Appendix 1: Other recommended texts and sample questions
This section provides you with a list of recommended editions and recommended secondary reading for each of the texts on the prescribed syllabus of Explorations in Literature that are not covered in the sample chapters of this subject guide. It also gives you a list of questions to consider, as well some sample examination questions that will help you to direct your studies of these texts.
All the editions recommended below have good introductions and notes that will assist you in your studies, they are also editions, which are generally available. Lists of secondary readings have also been compiled with availability in mind; however, you may not be able to find all these books in a bookshop, so we would recommend that you also visit a good academic library. Lists of secondary reading are by no means comprehensive; they are meant to give you an indication of some of the best work available. You may, therefore, want to supplement them by compiling your own reading list following the advice given in the Student handbook and in the section in the introduction to this subject guide entitled ‘General subject reading’.
You will notice in the lists below that there are two kinds of sample questions provided: ‘questions to consider’ and ‘sample examination questions’. The ‘questions to consider’ are informal, and are designed to indicate important areas of study. The ‘sample examination questions’ are more formal and indicate the kind of questions you are likely to see in the examination. You may not be able to answer all of the questions from a single reading of the text, but do not be discouraged. You are not expected to have answers to these questions before you have conducted a close reading of the text or before you have investigated some of the recommended secondary reading. The questions are designed to indicate areas you should direct your studies towards.
Sophocles, Antigone
Recommended edition
Sophocles, Antigone in Sophocles The Theban Plays. Translated by E.F. Watling (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003) [ISBN 9780140440034].
Recommended secondary reading
Easterling, P. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) [ISBN 9780521423519].
Goldhill, S. Reading Greek Tragedy. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) [ISBN 970521315791].
Griffith, Mark (ed.) Sophocles: Antigone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) [ISBN 9780521337014].
Segal, C.P. Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999) [ISBN 9780806131368].
Tyrrell, B. and L. Bennett Recapturing Sophocles’ Antigone. (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998) [ISBN 9780847692170].
Winnington-Ingram, R.P. Sophocles: An Interpretation. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980) [ISBN 9780521296847].
Questions to consider
- 1. As the story of an act of defiance by a woman, can Antigone be regarded as an early feminist text, or is the rebellion of Antigone one that ultimately reinforces a patriarchal social order?
- 2. With whom is the audience encouraged to identify in Antigone – with Antigone herself, with Creon or with the chorus? Or does dramatic tension develop as a result of diverse demands upon the audience’s sympathies?
- 3. To what extent is it necessary to understand the conventions of Greek staging, and the conditions in which Greek tragedy develops, to appreciate the drama of Antigone in full?
- 4. To what extent can we call the characters of Antigone psychologically realistic? Do they have distinctive personality traits or do they remain two-dimensional vehicles for the poet’s argument?
- 5. What are the recurrent symbols and images in Antigone and what can these recurrent symbols and images tell us about the themes of the drama?
- 6. If we assume that, in ancient Greece, audiences of Antigone knew very well what happens in the end, the importance of ‘suspense’ must have been minimal. What other kinds of enjoyment might this tragedy appeal to?
Sample examination questions
- 1. Aristotle suggested in his Poetics that central to the experience of tragic drama was a ‘purging’ of the emotions of pity and fear. What light does this throw upon your reading of one play on this course?
- 2. ‘[Tragedy instils] a lofty sense of the mastery of the human spirit over its own stormiest agitations; and this […] conducts us to a state of feeling which it is the highest aim of tragedy to produce, to a sentiment of sublime acquiescence in the course of fate.’ (Matthew Arnold). Consider Antigone in the light of this comment.
- 3. ‘If we are to understand Sophoclean tragedy, then we need to take account of the role of the polis (the city) just as much as the roles of the dramatic characters.’ Discuss.
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Recommended edition
Ovid Metamorphoses. Translated by Mary Innes. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955) [ISBN 9780140440584].
Recommended secondary reading
Galinsky, K. Ovid’s Metamorphoses. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975)
[ISBN 9780631158608].
Mack, S. Ovid. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988) [ISBN 9780300042955].
Solodow, J.B. The World of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. (Chapell Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988) [ISBN 9780807854341].
Tissol, G. The Face of Nature: Wit, Narrative and Cosmic Origins in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997)
[ISBN 9780691011028].
Questions to consider
- 1. ‘My purpose is to tell of bodies which have been transformed into shapes of a different kind.’ What other patterns or plans can you discern in the poem? How important is the sense of a plan?
