• Money- Money corrupts many of the characters and drives them into debt and crime. But it also is helpful and is used as a sign of friendship and kindness. It does not buy status or happiness.
• Love- An important motivation for many of the characters. Both romantic love and friendship and loyalty are crucial themes in the novel.
• Publication- it was published as a serial not a novel adding to the tension and mystery of it.
• Aspiration and ambition- Pip desperately wants to be a gentleman and move up through the classes, however the notion of an ordered class society is challenged and so his ambition is flawed. He does however become a better man.

Poetry

Robert Browning- ‘My Last Duchess’ and Porphyria’s Lover – Learn It!

Summary of the narratives

‘My Last Duchess’

‘My Last Duchess’ is a sinister dramatic monologue where a duke is making arrangements for his second marriage with the envoy of a count, whose daughter he wishes to marry. He spends most of the poem talking about his first wife, whose portrait they are admiring. The key to this poem is inference because, perhaps deliberately, perhaps overcome by memories of his last Duchess, the Duke gives away a lot about why he needs a new wife in the description and explanation of her portrait.

Porphyria’s Lover

The poem is a dramatic monologue, which begins with a man waiting for his lover Porphyria. We see him become tense and agitated as he worries she will not come. Despite her efforts to warm him on a cold night and show her love for him, the man explains how he killed her by strangling her with her own hair. The poem is particularly disturbing as it is from the point of view of a killer who believes her death to be necessary for their love and does not feel the horror of his acts, sending a chill through his listener. The poem explores love and madness.

AO1- Terminology and Concepts

Robert Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the 19^th century. He made famous the dramatic monologue, a form written in the first person where there is an implied auditor who is silent. Due to the use of the first person throughout, the reader relies on inference to piece together the whole story.

Suggestion and inference– In ‘My Last Duchess’ the duke tells us that his previous wife was ‘easily pleased’ and that she would smile at everybody. But he lets his emotions overcome him when he says that when she smiled at him, it meant nothing, because she gave the same smile to everyone. When he talks like this about her he is implying that she was promiscuous and his jealousy is a key theme of the poem. As the listener we must use our imagination to complete the real story because the duke is an unreliable narrator. Because it is in the first person, we cannot find out the truth!

Control and Possession– In ‘My Last Duchess,’ the duchess was murdered because the duke had no control over the way she behaved and felt that she had little respect for what he could offer her- his ‘nine hundred year old name.’ To us it seems as though she was a pleasant friendly person, however, to the duke, she appeared promiscuous and out of control. The painting immortalises her smile and yet he keeps it behind a curtain and is the only person allowed to reveal the smile, so now her smile is always on his terms and only for him.

Just like in ‘My Last Duchess’ the speaker in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ feels he must kill his love in order to fully possess her. Notice how when she first arrives he rests his head on her shoulder, yet when she is dead he places her head on his own shoulder reversing the role of support and need so that she appears reliant on him in his image of perfection. Again like the duke, Porphyria’s lover immortalises his lover’s smile by killing her.

Madness– The speaker in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ is another unreliable narrator because he is clearly mad. There are clues for the reader that he might be mad such as when she comes in and speaks to him he does not reply. We, the listener, know that he is thinking that, despite her loving words, she does not love him at all. He contradicts himself consistently saying that she is tied down by vanity and pride and yet she does nothing but think of him and tell him how much she loves him. He has a ‘heart fit to break,’ showing him to be anxious, emotional and paranoid.

Sex and Death– The speaker in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ claims that strangling Porphyria is an act of passionate love so that he can possess her fully. He talks at the beginning of the poem about how she is unable to give herself to him and this can be interpreted as sexual. The flushed cheek he believes he can see when she is dead is suggestive of female orgasm. Therefore the way he describes her is as if she has given herself to him sexually as opposed to in death. The association with having an orgasm and dying is one which inspired a great deal of literature, particularly in the Gothic genre made popular before the 19^th century and continued in novels like Dracula. The speaker is a sadist– someone who gains pleasure from the suffering of others.

AO2- Structure, Form and Language

The Power of Dramatic Monologue– A dramatic monologue allows the writer to explore the thoughts and emotions of characters. In this poem Browning writes as a deluded murderer and explores the psychic process that a man such as this might go through. Because he is using the dramatic monologue form, the reader knows that it is not Browning’s thoughts being expressed.

In both poems he uses an AABB rhyme scheme, which is similar to a ballad, a popular form of narrative poetry. Browning also uses enjambment where the end of a line does not necessarily end a phrase. This shows a continuous flow of thought.

‘My Last Duchess’

Framing– The duke frames his monologue with two works of art, both of which constrain their subjects and serve only to show them physically not their inner thoughts and lives. The duke’s own thoughts, emotions and interactions with other people are, like the painting and the sculpture, framed and hemmed in, thus controlled. The structure of the poem therefore reflects the control the duke wants over his wife, but also over himself as he conceals a dark truth in his words just as she apparently conceals much in the glance the painter has captured.

Past Tense– The duke talks about his ex-wife in the past tense implying that she is not only divorced from him, but that something more sinister might have happened to her. When he says ‘there she stands, as if alive,’ it is a comment on the talent of the painter but also a nod to her mysterious absence.

Syntax– Browning uses the subordinate clauses in long sentences to include revealing ‘asides’ to the duke’s monologue, which seem to express his private thoughts within his statements to the envoy. Throughout the poem Browning uses long sentences punctuated by commas but in the middle of the poem he uses semi colons for dramatic effect: ‘This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together.’ The abruptness of the punctuation changes the tone of what the duke is saying, he sounds firm and assertive, this could be interpreted as a warning to the envoy.

Argument– Key to Browning’s poetry is the speaker’s argument, here he is persuading the listener, or perhaps himself, that there was something wrong with the way his last duchess behaved towards him. He uses the imperative to influence how the auditor ought to view the painting. He also pretends to use the voices of other characters but speculates rather than quoting directly so that we only see his point of view.

Browning makes it clear that there are two voices acting within this poem, what he says aloud as part of a tour of his home, and what is really going on in his head, what really happened with his wife. Moreover, the ostensive listener is the envoy for the count, however the reader feels that the argument of the poem is with his absent wife, as opposed to the passive envoy.

Porphyria’s Lover

The speaker in the poem thinks when she lays her ‘smiling, rosy little head’ upon his shoulder it is a fulfilment of their love because they can be together forever now she is dead. He truly believes she feels no pain. The contrast and disparity between what he believes and the reality he describes causes a tension between the speaker and the reader.

Pathetic Fallacy– This is when the weather reflects character’s emotional states. As the speaker creates the pathetic fallacy, he is falsely associating his own emotions with the weather, something which Porphyria does not do, she comes in and lights a fire. It is the speaker who is ‘sullen,’ not the wind. This only adds to the impression of madness and his unreliability.

AO3- Links to Other Texts

Useful article from the Victoria and Albert Museum on sexuality in the Victorian era: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sex-and-sexuality-19th-century/.

Alfred Tennyson’s poetry provides other examples of the dramatic monologue and narrative poetry.

Browning and other poets of the Victorian era looked back to the Renaissance for inspiration. The duke in ”My Last Duchess” is based on a real man – the duke of Ferrara – from the 16^th century. Browning’s argumentative style and the content of his poetry are similar to John Donne. He often wrote poems where he seems to have a conversation or an argument with a silent listener such as in ‘The Flea‘ though his attitude to sex was more open.

The Oxford World Classics edition (ed. Adam Roberts) of Browning’s poetry provides useful notes on context and language as you read the poems as well as an interesting introduction to the man himself and his poetry. It also includes a selection of his letters, which are interesting for exploring his views on society and other poetry that was being written at the time.

The poetry of Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti was also written during the Victorian era and Christina’s in particular looks at the role of women in society and their sexuality.

AO4- Context

Browning worked in theatre before he began writing poetry and developed his colloquial style there. Despite there only being one speaker, the poems are conversational and the speaker addresses the silent auditor throughout and instructs him as if they are a part of a scene where gesture and action are important. Victorian readers found the syntax of his poetry hard to follow because of this conversational, argumentative first person narration.

Many Victorian poets, like the Renaissance poets they admired, used classical imagery to inspire them or to reference in their poetry. In ”My Last Duchess” the sculpture referenced at the end is Neptune, a powerful god of the sea who is taming a wild sea horse. The theme of the sculpture is power and control, something we realise the duke desires.

Many of his poems deal with the combination of romance and death or violence. This macabre (to do with death) sentiment was very popular with the Victorian audience who were interested in death and the supernatural. However it also reflects a prudishness that emerged during the period where restraint rather than expression in terms of sexuality and emotion was practiced.

As the Victorian era progressed, they became more and more interested in the mind and how it worked concluding the century with Freud‘s psychoanalysis. Like Browning, Freud was fascinated by sexual perversion such as the lover’s sadism. Remember though that Browning pre-dates Freud, however as long as you make it very clear that you know this, the reception of the poems by modern readers is perfectly acceptable.

