Exam I will cover all assigned materials through September 23.  This means it will cover all authors we have studied through John Keats.


The exam will consist of 20 short-answer questions that can be answered with a few sentences each.  You will have 50 minutes to complete the exam.  Please bring a pen or pencil; paper will be provided.



Study Suggestions:

It would be wise to review the dominant concepts of the Romantic movement and the central artistic concepts associated with each author by looking back over the appropriate sections in the PowerPoint presentations discussed in lectures (copies of all PowerPoint presentations are available on our course website on Blackboard in the COURSE DOCUMENTS section.  Instructions for accessing the website are on the last page of the course syllabus).  You should also be able to discuss how these artistic concepts are reflected in the particular poems/plays/essays covered in lecture and discussion sections. Pay particular attention to the following:

• William Blake’s concept of the “Human Form Divine”
• William Wordsworth’s arguments about the appropriate subject matter and language for poetry from his Preface to Lyrical Ballads (see especially pp. 241-242)
• Wordsworth’s definition of poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings . . . recollected in tranquility” (Preface to Lyrical Ballads, p. 250)
• The characteristics of Gothic literature that Coleridge uses in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• The characteristics of the Byronic hero (see the document “Helpful Tips for Reading Manfred”), as reflected in Manfred
• Percy Shelley’s philosophy about the origins of evil and possible solutions, as expressed in Prometheus Unbound
• John Keats’ ideas about the connection between evil, suffering, and beauty—the “Keatsian dilemma” of how we reconcile the coexistence of beauty and evil in the world

Also know the significance of important objects or settings and (if the work is a narrative) the plot and characters for each work we’ve read.  Some examples:

• The major characters of Prometheus Unbound as described in the PowerPoint presentation
• Wordsworth’s companion in “Tintern Abbey”
• The characters and settings of the frame narrative and the central narrative in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• The Gothic setting and characters in Byron’s Manfred
• The plot and characters in Keats’ “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”

Some questions will require you to discuss significant passages from specific poems/plays/essays.  The author and source of each passage will be identified for you, but you should be able to explain what the passage’s thematic significance is and how it exemplifies central themes or artistic concepts associated with that author’s work.  Therefore, you should review passages that were specifically discussed in lectures and discussion sections.  Some examples:

From Byron’s Manfred:  
“Old man, ‘tis not so difficult to die.”  
Manfred’s last words to the Abbot as he dies express the defiance and suffering of the Byronic Hero.  Life for Manfred is more painful than death, and he defies the supernatural world to choose death on his own terms.

From William Blake’s “The Lamb” in Songs of Innocence:
“Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb I’ll tell thee. . . .
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb;
He is meek and he is mild,
He became a little child;
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.”
The lamb could be a symbol of purity and innocence and is compared with Christ.  The innocent child who addresses the lamb also draws a parallel between himself, the lamb, and Christ, suggesting that the human child and the lamb are both manifestations of the same divine principle represented in Christ.  This passage illustrates Blake’s concepts of the “Human Form Divine” and “Universal Brotherhood,” Blake’s belief that divinity lies within humans and all aspects of human experience are part of a divine whole.