EM 15: SURVEY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE
LESSON 1: ORIENTATION Democratic process shall be exercised that
HOUSE RULES for Virtual Learning
1. SELF-DISCIPLINE
Do the right thing at the right time in the
right place in the right manner with the right
person or people.
2. DILIGENCE
Preparedness before, during, and
after sessions is most expected and asked of.
The course syllabus is a study guide that
contains the topics to be covered per week
or for two weeks. Supplementary readings
may be added to the learning materials for
additional acquired learning.
Assignments and projects have to be
submitted or accomplished on or before set
deadline. Rubrics are provided for self, peer
and/or teacher evaluation. External links are
included in the learning plans for access to
these grading platforms.
3. COMMITMENT TO SELF-PACED
LEARNING
Personal commitment to
independent learning with minimal teacher
supervision is what is asked of in the ‘new
normal’ of availing the best of what
education can offer.
Digital technology is at hand
for every serious and dedicated learner
as educational aid. Social media platforms
will be resorted to whenever possible for
communication but should not be abused.
4. OPENNESS TO CHANGES,
MODIFICATIONS OR REVISIONS IF
NECESSARY
opinions be expressed should there be points
for clarification or objections to be
presented.
Questions are welcome and so are
suggestions or recommendations.
GOD BLESS.
LESSON 2: OLD ENGLISH
LITERATURE
LESSON 3: RENAISSANCE
LITERATURE PART 1
4.1 THE RENAISSANCE
The Renaissance was a fervent period of
European cultural, artistic, political and
economic “rebirth” following the Middle
Ages. Generally described as taking place
from the 14th century to the 17th century,
the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of
classical philosophy, literature and art. Some
of the greatest thinkers, authors, statesmen,
scientists and artists in human history
thrived during this era, while global
exploration opened up new lands and
cultures to European commerce. The
Renaissance is credited with bridging the
gap between the Middle Ages and modern-
day civilization.
Renaissance Literature
The earliest Renaissance literature appeared
in 14th century Italy; Dante, Petrarch, and
Machiavelli are notable examples of Italian
Renaissance writers. From Italy the
influence of the Renaissance spread at
different rates to other countries, and
continued to spread throughout Europe
through the 17th century. The English
Renaissance and the Renaissance in
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Scotland date from the late 15th century to
the early 17th century. In northern Europe
the scholarly writings of Erasmus, the plays
of Shakespeare, the poems of Edmund
Spenser, and the writings of Sir Philip
Sidney may be considered Renaissance in
character.
The literature of the Renaissance was
written within the general movement of the
Renaissance that arose in 13th century Italy
and continued until the 16th century while
being diffused into the western world. It is
characterized by the adoption of a Humanist
philosophy and the recovery of the classical
literature of Antiquity and benefited from
the spread of printing in the latter part of the
15th century. For the writers of the
Renaissance, Greco-Roman inspiration was
shown both in the themes of their writing
and in the literary forms they used. The
world was considered from an
anthropocentric perspective. Platonic ideas
were revived and put to the service of
Christianity. The search for pleasures of the
senses and a critical and rational spirit
completed the ideological panorama of the
period. New literary genres such as the essay
and new metrical forms such as the sonnet
and Spenserian stanza made their
appearance.
The creation of the printing press (using
movable type) by Johannes Gutenberg in the
1450s encouraged authors to write in their
local vernacular rather than in Greek or
Latin classical languages, widening the
reading audience and promoting the spread
of Renaissance ideas.
The impact of the Renaissance varied across
the continent; countries that were
predominantly Catholic or predominantly
Protestant experienced the Renaissance
differently. Areas where the Orthodox
Church was culturally dominant, as well as
those areas of Europe under Islamic rule,
were more or less outside its influence. The
period focused on self-actualization and
one’s ability to accept what is going on in
one’s life.
4.2 William Shakespeare (26 April 1564
(baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English
poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded
as the greatest writer in the English language
and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is
often called England’s national poet and the
“Bard of Avon”. His extant works, including
some collaborations, consist of around 38
plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative
poems, and a few other verses, of which the
authorship of some is uncertain. His plays
have been translated into every major living
language and are performed more often than
those of any other playwright.