Test It!

1. Comment on the tension between the speaker’s interpretation of the events he describes and the listener’s.
2. What is the narrative role of the negotiator in ”My Last Duchess”?
3. Some Victorians found Browning’s dramatic monologues hard to follow, what purpose do you think his complex structure has in the narrative of the poem?
4. Do you agree that powerful men dominate Browning’s women?
5. Identify 3 poetic techniques used and write a paragraph explaining why you think Browning has used them (e.g. rhyme scheme, rhythm or form).
6. Last but not least, learn at least one quote for each narrative/ poetic technique and explain it’s basic purpose and effect. Quotations are key to top marks.

Remember it!

• Inference– reading in between the lines- something we always have to do in dramatic monologues
• Dramatic monologue– poem told in the first person where there is an implied auditor (listener) who does not take part in the dialogue but is involved in the scene. This type of poem explores the character of the speaker through the things they say and allows the poet to write as if they are morally reprehensible characters.
• Argument– the speaker in a dramatic monologue follows an argument, where everything they say builds towards an idea- e.g. that Porphyria wants to die.
• Power and control– not only do both characters gain control over their female victims but there is imagery and even structural detail that highlights the speakers’ need for control and domination.
• Death– a key theme in both poems as both happen after the speaker has murdered a woman.
• Madness– both speakers try and rationalise murder, one by showing that his wife deserved it, the other by claiming that his lover wanted to die. There is also a disparity between the reality they describe and the way they interpret this reality.
• Sexuality– sex and death are intrinsically linked in both poems as both women are killed as a result of sexual desire or perceived sexual desire.

Remember to learn quotations, the more you learn, the easier it is to come up with ideas and examples in an exam without having to keep reading through the poem!

Learn It! – The Rime of the Ancient Mariner- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Summary

The poem begins at a wedding, three guests are walking to the church when an old man stops one of them and insists he sits and listens to his story. The wedding guest protests but is persuaded by the glittering eye of the mariner.

The mariner tells a story about a sea journey he made. They set out with good weather but soon a storm begins to brew and the ship is driven off course to ‘the land of ice and snow’. When an albatross (a huge sea-bird) flies over-head a wind picks up and they manage to steer the ship out of the ice burgs into a fog. But the mariner shoots the bird, killing it and the wind stops entirely. They think that the mariner has brought bad luck but soon the weather changes and they think they are safe and that the bird must have brought fog not wind.

However the wind soon stops, the sun rises high and they are left stranded with ‘water, water everywhere/ Nor any drop to drink’. They see strange ‘slimy’ things crawling over the sea and the ‘death fire’ makes the sea change colour. The sailors are terrified and blame the mariner so they hang the albatross around his neck as if it was a cross for him to bear, which gives it some religious significance.

Soon they think a ship has arrived that could rescue them but as it approaches they sea it carries Death and Life-in Death aboard. The nightmarish ship looks like a dungeon as the setting sun shines through it. Then every man on the mariner’s ship dies suddenly and as they pass away they curse him with a look from their dying eyes. The wedding guest interjects at this point to say, ‘ I fear thee ancient mariner,’ after hearing all these horrendous tales.

The mariner is cursed and cannot die, he watches snakes writhing in the sea and blesses them. At this point the albatross falls from his shoulders and he can pray. Things seem to be looking up as it begins to rain and a wind blows up. However, as this happens, the dead sailors rise up and begin to steer the boat without the wind’s help. The spirit driving them pulls the ship to a sudden halt and the mariner is knocked out. In a trance he hears a voice asking if he is the man who shot the albatross and hears a warning that he ‘hath penance done/ and penance more will do.’

In part six the two voices are heard but the structure is different, it is set out almost like a play, as one voice explains to the other voice how the ship moves and the importance of the mariner. When the mariner awakes he sees the dead men still staring at them and he is still transfixed by their eyes and the curse. Finally the curse is lifted and he can look out to sea. He never turns around for fear of seeing more terrible things.

The breeze blows on him alone and he sees a lighthouse as the ship returns home to his own land. He turns around and the corpses are dead again, in place of the risen dead there are seraphs (heavenly creature) shining so bright that they can guide him to the shore. He sees the pilot and his boy in a boat ready to take him back to land. He also sees, in the boat, a hermit from the woods who sings holy songs he hope will cleanse the blood of the albatross from his soul.

But as the little boat approaches there is a mighty rumble and the mariner’s boat sinks. To the pilot’s horror the mariner ends up in his boat. They bring him to shore and a terrible agony comes over him, in order to relieve the pain he tells the story to the hermit. Since then, he tells the wedding guest, at an, ‘uncertain hour,’ that urge comes over him and he must tell his tale. He finally speaks of the wedding and how nothing pleases him more than to be happy and walk in good company to church. He has learned that we must love God’s creatures. The wedding guest looks back and the mariner has disappeared, he goes back to the church a ‘wiser man’.

AO1- Terminology and Concepts

The Sublime– There are many images that show how vast and powerful nature can be. These images show how small and powerless the men on the ship are as they are at the mercy of nature. The first Sublime description of nature is of the ice-burgs, ‘mast high’ and ‘green as emerald’. Then the albatross arrives and in a sea bird the sailors see a ‘Christian soul’ and are given hope.

The sea itself is a sublime image in the poem as Coleridge uses the limitless ocean (‘water water everywhere’ and ‘alone, alone, all, all alone/ Alone on a wide, wide sea’) to explore themes of eternity, religion, death and life.

Terror- When Edmund Burke came up with his ideas about the sublime, he said that things that were sublime were things that created a feeling of terror, or of incredibly intense emotion. The way the mariner has a spiritual epiphany and experiences terrible horrors and loneliness are all a part of the sublime qualities of the poem and his experience.

Life and Death– When Death and Life-in-Death appear embodied on a ghostly ship they are playing dice. Life-in- Death wins the game. After that the mariners shipmates’ souls fly up but they are soon re-animated to drive the ship. Thus they are living death. The Mariner himself is cursed whilst on the ship by their dead eyes, he cannot die himself and the torment is worse than death. Despite being allowed to live he is still paying the price for killing the innocent albatross.

The game shows the lack of order in the world, that life and death are simply down to chance and that the supernatural events that follow may be morally linked to the death of the bird, but are in part the result of a game of dice.

Religion- Traditionally the poem is interpreted as a Christian parable telling the reader, by speaking to the wedding guest, that all God’s creatures should be loved and valued and so the Mariner is punished for killing one of God’s creatures. He can only find God again, having been so alone, when he blesses the disgusting, slimy snakes. The absence of God in the mariner’s life at sea causes his deep loneliness and once he prays he can return home happily.

However the poem’s ending is sometimes regarded as incongruous from the rest of the poem as there is a pantheistic message to the poem. For the Romantics the idea that God or a deity of some kind could be found in every part of nature was very appealing as it tied in with the notion of the Sublime. In this poem the sun, moon, albatross and slimy snakes all have a role in the fate of the men and have a supernatural power within the story.

Metaphor and Imagery

The sun-The sun usually represents life and happiness; however, in this poem the sun brings drought and desperation to the crew. It is also seen shining through the skeleton of Death’s ship illuminating the horror on board.

The Albatross– At first it seems to be a symbol of good fortune, leading the ship out of the mists and tricky waters. Then its death brings good weather and it seems that it was actually an ill omen. This changes quickly and the death of the albatross comes to signify a disregard for nature and its immense power. Shooting the albatross curses the ancient mariner. It can be seen as a religious symbol as the mariner compares it to the cross Christ carried on his way to the crucifixion. This comparison can be seen to show that the poem is a Christian allegory or it could show that Coleridge is looking at the power of nature instead of a Christian god.

AO2- Structure Form and Language

Dramatic Dialogue– In part VI the mariner uses two voices. Coleridge sets the short section out as if it were a play script so that the reader can distinguish between the voices and follow their conversation. One speaker asks questions, the other seems to answer. The reader is removed from the mariner’s own voice just as the mariner was in a trance and instead we hear the other two voices, just as the mariner does. Instead of the mariner retelling what they said, the reader (or listener) is instead being told directly by the voices.

Ballad– A ballad is an ancient form of story telling often told to music. This is why it has such a rhythmic and clearly rhyming structure as it was to be sung. Ballads were passed down in this way rather than being written so the mariner’s tale fits in well with this tradition, as he must tell the tale while he travels in order to unburden himself.

Colour– The colour green is used throughout the poem to show that something is supernatural. At the beginning the ice is an unnatural emerald green; the ocean is also green and turns a variety of colours that remind the mariner of witches’ oils so they seem magical and mysterious.