- 2. What are the important human relationships in the poem? Notice how family relationships are represented.
- 3. What is human desire like in the poem? What does it make people do? Make a note of the most striking examples.
- 4. How do gods relate to each other? How do they relate to humans? Is it what you expect of Gods? Compare Ovid’s representation of the gods with representations of divine figures in other texts you have studied.
- 5. In what ways and in what contexts does the poem discuss Rome and the Emperor Augustus? Can you discern a consistent political viewpoint in the poem?
- 6. Who else writes or sings in the poem beside the narrator? What light, if any, do these instances shed on the narrator and the main narration?
Sample examination questions
- 1. ‘In the Metamorphoses, Ovid blends a witty cynicism with a sympathetic insight into human emotions.’ Discuss the Metamorphoses in the light of this comment.
- 2. Consider the ways in which pictorial effects are employed in the Metamorphoses.
- 3. Consider the ways in which the idea of transformation is employed by an author to provide a sympathetic insight into human emotions.
Dante, The Inferno
Recommended editions
There are many translations of the Inferno, either in prose or in verse. An edition with good notes is essential. The following are annotated editions:
Dante, Alighieri The Divine Comedy Volume I: The Inferno. Translated with an introduction, notes and commentary by Mark Musa. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984) [ISBN 9780954113285]. All references in this section are to this translation.
Dante, Alighieri The Divine Comedy Volume I: The Inferno. With translation and comment by John D. Sinclair (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961) [ISBN 9780195004120].
Dante, Alighieri The Divine Comedy. Translated by C.H. Sisson. With an introduction and notes by David H. Higgins. (Oxford: World’s Classics, Oxford University Press, 2008) [ISBN 9780199535644]. This edition contains the whole of the Divine Comedy.
Recommended secondary reading
Anderson, William Dante the Maker. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983) [ISBN 9780091532017].
Auerbach, Erich ‘Farinata and Cavalcante’ in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953) [ISBN 0691012695] pp.174–202.
*Fowlie, Wallace A Reading of Dante’s Inferno. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1981) [ISBN 0226258882].
*Jacoff, Rachel (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Dante. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) [ISBN 0521427428].
*Kirkpatrick, Robin Dante’s Inferno: Difficulty and Dead Poetry. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) [ISBN 0521307570].
Payton, Rodney J. A Modern Reader’s Guide to Dante’s Inferno. (New York: Peter Lang, 1992) [ISBN 0820418277].
Tambling, Jeremy (ed.) Dante. (Harlow: Longman, Longman Critical Readers, 1999) [ISBN 0582312655 ].
* Highly recommended
Questions to consider
- 1. Reading The Inferno, what would you say is Dante’s attitude to the contemporary political struggles? (Look for example at Cantos VI, X, XXIV and XXXIII.)
- 2. As the poem is set during the Easter week of 1300, most of the references appear as prophecies by the characters Dante meets on his pilgrimage through the other-world. Look at Cantos VI, X and XXIV: what is the effect of these prophecies on the general tone of the poem, and in particular on Dante himself?
- 3. Dante’s inventiveness is exceptional. Go through The Inferno, looking at some of the penalties to which the souls are subjected, and determine their relationship with the sins (particularly interesting are Cantos V, XIII, XX, XXV).
- 4. How might you justify the view that The Inferno is a poem narrating a journey of personal spiritual growth?
- 5. What kinds of various allegorical meanings can you find for the poem?
- 6. Dante calls his poem ‘comedy’ in The Inferno XVI, 128. Tragedy was considered to be of higher aesthetic value than comedy, yet we know that Dante valued his poem highly; so why did he choose this term?
Sample examination questions
- 1. ‘Dante’s pilgrimage is a journey of learning – and, primarily, this means learning how to write poetry.’ Discuss.
- 2. ‘Style is an essential aspect of characterisation in the Divine Comedy.’ Examine either Dante’s variety of styles and their functions in the Inferno, or Dante’s method of characterisation, referring in particular to his use of language.
- 3. ‘It could be claimed that the Inferno is set not in Hell, but in contemporary Italy.’ Is such a claim justified in your opinion?
- 4. ‘The poetry of the Inferno – at times lyrical, at times epical – is, most of all, dramatic.’ Discuss.
The metaphysical poets
Recommended anthology
Helen Gardner (ed.) The Metaphysical Poets. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959) [ISBN 9780140420388]. You should feel free to browse through this anthology, reading whichever poems appeal to you. However, for the purposes of study, it is important that you select 10 to 15 poems to pay close critical attention to. It will also benefit your study if you concentrate on two or three poets.