Shakespeare was born and brought up in
Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he
married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had
three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet
and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he
began a successful career in London as an
actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing
company called the Lord Chamberlain’s
Men, later known as the King’s Men. He
appears to have retired to Stratford around
1613 at age 49, where he died three years
later. Few records of Shakespeare’s private
life survive, and there has been considerable
speculation about such matters as his
physical appearance, sexuality, religious
beliefs, and whether the works attributed to
him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known
work between 1589 and 1613. His early
plays were mainly comedies and histories
and these works remain regarded as some of
the best work produced in these genres. He
then wrote mainly tragedies until about
1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear,
and Macbeth, considered some of the finest
works in the English language. In his last
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phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known
as romances, and collaborated with other
playwrights.
Many of his plays were published in editions
of varying quality and accuracy during his
lifetime. In 1623, John Heminges andHenry
Condell, two friends and fellow actors of
Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a
collected edition of his dramatic works that
included all but two of the plays now
recognised as Shakespeare’s. It was prefaced
with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which
Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as “not of
an age, but for all time”. In the 20th and 21st
centuries, his work has been repeatedly
adopted and rediscovered by new
movements in scholarship and performance.
His plays remain highly popular today and
are constantly studied, performed, and
reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political
contexts throughout the world.
Some of the most famous lines in the history
of literature come from the writings of
William Shakespeare. As well, some of the
most famous literary devices also come from
William Shakespeare. He produced many
highly-praised stories of human drama,
comedy, and romantic sonnets and his work
continues to influence writers to this day.
4.3 Classical Qualities of Shakespeare’s
Writings
Shakespeare wrote his earlier plays in the
traditional style of the time. He relied
heavily on using drawn out— sometimes
extravagant—metaphors and narcissisms.
His style often sounded pompous and
pretentious. Shakespeare’s first original
comedy called “The Two Gentlemen of
Verona” (1590) shows an undeveloped and
conflicting writing style.
IAMBIC PENTAMETER
Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter.
The results were plays and sonnets that had
ten syllables per line and with his plays,
these lines were unrhymed. The simplest
way to describe the rhythm of iambic
pentameter is to liken it to a heartbeat,
which means a series of stressed words, then
unstressed words. In the case of the
heartbeat, it would sound like bump BUMP,
bump BUMP. Using an example from
Shakespeare’s sonnets, this would be:
When I do count the clock that tells the time
This style of writing lent itself to the
theatricality of a play, which was as much
about using the language beautifully as it
was about telling a good story or furthering
the plot.
While writing such classics as A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and
Juliet, and Richard II in the late 16th
century, Shakespeare gradually developed
and changed his writing style from the
traditional form to a more self-expressive
style. He progressively used his metaphors
and tropes to the desires of the melodrama
itself.
THE SOLILOQUY
“To be or not to be, that is the question.”
These famous lines from Shakespeare’s play
“Hamlet” are the opening lines to his most
famous—although not the only—soliloquy.
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The soliloquy or monologue was a common
device that the famous playwright used to
tell his stories. This monologue served to
reveal the character’s thoughts—as in the
“Hamlet” example—as well as to create the
play’s setting or advance the plot. It serves
to bring the audience into the story and let it
in on secrets that the rest of the characters in
the play may not know.
The narrator character in the play “Our
Town” by Thornton Wilder uses
monologues extensively to let the audience
in on the secrets of the town and to set the
stage since typically this play features a
mostly empty stage with the actors creating
the settings with their words. This shows
Shakespeare’s strong influence as his plays
relied on the same devices and often through
the soliloquy of a single character, although
not always.
After completing Hamlet, Shakespeare
adopted a more centered, swift, distinct, and
non-repetitive writing style. He began to use
more run-on lines, uneven pauses and stops,
and excessive alterations in sentence length
and structure. Macbeth, his darkest and
dynamic plays, shows this refined writing
style in which Shakespeare used wording
that sprinted from one unconnected analogy
or metaphor to a different one, forcing the
reader to complete the “sense” and
subliminal meaning.
DEPTH OF CHARACTER
Shakespeare wrote about people who
seemed real instead of using stock characters
as was common in the theater during his
days and in the generations that came before
it. This literary device allowed him to make
characters like MacBeth or Hamlet
sympathetic even though they did some
terrible things throughout the course of the
play. It is because the Bard made them seem
real and human, but flawed that he was able
to do this. This influence can be seen in
works from the 20th and 21st centuries in
both movies and plays by writers like Sam
Shepard or Arthur Miller.