The colour red is associated with death, for example the water turns red when the crew dies, moreover ‘Life-in- Death’ has red lips. However her red lips are not just associated with death ‘her looks were free’ showing red to be a colour of sexuality or promiscuity linking her with sin but also nature. The bride’s cheeks are red as she walks into the church, there could be a link, however the chaos explored in this poem means that the link between the two female characters could be a coincidence.

Frame narrative– The poem begins with a wedding, a scene from normal, rural life. The Mariner is clearly separate from this scene and cannot be a part of it. The poem begins and ends on this scene as it is framed by the wedding. The wedding guest interrupts the mariner occasionally to express his fear of the mariner, his appearance and the events he is describing. At one point the mariner describes the sailor’s predicament -stuck on a windless ocean -as being like a ‘painted ship upon a painted ocean,’ just as now the mariner’s tale is framed

AO3- Links to Other Texts

Reading the Lyrical Ballads and other poetry by Coleridge is a good place to start. This will help you understand why the poem is Romantic and how it fits in with Wordsworth’s poetic ideas. It will also show you how different the poem is from some of the others in the collection as it is supernatural as well as natural, making it gothic as well as Romantic.

AO4- Context-

Lyrical Ballads- William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge set out in 1797 to write a new kind of poetry. They set out to write, ‘the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted, which a Poet may rationally endeavour to impart.’ Most of the poems deal with pastoral scenes and natural scenery and man’s place in it.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was not going to be included in the ballads because it did not fit in with this manifesto. The poem was supernatural and wholly imagined as opposed to the rustic themes Wordsworth had envisaged and it was written in archaic language rather than the language of the common, modern man.

The Sublime- If something is sublime it creates a feeling of astonishment, awe or even terror. Usually the sublime is applied to things that give an impression of infinity such as the ocean, silence, darkness or any vast structures, whether natural or unnatural.

It can describe an almost religious experience because the vastness or infinity can provoke feelings of something greater or remind you of the enormity and infinity of god. It was applied particularly to nature but some adapted the idea to architectural design and the Gothic style of building was meant to evoke similar feelings.

Charles Lamb wrote to Wordsworth to praise the Ancient Mariner saying, ‘the feelings of the man under the operation of such scenery dragged me along,’ showing how the Sublime aspects of the poem were successful and therefore, though unconventional, the poem does fit into the Romantic vein.

The Wandering Jew-Because he taunted Jesus on the cross at the crucifixion, the Wandering Jew is forced to walk the earth for all eternity until the day of judgement comes. His thoughtlessness and disrespect can be linked the Mariner’s attitude to the albatross and his fate after killing it.

The Gothic- The genre was around at the same time as the Romantic movement and came out of similar ideas. It explored the extremes of scientific discovery and exploration and made links between the unknown in science and the supernatural. It was very much linked to the Romantic idea of the Sublime too as it dealt with terror and extreme emotion caused by the supernatural. Many of the literature was set in vast natural landscapes, gothic buildings and far off, unknown countries full of mystery.

Test It!

1. How does Coleridge tell the story in part I of the poem?
2. How does Coleridge use different voices to tell the story in the poem?
3. How far do you agree that the poem has a Christian message?
4. Read the ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’, why do you think Wordsworth was apprehensive about including ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’?
5. Find at least two quotes that you think clearly show a particular aspect of narrative. Do this for at lease 5 themes/ concepts or language features.

Remember It!

• Romantics– They saw nature as vast and powerful and were in opposition to reason and scientific explanation. They were interested in extreme emotional reactions such as awe and terror.
• Religion– The poem can be seen as a Christian message about looking after all God’s creatures; it can also be seen as a Christian allegory where the albatross comes to save the men like Christ and was shot down. The poem could show Coleridge’s pantheism, which is a belief that there is a god or supernatural power in all of nature.
• Chance and chaos– The sailors, mariner and wedding guest are perpetually confused. Moreover the events in the poem are literally dictated by a game of dice played between Death and Life in Death. The mariner longs for a normal, peaceful life as is reflected in the wedding that frames the poem but is every moving and reliving his strange story.
• Death– The poem explores which is worse, to die or to never be able to die and to be cursed.
• Nature– The sailors are at the mercy of the ocean and the weather. When the albatross appears we are unsure of its purpose but shooting it seems to lead to a serious of horrific and supernatural events. In order to partially break the curse he is under the mariner must bless even the most disgusting of animals.
• Ballad– an ancient form of story telling, often put to music. Ballads were usually sung and passed down through word of mouth just as the mariner does.
• Voice– There are several voices in the poem: the mariner himself, the wedding guest, the two mysterious voices, ‘Life in Death’, the pilot and the hermit.

Remember to learn quotations, the more you learn, the easier it is to come up with ideas and examples in an exam without having to keep reading through the poem!

Shakespeare-

Different exam boards have different ways of including Shakespeare in your exams and coursework, the AOs refer to AQA however all the information should be helpful for anyone revising the plays included.

Learn it! Othello

Plot Summary.

The play opens in Venice where two men are having an argument. Rodrigo is angry with Iago because Iago’s boss has married Desdemona, the woman who Rodrigo was paying Iago to help him woo. Iago is angry with Othello too because he wanted a promotion but Othello gave it to Cassio. Iago and Rodrigo alert Brabanzio (Desdemona’s father) to her marriage and they insinuate that the couple is making love at Othello’s house.

Brabanzio is enraged that his daughter has married Othello and accuses him of witchcraft. He decides to pay Othello a visit so Iago runs ahead to ‘warn’ Othello of Brabanzio’s rage. While they are speaking Cassio arrives with a message from the duke who needs his help on a matter concerning Cyprus. Suddenly Brabanzio arrives and berates Othello who calmly explains the love between himself and Desdemona.

The duke and his men are discussing the Turkish ‘purposes toward Cyprus’ and they fear invasion is imminent. Brabanzio, Rodrigo, Iago and Othello all arrive together. The duke is pleased to see ‘valiant’ Othello but Brabanzio would rather discuss the marriage than politics. The duke and his officers question Othello about the marriage and he tries to persuade them of their love but they decide to ‘fetch Desdemona’ to make sure. Eventually it is decided that their marriage will be recognised. However, because of the coming trouble they must leave and try and sort out the problems between the Turkish and Cyprus.

Rodrigo is incensed and asks Iago for help. Iago assures him that once Desdemona has satisfied her lust she will probably see the error of her judgement and marry Rodrigo. Iago hatches a plan that will hurt Othello and Cassio as well as helping Rodrigo. He decides that to break up the marriage he will ‘abuse Othello’s ear/ That [Cassio] is too familiar with his wife.’ He hopes Othello will think badly of his wife and new advisor.

They all arrive in Cyprus the next morning. Cassio is very admiring of Desdemona but is also complimentary of Iago, showing him to be an amiable sort of person. Iago, Emilia (his wife) and Desdemona speak, Iago attempts to compliment the women but Desdemona makes fun of him. Cassio says ‘you may relish him more in/ the soldier than in the scholar,’ as Iago has military experience but Cassio himself is a scholar and this is one reason he was promoted above Iago. Iago notices that when Cassio says this he takes Desdemona’s hand; to the audience he says he will use this to begin his plot to make Othello jealous. By the end of the scene Iago has convinced himself that Desdemona and Cassio are in love.

Iago arranges for Rodrigo and Cassio to fight that evening at a party. When Montano tries to break up the fight, Cassio stabs him and Othello is called from his marriage bed to deal with the situation. Iago advises Cassio to talk to Desdemona to stop Othello being angry and she agrees to help. Iago explains in a soliloquy that he will frame Cassio.

Emilia steals Desdemona’s handkerchief and Iago plants it in Cassio’s room. He then tells Othello his suspicions; Othello is so upset that he has an epileptic fit. He arranges for Othello to overhear him asking Cassio about the affair. Cassio talks about a prostitute he has been seeing but Othello thinks he is talking about Desdemona, especially when he sees the handkerchief.

Othello decides to kill Desdemona and Iago encourages him to strangle her in bed. Lodovico arrives with Desdemona and calls Othello back to Venice leaving Cassio in charge making Othello even angrier. Emilia tries to convince Othello he is wrong and Desdemona pleads for her life, but Othello calls her ‘false as helI’ and a ‘strumpet’. He seems to calm down but tells her to get to bed and wait for him

Iago persuades Rodrigo that the only way to get Desdemona is to kill Cassio. However he fails and Iago injures Cassio instead. Thinking Cassio is dead Othello returns to Desdemona saying ‘Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;/Thy bed, lust-stain’d, shall with lust’s blood be spotted.’ Lodovico comes in and sees what has happened to Cassio, Iago pretends to be astonished and kills Rodrigo and helps Cassio with his injuries.