Recommended secondary reading
Austin, F. The Language of the Metaphysical Poets. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1992) [ISBN 9780333495674].
Cookson, L. and B. Loughrey (eds) Critical Essays on the Metaphysical Poets. (Harlow: Longman, Longman Literary Guides, 1990)
[ISBN 9780582060487].
Eliot, T.S. ‘The Metaphysical Poets’, in any standard collection of Eliot’s critical works such as Selected Essays (London: Faber, 1999)
[ISBN 9780571197460].
Ellrodt, R. Seven Metaphysical Poets: A Structural Study of the Unchanging Self. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) [ISBN 9780198117384].
Empson, W. Seven Types of Ambiguity. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995) third edition [ISBN 9780712645577].
Questions to consider
- 1. What are the main characteristics of metaphysical poetry? How do these characteristics distinguish it from other kinds of poetry?
- 2. What does the term ‘metaphysical’ mean? How appropriate is the term ‘metaphysical’ as a description of the poets gathered together in Helen Gardner’s anthology?
- 3. What are the common themes or situations described in metaphysical poems? What do these common themes and situations tell you about the nature of the poetry?
- 4. Johnson suggests that metaphysical poetry consists of ‘heterogeneous ideas…yoked by violence together.’ What does he mean by this description and how appropriate is it?
- 5. Choose two metaphysical poems and conduct close textual analyses of them. You should look at both the form and the themes of the poems, and you should also aim to show how the form relates to theme. What are the similarities and differences between the two poems you have chosen?
Sample examination questions
- 1. How would you characterise ‘metaphysical’ poetry? Illustrate your answer by making close reference to a range of work by any one poet of your choice.
- 2. ‘The metaphysical style heightens and liberates personality. It is essentially a style in which individuality is expressed.’ Discuss the poetry of one metaphysical poet in the light of this statement.
- 3. To what extent is a wealth of learning and allusion a strength or a weakness in the poetry of either T.S. Eliot or any one metaphysical poet.
John Milton, Paradise Lost Books 1 and 2
Recommended editions
Milton, John Paradise Lost. Edited with an introduction by John Leonard. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, Penguin Classics, 2003)
[ISBN 9780140424393].
Milton, John Paradise Lost. Edited by Scott Elledge. (New York: Norton, Norton Critical Edition, 1993) second edition [ISBN 9780393962932]. Includes critical essays.
Milton, John Paradise Lost. Edited by A. Fowler. (Harlow: Longman, 1971) [ISBN 9781405832786].
Recommended secondary reading
Blessington, F. Paradise Lost and the Classical Epic. (London: Routledge, 1979) [ISBN 9780710001603].
Danielson, D. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Milton. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) [ISBN 9780521655439].
Patterson, A. (ed.) John Milton. (Harlow: Longman, Longman Critical Readers, 1995) [ISBN 9780582045392].
Quint, D. (ed.) Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) [ISBN 9780691015200].
Zunder, W. (ed.) Paradise Lost: John Milton. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, New Casebooks, 1999) [ISBN 9780312218591].
Questions to consider
- 1. How does Milton go about justifying the ways of God to men? What arguments does he offer in the first two books of Paradise Lost?
- 2. If you have studied the classical epics of Homer or Virgil, how does Milton’s epic resemble and depart from these earlier models? Think, in particular, about the conception of heroism, the depiction of divine figures and the shape and style of the narrative.
- 3. Read the book of Genesis in the Bible and compare it with Milton’s retelling of the story. What changes does Milton make, either in the style of telling or in the material told? Why do you think he makes these changes?
- 4. Think carefully about the time scheme of the first two books of Paradise Lost. When does it begin? At what time do its main events take place? Is there a difference between the sequence of events as they take place and the sequence in which they are presented in the plot of the poem? How does any of this add to the poem’s ‘great argument’?
- 5. Select a passage of about 10 lines from the first book of Paradise Lost and conduct a close textual analysis of it. What poetic techniques is Milton using? How do the linguistic techniques used by Milton relate to the content of the passage you have chosen?
- 6. What literary devices does Milton employ to make his argument? Consider the function of allegory and metaphor in Paradise Lost.
- 7. ‘Though not a misogynist, Milton is locked into his culture’s assumptions of woman’s inferior position’ (Susanne Woods). Is this proved or disproved in the first two books of Paradise Lost?