Additionally, Shakespeare’s work deviated
from that of his contemporaries in that he
wrote for every type of person who came to
the theater or read poems, not just for the
upper class as was common. His plays like
“Henry the 4th, part 1” featured not only a
king and prince, but also one of the Bard’s
most famous comedic characters, Falstaff,
which brought a comedic and common
touch to the play and appealed to the
members of the lower class who attended
the plays—often sitting in the same theater
as the nobles of the day and during the same
performance.
Romeo and Juliet shows Shakespeare’s
witty writing style and his creative mastery.
At this point in his life (around 1595), he
favored a more theatrical structure, such as
changing between comedy and tragedy to
increase suspense. He expanded minor
characters and developed sub-plots to
amplify the story. Shakespeare also
associated various poetic styles to different
characters, occasionally evolving the style as
the character developed.
CONCLUSION
William Shakespeare was the most
influential writer of all-time, bringing a
lyrical element to plays about great kings
and poor paupers alike. His iambic
pentameter verses utilized a natural rhythm
of the English language and his themes as
well as his literary devices continue to
inspire and influence writers even now in
the 21st century.
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LESSON 4: RENAISSANCE This poem is in the public domain.

LITERATURE PART 2
The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd
4.1 Famous Renaissance Poetry
BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
If all the world and love were young,
Christopher Marlowe - 1564-1593
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,

These pretty pleasures might me move, To

Come live with me and be my love, live with thee, and be thy love.

And we will all the pleasures prove

That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
And we will sit upon the rocks,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
The rest complains of cares to come.
By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious
birds sing madrigals.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
And I will make thee beds of roses
To wayward winter reckoning yields,
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A
gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,
Fair lined slippers for the cold, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
With buckles of the purest gold; Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:
A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
clasps and amber studs: And if these
pleasures may thee move, Come live with
me, and be my love.
Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning: If these The Coral clasps and amber studs,
delights thy mind may move, Then live with
me and be my love.

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All these in me no means can move To
come to thee and be thy love.
But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
4.2 Love Poetry During the Renaissance Period
Love poetry in the Renaissance often
expressed sexual or romantic passion, but it
could also serve a variety of political, social
and religious ends.
Renaissance poets and lovers
produced love poetry in a huge variety of
forms — ranging from sonnets and sonnet
sequences, to lyrics, songs, ballads, elegies,
and much more. Some of these forms were
new to 16th-century England — such as
sonnets, imported from Italy in the works of
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), and the
numerous French and Italian poets
influenced by him. Others, such as lyrics,
formed an important part of English
medieval literary and religious culture.
Some love poems circulated in manuscript
(i.e. a handwritten text) among small and
exclusive groups of readers in particular
social worlds, such as the royal court, the
universities, or the London legal
establishments known as the Inns of Court,
while other poems appeared in print to a
wider, popular audience. Increasingly, love
poetry appeared in both.
To modern eyes, some of these love poems
seem to depict private and personal
emotional experience, but the people during
Renaissance did not only write poetry to
express their ‘true’ feelings about love to a
‘real’ love-object. Love poems could have
social and political intentions as much as
‘romantic’ ones, and express desire not only
for a person but for personal and financial
advancement, or even political discontent or
aspiration. Renaissance love poetry both
uses conventions still familiar to us — the
poet-lover writing to his idealized and
(naturally) unattainable mistress, for
instance — and also challenges and subverts
these conventions: sometimes the beloved is
also male, as in the homoerotic poetry of
Richard Barnfield; or the mistress who is
apparently physically undesirable, as in
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. And while it is
easy — perhaps too easy — to interpret
well-known love poems such as the courtier
Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet sequence
Astrophil and Stella, or Shakespeare’s
Sonnets, as autobiographical documents
which record the feelings and events of
Sidney’s or Shakespeare’s lived experience,
these love poems are carefully crafted pieces
of writing that have no simple or readily
accessible relationship to their authors’
historical realities. These poems play with
the ideas of love and personal confession as
much as depicting them.
4.3 Of Studies by Francis Bacon
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and
for ability. Their chief use for delight is in
privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in
discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment
and disposition of business. For expert men
can execute, and perhaps judge of
particulars, one by one; but the general
counsels, and the plots and marshalling of
affairs, come best from those that are
learned. To spend too much time in studies
is sloth; to use them too much for ornament,
is affectation; to make judgment wholly by
their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They
perfect nature, and are perfected by
experience: for natural abilities are like
natural plants, that need pruning, by study;
and studies themselves do give forth
directions too much at large, except they be
bounded in by experience. Crafty men
condemn studies, simple men admire them,
and wise men use them; for they teach not
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their own use; but that is a wisdom without cases. So, every defect of the mind may
them, and above them, won by observation. have a special receipt.