Meanwhile Othello arrives at his bedroom. He makes sure Desdemona has prayed so that her soul will go to heaven. He confronts her about the handkerchief and she pleads her innocence but Othello kills her. When Emilia arrives Desdemona pretends she has killed herself and dies. Iago and the attendants arrive too and see what has happened. Emilia explains that she gave Iago the handkerchief and Iago stabs her. The whole story comes out when a letter is found in Rodrigo’s pocket. Cassio explains himself and is then made governor of Cyprus. Othello stabs himself because he ‘threw a pearl away/ Richer than all his tribe;’ and was tricked.

AO1- Terminology and Concepts

Tragic hero- Othello is a tragic hero. This means that he causes his own demise through his fatal flaw or harmartia rather than through purposeful wrongdoing. Othello’s can be seen as his jealousy when he thinks Cassio and Desdemona are in love, however it could also be said that his susceptibility is his true flaw. He says himself that he ‘loved not wisely but too well,’ which could mean that he loved Iago too well, loved himself too well and maybe even loved Desdemona too well as it was his fear of losing her that drove him to murder. At the end of the play he tries to remain noble and practically writes his own eulogy.

Jealousy- Jealousy is a fear of losing something that you value to another and is typically used in romantic situations like the one in Othello.Iago’s envy makes him angry with both Othello and Cassio so he uses jealousy to ruin both their lives. He convinces Othello that Cassio and Desdemona are in love. This play is where we get the expression ‘green eyed monster,’ in act 3, scene 3. Iago then warns Othello of the dangers of the monster, but never takes heed of his own advice.

Envy- Envy is a resentment of those who have things that you want, maybe material possessions or something else. Envy can lead to the envious person wishing misfortune or loss upon those whom he is envious of. In Iago’s case he is envious of Cassio for his promotion and his intelligence. He may be envious of Othello’s status and his more lowly existence in comparison or even Othello’s new found love and happiness with Desdemona.

Schadenfreude- When someone gains pleasure from the misfortune of others. This kind of pleasure is often the result of envy. We see this with Iago who hurts Roderigo for no reason other than as a part of his plan to hurt Othello, Cassio and Desdemona. He has little regard for anyone else at all and wishes only to sabotage the happiness of the other characters.

War- Othello is famed for his prowess at war, he is a warrior and this is how he has become a leader. The play’s action moves to Cyprus because Othello is the only man who can put a stop to war. Unfortunately his marriage is his downfall as he becomes so embroiled in jealousy and suspicion that he ends up dead and Cassio rules Cyprus instead because he was not flawed like Othello or Iago. Iago also has experience of war and this is one reason he feels he should have been promoted above Cassio, but Cassio has the intelligence.

Othello turns to his past military success when everything else is falling apart around him. At the very end of the play he reminds the onlookers that he killed a ‘malignant and a turban’d Turk/ Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,/ I took by the throat the circumcised dog,/ And smote him, thus.’ When he says ‘thus’ he stabs himself, so it is as if he is demonstrating how he killed in battle. His suicide becomes a gesture linked to battle rather than to guilt and love for his wife.

AO2-Language, form and structure.

Nature– In the play the characters frequently refer to themselves and others as beasts and animals. Iago dismisses Othello and Desdemona’s relationship as nothing but lust and refers to them as ‘the beast with two backs’ when they have sex. There is more animalistic sexuality when he says that ‘a horned man’s a beast’. This innuendo implies the characters are acting out natural, animalistic desires rather than in love.

Plants and growth are another natural image in the play. Iago says that man is like a ‘garden‘ and that the way we behave in life depends on what you plant. He talks about the need to ‘weed up tyme’. Later in the play Othello refers to Desdemona as a weed that ‘smells so sweet’ before he kills her. Shakespeare continues the metaphor Iago used as Othello should have weeded his garden, however, Iago is the real weed!

Iago- Iago has the most lines in the play, more than Othello even, despite him being the title character. Iago’s malice and manipulation is what drives Othello and motivates the action of the play, therefore, even though it is Othello’s tragedy, Iago has the most lines because he causes the action in the play.

AO3- Links to Other Texts/ Comparison (Edexcel)

If you’re doing Othello you might already be comparing it to other plays or texts.

For example you could look at women in other Shakespeare plays such as Macbeth. In both plays a woman drives her husband to kill, moreover both men are warriors, successful in battle. You could also compare ambition and envy as Iago and Macbeth are both driven by a desire to reach the top but in different ways.

You could read or watch another tragedy to see how the form is used with different plots or how the harmartia of different characters causes the heroes to fall. Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth or Coriolanus are all plays focusing on heroes with a fatal flaw. Romeo and Juliet is slightly different because you can argue that circumstance not personality is to blame for the tragedy.

AO4- Context

Tragedy- According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be about characters that begin as good or noble and who fall from grace as Othello does. The plot of a tragedy must follow the chain of events leading to a character’s fall. Othello begins as good and noble, he is happy to be found with Desdemona despite her father’s anger because he says, ‘My parts, my title and my perfect soul/ Shall manifest me rightly,’ in other words he is safe because of his noble status. By the end of the play he has been degraded and Cassio, who does nothing wrong throughout the play, ends up at the top.

Racism- Some of the language used towards Othello is directed at his race. He is a Moor meaning he is North African, although we don’t know from which country. Despite the abuse directed towards him about his appearance, (‘sooty,’ ‘thick lips,’ barbary horse’) Othello holds a position of power because of his success in war.

Though the things hey say to him are terrible and offensive, they would have reflected the racism of Shakespeare’s audience and been commonplace insults. They may shock us now but they were not meant to be shocking, just rude.

Status is very important in the play too as Othello gains his by merit and actions whereas Brabanzio is loved because of his high social and financial position in society. Love bridges the gap between the two types of high status and overcomes the prejudices of race.

Test It!

1. Find some examples of metaphor in the play, for example relating to nature, what do they convey about the person who uses the metaphor? What do they tell you about the thing described using the metaphor?
2. How is the tragic form used to structure the play’s narrative? (You may want to research Aristotle’s theory first, it can easily be found online)
3. How are women presented in Othello?
4. Do you think that the play is about justice?
5. How does Shakespeare create a sense of dread or tension in the play?

Remember it!

• Deceit, lies and trickery– Iago uses these to try and punish Othello for promoting Cassio but also to punish Cassio. His lies cause death and destruction which he seems to desire (schadenfreud)
• Jealousy and envy– Othello becomes jealous because he believes Cassio could take his wife away. Iago is envious of Cassio’s success and decides to sabotage it.
• Love and lust– Some of the other characters think Othello and Desdemona’s relationship is just based on lust and there is a lot of sexual imagery in the play, however we also learn that he wooed her with stories and his exotic life and his jealousy suggests strong feelings for her.
• War– Othello is a war hero and is successful in war during the play, Iago’s expertise lies in warfare whereas Cassio’s is more intellectual, he is a mathematician, this is another reason Iago dislikes him as Othello disregards his expertise.
• Tragedy and tragic hero– Harmartia means a fatal flaw that the main character in a tragedy usually has that causes his downfall.

Texts and Genres- Elements of the Gothic and Elements of the Pastoral

This section of the revision pack will cover the AQA English Literature B specification and will cover one text which spans both genres and then a general guide to each genre with examples from a selection of texts within the genres.

Learn It! Elements of the Gothic

Towards the end of the 18^th century a number of contextual factors led to the invention of the gothic genre. Many of the elements that comprised the gothic genre had existed before in literature but this was the time that it became the popular genre we still know today. Throughout the Victorian period, as an interest in both science and the supernatural grew, and with the development of the novel form, the gothic genre thrived. It might also be noted that women’s literacy rose. While most gothic literature was fairly misogynist in its portrayal of women, some writers, male and female, began exploring emotion and female sensuality more than ever before.

Science– The new discoveries made at the turn of the century, for example, electricity, led to an intrigue but also a fear about where new knowledge and technology might lead. Frankenstein, for example, by Mary Shelley, explores a number of themes. One of them is the idea that Frankenstein is playing God and the dangers of using science for creation. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is also about a scientist and the way his experiments lead him to develop a dangerous split personality.

Sherlock Holmes epitomises the dialectic between science and the supernatural. The stories use many aspects of the gothic genre to build suspense and intrigue, yet the seemingly supernatural is always explained by Holmes’ brilliant logic and deduction.

Science represented the age of reason and the struggle between reason and the unknown. It also saw a struggle between sense and emotion. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula Van Helsing represents reason as he is a scientist, yet he is full of contradicting superstitions and legends about Dracula. This dialectic led to a number of others often explored in gothic literature: light and dark, known and unknown, expression and restraint, order and chaos.

The Romantics included subjectivity, expression and a fear of the unknown to inspire their work in art and literature. Particularly in nature they felt extreme emotions, amounting to terror and awe, which became known as the sublime. Edmund Burke wrote a famous article on the sublime and the beautiful. In it he said that beautiful things are aesthetically pleasing but the sublime is ‘productive of the strongest emotion that the mind is capable of feeling’.