- 8. Does the fact that Milton’s Satan is a more interesting and (in some ways) more likeable figure than his Christ mean that his romantic, poetic vision has overwhelmed his overt religious and moral message? Or is there another explanation for the appeal of Satan?
Sample examination questions
- 1. How does Paradise Lost engage the reader’s interest in Milton’s religious themes?
- 2. Discuss the work of any one poet since Shakespeare, which seems to you either to fit the description ‘the poetry of passionate colloquial speech’ or for which that description is inappropriate.
Jane Austen, Emma
Recommended editions
Austen, Jane Emma. Edited with an introduction by Fiona Stafford. (London: Penguin, 1996). [ISBN 9780141439587].
Austen, Jane Emma. Edited by James Kinsley with an introduction by Terry Castle. (Oxford: World's Classics, Oxford University Press, 1995)
[ISBN 9780199535521].
Austen, Jane Emma. Edited by S. Parrish. (New York: Norton, 2000) or later edition [ISBN 9780393972849]. Includes critical essays.
Recommended secondary reading
General
Butler, M. Jane Austen and the War of Ideas. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975)
[ISBN 9780198129684].
Copeland, E. and J. McMaster The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) [ISBN 9780521498678].
Duckworth, A. The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen’s Novels. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971)
[ISBN 9780801849725].
Emma
Monahagn, D. (ed.) Emma. New Casebooks. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992) [ISBN 9780333552797].
Questions to consider
- 1. How is the novel form different from or similar to other forms of narrative you may have studied, such as epic (The Odyssey), romance (Gawain) or satire (The Rape of the Lock)?
- 2. In many influential critical discussions, it is ‘realism’ that is said to distinguish the novel from other narrative forms. Think about what it means to describe Emma as ‘realist’. Is Austen’s realism simply a matter of the presentation of a lifelike world, or does it also extend to a ‘realistic’ assessment of the way things might be supposed to fall out in the ‘real’ world?
- 3. Is it possible to reconcile the efforts of Austen’s novels to deflate the heroines’ and the readers’ illusions with the wish fulfilment implicit in the concluding marriages?
- 4. Think about the use made by Austen of narrative voice and point of view. What functions does the narrator serve? Whose point of view filters the majority of the novels’ actions? How does Austen’s use of voice and perspective affect the reader’s response?
- 5. At the end of Emma the heroine’s imagination is tamed, and in her marriage to Knightly she is partnered with a love-mentor figure. Does the novel therefore straightforwardly endorse a traditional model of female subordination? How might such a model be complicated by the novel’s focus on a heroine and the kind of access it affords to Emma’s mind?
- 6. Is Austen complacent or pragmatic about the inequities of a patriarchal society?
- 7. Austen’s novels have been described as fables addressed to the gentry during the period when republican and revolutionary ideas were crossing the channel from France. To what extent do Austen’s novelistic concerns have broader political implications? What are the perceived threats to the order of things in the imagined world of the novels?
Sample examination questions
- 1. Discuss Austen’s presentation of her protagonist’s growth in self-knowledge.
- 2. ‘Wherever women have used prose fiction forms they have adapted them to represent the power women can take for themselves.’ Discuss this proposition by reference to work of Austen.
- 3. The poet W.H. Auden found Jane Austen’s novels illuminating because he saw in them:
An English spinster of the middle class
Describe the amorous effects of ‘brass’,
Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety
The economic basis of society.
(‘Letter to Lord Byron’)
In the light of this quotation, discuss Austen’s interest in and treatment of marriage and money.
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Recommended editions
Any edition will do, but the Oxford World’s Classics and Penguin Classics editions are recommended for their introductory, editorial matter and notes:
Dickens, Charles Great Expectations. Edited by Margaret Cardwell, with an introduction by Kate Flint. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994)
[ISBN 9780199219766].
Dickens, Charles Great Expectations. Edited with notes by Charlotte Mitchell, with an introduction by David Trotter. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996) [ISBN 9780141439563].
Recommended secondary reading
Best, G. Mid-Victorian Britain, 1851–1870. (London: Fontana, 1979)
[ISBN 9780006860211].
Hobsbawm, E. The Age of Capital, 1848–1875. (London: Abacus, 1988)
[ISBN 9780349104805].
Critical studies
*Connor, S. Charles Dickens. Rereading Literature Series. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985) [ISBN 9780631135128].
Gallagher, C. The Industrial Reformation of English Fiction. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988) [ISBN 9780226279336].
Gilmour, R. The Idea of the Gentleman in the Victorian Novel. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1981) [ISBN 9780048000057].
