The Early 17th Century (1603-1660)

The Flea

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BY JOHN DONNE

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,   

How little that which thou deniest me is;   

It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, 

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;   

Thou know’st that this cannot be said 

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead, 

    Yet this enjoys before it woo, 

    And pampered swells with one blood made of two, 

    And this, alas, is more than we would do. 

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, 

Where we almost, nay more than married are.   

This flea is you and I, and this 

Our mariage bed, and marriage temple is;   

Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,   

And cloistered in these living walls of jet. 

    Though use make you apt to kill me, 

    Let not to that, self-murder added be, 

    And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. 

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since 

Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?   

Wherein could this flea guilty be, 

Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?   

Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou   

Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now; 

    ’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be: 

    Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me, 

    Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud

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BY JOHN DONNE

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee 

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; 

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow 

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. 

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, 

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, 

And soonest our best men with thee do go, 

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. 

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, 

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, 

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well 

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? 

One short sleep past, we wake eternally 

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. 

DRYDEN'S EPIGRAM ON MILTON.

DRYDEN'S EPIGRAM ON MILTON.

These lines appeared under the frontispiece portrait of Milton in
Tonson's 1688 4th Edition of Milton's Paradise Lost [see above].

Three Poets, in three distant Ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The First in loftiness of thought surpass'd; The Next in Majesty; in both the Last. The force of Nature cou'd no farther goe: To make a Third she joynd the former two.

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687Related Poem Content Details BY JOHN DRYDEN

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687

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BY JOHN DRYDEN

From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony 

               This universal frame began. 

       When Nature underneath a heap 

               Of jarring atoms lay, 

       And could not heave her head, 

The tuneful voice was heard from high, 

               Arise ye more than dead. 

Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, 

       In order to their stations leap, 

               And music's pow'r obey. 

From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony 

               This universal frame began: 

               From harmony to harmony 

Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 

       The diapason closing full in man. 

What passion cannot music raise and quell! 

                When Jubal struck the corded shell, 

         His list'ning brethren stood around 

         And wond'ring, on their faces fell 

         To worship that celestial sound: 

Less than a god they thought there could not dwell 

                Within the hollow of that shell 

                That spoke so sweetly and so well. 

What passion cannot music raise and quell! 

 

         The trumpet's loud clangor 

                Excites us to arms 

         With shrill notes of anger 

                        And mortal alarms. 

         The double double double beat 

                Of the thund'ring drum 

         Cries, hark the foes come; 

Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat. 

         The soft complaining flute 

         In dying notes discovers 

         The woes of hopeless lovers, 

Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute. 

         Sharp violins proclaim 

Their jealous pangs, and desperation, 

Fury, frantic indignation, 

Depth of pains and height of passion, 

         For the fair, disdainful dame. 

But oh! what art can teach 

         What human voice can reach 

The sacred organ's praise? 

Notes inspiring holy love, 

Notes that wing their Heav'nly ways 

         To mend the choirs above. 

Orpheus could lead the savage race; 

And trees unrooted left their place; 

                Sequacious of the lyre: 

But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder high'r; 

         When to her organ, vocal breath was giv'n, 

An angel heard, and straight appear'd 

                Mistaking earth for Heav'n. 

GRAND CHORUS 

As from the pow'r of sacred lays 

         The spheres began to move, 

And sung the great Creator's praise 

         To all the bless'd above; 

So when the last and dreadful hour 

   This crumbling pageant shall devour, 

The trumpet shall be heard on high, 

         The dead shall live, the living die, 

         And music shall untune the sky.

Marriage a-la-Mode- John Dryden

Marriage a-la-Mode

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BY JOHN DRYDEN

Why should a foolish marriage vow, 

Which long ago was made, 

Oblige us to each other now 

When passion is decay'd? 

We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could, 

Till our love was lov'd out in us both: 

But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled: 

'Twas pleasure first made it an oath. 

If I have pleasures for a friend, 

And farther love in store, 

What wrong has he whose joys did end, 

And who could give no more? 

'Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me, 

Or that I should bar him of another: 

For all we can gain is to give our selves pain, 

When neither can hinder the other.

Restoration and the 18th Century English Literature

Please watch the video before you come to class!

Dear Students

Dear Students,

I don't just want you to print out your class material , but also ask you to look up unknown words and figure out "figure of speech" such as metaphor, personification, simile and alliteration.

Another important point are the allusions in the poems! Please find out the allusions mentioned in the poems!

best
g.h.

On First Looking into Chapman's HomerRelated Poem Content BY JOHN KEATS

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

BY JOHN KEATS

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, 

   And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; 

   Round many western islands have I been 

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 

   That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; 

   Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: 

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 

   When a new planet swims into his ken; 

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 

   He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men 

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— 

   Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 

George Lord Byron: When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home

When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get knock'd on the head for his labours.

To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And, is always as nobly requited; 
Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted. 

Kubla Khan - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Kubla Khan

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BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment. 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-dome decree: 

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 

Through caverns measureless to man 

   Down to a sunless sea. 

So twice five miles of fertile ground 

With walls and towers were girdled round; 

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, 

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; 

And here were forests ancient as the hills, 

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. 

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted 

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! 

A savage place! as holy and enchanted 

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted 

By woman wailing for her demon-lover! 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, 

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 

A mighty fountain momently was forced: 

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: 

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 

It flung up momently the sacred river. 

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 

Then reached the caverns measureless to man, 

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; 

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 

Ancestral voices prophesying war! 

   The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

   Floated midway on the waves; 

   Where was heard the mingled measure 

   From the fountain and the caves. 

It was a miracle of rare device, 

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 

   A damsel with a dulcimer 

   In a vision once I saw: 

   It was an Abyssinian maid 

   And on her dulcimer she played, 

   Singing of Mount Abora. 

   Could I revive within me 

   Her symphony and song, 

   To such a deep delight ’twould win me, 

That with music loud and long, 

I would build that dome in air, 

That sunny dome! those caves of ice! 

And all who heard should see them there, 

And all should cry, Beware! Beware! 

His flashing eyes, his floating hair! 

Weave a circle round him thrice, 

And close your eyes with holy dread 

For he on honey-dew hath fed, 

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!:) its time for the ROMANTIC PERIOD

Dear Students,

Although the Romantic Period is quite complex and the beginning and ending may cause discussions among scholars, it is one of the most beautiful movements. You have to know that the "Romantics" did not identify themselves as such, but were called "Romantics" by Victorian critics.

Indeed there are many examples for the "Romantics" (such as Die Leiden des Jungen Werther, by Goethe, which is my favourite:)) but we are going to focus on the six big English Romantic poets such as Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats.

Hope you are as excited as I am. Please watch the video before coming to class!

ROMANTIC PERIOD, please print this out for our class on 7.11.2016

Introduction to the Songs of Innocence

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BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Piping down the valleys wild 

Piping songs of pleasant glee 

On a cloud I saw a child. 

And he laughing said to me. 

Pipe a song about a Lamb; 

So I piped with merry chear, 

Piper pipe that song again— 

So I piped, he wept to hear. 

Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe 

Sing thy songs of happy chear, 

So I sung the same again 

While he wept with joy to hear 

Piper sit thee down and write 

In a book that all may read— 

So he vanish'd from my sight. 

And I pluck'd a hollow reed. 

And I made a rural pen, 

And I stain'd the water clear, 

And I wrote my happy songs 

Every child may joy to hear

Introduction to the Songs of Experience

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BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Hear the voice of the Bard! 

Who Present, Past, & Future sees 

Whose ears have heard, 

The Holy Word, 

That walk'd among the ancient trees. 

Calling the lapsed Soul 

And weeping in the evening dew: 

That might controll, 

The starry pole; 

And fallen fallen light renew! 

O Earth O Earth return! 

Arise from out the dewy grass; 

Night is worn, 

And the morn 

Rises from the slumberous mass. 

Turn away no more: 

Why wilt thou turn away 

The starry floor 

The watry shore 

Is giv'n thee till the break of day.