The Uncanny- Although the term was used by Freud at the end of the 19^th century, the uncanny, or unheimlich, describes a fear of something that is both very familiar and yet provokes fear at the same time. The reason for the fear is unidentifiable.

This theory has been used to explain common themes and plots in gothic literature such as the doppelganger where a character either has a literal double or they have a split personality. This is linked to the Romantic idea of subjectivity, where there is not a single fixed identity but a changing one, with many parts to it. Usually their double is immoral or even evil but is still identifiable as that same person. The doppelganger can be seen in: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg, and several short stories such as: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘William Wilson’.

The idea of a split personality leads to the unreliable narrator as a common motif in gothic literature as their subjectivity is explored. If the characters are portrayed to be mad, can the reader trust anything they say? The idea of subjectivity and narration is also interesting in Dracula where the story is not told from one point of view but from many via letter writing and diary entries.

Mystery- The gothic genre, like Romanticism, challenged the age of reason. As such it included the strange and the supernatural in many forms. In Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights there are ghosts; in Frankenstein there is a monster made from dead body parts; Matilda, Satan’s temptress sent to woo Ambrosio in The Monk; and the undead vampire Count Dracula in Bram Stoker’s novel. The imagery death, dying and the afterlife is called the macabre.

The idea of sensuality and emotion were present at the very beginning of the genre with Anne Radcliffe’s novels of dark passion and death (The Italian, The Monk). Women are usually portrayed within the confines of being either a virgin (and passive and victimised), or promiscuous (strong willed and free) and their sexual freedom is punished with death or diagnosed as madness. The sensibility of women was criticised throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries, often deemed madness, illness or hysteria, extreme emotion was a condition. Angela Carter challenges this gothic stereotype in The Bloody Chamber where men become victims instead.

But passion is very prominent in the genre, the expression of extreme emotions, such as the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Charlotte Bronte also uses the gothic genre to portray romance in Jane Eyre. In both the relationship is difficult, for Jane because Mr. Rochester represents temptation and her sexual desires and she strives to be good and godly and for Cathy because Heathcliff is a violent, brooding young man prone to rage as well as passionate love. It is because of these qualities that the two men are described as Byronic heroes.

Even the landscapes are disordered, dark and passionate in gothic fiction. They often reflect the emotions of the characters and this is called pathetic fallacy. Nature was important to the Romantics as it provoked terror and awe because of its vastness, beauty and connection to a higher unknown power, thus in literature of the period the landscapes are often described much as they are painted or written about in Romantic poetry and have significance to the stories.

Religion– Christian imagery was effective in the gothic genre because it focussed on good and evil. The demonic was used as the subject of terror, sin could drive people mad and damned souls walked the earth. The good in gothic literature could be portrayed as righteous and again the imagery of light, beauty and virginity was used to describe characters and settings. Christianity was a source of for the supernatural but it is also a religion of passion and faith thus it went against sense and logic. Moreover the Sublime often led writers and thinkers to imagine God, admire creation and realise the enormity of the universe in comparison to themselves.

The gothic genre takes much inspiration from the early modern and Renaissance periods. The Renaissance, like the Enlightenment, was a time of new knowledge and exploration which led to some similar fears. Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, for example, dramatises the life of a man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge. The supernatural is also used in Shakespeare, for example in Macbeth where the three witches predict his fate, or in Hamlet where the ghost of his father appears to him. Texts from this period include the characteristics of the gothic genre, however the genre came out of the Enlightenment almost 200 years later.

Test It!

1. Compare the role of women in Macbeth and Dracula in relation to elements of the gothic.
2. ‘The link between the Sublime and terror is most clearly seen in the imaginative exaggeration of the gothic novel’ (Routledge History of Literature in English, Second Edition). Find an example from one of your chosen texts of ‘imaginative exaggeration’ in the gothic genre, how clearly can you see the link between the Sublime and terror?
3. How do any of you chosen novels challenge reason and order?
4. How have elements of the gothic been adapted by modern writers, filmmakers or artists?
5. What techniques are used to build fear in the reader in any of your chosen texts?

Remember it!

Enlightenment– the end of the 18^th century, known as the age of reason because of the scientific and philosophical exploration and discovery during the period and a trend for order, control and logic.

Romanticism– In opposition to the age of reason the Romantics were interested in emotion, experience, the unknown, subjectivity and beauty.

Sublime– Edmund Burke described it as ‘productive of the strongest emotion that the mind is capable of feeling’. Often a feeling of terror or awe and usually associated with natural scenery like mountains, the sea, etc.

Subjectivity– Not one fixed perspective but many, or no fixed identity but many. Led to ideas of the doppelganger and explorations of madness as well as attempts to portray multiple perspectives through narration.

Passion– Extremes of emotion linked to the sublime but also to passionate love and anger.

Sexuality– Usually linked to females and a sign of immorality or corruption or even madness. Virginity is prized by heroines and of sought out by villains.

Religion– the sublime was often linked to religious experience and a strong feeling of awe and terror is linked to idea of God through the Christian idea of being ‘god fearing’. Christian imagery and values such as good and evil, virginity, light and dark, the supernatural etc. are all included in the gothic genre.

Mystery– The inexplicable, supernatural and strange were all necessary for the tension and fear the authors were trying to create. All go against reason and science and therefore are exciting but also terrifying for the reader.

Death- Macabre images and characters are seen throughout the gothic genre. Damnation, the mystery of life after death, bringing people back from the dead and the disgusting nature of a dead body all create fear and intrigue for audience then and now.

Learn it! Paradise Lost Books I and II

Thrown from heaven for his hubris, Satan is cast into a vast pit of fire and despair. With his minions he vows that ‘To do ought good never will be our task,/ But ever to do ill our sole delight, / As being the contrary to his high will/ Whom we resist.’ In these lines Milton sets up a dialectic (two contrasting concepts) between good and evil, a struggle that became as prominent in gothic literature as it was in the Renaissance.

Satan says that wherever God tries to do good he will find a way to do evil and promote evil. However the narrator, describing Satan, explains that however hard he may try, he will ultimately see ‘How all his malice serv’d but to bring forth/ Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shewn/ On Man’.

In the first book of the poem Milton describes Satan as he lies chained to a lake of fire, fire that gives no light but only ‘darkness visible’. He is with his minions, one of whom is named as Beelzebub. The reader is given a brief history of the events that led to this moment. Satan, not wishing to be subservient to God (or a Monarch) led a rebellion, a battle which he lost and was thus cast out of heaven for eternity.

They rise to earth and examine their new terrain. The narrator of the poem describes how they, ‘with thir darkness durst affront [God’s] light,’ by tricking humanity into worshipping and following them instead of God. Each of Satan’s army is introduced and associated with the deeds Milton thinks we might recognise them by. Many of their offenses come from the Bible. Their physical appearance is sometimes grotesque, however some of them are described as mighty and powerful, ‘Thir visages and stature as of Gods,’ despite the evil they possess. None more so than Satan himself who, above his enormous army stands ‘like a tower’.

Once his army is assembled Satan gives a rallying speech to encourage his vanquished troops. He outlines their political aims, directly criticising the sovereign role God held over them. He then explains their task, to make man fall. Having received enthusiastic applause, including the eruption of a volcano, Satan’s Capital building, ‘Pandemonium,‘ is erected and the council begins.

Mammon, Belial and Moloc put forward their ideas for what they should do next. Moloc proposes all out war, Belial that they do nothing and hope it gets better and Mammon proposes they make a heaven from hell, where everyone is free not subservient. Then Beelzebub speaks, and proposes that the only way to truly wreak revenge is to destroy mankind. Satan tells them to wait in hell while he goes on the perilous journey up to earth.

He reaches the gates of hell and there is a hideous creature, half woman, and half serpent with dogs at her waist. There is also a shapeless being that wears a crown- Death. Satan is informed that this is his son and the woman, Sin, was impregnated by Satan while he was in heaven. She holds the key to the gate and unlocks it for Satan and they behold another vast abyss which Satan must cross. He finally makes it to the tiny earth where he lies at the end of book two.

AO1- Terminology and concepts

Disorder- On his way to earth, between heaven and hell, Satan meets ‘Rumor next and Chance, [ 965 ]/ And Tumult and Confusion all imbroild,/ And Discord with a thousand various mouths.’ The images of disorder and chaos are another way Milton evokes terror, nothing is in its right place, nothing has a boundary, anything can happen. This can be linked to the Gothic because a key dialectic in the genre is between reason and the supernatural where anything is possible.

Hell- Hell is a place without God, without hope, full of despair. The only things there are darkness and fire. Most of the images to describe hell are of enormous scale, yet there is mainly emptiness and fallen angels.

It is the exact opposite of heaven: rather than being full of joy they feel an absence of joy; the songs of praise only, ‘charm the sense,’ rather than sincerely praise God or bring real joy; where heaven gave knowledge of the ultimate truth and enlightenment, the rebels in hell can think and argue all they want but it will be in vain, because they will never see the light of God.