House, H. The Dickens World. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960) second edition [No ISBN].
Lucas, J. Charles Dickens: The Major Novels. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Critical Studies, 1993) [ISBN 9780140772524].
*Sadrin, A. Great Expectations. (New York: Unwin Hyman, 1988)
[ISBN 9780048000514].
Van Ghent, D. The English Novel: Form and Function. (New York: Harper and Row, 1961) [ISBN 9780061310508].
Walder, D. The Realist Novel. (London: Routledge and The Open University, 1995) [ISBN 9780415135719].
Collections of essays
*Connor, S. (ed.) Charles Dickens. (Harlow: Longman Critical Readers Series, Longman, 1996) [ISBN 9780582210158].
*Sell. R. (ed.) Great Expectations. (Basingstoke: New Casebook Series, Macmillan, 1994) [ISBN 9780312121914].
* Especially recommended
Questions to consider
- 1. Read the opening paragraphs of Volume One, Chapter 1 of Great Expectations, asking yourself how the reader’s interest is being captured, what the narrative point of view is, and how the dramatic appearance of the convict indicates the kind of novel we are dealing with.
- 2. Does the appearance of the convict as an ogreish child-scarer introduce a more grotesque, nightmarish world, which is seen from the boy Pip’s viewpoint as both arbitrary and frightening? You should look for corroborative examples in the novel that might justify this view of the young Pip.
- 3. Find other examples of Dickens’s departure from realism in the novel, into the gothic, melodramatic and the fairytale mode, to discover how the narrative articulates its meanings. You could start by examining the presentation of Miss Havisham in Volume One, Chapter 8; then consider Pip’s first visit to Wemmick’s home at Walworth (Volume Two, Chapter 6). Look also at the recurrent use of a patterning of imagery in the novel to connect episodes and characters in unexpected ways:
- • the way Pip and Magwitch, both treated as ‘dogs’, are linked by verbal association
- • the opposition of stars and fire
- • the different uses made of food, pound-notes, and hands, for example.
- 4. A critic (Humphrey House, The Dickens World) famously took the theme of the novel to be ‘a snob’s progress’. Do you agree with this? Or do you think Pip is a victim of society and so cannot be blamed for his mistakes?
- 5. To what extent does Dickens invite us to read his characters through the signs of dress, gesture and speech acts, with no direct access to how they think and feel, and with an absence of inner self-consciousness? Is this because often in Dickens, surfaces reflect depths, with figures presented in their social roles, hiding behind false surfaces, as protective covering, or as reduced products of a dehumanising system?
- 6. In what ways is there an effort in the novel to renegotiate the term ‘gentleman’ from its class description to a more acceptable moral ideal, featuring Pip, Herbert Pocket, Magwitch, Joe and Drummle? To what extent is Pip’s most tormenting piece of self-knowledge that his gentlemanly aspirations come from the worst and not the best in him?
Sample examination questions
- 1. To what extent does Dickens seek to demonstrate truth through non-realist and symbolic strategies of representation as well as through realism?
- 2. Discuss the view that the real subject of Great Expectations ‘is not a specific social abuse or series of related abuses but nothing less than civilisation itself’ (Gilmour).
- 3. Great Expectations was published in book form (in three volumes) shortly after completion in serial form in weekly magazines. What does this serial mode of production imply in terms of the author’s relationship with his readers and with the characters and plots of his novels?
August Strindberg, Miss Julie
Recommended edition
Strindberg, August Miss Julie and Other Plays. Translated by Michael Robinson. (Oxford: World’s Classics, Oxford University Press, 1998 or later edition) [ISBN 9780192833174].
Recommended secondary reading
Meyer, M. Strindberg: A Biography. (Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks,1987)
[ISBN 9780192819956].
Morgan, M. August Strindberg. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1985) [ISBN 9780333292679].
Reinert, O. (ed.), Strindberg: A Collection of Critical Essays. (New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs, 1971) [ISBN 9780138527983].
Ward, J. The Social and Religious Plays of Strindberg. (London: Athlone, 1980) [ISBN 9780485111835].
Strindberg, A. Selected Essays. Translated by Michael Robinson. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) [ISBN 9780521034418].
Questions to consider
- 1. How does Miss Julie qualify as a naturalistic play? Are the dream speeches and the language of Jean’s childhood reminiscences naturalistic?
- 2. ‘What is unseen […] acquires an immanent presence in Miss Julie’ (Margery Morgan). How does this presence affect the spectator’s experience?
