Sunday, November 16, 2008

4-5-1994

No one knows what this means anymore:

12/12
1) These are the first eight lines of a Shakespearian sonnet, which serve to ridicule Petrarchan norms of conceit by contradicting them. Shakespeare's sonnets generally tended to be more progressive than either those of Sidney or Spenser, embracing a wider range of emotions beyond pure praise and love. Although this sonnet does address itself to praising a lady, it does so in an obvious irony - it tells all the things this lady is not.

And this is quite circuitous:

12/12
2)
This passage takes place in Enrour's Den of Spenser's "The Faerie Queen" and describes evil Enrour when she had finally gotten a strong hold around the Red Cross Knight. He came to this cave out of curiosity and because of his pride, did not listen to Una's warnings to avoid it. "God help the man" is exactly what Spenser makes to happen: the quote in the second stanza comes from Una, who is faith and unity, representing how God's grace can save man from the evils he falls into when he sins.

Gag!:

12/12
3) In Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus," the central idea is the conflict between faith and reason. Faustus himself was a scientist-turned-magician, who sought to gain power using supernatural forces Marlowe reserves for God's use. This particular scene occurs about three-quarters of the way through the play and gives this conflict names and voices. The evil angel and Lucifer mean to convince Faustus that his contract is binding and that since he has turned away from God, he cannot, of course, be saved. However, Faustus does not see (as the Good Angel tries to explain) that this logical arguement [sic] does not apply — Christ is ever-merciful and can save the repentant man if he is asked to.

********

There are six more pages of this, two 12-point questions and two 30-point ones.  My goodness.  This is the person who eschewed in fear the GRE subject test.  Indeed.  And once had a lover who got a doctorate of poetry.  He wanted children.  Even a decade's-worth of attraction and dance can't change that difference.

Subjects in rest of "blue book" include:  Ptolemaic cosmology, metaphysical conceit, transformation and exchange of viewpoints in "A Mid-Summer Night's Dream," and Milton's portrayal of Satan as non-heroic (an argument against the Romantics).


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

More often than not the Plantagenet consequence is totally ignored in the evaluation of non-contemporary literature and mores which can certainly skew to the observatory constant thus resulting in overly liberal conclusions and diametrically opposed results. It is simply too early to say.

Anonymous said...

hi applecart!
4-5-94 was the day we realized kurt was lying about guns, no? also saeger's 21st...