Hierarchy- The disruption of hierarchy is one of the poem’s main themes. Satan and his devils challenge the hierarchy of heaven because they resent having to praise and worship God and believe they should also have power. God is shown to be more powerful by chasing them out of heaven and casting them into hell. Although Satan sets up a parliament where he takes suggestions and votes, ultimately he is a monarch ruling over hell with Beelzebub as the second in command. God remains at the top of the hierarchy no matter what Satan does.

During their meeting Mammon suggests that they should all have individual freedom and not forced servitude. Although the narrator tells us disobedience to God has dreadful consequences, Milton does explore a democratic alternative to sovereign power. This type of power means nobody else has a voice and the leader has absolute power over their subjects.

Heaven is always described as being high up, with higher towers and far, far above the recesses of hell. Earth hangs on a gold chain between heaven and hell, balanced between the two like a pendulum so that Satan reaches it after rising up from hell, which is below. Therefore there is a physical hierarchy to the world of Paradise Lost. Surrounding this ordered world is Chaos, the space in between the order, ready to disrupt it at any time and thus portrayed as terrifying.

[William Blake’s illustration of Satan arousing the rebel angels]

Power- Satan is never described as meek and powerless, his punishment for trying to rule heaven, is ruling in hell. He is described as ‘Majestic though in ruin: sage he stood [ 305 ]/ With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear/ The weight of mightiest Monarchies,’ which describes him as king like and strong even though he is in hell. The immense power he has in hell means that his suffering is the worst and his evil the greatest.

Hubris– Excessive pride and delusions of grandeur cause Satan’s fall. Although Satan still believes he is all powerful in hell, the narrator reminds us that he is nothing compared to God.

Christianity- Milton was a Protestant Christian who, in the English civil war, sided with the Republicans, who were Puritans. The narrator of the poem compares himself to prophets from the Old Testament of the Bible, calling of the ‘heavenly Muse’ to inspire him to write the word of God just as they did.

In book two Milton talks about man, and how they were to be God’s creatures, like angels, and yet over the course of the poem they fall to Satan’s temptation and lose paradise. Unlike Satan, man can be rescued according to Christianity and later in Paradise Lost, Milton shows God sending Christ to die for them.

Death and Sin- In Christianity these are products of the Fall because when Adam and Eve reject God, they lose paradise and eternal life, their sin cannot be forgiven yet and so death awaits them. In the poem Satan doesn’t seem to realise that the monsters come from him. Sin is disgusting, she is a woman, represented by the sin of lust in particular as it is her lower body that is distorted and her upper body remains tempting. This could be seen to foreshadow Adam’s fall as he is persuaded by Eve. Death is a darkness and nothingness that was literally born from sin. In the gothic genre, the sexuality of women is terrifying to men and often a sign of madness or the disruption of nature.

AO2- Language, Form and Structure

Figurative Language- Milton uses a variety of similes to try and describe how immense Satan himself is such as that Satan is as large as, ‘that Sea-beast [ 200 ]/ Leviathan, which God of all his works/ Created hugest that swim th’ Ocean stream.’

He also uses comparison to show his own political allegiance. When Satan gives his speech to his army in book 1, the enthusiastic reaction of the troops is described, ‘As when Bands / Of Pioners with Spade and Pickax arm’d/ Forerun the Royal Camp, to trench a Field,/ Or cast a Rampart.’ He is comparing it with the Republican army of the English civil war.

Description of place is key to understanding the magnitude of Satan’s crimes, his future suffering, evil and God’s might. There are several references to infinity, vastness and intangible concepts such as the dark and the ‘hollow deep of hell’. This type of description can be linked to Romantic and gothic writing from the late eighteenth century, as it is an example of the Sublime.

It is also notable because it describes a huge amount of nothing, demonstrating the divide between God and Satan and the enormous loss and emptiness that Satan and his rebels now suffer. Its size means it will never be filled.

The Argument- At the start of each book Milton outlines what is to follow in the poem. In the first book he outlines the general purpose of the entire poem ‘man’s disobedience and the loss thereupon of Paradise’. Each argument is meant to explain the action in the poem to make it clear for the reader. Originally they were not included but Milton’s publisher asked him to write a summary for each of the twelve books in the poem.

The narrator- The narrator is the readers guide to events in the poem offering both descriptions of events as well as interpretation of them and his opinion. The narrator asks Muse for inspiration; Muse was a goddess who inspired creativity in artists and poets. However he also wants to be given divine inspiration so that he can portray the subject at hand correctly, in defense of Providence (God).

The narrator speaks sometimes in the first person, however the lengthy descriptions in book one and two are mainly in the style of an omniscient narrator looking upon events. Often the narrator offers his opinion by using figurative language rather than breaking the narrative to interject.

Voice- In book one Satan, Beelzebub and the narrator are the voices that speak. In book two Satan holds a counsel to decide how they should proceed and we hear several voices. Each voice uses different imagery and language that reflects the character and proposition of the fiend within a debate.

Moloc– Is for ‘open war,’ and, ‘if not Victory then revenge.’ His language is aggressive and violent and he justifies his idea by saying that now God has cast them out they have nothing to lose. Milton uses pathetic fallacy to show how deadly the army will be. Heaven will see ‘Infernal Thunder, and for Lightning see/ Black fire’.

Belial– Speaks with ‘words cloath’d in reasons garb’. Uses rhetorical questions to unpick Moloc’s plan and make his listeners think about how bad their punishments might get if they attack again. He then argues that it is pointless because heaven will drive them out, and so they might as well not do anything, ‘better these then worse/ By my advice’ he says. He provides a long list showing that their punishments have already worsened and it might be better to stay put.

Mammon– Argues for ‘hard liberty’ rather than the ‘servile pomp’ of heaven. He puts forward the idea that they can make their own kingdom and is scornful of the ways of heaven, persuading the listeners by making hell sound reasonable compared to the ‘warbl’d hymns’ and ‘forc’t hallelujahs’.

Beezlebub– He and Satan have already discussed what they are going to do. He summarises the other ideas and dismisses them, persuading the rebels that Satan’s idea -to corrupt man -is the best way to have revenge.

Epic structure– The poem contains much of the same content and structural features of classical epic poetry and makes constant references to classical myths and gods. The twelve books, the battle, a journey where Satan is presented with challenges, the formal debates and conversations, are all features that can be found in poetry such as Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey or Virgil’s Aeneid. However Milton sets it in a universe before man and on an even grander scale that his classical counterparts.

AO3- Links to other texts

You will probably be studying Paradise Lost as part of the Gothic unit in which case you need to compare it to any of your set texts, for example The White Devil, The Bloody Chamber or Macbeth. This will help you meet AO3 however below are some more texts you may wish to look at and include in your exam.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem by Coleridge from the Romantic period that is also about a man who disrupts the natural order of things and does not respect God, moreover life and death come literally down to a game of chance, this links to the Chaos in Paradise Lost and the themes of disorder.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley– The scientist, Frankenstein, could be linked to Milton’s Satan in that his challenge to God and his hubris in attempting to create a creature, leads to his death and downfall. However we could also see him as tragic because his creation turned against him just as man turned against God.

Dante’s Inferno is about a man who traverses hell and it is also an epic poem. Therefore you could examine his portrayal of hell and the difference between having a human as the hero rather than looking at hell through Satan’s eyes.

Dr Faustus makes a pact with the devil in order to gain more knowledge just as Satan tempts with the promise of knowledge of good and evil in Paradise Lost. In both cases the consequences are dire. Dr Faustus’s quest for knowledge could also be linked to the rebel angels in hell in Book II who can find answers but no ultimate truth or power.

AO4- Context

Religion– The primary theme of the poem is religion. This is something which concerned Milton greatly and during his lifetime there was considerable controversy over the subject. Charles I wanted to bring in high Anglican worship in Protestant churches, which made the ceremonial aspects and hierarchy of the church similar to Catholicism. Some people thought this was due to his marriage to a French woman, because the French were Catholic.

The English Civil War- In 1649 King Charles I was beheaded by Oliver Cromwell’s Republicans. This was the result of a civil war in England between Royalists, who supported the king, and Republican’s, who wanted a parliament to be called regularly, so the voice of the people could be heard.

Milton wrote extensively in support of the Republican’s and urging the removal of a tyrannical monarch. Some people think that in a way, Satan and his rebels represent the rebels in the war. However, their argument in the council in book II could be seen as satirical, mocking the lengthy arguments had in parliament and the fact that Satan dismisses all arguments in favour of his own idea, thus he can be read as representing Charles I’s disregard for parliament before his death.

Milton’s political writing– Milton wrote extensively on a variety of subjects from the divine right of kings to divorce. He put forward clever arguments that he often justified through his readings of the Bible. His style of writing in these could be said to be poetic, however it is also true that the structure of Paradise Lost and the rhetoric of the characters, is similar to the arguments in his political writing.