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to
believe and take for granted; nor to find talk
and discourse; but to weigh and consider. LESSON 5: ROMANTIC TO
Some books are to be tasted, others to be CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
digested; that is, some books are to be read ransitional Phase from the Romantic to
only in parts; others to be read, but not Contemporary Literature
curiously; and some few to be read wholly, The Romantic Period (1790-1830 CE)
and with diligence and attention. Some
books also may be read by deputy, and
extracts made of them by others; but that
would be only in the less important
arguments, and the meaner sort of books,
else distilled books are like common
distilled waters, flashy things. Reading
maketh a full man; conference a ready man;
and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a
man writes little, he had need have a great
memory; if he confers little, he had need to
have a present wit: and if he reads little, he
Romantic poets wrote about nature, imagination,
had need have much cunning, to seem to
and individuality in England. Some Romantics
know that he doth not. Histories make men include Coleridge, Blake, Keats, and Shelley in
wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; Britain and Johann von Goethe in Germany.
natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic Jane Austen also wrote at this time, though she
and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia is typically not categorized with the male
in mores [Studies pass into and influence Romantic poets. In America, this period is
manners]. Nay, there is no stond or mirrored in the Transcendental Period from
impediment in the wit but may be wrought about 1830-1850. Transcendentalists include
out by fit studies; like as diseases of the Emerson and Thoreau.
body may have appropriate exercises. Gothic writings (c. 1790-1890) overlap with the
Bowling is good for the stone and reins; Romantic and Victorian periods. Writers of
shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle Gothic novels (the precursor to horror novels)
include Radcliffe, "Monk" Lewis, Gray and
walking for the stomach; riding for the head;
Victorians like Bram Stoker in Britain. In
and the like. So, if a man’s wit be America, Gothic writers include Poe and
wandering, let him study the mathematics; Hawthorne.
for in demonstrations, if his wit be called
away never so little, he must begin again. If
The Victorian Period and the 19th Century
his wit be not apt to distinguish or find (1832-1901 CE)
differences, let him study the Schoolmen;
for they are cymini sectores [splitters of
hairs]. If he be not apt to beat over matters,
and to call up one thing to prove and
illustrate another, let him study the lawyers’

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Writings from the period of Queen Victoria's
reign include sentimental novels. British writers
include Elizabeth Browning, Alfred Lord
Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning,
Charles Dickens, and the Brontë sisters. Pre-
Raphaelites, like the Rossetti siblings and
William Morris, idealize and long for the
morality of the medieval world.
The end of the Victorian Period is marked by
the intellectual movements of Aestheticism
and "the Decadence" in the writings of Walter
Pater and Oscar Wilde. In America, Naturalist
writers like Stephen Crane flourished, as did
early free verse poets like Walt Whitman and
Emily Dickinson.
The Modern Period (1914-1945 CE)
In Britain, modernist writers include W. B.
Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Dylan Thomas, W. H.
Auden, Virginia Woolf, and Wilfred Owen. In
America, the modernist period includes Robert
Frost and Flannery O'Connor as well as the
famous writers of The Lost Generation (also
called the writers of The Jazz Age, 1914-1929)
such as Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, and
Faulkner.
The Harlem Renaissance marks the rise of black
writers such as Baldwin and Ellison. Realism is
the dominant fashion, but the disillusionment
with the World Wars lead to new
experimentation.
Nature and Concept of Poetry
Poetry, from the Greek ‘poiesis’, means
‘making’ or creating’. As an art form, poetry
may predate literacy. It was rendered orally as
folksongs in most cultures. Many ancient works,
such as Vedas (1700-1200 BC), Odyssey (800-
675 BC) and few others had been composed in
poetic forms for oral transmission, including
many traditional poems form Africa. The oral
beauty, evocative emotions and thoughts have
not been lost on poetry in written form over the
years.
From the etymological meaning of poetry, one
may ask: what is being ‘made’ or ‘created’ with
poetry? Poetry is a genre of literature which
involves the art of writing poems. A poem, on
the other hand, is a literary work which involves
the use of imagery, sounds and forms to create
beauty, express emotions and illuminate
thoughts.