- 3. In what ways does the minor character Kristin serve as a foil?
- 4. Explore the symbolic meanings of animal motifs in Miss Julie.
- 5. Does Strindberg’s preface to Miss Julie distract from the play’s focus on the characters’ motives?
- 6. In 1888, Strindberg wrote in a letter to a friend: ‘Woman, being small and foolish and therefore evil … should be suppressed, like barbarians and thieves. She is useful only as ovary and womb, best of all as a cunt.’ Is there textual evidence that suggests that Miss Julie was written from this misogynist viewpoint?
Sample examination questions
- 1. Investigate the significance of gender for the power-struggle of assertive minds in Strindberg’s Miss Julie.
- 2. What conception of tragedy do you find in Strindberg’s Miss Julie?
- 3. Analyse the struggle for authority presented in Strindberg’s Miss Julie, and suggest what the play as a whole might have to say about authority.
T.S. Eliot, Prufrock and Other Observations
Recommended editions
You can use either of the following editions:
Eliot, T.S. The Complete Poems and Plays. (London: Faber, 2004)
[ISBN 9780571225163].
Eliot, T.S. Selected Poems. (London: Faber, 2002) [ISBN 9780571057061]. The notes in B.C. Southam’s A Student’s Guide to the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot (listed below) refer to this edition.
Recommended secondary reading
Guides to the poems
Note: given the wealth of allusions in Eliot’s poetry, it is essential to consult a guide both when you read the poems and while you study this chapter.
*Southam, B.C. A Student’s Guide to The Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot. (London: Faber, 1994) [ISBN 9780571170821].
*Williamson, G. A Reader’s Guide to T.S. Eliot. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1969) second edition [ISBN 9780500150054]. A poem-by-poem analysis.
Other reading
Bush, R. T.S. Eliot: The Modernist in History. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) [ISBN 9780521105286].
Cox, C.B. and A. Hinchliffe (eds) T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land: A Casebook. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1968) [ISBN 9780876950401].
Jay, G. T.S. Eliot and the Poetics of Literary History. (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1985) [ISBN 9780807110997].
Kenner, H. The Invisible Poet: T.S. Eliot. (London: Methuen, 1959)
[ISBN 9780156453813].
Moody, D. T.S. Eliot: Poet. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) [ISBN 9780521299688].
Moody, D. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) [ISBN 9780521421270].
*Scofield, M. T.S. Eliot: The Poems. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) [ISBN 9780521317610].
Southam, B.C. (ed.) T.S. Eliot’s, Prufrock, Gerontion, Ash Wednesday and Other Shorter Poems: A Casebook. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1978)
[ISBN 9780333212332].
*Stead, C.K. Pound, Yeats, Eliot and the Modernist Movement. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988) [ISBN 9780333475799].
* Highly recommended
Questions to consider
- 1. Look at ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, and in particular at its opening lines. Eliot achieves the resonance of the musical phrase not by following the regular, recognisable beat of the ‘metronome’ but by emphasising the rhythm of each individual phrase, and the relation of each phrase to the others in a musical sequence. Try to read the first three lines aloud, and note where you need to pause and where the stress falls naturally in the reading: how is the musical effect of these lines achieved?
- 2. Bearing in mind that the word ‘crisis’ is related, through its etymology, to the concepts of ‘decision’, ‘turning point’ and ‘criticism’, look at Prufrock’s inability to ‘force the moment to its crisis’ and at his constant indecision (see, for example, the repetition, with variations, of the formula ‘there is time’), and try to analyse in what ways ‘The Love Song’ can be regarded as the poem of a subject who cannot resolve the crisis of his condition, and how the concept of crisis is relevant for the entire collection Prufrock and Other Observations.
- 3. Look at the passages in Prufrock that describe stills of urban environment (you can focus in particular on ‘Preludes’ and ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’). How do these images relate to, and affect, the theme of the depersonalisation of everyday life and lack of communication?
- 4. Note the recurrent images of fog and smoke in Prufrock, and try to assess the significance of the animal imagery used by Eliot in their evocation. Then look at other ‘natural’ images in Prufrock: what perception of nature do we get?
- 5. How does the choice of images in Eliot’s poetry undermine the lyrical construction of the ‘love song’ and, more generally, the conception of lyrical poetry as an expression of the emotions and thoughts of the poet and of a poetic subject?