Test It!

1. Consider the way Paradise Lost presents order.
2. Why do you think Milton uses the rhetoric of politicians when the rebel angels speak?
3. How does Milton create a sense of terror in Paradise Lost? Can you link it to the gothic genre of the 18^th century?
4. How does the narrator contribute to the way we read this poem?
5. How have the imagery and themes of Paradise Lost (and other 16^th /17^th century texts) influenced the gothic genre that began with the Romantics and continues to be used today?

Remember it

• Hell- where Satan is cast out, nothingness where there is only evil, fire and darkness.
• Sin and death- guard the gates of hell, Sin is a woman and Death is a man, they come directly from Satan’s mind.
• Politics- Satan leads a rebellion against the ultimate king -God -thus he can be linked to the rebels in the English civil war who killed Charles I. They use the rhetoric of politicians in their own council, however the lack of conclusion and Satan’s leadership makes the debate laughable. Milton did a lot of political writing and therefore most of the characters are very good and debating, explaining and arguing because Milton was.
• Religion- the poem aims to justify the ways of God to man and we are constantly reminded of how wrong Satan is by the narrator, who has been given divine inspiration.
• Order- God is always on high, earth hangs in the middle and hell is far below, hell is also an infinite blackness, where everything is on its head and there is no light or possible knowledge or happiness. His court is called Pandemonium; we now use the word to describe chaos.
• Power- The poem tells of Satan’s struggle for power and God’s power over everything.
• Key gothic elements: death, the sublime, hell, reason and disorder, grotesque, darkness and light, dialectic, sexuality, terror.

Elements of the Pastoral

The pastoral ideal has been celebrated and explored in literature since Virgil and Ovid in the first century BC. Ostensibly it describes a rural paradise where man is completely at one with nature, lives on the land and is innocent, pure and all in order. However, as the genre developed over the centuries, particularly in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, it became a way for writers to critique the industrialisation and mechanisation of Britain and the sprawl of overcrowded, dirty cities.

This genre included supernatural elements such as nymphs, which were minor, female deities, beautiful and related to nature and the earth. The pastoral was linked to Christianity as well as classical religion because it harks back to Eden: the original paradise where man lived in innocence before they fell. In Paradise Lost Milton combines Christian and classical imagery when he describes Eve as being like a nymph as she gardens in Eden.

As well as Eden as a basis for the idyll, ancient British myths and legends influenced writers’ portrayals of rural life. Robin Hood, for example, epitomised lawlessness, chivalry and anti establishment values and was a forest dweller, at one with nature and clad in green. Many later writers saw nature as superior to man-made establishment; in ‘The Tables Turned’ Wordsworth calls children to ‘let nature be your teacher’ rather than school books. This poem is a part of the Lyrical Ballads which was a collection written by Wordsworth and Coleridge to celebrate and describe the simple and rustic lifestyle of normal people and the natural world.

Typical settings for pastoral writing are forests, dales, fields, villages and farms. Very often these are contrasted with the city. In J.R.R Tolkein’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, the ‘Hobbiton’ is an idyll harking back to a time of hand made crafts, farming and village life. ‘Mordor’ is an industrial hellish place full of smoke, fire and darkness and mechanical technology that builds weapons and breeds evil. His use of this contrast can be seen as a political allegory which compares England to the industrialised East; or ‘Mordor’ could be seen as a depiction of what war brings as England changed in wartime. Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest also portrays the differences between town and country through satirical comedy where the characters have alter egos that they use when they move from one to the other with confusing and amusing consequences.

The Arts and Crafts movement in 19^th century England is a reflection of the same fear that is expressed about cities and industrialisation in some pastoral literature. The movement gave precedence to hand made crafts, art and construction. The movement was in opposition to new machines that left many traditional methods of production obsolete. The movement came out of the writing of John Ruskin who believed that many of the social problems in Britain were caused by factory work and a devaluation of traditional creative skills. Some of these late Victorian ideas are explored in literature of the period

Some writers have also used it to question whether a rural, pastoral life would actually be as idyllic as one might think. In As You Like It Shakespeare’s characters are banished from the complexities of court life and live a peaceful life farming instead; yet after a very short while the majority of them return to the more exciting life at court. Shakespeare’s use of the pastoral was interesting for his time as it challenged the traditional view of the pastoral by suggesting that, perhaps, courtly life might be a bit more interesting. Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations does depict the city as a dirty, crime-ridden place. However the hero Pip does make many friends and has an exciting social life compared with the depressed, backward ways of his home in the country.

Test It!

1. How does Wordsworth’s Romantic language in ‘Tintern Abbey’ link with the pastoral?
2. Choose one text you have studied that subverts the traditional conventions of the pastoral genre and write about three examples from the text where it does this.
3. How do any of the texts you have studied express a fear of industrialisation or the city?
4. William Blake was known as a city poet, how do you think this affected his pastoral poetry set in the countryside? You could include references to his poetry about London, for example ‘Jerusalem’.

Remember It!

• Rural– the pastoral setting is always the countryside or in nature, often in farmland, in a farming community or in woodland and sometimes in contrast to an urban setting.
• Paradise– the version of rural life portrayed is usually idealised and perfect.
• Innocence– everyone is seen as natural, pure and innocent, even sexuality is seen as natural and beautiful.
• Rustic– the pastoral looks to a simple and traditional way of life in opposition to any mechanisation or industry.
• Nature- people are close to nature, even connected with it in pastoral writing, it plays a very important role in setting and actively in the lives of characters.

Learn It! Paradise Lost Book 9 (For Elements of the Pastoral)

Book IX begins with the narrator explaining the change in course the poem will take. In previous books Adam has been conversing with the angels but now, the narrator tells us, he must move on to describe a tragedy. This is the crux of the poem as it is a description of how man came to fall. The narrator compares his story to that of other epics written by Greek and Roman poets. He says that his is far greater than theirs and that the tragedy suffered by mankind is nothing compared to the heroes of other epics because his subject is more noble and lofty.

First we see Satan creeping into the Garden of Eden at night. Satan is envious of humans and jealous of their relationship with God that he forfeited. He explores the beauty of earth and is dismayed. He looks around for a creature to disguise himself in so that he can deceive Adam and Eve and eventually he chooses to be a serpent.

The scene changes to morning and Adam and Eve are in the garden cultivating the earth and having a discussion. We learn of their life, how much they love each other and how easy and ideal their life is in Eden. When Eve suggests they split up their work to be more efficient, Adam reminds her that they shouldn’t focus too much on labour and that their work shouldn’t be a chore, they need time to relax, make love and simply gaze at each other.

Adam becomes deeply concerned that if they work separately then they will be in danger as Even will be unprotected by him and could be susceptible to the evil God had warned them about. After some debate, Adam agrees that absence makes the heart grow fonder and allows Eve to go off by herself. Eve leaves Adam armed with only her gardening tools and a pure heart because sin has not arrived and made physical weapons necessary yet.

Satan watches Eve as she gardens happily. He notices her beauty and her lovable qualities but is wary of her husband’s intelligence and strength. When he has established that Adam is nowhere nearby he begins to creep slowly towards Eve ready to begin his ‘fraudulent temptation.’

Eve is astonished to find a talking snake. The serpent agrees to take her to the tree that it ate from in order to be able to speak and reason like a man. Eve explains that he needn’t have bothered because the tree is forbidden from mankind by God. However, the serpent easily persuades her with knowledge of good and evil and the chance to be godlike. As it is approaching lunchtime and the fruit looks so delicious, Eve succumbs to the temptation of the serpent and eats from the forbidden tree.

Eve returns to Adam and tells him what she has done. He is horrified but, because he loves her so deeply, cannot let her go. He agrees to eat the fruit too so that they can face death together. When they have both eaten, the earth rumbles and suddenly they become full of sexual lust and can’t resist their sexual urges. When they are finished they are ashamed and cover their naked bodies.

They are no longer innocent and calm, their ‘State of Mind’ has become turbulent and full of mistrust, anger and angst as they can now see evil as well as good. Their love for one another begins to falter too as they blame each other for what happened, call each other names and, ‘Thus they in mutual accusation spent/ The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning,/ And of thir vain contest appeer’d no end.’

AO1- Concepts and Terminology

Knowledge- Originally Adam and Eve only have knowledge of God and they have no concept of evil or darkness in their lives. Thus they live happily and simply in Eden. The knowledge the fruit gives them is of good and evil, when they discover evil all sorts of thoughts come into their head and confuse their peaceful minds. They cannot trust each other, they feel ashamed and become angry. They think that knowledge will make them godlike but in fact it severs their relationship with god and they are cast out of the Garden of Eden just as Satan disobeyed God and was cast out of heaven.