Sources of Poetry
· Nature. From the rustling of leaves in the
wind, and waves splashing on the shore, to the
consternation of stars glittering at twilight and
birds flying in the sky, poets have generally
found the urge to recreate the beauty of nature in
poetry. Such poems may also be centred on
natural phenomena, such as rainbow, eclipse etc.
What is discovered by the poet fascinates him,
and how it is revealed to us as the reader or
listener fascinates us too – and it should!
William Blake’s ‘The Tiger’, John Milton’s
‘The Grasshopper and the Cricket’, Gabriel
Okara’s‘Moon in the Bucket’ and many other
poems illustrate this.
· Interrelationship between man and nature.
The comparison and contrast between man and
nature and how both interrelate continue to be a
rich material to the observant poet. Cooke puts it
succinctly when he said the ‘poet is the child of
nature, as he is the child of humanity.’ For me,
Robert Frost’s narrative poems, particularly
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‘Two Look at Two’ and ‘Wild Grapes’ with
George Herbert’s ‘Virtue’, are some of the great
examples of poetry centred on this theme of man
and nature.
· Recurring themes of life, love and death,
our hopes and our fears, our wars, and our cries
for peace. Examples include Alfred Housman’s
‘Is My Team Ploughing,’ Oswald
Mtshali’s‘Nightfall in Soweto’, J.P Clark’s
‘Streamside Exchange’, Joseph Kariuki’s‘Come
Away, My Love’ and many others.
· Religion and spirituality. What is divine
and metaphysical fascinate a good number of
poets. John Donne’s ‘Death, Thou Shall Die’,
Wole Soyinka’s ‘Abiku’, and
BiragoDiop’s‘Viaticum’ are some of the
examples of this. Also, historical figures, places
and events serve as another source for poets.
There are many poems that have been written
drawing material from this source, which
include Leopold
Senghor’s ‘Chaka’, Alexander Pope’s epic,
‘Odyssey’, and many African poems, such as
‘Sundjata’, an abstract from one version of the
epic of old Mali, including J.P Clark’s ‘Ibadan’,
a historical place in south-western Nigeria.
· Aspects of social life, such as marriage,
birth and burial ceremonies. Such occasions, as
appropriate, usually come with the feeling of
joy, sorrow and happiness. A poet, being part of
the community, naturally shares these emotional
experiences. The occasions become the facts of
life to which imagination can be applied by the
poet to produce great poetry. Thomas Gray’s
‘An Elegy in a Country Churchyard’ is a poem
of death and mourning, and so is
KaluUka’s‘Earth to Earth’.
· Pure art. Here, the poet simply writes to
‘play’ with words. The attraction the poethas
could be the
symbols and images employed in the poem.
Some critics have called this ‘art for art’s sake’.
Recurring Themes in Literature
· Affirmation of change: Change is
inevitable.
· Cyclical Change: Changes can come in a
cycle. (seasons, life cycle)
· Metamorphosis: A transition in life may
transform man to be a mature being.
· Displacement: A weaker emotion is
supplanted by a stronger one.
· Warping Effect of Change: Obsessions
may turn man into his worst.
· Illusion vs. Reality: What seems to be is
not actually what is.
· Polarities of Life: Life is best described
by opposites and one cannot live without the
other.
· Search for Identity: Man is forever
searching who he is, what the world can offer
and how he can cope with life's struggles.
· Hierarchy of Needs: Man follows an order
of needs, wants, and desires and becomes
fulfilled only when he has attained all.
· Initiation: Man goes through different
stages in life when he is introduced to something
new and different which can be painful.
· Heroic-tragedy: Man is doomed as a
tragic figure but he still puts up a fight and
eventually becomes a hero.
· Resurrection: Man after a fall always rises
more glorious than ever.
Selected Poetry for Analysis and Reflection
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard By
Thomas Gray
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The
plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the
sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain Of
such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's
shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring
heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
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The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy
stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor
Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted
vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have
sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full
many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless
breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd
muse, The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews, That
teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
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EM 15: SURVEY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left
the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His
listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him
borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
THE EPITAPH
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown. Fair
Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a
friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.
Prospice
By Robert Browning
Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat, The mist
in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I
am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible
form, Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle is to fight ere the guerdon be
gained, The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more, The
best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and
forbore, And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my
peers The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that
rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of
pain, Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!
Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love
thee? Let me count the ways
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
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EM 15: SURVEY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For
the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet
need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely,
as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I
love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

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