- 6. What is the effect of the shift from ‘I’ to ‘we’ in the last two tercets of ‘The Love Song’? Look at the beginning of the poem and at the use of first- and second-person pronouns: what is their significance in the context of the ‘love song’?
- 7. The first-person pronoun is explicitly used only towards the end of ‘Preludes’, finally admitting to emotion (‘I am moved by fancies…’). What is the significance of the use of pronouns and of the return to the first person near the end, only to move to the ‘you’ again in the last stanza?
- 8. Discuss how the meanings of the word Observations in the title of the collection can help us understand the poems, keeping in mind the related words ‘speculation’ and ‘reflection’ (you may find it useful to check their various meanings in a good dictionary). In what senses can ‘A Portrait’ and ‘The Love Song’ be regarded as ‘portraits’?
- 9. Prufrock is the anti-hero, conscious of his little stature, yet unable to remedy it through moral action. Look again at ‘The Love Song’, and identify the lines where this self-awareness and the corresponding unwillingness to act is highlighted.
- 10. Compare the poem against your readings of The Inferno and Hamlet. In particular, look at the epigraph of ‘The Love Song’, taken from The Inferno XXVII. How does it enhance and extend the significance of Prufrock’s predicament? The same question can be asked about the lines ‘No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; / Am an attendant lord…’ (ll.111ff.): how does a knowledge of Shakespeare’s play, its themes and characters improve our understanding of Eliot’s poem?
- 11. To what extent it is necessary to recognise (some of) the references in order to understand and enjoy the poetry itself?
Sample examination questions
- 1. To what extent can Eliot’s poetry be seen as centred on self-deception?
- 2. ‘Epic is a poem including history.’ (Ezra Pound) In what ways can this definition of the epic be applied to Eliot’s poetry?
- 3. Discuss the ways in which Eliot’s poetry provides a critique of modern life and civilisation.
- 4. Examine the nature of the humour to be found in T.S. Eliot’s poetry.
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
Recommended editions
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway. (London: Penguin, 2000)
[ISBN 9780141182490].
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway. Edited with an introduction by David Bradshaw (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)
[ISBN 9780199536009].
Recommended secondary reading
Beer, G. Virginia Woolf: The Common Ground. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996) [ISBN 9780748608140].
Bowlby, R. (ed.) Virginia Woolf. Longman Critical Readers. (London: Longman, 1992) [ISBN 9780582061514].
Peach, L. Virginia Woolf. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000)
[ISBN 9780333687314].
Roe, S. (ed.) Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse: Contemporary Critical Essays. New Casebooks. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993)
[ISBN 9780333541425].
Roe, S. and S. Sellers (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) [ISBN 9780521721677].
Questions to consider
- 1. In what ways does Mrs Dalloway not conform to the expectations you might have of the novel as a form? What unfamiliar stylistic and literary devices does Woolf employ in Mrs Dalloway, and what do you think she is trying to achieve in using them?
- 2. Is the term ‘stream of consciousness’ an appropriate description of the narrative of Mrs Dalloway? What are the implications of this term?
- 3. How does Woolf present gender issues in Mrs Dalloway? Can the novel be described as a feminist text?
- 4. How does Woolf approach the issue of class? What do Mrs Dalloway’s class attitudes tell us about her?
- 5. How is London represented by Woolf, and what relation do the ‘settings’ of the narrative have to its themes?
- 6. What is the significance of World War I in Mrs Dalloway?
- 7. How does Woolf draw the reader’s attention to the empire that lies beyond England (for instance, in India)? Why do you think she does this?
- 8. Although Mrs Dalloway and Septimus Smith never meet, their narratives are clearly parallel. Why do you think Virginia Woolf draws these parallels between them?
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
Recommended edition
Beckett, Samuel The Complete Dramatic Works. (London: Faber, 2006)
[ISBN 9780571229154].
Recommended secondary reading
Birkett, J. and K. Ince (eds) Samuel Beckett. Longman Critical Readers. (Harlow: Longman, 1999) [ISBN 9780582298071].
Cohn, R. Just Play: Beckett’s Theatre. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980) [ISBN 9780691064109].
Connor, S. Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988) [ISBN 9780631161035].
Connor, S. (ed.) Waiting for Godot and Endgame. New Casebooks. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992) [ISBN 9780333546031].
Pilling, J. The Cambridge Companion to Beckett. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) [ISBN 9780521424134].
Questions to consider
- 1. How does the form of Waiting for Godot differ from the form of other plays you have read?
- 2. How is Beckett challenging conventional approaches to theatre?
- 3. What type of plot do you find in Waiting for Godot?