Nature- Adam and Eve are masters of everything natural in Eden. They prune and grow and cultivate the land. Eve suggests that without their work nature would grow wild over night and so they are constantly acting as a controlling force over the garden. This order and control relates to their good relationship with God. Satan has no relationship with God because he broke the natural order of things by attempting to over throw God; Eve’s suggestion that they split up is also a disruption with disastrous consequences.

Adam sees Eve as a harvest queen and makes wreaths for her to wear inn her hair. The harvest is celebrated even today as it is a sign that nature is on the side of man and has produced food for us to eat. The harvest queen is a mother nature figure, at one with nature and queen of ‘rural labours’ she epitomises the relationship of man with nature.

Labour– God has given Adam and Eve work to do in the garden of Eden, however the work, Adam says, should not ‘debarr’ them from refreshment or conversation, they should relax in between work. Their relationship with the natural world is not really one of hard labour.

The only debate in Eden has been one of how to most efficiently get gardening done. Eve wants to divide their work so they get twice as much done, but her reasoning worries Adam. Even this leads to a further mention of love as Adam says that a little absence ‘urges sweet return.’

Love- In Eden man is not made for ‘toile’ but for delight. Adam promotes love and says they should not work so hard that they don’t have time to smile at each other. He mentions ‘younger hands,’ signalling where that love might lead.

After the fall their love turns to lust and they are only interested in each other’s flesh. They also turn on each other and rather than taking responsibility for their crimes blame the other.

Envy– Adam warns of Satan’s envy. Envy is when we desire something somebody else has, it can lead to destructive behaviour and malice towards whoever has it. In this case Satan is envious of Adam and Eve’s relationship to God. Adam also worries that Satan will be envious of the pleasure they get from ‘conjugal love’ (having sex). Indeed, one of the first things that happens after the fall is that Adam and Eve are ashamed of their naked bodies, rather than free and comfortable being naked.

Woman– Milton portrays Eve as the bringer of the fall. Adam warns her that if a wife strays from her husband then she is unprotected; he never worries for his own safety if she leaves him but only hers. It is Eve who wants to go off by herself and thus Milton paints Eve as leading Adam astray. Many readings of this poem say that Milton is being sexist because of the way he portrays Eve and dramatises the role she has in the Bible. Moreover, his words at the end of Book IX quite clearly warn men of the dangers of trusting women.

Innocence– Eve is described as innocent, fragrant and beautiful. There is nothing about her that is sinful despite her beauty. She is supernatural in her innocence and loveliness being described as a nymph. A nymph is a goddess of nature, thus Eve is completely in tune with her surroundings and is completely natural and simple. The image of a nymph was often used in classical pastoral literature. However nymphs traditionally are seen to be outside male control and are sexually tempting, in the pastoral this is linked to a pure and free love, however Milton may be signalling the temptations and sin which will follow.

AO2- Language, Form and Structure

Tragedy- Milton describes Paradise Lost as an epic greater than that of his classical predecessors. This is because there is not merely one hero but the whole of mankind. This also means that the tragedy is greater. Aristotle said that tragedy was when somebody great and noble falls from grace thus in book IX the fall of mankind happens. Milton builds up to this tragedy through the voice of the narrator and the tension that builds as Adam and Eve discuss the possibility of splitting up.

Dramatic Irony– Milton separates Adam and Eve and while Eve is eating the forbidden fruit Adam is celebrating her innocence and hard work by making laurels for her to wear in her hair like a queen. The reader knows something that Adam does not which builds tension, as we know that a big shock is coming for Adam.

Perspective- In this chapter the perspective varies between Satan as he watches Adam and Eve and Adam and Eve as they talk and garden unaware of Satan’s presence. This creates extra tension as Adam and Eve debate because the reader knows Adam is right and that Satan is out to get them.

The narrator– In Paradise Lost the reader knows all along what will happen as it is such a famous story. The narrator speaks with this in mind, condemning Eve and often talking in the future tense when describing her physically. He juxtaposes her current innocence with her future self suggesting for example that her beauty will become tempting and lusty rather than innocent and natural.

Debate- Just as in book II where the devils debate in their council, Adam and Eve debate her suggestion that the split up to cover more ground. Both are very reasonable in the argument. The narrator acts as a sort of compare over events, interjecting after each of their speeches to explain how they spoke and what effect it had on the opposition. The debate is crucial to the plot, however it is also a feature of classical epic literature.

Pastoral Imagery- The language used to describe Eden always suggests light, beauty and order. The images used such as bubbling fountains, structured gardens, and happy, singing people are all to be seen in classical pastoral literature. The picture Milton was trying to evoke was of innocent perfection, order and beauty in a natural world.

AO3- Links to Other Texts

Read books 1 and 2 of Paradise Lostbecause you can see how Milton’s language to describe hell is the same language we might use to describe confusion and disorder (Pandemonium and Chaos), this links to Adam and Eve’s new State of Mind when they eat from the forbidden tree.

Milton’s pastoral idyll is literally paradise because it is the Garden of Eden, however a lot of pastoral literature is not Christian. Originally writers like Ovid and Virgil were creating pre-Christian paradises so you could read some of this in translation to understand where Milton got some of his imagery.

Milton refers to classical literature a lot, citing characters, gods and the structure of his poem. Therefore, even if you don’t want to read the whole Odyssey or Illiad, it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with the conventions and typical story lines as it will help you comment on Milton’s narrator and his over all structure and form.

AO4- Context

The pastoral genre had been dedicated to describing paradise for hundreds of years already. This is why Milton chose it to describe Eden because he was describing the ultimate paradise. Therefore his use of the pastoral is primarily because of the subject of the poem, which makes it difficult to make use of contextual detail from his life and time.

However he is not only using the Classical pastoral genre, he is also using the language of the Bible as the aim of Paradise Lost was to explore man’s fall and his relationship with God. It might be worth reading descriptions of Eden in the book of Genesis from the King James Bible, which is where Milton would have first come across the story he chooses as his subject.

Milton’s Christianity and his politics led him to explore power and devotion through the story of Satan’s rebellion and man’s disobedience. His problem with kingship is that it could become tyrannical. The Bible says that man should obey kings on earth as they are divinely appointed; however if the King is no good or rules without the consent of his people then he is a tyrant.

Part of the pastoral ideal is that nobody should be burdened and that people should have freedom. Adam therefore allows Eve to leave his side because if she were forced to stay, she would actually be even more absent from him than if she left him happily. This can be seen as an example of good leadership from Adam as Eve is not unwillingly staying with Adam she agrees to be especially careful. This relationship is similar to what Milton argues for in his political writing and theological writing when he talks about the leader of a country.

Milton’s political writing and involvement makes his debates and conversations in Paradise Lost very unnatural as the characters speak back and forth evenly, intellectually and come to thoughtful conclusions in a way that a bickering couple would not do.

Milton’s views on women were typical of his time and the portrayal of Eve as a temptress is as much a reflection of this as it is true to the Bible story. Where the Bible has very two dimensional characters, Milton fleshes them out and gives Eve a personality that makes her susceptible to flattery and temptation and it is stressed throughout the book that women are the weaker sex. A little earlier than Milton (Paradise Lost was published in 1667) in 1558 John Knox said women were ‘weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish; and experience has declared them to be inconstant, variable, cruel, lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment’.

Test It!

1. How does Milton differentiate between Adam and Eve in their argument?
2. How does Milton contrast life for Adam and Eve before and after the fall?
3. How does Milton build tension leading up to Eve’s fall?
4. How do the descriptions of Eden compare with other descriptive passages in pastoral literature you have read? (you could and should do this with other key themes such as knowledge, women or nature)
5. Try and find an example of each ‘concept’ and each language device, write a paragraph about the effect of the quotation on the reader or how it demonstrates the theme.

Remember to learn quotations, the more you learn, the easier it is to come up with ideas and examples in an exam.

Remember it!

• Nature- Adam and Eve are in charge of the whole natural world, they farm the land and look after animals. Nature can be dangerous too, Satan appears as different animals and it is a tree that condemns them.
• Gender- Woman comes from man and therefore man is superior to women, she was made for him so he could have a companion. Eve is portrayed as dangerous, sexual and easily persuaded as well as beautiful and loving.
• Knowledge- eating the forbidden fruit gives Adam and Eve knowledge of good and evil which causes chaos in their simple, innocent minds and causes them to be thrown out of Eden.
• Work- In Eden work is not a chore it is part of their relationship with nature, God and each other.
• Relationships- Adam and Eve’s argument shows how protective Adam is of Eve and how independent she would like to be. Their argument allows Milton to explore the relationship of a leader to his people.
• Satan- Satan watches Adam and Eve working and arguing before he singles out Eve. He is jealous of their love and life together and their closeness to God.
• Perspective- In this book we hear the narrator, Satan and Adam and Eve, the use of multiple perspectives builds tension as we know what Satan is plotting.

Sin- Once they eat from the tree of life their love turns to lust and their minds are filled with thoughts of good and evil, they become ashamed of their bodies and are cut off from God.