- 4. What are the differences between Act one and Act two of Waiting for Godot? It has been described as a play in which ‘nothing happens, twice’. Do you agree? If so, why?
- 5. How are the characters developed in Waiting for Godot and/or Endgame? What is the relationship between the characters on the stage?
- 6. How do the settings of Beckett’s plays relate to the action of the drama?
- 7. ‘Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.’ (Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus) How well does this definition of absurdity apply to Beckett’s drama? Is the term ‘theatre of the absurd’ useful as a description of Beckett’s work?
- 8. ‘We ought not to see any symbols, but find it impossible to see none’ (Gabriel Schwab). How well does this describe Beckett’s theatre?
Sample examination questions
- 1. ‘Nothing to be done’ (Waiting for Godot). How far do you agree with the view that Beckett’s drama is chiefly marked by exhaustion and tedium?
- 2. ‘Human kind cannot bear very much reality.’ Discuss either Eliot’s poetry or Beckett’s drama in the light of this quotation.
- 3. ‘He has a better sense of language than of theatre.’ Is this a just criticism of Beckett?
Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet
Recommended edition:
Carrington, Leonora The Hearing Trumpet. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2005) [ISBN: 9780141187990].
Recommended secondary reading
Aberth, Susan Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art. (Aldershot: Lund Humphries, 2010) [ISBN 9781848220560].
Caws, Mary Ann, R. E. Kuenzli, G. Raaberg (eds) Surrealism and Women. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991) [ISBN 9780262530989].
Carrington, Leonora Leonora Carrington: The Mexican Years, 1943–1985, (San Francisco: Mexican Museum, Exhibition Catalogue, 1991)
[ISBN 9781880508008].
Evans, Kim (producer and director), Omnibus: Leonora Carrington and the House of Fear, BBC, 1992.
Finney, Gail ‘Feminist Intertextuality and the Laugh of the Mother: Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet’, in Neverending Stories: Toward a Critical Narratology. Edited by Ann Fehn and et al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) [ISBN 9780691068954].
Hopkins, David Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) [ISBN 9780192802545].
Suleiman, Susan Rubin Subversive Intent: Gender, Politics, and the Avant-garde. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990)
[ISBN 9780674853843].
Questions to consider
- 1. How does Carrington view authority in The Hearing Trumpet?
- 2. How is the feminist revolution presented in Carrington’s work?
- 3. What can you deduce about Carrington’s opinions on religion?
- 4. What role do fairytale and myth play in The Hearing Trumpet?
Sample examination questions
- 1. In what ways does Carrington subvert traditional ideas about femininity in The Hearing Trumpet?
- 2. Discuss the interplay between fantasy and reality in Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet.
- 3. How does Carrington’s portrayal of heroism in The Hearing Trumpet differ from existing literary models/representations?
Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad
Recommended edition
Atwood Margaret The Penelopiad. (London: Canongate Books, 2006)
[ISBN 978184195704].
Recommended secondary reading
Mary Eagleton ‘Finding a Female Tradition’, chapter one, in her Feminist Literary Theory: A Reader. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010)
[ISBN 9781405183130].
Julie Rivkin and M. Ryan (eds) Literary Theory: An Anthology. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004) [ISBN 9781405106962].
This anthology contains many recommended essays including:
Butler, Judith, ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution’.
Kahn, Coppélia ‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’
Irigaray, Luce ‘Feminist Paradigms’.and ‘The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine’ and ‘Women on the Market’..
Foucault, Michel ‘Contingencies of Gender’ from his The History of Sexuality.
Questions to consider
- 1. What does Atwood suggest about the relationship between gender, history and mythology?
- 2. What roles does violence play in the text? Consider particularly the image of the twelve hanged maids.
- 3. Consider how the oppositions between masculinity/activity and femininity/passivity are represented in the text. What does Atwood suggest about these oppositions?
- 4. How is humour and irony used to tell Penelope’s story?
- 5. What are the wider symbolic functions of weaving in the text?
- 6. Consider the ways in which the myth of Odysseus is adapted in The Penelopiad.
- 7. What literary devices does Atwood employ to adapt this myth for Penelope’s voice?
Sample examination questions
- 1. How well might The Penelopiad serve as an archetypal feminine myth?
- 2. Does Atwood’s The Penelopiad demonstrate that myth works, or does not work, in the twenty-first century?
- 3. Discuss the claim that Atwood’s The Penelopiad is a negative work which creates no positive new myth in response to The Odyssey.